Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
No, they were trying to break the will of the populace.
|
So you have no problem with torture, I take it.
My original point about the effectiveness of strategic bombing -- and Dyson's -- is that notwithstanding the conviction of its proponents, strategic bombing does not "break the will of the populace." You are right that, as a subjective matter, that is what the USAF thought it was doing over Japan, just as the RAF and USAF thought they were breaking Germany's will, and the Luftwaffe thought it was breaking England's will during the Blitz. But they weren't.
Quote:
|
Japan was an enemy unlike any previously seen by the western powers. On some of the island battles, there were literally no Japanese prisoners taken -- the population was apparently willing to fight to the death, despite overwhelming odds and certain death. We firebombed Tokyo, and then A-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because we were looking for options besides an invasion of the home islands -- which surely would have cost far more lives, American and Japanese, then all of the bombings put together.
|
As a historic matter, your characterization of the decision to use the atomic bomb is basically accurate, but your grouping of the firebombing of Tokyo is not so right. When we firebombed Tokyo, the invasion of the home islands was not imminent. The rationale was, in part, that light industry was dispersed in wood-frame buildings throughout Tokyo -- suggesting why Curtis LeMay was thinking about prosecution. Killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians sounds like a war crime.
