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Oliver Stone: America's brutality started the day we dropped the bomb
In an exclusive interview, award-winning director Oliver Stone speaks to Phillip Adams about his ten-part documentary, The Untold History of the United States. Stone, a recipient of both a Purple Heart and an Academy Award, says America's 'necessary' use of atomic weapons on civilians has become the foundational myth justifying decades of brutality.
Can you imagine a world without the atomic bomb, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the War on Terrorism?
A world where the United States wasn't positioning itself as a 'superpower'?
For filmmaker Oliver Stone, many of these key events and outcomes of the 'American Century' were not only highly avoidable, but also served hidden purposes—dividing and conquering an otherwise peaceable world order.
And many of them boil down to one horrific decision—Truman's executive order to drop atomic weapons on Japan in 1945.
'The founding myth for my lifetime is really the atomic bomb,' Stone told RN's Late Night Live. '[The myth] that the bomb was a "good and necessary thing".'
'We have been sold a fairytale masquerading as history, and it's so blinding that it may ultimately undo us.'
There's little mention of any bombs in any Japanese government cabinet meetings before their surrender. In fact, it was only the invasion of Manchuria by Russian forces which made the Japanese afraid. The bomb was just the pretext for surrender, when they were more worried about Russia.Oliver Stone
Stone, and historian Peter Kuznick, have just produced an epic attempt to myth-bust this fairytale—releasing a ten-part documentary series and book called The Untold History of the United States. The project offers an alternative version of the events that drove 20th century geo-politics: one which asks 'What if?' as well as 'Why?'.
According to Stone, who served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, the unthinking American imperialism that grew out of WWII has led us all the way from Vietnam into Afghanistan. None of this, he says, would have been possible without the power vested in the United States through possession of the atomic bomb.
Stone believes the decision by President Truman to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki inured the American public to horrific levels of civilian casualties in war, and ultimately paved the way for decades of brutal foreign policy.
In particular, the myth that the two atomic bombs were essential to America's triumph during World War II, a version of events Stone and Kuznick hotly dispute, laid the foundation for the US to take 'on the rest of the whole world'.
'Without the bomb, we [America] couldn't act like this,' he says. 'It's not the character of Dwight Eisenhower, or the character of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan. What it is is the bomb. It's the fact that we have it, we are the indisputable nation, because we have proved that we're willing to blow up anything, to go that final mile, and we've maintained military full-spectrum dominance of the world.'
'If we can get away with this behaviour in Iraq—and no one in our country has any sense of shame or guilt or apology about it, in the same way we have no shame or guilt or apology about Vietnam—it's only because of the bomb.'
'Might makes right, and at the end of the day you get very arrogant when you have might on your side.'
Stone and Kuznick's documentary series begins in the early part of the 20th century, when magazine magnate Henry Luce, head of the Time-Life empire, first coined the term the 'American century', predicting that America would dominate the world in every way. But there was an opposing voice who countered Luce, the largely forgotten vice-president of the United States from 1941–1945, Henry Wallace. Wallace thought the 20th century should be the 'Century of the Common Man', and he called for a worldwide people's revolution ending colonialism, ending imperialism, and ending the economic exploitation practised in the tradition of the French, Russian and British empires.
Kuznick, a professor of history at the American University in Washington DC, says that 'Henry Wallace's worldview was radical, progressive and he spoke out for the underdog everywhere.' Wallace denounced America's fascists, describing them, as 'those people who think that Wall Street comes first and their nation second.'
But Wallace didn't enjoy universal popularity. In 1944, and with President Franklin Roosevelt's health failing, conservative Democrats moved to get Wallace off the ticket. Kuznick says 'they staged what they themselves called a coup at the time,' ousting Wallace at the 1944 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
In spite of Wallace's public popularity, and the Gallup poll which showed 65 per cent of potential voters wanted Wallace back on the ticket as vice-president, (only two per cent wanted Harry Truman), the unpopular Truman was nevertheless given the candidacy. Kuznick describes Truman as, 'basically a hack from a political machine in Kansas City'. When Franklin Roosevelt died, catapulting Truman to the presidency on April 12, 1945, Truman admitted to many he wasn't 'big enough' or 'smart enough' to take on the job, Kuznick says.
But Truman was stuck with it and America was stuck with Truman.
Stone and Kuznick argue that had Henry Wallace become president instead of Truman, there would have been no atomic bombing of Japan in 1945. And Kuznick says the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant that the Cold War took a much more 'virulent form' than it otherwise might have.
Indeed, had not the use of atomic weapons in Japan sparked worldwide paranoia about mutually assured nuclear annihilation, the Cold War as we know it may never have happened, Kuznick says. But as Clark Clifford, then President Truman's White House counsel, wrote to Truman in 1947: 'There is considerable political advantage to the Administration in its battle with the Kremlin...In times of crisis, the American citizen tends to back up his President.'
President Truman argued in 1945 and subsequently that using the atomic bomb to target civilian populations was preferable to a land and air war which would have resulted in tens of thousands of American deaths.
But many US generals, including Douglas MacArthur and General Leslie Groves, in charge of the Manhattan Project, believed the invasion of Japan was militarily unnecessary. General Dwight Eisenhower admitted to being very depressed when he learned America was going to drop the atomic bomb because the Japanese were already defeated and he didn't want America to be the first to use such a terrible weapon. It was Eisenhower who later called for the international control of atomic weapons.
Stone said that the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan did not make the Japanese consider surrender, nor did America's continued threats to kill their god, the emperor of Japan. 'There's little mention of any bombs in any Japanese government cabinet meetings before their surrender,' Stone says. 'In fact, it was only the invasion of Manchuria by Russian forces which made the Japanese afraid. The bomb was just the pretext for surrender, when they were more worried about Russia.'
Stone believes that for all the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, airmen and civilians killed in Europe during World War II, the bombing of Japanese cities was 'more intense, and more obscene'. Besides dropping the atomic bombs, the United States firebombed 100 Japanese cities with incendiary bombs, which carried napalm and white phosphorus, and the impact on these mostly paper cities, made of bamboo and wood, was 'catastrophic'.
From the end of WWII, the American military establishment and arms industry grew like Topsy, particularly after Dwight Eisenhower took over from Truman in the early 50s, Stone says. Nevertheless, on leaving the office of president in 1962, Eisenhower acknowledged the need for military development, but at the same time sent a warning that subsequent governments and the American people must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence and power by the military industrial complex. Indeed, in his farewell address as president, televised nationally, Eisenhower tried to warn the American public that 'the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.'
Kuznick notes that in spite of this warning to others, the military industrial complex grew to immense proportions under Eisenhower's watch. He says Eisenhower was 'initially quite progressive, but by the time he becomes president and takes office in 1953, he's become like many Americans, much more of a hardline Cold War warrior. And it's under an Eisenhower presidency that the military industrial complex really takes shape. When Eisenhower took office, the United States had approximately 1,000 nuclear weapons. By the time he leaves office [in 1961] we've got 23,000 nuclear weapons, and by the time his budgeting cycle is finished we've got 30,000 nuclear weapons.'
Since Truman and Eisenhower, the constant threat of nuclear warfare has defined global relations, Kuznick says. He thinks that what's needed is 'a new kind of international regime where power is actually shared in order to get through this tough transition, because as a species, we've got serious problems confronting us. You look at the global warming crisis, that's very, very serious.'
Is there hope for change under the Obama administration?
Kuznick and Stone do believe that there is still time in Obama's presidency to start ramping down US imperialism and looking at more collaborative approaches to global governance. But Stone is also suspicious of Obama.
'Although Obama talks beautifully, he's the wolf in sheep's clothing,' Stone says. 'And he is as hard-ball as it comes. Our space weaponry [has] full-spectrum dominance. We have more weaponry in space now and it's going to increase. By 2025 we're going to be really in control of cyberspace.'
'It will be like Stars Wars.'
This interview was originally published on 1/7/13. Find out more at Late Night Live.
Comments (135)
Graham Bell :
02 Jul 2013 6:51:35am
Sorry Philip but when I was a kid I listened to the conversations of Americans who would of taken part in the invasion of the Imperial Japanese home islands .... these were private conversations in the company of fellow battle-hardened soldiers and mariners.
Among themselves, they admitted being afraid of what lay ahead of them at the time and they had serious doubts about the war being all over by 1947 or 1948, despite all the optimistic reports of bombing damage throughout Japan and their own manifest success against the Imperial Japanese in their recent conquests.
In fact, one American admitted believing at the time that the U.S. and its allies could be brought to a stalemate or even lose (he must have been talking about the time when the Soviet Union and the Japanese Empire were still at peace).
They all spoke of their disbelief when reports of a new super-bomb came out and of their astonishment when the Japanese Empire SUDDENLY surrendered.
Wonder how widespread these feeling were .... and how much former artillery Captain, the U.S. President Harry Truman got to hear of what some of his fighting men were saying among themselves before he decided to use this new weapon?
Little_Red :
02 Jul 2013 9:45:02am
I must concur with Graham Bell. Additionally, it is easy to see atomic weapons would have been developed in due course and alternative history(s) can be debated ad nauseum.
The alternative would have been more of the "Tokyo Fire Raids" on ever increasing targets of reducing sizes with massive civilian losses that would have far exceeded Dresden and Hamburg. Then an iron naval blockade of the Home Islands with more misery for the civilian population. A land assault would have been inevitable anyway and war is a machine that grinds all before it into dust. Japan gave no indications of any form of surrender, unconditional or not.
In the Pacific war, no massed deaths by either route, atomic or conventional, would have been avoidable.
What happened after WW 2, the policies and actions, is rightly open for debate. However, don't predicate an anti-war stance on a revision of history as a foundation stone. (pun)
John Oh ®:
02 Jul 2013 9:49:45am
The issue of the atomic bomb has been discussed by many since it was dropped.
