Israel Verifies Death of 38 Hostages Who Were Believed to Be Alive

[thucythucy]

85. I have serious questions about whether both A bombs were necessary,

however, the Japanese government could have agreed to surrender hours days weeks or months before the bombing. Which to my mind means that the leadership of the Japanese military--which by that point had over riding control of the Japanese government--does bear a great deal of responsibility for the civilian casualties of 1944-45.

The fact is that the majority of Japanese civilians would have been no worse off, and many hundreds of thousands would have been saved, if the tiny clique of militarists who ran the government had agreed to surrender. Their reasons for not surrendering had nothing to do with the welfare of the Japanese people, but rather was an effort to protect their own "honor"--and to forestall their own loss of power.

It's also true that the Japanese high command knew the war was lost after the battle of Midway in June 1942, just as the German high command knew their war was lost after January 1943, or July 1943 at the latest.

In both instances the reasons for continuing the wars, with all the resulting death and destruction, had nothing to do with the well being of Japanese or German civilians, but only with the pride, the arrogance, and the self-preservation of the leadership.

Those realities have to be factored in when discussing culpability for the horrific slaughters of 1942 to 1945.

Oh, and please point to me evidence that the US threatened actual war with Japan if its military didn't pull out of SE Asia. Economic embargo, yes, but declaring war? The antiwar movement before December 7 was quite active, and FDR was at pains not to get ahead of public opinion. It's difficult for me to imagine FDR asking Congress for a declaration of war minus the attack on Pearl Harbor. And even after December 7, antiwar feeling was such that FDR waited for Germany to declare war on the US, knowing that asking Congress for such a declaration on Germany was not at all a sure thing.

I find it interesting that you seem to be trying to exonerate the Japanese military for its decision to attack Pearl Harbor. Even the US led embargo of oil--the ostensible reason for the Japanese decision--was only harmful in the context of Japan's continuing aggression against China, which had already resulted in more than a million Chinese deaths--the vast majority of them civilians. Here again, the Japanese government could have ended its war in China with little or no harmful consequence to Japan itself. Considering that you're calling for a US embargo on war material to Israel, why do I get the feeling you think the US embargo on Japan in late 1941 was somehow immoral?