August 30, 2004

Truman and Hiroshima

Oversimplifications and conventional thinking always get my teeth on edge and the way past deeds of American Democrat Presidents get blamed on America as a whole constantly amazes me.

But the reason why that happens is plain: Leftist historians and intellectuals generally are the ones who write history and they have done a pretty good job of conning a lot of people. Take the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities -- the doing of a DEMOCRAT President: Harry S. Truman

Japan was thoroughly stuffed by that stage without even control over its own airspace so there was absolutely no need to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent and defenceless men women and children in those two cities. Flattening the Imperial palace in Tokyo would have been infinitely more merciful and equally demoralizing to the Japanese (who thought the Emperor was divine).

And if that didn't suffice, a simple blockade would soon have sent Japan back to the stone age and thus made it no danger to anyone. Japan had to import almost all its raw materials (including oil) so preventing any ships from entering or leaving Japanese ports would have caused a very rapid collapse. So all Truman did was show what a callous Leftist ba****d he was.

Truman did some good things: His aid to Greece to fight the communist insurrection, NATO, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, etc. Many Democrats up to and including LBJ were anti-Communist Leftists who did good things in that cause which deserve some respect. My point is only that the A-bombings showed the Leftist callousness that was also lurking in such people and that anti-communism is no excuse for showing the same sort of callousness that Communists themselves have always displayed. In good Leftist fashion, Truman was also noted for the way he greatly expanded his own Presidential power at the expense of Congress -- just one example of which being his unconstitutional use of U.S. troops in Korea without prior congressional consent, unlike GWB in Iraq.

There is the conventional excuse that the A-bombing saved many American lives by obviating the need for America to invade Japan. But there was never any need for America to invade Japan. Japan was almost totally collapsed already. It was already no danger to anyone. It was neutered. Conquest would have served machismo, nothing else. Simple maintenance of the blockade and occasional bombing of any remaining industrial or militarily-relevant targets was all that was required. If Japan had chosen to go back to primitive Tokugawa-style isolation for a time, so what? Readers also seem to overlook the importance of loss of face in the ruling Japanese Bushido code. Getting the the Imperial palace flattened would have been a great disgrace probably requiring seppuku (suicide) of the Japanese leaders concerned.

I should also note that callousness does not necessarily imply grit. It was ultimately lack of grit by Truman in Korea and LBJ in Vietnam that caused them to bungle those wars and leave Communist regimes in place there.





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