The general public opinion is that is was necessary to stop thousands maybe millions further allied/Japanese lives being wasted. War is us versus them and is terrible. The never give up policy of the Japanese is well known. So it came to be decided to drop this bomb. While more time could have been given to the Japanese to surrender, that is the nasty bit. It was also showing "we have no hesitation and we are not playing" but the first bomb would have shown that. Communications were disrupted and that may have delayed the decision to surrender. Meanwhile technology is now being used to show superior force and no wonder Assange and Snowden are in hot water.
Mitch :
02 Jul 2013 9:49:51am
Yes Graham, but unless these servicemen were of high rank, I doubt they had any idea of the strategic position of the war. This was in the day before google and the internet, hell, there wasn't even TV. So how exactly would boots on the ground have any REAL idea what was going on? The same would apply for IJ forces fighting until the end, when their leaders were ready to roll over.
Ron N :
02 Jul 2013 9:58:49am
Phillip, I believe Oliver Stones story line is way too simple and doesn't really reflect the reality that America faced in 1945. Remember, America's industrial might and enormous productivity won WW2. She supplied all the Allies with nearly all the equipment needed to win the War - particularly aircraft, tanks, trucks, and bulldozers. No other Axis nation had these in the quantity required. What Oliver Stone is missing is that the Industrial kingpins of corporate America became the men who effectively won WW2. From that point, they were promoted to a position of worship, which led to the "upsizing" of the military/industrial complex that reached its zenith in the 1980's. I believe that Americans have always had a cruel streak in their psyche, as indicated by their massacres of their fellow Americans during the Civil War. There is also a need for domination in the American psyche, led by an ingrained belief that they are Gods chosen Nation and that all other nations/cultures are inferior. The American psyche is an incredibly complex mix of religion, self-assuredness, worship of material wealth, and a firm belief that America will always rule the world.
Steve :
02 Jul 2013 10:11:18am
W, that rather misses the point. Stone is not suggesting that an invasion of Japan would have been easy, but rather that it need not have been attempted at all even without the bomb.
Right or wrong, this is an argument about geo-political pressures and the view from the low bough isn't relevant. Truman didn't have to decide only between the bomb and an invasion if there was an acknowledged third way available - which is what Stone is arguing.
Thinner :
02 Jul 2013 10:19:34am
That's one version - certainly it was what was being "fed to the troops" at the time. Another version says that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were actually bomb tests. The Anglo-American military machine "needed" to see what actually happened when an atomic bomb was dropped on a city, and this was the very last chance to do that until "the next war" (the one on Russia that they were already planning). They would have greatly preferred the tests to be on German cities (to gauge the effect on a European city of brick, steel, concrete and stone rather than a Japanese one of wood and paper) but the war in Europe was so very near to being over that the test sites were switched to Japan at the last moment. Two intact Japanese cities replaced the two intact German cities earmarked (one of them, Dresden, got destroyed "conventionally", just for the heck of it, or possibly as a "control".
Not saying this scenario is right, either - we'll probably never know for sure.
Either way - if the bombs hadn't been dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima they would have been dropped on an "enemy" somewhere. There's simply no point in having a weapon when you're not sure quite what it does.
v :
02 Jul 2013 10:27:51am
"Americans who would of taken part in the invasion of the Imperial Japanese home islands "
You shold really have read the whole article before commenting. Had you done so, you would know that a US-led invasion of Japan was never likely to happen. The Soviet Red Army had already invaded Manchuria and were on their way to Tokyo. In the Pacific, the Japanese fleet had been substantially destroyed.
With or without an actual invasion by the Soviets from the north, Japan is likely to have surrendered as its economy collapsed and social order broke down. Contrary to popular myth, the Japanese people were not fanatics and there were many unwilling conscripts in their armed services.
In Europe it was Churchill who committed the atrocities with the fire-bombing of Dresden, Hamburg and Berlin which, in his words, were designed to "show the Russians what we are capable of". In the Pacific it was the US who committed the ultimate atrocity. Both atrocities were motivated by a desire to disengage from the alliance with the Soviet Union that saved the western world from fascism. We forget that the US and UK had attempted to invade the Soviet Union during the 1920's and many of their leaders (including the British Royal Family) were enthusiastic supporters of Hitler, who they saw as a natural ally in their fight against socialism.
Rohan :
02 Jul 2013 10:29:26am
I think the point is, the US could have nuked one (or even several) of the fortified islands in the pacific and demonstrated their potential ability to destroy entire cities, without the tens of thousands of civillian casualties. The would still have killed thousands, but they would have spared non-combatants.
nazcalito :
02 Jul 2013 11:32:52am
In 1945 Japan had almost completely run out of fuel and without fuel its war machine couldn't operate. Japan has no domestic supplies of oil and the Allies had sunk the tanker fleet that brought oil from Indonesia. Cars in Japan had been converted to charcoal-burners. Portions of its military were stranded on various Pacific Islands, unable to get back to Japan. There was no Japanese Empire left.
Marcus :
02 Jul 2013 11:46:55am
Ron N
Your claims about the US winning WW2 are false but you have likely, and understandably been influenced by Western propaganda which deliberately ignored the Soviet effort. The figures speak for themselves. More than 90% of all European Axis casualties were inflicted by the Soviet Union. We keep hearing about D-Day but we never hear about the Soviet offensive timed to cooincide with D-Day, Operation Bagration, which was twice the size as D-Day; alot more Germans oppossing it too. You have also obviously not seen Soviet production figures.
True the US did the heavy lifting in the Pacific but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was the largest and most decisive battle in the theatre.
D Bryant :
02 Jul 2013 11:50:56am
Why make a comment directed at the author of the article? It's not Phillip who is contending that the atomic bomb didn't end the war, but the authors of the book Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick.
If the Japanese weren't concerned by the dropping of the bombs nor of the threat to kill their leader why was the wholesale slaughter of their civilians justified? This question is never answered because it the truth of it is shameful.
My concern is: Is the use of modern day weapons like HK-drones different to the use of atomic weapons? The reality is that there is no moral argument happening. There is no differentiation between can and should - only the right to exert force.
Peter :
02 Jul 2013 12:01:18pm
If at the time it was purely about pragmatically solving a difficult situation by demonstrating one new weapon, was it truly necessary to drop two?
Doc :
02 Jul 2013 12:29:44pm
It was a demonstration, dropping the bombs. Hitler was after them, he was defeated in time. The Soviets were after them, but fortunately the war ended before they were able to develop them.
The US dropping two was a demonstration to the Soviets that they had the know-how and the ability to mass-produce, which knocked Stalin's ambitions on the head nicely.
Does anyone who has seriously studied the period honestly believe that the Soviets wouldn't have used one on West Berlin if they'd been the first to develop the bomb? Stalin didn't want to stop until he reached the Atlantic, and as was demonstrated amply in Russia, he had no objections to wasting his troops.
To the person who suggested demonstrating the bomb on an island - how would word get around? It wouldn't have.
Geen :
02 Jul 2013 3:13:29pm
I agree with Graham Bell whole heartidly, dropping the bomb(s) saved hundreds of thousands of lives, Allies as well as Japanese, how quick we forget
Marcus :
02 Jul 2013 3:18:17pm
Please see my post below. Please cite one source with evidence from the period that indicated that Stalin has plans to continue on and conquer Western Europe.
Your claim that the Soviet would have use an atomic bomb on West Berlin are ludicrous. I certainly dont believe they would....Berlin was in the middle the Soviet zone of occupation and they had the other half of the city! The Berlin airlift operation finished in May 1949 and the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested in August 1949. Stalin was kept well informed about the programs progress and he could have easily continued the crisis on or restarted it next winter if he wanted to use an atomic bomb on West Berlin. But even he was more sane than some of the posters on here.
Anthony :
02 Jul 2013 4:52:58pm
I wonder how history would have viewed the political and moral arguments if the atomic bomb was dropped on Berlin as was originally intentioned? How would the US and Truman been view by history if a European city and European people that were destroyed?
Shane 2 :
02 Jul 2013 7:35:23pm
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The two worst terrorist attacks in human history. Most of the people in these cities were civilians. If you can think of a worse terrorist attack let me know.
Azrael :
02 Jul 2013 9:01:55pm
And yet again, an analysis of the nuclear bombing of Japan fails to note that as horrific as it was, even greater civillian casualties resulted from the firebombings of Dresden and Stuttgart. The bomb may have given the US a taste for global dominance, but the world's concern for civillian deaths had died out far earlier in the war.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 7:48:30am
Truman's words when informed of the power of the atomic bomb, ie 'We're going to rule the world!', are illustrative. The bombs were a massive crime, aimed at the USSR not Japan, and totally unnecessary as Japan was trying desperately to surrender.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:03:28pm
Graham even if it *were* true that the nuke made Japan surrender, and not the threat of the Soviet Union, there is still a huge question mark hanging over the US decision to drop a second bomb so quickly after the first one.
Hardly any time for people to even find out what had happened, let alone make decisions.
It's well known the Army and Navy had competing bombs and both wanted a chance to use them.
That is simply morally unacceptable on any level. If it one bomb was unavoidable, the USA still has masses of blood on its hands it didn't need to shed.
Lance Collins :
02 Jul 2013 9:47:48am
I was five at the time and my earliest memory of any political conversation between my parents and their friends was the idea that the bombs should have been dropped on Tokyo
Locky :
02 Jul 2013 10:56:25am
Which is all well an good, until you realise the tokyo had already been destroyed.
Read history.
Aaron :
02 Jul 2013 2:16:31pm
"Read history."
It wasn't history when he was five and it was happening. And in either case, Lance was simply saying that is what people were saying at the time, not what he thought they should do.
Read the comment.
Marcus :
02 Jul 2013 9:50:48am
What you heard was the fears of the grizzled veterans who, regardless of nationality, were often pessimistic and fatalistic. They were also not in possession of all the facts.
The concerns of the Americans you heard were most likely made before the Soviet Manchurian offensive that Stone mentions. In little more than a week the Red Army advanced from Siberia to half way down the Korean peninsula. They could have kept going but stopped and waited to meet up with the Americans as agreed. Japanese forces were totally overpowered. LNL had a historian on some months back who had written a new book which also proved that it was the unstoppable Communist advance that forced Japan to surrender. The US baulked at invading the Japanese homeland but Stalin would not have even flinched. The Japanese knew this and what would happen to their beloved Emperor given what the Bolsheviks did to their own Emperor.
