dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?

[StarCecil]

And when we've used up half of our stockpile and the Japanese don't care? There were holdouts that refused to believe the war had ended for thirty years after the fact, do you think that a demonstration bombing would do anything to faze them? You think they wouldn't just bunker down and prepare for the worst?

And if they didn't surrender, would you then drop the last bomb?

Hell, the only reason they surrendered in the first place was because they believed we had a limitless stockpile.

It does not matter. Human life is the most important thing on the planet. It doesn't matter how but the bombings were unjustifiable. Anyone that doesn't agree is almost assuredly american.

I'm going to repeat my point that the general point of view people hold about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is wrong. The bombs are not what caused the Japanese surrender. They contributed to it, but they achieved little more than the ddeath of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

OT: While I am against attacking civilians, i think the bombing was justified. Based on Japanese civilian reaction to American soldiers, I dont think it is too outlandish to think that most of them would sacrifice themselves to try and stop the Americans. There probably would have been bloody fights for every town, every street corner, eventually leading to much greater casualties than the two bombs combined.

I'm going to call bullshit on this in particular. Since there was a grand total of zero American fatalities during the occupation of Japan. The people were broken, they were tired of war and tired of having their cities razed and their children gunned down by fighters. Lets be honest here, say the US was invaded tomorrow and the government surrendered, would you suddenly just stop being angry at the invaders and no-one would fight back. How about when the occupying troops start cording off entire city blocks and raping all the women, beating anyone who tries to resist and sending them to jail without trial. Now do the same thing in a hospital, and do that every week for a year. I'm surprised the Japanese don't hate the Americans after that alone.

Oh and if you read Imperial Japanese documents and communiques leading up to the surrender, none of them are about the atomic blasts, since they were much more worried about the fact that the Soviets had just declared war, opening up a second front. Combine that with the fact that their elite units in Manchuria had just been destroyed in short order by advancing Red army units and suddenly the Atomic bombs seem less war ending.

Thank you my good sir.

As I pointed out above, it took the Emperor himself to order a surrender because his subordinates would not. They tried to kill the Emperor to prevent it. There were holdouts for Thirty Years.

They were not going to stop. The A-Bombs were a major contributing factor.

I'm going to counter with the fact that the Japanese had already offered a conditional surrender a few weeks before hand. Their one condition was that the Emperor be left alone and not tried by a military tribunal (something that happened anyway). The US refused because of politics, the government needed absolute surrender to have a hope at reelection. Likewise the Atomic bombs needed to be used to justify the millions of tax dollars spent in their devellopment.

And of course there were hold outs and people who didn't want to surrender. They were people, individuals who have different points of view. Hell, 1/4 Americans still think Obama is a muslim, something that is false. Plenty of Germans opposed the Nazis, and there were plenty of Japanese who opposed the war before it even started. Likewise you're going to have the radicals who would have fought to the death. The vast majority of people would have been quite happy to stay out of the war entirely.[/quote]

Everyone would have been happy to stay out of the war. But that had failed.

Last time we let someone go, as was indicated above, Germany started this war. A conditional surrender at all would have been unacceptable, not after the toll the war had taken. Civilians were being trained to fight, as were children. Japanese troops were ordered to commit suicide instead of being captured.

Were there political reasons to use the bombs? Yes.

But there were valid strategic reasons as well.

 

[the clockmaker]

I am not a son of your country. I come from a country where killing people is seen as a bad thing.

How dare you. Seriously, how dare you. I ask how you would justify the deaths of sons in wars caused by you naivete, I ask you, rationally and politely how you would have bypassed what was perhaps one of the most horrible moral dilemas of the past century and instead of bothering to respond or indeed even read my post, you claim that people of my country (and if I may note, I don't believe I even mentioned what country I was from, Australia by the way) do not understand that killing is wrong.

There are no perfect solutions. Sometimes, you have to do something bad to prevent something worse from happening. But not you personally, because lucky for you, there will always be someone there to make those sort of decisions for you, so that you can live under a blanket of security and safety, happy in the knowledge that you personally did nothing wrong. And that's alright, thats the way it should be, I for one would hate to live with the burden of every deed taken to secure my safety. But it might pay to have the common decency to recognise that all the mud and the blood, the shilouttes burned into walls, that was all done for the future of people like me and you. If you think you can do better, then go out into the world and do better, but don't be so surprised when a situation comes along that can't be solved by holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Don't be surprised it is you be judged, just as harshly, for failing to act where you once judged others for acting.

