"The EU also criticized what it called Israel's disproportionate use of force..."
Question: Was four years of war, followed by eight years of occupation of Japan and the destruction of Japan's native religion (by compelling the Emperor to go on the radio and tell the Japanese that he wasn't divine) a proportionate response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Over 3,000 people were killed at Pearl Harbor. Wouldn't the bombing of a Japanese port, the sinking of some Japanese ships and the destruction of Japanese planes, resulting in the deaths of a few thousand Japanese, have been the only proportionate response? And so wasn't the Pacific theater of World War II a wildly disproportionate response on the part of the Allies?
Also, have you ever noticed that the only state in the world that is ever guilty of a disproportionate response to violent attacks from its enemies is Israel?
A proportionate response is for losers.
The way to win is to make it too costly for the enemy to continue...
Hamas, the PA, and Islam in general, have let their attitudes and beliefs be known...The destruction of Israel is in their National Charters. They have no intention of waging peace...Allah has not willed it...and he probably won't...
I think the Arabs are going to be -- are, in fact -- surprised and disappointed, not by the usual vaporings from the U.N. or the E.U. or the Great Men of the Age, but with the realization that among the Infidels, there is not great unhappiness, there is actually considerable satisfaction, and a new-found identification, especially in Western Europe, with the besieged and put-upon Israelis. As for the usual hideous coverage by the BBC and its handmaiden The Guardian, I detect an entirely new tone, and one which can be seen, for example, in the comments made to an article in The Guardian by Husein Naqvi, not about Gaza or Israel, but about why the West should lavish still more aid on Pakistan in order to help that country "fight terrorism."
Ras le bol. Up to here. It's happening. Infidels have just had too much, and they are not about to start beating up on Israel as they might once have done so, before they realized quite how threatened they are by Islam.
It's in the air.
Israel, having endured thousands of rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza, and having watched as every kind of weapon pours into Gaza as plans are methodically laid by Hamas (with Iran, curiously, willing to extend to Sunni Muslims as to the Shi'a of Hezbollah on the northern front) for the future attacks on Israeli men, women, children.
My, what a surprise, what a shock, that Israel was unwilling to sit still for still more rockets, and a still greater buildup of enemy forces.
No, when faced with a mortal threat countries do what they have to in order to survive.
Let's remember what the Allies did to survive, during World War II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPgy4mZrYd4&feature=channel
And what is sauce for the mighty Allies, in the greatest alliance in the history of warfare, is certainly sauce for tiny, permanently imperilled Israel, that cannot afford to lose a single major battle, and if it ever loses a war, it will cease to exist.
Never forget, that when your fighting evil you will always be condemmed. These days it seems as though evil has a pass to do whatever it wants free of any condemnation. Our troops (US) were held to the same standards of 'proporationate response' as is Israel when fighting in Iraq. As the bible says 'In the latter days good will be called evil and evil will be called good'.
God Bless Israel and we pray that our muslim president elect, B. Hussein Obama, will continue our support for Israel. Should B. Hussein Obama stop the US support of Israel and turn to support islamic evil we will be in big big trouble.
This current conflict is a clash of civilizations and faiths. Isaac v. Ishmael is in another round, and the round count is lost or forgotten.
The children of Ishmael may not be aware of what's really going on, but the one who lost the inheritance has been fighting to regain it by force at the behest of the god of this world.
katy13
It may not happen on B. Hussein's watch but Israel will be betrayed by all who call her a friend. She will find herself alone in the world and then we will see the closing of this age in all its misery and glory.
A man of god once told me, we may of those who welcome all, but we are not a welcome mat.
The UN should think about wiping their collective feet on those with the most mud. But that won't happen. They are in the pocket of Lucifer.
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — Saudi King Abdullah told US President George W. Bush by telephone on Saturday that major countries must take action to halt Israel's attacks on Gaza, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
Any predictions?
Israel cannot be destroyed. The true followers of the God of Abraham and His Messiah will see its enemies destroyed when all is said and done.
However there will be a short lived time of more misery (Israel has known this since the name was given) during the time of Jacobs trouble. But in the end we win and prevail. Let this be a source of hope and encouragement for those that will remain and find the truth when it counts the most.
God bless Israel.
a proportionate response would be to match the terror of randomness and just let Israeli militia lob rockets into Gaza and see where they might land.
The UN council will convene in a few minutes but that will not stop the operation.
