Talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/Archive 9

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Hiroshima

The argument that Hiroshima was of military significance would be strengthened if you had a citation to go along with that assumption.

Subotai 01/18/2006


The targets of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military bases or heavy industrial centers. Subotai 01/18/2006


Opening of the Opposition section

The very opening lines of the Opposition section (after the numbered points) were support arguments! I've removed them, since they have already been mentioned and don't belong there, but please keep things in their correct places.--Now might i do it pat 05:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Effect of bombing on rice harvest

I see many numbers put forward for the expected deaths had an invasion of the Japanese home islands been required to end the war. However, they seem to be the result of projections on direct deaths from the invasion itself (ie military activity, whether by uniformed forces of either side, or Japanese civillians in opposition to the invasion forces).

Since I'm sure that statistics are present somewhere regarding the dropping levels of the rice harvest as a result of US conventional bombing, with its corresponding decrease in daily caloric intake, would somebody publish these? The obvious way to end the war would have been a destruction of the transportation system, which could be justified for military ends. Correspondingly, without any system to transport the rice to the civillian population, there would have been mass starvation and a collapse of Japan's ability to further the war.

One wonders how many civilian casualties due to mass starvation would have occurred, and whether the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the result of actually preventing far worse civillian death than had they not been used.

How many alternative histories should be explored? There are a number of factors, such as that Japan is a relatively small country, which is a good thing because U.S. bombers destroyed the country's last refinery the night before Japan's surrender. A large quantity of rice can be moved with many small carts, and carried by hand to bypass bombed-out bridges. If starvation in cities became a problem, people can walk over 10 miles a day toward the rice (which would also spread the population which would make bombing less effective and make offensive military operations more difficult than against a fixed defending force). However, you probably need to find someone that already figured it all out and published it so you can cite that work. Sounds somewhat like forbidden original research (see WP:NOR). (SEWilco 03:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC))
A number of points have been raised here, which certainly deserve reply and discussion.
1. How many alternative histories should be explored? Since a large portion of the article is dedicated to the debate over the bombings, it goes without saying that a discussion of the ramifications of not bombing is germane to the topic. Since this is the discussion page, it seems that maybe the question is meant to stifle any additional discussion that might lead to a conclusion not favored - that sort of action is inappropriate.
2. Sounds somewhat like forbidden original research (see WP:NOR). 1945 was sixty-one years ago - I could not conduct original research if I had wanted to, since without a time machine, I cannot go back to August 1945 and count rice fields, or directly measure dietary caloric intake of the Japanese civillian population. Obviously, this information would be already published, and therefore, attributable in an encyclopedic entry. Also, it's not my idea anyway, because
3. Richard_B._Frank has in fact published figures (Frank, Richard B., "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire". New York: Random House, 1999. ISBN 067941424X (hc), ISBN 0141001461 (2001 tpb).) on the decline of the rice harvest from 10 million tons in 1942 to 6.3 million tons in 1945, with the resultant food ration of 1042 calories per day by May 1946. While your contention is true that people can walk over 10 miles a day toward rice, as you suggest, you ignore the resultant depopulation of the industrial centers, millions of hungry refugees competing for the roads with military traffic, etc. With only 1042 calories/day by May 1946 in the absence of any US destruction of the transporation system, it's not difficult to see that Operation Olympic (the planned invasion of Kyushu) and Operation Coronet (the planned invasion of Honshu) would have resulted in mass starvation with millions of civillian Japanese dead. Any discussion of civillian Japanese deaths in conjuction with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is incomplete without a look at the consequences of not ending the war quickly.
--David Barkhimer 02:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
On #2 — original research doesn't mean you have to go back in time. If you read the policy you'll see it just means doing original formulations or using primary sources exclusively. It's a policy which basically means you can't do anything new—the encyclopedia should be a boring collection of other people's views. On #1, I think he just meant that this is not a well-known alternative history and that we should stick to the prominent ones. If we start indulging in all of the possible alternatives then we'll be pretty sunk full of alterna-history pretty quickly. On #3, those figures of Frank are only on pre-existing rice harvest effects, right? You would need Frank's own analysis of the invasion on rice harvest in order for it not to be original research under our policy. You're right that the consequences need to be looked at, but on Wikipedia we need to stick to other people's formulations of those and not indulge in our own. If we start letting people add their own pet "What If?" theories, there won't be any end in sight. Even sticking with the already-published versions requires a lot of pruning. --Fastfission 04:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Frank's position is that the invasion planned for December was being overtaken by events, and wouldn't have happened, even without the atomic bombs. Of the events happening in August—including the Soviet attack—he says:
"... the new strategic-bombing directive of August 11 would have had the most significant effect. At first glance, the new directive, which substituted selective attacks on transportation targets for the area-incendiary campaign appears far more humane. Civilian casualties would diminish markedly both because only thirty-five cities were among the 221 total targets ...
    In the long term however, the new directive would have caused far more loss of life by starvation than the atomic bombs exacted. Simply stated, Japan in 1945 was facing mass famine brought on by the destruction of her transportation system. While three out of four Japanese resided on Honshu—and half of them in the southwestern part of the island—Japan harvested the great bulk of its food on Hokkaido, parts of Kyushu, and in northern Honshu. ...
[But the Allies didn't appreciate Japan's position.] A master assessment of Japan's situation by the Military Intelligence Service on June 30 concluded that Japan would not experience any "serious overall food shortage" in 1945.
    The timing of the assault on Japan's railways came at precisely the moment when it could do by far the most damage. Postwar information has made it clear that Japan reached November 1, 1945 with only enough rice in government hands for four days consumption (133,000 tons). Japan depended on the distribution of the fall crop to food-deficient areas to see her on to 1946 without a disaster. Had the war continued for even only a few more weeks, the destruction of Japan's rail network would have quickly caused a food-supply crisis in late 1945. ...
    Such a catastrophe would likely have ruptured the key fault line between Japan's military and civilian decision makers. Imperial Army and Navy leaders as a group perceived foreign occupation as the sole lethal threat to the Imperial institution. What set the civilians, including Kido and the Emperor, apart ... was the conviction that the Imperial institution could also perish by internal upheaval. ... But if the timing and circumstances of a Japanese surrender as a result of rail bombing remains unclear, it is certain that vastly more noncombatants would have perished.
(Downfall, ch. 21, p. 350–355)
—wwoods 19:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This "bomb the wonton" hypothetical is such a waste of time. --Haizum 15:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I find it very interesting. Subotai 01-18-2006

