I see your point about prostitution and social pressures, but also consider the following . These poor people choosing death by suicide don’t do it because society around them say it’s the right thing to do, they do it because they don’t have an alternative.

I find this hard to believe—which isn’t saying it’s false, and I really don’t know, but it doesn’t sound right to me.

People almost always have choices, however horrible all their options might be.

So, for example, a female suicide bomber from a slowly starving family might choose to become a suicide bomber and let her family reap the literal rewards, or she might choose to turn to prostitution to help her family eke out a subsistence living.

I’m pretty sure (but again no expert) that many devout Muslim women would choose the former over the latter—not just because their societies glorify and reward suicide bombing and vilify prostitution, but because they themselves have internalized their society’s values. Many Muslim women would prefer to be dead than to be a whore, and to be heroically dead and in heaven would be vastly preferable to being a whore. Just killing themselves would get them away from prostitution, but wouldn’t help their families and would not get them to heaven. (Rather the reverse, I think, but I forget my Islam.) Martrydom would be much more appealing, for those who buy into that.

(In junior high school—not the best junior high school in the universe—I knew a Palestinian girl and asked her about her and her family’s views of premarital sex. She said that if she had premarital sex, her father would literally slit her throat and drink her blood. No kidding. Not only that, she said she thought it would be the right thing to do—he wouldn’t want to do it, but he’d have to; you can’t leave that kind of stain on the family’s honor.)

Start with the endless adulation of Reagan’s absurd, endless nonsense and work your way down from there through people like David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, David Broder, etc. ad infinitum.

No, no one knows for sure what would have happened. However, we do know that although there was a peace faction in the War Counsel, it was not in the majority until Hirohito decided to surrender. Even those members of the peace faction would have fought to the death if that was Hirohito’s wish. They certainly had plans and resources in place in an attempt to turn back the invasion of Kyushu.

The US would not have accepted less than an unconditional surrender, primarily, I believe, because they (most FDR) feared a repeat of the end of WWI; he believed that the failure of Germany to be decisively defeated and subject to unconditional surrender led to the “stab in the back” theory in Germany during the Weimar years, leading to the rise of Hitler and WWII.

Further, while Hirohito and the imperial family were given the whitewash and their crimes (for which they should have hanged) were ignored, Hirohito’s power in the government and that of his office were stripped. Further, the Toyko Trials produced a large number of convictions of the war-era military and civilian leaders. Given those changes, combined with the occupation (until 1952) and the consitutional changes brought about by the 1947 constitution, I don’t know that you can say that the people in power in Japan didn’t change.

As for Japan, it’s also known that the Japanese were trying to negotiate with Washington by way of the Japanese ambassador to the Soviet Union. Sure, the military faction was shrill, but there was a significant percentage of the government who were ready to surrender if they had been allowed to keep their emperor.

At the very least there is now significant consensus that Truman should have considered diplomatic channels much more before deciding to drop the bomb. Secretary of War Henry Stimson who was intimately involved in the proceedings even said this in his memoir. Anyway, this is still a controversial topic so I think we should stop at this juncture.

We might not have accepted a more conditional surrender, but one would have to wonder why, since the people in power in Japan didn’t really change, and the top ranks of the Japanese ruling elite basically walked away scott free.

Further, the bombings weren’t to keep the USSR out of the war with Japan. Hell, the US had arranged in 1943 to have the USSR enter the war with Japan, after the defeat of Germany. At Yalta, the USSR pledged to enter the war within 3 months. The Soviets invaded Manchuria exactly three months to the day after the German surrender. They could have entered the war at any point during those 90 days, and the US knew it and welcomed it. Truman was joyous when the Soviets got into the fight. Indeed, the then-current American plans (Downfall) were planned out through 1946 and probably would have lasted into 1947, so there was no question that the US knew that the USSR would be in the fight, and they welcomed that.

Further, the claim (Gus Snarp #49) that the Japanese were “trying to surrender” and would have done so without the bombings is wishful thinking, at best, in my opinion. They were seeking a way to end the fighting, but it would have envisioned no occupation, no admission of defeat, a continuation of the current Japanese ruling structures, war crimes trials (if any) by the Japanese and not the Allies, etc. There was no way the Allies would ever have accepted that. Further, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were still factions who wished to continue fighting and even a plot to kidnap the Emperor to prevent him from surrendering. There was a peace faction, but the notion that the Japanese were seeking or preparing to surrender on terms any where near what would have been acceptable to the Allies is simply not true.

Finally, (since we’re on the subject) the other big WWII ending theory which I find questionable is that it wasn’t the atomic bombings that caused the surrender, but the entry of the USSR into the war. The problem with this idea is that the basis for it is usually claimed to be the quick collapse of the Kwantung Army. The problem, though, is that the reason it collapsed so quickly was because it had already been written off, functionally speaking, as the Japanese had neither the resources nor ability to properly provision it, nor return it to Japan. While it was undoubtedly a blow to the ego, the fact that it was not even mentioned in the broadcast by Hirohito is some evidence in my mind that it was not of the magnatude to jusify something that had been unthinkable — surrender. A new “cruel bomb” (and I leave the question of the morality of the bombing to ethicists) however, provided just such an option.

@Paul:
I see your point about prostitution and social pressures, but also consider the following . These poor people choosing death by suicide don’t do it because society around them say it’s the right thing to do, they do it because they don’t have an alternative. In other words, they are even more desperate than the poor prostitutes. Either way, we should give these people alternatives, and killing them does not seem like a good option. Imagine investing all that Defense and military money into building schools and infrastructures, I’m pretty sure people’s opinion of the US would drastically change and the Taliban would not even be an alternative anymore.

@Sorbet:
Thank you for the recommendation, “Seeds of Terror” looks quite interesting. I’m a little bit perplex with its main theory though. Why would the Taliban destroy most of the heroin cartel before 2001 to do the opposite after the invasion? I’ll have a read and see how it justifies this .
“Why do you say this in spite of the fact that many Muslims, including Muslim mothers of Palestinian suicide bombers, clearly regard their fellow Muslims’s sacrifice as martyrdom”
Although that might be true, it does not make it accurate. I’m only pointing out what Islamic scholars are saying in regads to Martyrdom and suicide. The fact that others are misinterpreting the Quran is another topic all together.

In regards to the US own problems with its religious fanatics, it’s a good point that illustrates why the US should focus on its own problem before trying to solve world issues. The US should be a model for others to look up to, unfortunately the constant meddling in the Middle East has created and is creating more problems than it’s solving.

I agree in part with Gus when he says “religion is rarely the root cause of any conflict, it’s a tool used for propaganda”, by attacking Islam one is alienating a huge part of the population, hence making dialogue impossible. We have to use our knowledge to see pass these propaganda techniques and start educating everyone. Religion is part our world, so instead of denying its content we should try to find common grounds and educate communities.

On a different note, anyone know a better place to have this type of debates? I find it hard to follow as the number of comments is getting longer

Agreed on that too. Truman wasn’t Hitler or Stalin, and we were the good guys in WWII, IMHO.

I was only pointing that we (people) are inclined to see our ends justifying our means while maintaining that no ends could ever justify “their” means, even when it’s basically the same means in question.