Israeli politicians seem determined not to make the mistakes of Lebanon therefore they won't yield to outside pressure and the operation will continue until it's completed.
This time they'll probably include the kidnapped soldier into their conditions to stop the attack on Hamas.
These are my predictions.
I just saw some "Year in Review" footage of the Mumbai slaughter, and people seemed to be mainly in shock - I did not see one clip of someone crying or throwing their arms into the air in dispair.
Compare that to the scripted Pity Party from Gaza. Am I the only one to notice that the Arab Muslims are WAY over the top with their wailing and public displays of "grief" whenever some of theirs are killed? Why is it that these "lovers of death" are so cinematic when death finally reaches them? They are the world's worst actors....
If the Arabs put down their swords, the war would end.
If Israel put down it's swords, Israel would end.
kelbi yahud
Truth is to some sweet, and to others sour.
As we speak it, it is up to those who want it to taste it for what it is.
May the Eternal One bless you for speaking truth.
The pain of the punishment must always exceed the pleasure of the offense or there will be no improvement in behavior.
Seems we pick out our useless ones and put them up on pedestals and call them Statesmen. Proportionate response indeed. One fights a war to win, or not fight at all. Israel, just plug your ears to the predictable squealing and squawking and let your armed forces go about their job.
There is a logical and moral disconnect in the whole foggy concept of "proportionate response." If the "palestinians" (whatever they are) had responded proportionately to what Israel was doing before, there would have been no response because Israel wasn't doing anything. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem logical that if antagonists were to limit their actions to some "proportionate" scale, that the net effect would be to draw out the length of any engagement? As duh_swami pointed out in the original comment, "The way to win is to make it too costly for the enemy to continue..." and this is especially important and difficult when the enemy is convinced that dying in combat with Israel assures paradise and 72 virgins (two conditions that seem to be mutually exclusive, but oh well). A proportionate response seems like a sure way to maintain the status quo, which is random rocket attacks against Israel and an on-going and justified blockade against Gaza.
The EU is never happy. When you get right down to it, the whole disproportion retoric could be viewed as a call for the Muslims to even up the score. Does the EU really expect Israel to drop lasar guided bombs on empty fields as a way of respone? Hardly. Notice how the news Parrots hamas shaming their arab brethren for not comming to their aid.
Is there really any compelling reaon why the sunni's should consern themselves with the fate of Iranian proxies? With the EU running cover, how can they lose? So it is all up to the Iranians. A Country most major members of the EU do business with to even up the score. Might even involve UNFIL if all works out.
There will be fire. There will be explosions. People will be shot. People will be blown up; and some of them will be women, children, and old people. Of course, one must remember all those hideous video clips, samples of the 'Palestinian' Arab Muslim propaganda, that MEMRI and Itamar Marcus have brought to light: and remember therefore, clear-headedly and cold-heartedly, that in Gaza only the children under four (too young to have yet fully absorbed Hamas' hate-filled agitprop - remember the little girl in 'Fitna', dutifully parroting her Muslim catechism, her lesson in traditional Muslim antisemitism?) and the few remaining Christians might reasonably be described as 'innocents'.
But I am going to step back and draw attention to one simple fact.
Which would one rather be? - a local Arab female in a district invaded by Israeli Jewish soldiers, or a Jewish female IDF soldier captured by Arab Muslim jihadists?
Because a Jewish girl captured by jihadists will most certainly be gang-raped, then mutilated, tortured in all manner of inventively horrid ways, and finally, most likely, when they tire of their sadistic fun, torn to pieces by a lynch mob, or slaughtered halal style, or beheaded.
Whereas an Arab Muslim girl captured by the IDF will be treated with basic humanity, as a POW; unless they suspect her of being wired up as a human bomb, in which case she will get a clean, swift death (suspected suicide bombers get a bullet to the head, for fear of dead man switches, but also because if you hit their body, you may set off their bomb).
That fact alone - that an Arab Muslim girl, unless wired as a bomb, has little to fear from Jewish soldiers, but that a Jewish girl would be better off committing suicide than being captured alive by jihadists - tells me which side of this war is to be supported.
"...why the West should lavish still more aid on Pakistan in order to help that country "fight terrorism." - from Hugh's post
The opposing view is that Pakistan should be considered a State Sponsor of Terror, as it clearly is by the State Department's definition, and all military aid should cease. This would not be an unpopular event in the eyes of Pakistani's who would love to see ties to the West severed, despite the labeling.