The Japanese side

As this article showed the events only from one side, I added facts about the position of the Japanese government and the Emperor. --Flying tiger 20:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I made some further edits to incorporate the above edits into the article a little better. I also removed two quotes of Hirohito's: It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped, and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima. But it could not be helped because that happened in wartime". -- I removed this because I thought it was rather content-free; like all good modern monarchs, Hirohito was making polite sounds but not saying anything. And this paragraph: On August 12, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, prince Asaka then asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied "of course" -- I removed because it doesn't reflect what actually happened, so it's a little confusing. KarlBunker 02:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok for the 1975 interview but I disagree with your last modification. This dialogue is very important as it shows the true justification behind the Emperor's decision. For him, the main concern was the preservation of the kokutai, not the "quest for peace"...

--Flying tiger 13:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Conditional surrender

I added this:

"U.S. leadership knew this, through intercepts of encoded Japanese messages, but refused to clarify Washington's willingness to accept this condition."

I deleted this:

"Alperovitz argues that the sole issue hindering Japanese surrender was U.S. demand for unconditional surrender. When Japan asked that it be allowed to keep its emperor, the U.S. refused and proceeded with the atomic bombing. After its unconditional surrender, Japan was permitted to keep its emperor."

It's far from that simple. For instance, Byrnes was fairly obsessed with impressing (or frightening) the Soviets, & Truman was deeply beholden to him. Trekphiler 11:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The demand in the Potsdam Declaration was:

(13) We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

Not the Debellation of the Japanese state which would only happen if the armed forces did not surrender before that happened (second sentence of paragraph 13). --Philip Baird Shearer 12:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Formatting Errors