 

[StarCecil]

It does not matter. Human life is the most important thing on the planet. It doesn't matter how but the bombings were unjustifiable. Anyone that doesn't agree is almost assuredly american.

Oh man, the things I want to say...

I honestly haven't seen this kind of idiocy in a long time, nor have I seen such BLATANT hate for Americans. The very idea that ANYONE could think Americans love mass-murdering people is completely and utterly disgusting.

I have met enough that said to me that I was stupid for saying the invasion of Iraq was retarded with the reasoning "their religion is wrong, their skin is wrong, and they destroyed the world trade center. all muslims should die." and my point was that americans try to justify this. no other country does. they all condemn it and for a reason.

Wow, I've got no problem with Arabs or Muslims so...

maybe not, but you do see justification in killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing survivors generations of radiation based birth defects.

Saving millions of people from death isn't a justification enough? One million Americans alone would have died.

 

[JeanLuc761]

I am not a son of your country. I come from a country where killing people is seen as a bad thing.

How dare you. Seriously, how dare you. I ask how you would justify the deaths of sons in wars caused by you naivete, I ask you, rationally and politely how you would have bypassed what was perhaps one of the most horrible moral dilemas of the past century and instead of bothering to respond or indeed even read my post, you claim that people of my country (and if I may note, I don't believe I even mentioned what country I was from, Australia by the way) do not understand that killing is wrong.

There are no perfect solutions. Sometimes, you have to do something bad to prevent something worse from happening. But not you personally, because lucky for you, there will always be someone there to make those sort of decisions for you, so that you can live under a blanket of security and safety, happy in the knowledge that you personally did nothing wrong. And that's alright, thats the way it should be, I for one would hate to live with the burden of every deed taken to secure my safety. But it might pay to have the common decency to recognise that all the mud and the blood, the shilouttes burned into walls, that was all done for the future of people like me and you. If you think you can do better, then go out into the world and do better, but don't be so surprised when a situation comes along that can't be solved by holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Don't be surprised it is you be judged, just as harshly, for failing to act where you once judged others for acting.

...I think I love you.

*shakes hand*

 

[D64nz]

There is one theory that war is humankinds natural method of population control. Once any population in history reaches a certain point, and resources are strained it usually ends in open conflict. So if that is true than maybe the chinese solution to population control, ie limit the number of children per family is the way foward to avoid this. Otherwise we will always outgrow our ability to produce things like food etc.

 

[the clockmaker]

I am not a son of your country. I come from a country where killing people is seen as a bad thing.

How dare you. Seriously, how dare you. I ask how you would justify the deaths of sons in wars caused by you naivete, I ask you, rationally and politely how you would have bypassed what was perhaps one of the most horrible moral dilemas of the past century and instead of bothering to respond or indeed even read my post, you claim that people of my country (and if I may note, I don't believe I even mentioned what country I was from, Australia by the way) do not understand that killing is wrong.

There are no perfect solutions. Sometimes, you have to do something bad to prevent something worse from happening. But not you personally, because lucky for you, there will always be someone there to make those sort of decisions for you, so that you can live under a blanket of security and safety, happy in the knowledge that you personally did nothing wrong. And that's alright, thats the way it should be, I for one would hate to live with the burden of every deed taken to secure my safety. But it might pay to have the common decency to recognise that all the mud and the blood, the shilouttes burned into walls, that was all done for the future of people like me and you. If you think you can do better, then go out into the world and do better, but don't be so surprised when a situation comes along that can't be solved by holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Don't be surprised it is you be judged, just as harshly, for failing to act where you once judged others for acting.

...I think I love you.

*shakes hand*

Dawww thanks mate.

 

[MBurner 93]

I'm going to repeat my point that the general point of view people hold about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is wrong. The bombs are not what caused the Japanese surrender. They contributed to it, but they achieved little more than the ddeath of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

OT: While I am against attacking civilians, i think the bombing was justified. Based on Japanese civilian reaction to American soldiers, I dont think it is too outlandish to think that most of them would sacrifice themselves to try and stop the Americans. There probably would have been bloody fights for every town, every street corner, eventually leading to much greater casualties than the two bombs combined.