The US has really been the bad guys ever since Truman and they are now effectively a rogue nation, with this PRISM and spying even on NATO countries. The Cold War started because after WW2 the US saw an opportunity for world domination but one thing stood in their way - the USSR. Truman even had a plan for a sneak attack on the USSR drawn up before the Cold War proper started which involved the use of atomic weapons on 47 Soviet cities. 47. It was upon learning about this that I considered the US irredeemably evil.
For anyone still in doubt, please google Operation Northwoods.
Stone's attempt to genuinely educate his countrymen is nothing short of heroic and in another era he would have been silenced, labelled as a commie, a traitor etc. I would not be surprised if he is still labelled as such.
JoeBloggs :
02 Jul 2013 12:04:41pm
"The Cold War started because after WW2 the US saw an opportunity for world domination"
Not so.
The USA saw and acted on the opportunity presented to them on a plate by the then world powers very early on in WW2. And why wouldn't and shouldn't they?
I suggest you learn about the Atlantic Charter and the key provisions that caused the disintegration of the British Empire (the French empire was already in ruins, the German one would be by wars end, and the Russians were the only geo-political opponent left standing).
Adam :
02 Jul 2013 5:17:21pm
And after WWI the US and UK were planning how to invade each other. It's the way of things - nations have to be prepared. Especially against their largest competition.
You'd likely be the first one to complain if the country was caught flat-footed, whinging "why weren't we ready for this?"
All nations do it, and if you think Australia doesn't, right now, you're very naive.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 7:56:13am
When the USA occupied southern Korea, being short of troops there, they put the Japanese and their Kempetai police and their brutal Korean underlings back in power, to suppress the Korean resistance, who were Communist nationalists. Rather like Europe, where fleeing fascists and Nazis were either aided by the West and the Vatican to escape, or put direct on to the US payroll, as with Gehlen, the Nazi intelligence chief, who went straight to work for the USA, directing fascist 'partisans' in eastern Europe. His organisation later became the West German BND intelligence group.
Marcus :
03 Jul 2013 3:20:58pm
No disrespect but you guys are fools.
The United States should not have seized on the opportunity to take over the world because thats not the destiny the American Founding Fathers had for the country, who aspired to noble concepts such as liberty and democracy...where is the liberty in atomic tyranny? To not follow this, as they have done since WW2, is immoral and hypocritcal.
Spare me your patronisation. I know about the Atlantic charter. Alot changed from the time it was accepted to the end of the War and it was initiated by a very different US President. The old colonial powers were broken after WW1. As Stone points out it was the American bankers that greatly helped Germany re-attempt colonialism/imperialism.
Adam you are a bit too presumtuous. Its rather absurd to believe you know how a complete stranger thinks is it not? Australia, and most countries, plan for its defence but Truman was planning for an ATTACK on the Soviet Union with atomic weapons when the Soviets did not possess them. Naked aggression plain and simple.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:12:05pm
I think it's foolish to suggest the USSR would not have started a war or used nukes if America hadn't; Stalin was really deranged even by dictator standards, but nuking Japan was almost a collateral, throw-away target in the nuclear competition between the US and USSR.
It was an evil act, but I can't think of any other target who would have "deserved" it more than Japan or caused less further warfare. Perhaps they could have bombed one of the already ravaged and evacuated European cities to show the total annihilation the bomb could cause?
Phil Pryor :
02 Jul 2013 9:57:06am
Mr. Stone should consider the settlement of continental USA territory by ex-Europeans. They conceived that they could take hold of a paradise, a refuge, Their religious superstition fortified this belief in a destiny or right. They came, took, defended, murdered, assaulted, enslaved and did it all over and over. Today, they never reflect, show little remorse, embrace selfish superstition and continue to believe in a god who gives them superior rights. Common and ignorant descendents of these criminals will continue in their deadly delusions. It may destroy us.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 7:59:19am
It already has destroyed us. Denial of ecological collapse is centred on US money power, the fossil fuel Moloch in particular, and their efforts to thwart action have been deadly effective. Climate destabilisation has passed the point of no return, as is becoming daily more evident.
Rhys Filbee :
02 Jul 2013 10:00:21am
The alternative to the bomb was far worse. The Japanese had stated that thay would "fight to the very last man, woman and child in defence fo their homeland." This would have cost more lives on both sides. I would also point out that prior to WWII, Japan had nuclear physicists of their own and may have been developing their own bomb. Its also been shown that the Germans provided Japan with technology (e.g. jet and rocket propelled aircraft) towards the end of WWII. At the time, it was not known if this included German nuclear technology. A combination of Japanese and German technology cound have enabled the building of a "dirty" bomb at the very least. When Japan didn't surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima, the fear was that Japan would use their bomb on an American west coast city.
Mr Stone should remember that the United States government is democratic. i.e. It is held accountable to its people for its actions.
Rex :
02 Jul 2013 12:39:02pm
Rhys, i don't know where you have been over the last several years but the US government is no longer answerable to the people. Questions by the public about events and actions of its government are generally met with "it's national security therefore confidential, even to the public" Transparency is a word the US government doesn't know the meaning of. One only has to look at Guantanamo and it's flagrant abuse of the Geneva conventions. Had those detainees been tried before a civilian court, most would have had their cases thrown out due to illegality under US constitution and law.
Geen :
02 Jul 2013 3:24:37pm
Rhys Filbee
Agreed ! My sentiments entirely
crank :
03 Jul 2013 8:04:59am
The Germans actually supplied material and expertise from their multi-faceted nuclear weapons programs to the USA, not Japan. The story of the submarine, the U-234 is quite interesting, once you penetrate the disinformation curtain and remember that leading Nazis had been co-operating with Western intelligence at least since 1943.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:16:20pm
The Japanese were no-where near a bomb. Even Germany wasn't going to get it, and Japan didn't have access to their data and materials until the very end of the war. No way they would have magically put it together.
And the Germans also said they would fight to the last man. They had children fighting to defend Germany in the last weeks of the war. Yet they still surrendered because untrained civilians can only be made to fight for so long. The Japanese would have been the same.
There was no fear the Japanese would bomb them in return. What a laugh! The whole reason they chose Japan was because unlike Russia or Germany, they certainly had no hope of nuclear retaliation.
Max Gross :
02 Jul 2013 10:16:34am
History cannot be denied. It demonstrates that US paranoia and megalomania is a global threat. Other nations must unite and forge a united front against US "exceptionalism" in order to defend those fragile democratic ideals that are always under threat.No way USA!
JoeBloggs :
02 Jul 2013 10:20:35am
Many renowned historians clearly make a case that the a-bombs were used for two clear reasons:
1. To compell an immediate and unconditional surrender by Japan to ensure the end of WW2 and to prevent them from becoming a military power in the immediate post war future.
2. To demonstrate to Stalin that the Allies had a weapon capable of countering the massive soviet ground forces which outnumbered and out powered the meger allied forces in western europe (even included the surrendered German divisions that were largely kept intact in case they were needed in any conflict with the USSR). As such it could be argued that the a-bomb directly prevented any immediate expansionistic plans Stalin may have had for western europe.
Andrew :
02 Jul 2013 11:10:58am
Just remember America every supper power in history has collapsed and your turn will come to. Then maybe we can rewrite the history books with the truth.
Marcus :
02 Jul 2013 11:55:47am
Sorry Joe
This sounds like paranoia. Which renowned historians asserted this, given no plans ever existed where Stalin wanted to continue marching West. After 4 years of highly destructive war and 27+ million deaths there was no intention on the Soviet side to wage war on the Western allies, although Stalin was suspicious of them; then again he was suspicious of EVERYBODY.
Besides Stalin had spies in the Manhattan project from the very beginning and was already working on his own bombs. He knew from the reports of testing in Nevada the potential of the weapons.
Homer Goetznutz :
02 Jul 2013 12:32:13pm
It could also be argued that dropping the bomb on Japan stopped invaders from outer space.
Using hypotheticals to justify the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people is just reverse engineering a reason for a war crime.
Adam :
02 Jul 2013 5:26:32pm
@Homer - you're just being silly. One deals with real situations and perceived threats and the other is fairy tale.
It's easy to re-write history with the benefit of hindsight.
If you call dropping the A-bomb a war crime, you have to call every bomb dropped on every city a war crime. It's only a question of scale. You can't pick and choose your morality.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:18:13pm
Adam, nuclear bombs are the only ones that slowly kill off all the survivors in the area. The only ones that *poison* the land for generations. They had to replace much of the topsoil in Hiroshima and it is still a mildly radioactive place. Birth defects, massive trauma injuries, mysterious sicknesses; none of these attended the European victims of fire-bombing.
vaughan greenberg :
02 Jul 2013 10:30:49am
Oliver stone, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, the government spying on their own people and other revelations yet to come.
It's all part of the breaking down and eventual collapse of yet another bullying empire. "Those that don't learn from history....."well you know the rest.
rundsmce :
02 Jul 2013 10:30:59am
I thought this was a very good series. It concerns me greatly that Australia continues to act as the gullible and subservient outpost for modern imperialism. This nation needs to begin a new chapter. One of fierce independance, beginning with becoming a republic and continuing with a revised and independant foriegn policy agenda.
From on high we are told of a looming Asian century, which really means capitalise on the demand to maximise our profits. Not one of our leaders has mentioned this could in fact be the Australian century. Instead we will align ourselves more closely with U.S. foreign policy and, over the graves of the countless dead in South-East Asia, for whom few tears are now shed, we will line our pockets thanks to the growing consumerism.
Australia, in my opinion, need not have taken a direct part in most of the conflicts post WWII, yet we stay on course to continue to line up at the starting gates like a good little participant.
Will this country produce a leader with the forsight and courage of Henry Wallace? I hope so.