I saw some errors in the code used in the section titled "Hiroshima", in the subsection "the bombing". Unfortunately at this time I am not proficient enough with the code used on Wikipedia to correct the errors. I just wanted to bring it to someone's attention. Caris42 17:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing you saw how it read, 'and a then-nameless B-29 later called Necessary Evil Children of the Manhattan Project| accessdate = 26 Jul | accessyear = 2006}}</ref> The normal radio...'? I saw that too. I added a 'less than sign ref more than sign>' tag inbetween 'Evil' and 'Children', and a full stop after the 'less than sign/ref more than sign' tag. My worry is that the ref links don't lead anywhere - they're not at the bottom of the article as you'd expect them to be. Then I realised that the whole 'See also', 'References', 'Further reading', 'Cultural notes', and 'Footnotes' had disappeared, along with the "World War II" table. The '03:08, 19 October 2006 75.80.152.110 edit' seems to have removed them all. There have been what in my opinion are good edits since this, however. (There is still a problem in the "Opposition" paragraph "Inherently immoral" reading 'In 1963 the bombings were the subject of a judicial review in Shimoda et al. v. The Statenat.nsf/46707c419d6bdfa24125673e00508145/aa559087dbcf1af5c1256a1c0029f14d?OpenDocument Shimoda et al. v. The State], Tokyo District Court, 7 December 1963</ref>'). This isn't an article on fun stuff like cosplay, All your base are belong to us or field hockey. I'm going to try an edit restoring the ref stuff, but I think we may need the help of adnins+-senior wikipedians. Shirt58 11.02.31 20 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be all fixed now. Anyone see any remaining format problems? KarlBunker 13:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree - no format problems. Wdflake's 20:15, 20 October 2006 revert seems to have fixed things.Shirt58 13:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

What are the pre-assemblies?

The article refers to three pre-assemblies available for the Nagasaki mission. Were these all armed atomic devices or was there a single atomic warhead that was installed in the pre-assembly? 24.13.213.231 17:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Closer to the latter than the former. For an atomic bomb to work you need fissile material which is assembled in such a way to make the nuclear explosion. A pre-assembly in this context almost certainly means that they had the devices ready to assemble the fissile material, but lacked the fissile material itself for three bombs. --Fastfission 23:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Opposition misses interesting point

Why is there no mention about the alternative to bomb an inhabited area rather than a large city in the opposition section or in the choice of targets? User:thelve 20:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

A good point. I've always thought that it would have been far more humane to drop it on an uninhabited area first to demonstrate the power of the bomb and give them at least the chance to surrender before it was used on a city. Blowing the top off a national symbol like Mt. Fuji for example, may have had the desired effect, and could have spared hundreds of thousands of people. Bobo12345 22:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
It was discussed a lot in the early days before the bombing itself as to whether that would have the desired effect. I don't really know why we don't have much on the Los Alamos Target Committee discussions in here because that would give a good opportunity to cover it, though that is just one of the many things missing in this overly-large and poorly-organized article. --Fastfission 23:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
The Los Alamos Target Committee is one thing, and one can be sure this discussion must have taken place there. However, to me this is the first thing that comes to mind when discussing the ethics of this bombing and comparing its death tolls with the projected loss of life in an invasion. --thelve 12:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Right, because the Japanese propaganda machine wouldn't have claimed the explosion on Mt. Fuji to be their own demonstration of power. *yawn* I love these people that read the Da Vinci Code then think they have license to question every decision ever made by anyone in any field of expertise. --Haizum 15:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

People tend to forget that by August 6, 1945 nearly every major city in Japan had been destroyed or severely damaged (for example the fire bombing of Tokyo probably killed more civillains than the Atomic Bomb did) The Atomic Bombs were not imortant to Japanese surrender because it changed the mind of the average Japanese person (many were aware that they were losing the war) it was signifiacnt instead because it changed the minds of the Japanese military elite and the emperor. It is unreasonable to suggest that the same "Japanese propaganda machine" that could, according to some, explain away a giant mushroom cloud and the subsequent radiation on Mt Fuji (the symbol of Japan)could just as easily explain away the loss of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as easiliy as they explained away the losses of Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe etc.

