The First Lie

I have been blogging for some time now. For the most part, my other blogs are business related. As a result, I try not to offend too much. I have avoided some of the deeper thoughts and muses of my consciousness. That all changes here.

I will attempt to have some compelling content for those who are learning to question things around them. I will start with my first epiphany which occurred back in the late 80's...

As a young man, I was told that an atomic bomb saved 100,000 American lives by avoiding a nasty invasion of the Japanese homeland. You were told the same thing. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to get the Imperial Japanese to surrender. Without those bombs, the war could last years longer and the death toll would be worse than anything the war had brought thus far.

Yes, we were told, the bombs were terrible and the destruction of human life in those cities was regretable. We were told it was the only choice. There were not other options.

Here is the option to dropping the bombs:

In the Summer of 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was in ruins. Most of their aircraft carriers were destroyed. Their destroyers and battleships were without fuel. Many of the ships were spread all over the Pacific Ocean. Their army was spread from Korea through to Burma. They were tossed out of the Philipines and mostly destroyed in Okinowa.

Historians should be able to agree that the Japanese military was beat. That is why we were told that the civilian population would be fighting to the death on the beaches if we tried to make a landing.

The option to using the atomic bomb was very simple. We would surround the island nation with our ships and enforce a naval blockade. Our planes would continue to strike military targets with conventional weapons. All energy supplies within the country would be hit and destroyed. Without fuel, the nation would be unable to mount any type of resistance. After several months, the Japanese would likely capitulate without a single American landing on the mainland.

Why did we not try to wait them out first? We had time on our side. Yes, we were running low on money, but that would not be a good enough argument for letting the nuclear jeanie out of the bottle. We rushed into using the bomb simply because we wanted to impress upon the Soviets that we had it.

In the summer of 1945, the Soviets were moving closer to taking parts of Korea and maybe even the mainland of Japan. Using the bomb stopped the Soviet advance and sent the message that we could use the bombs if threated by the Soviets. (Welcome to the cold war!)

The fact is that we were lied to by our government, our teachers, and our parents. Those that did not participate in the lie directly, allowed it to continue by not questioning the premise. Whether they were war weary, anti-Jap, patriotic or just dumb, they turned a blind eye to one of the worst scientific discoveries and uses the world has ever known.

It was a lie then. It is a lie now. And it continues to go unquestioned.

The lie: The atomic bomb was our only option.

The truth: We wanted to drop it for a number of reasons. The Japanese were expendable for our politicial messages.