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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Japanese Military
Message-ID: <1141@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Oct-84 17:16:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1141
Posted: Mon Oct 15 17:16:29 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Oct-84 20:15:19 EDT
References: <1736@burdvax.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 36

> This is related to why the US bombed Nagasaki.  By the end of the war, 
> relations between the US and the USSR had deteriorated to cold war levels,
> but the USSR was scheduled to join the war against Japan soon.  We wanted the
> war over before the Soviets had a chance to attack through China (once they
> went somewhere, they tended not to leave).  There were several alternatives
> to using the A-bomb (such as  invasion, fire-bombing, etc.), but none of them
> would have ended the war quick enough to avoid the Soviet Union's invasion
> of China.
> 
> To say that the Japanese were inhumane and irrational because they did
> not surrender quick enough shows a lack of understanding of the Japanese
> culture.  The US demanded a totally unconditional surrender, including the
> removal of the Emperor.  The Japanese hesitated on this one point.  If the US
> would have been willing to guarentee the sovereignty of the Emperor, then
> the Japanese would have surrendered without the second bombing.  If one
> of the two parties can be said to have been irrational and inhumane, it must 
> be the US.

(1) My understanding is that the Allies had long been trying to get
the USSR to declare war on Japan, but only when the end of the war
seemed imminent did Stalin initiate his land grab in the Kuriles
(without which we would perhaps not have had the KAL007 problem).
I have also read, but cannot confirm, that Stalin refused to pass
on to the US and UK Japan's first feelers for surrender, so that
he could enter the war and be counted in at the Peace Confeence.

(2) The Japanese FINALLY, not initially, demanded that the Emperor
be retained, and the US agreed.  The Emperor himself dictated that
Japan would surrender, against the wishes of some of his top brass,
to the extent that they tried a quick revolution (in the old Shogun
tradition).
-- 

Martin Taylor
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