This World Survey is firmly grounded in this tradition. Why the…

Regarding the large numbers of Koreans who were killed, had Truman had that information and had time to consider the ramifications of that he may have been forced to delay any action. Additionally, thousands of US POWs were present in both cities as they had been moved there to supplement the forced labor. They missed the brunt of the explosion but some were sacrificed as well. Had Truman had that information as well I’m certain he would have reconsidered. There were lots of things he didn’t consider because of his haste to beat the Soviets to the punch. But, we cannot displace the responsibility for the atomic bomb onto the US no matter how atrocious it might seem. The responsibility is squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese leadership. They knew what was coming and chose to continue anyway. After one bomb they still didn’t give in. To focus on this issue from any other perspective is to soften the lesson that Japan had to learn for them to cast off their expansionist mindset. Their post-war experience in finding a necessity for reform had to include a powerful reminder to them of what they had done to the rest of Asia. That was the US Navy’s argument, and a valid one. Remember, the Army was the main advocate against the use of the bomb but they hadn’t been operating in Asia and hadn’t seen what the Japanese war machine had done throughout the continent. The Navy had. And, the Navy’s leadership felt that they only way to force the Japanese people to willingly cast off their devotion to the military was to show them what their military had been doing to the rest of Asia. It’s a tough load to sell, I know, but it worked, and regardless of what we hear out of the right wing in Japan and some in Asia who don’t feel Japan has paid enough, I think the majority of Japanese have been permanently reformed because they have that reminder of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a reflection of what their country did in Asia.

stevekim
” You know out of a sense of something called basic human decency. Pay compensation/make other conciliatory gestures and such. Instead Aso is a right-winger that makes statements about how Koreans changed their names voluntarily to Japanese ones in the 1930s … I think the dude is morally bankrupt but perhaps the moral standards to which I hold my fellow human beings is too high. ”
I for one do not like this guy,Aso.
I agree on this point if by “moraly obligation ” here you mean “morally recommened”.

Personally, I don’t hold the Japanese people of today collectively accountable for what happened in the 1930s and 1940s. As is usually the case, individuals will have to answer to their maker for their actions in the next world … I believe Koreans need to get over their collective greivances against the Japanese people/nation (which I believe they will eventually … since these things can take time even in “rational West.” If you don’t believe me, try making a toast to William Tecumseh Shearman next time you are in a drinking hole somewhere in the old Confederacy.)

On the other hand, I do sympathize with individual Koreans who have tried and failed in the Japanese courts to hold the Japanese government/specific corporations accountable for their individual suffering. I think they might have a claim against POSCO as well but that’s a whole ‘nother topic …

As for Aso, I don’t think he deserves condemnation for what his family’s company did in 1930s and 1940s. BUT IF (i) while my father/uncle was chairman of my family’s company, it had employed forced/slave labor, (ii) I later became chariman of the company and (iii) even a small part of my large net worth was tied to the forced/slave labor, I would proabaly feel some sort of moral obligation to do the right thing (as a few people upthread put it). You know out of a sense of something called basic human decency. Pay compensation/make other conciliatory gestures and such. Instead Aso is a right-winger that makes statements about how Koreans changed their names voluntarily to Japanese ones in the 1930s … I think the dude is morally bankrupt but perhaps the moral standards to which I hold my fellow human beings is too high.

I couldn’t find it in the comments. Whoever said it, regardless of their other points, spoke out of line.

Regarding Truman’s diary it would seem he was the one who made the mistake, not the Navy. Truman’s last entry on the 17th of July emphasizes that fact. But the mistake was in telling Stalin anything, not in using the bomb. He thought he could beat Stalin’s timeline for entering the war and Truman miscalculated egregiously. The radio transmissions the Navy leaders were concerned about regarded top Japanese military commanders who were trying to force a wedge between the USSR and the US and thought if they could hold out long enough they could force an incident between the two and thus give themselves time to regroup and consolidate. That is what the MAGIC radio summaries project was all about. It was the content of that debate that prompted the Emperor to contact Stalin of his own accord. Tojo clearly indicated to the Japanese Ambassador that unconditional surrender was not an option and that he was waiting to see if the Russians would respond better.

It’s also very telling in the targets he ordered Stimson to go after, specifically steering him away from major residential cities towards war-industrial heavy cities where the populace would have known exactly what their industrial products were being used for. As for any Koreans being present, I doubt that entered into the discussion or if such a notion even occurred to the US decision-makers.