Quote:
Originally posted by pocon1
Lordjeebus suggested that maybe we should have isolated Japan and cut off their shipping.
We have done that for 12 years to Iraq and the rest of the world blames the U.S. for enforcing UN sanctions against trade in Iraq. They claim that we have starved thousands of children. If we had tried that against Japan, it would have cost us many more years of war, millions of dollars, thousands of our lives, and would have killed more Japanese than using a nuke. Isolating a country did not work against Iraq, which had a government not supported by a majority of the people, and it would not have worked against Japan, a country in complete solidarity with its leadership.
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An excellent argument. I think you're right, although I would not say that in 1945 the country was "in complete solidarity with its leadership." Another significant difference is that Japan did not have an internal source of oil. Nevertheless, in retrospect I think that an embargo would probably have turned Japan into something like N. Korea.
That does not mean I agree with the decision to drop the bomb
on a large city mainly populated by civilians. There are better ways to scare the country into submission using a weapon of such power.