This is about the way it is:
http://kenlydell.typepad.com/islamic_evil/images/box.jpg
A summing-up from a piece by Nidra Poller:
"A Metulla News Agency (www.menapress.com for those who read French) release reports that 50 targets were hit simultaneously in the first wave of bombing, scoring 97% of direct hits in the space of 3 minutes. 50 additional targets were hit in the second wave. Most of the command posts, military bases, arms factories, and arsenals were damaged or destroyed. Tunnel personnel came scurrying out of their underground enterprises near the Egyptian border as the bombings shook the earth. Noting that Hamas spokesman Fawzi Baroum gave shooting orders—over the radio-- to rocket launchers near the Israeli border, the Metulla reporter supposes that the military communications network was destroyed. An airstrike against a building where Hamas military and political personnel had just gathered for an emergency meeting indicates, according to the same source, information gathered from human intelligence on the ground. The Metulla News Agency release concludes that Hamas, caught by surprise by “the timing, the scope, and the precision of the attack,” is desperately searching for some civilian victims to display as proof of an Israeli massacre."
Fabulous posts in response to this piece. Thanks to you all, and I concur wholeheartedly! Let us hope that the West is truly getting sick of this nonsense!
I, too, like Hugh Fitzgerald, have noted more of a balanced, objective reportage of Israel's necessary (and long overdue) retaliatory strikes in Gaza. CNN and non-cable stations are finally providing viewers with context, and with more air time allotted to interviews with Israeli leaders; this is encouraging. I wonder, however, if Israel actually has a grand strategy here. The correct thing, in my opinion, for Israel now is to adopt a policy of utter ruthlessness toward Gaza, with continued bombing coupled with withholding of food, medicine, electricity, fuel, etc. The ultimate goal, which Israel should pursue unwaveringly, should be unconditional surrender, with the Hamas government unseated. Its leaders should be tried in Israel by a military tribunal for crimes against humanity, and executed. Gaza should be retaken, and incorporated into Israel, once and for all; the inhabitants of Gaza, for the most part, should be resettled elsewhere in dar al-Islam, most obviously Jordan, or to any other country in Islamdom that is willing to take them. But expulsion is what they deserve, and their unending hostility and genocidal inclinations toward Jews makes it incumbent upon Israel, in order to protect its citizenry, to uproot them. It was suggested by Hugh, I believe, not long ago that the so-called West Bank be opened up to other groups besieged by jihad, such as Maronite Christians, while most of its resident Arab Muslims, ever a danger to Israel, be expelled and resettled in Muslim lands. The same strategy may be applied to a newly safe-for-Jews-and-other-infidels Gaza, now wholly and permanently under Israeli dominion. Maronites, Farsi, Copts (all, of course, must be vetted to ensure they are not in fact hostile to Jews) might be offered a refuge in Gaza, in order that it flourish as a multi-national, pluralistic oasis in a sea of Islamic hatred and backwardness. This would, of course, be viewed by Muslims as yet another nakhba (catastrophe). It would cause fury, indignation, and feelings of humiliation among True Believers as yet another piece of real estate in the heart, the very heart, of dar al-Islam falls to the Infidels. And that, of course, would be all to the good.
And another thing. It it time for the Israeli government, finally, to announce to those in Gaza whose now cry, shriek, mourn, and vow revenge against those killed in Israeli airstrikes that they have no basis whatsoever for such bitterness, such sorrow, for, after all, the Israelis are merely giving these soldiers of Allah - those who, in their own words, love death - exactly what they want. They who kill and are killed fighting for Allah are being offered martyrdom, and an instant ticket to Paradise, according to Koran and Hadith. To complain is to be hypocritical. And hypocrites are the recipients of Allah's wrath.
So rockets from Gaza into Israel isn't disproportionate.
Alright, so let's arm the civilians in Sderot and elsewhere in Southern Israel so everytime Hamas fires a rocket, Israeli civilians fire back ten.
All I can say is that wherever the world criticises Israel's actions as being "disproportionate", this is really a lot of hogwash and it actually means that Israel is starting to do something right.
I LOVE ISRAEL and I am proud of this. Furthermore, I'm not Jewish which makes me love the country even more!!!!!!!!
God bless Israel now and for all time.
I am reading WT Shermans memoirs, Sherman was the Union general who coined the phrase, "war is hell".
During his campaign he was criticized for many things, among those things was sending the civil population away from atlanta, in his memoirs he gives his reasonings that his army would be weakened by undertaking police actions, and that the rebels had availed themselves of the support of the civilian population and if war was to end the civilian population would have to want it to end.
