this is literally the definition of begging the question

I would have been less surprised if you had said Tom Selleck. Like, for real. Now I'm gonna have to find a way to wrap my ****ing head around that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

"Instead of being tried for war crimes, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation." (Obv)

There are some overall points I'm trying to get at here. Everyone committed atrocities during WWII, none of the major players are innocent of this. It needs to be understood though that one government committing atrocities does not excuse those committed by your side, but the teaching of this period in the US has been whitewashed to eliminate any wrongdoing by the US, and this includes the distorting of facts around the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan to justify their usage as the means necessary to end the war and save lives.

Another is that when viewing history, a line of thinking that consistently rates Truman as one of our greatest presidents is a line of thinking that excuses the committing of "Crimes against Humanity" as pvn best put it. It's dangerous to teach and view history in this way because it opens us up to repeating mistakes of our past.

A fuller and more accurate picture of history is one that takes into account how all sides view a given situation, what information each side had and how their decisions were impacted by the information available to them. The actions that happened in the first half of August 1945 is one of the best examples of why it is important to view the whole picture. When you do this and view the timing of certain actions, a much clearer picture becomes evident as opposed to the whitewashed version we were all taught in the US growing up.

Eta: The main takeaway is that US leadership of the time rejected the opportunity for peace to pursue a violent ends that sacrificed a large number of lives that they deemed to be less valuable for the purposes of political posturing.

Morality aside, the way USA played WW2 led them to GOAT status.

Everyone else died, everything else blew up, and they took all the countries best scientists/research while profiting in both the destruction and rebuild of the world. The nukes were arguably necessary to achieve their status.

(Not trying to condone anything)

Context would have made it something like this:
"This time the Americans leveled an entire city in one day instead of three, like the last 60 cities."

Maybe not quite as much of an impression as you'd think.

lol armchairs.

my grandmother wrenched on fighters at moffett field during the war with her husband, my grandfather on a ship in the pacific.

i'm not sure she considered that second bomb 'political posturing'

pretty much lol

I mean, your edit is super debatable. there is plenty of evidence that the japanese were not willing to negotiate any sort of peace, and certainly not the peace that the allies were pursuing. I suppose you can argue that the allies desired a peace that was too unfavorable to the japanese and they should have been more lenient and willing to cooperate.

but there is a ton of evidence that the japanese wanted to continue the fight. many of their leaders had a vision of a heroic japan fighting to the last man. did you read at all about okinawa and iwo jima? those were weeks and months prior to the bombs. and they do not appear to be actions of ppl willing to concede.

I think there is an argument to be made against dropping the bombs but you are doing a horrific job presenting it simple bc you seem to be ignoring or distorting data and facts that point to a certain situation.

You're ignoring the fact that the Japanese were already attempting to surrender and had the allies agreed to let their emperor remain (which they did anyway after the war) the war would have already been over.

You're ignoring the timing of the US bombings. When the US bombed Hiroshima on August 6th, they knew the Soviets were going to declare war on Japan and attack from the west on August 8th. The Japanese did not know this. You're ignoring that the US did not coordinate these attacks with the Soviets even though they knew the Soviets would hold up to declaring war on Japan on August 8th. The US then planned the 2nd bombing to coincide with 1.5 Million Soviet soldiers attacking Japan from the Western Front on August 9th, again without coordinating these attacks with the Soviets.

Think back to September 11th which happened 56 years after these bombings. Despite all the advancements made in communications and technology in that time, there was still a gigantic haze around that date and the following days. Think of all the misreporting and how long it took to figure out what had happened on that day. Now think how long it would have taken to get our facts straight with 1945 level technology. To act as though a 2nd bombing was necessary three days later on August 9th because the Japanese hadn't unconditionally surrendered from the bombing on August 6th when they were still in a haze of war and didn't accurately understand that the Soviets planned to break their peace treaty until August 8th-9th is either intentionally disingenuous or lacks a complete understanding of the time and circumstances. It's also worth noting that the surrender came an additional 6 days after the 2nd bombing throwing further into question holding the dual ideals that the atomic bombs ended the war with Japan and that Japan was given enough time between the two bombings to evaluate the situation and submit to unconditional surrender.

MEb's posts on WW2 are good.

I would say the want is strong.

Truman only gets named to top ten lists because too many people can't name more than ten Presidents.

his posts and almost all of the assertions in them are, at best, debatable. but it could be propaganda.

who is the Japanese emperor today? I didn't realize that survived the war

you may also want to ask some Koreans how they feel about the terms the Japanese were looking for

the idea that Japan was total ready for surrender and concede lands they had conquered and hand over their weapons and we just needed to talk about it more doesn't seem supported in any of the literature

Well he had to order his people to surrender and cede all power, and proclaim he wasn't actually god and that looking at him would not cause people to explode into dust (which is handier to have people believe than you might think). There are still some perks; gets his own palace, servants, and train line so he doesn't have to deal with traffic.

Hirohito stayed on the throne until his death in 1989.

And his son, now 82, is still Emperor.

gen macarthur pretty goat tho

truman was a dunce

In related news England still has a queen

Worst general ever - who is it?

stannis baratheon

haig all day erry day

Quintus Servilius Caepio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arausio

Custer