Re: Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em

Rich, 
 
 
  Neither dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities nor an invasion 
  of Japan was necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government. 
 
  David Kahn explains: 
 
    Communications intelligence contributed...in major ways to the 
    Allies' Pacific victory.  It stepped up American submarine sinkings 
    of the Japanese merchant fleet by one third. This cutting of Japan's 
    lifelines was, Premier Hideki Tojo said after the war, one of the 
    major factors that defeated Japan. 
 
       David Kahn.  "Codebreaking in World Wars I and II: The 
       Major Successes and Failures, Their Causes and Their 
       Effects" (1980).  In: Kahn on Codes: Secrets of the New 
       Cryptology.  Macmillan Publishing Co.  1983.  Page 108. 
 
 
    The water transport intercepts should provide case after case of how 
    American submarines won one of the most important victories in the 
    Pacific: the sinking of the Japanese merchant fleet.... 
 
       Kahn.  "Opportunities in Cryptology for Historians."  Op 
       cit.  P 289. 
  
 
    Some information came out shortly after World War II, when we 
    all heard about how we broke some Japanese codes before Pearl 
    Harbor, which...did help very much...in the successful American 
    submarine blockade of Japan, which very largely brought the Jap- 
    anese empire to its knees. 
 
       Kahn.  "Signals Intelligence in the 1980s" (1981).  Op cit. 
       P 292. 
 
   
 
             In other words, it was Starvation City. 
             --------------------------------------- 
 
  As an aside. these three quotations from Kahn on Codes, a collection 
  of articles, show that David's views in this regard are consistent 
  over the years. 
 
  Continuing-- 
 
  Dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities or an invasion of Japan 
  was not necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government. 
   
  William Langer explains: 
 
    In the greatest air offensive in history [during May, June, and 
    July 1945] United States land-based and carrier-based aircraft des- 
    troyed or immobilized the remnants of the Japanese navy, shattered 
    Japanese industry, and curtailed Japanese sea communications by sub- 
    marine and air attack and extensive minefields.  United States bat- 
    tleships moved in to shell densely populated cities with impunity 
    and the Twentieth Air Force dropped 40,000 tons of bombs on Japanese 
    industrial centers in one month. 
 
       William Langer.  An Encyclopedia of World History. 
       Houghton Mifflin Co.  1948.  Page 1169. 

 
                    It was Devastation City. 
                    ------------------------ 

  Then why Hiroshima and Nagasaki? 
 
  There were two main reasons nuclear weapons were dropped on Japanese 
  cities: 
 
       (1)  generally, to proclaim Pax Americana...with a bang 
 
       (2)  specifically, to declare war on the Soviet Union. 
 
 
  For the sake of completeness, let's ask:  If it really had been 
  necessary to drop nuclear weapons on Japan in order to compel the 
  Japanese government to surrender, should they have been dropped? 
 
  Without hesitation. 
 
 
  Cordially, 
 
  Jim 
 
 

 
  NOTE.  The first part of the "Opportunities" article was published 
  in 1972.  The second part, dealing with World War II, was written 
  perhaps a decade later for publication in the collection.

>   Neither dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities nor an invasion 
>   of Japan was necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government. 

Doesn't anyone bother to delete cpunks from the CC before sending this off
topic stuff? And since I know it's coming, please refrain from trying to
relate it to anything relevant here with some kind of japan-crypto or
wrongful governmental action ObCrypto's. What I had for lunch is just as
irrelevant, but that doesn't mean it becomes relevant if I can somehow
involve encryption.


Dangit, wheres my procmail. Does anyone use gnus for this list? I think
I need a scoring system.


Now for the on-topic stuff. Looking through my mail yesterday, noticed a
credit card application from BofA. Despite the fact that they didn't want
to give me a card three years ago, they have offered a student card to me.
I figured that it was a lucky guess, them knowing I'm a student again. Then
I noticed they were kind enough to fill in my school ("Main Campus" too) into
the appropriate blank. Now, that's either a really good guess, or else they've
been out looking me up. I'm currently writing a letter to BofA telling them
they can kiss my rear if they're going to go around keeping tabs on me. They
should at least be more careful about letting me on to them.

This got me interested in which companies keep track of what information. I'm
now going to write to my other credit companies and ask something like:

   I am interested in knowing what information your company keeps track of    
   which is not directly related to my credit history, my balance, and my   
   current address. For example, do you maintain or seek out any of the 
   following information:

   Change in Marital Status that don't relate to credit account
   change or loss of employment
   spending habits, ie, types of goods, dollar amounts and locations,
     for any purpose
   credit or bank accounts with other companies, for any purpose

Can anyone suggest anything else to ask about? I know, for example, that some
companies keep track of spending so as to be able to call you up if you, for
example, start buying large numbers of cars in asia. Or maybe they have a red
flag that goes up if you start to max out all your other credit cards or
something. But I've run out of things that I think they're keeping track of
that they don't need to. I suppose DNA samples is probably still a bit away.