Stuart :
02 Jul 2013 12:43:40pm
Ah, how blissful is the wanton disregard for history and reality!
Little Australia throwing of the yoke of US imperialism and forging into Asia kind of reminds me of many other examples of such success stories.
Like the many City States of Ancient Greece who abandoned years of alliances with the Spartans when the Spartans grew in strength and demanded fealty to run to the expanding and more benevolent Athenians only to be cased aside when the going got tough and then get crushed by the victorious Spartans.
Or the many settlers who abandoned the fledgling US to seek freedom and independence in the 'West' only to be destroyed by Indian tribes and require rescuing by the Cavalry.
Or the Poles who moved slowly away from their alliance with France and Britain to seek a closer engagement with central European countries in the mid 30s including signing a non-aggression pact with Germany, only to be invaded and subjugated by their new found friends.
3000 words limits me from going on.
The US has given Australia far more in economic, political, military and industrial support than we have ever given back to her. We owe the US a debt of gratitude that would be difficult to repay. Sure our cultural and policy perspectives differ in many areas but that enhances a relationship. I have been living on a temporary basis in the US for nearly two years now and have found that the average American is far more humble than you'd think. The most obnoxious people I have met since I have been here have been young Australian tourists.
Rundsmce, your comments remind me of the petulant teenager rebelling against the system. And believe me the world order is a system; we should understand it, where we fit within it and understand the importance of history before we seek to pursue "fierce independence"!
Rex :
02 Jul 2013 1:29:03pm
LOL!!! @ Stuart, try telling the farmers hurt by the US in the Agricultural wars that the US helped us economically. The US undercut Australian wheat growers at every opportunity. Politically? Thank god their influence has been minimal, otherwise we would have had corrupt presidents and congressmen and women. No i like that our political system differs a lot to theirs. Industrial support? What industrial support, please give an example?
Adam :
02 Jul 2013 5:29:47pm
Ahhh, the blissful ignorance of the fence-sitter. You have to pick a side and commit, if for no other reason than who's going to come to your aid when someone bullies you if you've not supported your friends?
Johnny :
25 Aug 2016 3:18:38am
Well said and thoughts of majority of us Aussies. We need to break away from the American War Machine and not be part of there mass war crimes and toll on civilian lifes and military personnel. We are our own people and need a Government that is for the people and best interests of all Australians
Clownfish :
02 Jul 2013 10:32:15am
What a load of tendentious twaddle - from the propagandist who brought us rubbish like 'JFK'.
The Japanese might have been defeated, but they were very, very far from surrendering. Indeed, even after the atomic bomb, many in the military were still arguing to fight on to the death. Indeed, some units refused to surrender even after the emperor's intervention.
In counter to Stone's self-righteous moralising, one might ask, in the words of historian Michael Burleigh: in the months it would have taken to end the War without the bomb, how many more millions of civilians would he have preferred die not just in Japan, but in Japan's occupied territories?
Stone is right in one thing, though - if not in the way he fantasizes: if the bomb hadn't been used to end WWII, there would have probably been no Cold War.
There would have been a very, very hot war indeed.
Without the stark evidence of just what the atomic bomb could do when actually used, the two powers (most especially the Soviets under Stalin) would have been much more likely to engage in nuclear war.
Snarkus :
02 Jul 2013 11:21:50am
A french historian wrote up a study in 1980s ITIRC, that posits exactly this scenario. By scaring both sides of the Cold War, nuclear weapons kept the peace. Both sides also were scared by their own weapons count into bomb number reductions.
cv :
02 Jul 2013 11:31:07am
The revisionist view of the A-bomb was popular 20-30 years ago. Stone's stance is not only obsolete, but enough time has passed that the claims made by revisionists have been debunked. A good starting point is http://hnn.us/articles/55076.html
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:34:09pm
cv, its not very convincing that one of your sources is a US Air Force publication who admit, in their own article, to wanting to "celebrate" the airplane that dropped a nuke and display it "proudly".
Even if your contention were true that it was necessary to stop the war, it speaks volumes that the US military is still strutting around boasting of the incredible destruction they were capable of inflicting on civilians.
I for one do not fully believe either liberal or conservative historians; both have agendas, and the articles you linked clearly identify themselves as conservative.
lawrence pope :
02 Jul 2013 10:44:01am
The atomic bombing delivered the shock necessary for japan to make the final decision to surrender. It is the one unambiguous element in the mix of military and civilian forces operating at the time.
Patrick :
02 Jul 2013 11:25:41am
The war was completely over in all but name in June, 1945. It was not actually necessary to kill a further 250,000 civilians... unless you were a superpower worried that Russia's speed into Manchuria meant that Japan may fall behind the Iron Curtain. It was an unforgivable act on a country that had 64 cities all but levelled, where hundreds of thousands had been killed and millions were starving. Even if the Japanese had wanted to fight, their navy and airforce was all but completely destroyed as had most of their munitions factories.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 8:48:24am
The US attitude to Japanese civilians was pithily summed up by Chennault, the US Air Force commander, who spoke of US plans to '..burn out the industrial heart of the (Japanese) Empire with fire-bombing attacks on the teeming bamboo ant-heaps'. This proposal, made in 1940, was said to have 'delighted' Roosevelt. Subsequently the US Air Force tested incendiary bombing on mocked up Japanese wooden towns, and studied the famous Peshtigo fires of 1871, with the huge firestorm that incinerated thousands, in order to better plan their genocidal incendiary attacks on Japanese cities.
Brad :
02 Jul 2013 10:49:27am
Oliver Stone seems to be living some fantasy land where evil people don't exist and no-one lusts for power and chaos. Where all nations and leaders would respect borders and live in perfect harmony if it weren't for the horrible horrible US military.
Sorry Oliver, we tried pacification once. We got Hitler and WW2.
Perhaps he could answer the simple question of which he would have preferred for the second half of the 20th century - an American dominated world, a Chinese dominated world, an Arab dominated world or a Russian dominated world. Because one of them would have domiated, and three of them would have resulted in a very different way of life for all of us.
Peter :
02 Jul 2013 12:13:19pm
Sorry, the old 'the world is evil' excuse has a basis in truth but it's been stretched beyond breaking point by warmongers and profiteers the world over.
Does it really rationalise e.g. the US government defining small South American countries doing things such as taxing mining companies in order to provide a social safety net for their poor as 'enemies'?
There's nothing irrational in being realistic about the power and influence of wealthy corporates and individuals in the US to bend their government's military and propaganda machine to their agenda. And ultimately that's what this is about.
It's not the attack on free enterprise and individual liberty that ideologues seem to believe it is. Removing corruption doesn't equate to installing left-wing tyranny.
Brad :
02 Jul 2013 2:08:43pm
Peter, no-one is saying the US hasn't done bad things in the past. The world's resource are there for the taking and someone will take them. But can you really say that you would rather communist Russia or China, or a theocratic Arab caliphate, were the ones doing the taking? You'd be a fool to think that Stalin, Mao and the like would sit around admiring the weather if they had their hands on the world's most powerful military.
The powerful irony lost on most of those who moan about US power is that the only reason they are able to moan and live to tell the tale is due to the US military. If you can't see my point then jump on the next flight to North Korea and start preaching about peace. You will soon see what live without American ideals is like.
Patrick :
02 Jul 2013 8:36:05pm
Brad, Just One Nation cannot speak for the common good of the whole world. Especially one that uses words like freedom and democracy to justify war profiteering and shuns warnings about global climate change.
Marcus :
03 Jul 2013 3:42:35pm
Dear oh Deary me Brad
You have been brainwashed havent you; that or you havent read much on the topic.
At the end of WW2 the Red Army was vastly more powerful than the Western allies and what was left of the Germans combined. The Western Allies had nothing available in numbers to match Soviet tanks and artillery. Analysts have done studies and, even with atomic weapons, Stalin could have taken all of Western Europe. Churchill commissioned a secret study on Britains prospects of fighting the Soviets. It was so bad it was kept hidden for decades.
Throughout the Cold War the Soviets conventional forces were greatly superior to NATO. Many analysts said it would take only a matter of weeks for the Red Army to reach the English Channel. The Soviets were behind in nukes but took a big lead in the 70s. But with their leaders having experienced the horrors of war first hand, they were far more restrained with their power.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:37:42pm
Brad, there are plenty of Vietnamese who aren't alive today to talk about peace because the US decided to attack them, with no provocation.
There are countless South America nations with citizens not alive because the US was more interested in gaining friendly governments than allowing them to choose their own destiny.
And remind me again how the USA protected the innocent Cambodians from the evil communists?! Oh that's right, they didn't, the Vietnamese they had tried to kill off did it for them, and shamed the whole developed world!
The USA are hypocrites through and through.
Andrew :
02 Jul 2013 10:50:40am
The vision for a 'century for the common people' might have been a century early.
- A global community that is less willing to accept authority than ever before may make the time ripe for Oliver Stone to be heard, when he poses challenging, though perhaps unanswerable 'what ifs'.
- The ability to access and share information, for real-time networking of common people. Anybody with a smart device can be a reporter, and information experts make espionage agencies publicly transparent and accountable to the public that fund them.
- The leadership mess that we've observed a major political party in. As Barry Jones described it, the 'insiders' of party politics have had to cave in to the 'outsiders' of public opinion. This could represent more than just a fractured political party, to model the emergence of bottom-up management to replace the top-down era of CEO's golden hand-shakes.
Robert N :
02 Jul 2013 7:30:17pm
I agree with you completely, but with one correction. I believe the new paradigm will not include as much top down or down up thinking. The accountability will come laterally, and it will be complete. Hierarchical structures will ultimately go the way of the horse and buggy. If we don't see these changes occur, as they naturally will with these emerging information technologies, we'll see something very similar to a cross between Orwell's 1984 and the Dark Ages.
Justin :
02 Jul 2013 10:56:17am
I'd just like to know why the International Court has not charged the USA with crimes against humanity for the willful and unnecessary murder of so many civilians in Japan? Surely they should be held just as accountable for their actions as all the other crimes against humanity during world war 2.