Thanks for supporting my point. I provided one, ableit hyperbolic, reason for why dropping an atom bomb in a vacant field would have been useless; you provided the other - that being the part about Japanese cities and people being incinerated with no resulting surrender. --Haizum 07:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
By your logic Hazum, if incinerating Japanese civilians was shown not to produce surrender, then why did the US incinerate more of them, purportedly to cause surrender? Your argument now implies that the US deployed nuclear weapons believing that they would have no effect on the likelihood of surrender. Congratulations on painting yourself into a corner. By the way, did you enjoy watching the Da Vinci Code? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.6.99.30 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Leo Szilard Quote on Atomic Bombings of Cities

I have added the full, correct quote and removed 'cite sources' tag. It would be good if everyone interested to read the whole interview, from someone at the heart of the controversy, here: [1] --Cybersquire 06:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

plagarism

either we copied them, or they copied us because the two articles look almost exactly alike. the article that looks the same resides here Yahussain 05:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

See at the top where it says, "Wikipedia ... Directory > Reference > Wikipedia"? And at the bottom it says, "This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) ... Copyrights: Wikipedia information about Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". More from Wikipedia". I'm not aware that answers.com has any original content to copy.
—wwoods 06:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The bombings were a dreadful act!

I think that the bombing of Hiroshima and nagasaki was a vile and discraceful event that was the over retaliation of the U.S. I think it was an ill-consived dissision on the U.S's part. Infact, it was such a horrible doing, I don't thinkit deserves to be talked about. it caused japan years, decades of sorrow, and to make matters worse, think of all the people it killed. the attack on pearl harbor was mean , but this was attempted genocide! the U.S. destroyed countless years of Japanese history. this doing was so wrong, it should not even be talked about! -Noodler450 長いライブの日本！ And besides, what good would it have done other than to cause others misery and torment, we are all humans and they have as much wright to live on this planet as we do. so i suggest the arcticle be unprotected so if people want, such a terrible thing will be gone from such a rellible website, sorry, encyclopedia.

Want more, go to [2]

Thanks!!!!!!!!

Have you ever heard the phrase "Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it"? How about "Lest we forget"? Even though this topic is surrounded with controversy, that doesn't mean we should ignore it. It was not attempted genocide; there was no attempt to erradicate Japanese people, only to end the war quickly. Removing the article would be censorship; if for no other reason than we should not forget the Holocaust, we should not forget Heroshima. Tavianator 19:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC) Tavianator 12:10, 10 November 2006 (MST)

::Because the jews dont let us forget their alleged "holocaust" they are allowed to commit a REAL one on Palestinians and Lebanaese and other arab/muslims around them while the world stands by with hands behind their backs and a smirk on their face and "fighting terror" on their lips. A REAL HOLOCAUST IS BEING PERPETRATED BY THE CRIMINAL AND RACIST STATE OF ISRAEL. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.134.115 (talk • contribs) 02:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

"When you want to be taken seriously and speak of a serious subject, make it a point to correct your spelling."

This entry in the Talk page looks like a simple case of trolling. I wouldn't pay it much attention. Bobo12345 13:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

How many Japanese citizens, who were being told by their government to use their bodies as human shields and use anything available to attack invading Allies, would have died under Operation Downfall if the bombings had not occurred? User:Zoe|(talk) 00:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The bombs were necessary for Japanese society to surrender and still save face. Not only would an invasion have been costly in lives (both Japanese and American), they would have taken a toll on Japanese culture. Just something to think about. 76.186.208.138 06:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this page is the place to be having the discussion. Dekimasu 07:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
That's true, the discussion page should discuss the writing of the article, not the subject itself. Cla68 07:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
You're quite right. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Opposition + Question

I'm currently doing a university course and I'm hearing some shocking revelations about the nuclear bomb events. I'm refrain to discuss it now, unless you want me to mention it.

