Texts disprove Trump admin claim that no bombing plans were sent to reporter

"Nobody was texting war plans," secretary of defense claimed to reporters.

See full article...

 

[balthazarr]

That's nowhere near a factual statement. The Pacific War was not on the verge of ending before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan was not near surrender. Even with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, they were inclined to fight until the bitter end. The Japanese military was delusionally confident that like Churchill, "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." They were ready to see the Japanese population exterminated rather than consider surrender. The decision of Hirohito to overrule the cabinet and declare surrender was extraordinary and unprecedented, and was due almost completely to the knowledge of the atomic bomb, and the fact that it made Japan's military strategies useless. And even then it was a close-run thing, factions of the Japanese military were determined to kidnap the Emperor and prevent the transmission of the surrender message.

For an excellent discussion on the deliberations of the Japanese cabinet and Hirohito's involvement in the surrender decision, you'd get a lot out of watching this video.
The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War, Episode 440.

If features historian and noted WWII author Jon Parshall, former historian at the National WWII Museum Seth Paridon, and retired Navy Submarine Captain Bill Toy. It relies extensively on the notes of Pulitzer Prize winning historian Herbert Bix, who wrote was is considered the definitive English-language biography of Hirohito.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frLAX8LtoVg

Nobody said it was on the verge, and obviously the various nuances couldn't be set out in a sentence.

To me, it's telling that they didn't surrender until 15 August — 6 days after Nagasaki, and after the USSR declared war and invaded — and not after Hiroshima, or even immediately after Nagasaki.

But, whatever, still doesn't justify the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Not once, but twice within the space of a few days. That's my position. Yours obviously differs. There remains, still, substantial debate on the issue, so I reject your claim of "nowhere near a factual statement" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

 

[Chuckstar]

Nobody said it was on the verge, and obviously the various nuances couldn't be set out in a sentence.

To me, it's telling that they didn't surrender until 15 August — 6 days after Nagasaki, and after the USSR declared war and invaded — and not after Hiroshima, or even immediately after Nagasaki.

But, whatever, still doesn't justify the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Not once, but twice within the space of a few days. That's my position. Yours obviously differs. There remains, still, substantial debate on the issue, so I reject your claim of "nowhere near a factual statement" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Umm... this is what you said:

...in all likelihood would've ended shortly anyway...

Are you really splitting hairs between that and "on the verge" of ending?

The estimates of the civilian deaths from an invasion of Japan ranged from a hundred thousand to a couple million. And the hundred thousand number is grossly unlikely, as that's about the number of civilians that died in Okinawa, out of a much smaller population. There were about 250,000 civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is every possibility that the bombing of those cities saved Japanese civilian lives in toto. This has been debated for over 75 years, now, with no way anyone could prove which outcome might have been better. Even if you knew the results of an invasion scenario, you'd have to find some method to weigh civilian Japanese deaths against the deaths of U.S. servicemen, the vast majority of whom were happily civilian until after the Japanese started the war. The only scenario that would clearly have saved lives would have been no bombing and Japan surrendering before a U.S. invasion began. Given everything we know today (where we have lots of evidence that Truman didn't have when he approved the bombing), we still have close to zero reason to believe that would have been the outcome.

 

[EnPeaSea]

Some unclassified information is CUI, not all.

Should I have bolded the words "operational information" that followed "unclassified" for a clearer indication about what subset of unclassified information I was referring to? Since you are very well versed with what is and isn't CUI to be pedantic, I gather you are well indoctrinated to be aware of the Security Classification Guide (SCG) that would show that their conversation was well above CUI.

 

[llanitedave]

Nobody said it was on the verge, and obviously the various nuances couldn't be set out in a sentence.

To me, it's telling that they didn't surrender until 15 August — 6 days after Nagasaki, and after the USSR declared war and invaded — and not after Hiroshima, or even immediately after Nagasaki.

But, whatever, still doesn't justify the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Not once, but twice within the space of a few days. That's my position. Yours obviously differs. There remains, still, substantial debate on the issue, so I reject your claim of "nowhere near a factual statement" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

What you think is "telling" is covered in detail in the video I linked. There the debate was not between people debating whether or not we "should have" after the fact, the important debate was that ongoing between the different ministers within the Japanese cabinet at the time. Before you conclude "what's telling" maybe you should educate yourself on what was told by the actual decision-makers.

 

[mcswell]

I gather you are well indoctrinated to be aware of the Security Classification Guide (SCG) that would show that their conversation was well above CUI.

I'm retired, so I no longer have access to those things. But yes, we are in agreement about that.

 

[graylshaped]

Tell me about it! Whiskey Leaks is already trending on urbandictionary!

"Clean on Opsec" says DrunkSec.

 

[EnPeaSea]

I'm retired, so I no longer have access to those things. But yes, we are in agreement about that.

Veteran here, as well, and contracted in the Defense community. I don't have access to the specific SCG regarding this, but aware enough from others to understand (weapon system) + (date/time) + (target) cannot be publicly releasable unclassified information. (Stated conversationally, not argumentative.)

 

[numerobis]

I don't think it's fair to call the Democrats "pro-genocide". I think for those paying attention Biden was pushing Netanyahu and Israel very hard behind the scenes to get them to dial it way back.

I don't think he pushed them nearly hard enough, and they didn't even criticize Israel in public. We have a lot of leverage we could have used to get the massacre to stop, and we didn't use it, and folks are pissed off about it.

So.. not anti-massacre enough? Definitely.

I don't know why politicians feel like it's not OK to criticize Israel. I know the ADL would call you an anti-Semite, but they throw that around like Trump throws around "loser".

Politicians need to stop being afraid to call Israel out on their bullshit, and the rest of the world needs to call us out on ours.

I understand how difficult it is when Hamas launches rockets and then goes and hides amongst civilians, but Israel (and the US) have to find a way to do better.

Yeah, it’s the GOP I was calling pro-genocide, and the democrats as the other party.

Hamas and Hezbollah came into being decades from the longstanding self-destructive policy of Israel towards the Arab population. France and the UK were calling them out on their shit in the 1940s and 50s but since they bungled the suez crisis, the U.S. has been resolutely pro-Israel no matter what and the rest of the west has largely followed along.

 

[numerobis]

You flattened two entire cities to supposedly end a war which in all likelihood would've ended shortly anyway, and that was 80-odd years ago.

Instead of blatant disregard for civilian casualties as collateral damage while trying to hit a valid target, those were done with the intent of causing mass civilian casualties. ‘sdifferent!

(Also, I wasn’t actually involved. My grandfather was further up the coast, in a ship engaged in shore bombardment of Japan coastal villages and fortifications, on the way to refit and R&R; that got delayed a couple months due to the surrender. My dad wouldn't even become a thing until a while after he got home.)