I do not think the palestinian arabs want peace.
If a "proportionate response" is what they are after, then Israel has a lot of catching up to do. Go Israel! Give 'em hell!
You said it champ ;-)
Why oh why is it that whenever Israel retaliates after She has been attacked ("always" after a truce whenever the Muslims have regained their strength) it's always Israel that is painted in a bad light?
We never see footage of the Jewish casualties - it's always the Palestinian children and the whailing banshee woman.
And to think, there are some muppets out there who believe the media is controlled by the Jews.
Right.....
The rank of European Union in the world is disproportionate : it is overproportionate.
We have had enough of the vanity of her academics, professors and permanent lessons of her failed politicians.
European Union is the north copy of the south arab terrorist league, and terrorist Islamic Conference Organization.
Unfortunately, like in summer 2006, israeli action is an underproportionate retaliation to murders and murderers.
Simon Néhmé, France.
Namaste my fellow Jihad Watch readers. I have been browsing this site for a good month now and it is heartening to see that I am not alone in my views regarding Islam, Muslims and dirty Saudis. I have always hated the Saudis. I blame them for fuelling this jihad all over the world. We in India have been suffering for far too long now. It is because of our spineless politicians and media which are Muslim friendly and go to any lengths to try and appease the friendly community. I just wish India could have adopted a more masculine approach to the problem of Islamic terror. What have we done in response to the Mumbai attacks? Absolutely NOTHING. Our pathetic spineless government will keep 'requesting' Pakistan to act against these terrorists and Pakistan will not do a thing. Our people will quickly forget and life will move on till the next terror attack, which is now almost certain to take place. I just wish that we had moved all the Muslims out of India during partition and banned the constructon of mosques, madrassas or any of those criminal organizations. It would have been easier for us to finish them off, if you know what I mean.
Israels response is not disproportionate. They are simply trying to protect their own citizens.Hasn't Hamas already made it clear that they wanted to destroy Israel? So, the Muslims want Israel not to retaliate for these rocket attacks. Retaliating against Muslims is now a war-crime. What about Muslim jihadi groups killing innocents in India? Why don't Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia condemm these attacks? Besides, since the Palestinian people elected Hamas they should have to pay the price for their support. Israel and India are very unlucky to have such treacherous ungrateful dog-like neighbors.
What we need to break is the Hamas will to fight.
A good step in that direction would be getting EU to stop its support of Gaza. We provide significant material support ('humanitarian'), which frees up resources that Hamas uses for terrorism. Stopping this help would trigger a wave of desperation and topple the Hamas regime.
We can end the conflict - if we have the guts.
The EU hss disapproportionate support islamist terrorists against Israel. l say to the EU you need to support Israel much more!
As I am not sure that my previous comments went through I will write them again.
I think the muslims are the world most deceitful, dangerous bastards there is. I live in France and I see how they are becoming more and more numerous and I really feel threatened by them. It is high time we, in Europe, take action and stop them from furthering their heinous, hateful and criminal agenda.
I hope those who defend them and their actions will one day suffer from what they condone so that they will open their eyes to the cruelty, bloodthirsty and sexist ways of Islam. It is the most barbaric, backward and sexist religion there is.
I fully support Israel and Israelis and their right to defend themselves against such monsters.
Long live to Israel and the jews.
As I am not sure that my previous comments went through I will write them again.
I think the muslims are the world most deceitful, dangerous bastards there is. I live in France and I see how they are becoming more and more numerous and I really feel threatened by them. It is high time we, in Europe, take action and stop them from furthering their heinous, hateful and criminal agenda.
I hope those who defend them and their actions will one day suffer from what they condone so that they will open their eyes to the cruelty, bloodthirsty and sexist ways of Islam. It is the most barbaric, backward and sexist religion there is.
I fully support Israel and Israelis and their right to defend themselves against such monsters.
Long live to Israel and the jews.
THE MOST DISPROPORTIONATE PART IS MISSING
Was the use of two nuclear weapons against Japanese cities of no military importance proportionate?
Especially when Japan for more than a year had offered peace on one small condition, the Emperor could not be tried for war crimes.
You may say, that president Roosevelt, in order to calm down Stalin who feared a separate peace with Germany, had defined the goal of war to be the unconditional surrender of the enemy.
But Russia was not in war with Japan when the nuclear weapons were sropped; the US could not be bound by the promise to Stalin.
