azimuthaviation wrote:iflyforpie wrote:This to an enemy who surprise attacked them only four years previously.
Were they supposed to call in advance and make an appointment?
But of course in the opinon of some here they should have. I mean if we're going to fight wars with the primary intent of sparing lives, ideally the Japanese should have phoned ahead. "We're going to come and sink your battleships, it would make us feel a whole lot better about the whole thing if you chaps would get off them first."
Rockie wrote:
Don't be so lazy and look them up yourself. Or, you could stop playing stupid and just admit that warning shots have been used throughout history as a means of avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Forgive the pointed comment, but I just don't think you're that stupid and you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.
IT would seem you don't really get the whole point of argueing, after all if you're going to make an arguement, then the burden of backing it up falls upon yourself, unless of course your point is just to argue rather than convince me of your position. After all I've done you the courtesy of prvoviding reference to back up mine so you could consider my position, possibly change your mind and if not, offer a decent rebuttal. Its really disappointing to have to explain to you. Didn't they make you write essays in school?
Anyhow, lets get back to the discussion.
Warning shots don't apply in warfare between two warring parties - as Iflyforpie mentioned - they are only effective when one side is not warring and the agressing or defending side (depending on one's point of view) makes clear their intent to wage violence to cow the other. The police make use of warning shots. Naval vessels enforcing blockades against civillian merchant traffic make use of them. Warring groups do not - at least not anymore, since we've discarded our more ritualized form of warfare. The Aztecs used displays of force to subjugate their neighboring tribes and take slaves. The Maoris used it in their tribal battles. Both groups were annihilated by the Spanish and British respectively who had discarded such primitive notions in warmaking.
The Japanese were overwhelmed, they had lost the war and everybody knew it including them.
Well technically they weren't by the defintion from the examples you used. Not at the time in question. Austria was overwhelmed by the Germans at the outset of the war when German troops marched in. The Germans didn't just goose-step at the border in parade formation after all. Italy capitulated
after her shores were swarmed by the Allies. Manchuria (depending on which time you're talking about) the same. As of yet with the time in question, the Japanese had lost Okinawa and most of her overseas gains. No allied troops had set foot on the home islands, nor would they be able to for some time. Operation Downfall would still take some preparation of heroic magnitude before it would be set in motion. Japan even still held her possessions on mainland Asia at the time of the Hiroshima attack, her last supply line to be able to continue the war. Japan was not overwhelmed - yet. Did they know they were going to lose the war? Yes - in fact they were hoping they could sway the Russians to negotiate with the Allies in their favor, not knowing of what had transpired earlier at Cairo and later Postdam. They felt - right up until the point of the Russians violating the Non-agression pact - that they could still make winning the war unconditionally as the US and Britain had demanded - too high of a cost.
Keep in mind as well the above information is open to be known, it wasn't delved from any psychic powers any of us here arguing the point against you have.
The overriding concern for the Allies at that point was the terrible cost of an invasion, but lo and behold the Americans invented the atomic bomb which they knew made an invasion unnecessary.
Actually, even when they used the bomb, they weren't convinced that it would make the invasion unnecessary. When chosing targets there was strong arguements that it should be used in a more tactical fashion to aid the comming said invasion. They made the decision of target based upon what would end the war quicker.
I think sparing 200,000+ lives was worth the effort don't you?
Maybe not.
You keep coming back to that point like it was a simple choice to spare those lives or not when it was anything but. Surely you can think of many more possibilities that each of the choices could have ended up in? Contrary to what you believe they did think long and hard about it, I'm suprised you didn't bring it up before since you're not the first person to think of a "demonstration".
These guys decided against it but I'm sure you're smarter than the lot of them. Because I'm not lazy like you would insist, I'll put the important bits here. From wiki:
Decision on use of atomic bombs
The most immediate of the committee's tasks, one that has been the focus of much subsequent controversy, was to make recommendations concerning the use of the atomic bomb against Japan. The committee's consensus, arrived at in a meeting held June 1, 1945, is described as follows in the meeting's log:
Mr. Byrnes recommended, and the Committee agreed, that the Secretary of War should be advised that, while recognizing that the final selection of the target was essentially a military decision, the present view of the Committee was that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by workers’ homes; and that it be used without prior warning.
One member, Bard, later dissented from this decision and in a memorandum to Stimson laid out a case for a warning to Japan before using the bomb.
In arriving at its conclusion, the committee was advised by a Scientific Panel of four physicists from the Manhattan Project: Enrico Fermi and Arthur H. Compton of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago; Ernest O. Lawrence of the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley; and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the bomb assembly program at Los Alamos. Reinforcing the decision arrived at on June 1, the scientists wrote in a formal report on June 16:
The opinions of our scientific colleagues on the initial use of these weapons are not unanimous: they range from the proposal of a purely technical demonstration to that of the military application best designed to induce surrender. Those who advocate a purely technical demonstration would wish to outlaw the use of atomic weapons, and have feared that if we use the weapons now our position in future negotiations will be prejudiced. Others emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use, and believe that such use will improve the international prospects, in that they are more concerned with the prevention of war than with the elimination of this specific weapon. We find ourselves closer to these latter views; we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.
Although the committee's recommendation was addressed to Stimson, Byrnes went directly from the June 1 meeting to brief Truman, who reportedly concurred with the committee's opinion. Reviewing the Scientific Panel's report on June 21, the committee reaffirmed its position.
...that the weapon be used against Japan at the earliest opportunity, that it be used without warning, and that it be used on a dual target, namely, a military installation or war plant surrounded by or adjacent to homes or other buildings most susceptible to damage.
I even went through the trouble of bolding the important bit for you. See how un-lazy I am?
