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From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: America-bashing (use of atomic bomb)
Message-ID: <2371@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 12:45:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2371
Posted: Fri Aug 16 12:45:37 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 04:28:38 EDT
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Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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> >  1. apparently the US joint chiefs estimated US deaths at 50,000 if
> >     the war was fought to a close with conventional weapons.  Depending
> >     on who you are saving 50,000 american lives in return for killing
> >     200,000 japanese lives might seem like a good trade but it is not
> >     true that more lives would have been lost without the bomb.
> 
> 	Just a point: General MacArthur estimated that a conventional assault
> on the Japanese islands would result in the deaths of 1,000,000 American
> soldiers (my source is the TV series "American Caesar"). Note that this 
> count includes ONLY American servicemen. Remember that there would also be
> approximately 500,000 British troops involved in the invasion (source:
> "Triumph and Tragedy" by Winston Churchill) as well as a large number of
> troops from the Soviet Union. Thus I think that your claim of trading
> 50,000 American lives for 200,000 Japanese lives is somewhat incorrect.
> 
> 
> Ven Seshadri
> University of Toronto
> Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

My source was an american historian (sorry, can't remember his name) who
was being interviewed by the CBC.  His point was that while there were
people (he didn't mention MacArthur by name) who believed that >>200,000
lives would be lost, the historical record shows the opinion of the
Joint Chiefs at the time to be what I said originally.  If you want to
argue whose numbers are correct call CBC, find out who the guy was and
talk to him - not me; I think his comments are sufficient reason to
believe that things were not quite so cut and dried as we are usually
led to believe.

-- 

	John Chapman
	...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman

	Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me
		     and they may not even be mine.