Damo :
02 Jul 2013 11:42:42am
All this talk about how it was militarily necessary blah blah blah. How can anyone justify that the country that claimed to be on the side of morality against the evil fascists justify the senseless murder as well as long term horrific injury of thousands of innocent civilians! If the Japanese or Germans had done the same to Sydney or New York would this have been written off as militarily neceessary. It can't be justified, not under any circumstances.
02 Jul 2013 11:47:15am
If that is the case, then Britain might also be charged for the massive bombing of Dresden at a time when Nazi Germany was already in the final stages of defeat, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, not all of them Germans either.
JoeBloggs :
02 Jul 2013 11:59:45am
Total war is nasty.
If you don't like total war then don't start a war.
Something Germany and Japan had to learn the hard way.
It is perhaps worth you noting that an armaments factory (or a factory producing anything for that matter) can not function if it has:
a) been burnt to the ground.
b) its workers have been burnt to the ground
c) the supporting infrastructure has been burnt to the ground
d) the civilians who support the workers have been burnt to the ground
There are no innocents in total war.
Locky :
02 Jul 2013 12:05:34pm
Because the things the japanese we're doing made the germans look like great people in comparison, and they we're never charged either.
read about unit 731
Doc :
02 Jul 2013 12:34:23pm
Showing your understanding of adult matters here mate.
The short version is that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military cities, and therefore military targets.
The longer, cynical version is that the victor is never charged.
Also, don't forget the times and circumstances. It was acceptable at the time to target cities for destruction. People are always looking at historical decisions and events with a modern perspective and morality - immerse yourself in the time.
Rex :
02 Jul 2013 1:01:53pm
Because even though the US is a signatory to the ICC it hasn't ratified it. There has been three occasions where they could have but they stopped short of actually doing it. The US military is (rightly so) concerned that the ICC could be used against its own generals and troops due to certain events that have transpired over the last three major conflicts they have been involved in. Collateral damage is not an excuse that is valid in the ICC nor is going to war on false pretenses.
Chris :
02 Jul 2013 1:08:35pm
This is an old saw... what the left don't tell you is what would have happened had Uncle Joe got his hands on nuclear weapons anytime before he did and that few people in 1944- 1945 did not assume that Germany or some other European right-wing power might arise again in post war Europe. What immediate weapon or threat did the UK or the USA have to deal with that? Plus also simultaneously be able to say to the Russians 'hold off' stay where you were let us work on this stuffing up of the balance of power in Europe by not going to war with this now - we have dealt with them or threatened them anyway with ... the bomb.
For many years the French maintained a number of short range nuclear capable missiles capable ONLY of flying up to 70 to 12okms eastwards inside the then existing territory of the Federal Republic for this very reason!!!
So being able to say to those in Europe who came to power later, say in the 1960s (as those looking forward from 1943-44-45 saw it) we HAVE these weapons we have used them we will use them again if necessary - then they would become something that was of NO USE at all in generations of diplomatic activity after the war.
It was not so much as a threat to a renewed Germany or some other right wing power in Europe as much as a threat to the Russians (and even a renewed Japanese - though it has served as a key factor in keeping the Japanese quiet for 70 years do not forget! (Possibly too if within 30 or 40 years a non Communist China had been allowed to develop as it was developing under the Nationalists before the war to remind them that the US an even Britain still had the modern equivalent of gun boats to use against them)
So that the US had all of this in mind when it considered use of the bomb against the ailing right wing regime in Japan in 1945. It was message for the war but also for after the war too, so that along with the old enemy or other actual, revived or new possible major powers there was an argument that unless it was used NOW (then while the war was still going) then if we had to use it again it may have to be used in circumstances that would bring on a major world catastrophe.
So that was a consideration as to why that the West (i.e., Britain and the USA) might decide in 1944- 1945 that they would and could use nuclear weapons and would, could and might use them again rather than not do anything should another power decide to embark on adventurism again. So that in using them in 1944-1945 against the Axis they may not have to sue them again against anyone else later BUT the threat of their use would be credible and not become like the threat of the use of gas and biological weapons a total Pandora's box that meant possibly surrender would be better in some future situation where another major power threatened use of these.
At that time the use of gas and biological weapons had more or less been stopped to any great extent, except, of course by the Jap
Craig :
02 Jul 2013 1:12:38pm
Nagasaki was a secondary target after Kyoto, Kokura and Niigata. The targets were not primarily military.
The US wanted sites which would best reflect the destructive capability of the bomb. It was a test using live subjects. Extremely cruel.
Brutal US foreign policy did not begin with this act, or even this act against Japan. As early as 1853 Commodore Perry forced Japan to open trade. In 1801 the US went and clobbered Muslims in the Barbary wars off Morocco.
The US is a violent place and it always has been.
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 1:41:14pm
Of course Craig, it's the Pax Americana, and like the Roman peace, it too is enforced at sword-point.
Nic Klar :
02 Jul 2013 11:12:10am
The major Japanese cities would've starved to death within 6-12 months if the bombs hadn't been dropped. There was no need to invade.
Instead, by 1945 the eye was on the next conflict - that of war with the USSR. The US wanted to end the war before USSR invaded Japan. If they had been allowed to we would now have a North/South Japan the same as Korea (or the former East/West Germany). It's documented that Stalin demanded Hokkaido as part of the spoils. Instead he seized the northern isles which Russia still holds today.
What a lot of people also don't know/forget is that far more people died in the fire bombings of Tokyo (100,000 in one night alone) than in the atomic bombings.
Phil Pryor :
03 Jul 2013 8:45:32am
You need a better grasp of the facts. Read details of Roosevelt and Stalin's agreements at Yalta. The Soviets did as they were asked, exactly, without any charge of aggression required. The inadequate Truman inherited the presidency, the weapons, the chance to change policy rapidly to suit his political advice, etc. At Potsdam, Stalin was to face the inexperienced Attlee as well as Truman. He presided on territory his armies had won over the nazis. Truman took military advice which had little diplomatic skill or charm about it. But, general opinion was against Japan, they being regarded as savages.
Patrick :
02 Jul 2013 11:13:12am
In the discussion of Hiroshima, the US congressional inquiry into the dropping of the two atomic bombs (c. 1948) is rarely quoted. It quotes US generals from WWII as saying that it was not militarily necessary to drop the bombs. In August, 1945 the Allies had already carpet bombed more than 60 Japanese cities and their military was putting up posters imploring people to fight with bamboo swords! I recommend the movie "Barefoot Gen" for the perspective from under the bomb. So when is the USA going to apologise to the Japanese for these crimes against humanity?
Geen :
02 Jul 2013 3:35:40pm
Apologise ?
How quick we forget Changi prison camp, railway building,
forced marches of our soldiers where death rate was 90% plus, sinking of hospital ships, machine gunning of nurses & so on, bombs should have been dropped earlier !
crank :
03 Jul 2013 9:06:23am
Geen, I know that it is a fine point of moral distinction, but civilians living under a brutal military fascist regime are not responsible for the crimes of those fascists. Certainly not to the extent of being brutally exterminated like vermin.
02 Jul 2013 11:17:03am
All this talk of the United States being some kind of evil empire must be placed into perspective.
After all, this great nation gave us The Three Stooges, so they can't be all that bad.
I rest my case.
Robert :
02 Jul 2013 11:36:13am
Hindsight is a wounderfull thing, for a long time there has been debate as to the necessity of dropping the bombs. Including the demands for unconditional surrender rather than allowing the emperor to remain as the main reason for Japan not surrendering prior to dropping the bomb.
The trouble is that at the time this was not known by those making the decision to drop the bomb or not. The responsibility of leadership in war is to win with the minimum cost to your own side. Dropping the bomb provided assurance that the allies would win with minimum additional cost.
Do not forget that more people were killed in fire bombing raids in Tokyo and many millions died in Europe(not the thousands in the article) without nuclear weapons. War is a horrible business but once it starts you need to win, the longer the war the worse it is for everyone.
Tim :
02 Jul 2013 12:06:50pm
We all can only speculate the true intention. But with the surrender of Axis force in Europe, Japan is basically on its own. So, the question is when is it going to fall and how. I guess we can agree that the atomic bomb has hastened the process. Is it necessary? Depending on your perspective. For the troops on the ground and their family back home, it couldn't be have come any faster. For the Japanese, it was the worst living nightmare. For the general public of Allies, by then I guess some, if not most, would have held a personal resentment towards the Axis (including Japan) for the loss of their normal life and probably loved ones. For US government, it might just be the memory of Pearl Harbour...Having said that war fatigue might just be another factor especially after the realisation of concentration camp in Europe. Would you want the civilian in your country to suffer/dying for another day or would you opt for the quick way out by destroying the country of your opponent (thinking in the context of the person in that moment not from our current air conditioned room)? Anyway, war is never good but right or wrong, it's your call.
Stuart :
02 Jul 2013 12:08:10pm
I can't believe this debate is still going on. It doesn't matter if it was right or wrong, or if the war would have ended differently had the bombs not been dropped. The fact is that they were and within days Japan surrendered, everything else is speculation. The worst kind of historian, amateur or otherwise, is the one that second guesses or criticizes decisions made by people in the past without knowing or attempting to understand the circumstances surrounding the decisions that they made. I'm sure Truman thought through his decision, and then did so again and again until the day he died.
As for the discussion on the Soviet connection, whilst it is doubtful that the Soviets were capable of forcing the Japanese to surrender and were incapable of mounting an amphibious assault on the Japanese Islands; even if they could have the subsequent decades of Soviet occupation would have been considerably worse in human suffering and misery than the use of nuclear weapons on two cities. And Kuznick is correct in commenting that without the use of nuclear weapons on Japan "the Cold War as we know it may never have happened" but what an absurd comment: of course it wouldn't have happened, without a nuclear deterrent it would have been a Hot War leading to the deaths of millions world wide.
ashtongate :
02 Jul 2013 12:47:16pm
The way I see it is this. The Japanese followed the code of Bushido, to die in battle for the Emperor is the greatest honour.
