Should America torture?

[Boomboom521]

You are only telling half of the story here. The emperor wanted to surrender, the military leadership did not. They wanted to continue to fight and have all of Japan defend itself, not just standing military. They also wanted to surrender under terms. Our leadership, specifically MacArthur would not accept anything less than unconditional surrender.

I thought the Japanese people saw the Emperor as divinity of sorts? They would have disobeyed his orders?

 

[bornaneer]

You may want to research that a little bit. What Japan feared was Russia declaring war on them. The day before we dropped the first atomic bomb Russia declared war on Japan. They sought terms of surrender before we dropped the atomic bombs. Also their army was so depleted 50,000 troops could've taken Tokyo.

I have and I know what the Russians were doing. Russia only did what they did to gain leverage at the surrender table and Russia stonewalled any earlier Japanese peace overtures. The US wanted no parts of Russian involvement in any peace talks. You are whistling dixie if you think 50,000 troops could've taken Tokyo. Millions more lives would have been lost. The A Bomb was the proper choice at the time in regard to time and saving lives.

 

[bornaneer]

I thought the Japanese people saw the Emperor as divinity of sorts? They would have disobeyed his orders?

They did but they did not defy his orders. The A Bomb gave him the impetuous to agree to surrender.......a face-saving excuse and a way to accept defeat

 

[CAJUNEER_rivals]

You are only telling half of the story here. The emperor wanted to surrender, the military leadership did not. They wanted to continue to fight and have all of Japan defend itself, not just standing military. They also wanted to surrender under terms. Our leadership, specifically MacArthur would not accept anything less than unconditional surrender.

All that is true.

 

[KTeer]

Nobody dies from waterboarding, no problem for me. I would listen to Mattis though.......beer and cigarette first.

 

[DvlDog4WVU]

I thought the Japanese people saw the Emperor as divinity of sorts? They would have disobeyed his orders?

You are correct with your understanding of their view of the emperor, however, the military leadership was calling the shots for the most part by that stage of the war. The bomb broke their back. They were prepared to go total war and were actively training the citizenry to resist in a far more fanatical way than even what we experienced by the Germans and Hitler Youth. Think of what was occurring on places like Saipan where the people were literally jumping off of cliffs with children in their hands to ensure they wouldn't suffer the shame of surrender to the US. Trying to apply western logic to that of the Empire of Japan in the 40s is a tough out.

 

[Boomboom521]

You are correct with your understanding of their view of the emperor, however, the military leadership was calling the shots for the most part by that stage of the war. The bomb broke their back. They were prepared to go total war and were actively training the citizenry to resist in a far more fanatical way than even what we experienced by the Germans and Hitler Youth. Think of what was occurring on places like Saipan where the people were literally jumping off of cliffs with children in their hands to ensure they wouldn't suffer the shame of surrender to the US. Trying to apply western logic to that of the Empire of Japan in the 40s is a tough out.

I read an article a while back about how the children and women were being prepped for invasion. Pretty gruesome **** thinking of how that invasion would have went down. But then there is a lot of primary information from sources in the know that felt surrender was going to happen prior to invasion. It's a subject I like examining. Would love to bring it into the classroom as an example of being able to review multiple perspectives of history, but it's too controversial I think.