Robert Scheer: Hating America and Abusing History

Originally Posted at The Festering Swamp on August 20, 2007

This entry concerns a long-time historical pet peeve of mine: the misrepresentation of why the United States used atomic weaponry against Japan near the end of World War II. – Mike LaRoche

On Thursday, August 9, 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle published this column by Robert "Romeo" Scheer, entitled "U.S. has used the ultimate weapon of terror – A-bombs on Japan." Scheer begins:

"During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this week is also the 62nd anniversary of U.S. attacks that deliberately took the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

As if his shopworn moral equivalency argument isn't clear enough, Scheer adds:

"Like most of the others killed by the two American bombs, neither the children nor the adults had any role in Japan's decision to go to war, but they were picked as the target instead of an isolated but fortified military base whose anti-aircraft fire posed a higher risk. The target preferred by U.S. atomic scientists - a patch in the ocean or unpopulated terrain - was rejected, because the effect of hundreds of thousands of civilians dying would be all the more dramatic.

The victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were available soft targets, much like the children playing in Iraq, suddenly caught in the crossfire of battles waged beyond their control."

Just as Scheer likes to place the free, democratic United States at the same moral level as intolerant, hateful Islamic fanatics who justify mass murder in the name of their faith, Scheer also sees fit to compare our country with the former Empire of Japan, a country that by the 1930s had devolved into a racist, militaristic regime bent on subjecting all of East Asia to its rule.

To get an idea of just how miserable life was for the allegedly "liberated" Asians under Imperial Japanese rule, read The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang, The Comfort Women by George L. Hicks, or A Plague Upon Humanity by Daniel Barenblatt. Such atrocities were what the United States was trying to bring to an end.

Unfortunately, far too many academic historians share Scheer's mindset. In the mid-1990s, the Smithsonian Institution became the battleground of a controversy between academic historians on one side and veterans organizations (like the Air Force Association and the American Legion), members of Congress, and various World War II veterans from around the country on the other. At issue was a proposed exhibit of the Enola Gay (the B-29 Superfortress used to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima) at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Many will remember this ridiculous, ahistorical statement from the proposed exhibit's script: "For most Americans it [World War II] was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism."

Starting unprovoked wars and committing mass genocide is a hell of a way to defend one's "unique culture against Western imperialism."

The "racist atomic bombing of Japan" meme has become so prevalent across the country that every semester I am compelled to carefully point out the following dates to my students:

May 7, 1945 - German unconditional surrender.

July 16, 1945 - Atomic bomb successfully tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

August 6, 1945 - Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

August 8, 1945 - Soviets declare war on Japan.

August 9, 1945 - Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

August 14, 1945 - Japanese surrender.

The basic point is this: the atom bomb was not used against Nazi Germany because it was not completed before Germany's surrender. In the race to construct atomic weapons, our main competitor was Germany, not Japan. The decision to use atom bombs against Japan was done primarily to avoid a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands – an invasion that ultimately might have cost up to 300,000 American lives.

Even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, surrender was not a foregone conclusion. Many in the Japanese high command wanted to fight on until the bitter end. The military resources were in place. In the preceding weeks, most experienced units from Japan's Kwantung Army in Manchuria had been reassigned to other theaters; including the home islands in preparation for an American invasion (the absence of these units explains the swift success of the USSR in conquering Manchuria after they entered the war against Japan).

In his latest work - In the Ruins of Empire – renowned World War II historian Ronald H. Spector illustrates just how surprising Japan's decision to surrender (first communicated on August 10, 1945) actually was:

"No one expected the war to end when it did. Even after the two atomic bombs and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war on August 9, the Japanese, though doomed, were expected to fight on for some considerable time. Suddenly, on August 10, the Domei News Agency broadcast a statement by the Japanese Foreign Ministry that Japan was ready to accept the surrender terms presented by the Allies in the so- called Potsdam Declaration on July 26, "provided that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler."

The announcement surprised even top officials in Washington. "When the Japanese surrendered it caught the whole goddamn administrative machinery with their pants down," recalled a colonel in the Army high command. At the time the official notification was received via neutral embassies, Secretary of War Henry Stimson was about to leave on vacation, and the army and navy were opening another round in their continuing squabble about command arrangements for the impending invasion of Japan. . .

American soldiers, many of whom had already been through hell in the European theater, hoped their leaders would accept Japan's surrender, even though the agreement would require the Allies to allow Emperor Hirohito to retain his throne:

One of those slated for that invasion, Marine sergeant David F. Earle, a veteran of the campaigns on Guam and Okinawa, listened with his tentmates to the radio. "Our station," he told his parents, "which secures at 2200, was back on the air with Japan's unconfirmed peace offer. It seemed almost too good to be true, beyond all realization. . . . Men shook hands, embraced and beer was drug out. Each time the commentor announced the same commentary, even though the men had heard the same thing over and over there was complete silence, as if we weren't able to hear it often enough. This morning the announcement was confirmed and now it's either accepted or not. To those who don't want to accept the terms because of the Emperor—I haven't got words in my vocabulary to fit my contempt and scorn for their attitude. I know damn well that twenty-eight months out here would change their minds but fast. Anyway, we in my tent have already accepted the surrender and if the country hasn't we've decided to sue for a separate peace."

Japan's proposal – prompted in large part by the two atomic bombings – was accepted, and in the end hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of American and Japanese lives were saved. But don't bother arguing that point to a simpleton like Scheer.