re: You’re the President. Do you drop the bomb?

We were involved in total war with Japan. That’s described as a war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded.

Although the first Geneva Convention had been signed in 1929, it covered mainly the treatment of prisoners. For all intents and purposes, Japan was taking no prisoners. Those that they bothered to take were treated as less than human.

Japan and Germany were hellbent upon world domination by whatever means necessary. We were lucky enough to have great scientists who understood that, despite their fears of introducing such an awful weapon, building it was the only way to stop Japan. We were also fortunate to have a president who overrode his innate compassion for all and ordered the first use of a true total war strike.

There has not been a declared war since and may never be again. Humanity changed forever on August 6 and 9, 1945.

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If I remember correctly, I think we only had one, maybe two more bombs at that point.

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We had three nuclear weapons. One was the gun type Little Boy weapon dropped on Hiroshima. We were pretty damned sure that would work without testing. Two were implosion type Fat Man bombs. We weren't so sure they'd work, so one was the trinity device we detonated in the desert to test it. The other leveled Nagasaki.

We had no other bombs at the time, though we had everything necessary to build more. We didn't have the uranium to make any more Little Boy weapons because those were inefficient and took a LOT of highly enriched uranium, but we did have enough plutonium to build maybe 2 or 3 more Fat Man type devices. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we'd be limited to using them as they came off the production line and could be shipped to Guam for mounting on a bomber. The components of the bomb could be assembled en route and the bomber crews on Guam trained while the bomb was on its way. This would have been fairly quick, maybe 1-3 weeks or so between detonations. After 3 more devices, though, that's it. We just didn't have enough special nuclear material to make any more devices. That stuff's hard to make.

I also drop the bomb without a second thought.

Mother do you think they will drop the bomb

Yes. I would have dropped a third on Tokyo.

It was war.

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This was right after the Philippines with another 80,000 American casualties.

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Darth, this may be a spinoff of a spinoff but do you think re-taking the Philippines was militarily necessary? Or was it just to make good on MacArthur's promise.

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It really is amazing what we did to their cities before the bomb was even dropped. When we as a country commit to total war, I do not believe there is a more devastating force in the world.

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we have not totally committed since then.

It seems the Japanese citizens have no ill will against us
They seem to love American culture and I never hear of any American tourist having problems with them.

Drop it. And the Japs should thank us for doing so.

If we invaded the main Japanese islands, every village, town, and city would be one Stalingrad after another. Millions of Japanese would have died. The country would have been razed to the ground. Disease and famine would have been rampant. Japan would not be the economic powerhouse that it is today if we had invaded.

Besides, the Soviets would have jumped in, too. Half of Japan could have been commie in the post-war settlement. They should thank us for that not coming to pass, too.

After being in Pearl Harbor and watching Japanese people laugh and joke at the death that occurred there.

I would have dropped another one after they surrendered as an extra bitch slap.

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Besides, the Soviets would have jumped in, too. Half of Japan could have been commie in the post-war settlement. They should thank us for that not coming to pass, too

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You beat me by a minute. There is no doubt that as soon as Stalin could get a few 100K conscripts mustered in the east he'd storm Japanese beaches, body-count be dammed.