As I recall from studying this is a college class, we had only the two atomic bombs available. Getting material for another was possible, but I think I recall that at the time we could only collect enough for one bomb every several months.

So, a HUGE aspect of this is that we had a pretty good hand of cards in the poker game, but felt that we had to bluff to suggest that it was even more overwhelming.

To me, the interesting part of the debate isn't blockade vs conventional bombing vs invasion vs A-bombs. I think it gets most interesting to consider alternatives that involve dropping one or more of the 2 A-bombs some place where their power would be demonstrated, but where casualties would be as low as possible.

Either option you mentioned would have been GREAT, if they worked (and forced surrender). But both had potential pitfalls also. Drop one on an unpopulated area, and they might have believed we were trying to take credit for some sort of natural event (German V2s blowing up in London were often attributed to sewage gas explosions early on). Staging a demonstration for scientists and leaders to witness might have hardened their resolve and/or made them question ours.

If I had been in Truman's shoes, I feel like I would have preferred to use ONE of the two bombs on something like one of your suggestions; either unpopulated drop or demonstration. Then, use the second on a target of military significance if/when they didn't surrender.

However, in hindsight that would have been a risky move -- they didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, only after both. Would a demonstration and one "we mean business" bomb have been enough to elicit the same response? Who knows. At that point, consider how screwed we could have been if it HADN'T, and it would have taken months to build another bomb (plus keep in mind that we weren't 100% confident in the bombs working reliably, even after trinity and the first two drops). I guess that we could have maintained a blockade and said "we'll give you 3 months to come to your senses" while we made another bomb, but I think that would have legitimately resulted in Japan questioning our resolve quite a lot; we'd be showing our cards too early.

I guess that at the end of the day, I don't envy Truman for having to make that kind of decision. Given the givens, I think that he probably played it as safe as possible and went with the option that was the MOST likely to force surrender. Perhaps some other option would have worked as well but avoided some of the casualties, but Truman took the information available to him and made the decision that he felt was the best -- I think that is pretty much the best we can ask of our leaders.

I can't downvote, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd go with "monarchs just as bad if not worse as Hitler" as the bit of your comment that would be most likely to draw a "challenge" as you put it. You kinda godwin'd the whole thread right out of the gate which is a bit ... trollish.

I suppose one could maybe make a reasonable attempt at justifying that statement with regards to a few specific past monarchs, but even though I couldn't care less about the British monarchy I think it would be rather unfair to hold the current Queen accountable for what some of her predecessors may have done many, many years before she was born.

I'm an American citizen with ancestors originally from Germany, so by those standards I should personally be held to blame for slavery, Little Bighorn and smallpox blankets, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, AND the holocaust.

Just in general terms, I'm one of those non-nuclear-physicists who was under the (mistaken) belief that fusion and fission reactions were different from each other. One being explosive, the other being incredibly hot. I had thought reactors were fissile, and Chernobyl was a massive steam explosion, and incapable of blowing up like a nu-cu-lur bomb. Instead, melting down and causing the "China Syndrome"

Finding out both fission AND fusion can "go Hiroshima" gives me pause when considering nuclear-electric power..

"During meltdown, men dove into a radioactive pool to open a pipe, they died, but prevented an explosion 10x bigger than Hiroshima."

I thought this was BS... then I looked it up... It really COULD have gone up that way.

I watched some of thes after someone on here put on an interview with Stone. I had no idea the Hiroshima bomb was dropped so long after WWII in Europe was effectively over. And how many Russians died in that war! Refreshing take for me.

Visited my brother there in 2006 and we took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Hiroshima. And you're right, they're a lot of fun. Just super cool. Definitely a different type of experience than say, this -- although sticking your head out a window and getting coal embers in your eye has its own charm.

Just FYI, each of the 10-20 thousand dots are lumps of mass, so massive in size that they each fuse millions of tons of hydrogen into helium every second, releasing, every second, each of the 10-20 thousand of them, more energy than has, or probably ever will be, used by every human being, combined. Thats MILLIONS of Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs going off, every second, right in front of your eyes. In the foreground, Manmade objects are in constant freefall towards earth, missing only because they are brilliantly engineered and built to travel at extreme speeds. While all thats happening, a rock the size of an office building sails by. If it had hit us, it could easily have wiped out a medium sized country and collapsed the global economy. So yeah.. white dots.