So US brought WW2 to an end by committing not only a war crime but also a crime against humanity.
A very sad but true story.
Israel on the other hand is acting with restraint and precision like any civilized state should do.
Is the US using proportionate response against the Taleban? That would mean using a limites number of AK47s and mortars.
Christopher wrote: I just wish that we had moved all the Muslims out of India during partition and banned the constructon of mosques, madrassas..
Partition was a heaven sent, once in a thousand year opportunity, for India to be rid of its Muslims. If the sensible and humane decision had been made, that Muslims were to leave for Pakistan, and Hindus to leave for India, then it is quite likely that Muslims in the Pakistani side of the border would not have started the massacres of Hindus to make them leave, as Hindus were leaving dar al islam. Thus the massacres of Hindus and Sikhs by Muslims, and the reprisals by Sikhs and Hindus on Muslims, could have been avoided, or at the least, minimised. We see yet again, that not taking the hard decisions at the opportune time leaves to real difficult times later.
In India, the fault lies with Gandhi and Nehru. Both of them were more concerned about their future saintliness rather then the future of Hindus and non-Muslims. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of people on the sub-continent have died, and will continue to be massacred in the future - all as sacrificial lambs on the altar of Gandhi's sainthood.
We also had a once in a thousand year opportunity to be rid of Muslims in the West. That window was open for a few weeks after 9/11. Many Muslims even expected that such would be the case, and were planning to leave. We failed to take that opportunity, and as India, will now continue to pay the price - Madrid, London etc.
You can not win a war with a proportinate response, you win by using overwelming firepower. There are exceptions to this, usully when a smaller force if fighting a larger one, but in general if you want to win you flatten everone who takes a shot at you. Once the first shot is fired, you destroy evryone who even points a weapon in your direction.
Proportionate response doesn't work in war, and anyone who thinks this is not a war has been drinking the kool aid.
क्रिस्टोफर,
जिहाद पर अपने विचार और मुंबई हमलों के लिए धन्यवाद.
तुम्हारा सच,
एक प्लेग दोनों सदनों पर
The most recent example that we have where we actually won a war and established victory, is WWII.
During WWII, we totally convinced the enemy and the children of the enemy that they didn't ever want to fight us again. That worked and I doubt that nothing short of that WILL work.
"Also, have you ever noticed that the only state in the world that is ever guilty of a disproportionate response to violent attacks from its enemies is Israel?"
-by Robert
Not true. The US GWOT has been labeled a "disproportionate response" almost from the beginning. We were told we should have acted more like the British did in response to the IRA. Granted this wasn't a unanimous reaction, at least not publicly, when we went into Afghanistan but it was there from the start and it has appeared more frequently in print in the last few years.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=18
The various key developments that have occurred in the Middle East since the turn of the millennium have only strengthened Hizballah and enhanced its reputation among sympathizers as a leading actor in the fight against Israel, the United States, and other enemies of Islam.
But we, as well as the Israelis, have to worry about not being seen as bullies.
"Proportionate response" leaves us in the position of reacting to whatever the enemy chooses to do. They can start the war but we are not allowed to finish it.
Spot on: "During WWII, we totally convinced the enemy and the children of the enemy that they didn't ever want to fight us again. That worked and I doubt that nothing short of that WILL work."
Yes indeed! Flattening cities with nuclear weapons are quite convincing and can take the fighting spirit out of anybody. Even Kamikazes and jihadists loose faith. ;-)
"Was the use of two nuclear weapons against Japanese cities of no military importance proportionate?"
Posted by: Ipso Facto
Let's just say that the use of A-bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was no more dis-proportionate, and produced no more casualties, than the fire-bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo.
I have always believed that the WW2 policy of "strategic bombing" was a mistake because:
(1) it was morally wrong, and contrary to international agreements, to attack civilian populations; (2) it didn't do a whole lot of good -- German war production increased each year of the war, right thru 1944; and (3) it used resources that could have been better employed otherwise -- aircraft were badly needed in the campaign against the U-boats, and in the role of close-support for the ground forces.
But since both sides in the war had accepted targetting civilian populations -- and the Axis committed far worse atrocities against civilians than the Allies (at least the Anglo-Americans) ever did -- then the use of A-weapons was legitimate.
Their use brought a prompt end to the war, by convincing the Japanese that we could now do with a single plane what previously had taken hundreds of planes. We had to use two to convince them that Hiroshima was not a one-off, that we could do it on a regular basis. In this we were running a bluff, we had only two more available before 1946. Fortunately, the bluff worked.