Their tactics in fighting the Russians would have been no different in fighting the Pacific war at its conclusion. No mercy and no surrender. The invasion by American forces of the Japanese home islands would have involved hundreds of thousands of American casualties.
The Japanese would have welcomed the invasion.
Just weeks before the Americans had halted the advance on Berlin on the Elbe River for exactly the same reasons. Let the Russians take the casualties.
The bombs were used and the Emperor took the unusual step of overriding the military junta and stopped the war. The unconditional surrender was mitigated so the Japanese people could keep the Emperor.
There is no honour of Bushido in dying in an atomic blast.
As for the Cold War the allies, including Russia had already carved up Europe to the satisfaction of everyone. Churchill could keep the Empire, Truman wanted to dismantle it and the ongoing conflict by proxy wars we have witnessed were caused in the main by Trumans Imperialist ambitions for the US.
Stone is a controversial figure but I like the way he sets out the alternative points of view.
By the way what happened to his proposed film "Pinkville".
Marcus :
03 Jul 2013 4:10:52pm
and I cant believe a sane person would make the argument that it would be better to be nuked than to live under Soviet occupation.
Do you know anything about how they lived? Sure after the war it was hard because their country was also destroyed but in the countries they acquired (Baltic States had previously been part of the Russian Empire for centuries anyway) they built schools, factories, hospitals etc. Please do some research on General Berzarin...i think I even saw a doco on him once. He was the Soviet General appointed Commander of Berlin after victory. For his efforts and care of the Berlin population he was made an honorary citizen.
Even after the war, in the 1960s, the Soviet Union had a greater life expectancy than the US. Sound so bad?
Ann :
06 Aug 2015 2:24:22pm
"The worst kind of historian"? Don't be absurd. Nearly every historian will at one point or another find decisions which are, in hindsight, patently wrong and often purposely deceitful. Knowing the history of the CIA as we do know, do you honestly believe the USA was making their decisions on the highest moral standards they could muster, or on what was best for them and only them?
David Wrede :
02 Jul 2013 12:24:26pm
I like Oliver Stone, he really stirs people out of political and historiacl complacency, even if some of his ideas are extreme. The arguments about the bomb and the misuse of Military power by the US over the last 70 years will continue, but the brutality of America does not start with Hiroshima, it starts with the never to be mentioned genocide of the Native Americans (13 million deaths by one calculation) and with Slavery.
Robert N :
03 Jul 2013 3:24:38pm
I wrestle with these facts when considering the actions of my country's early history, but to understand history, you have to see the actions of those leaders in the context of the times. The Native Americans regularly allied themselves against the U.S. in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the French and Indian War and on and on. They weren't without aggression themselves, and their placing themselves as an obstacle to our westward expansion was seen as a threat to the existence of the American experiment at the time. And they were probably right. If the U.S. hadn't so handily defeated the Native Americans, the British, French or Spanish would have, to then use their captured territories to encircle and either invade or subjugate the U.S.
Then the issue of slavery repeatedly comes up. That debacle was allowed to continue because of the need for unfettered unity against the British Empire during the American Revolution. Without that, the Northern colonies would never have gained the support of the South, and the war would never have been won. Giving proof to the fact that there was an overwhelming sentiment amongst the people against slavery, a civil war was fought to abolish it less than a century later, in spite of its perceived benefits to the economy at the time.
Robert N :
03 Jul 2013 3:25:29pm
All of those conflicts were terrible in their own rites, but at least they were for a good cause. In my opinion, the U.S. didn't start picking fights due to imperialist greed until the Spanish American War. Our aggression then was completely unjustified, and it set the standard for our foreign policy to the present day.
Graham Bell :
02 Jul 2013 12:40:30pm
Mitch hit the nail on the head about what was known or not known by whom at the time.
V: How on earth would Americans, no higher in rank than Army colonel or Navy captain, possibly know what was in the mind of the U.S. President, his close advisors and the top echelon of the Army and Navy? How could they know that the long-expected invasion of the Home Islands was unlikely to happen when ALL their preparations were for such an invasion?
As for that gallant ally, the Soviet Union, which was NEUTRAL in the Far East after the clash in Mongolia in 1939 - there was a suspicion that immediately the Nazis were beaten in Europe that Stalin was doing business sneaking strategic materiel and captured Nazi weaponry into the Japanese Empire through Manshukoku. It was a long time from May to August 1945! A lot of Americans were surprised when the Soviet Union attacked the Japanese Empire.
Woomera :
02 Jul 2013 12:46:30pm
The eye witness reports of Australian and American POWs tell a first hand story of the Japanese people and the A-bombs.
Via the book "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand...
Just before the bomb -
"...POWs all over the country were noticing worrying signs. They saw women holding sharpened sticks, practicing lunges at stacks of rice straw, and small children being lined up in front of schools, handed wooden mock guns, and drilled..."
Day after the bomb -
"...The Naoetsu POWs knew that something big had happened. The guards paced around with stricken faces. Civilians walked past the camp, eyes dazed..."
Philosopher :
02 Jul 2013 1:37:55pm
Japanese mentality ensured that every inch of ground had to be hard won. The Japanese were hated by all they fought. They maltreated every soldier who surrendered and made slaves of the nations they conquered and whores of the women. We expected to fight to the last man and last defensive position with them. Bomber Command in Europe were regarded as terrorists and still are. The use of the Atom bombs showed the Russians as well as the Japanese what would happen if this war were to continue. Churchill wanted to go on and fight the Bolsheviks. After WWII Stalin killed more people in the gulags than were killed in the war or in the Ukraine before it. If we had not got the A Bomb first they would have used it against us: If not the Axis then the Russians. The development of this war will see at least three nations completely destroyed.
Late Night Live :
02 Jul 2013 1:52:53pm
Many people have different views on this subject. Everyone has one - an opinion. War is terrible for any country and needs no explanation. There are terrible atrocities in country and culture. It's funny how the Japanese now find Hawaii are desirable destination for their holiday..
Geen :
02 Jul 2013 3:38:12pm
More Japanese lived in Hawaii before the war than native Hawiians, they were brought in to work the pineapple & other plantations
conservative :
02 Jul 2013 2:11:35pm
We all know Stone is a traitor. Why doesnt he go live in Nth Korea.
Richard Titelius :
02 Jul 2013 2:53:40pm
Once we have finished with the disingenuous reasons for the dropping of the bombs on Japan in 1945, we can also look at the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbour in 1898, the Platt Amendment to the US constitution to rob Cuba of the right to self determination and sovereignty in 1901 and the Agreement on Coaling and Naval Vessels in 1903, which set up the machinery to take the 117 square kms of Guantanamo Bay.
The US should give it back and remove their military base and this will stop the abuse that happens there.
Graham Bell :
02 Jul 2013 7:15:23pm
Calling Oliver Stone a traitor is ridiculous. He didn't earn a Bronze Star by chair-polishing in Fort B*mf**k, TX.
He is carrying on a long and noble American tradition of demobilized fighting men taking an active part in political and social debate. It's called Democracy. It's called freedom Of Speech. It's what they fought for!
If they take one stance or another on particular issues is less important than that they are speaking out and that they are ready to engage in robust debate over those issues. If you don't agree with them then say so - don't just whinge and call them names.
Would you also call Secretary Of State, John Kerry, a traitor too? After all, he committed the terrible crime of becoming fed up with seeing his buddies get killed for no worthwhile military or political purpose so that when he returned to "The World" he did something practical about it.
And what do you call those dou***-bag draft-dodging Republican-voting businessmen who traded for profit with North Viet-Nam and with Red China through third countries while Oliver Stone was risking his life serving his country? Patriots? Upholders of Free Enterprise?
Get real.
allan :
02 Jul 2013 8:07:02pm
Maybe Oliver Stone should visit North korea He would find a very clean country [even cleaner than Japan] unlike Australia ,which many people treat like a pig-stye. People in N/Korea are friendly ,but shy. During my May 2013 visit to the North didn't see any starving people, saw lots of military vehicles, many broken down, soldiers working on farms. They may have a large army but all their military equipment is old. When Kim Junoong was talking about bombing America , the US goverment new it was all talk, but they played along with him to make the US seem big. For weeks the Dumb Australian Press [ABC included] fell for it.!!
robb :
02 Jul 2013 2:22:47pm
Read the recent SBS article in conjunction with the above - http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1773162/Comment-The-bomb-didnt-beat-JapanStalin-did
Very illuminating and supports Stone's view. It is clear that Japan feared Stalinist Russian occupation more than US occupation and that is what ended the war. The other "unmentionable" is why was Nagasaki and Hiroshima kept in pristine undamaged condition while US bombed all the other Japanese cities. Was there an underlying agenda that these 2 cities were the testing ground for atomic warfare damage and being at war with Japan was very convenient for that.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 9:27:16am
You bet there was.
Kate :
02 Jul 2013 3:40:25pm
Others have said it before, but I think it bears repeating on this forum. If you use the definition of 'terrorism' as used originally in France instead of the current day definition, then it could be said that the U.S. government is a terrorist government. They rule by wielding terror within the velvet glove of outward respectability granted by their beloved Constitution.
Rendition. Guantanamo Bay. The faked basis for invading Iraq. The intrigues their intelligence organisations have undertaken over the decades in regards to other nation's internal politics.
The worst thing is that Australia's leaders have let it happen and said nothing. Where was the accountability for choosing to invade Iraq without sufficient reason?
If we were truly a friend of the U.S. we'd be standing up and saying to their faces 'the things you are doing are not right', but instead our own leaders just go with the flow.
We have no statesmen, no true leaders, we have only politicians.
Adam :
02 Jul 2013 6:43:36pm
I'll just go tell the Kurds that they're a bunch of whingers and Saddam was a nice guy then shall I?
Kate :
02 Jul 2013 10:13:53pm
@ Adam - that wasn't the reason relied upon to invade Iraq, and you know it. If it was reason enough to invade Iraq why didn't the U.S. go to the U.N. with it?