Anyways, I've read in the past a book of Howard Zinn an author of history of the U.S, and mentionned and also in class, that the attack on both cities was to prevent the Soviet Union to occupy Japan. When sources will be released in the future, this theory could very well be cited more and more. But hearing more and more revelations more and more I believe that the operations were unnecessary. And is it true, that the U.S planned to attack 4 cities instead of the 2 that happened? --JForget 18:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Ever heard the term the lesser of two evils? I'm quite sure there was more than one variable involved in the descision to drop the bombs. The early ceasation of hostilities saved many allied lives and a vast ammount of money. Demonstrating their power to the vast Russian war machine (in addition to the Japanese of course} would not have overlooked. Had the Red Army invaded and occupied Japan one can only assume a similar outcome to that of Eastern Europe. Looking at the prosperity and freedom of Japan since the war one cannot fail to come to the conclusion that invasion and occupation by Russian forces would have been been far more costly in both lives and future development. --LiamE 19:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Howard Zinn is socialist revisionist historian. He may want us to believe that there was some bourgeoisie plot behind the bombing of Hiroshima that "they" don't want us (the proletariate) to know about. There may, however, actually be something to his allegations. But, most historical evidence that I've seen doesn't point to this reasoning as the primary imeptus for the decision to drop the "Bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You could probably add his allegation to the article as long as it's cited and written neutrally. Cla68 23:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
There were four cities on the target list, but there were only two bombs available in early August. A third would have been available by the end of the month.
As for "unnecessary", it depends on what you mean. To end the war (A) on Allied terms, (B) in August, with the resulting (net) saving of lives on both sides, some shock like the bombs and/or the Soviet declaration of war was necessary — we know that in the event they were barely sufficient. But even without the bombs, the war would obviously have been fought to some sort of conclusion.
—wwoods 20:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
And I just want to note that everything in the sources made at the time suggests that they would have continued bombing more cities if the Japanese had not capitulated. There was no foreknowledge that two bombs would be the magic number. --Fastfission 17:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's not get dragged into this kid's trifling little Zinn regurgitations. --Haizum 14:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia: [Zinn] contended that the Axis powers could have been opposed during World War II through popularly organized acts of nonviolent resistance. Ironically enough, he firebombed his own mental competence with such a thesis. --Haizum 15:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I can just see the Nazi's quaking in their boots now after learning there was to be a hunger strike at Belsen. --LiamE 15:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
'When sources will be released in the future, this theory could very well be cited more and more.'
Barring some undiscovered cache of documents nobody knows about, pretty much every source there is on the end of the Pacific War has been released, and in general, they've made the revisionist claims regarding the dropping of the a-bombs completely untenable. Mattm1138 01:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. And the quote you provided is just another example of how anti-American this article is relative to the actual weight of the facts. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 10:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Genocide not mentioned

Genocide is not mentioned anywhere on this page. 8 thousand killed is considered "Genocide" in Srebrenica, for example, but 500,000 dead Japanese civilians is not? Says something about the censoring of American history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.134.115 (talk • contribs) 19:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I certainly hope you are not trying to say that 500,000 Japanese people died as a result of the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (If not this is the wrong page for this critique) Anyway in the context of total war (which was occuring just as much in Europe) for example Dresdan or any of the major battles on the Eastern Front civillians are going to die. Japan had a relatively small number of civillians die in the context of those lost by the USSR or even Germany. If the United States really wanted to commit genocide an invasion of the main island would have probably resulted in more deaths. They also had a blockade around Japan so they could have just as easily starved them to death. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.86.14.40 (talk • contribs) 19:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The American bombing of Hiroshima was not genocide. Genocide is a systematic effort to eliminate an ethnic group in its entirety. The Americans were not trying to kill off the Japanese race; if they were, then the Japanese living in North America would have been systematically slaughterered. And though the Japanese were, in most cases, wrongly interned, America didn't try to kill them all. Rather, the US used the atomic bombs to end the war; whether the bombings were justified remains intensively debated to this day. So the label of "genocide" is ouright ridiculous and stupid. I'd suggest you focus your energy on the debate about whether the bombings were justified - and refrain from useless polemical arguments.

I think that is a result of confusion of the terms "genocide" and "mass murder". cyclosarin 12:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Genocide is about motivation, not numbers. --Fastfission 17:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd support an outright block of these IPs. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 10:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This is an exceptionally good article

Just went through it, and I couldn't find a single thing wrong or missing. Why not nominate for Featured Article status? :) Mathiemood 18:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I can agree wholeheartedly! This article represents the historical truth and nothing but it. Thumbs up!

Opposition section layout

In reading the opposition/support section, it appeared that the layout draws attention to the opposition arguments, for example the individual headers for the different arguments. The format itself seems biased (and yes I know this sounds silly) but I really think it should be adjusted. The format should be the same for both sections, and currently it isn't.

That's pretty typical for Wikipedia. The anti-American sections are always given so much more attention. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 10:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Total U.S. deaths throughout war

The article seems to contradict itself. In the "Prelude to the Bombings" section, the number of American lives lost in the three and a half years up to that point is quoted as being 400,000, while in the "Debate over Bombing" section, the number for the entire war is set at 292,000. Could use some tidying up, but I'm not registered. Thanks.

