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Europe submits voluntarily
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DrZoidberg
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No. This is a subject I've read up on. It has to do with socialism. It was a long and complicated evolution. But here's the short version. "The Swedish model" appeared in the 1940'ies. Ie the welfare state. The state provided material safety for all Swedes. The government also financed education. So all Swedes had hope. Crime plummeted. But Sweden also had a state religion. The church was powerful and state financed. The Swedish government did nothing to dissuade people away from religion. Quite the opposite. But with all the welfare Swedes didn't need religion for comfort. So religion rapidly died in Sweden. In 1950 90% of all Swedes attended church. In 1960 only 10% did and the majority of Swedes identified as atheist.
Today secularisation has gone so far that Swedes rarely understand the terminology. We've forgotten what being religious means. So the current theist/agnostic/atheistic discussions often becomes farcical. Sweden today is best described as "post atheist". In order for atheism to hold meaning there has to be something theistic that's well defined to not be. We don't have that any longer.
So it's pretty obvious how to kill religion. It's easy. Give people security and hope = religion dies.
Nah. Not true. This type of extremist religion is created by social insecurity. The more insecurity the more people cling to "easy answers". People long for structure and security. Have you never wondered why the middle class is less religious than the poor? It has to do with money and safety
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DrZoidberg
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angelo
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The Muslim Brotherhood is on a par with the Nazis only worst.
DrZoidberg
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The Muslim Brotherhood has been different things in different times. Around 2012 they were on par with any conservative political party in the west. But the last couple of years they seem to be falling apart. Hopelessly fractured. It seems that Morsi's power grab in Egypt shocked the movement, causing it to fracture and rip apart. Today it's hard to see if it will ever again have the influence it used to have. I suspect Morsi killed it.
angelo
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They are still supporting Islamic supremacy throughout the world. Hamas, Hezbollah are just two of the arms, or offshoots of this organization.
DrZoidberg
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So is German neo-Nazis. Not going so well for them though. It's going about as badly.
Yeah, I expected to see this revisionism.
No. They were seeking a negotiated surrender with them still in control of Japan and hopefully parts of China. We would not accept that. If they really were ready to surrender it wouldn't have taken two bombs to just barely get them to surrender.
arkirk
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Loren, you know you are wrong about this, like so many things! The first bomb might have been an error in judgment as to whether it was needed or not. The second one was dropped mainly to test the efficacy of a plutonium bomb compared to a uranium bomb. Dead center to the bomb blast...a Roman Catholic Church in Nagasaki. Try to order your mind a little better and not just honk off stuff you get from the neo-liberal bubble machine. You obviously must be a Hillary supporter in the election...She's a war hawk too.
Actually in the last few years of the war, nearly all of the cities in Japan had been fire bombed mercilessly, with the exception of these two guinea pig cities where nuclear bombs could be tested on a human population with normal infrastructure still standing. That too is a fact.
whichphilosophy
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This is not revising history but a historical fact. Japan had made approaches months as it realized it could not win the war against the allies. They were ready to surrender because it had no control over the sea and skies which could not prevent the mass bombings by the allies on a consistent level. Invasion was unpreventable. To have negotiated a surrender with Japan which was achievable, would have saved a lot of lives but without testing two bombs. The effect would have been the same. Japan would have been under occupation with or without the name of empire added.
They had troops in parts of China and Singapore but they too would have had to withdraw, which they did when the surrender was announced . The British retained Japanese troops as riot police in Singapore to quell anti independence protests while its own troops were mobilized to the area.
The US also eventually discontinued prosecutions of war criminals. Emperor Hirohito escaped prosecution;
http://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/USWarCrime_Coverup.html
The United States calls a halt to war crime prosecutions
With the Cold War intensifying, the government of President Harry S. Truman felt that Japan needed to be moulded into an American ally and a bulwark against the spread of communism. Truman believed that these aims would be difficult to achieve if the Japanese people were alienated by continuing prosecutions of their war criminals. For this reason, the United States called a halt to further war crimes prosecutions when twenty-five "Class A" war criminals had been sentenced to death or imprisonment at the end of 1948. The decision to halt the prosecutions was entirely based on political expediency. It had nothing to do with issues of legality, morality, or humanity.
What would have happened if we did this in Europe?
http://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/USWarCrime_Coverup.html
Besides the
whichphilosophy
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Loren, you know you are wrong about this, like so many things! The first bomb might have been an error in judgment as to whether it was needed or not. The second one was dropped mainly to test the efficacy of a plutonium bomb compared to a uranium bomb. Dead center to the bomb blast...a Roman Catholic Church in Nagasaki. Try to order your mind a little better and not just honk off stuff you get from the neo-liberal bubble machine. You obviously must be a Hillary supporter in the election...She's a war hawk too.
Actually in the last few years of the war, nearly all of the cities in Japan had been fire bombed mercilessly, with the exception of these two guinea pig cities where nuclear bombs could be tested on a human population with normal infrastructure still standing. That too is a fact.
Interestingly the allies did not actually end up with the terms they asked for. The Emperor ruled, and most Japanese war criminals escaped prosecution.
angelo
Deleted
The Emperor was regarded as a god by the Japanese. It was decided to keep him in power by the US so as to control the masses. Having done that, many war criminals, including the Emporer himself weren't tried for war crimes.
DrZoidberg
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The emperor didn't actually have any power. They'd been a junta puppet since the Mei-rebellion of the 19'th century
repoman
Contributor
interesting derail. will have to look this up later. Did you mean the Meiji Rebellion?