Answer: because it wouldn't have been reason enough for the U.N. to accept that the U.S. had to declare a fully fledged war and _invasion_ on Iraq. Only alledging a sovereign threat existed to their own territory could justify invading another's, and that was why the U.S. cobbled together a fake 'weapons of mass destruction' presentation.
And let us not forget who provided the backing that lead to Saddam seizing power in the first place....
RussellW :
02 Jul 2013 3:46:26pm
Stone doesn't look far enough into the past for the origins of American imperialism. During the middle of the 19th century the US attacked Mexico and annexed what are now the south western states and California. Late in the century the Phillipines were captured from Spain.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 9:30:53am
In the Philippines, when the Filipinos resisted US occupation, there was a genocide, with hundreds of thousands killed in the most brutal fashion. In some areas, all males over ten years of age were classified as targets, to be exterminated on sight. Torture was rife, the 'water cure' ie water-boarding, popular, being introduced by veterans of the Seventh Cavalry, for whom it was a favourite technique from the days of the US Indian wars.
Mark :
02 Jul 2013 4:06:56pm
I have always been troubled that the bomb was used on people first, and that it was used on civilians then. It seems to me that a warning and demonstration could have at least given the Japanese the opportunity to avoid the terrible consequences of an atomic bomb. There must have been many alternatives, yet the final decision was to choose the worse imaginable option - the killing of a whole population. I don't think anyone should celebrate the men who, with all sorts of choices, chose that one first.
02 Jul 2013 6:07:40pm
There is historical evidence available which indicates that the Japanese were attempting to surrender at the time of the Potsdam Conference earlier in the year. They had one condition only and that was to keep the emperor on the throne which in fact occurred. The war continued through the summer because the A-bombs weren't ready to be used. Truman's diary after the bombing made no mention of the Japanese surrender as being the main motivation, but rather that it was to show the Russians that the US wasn't afraid to use "the big stuff." Also historical evidence shows that the list of targets were all cities that had been untouched by bombing. Why? Because they were of no military significance. Kyoto was the first choice but there was cloud cover and the second plane couldn't take pictures. Hiroshima was the second choice, a city filled with women, children and old people. If the bomb was for the ending of the war, why then weren't the Japanese offered the chance to surrender at that point? The American bombers were operating at high altitude and the Japanese had no way of stopping them. They could have conventional bombed the japanese into surrender. There certainly wasn't any need for the second bomb.
Sm :
06 Jul 2013 12:24:40pm
MJ, everything that you have stated is wrong. Please do point us to references for your "facts"...
Ross :
02 Jul 2013 4:51:12pm
"... More than 90% of all European Axis casualties were inflicted by the Soviet Union..."
Marcus, please note, we're not including all the Polish, Estonian, Latvian, German and other east European people raped and killed by the Soviets in those figures.
Marcus :
03 Jul 2013 4:30:32pm
More than 1 million Soviet women were raped too. More than the other nations combined. Are you sympathetic to them too?
Axis nations deserved what they got. They started it and behaved like beasts. Payback's a bitch.
Simmo :
02 Jul 2013 5:20:33pm
Oliver Stone, America's brutality goes back much, much further: the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Mexican border war, slavery. Why not make films about these?
Dwight Smith :
02 Jul 2013 5:24:35pm
Stone's vision seems to be influenced by Soviet propaganda. The Soviet forces were late arrivals in the war against Japan, there just to collect the spoils, much like they did with Eastern Europe.
His thesis does not explain the invasion of South Korea by the Soviet-backed North Korea.
It also does not explain the Soviet theft of the atomic bomb secrets.
As to Henry Wallace, he was seen as a person acting more in the interest of the Soviet Union than the US. His crushing defeat in the 1948 election by Truman and others puts a lie to him being popular.
Stone seems to ignore events like 9/11 as well. He has made a lot of money from the US but obviously hates his home country.
Ken in San Jose :
02 Jul 2013 7:51:59pm
The invasion of South Korea by North Korea was the direct result of foreign powers dividing Korea. What did Korea do in World War II to deserve being divided. Korea had been a single nation and people for thousands of years. Through conquest by Mongols, China, and Japan. For foreign powers to draw a line across Korea and say from now on there are two Koreas was stupid and arrogant. And how did they think one or the other would not try to reunite Korea. The Korean war had nothing to do with communism and capitalism. It was just an attempt to undo the arrogance of world powers dividing Korea.
Cowboy :
02 Jul 2013 5:35:29pm
Phillip, I think it was a good thing to drop the Atomic Bombs on Japan because we are here to write about it.
John :
02 Jul 2013 6:50:33pm
There are several things to remember.
First Oliver Stones 'history' is interesting and sometimes challenging entertainment.
Secondly, I find it strange that Japan still claims these deaths as justification for the atrocities carried out from Korea all the way down to Australia.
One example is the Nanking Massacre. Historians and witnesses have estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people were killed. Several of the key perpetrators of the atrocities at the time labelled as war crimes, they were later tried and found guilty and were executed. A key perpetrator however was Prince Asaka, a member of the Imperial Family, escaped prosecution by being granted immunity by the Allies as part of the surrender.
Japan lost a total of 150,000–246,000 -in these two attacks. A tradgedy. With the use of two bombs. But significantly less then one of MANY atrocities that were committed between 1910 to 1945 by Japan.
When Japan is willing to accept these atrocities and pay reparations - we all can move past this.
crank :
03 Jul 2013 9:38:30am
The current Japanese PM, Abe, a favourite of the USA, is a vociferous denier of the Nanjing Massacre, and of Japanese aggression entirely. One imagines that there might be some uproar if a German PM flat out denied the Nazi Holocaust, but Abe's opinions, shared by many in his regime, are totally suppressed by the MSM propaganda system.
Craig :
02 Jul 2013 7:04:14pm
I love the way the left nutters rewrite history. The Japanese Army with explicit support of their people where the most brutal invaders in history. The Rape of Nanjing was just one item. My view is that the Red Army would never have risked invading the Japan home land. The Japanese imperialism only ended due to the complete demoralization of their people and the ultimate weapon held by the USA.
What occurred after the WW2 is completely disconnected to the decision to save probably millions of Allied soldiers. Here is rub 100,000 Japanese deaths from two bombs dropped on industrial cities or 3 to 6 million allied soldier dying trying to defeat the Japanese on their homeland. I for one know the decision to drop the bomb was correct. BTW the caricaturisation of Truman is disrespectful and denies all the facts and outcomes.
Phil Pryor :
03 Jul 2013 8:53:13am
Try night school. You might get the school certificate. Then you could learn some history, properly.
briefcandle :
07 Jul 2013 7:37:34am
Millions of allied dead? Spare us the bunkum. The Joint Chiefs submitted estimates in the low 10s of 1000s based largely on a casualty rate likely to be suffered. They used the reconquest of the phillipines as their model. They did not assume soviet entry into the war, they did not know that their kyushu landing would have available to them 3-6 nukes to 'soften' up the bridgeheads and back country.
The 1/2 million/ 1 mill /2 mill estimates are all spouted by politicians after the war Truman/Stimson/Churchill- all safein the knowledge that the actual estimates would not be released. It was utter hyperbole.
briefcandle :
07 Jul 2013 7:53:56am
re Red Army invading Japanese homeland-
truly their sea lift capability was very small and brittle. Nevertheless they did make successful amphibious assaults directly on the japanese rear to support their attacks in korea, sakhalin and the kurils.
Stalin called off the invasion of hokkaido on the night of 22-23august45, literally within hours of the h-hour. The assault was to be made on the port of Rumoi on western hokkaido which was at that time defended by two companies of japanese troops ie almost totally undefended.
The key insight here is that almost all japanese troops, heavy equipment and aircraft were massed down south on kyushu to face likely US invasion-and the transport and infra-structure necessary to redeploy to face the soviet threat just didn't exist any more.
wobbles :
02 Jul 2013 7:16:12pm
The version I've heard is that the US were desperate to field test their new weapons and worried that the war may end too soon.
They dropped 2 bombs because there were two different models being tested and the sites were chosen for research purposes rather than strategic ones.
The Russians were moving their forces from the conquered Germany and planning to invade Japan from the north and the Japanese were worried that their country would be partitioned after conquest but were culturally unable to surrender.
The bombs served multiple purposes but the Japanese were really used as lab rats.
Ken in San Jose :
02 Jul 2013 7:42:35pm
A world with the Atomic bomb, without the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would be a much more dangerous place. Without that terrible memory, someone would have used the Atomic bomb somewhere else, at a time when there were thousands of Atomic bombs instead of only 2 Atomic bombs. Maybe, during the Berlin blockade or the Cuban missile crisis. Then what would the world look like today?
Shane 2 :
02 Jul 2013 7:42:40pm
The USA continued the brutality of conquest of native peoples from 1776 on. It continued the brutality of slavery. 1945 was not the beginning of slavery.
JohnJ :
02 Jul 2013 8:31:05pm
"Truman was stuck with it and America was stuck with Truman " . Thank God ...... The fact was that Truman dropped the two bombs to bring the war to an end as soon as possible . This saved the lives of countless soldiers , including thousands of Australians .......It's pure fantasy to suggest that the Russian declaration of war was the decisive factor in bringing the war to an end .
Stone and Kuznick have every right to air their' views , but it would be very much appreciated if an alternative viewpoint on these times could be presented . I can also recommend a " Classic LNL" program from 1995 . " How The Pacific War Changed Our Region " .It can still be downloaded . It offers a much more balanced perspective . It's great to hear the late John Keegan .
Simon Winn :
02 Jul 2013 8:32:19pm
'The Fog of War' a must see for anybody interested in this dark chapter of American history.
Robert McNamara who was part of General Curtis LeMay's staff during the Pacific conflict states LeMay saying "had we lost the war we would have been indicted for war crimes"
So if the guy who ordered and carried out the slaughter of up to a million Japanese civilians says its a war crime, how can anybody else say its not?
