Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:63721 talk.politics.mideast:33915 trial.talk.politics.peace:43 alt.desert-storm:7339 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!shelby!neon!Neon!jmc From: jmc@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,trial.talk.politics.peace,alt.conspiracy,alt.desert-storm Subject: Re: The Nuclear Option Message-ID: Date: 14 Feb 91 06:34:30 GMT References: <1991Feb7.025838.13793@panix.uucp> <1991Feb9.075438.17779@alembic.acs.com> <1991Feb11.023449.17583@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1991Feb11.172446.7039@engin.umich.edu> <1991Feb11.204302.27201@meteor.wisc.edu> <1991Feb12.1 Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Organization: /u/jmc/.organization Lines: 46 In-Reply-To: alain@elevia.uucp's message of 12 Feb 91 19:53:46 GMT In article <1991Feb12.195346.8520@elevia.uucp> alain@elevia.uucp (W.A.Simon) writes: In jmc@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes: >Truman was in a quite different political position. If he had >let American soldiers die because of failure to use the bomb, >his political chances would have been nil. Truman (and the people who were advising him) decided to use strategic (not tactical) nukes for reasons which have little to do with saving US lives. Saving US lives may have been a convenient rationale, and a good side effect, but the true reason was to scare the Soviets shitless. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first victims of the cold war. I am not saying it was the only reason, but the two bombs would not have been dropped if it had just been to terminate the war speedily. Japan, by that time, was already quite damaged and about to cave in. There was a need on the part of the US to show superior military strength and the will to use it. In Baghdad, the bombing is meant to do exactly this, with some restraint. The time may come when this will not be enough and more convincing arguments must be used. If it is done under tactical conditions, nobody will blame the US for it. I don't think the US consider strategic nukes at all. I just hope the diplomats get together before anyone wins this war. Alain, how old are you? When you ask men slightly older than me, what he thought when the A-bomb was dropped, he is likely to say something like, "My division had just been shipped from Europe to California, and we were getting ready to be shipped out to take part in the invasion of Japan. The bomb saved my life." Another said "My ship was being refitted after taking two kamikaze hits". The invasion of Japan would have been extremely bloody. Given how narrow was the margin of the Japanese decision to surrender after the A-bomb, it seems quite unlikely that they would have surrendered before an invasion without the bomb. If the bomb had been witheld, these men would have found out before very long. Truman might even have been impeached. There were 15 million men in the service at that time.