Two eyes and five horns short

Ok Edith

Honestly, the fact that you even mentioned sanctions upthread shows you’re either being obtuse or actively misrepresenting the facts. The time for sanctions ended December 6, 1941. The blood of the Japanese people that died was on the hands of the Japanese government from that point on.

The hidden assumptions I mentioned above that I see include 1) that the US was the aggressor in the Pacific war (no one except the historically ignorant seriously believes this) and 2) that entirely destroying the Japanese people was a desired outcome (it wasn’t, at least not to anyone with actual command authority). I don’t know if that’s ignorance or malice on your part, but either way, that makes you a de facto Axis apologist, which is totally indefensible.

Was it, though? Was it?

There are some fascinating assumptions hidden in your statement, but I can’t be bothered to unpack them.

You do not understand the assignment. Nor do you seem to understand war or authoritarianism.

The point was not to eradicate the Japanese people. That was the kind of shit the Axis powers were doing. Allied forces had endured a bloodbath in Okinawa and had every reason to believe it would be much, much worse in the Japanese home islands. Make whatever argument you wish in hindsight, but remember that the Allies didn’t have that information (the Cold War, whatever was going on in the Japanese commanders’ or Stalin’s head, any of it) in front of them. Diplomacy wasn’t going to work, as the Japanese kept trying to negotiate conditional surrender even though they had no leverage.

The Allies wanted the war over and the ones responsible punished. That was it. That was their motive. Given that Churchill and Stalin in particular didn’t like or trust each other, Operation Unthinkable had the potential to become a reality the longer the war continued. The bombs were the least bad option on the table.

If causing mass death was the point, the US could have skipped the bombs and gone straight to invasion.

In this one case, given the failure of Allied precision bombing, the expected loss of life from the impending Operation Downfall, and the Japanese reluctance to accept unconditional surrender, it made sense. I don’t think there has ever or will ever be any other time in history where this will be the case.

“Safety” is a relative term. And a grotesquely outdated one.

You know what those blades are good for? Making bread.

Snowden is a self-absorbed shithead.

Everybody’s so creative!

I hope she left. He’s an absolute piece of shit.

Sundanthropus cascadiensis

I got a fever, and the only prescription… is more Walken references.