DrZoidberg
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Sorry. Meiji restoration. After that the emperor became increasingly isolated and dependent on his ministers. It's true there was an imperial cult and Hirohito had absolute power. But he had been so shielded from reality that he was easily manipulated. He only really cared about ceremonial stuff. Who gets to wear what at what function. A fun fact is that when he went on radio to speak to the Japanese people about Japan's surrender, barely anybody could understand him. He had such an odd and quaint dialect. Proof of him not interacting with "real" Japanese people
Loren, you know you are wrong about this, like so many things! The first bomb might have been an error in judgment as to whether it was needed or not. The second one was dropped mainly to test the efficacy of a plutonium bomb compared to a uranium bomb. Dead center to the bomb blast...a Roman Catholic Church in Nagasaki. Try to order your mind a little better and not just honk off stuff you get from the neo-liberal bubble machine. You obviously must be a Hillary supporter in the election...She's a war hawk too.
Actually in the last few years of the war, nearly all of the cities in Japan had been fire bombed mercilessly, with the exception of these two guinea pig cities where nuclear bombs could be tested on a human population with normal infrastructure still standing. That too is a fact.
After the first bomb, did Japan surrender? Nope.
After the second bomb they just barely voted to surrender.
In other words, had we not dropped the second bomb they would not have surrendered.
Furthermore, we couldn't wait--the a-bomb was actually a huge bluff. At the time we did not have enough production to make it militarily useful. Had we done anything that hinted this to Japan they wouldn't have surrendered.
What you're missing is the Japanese strategy at the time. They knew the war was basically lost. Their strategy at that point was to make final victory so bloody and expensive for us that we would give up and leave them with at least Japan.
The a-bomb changed the whole situation because we could bomb from high altitude--we could just plink away at them until they were blown to bits and they had no way of making it bloody or expensive (they didn't know what the bomb cost to build) for us. Their whole strategy was thrown out the window, it's no surprise they surrendered. Had they know how few bombs we could make their strategy would still have been viable, they would continue it.
whichphilosophy
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Loren, you know you are wrong about this, like so many things! The first bomb might have been an error in judgment as to whether it was needed or not. The second one was dropped mainly to test the efficacy of a plutonium bomb compared to a uranium bomb. Dead center to the bomb blast...a Roman Catholic Church in Nagasaki. Try to order your mind a little better and not just honk off stuff you get from the neo-liberal bubble machine. You obviously must be a Hillary supporter in the election...She's a war hawk too.
Actually in the last few years of the war, nearly all of the cities in Japan had been fire bombed mercilessly, with the exception of these two guinea pig cities where nuclear bombs could be tested on a human population with normal infrastructure still standing. That too is a fact.
After the first bomb, did Japan surrender? Nope.
After the second bomb they just barely voted to surrender.
In other words, had we not dropped the second bomb they would not have surrendered.
Furthermore, we couldn't wait--the a-bomb was actually a huge bluff. At the time we did not have enough production to make it militarily useful. Had we done anything that hinted this to Japan they wouldn't have surrendered.
What you're missing is the Japanese strategy at the time. They knew the war was basically lost. Their strategy at that point was to make final victory so bloody and expensive for us that we would give up and leave them with at least Japan.
The a-bomb changed the whole situation because we could bomb from high altitude--we could just plink away at them until they were blown to bits and they had no way of making it bloody or expensive (they didn't know what the bomb cost to build) for us. Their whole strategy was thrown out the window, it's no surprise they surrendered. Had they know how few bombs we could make their strategy would still have been viable, they would continue it.
Of course Japan knew the war was lost. This is why it approached the allies through Switzerland for a peace treaty. The allies controlled the air, and sea. It's remaining aircraft didn't have sufficient fuel to counter the daily allied attacks.
The Japanese wanted a conditional one and the allies wanted an unconditional one. In the end though it was unconditional, the Emperor still remained and most war criminals were not tried for war crimes.
The Bomb at Nagasaki also killed an estimated 400 allied prisoners as well as thousands of Chinese and Koreans (conscripted workers and or prisoners).
in the end it was an unconditional one but the allies didn't enforce key points such as the removal of the Emperor and it dropped war crime investigations just a few years later.
Hiroshima was bombed 07 August and Nagasaki on 09 August. The damage to Hiroshima was still being assessed on 08 August so there wasn't exactly any waiting time allowed before the second bomb.
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The Japanese still retained some of the conditions which they had been seeking for a negotiated surrender. He was a figurehead but still seen as important.
angelo
Deleted
I think it was estimated that had Japan not surrendered when it did, and the US would have had to invade the mainland, it may have cost another 200.000 dead and even more injured soldiers. Japan like the Nazi regime would have fought until the last man.
whichphilosophy
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History shows the Japanese wanted to surrender but the Americans wanted an unconditional settlement and used the bomb. There could have been peace talks as the Japanese knew they were losing. In fact even with Japan's "unconditional surrender" it still attained most of what it was asking for in the conditional surrender. It kept it's emperor and most were not prosecuted for war crimes. The hostilities could have stopped just after May for peace talks. In five months a lot of lives could have been saved and the testing of the bombs on Japan would not have been necessary.
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Japanese Emperors have been junta puppets since the 1100's. Emperor Meiji had more real power and influence over government than any Emperor since Go-Daigo, who tried to take power back from the Shoguns in the 1300's, but lost the resulting civil war.
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