Talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/Archive 6

message: There are way too many pictures in the current article, lets trim them. Ten Dead Chickens 16:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of learning about atomic warfare is learning about what it can do. Those pictures are educational. We shouldn't censor ourselves. --AaronS 03:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Hm. When folks begin to speak of atrocities and educating people, I catch a hint of propaganda. Personally, I don't have anything against the photographs: they are presumably real, unlike some of the text material. But if their purpose is to educate people, well, I wonder about motives. This is not Hyde Park Corner, after all. --Cubdriver 13:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The purpose of an encyclopedia is to educate. There are nowhere near to many pictures. Still, two have been removed, namely two maps that seem very useful, so I suggest putting them back. DirkvdM 09:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cubdriver, it seems that you're being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. There's a debate about the pictures in this article, and someone spoke generally about "the atrocities of war" and you go off on a tangent accusing people of spewing propaganda and questioning their motives. Someone else talks about maps, and you start throwing Japanese war atrocities into the mix. Why not wait until someone actually talks about making a POV change to the article before you start circling the wagons and shooting at POV injuns? KarlBunker 20:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  I certainly agree with most of that. I would only suggest two things: 1) that it doesn't really matter what an editor's motivations are; it's the content that matters, and  2) that someone might use "the atrocities of war" simply to refer to "the really bad things that happen in a war", rather than making any accusation about the legitimacy of a particular act. KarlBunker 01:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Too many pictures

message: There should be a separate topic about other, political resons for the bombing that may have existed. I just created it and put the paragraph already discussing this there. Could I expand on it more?
: You can be as illiterate as you like (alterior, indeed!), but you have brilliantly demonstrated that this is a propaganda article, therefore calling for POV alert. Nota bene the caution above: "Sorry, but it just didn't say anything that was  1) understandable,  2) relevant, 3) supportable/verifyable, 4) not POV, and 5) not covered elsewhere in the article. For an addition to be worthwhile, it has to be at least all of those things." --Cubdriver 23:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is not the subject matter of the political theory, etc, but that it consumes so much of the article. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are historical events, and the facts of those events are verifiable and indisputable. However, at any point where this article strays into discussion of motivation, consequences, war criminality, and so on (particularly but not exclusively in the section "Debate over the decision ..."), then we have a point-counterpoint series of biased POV statements. Without researching the edit history, it seems obvious from just reading the article that it has suffered at the hands of a lot of people adding their two cents. That is not encyclopedic. The article should be thoroughly revised. Repetition and assertion should be removed, unsupported conclusions should be backed with a citation or removed, and numbers should be checked. Darcyj 11:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ulterior Motives

message: Cubdriver removed this from the article, calling it a "false assertion":
"however it was considered by many that Japan was already ready to surrender, leading to a belief that the bombings were a form of collective punishment and a message to the Russians about who would rule the postwar world."
But to call it a "false assertion" is rather silly when you consider the evidence:
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:
:“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered.
On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: 
:“Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.” Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: “Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to — and did — relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to conclusion.”
If the Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender (that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place) the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war.
British scientist P.M.S. Blackett suggested that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan and wrote the dropping of the bomb was “the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.”
American historian Gar Alperovitz (“Atomic Diplomacy”), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as
:“most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in.”
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report:
:“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.”
Within days of the Hiroshima bombing, David Lawrence, the editor of what is now “U.S. News & World Report,” wrote that Japanese surrender had appeared inevitable weeks before the bomb’s use:
:The claim of “military necessity,” he argued, rang hollow. Official justifications would “never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations ... did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children.”
General Dwight D. Eisenhower:
:"I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives"  
During a meeting with Secretary of War Henry Stimson Eisenhower said:
:“... I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”
Not long after the Japanese surrender, New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote: 
:"The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position... Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative."
U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes explained how:
:"our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in the East... The demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia with America's military might." 
General Leslie Groves said:
:"There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis."
U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson called the bomb a:
:"diplomatic weapon," adding, "American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip."
Historian Charles L. Mee, Jr. suggested:
:"The psychological effect on Stalin was twofold, the Americans had not only used a doomsday machine; they had used it when, as Stalin knew, it was not militarily necessary. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians."
Studs Terkel pondered at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the bombings:
:"Why did we drop [the bomb]? So little Harry could show Molotov and Stalin we've got the cards. That was the phrase Truman used. We showed the goddamned Russians we've got something and they'd better behave themselves in Europe. That's why it was dropped. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet you tell that to 99 percent of Americans and they'll spit in your eye."
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Christiaan  (talk • contribs)  07:20, 28 February 2006   (UTC)
I suggest you read the *Japanese* account in "Japan's Longest Day" or see the Japanese-Canadian film "Hiroshima". The Japanese government was in a deadlock until the emperor intervened on August 14. The feelers put out by the civilian peace factor toward Russia were done in secret for fear of a coup. Since the war cabinet operated by consensus, no move could be taken without the assent of the three hardline military members, and that was not going to happen absent the atomic bombs, Russia's invasion of Manchuria, and most important the emperor's unprecedent intervention in a cabinet decision. In any event, the assertion can be hashed out in the text and both sides presented. It must not be stated in the introductory as fact. --Cubdriver 14:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Christiaan -- Yes, there's a lot evidence and weight of argument on that side. But there's a lot on the other side too, and it's the job of an encyclopedia article to avoid declaring a "winner" in a debate unless the weight of both opinion and evidence is overwhelming on one side. That isn't the case here, so debate belongs in the "debate" section of the article. Speaking of which, something that's missing from the "opposition" side of the debate section is the notion that the bombings were intended, at least in part, to send a message to the Soviets. As you've pointed out, a lot of scholars and others have supported that view. Why don't you add something about that to the "opposition" section? KarlBunker 15:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: And I think that there's more than a little bit of quote cherrypicking in the above list, most of which are taken from retrospective accounts. Most analysis of the literature about when the bombs were used has shown that "sending a message to Russia" was not a very salient objective, in part because nobody knew if the bombs would themselves cause Japan to capitulate.--Fastfission 00:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan was ready to surrender and argument that bombings were not needed should be in intro