Decision to drop the bomb

Currently all it says in the article about the decision to drop the bomb is:

"U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who was unaware of the Manhattan Project until Franklin Roosevelt's death, made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan."

I'm sure Truman had lengthy discussions with various people before he made his decision. Who did he discuss it with? Did anyone voice any opposition to dropping the bombs?--Moonlight Mile 17:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In all of your POV you forgot to ask, "did anyone voice overwhelming support for dropping the bombs?" --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 04:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up Bias Related to Richard Frank Book

I had to clean up what I perceived to be excessive leaning on and perhaps even shameless self-promotion of Richard Frank's "Downfall" book. Previously there had been at least three references to his book (and one article reference), with some biased, glowing reviews of his book imbedded in the referencing of the book. As noted in an earlier comment of mine that can be seen in Archive 8 of the talk files, it is my contention that Frank is 1) biased and unapologetic towards the use of nuclear weapons and interested in deflating actual casualty figures in the bombings in order to make the bombing decision more palatable, 2) selectively uses casualty figures that are unscrutinized in terms of their accuracy and political motivations, 3) uncredentialed as an academic-level historian and has failed to hold his book up to proper academic peer review, 4) fails to cross-reference Japanese sources, and is 5) starkly neo-conservative, as shown in his article on the bombs appearing in the Weekly Standard, a magazine not known for being particularly unbiased and balanced. After my edits there is now only one references to his book in the article and there is still a reference to the Weekly Standard article that he wrote, which makes two references for him. Considering that there are other people out there who have written extensively on the subject of the bombings and are much more qualified, it seems reasonable to suggest that this article should lean a little less heavily on one particular author. I have removed the biased comments suggesting that his is "the best" analysis of casualty figures. I could probably pull a dozen books off the shelves written by accredited professors at major high-ranking American universities that dispute the atomic bombing casualty figures that he suggests, so I would please ask the revisionists and apologists to refrain from posting such unbalanced and biased perspectives. —The preceding comment was added by Roninred 14:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Roninred 14:25, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

Stating that bias exists does not make it so, and you offer no arguments or evidence to support your statement. Several editors of this article have made extensive reviews of the literature on the casualty figures, and the statement that Frank's was "Possibly the most extensive review and analysis of the various death toll estimates" is supported. Furthermore, the figures Frank presents are in line with other well-researched estimates. If you know of other reference works that examine casualty estimates in detail comparable to Frank's book, by all means add that information to the article. Simply stating that a "dozen" such books exist is not helpful.
Lastly, do not refer to other editors as "revisionists and apologists." This is contentious and unhelpful, and is a personal attack. KarlBunker 15:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not consider it a personal attack to suggest that some writers may not be writing from a neutral point of view. It seems that the discussion boards are set up in order to facilitate dialogue around these issues, and I simply feel it is important to consider that casualty figures have been manipulated in recent times by apologists for the nuclear bombing or by politcians who seek to provide justifications for current political purposes, such as recent moves to develop nuclear options for conventional warfare in Iraq (eg. bunker busting missiles). However, I will refrain from such statements in the future, as per your suggestion.

My biggest contention however is that the reference to Frank in the opening paragraph isn't even merited, since he doesn't even support the 74,000 casualty figure for Nagasaki. In fact, there is a section in the Nagasaki casualty figures disputing those figures that already lists him in this regards. Thus, the reference to him in the opening paragraph is 1) inaccurate, and 2) redundant, since he is already mentioned in the Nagasaki section as disputing the figures. I am merely seeking to work towards creating a more informed, balanced, and accurate article on this important subject. I will remove the reference to Frank in the opening paragraph and move the wording of the reference to the section on the Nagasaki figures, as it more accurately reflects the fact that Frank's work is not a correct reference for the 74,000 numbers on Nagasaki. I hope that other members of the forum will understand and ask for your consideration in this matter. Roninred 00:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Frank is a credible reference for data for this article, as his book extensively cites the sources he uses for his conclusions, many of which are Japanese sources. Anyway, the way to resolve a conflict between credible sources is to present both in the article, i.e. "Frank states that _____ died in Nagasaki (cite reference) but "so&so" gives a different number of ______ (cite reference)." Cla68 01:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
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