Don

Even your on-topic stuff wasn't really on-topic "-)

You can relax - the bank doesn't have a bunch of PIs snooping around to 
find out what you're up to. What actually happens is that the university 
sells the list of registered students to various organisations for use in 
direct-mail campaigns. 


(defun modexpt (x y n)  "computes (x^y) mod n"
  (cond ((= y 0) 1) 	((= y 1) (mod x n))
	((evenp y) (mod (expt (modexpt x (/ y 2) n) 2) n))
	(t (mod (* x (modexpt x (1- y) n)) n))))

Don <don@cs.byu.edu> writes:
> Now for the on-topic stuff. Looking through my mail yesterday, noticed a
> credit card application from BofA. Despite the fact that they didn't want
> to give me a card three years ago, they have offered a student card to me.
> I figured that it was a lucky guess, them knowing I'm a student again. Then
> I noticed they were kind enough to fill in my school ("Main Campus" too) into
> the appropriate blank. Now, that's either a really good guess, or else they'v
> been out looking me up. I'm currently writing a letter to BofA telling them
> they can kiss my rear if they're going to go around keeping tabs on me. They
> should at least be more careful about letting me on to them.

Most likely, BofA just obtained the mailing list of all students from your
school and mailed the same offer to all. If you read the fine print, you'll
probably find that your application is still subject to their credit approval.

> This got me interested in which companies keep track of what information. I'm
> now going to write to my other credit companies and ask something like:
...

If you haven't read the book _Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made
Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret_ by Jeffrey Rothfeder
(ISBN 0-671-73492-x), I suggest you get hold of it. You'll be amazed. :-)

>    spending habits, ie, types of goods, dollar amounts and locations,
>      for any purpose

Most definitely! When you charge things to your credit cards, the types of
products and services you purchase, and the typical amounts you spend
all go into your consumer profile, available for the right price.

---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

<<"In other words it was stvation/devastation city">>

  It was lot worse than that on the Japanese-imperialits occupied islands 
of the Pacific when the Nisei troops choosenot to surrender and instead, 
mad last-ditch charges against AMerican lines - which killed not a small 
number of Americans. And of course, there were the suicide bombers.

Submarine operations don't cost zero lives, either. In fact, just plain 
old regular military logistics - keeping the boys mobilized and in place 
ina theatre of operations - don't cost zero lives, even if there are _no_ 
hostilities.

And while all the starvation and devastation was going on in Japanese
cities, the Japanese troops were torturing and murdering Allied POWs, and
Asian civilains in all the Japanese-occupied teritories. Those people
deserved liberation, too. 

I think you give your game away when you complain about how we were being 
unfair to Comrade Stalin.

As far as Pax Americana goes, the Japanese just _volunteered_ to_increase_
the payments they make to support the American garrison in Japan. The
non-Okinawans want us in their country. I guess they know that the
alternative is a Red Chinese garrison. 

And lots of other Asians are afraid of the same alternative - or of 
Japanese garrisons in their homeland. THey've "been there, done that".

Alan Horowitz 
alanh@norfolk.infi.net

Alan Horowitz writes:

:   It was lot worse than that on the Japanese-imperialits occupied islands 
: of the Pacific when the Nisei troops choosenot to surrender and instead, 
: mad last-ditch charges against AMerican lines - which killed not a small 
: number of Americans. And of course, there were the suicide bombers.

Who were those second generation Japanese Americans who ``choosenot to
surrender and instead, mad last-ditch charges against AMerican lines''?

I am afraid that I find this all rather cryptic, which I guess makes
it appropriate.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu

> : of the Pacific when the Nisei troops choosenot to surrender and instead, 
> 
> Who were those second generation Japanese Americans who ``choosenot to
> surrender and instead, mad last-ditch charges against AMerican lines''?


   Strike that. Insert "Nippon".   Don't blame me, I went to public schools.

Hi,

While avoiding the many political issues in this thread to
which my opinion is of little value,

 > As far as Pax Americana goes, the Japanese just _volunteered_ to_increase_
 > the payments they make to support the American garrison in Japan. The
 > non-Okinawans want us in their country.

this is so far off the mark as to be hilarious.  Public opinion
against US troops in Japan is pretty high.  Don't confuse what
the government does to have any bearing on what people want.
Also realize that US mass media's portrayal of events in Japan
may be quite different than that of Japan's mass media.  I would
expect that this is true elsewhere as well...

Vince Gebes
PSI Japan