2012 KT42 is an asteroid discovered by Alex R. Gibbs of the Mt. Lemmon Survey (part of the Catalina Sky Survey) with a 1.5-m reflector + CCD on May 28, 2012. The asteroid had a close approach to the Earth on May 29, 2012, approaching to only Distance: ~8950 miles / ~14,440 km above the planet's surface. This means 2012 KT42 came inside the Clarke Belt of geosynchronous satellites. As of May 28, 2012, the estimated 5 to 10 meter wide asteroid ranked #6 on the top 20 list of closest-approaches to Earth. There was no danger of a collision during the close approach. 2012 KT42 will pass roughly 0.01 AU (1,500,000 km; 930,000 mi) from Venus on 2012 July 8.[3]

It is estimated that an impact would produce an upper atmosphere air burst equivalent to 11 kt TNT,[4] roughly equal to Hiroshima's Little Boy. The asteroid would be vaporized as these small impacts occur approximately once per year. A comparable-sized object caused the Sutter's Mill meteorite in California on 2012 April 22. It was removed from the Sentry Risk Table on 2012 May 30.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_KT42

God designed our bodies such that raw sewage flows right through our amusement parks. I don't know who's worse.>> ^chingalera:

I mean, c'mon?? A frikkin' amusement park in the middle of the desert??

Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, Mali. I'm sure there are others. I have traveled extensively in Malaysia and Turkey, where mosques are as numerous as churches in the USA, and the people of those countries belie every disparaging remark posted in this thread. >> ^messenger:

@chingalera
Well stated. I agree with your comparison of the two religions, but I think my point also stands that Muslims (or anybody) in countries without basic freedoms, especially freedom of speech and a free press are bound to be a lot more screwed up than those living under democracy and the freedoms that we enjoy. I think the corporate oligarchy is a red herring here. Sure, it's real, but that doesn't mean our democracy is zero. We have lots of freedom and power, even if our governments aren't as much "by the people" as they ideally could be. Could you imagine if elections were taken away altogether, if our leaders had no accountability whatsoever, and we didn't have a free press? Muslim or Christian or atheist, we would be a lot less civilized and a lot easier to manipulate to hate the "other". I mean, does anyone have any fears of attack or takeover by Muslims from Indonesia, Mali or Malaysia? Not that I've ever heard of, yet they're Muslim majority countries. The difference: democracy.
In a nutshell, you can't impose Iran- or Saudi-style Islamic rule on an existing democracy. Western Europe might change, and sure it'll cause discomfort and conflict, but nothing even remotely approaching deserving any of the comments cited in the video.

As moderate as American Christians have been?>> ^A10anis:

So, how would these two guys characterize the islamic faith? Would they say islam is benign and wants to co-exist peacefully with the west, allowing freedom from religious intrusion, equality for woman, gays, and those of other faiths? The evidence shows the opposite. The very word islam means submission, it is not just a faith, it is a theocracy and dictates every facet of daily life. Dooley's first comment about Hiroshima was extreme, and the FBI comment about Obama being influenced by islamic extremists was ridiculous. But the quran -despite people claiming it is taken "out of context"- is very clear on the propagation of islam. The quran must be followed by every muslim and In 50 years- it has been predicted- muslims in europe will have the balance of voting power. If that happens the commentators, who are so derisory today, will be able to see just how "moderate" islam will be.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^A10anis:

I made my point in my first comment. I explained my point to you - as you needed it explaining- in my second. You are an idiot. I will not respond again.

Hey don't be a jerk, we're all friends here.

Hey, read his nonsense, If you aren't one yourself, you will easily identify who is the jerk "friend."

>> ^A10anis:


I made my point in my first comment. I explained my point to you - as you needed it explaining- in my second. You are an idiot. I will not respond again.


Hey don't be a jerk, we're all friends here.