Mitchell Gryphon :
02 Jul 2013 8:50:01pm
The American and Allied populations were very weary of the war in 1945. As the Pacific was cleared of Imperial occupation, the many atrocities became known. Rabaul, the Burma Railway, the Sandakan march. My Grandmother's brother was killed in Borneo 10 days before the capitulation. Would he have lived if the bombs had been dropped earlier? Even though the Japanese cities were laid to waste with conventional fire bombing used in Europe, we forget the overwhelming desire for vengeance which did not allow for humanitarian considerations. In Europe there were "Show trials" of prominent Nazis. Very few Japanese were punished for their treatment of Allied prisoners and civilians. Japanese servicemen were told they were liberating Asia from imperial European powers, sounds a bit like Iraq and Afghanistan?
Moral equivalence? I think the war was won without invasion and also without the bomb. The Russians had recruited an army which would have threatened US dominance in the Pacific, had they not concluded the war quickly. The Russian duplicity before Hitler invaded, does not diminish their contribution to the war effort. The Japanese hierarchy were equivocating because they feared what would happen to them personally after any surrender. We should not bomb predominantly civilian targets with weapons of mass destruction. We (The West) don't even need nukes because conventional explosive weapons can do as much damage. Let us all hope it is the first and last time nukes are deployed during a conflict. We should regret Dresden and other fire bombings and also the use of nukes on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. However they were the lesser evil than Fascism and totalitarianism.
baska :
02 Jul 2013 10:33:11pm
Firstly just because a person is good at making movies doesn't mean he knows anything about history. Neither does being an historian make a good filmaker. So why on earth should we take any notice of this person's opinions on this subject?
Secondly, it is so so easy to make judgements with hindsight. So for example, Stone says "there is little mention of any bombs in any Japanese government cabinet meetings before their surrender". Did Trueman know that? Of course not. Some other comments say things like "Japan had almost completely run out of fuel and without fuel its war machine couldn't operate" Did Trueman know for sure that was the case? And the defence of the Pacific Islands showed that the Japanese forces did not need fuel or other supplies in order to fight to the finish, inflicting heavy casualties on the attackers.
No doubt if Trueman had decided not to drop the bombs, and had instead invaded, suffereing many thousands of casualties, smart alec film directors would now be telling us how that was a terrible mistake.
03 Jul 2013 10:29:39am
My current doctoral thesis attempts to interpret Australia's relationship with the USA and Canada in terms of The Three Stooges.
America of course is represented by Moe, the undisputed leader of the trio, who at times is inclined to exhibit somewhat violent behaviour.
America's closest ally, Canada, must therefore be the little brother Curly, who languishes perpetually at the mercy of his big brother Moe, and is often on the receiving end of his derision.
Australia, then, is quite obviously manifest in the persona of Larry, the well-meaning but ineffectual third member of the alliance, who like Curly (Canada) is also bossed around by Moe (USA).
What about Shemp, you may ask?
Now, whenever I visualize Shemp, I'm thinking "New Zealand".
My next dissertation, still in the initial research stage, shall attempt an explication of the Anglo-French relationship in terms of Ren and Stimpy.
Jude Meacham :
09 Jan 2014 3:15:19pm
Paul Ham 'Hiroshima Nagasaki' (2011) gives a detailed, brilliant, comprehensive, and highly readable account about the myth that the atomic bombs ending the war with Japan.
I hope Oliver Stone has read this account.
mick white :
09 Jan 2014 9:45:31pm
It was sickening to see "stormin' norman" gloating over bombing raids on Iraq using bunker-busting bombs in the first Iraq war (around 1989, I think).
Surely the journalists are equally culpable, in sanitising the General's attitude.
ZakL :
28 Apr 2014 11:58:56pm
Again a LIE.
American "won" WW2 ????
You, like millions of americans still believe in this LIE ?
Who financed nazi germany and supported its plans for war ? USA of course - thru companies like Ford, IBM, Random House...etc.
Playing little "war" games with Japanese, you call it "winning the war" ???
THE WAR, The WWII was not in japan, or near japan, or in africa. THE WWII was in EASTERN E-U-R-O-P-E, or more precisely in RUSSIA.
It was the EASTERN FRONT, the REAL WWII.
Why US kept delaying invasion into europe until july 1944, less than a year before the end ?
Because US kept believing in germany that it can still destroy Russia.
Please stop telling fairy tales.
Ron N :
02 Jul 2013 9:58:49am
Phillip, I believe Oliver Stones story line is way too simple and doesn't really reflect the reality that America faced in 1945. Remember, America's industrial might and enormous productivity won WW2. She supplied all the Allies with nearly all the equipment needed to win the War - particularly aircraft, tanks, trucks, and bulldozers. No other Axis nation had these in the quantity required. What Oliver Stone is missing is that the Industrial kingpins of corporate America became the men who effectively won WW2. From that point, they were promoted to a position of worship, which led to the "upsizing" of the military/industrial complex that reached its zenith in the 1980's. I believe that Americans have always had a cruel streak in their psyche, as indicated by their massacres of their fellow Americans during the Civil War. There is also a need for domination in the American psyche, led by an ingrained belief that they are Gods chosen Nation and that all other nations/cultures are inferior. The American psyche is an incredibly complex mix of religion, self-assuredness, worship of material wealth, and a firm belief that America will always rule the world.
Justin Moore :
06 Aug 2015 1:32:04am
It's not just brutalization because of the bomb, what's driving it is much more banal than that. The USA is very afraid that someone will drop a bomb on them and get back at them. That's the mania, the fear that drives their hysterics about 9-11 (George Bush said "we wont be intimidated" could anyone but a hysteric imagine they could have been?). That fear dives them to always stay on top and in control and ever more threatening and brutal and spend more on weapons than the rest of the world combined. It's fear, the same fear that drives all bullies and murderers in all circumstances, fear of equality, someone getting even with them.
Johnny :
25 Aug 2016 3:53:14am
There was no need to drop them bombs and to try and justify it by saying it made Japan surrender and saved much more lives is absolute ridiculous and bs if ive ever heard it. Do people to this day really believe that justifying mass war crimes and genocide by targeting civillians with nuclear warfare was the reason Japan surrendered?. Japan was already desperately trying to surrender. Its 2016 and time to let go of bs arguements to justify these horrendous war crimes on Japan.
142556 :
11 May 2017 12:42:37am
kgAE7G You made some really good points there. I checked on the net to find out more about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this web site.


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[Unknown Error] Unable to login
So I was in the process of trying to play last night and suddenly I wasn't able to log onto either of my accounts. The past week or so, I've been playing on and off with no issues. Been playing on this server for a couple years now and no stranger to how to setup the install.
However, last night when trying to login, sometimes I would get no server listing and sometimes I would get a server listing but when I clicked play, the software would sit for a couple seconds and then display an unknown error and do nothing. This all seemed weird so I reinstalled the server files from the main website thinking that something else was updated. Unfortunately this didn't work. Over the next couple hours, I reinstalled EQ, reinstalled WinEq, removed necessary files from the EQ folder, reinstalled server files, rebooted multiple times as well as tried running the game directly from the "Launch Titanium" batch file and WinEQ but nothing worked. I continue to either get no server listing, an unknown error or I'm not even able to get to the server select screen. In one instance, I was able to get to character select just to have the software crash and push me back out, this is the farthest I have gotten.
After checking the Project 1999 forums for answers, I know the most common issue is either a messed up installed or something is blocking the connections. I've checked my router for blocking sites and/or exceptions list, I've listed the EQ folder in my antivirus exceptions list, verified windows firewall is turned off and still I can't seem to figure out the problem.
Is there anything else I can try to correct this? Hoping I can get some answers before I get home from work today.
Found this:
10. "An unknown error occurred while trying to join the server" I get this error, what do i do?
This issue can happen for a number of reasons, usually it can be fixed by simply attempting to log in a few times. However, if you find that you still can't log in,
try changing your eqhost.txt file from:
Credit for this fix goes to sebastionleo. thanks sebastion!
Gonna try it when I get home, only lead thus far, any other suggestions?
Sounds more symptomatic of a general connectivity issue rather than something specific like blocked ports or firewall interference. Definitely doesn't sound like anything related to your EQ installation. Since you were playing with no problems the past week, it sounds like something with your connection went awry. Obligatory copy & paste paragraph:
Are there any other devices connected to your router, wirelessly or otherwise? If something else on your network is hogging bandwidth this could happen - you can find out if this is the issue by connecting to your router's configuration page and changing your network password. Could also be caused by a weak wireless connection if you're connected wirelessly. When you reset your router it's a good idea to disconnect the internet line for a good five minutes so that you'll be assigned a new IP address when you reconnect.
If none of that works, I'd call your ISP and have them run some diagnostics on your connection.
Troubleshooting connection issues with P99 can be pretty counterintuitive because everything else could be working perfectly fine - you could be connecting to other games fine, your connection could seem flawless in every other way but there could still be some weird hangup preventing you from relaying packets with the P99 servers. I don't know enough about networking to say exactly why that is, but a good starting point is your connection to the internet.
You should also make sure it's not just your computer - if you have another machine that can connect to the internet, try connecting to P99 on that. If that can connect, then you can pretty much rule out your ISP and your router, and just focus on your computer. There are lots of connectivity-related things that can happen to your computer that would interrupt your connection, such as malware or even well-intended software that is doing something your connection or configuration doesn't agree with.
A more drastic thing you can try is completely resetting your router, either by accessing its firmware and selecting some kind of "reset to default" option, or by pressing & holding the tiny reset button that pretty much all routers have on the back.
Well so far I've changed DNS servers, ran as admin, changed EQHost file and still nothing is working. Seems to be a connection issue as I cant even ping any of the login servers but can ping the primary domain. Still trying to figure it out.
When changing the eqhost.txt file it will not give me access to change the file. Suggestions?
this happend to me just now, i was swapping toons and now i cant log into any accounts without getting this message. I was just on... tried restarting computers, nothing... and my internet is blazing fast, ini file is fine...
In my 8+ years on server ive never seen this
update, took waiting a good amount of time until i could get back in.
Last edited by mackenzie; 11-14-2018 at 12:07 PM..
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