In the final result, their use saved many more lives, both Japanese and Allied, than it cost, because it eliminated the need for an invasion of Japan. The U.S. Army expected such massive casualties from the planned Kyushu and Honshu invasions that it ordered so many Purple Hearts that, 60+ years and two major conflicts later, we still haven't used up the supply.
As the novelist Paul Fussell said: "Thank God for the atomic bomb"; his unit was one scheduled for the Kyuushu landings in the Fall of 1945.
Not convincing arguments from ebonystone!
The international laws of war formulated and agreed upon by the Western civilization states as early as 1907 (Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, in
Art. 23.
In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -
To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;
To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war; …
The nuclear weapon is equivalent to a poisoned weapon because of the radiation. People are still dying in Japan because of radioactive poison.
Bombing of the two cities without any military value were clearly not demanded by the necessities of war and the use of those new weapons did indeed cause unnecessary suffering.
You refer to a lesser war crime commit against German cities causing the same amount of causalities by means of conventional bombs dropped from 2,000 planes as one A-weapon.
But in both cases a terror strategy is applied partly as retaliation for German terror bombing of English cities in 1940.
The moral problem is, that if we are using the same unlawful methods as the enemy, then we are not better than him and we loose the moral justification and superiority. If you fight a barbarian with barbarian means you become yourself a barbarian.
If Japan had not tried to obtain peace for more than a year and instead declared that it would fight to the last man with an estimated loss of life on both sides expected to be between 500.000 to one million, then I would not call the use of the A-weapon a crime against humanity - just a war crime. The moral justification could be made when applying the utilitarian moral principle.
But you fail to understand, that US could have achieved peace with Japan in 1944 only by declaring that the war goal of the unconditional surrender of the enemy did not apply to Japan. Easily done, as Soviet Union was not in war with Japan.
The details are as follows:
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a criminal act on an epic scale. It was premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. For this reason its apologists have sought refuge in the mythology of the ultimate "good war", whose "ethical bath", as Richard Drayton called it, has allowed the west not only to expiate its bloody imperial past but to promote 60 years of rapacious war, always beneath the shadow of The Bomb.
The most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives. "Even without the atomic bombing attacks," concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, "air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that ... Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
The National Archives in Washington contain US government documents that chart Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US dispels any doubt that the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including "capitulation even if the terms were hard". Instead, the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was "fearful" that the US air force would have Japan so "bombed out" that the new weapon would not be able "to show its strength". He later admitted "no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb". His foreign policy colleagues were eager "to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip". General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: "There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis." The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his satisfaction with the "overwhelming success" of "the experiment".
No one being objective and examining the evidence could be in the least doubt: The bombing of two Japanese cities in August 1945 was a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Sad but true!
Ipso Facto, there was nothing about the atomic bombings that was any more criminal than the conventual aerial bombardments. Dresden was not a vital military target either, but we fire-bombed it for 4 days straight, and produced more casualties than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Adherence to agreements about not attacking civilian targets had already gone by the wayside in 1939 in Europe, and by 1937 in Asia.
In the case of Hiroshima, the Japanese were warned two days before the attack, by the dropping of 3/4 million leaflets warning that the city woul be "obliterated". These were ignored.
In my earlier post, you should note that I condemned the whole business of "strategic bombing" as morally wrong -- it brought into some question the Allies' pose as morally superior to the -- as well as a mis-use of scarce resources better employed otherwise.
As far as Japan asking for peace a year earlier, perhaps so, but on what terms? As it was, when the Imperial War Cabinet met two days after Nagasaki, it deadlocked. i.e. half the ministers wanted to continue the war. It was left to the Emperor to decide. Even then, there were important elements that could not accept the emperor's decision. The emperor made a speech accepting surrender, and two recorded copies were made. One was to be broadcast the next day. That night an important element of the Japanese Army planned to storm the imperial palace, seize and destroy the recordings, and "rescue" the emperor from his "captivity" by the peace faction. Only when the commander of the imperial guard told them that his men would resist them did the plotters cancel their plan.
As for the idea that conventional bombing was enough and could have ended the war without invasion, that's mere propaganda from the Air-Power enthusiasts: "Air power will win the war." Massive air and naval bombardments didn't bring a surrender at Iwo Jima or Okinawa, and they wouldn't have for the Japanese mainland, either.