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Imagine you're an Allied private (there WERE other nations than the US involved in the Pacific campaign!!!). You don't know what's going on in the big picture, but you know 2 things because they've been drilled into you over and over.
1) The fucking Jap bastards are sub-human, evil cretins who have attacked you unprovoked, have committed outrageous atrocities on civilian populations (think Nanking), and must be forced to surrender or die.
2) No matter what happens, your commanders up the line will kill every one of those fuckers to protect YOU! One of the reasons you're willing to fight is that you know in your heart that you're worth more than any fucking Nip.
Now, with the first item being the mindset right up through to just below the CIC, what would you do if you had something that would end the war TODAY??
Secondly, look at the invasion of Okinawa and Guadalcanal. The invasion of Japan, and there was NO question that the US was going to occupy Japan, would cost hundreds of thousands of Allied wounded/deaths. Those bastards would literally fight to the death.
Thirdly, yes, the surrender WAS conditional. That the emperor be left in place and not executed as a war criminal. That was the only condition of any consequence. It was accepted as means to placate and control the population, nothing more. Any of the other surrender proposals didn't come near acceptability to a country that was dragged unceremoniously into a conflict it was determined to stay out of.
All the rationalisation that Nagasaki was unacceptable (maybe it was), and that Hiroshima was unnecessary (define unnecessary!) smacks of historical revisionism. *WE* are not looking at the situation through the eyes of the population that had been threatened and deprived (yes, deprived) here in North America & Australia/New Zealand, or worse those brutalised by the Japanese in Southeast Asia & China.
Wrong by today's standards maybe, but today's standards would be VERY different if we faced the world of 1940 - 45.
The no-fly list is wrong by the standards of the 1960's/70's when we were rejecting McCarthy-ism and demanding the paramouncy of personal liberty. Today... it's acceptable (at least to some).
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The secret to great marksmanship is deciding what the target was AFTER you've shot.
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