NUKING JAPAN, MY LAST WORD ON THE SUBJECT

: The last refuge of a bad argument is the hypothetical. The "Oh yeah, well what if we did this?" argument. Jimmy uses it in his response to my last post, asking:

Here, just to keep things interesting: what if we had dropped the 101st Airborne into Hiroshima and bayoneted all the civilians? I have used this scenario before, and it always gets a pause from supporters of the bombing, if not a conversion.

Sorry, Jimmy. No converts here, and no pause. To engage your hypothetical scenario, would dropping the 101st into Hiroshima have stopped the war? No--they probably would have been slaughtered by the locals, and the troops, in the area. Don't believe me? Do your homework--several American air crews crashed in Japan, either because they were shot down, collided with other aircraft or had mechanical trouble. Nearly all of those that survived such crashes were summarily executed, in many cases by the local civilians. One exception occurred in Shizuoka, where a grocery store owner rescued the lone survivor from a B-29 crash and tended his wounds until he died a few days later. That Japanese rescuer was nearly lynched by his neighbors when they found out, btw. Most of the time, though, it was like an incident that occurred in Hachioji, where a pilot was dragged from his plane and torn to pieces by local townfolk, men, women and children. To use hypothetical arguments, you at least have to come up with something that might actually happen and have the same effect as the course taken. The only action that could possibly have precipitated the end of the war short of invasion or a protracted blockade was dropping the bomb. That was the goal of dropping the bomb, and it was also the effect, and it saved the lives of millions. Dropping the 101st in Hiroshima would just have been a waste of lives, as would have been an invasion. A blockade probably would have given us a situation similar to Iraq, and an enemy nursing an old grudge to be avenged later.

War nearly always forces leaders to choose between two nasty alternatives. Do we attack the village where the enemy is hiding, knowing that some civilians will get caught in the crossfire, or do we leave the village in the hand of the enemy, knowing that he and his troops are oppressive brutes and will steal, rape and kill during occupation? Dropping the bomb in 1945 was such a choice, and to call it "evil," as Jimmy did, implies that Truman, and the aircrews under his command, acted in an evil manner to end the war. That's unacceptable because it's wrong, and because it sullies the heroism of those who fought and died. It also turns us into the bad guys at the end, which re-writes the history of the post-war era.

Jimmy also said in his previous post that, were he to stand before an audience of WWII vets and their families, he would have to tell them that it would have been better they had died (and their children and grandchildren never been born?) invading Japan than American dropped the bomb. This wisdom coming from a life he enjoys because so many of them did live on, have families and rebuild the world, and from a resulting world order that's kept him from having to put on the uniform of war himself. That's why I use the word "arrogant" to describe his arguments, and I stick by it.

My arguments here aren't based on an "America, love it or leave it" attitude. They're based on the facts of the situation, an attempt to study the events that led up to the decision, its aftermath, and the possible alternatives as the historical figures saw them. Jimmy's arguments are based on.....? It may be, as he says, boring to be told that you don't have the facts, but that doesn't make it any less true.

UPDATE: The eloquence of those who read this blog and post comments astounds me. Please read Desiree's comment. And I should note, again, that none of my opinion is based in any way on anti-Japanese sentiment. I'm anything but anti-Japan--I love the place, my wife's from the place, and to put it simply, Japan is America's best friend in Asia, and America is Japan's best friend in the world.

UPDATE AGAIN: I know, I know...the title of this post means I shouldn't say anything more. But Jimmy has responded, and he's still wrong and is missing the logic of my argument: Either way, Truman's decision would lead to the deaths of many innocent people. He had no choice that wouldn't kill an awful lot of people. Given that, Truman made the right call and minimized the loss of life. Had there been some other way out that wouldn't have mandated killing an awful lot of people, Truman's decision to drop the bomb would have been wrong. No such choice existed. Following Jimmy's "ideals" would have been foolish, wasteful of human life, and created more problems than it solved. We live in a world where happy endings are in very short supply, and sometimes the best choice available is still awful. You just have to make the best choice you can and be prepared to live with the consequences. That's the real world, not a pointless hypothetical morality parlor game.