[Buddha-l] URL

[Dan Lusthaus]

Thanks, Stan. This site pretty much reiterates everything I have been arguing, with copious supporting evidence, including a very sober explanation for why the estimates of casualties increased over time (more precise knowledge of the "defenses" the Japanese had in wait, severely underestimated at the time), why and how the decision to drop the bombs, and where, considerations of the Soviets, etc. Shows that these myths have been around for a long time, and continue to be recycled.

But perhaps the most telling remark is the following:

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Dr. Mitchell Wilson was asked to work on the Manhattan Project. Dr. Wilson refused on moral grounds, not wanting anything to do with an atomic weapon. Later in his life, in 1960, he was sent around the world on an investigation of different styles in science. One of the countries he went to was Japan. He writes:

There are those who have become absolutely certain that the bombing of Hiroshima was a mistake. Not until I went to Japan did I realize that all the discussions I had heard had been among Western scientists only, thinking in Western terms, and taking for granted that the Japanese High Command would necessarily have reasoned along similar lines. In Tokyo, I discussed the question at last with a number of Japanese scientists who were old enough to have lived through the times. When I asked these men to describe for me what sort of demonstration of the atomic bomb by the United States in the summer of 1945 would have convinced the Japanese High Command of the inevitability of defeat and the need for immediate surrender, I drew a blank stare at the total unreality of the question in the light of the situation as it then existed. 

Wilson later discussed this saying, "Whatever verdict history will pass on the need to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. when the matter is put in terms of the Japanese values generally accepted during the war, Japanese scientists themselves can suggest no realistic alternative to what happened. That there might have been a premilitary demonstration of the atom bomb turns out to be another one of history's myths."

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That pretty much sums up everything I have been trying to say. Debunking myths is hard work. With that site now available to anyone who cares to ponder any of this thread further, I really can get back to other things.



Thanks again.

Dan



  Here is the URL I mentioned yesterday:

  http://plungepontificates.blogspot.com/2005/05/decision-to-drop-atomic-bomb-on.html

  Stan Ziobro 
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