Gen. Paul Tibbets, R.I.P.

[LanDroid]

Japan was negotiating to surrender for months prior to those bombs detonating. The hang up was American insistence on total surrender including "loss of face" for their God/Emperor. We stated no compromise was possible, but the final terms allowed their God/Emperor to retain face saving status. MacArthur and Eisenhower were just stating facts - we could have obtained the final surrender terms months earlier saving MORE American lives than the course we took. There was no need for a mainland invasion, all of that speculation is irrelevant. The atomic bombs did not save lives, they caused more American and Japanese deaths than an earlier surrender would have...

"The populace of Japan had a mindset to fight to the last man, woman and child. They had absolutely no intention of surrendering."

Irrelevant. They surrended when their God/Emperor told them to.

"However, if the answer is based on how close the enemy was to surrendering, then at least we've established that such weapons CAN be used, but only under certain conditions."

Except we used them under the wrong conditions as MacArthur and Eisenhower point out. Your point may have been valid when we were the sole member of the nuke club, now that the membership has expanded greatly, it's difficult to imagine what conditions they can be used now. Nuking even a totally non-strategic backward area now carries a minute, but still unacceptable risk that some other member of the nuke club will decide to retaliate. The more tempting the target, the greater that risk grows.

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ November 08, 2007 12:51 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font></font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 08, 2007 01:06 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>

[Lew]

And so there's no mistaking my feelings on this, just because I believe Truman was justified for acting as he did in 1945, does not mean that I would ever advocate a nuclear war or the use of such weapons since. I think mutually-assured destruction was a blessing in disguise, because I believe that, had there never been any nuclear weapons, there most certainly would have been a WWIII (or maybe even a continuation of WWII) in the last 40s or early 50s. As GL mentioned, Truman fired MacArthur precisely because he was intent on starting a nuclear war with China. I've never believed that Truman viewed it as this new toy he had that he couldn't wait to use; I believe he did weigh the decision, I believe he was right in 1945, I believe he was right when he fired MacArthur.

As for Tibbets, I think it's sad that the man couldn't have a gravesite. And I think that any person who ever went up to him and called him a murderer or any of that...they're most certainly entitled to their opinion, of course, but they obviously had no clue from which they spoke. I don't view him as "heroic" (above and beyond any other soldier), but I believe he was a man who did his job competently and professionally.