>> ^messenger:

@A10anis
You suggest at the end of your first comment that Shure and Dore think Islam is moderate. But they don't say that. All your arguments against Islam are word for word equally applicable to Christianity as well.
As for your defence of Christianity, first, I don't know what the term is, but posing rhetorical questions, the answers to which don't conclude anything is a false argument. Like, I can make a false argument in the same way by asking, "When was the last time a Muslim burned a black man on a cross? When was the last time Muslims conducted witch hunts or a Spanish Inquisition?" It sounds like the answers must be conclusive, but they're meaningless. If you want to say something, just say it.
Second, using the craziest of the sickest crazies to exemplify Islam is like using the KKK and the hick communities they draw from to exemplify the western civilization. It's bullshit. Most Muslims just go about doing their thing and don't give a shit what other people think, and certainly don't advocate killing non-believers. And the ones who do, it's not because they're Muslim: it's because the U.S. installed or supported religious dictatorial leaders. What do you think are the three most batshit crazy Islamic countries? I bet the U.S. created or supported the creation of their non-democratic power structure. Am I right? Lack of democracy is the difference, not the text of the religion. Give Muslims democracy and they'll chill out because democracy is better than any religion.
You offered to clarify though. You said you agree with everything else Dooley said besides those two statements, right? So, can you clarify that you:
support "total war" against all Muslims and the reduction of the religion of Islam to "cult status"?
think the U.S. is OK to go ahead and do this?
consider Muslims to be the "enemy of the West"?
assert the Geneva Convention is no barrier to militarily targeting non-combatant Muslims abroad (which currently is all of them)? How about American Muslims? Can they be targeted militarily as well?
claim there is no such thing as moderate Islam?
believe there are 140 million Muslims who hate "everything you stand for"? Really? Everything?
believe the Crusades were justified? Even the ones waged against other Christians?
Backpedalling in 3, 2, 1...

I made my point in my first comment. I explained my point to you - as you needed it explaining- in my second. You are an idiot. I will not respond again.

>> ^messenger:

You're putting words in the commentators' mouths by assuming the answer to your opening question. These two would not characterise Islam moderate, and they suggested nothing of the kind. That's equivalent to me just assuming that you support the actions of Anders Brevik because you're afraid of a European takeover of Islam. Fair?
And FWIW, everything you said about Islam and the Quran also holds true for Christianity and the Bible (except of course for the etymology). For example, the Bible is very clear on the mandate to spread Christianity -- where do you think Islam got the idea? These commentators are derisory of the material taught in this course, derisory of the same things you just said were "extreme" and "ridiculous", so I'm not sure what point you're making except that you're a wee bit xenophobic.>> ^A10anis:
So, how would these two guys characterize the islamic faith? Would they say islam is benign and wants to co-exist peacefully with the west, allowing freedom from religious intrusion, equality for woman, gays, and those of other faiths? The evidence shows the opposite. The very word islam means submission, it is not just a faith, it is a theocracy and dictates every facet of daily life. Dooley's first comment about Hiroshima was extreme, and the FBI comment about Obama being influenced by islamic extremists was ridiculous. But the quran -despite people claiming it is taken "out of context"- is very clear on the propagation of islam. The quran must be followed by every muslim and In 50 years- it has been predicted- muslims in europe will have the balance of voting power. If that happens the commentators, who are so derisory today, will be able to see just how "moderate" islam will be.


I suggest you read my comment again, slowly. Far from putting words in their mouths, I pose the legitimate question; "how would they characterize islam?" Please observe the question mark which, funnily enough, denotes a question NOT a statement. However, they certainly DID suggest what their answer would be. My inference is based upon their demeanor of derision and incredulity at anything said by Dooley, and the fact that they openly condemn him as a war monger. The two comments that I said were "extreme" and "ridiculous," were just that. The other comments made by Dooley were legitimate. Your Brevik comment is absurd and, as such, is not worth commenting on. As for you comparing islam with christianity? What are you talking about? I am an atheist and deride ALL myths. However, in defence of Christianity; When was the last Christian suicide bomber? When was the last time Christians flew planes into buildings? When was the last time a Christian stoned a woman to death or carried out an "honour" killing, or hung gays from a crane? When was the last time a christian beheaded a non-believer, etc, etc? Comparing the two is ignorant and intellectual laziness. If by xenophobic you mean I am afraid of those who wish to radically change our lives and drag us back to the bronze age, then yes, I am very afraid. Islam is an insidious threat, one we ignore at our peril. Finally, If you wish clarification on any other points that you don't understand, I will happily explain them.