I'm going to call bullshit on this in particular. Since there was a grand total of zero American fatalities during the occupation of Japan. The people were broken, they were tired of war and tired of having their cities razed and their children gunned down by fighters. Lets be honest here, say the US was invaded tomorrow and the government surrendered, would you suddenly just stop being angry at the invaders and no-one would fight back. How about when the occupying troops start cording off entire city blocks and raping all the women, beating anyone who tries to resist and sending them to jail without trial. Now do the same thing in a hospital, and do that every week for a year. I'm surprised the Japanese don't hate the Americans after that alone.

Oh and if you read Imperial Japanese documents and communiques leading up to the surrender, none of them are about the atomic blasts, since they were much more worried about the fact that the Soviets had just declared war, opening up a second front. Combine that with the fact that their elite units in Manchuria had just been destroyed in short order by advancing Red army units and suddenly the Atomic bombs seem less war ending.

You make a good point there. Honestly, we have no idea what would have actually happened in a full scale invasion of Japan. But have you heard of Operation Downfall? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall It was the proposed invasion of Japan. Based on intel gathered by the US up to that point, they reached an estimation of millions of casualties. Based on what they knew, the atomic bombs probably seemed like a much safer, less costly alternative, as well as causing less civilian deaths. Maybe Japan would have surrendered early. But based on the dedication and willingness to die for their country shown so far in the war, American generals assumed the Japanese would fight to the end. But I suppose we can never truly know.

 

[Okysho]

for people who are unaware... I say, just take a history class... Historians study this stuff too, whether the end justifies the means or not (this was also one of Hitler's mottoes BTW)

But The Japanese were willing to fight to the bitter end. There was a planned all-out invasion of the home islands, among the allied forces, however the Japanese army, even the civilians were willing to fight to the bitter end. when I say bitter, I mean BITTER.

They taught their civilians, men, women, even the children how to take out unsuspecting allied troops with, yes, sharpened sticks, or similar objects.

Yes the bombs were terrible, but had the war continued, it would have led to the genocide of the Japanese people... because the civilians too would have fought to protect their country.

It's hard to get this unless you really understand their concept of Nationalism. The Japanese were (not sure about now) super proud of their nation. They overcame the west during the 1800s while Europe was "modernizing" and "civilizing" the east kicked China's ass and Russia's ass and let's give them a fair win, took out Pearl Harbour. I don't think any other nation has managed to launch an attack like that on the states. Japan thought they had a right to conquer East Asia, just like the US thought they had a right to conquer North America... both the government, and the people were willing to die for it...

this is why the bombs were dropped...

edit: my info might be a little fuzzy because it's been two years since I studied this: but the guy above me, operation downfall. That's the US invasion plan of Japan.

The pointed sticks thing... I know it's true.. you just have to find it...

 

[ninja51]

I dont support it. Pearl Harbor was bad, but when you think about it it "was" a military harbor. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had massive numbers of noncombatants, and while there were factories and military institutions there, Pearl Harbor was an exclusive military harbor, and if two nations go to war, ONLY combatants should be the ones dieing. Not the people dragged into the war by idiot governments. They bombed a harbor and killed primarily military personel. We completely irradicated two cities filled with millions of people, and making the locations still irradiated today. It should have been freaking illegal

 

[D64nz]

The bombs were mostly dropped for political reasons. Surrender to the US rather than the russians was the goal, as the cold war style tensions had already begun at this stage.

From a different angle though, did they deserve it, is a completely different question. There were no military forces in the war without blood on their hands, but the Japanese army had gone further than most. They reportedly slaughtered 300,000 people in the chinese town of Nanjing. An act that causes their german allies at the time alarm (oddly enough considering). They also tourtured their allied captives in very cruel ways. To surrender was unthinkable to the average Japanese soilder, as they gave their lives to the emperor when they enlisted. The mindset of walking dead men if you will. So they saw their captives as very weak. When they took Singapore, the largest ever surrender in Englands history of over 100,000 allied soliders, including about 10,00 fresh reinforcements from Austrailia who arrived the day before... well they force marched them, I forget the destination, but over half of that number did not make it to the other end...

Such is the way of war I guess. The same happened to Russian prisoners in german hands and German prisoners in Russian hands. About 10% of those captured ever reached home soil.

 

[D64nz]

Pearl Harbour was only a partial success for the Japanese forces. Yes, they did a lot of damage, and sunk a few major targets on Battleship row, but at that time the US Carrier fleet were out on manouvers, and as such left untouched. Carriers were a very new idea at that time, but latter more than proved their worth in all the following major sea battles and as support for landings.

Also they completely missed the oil reserves located in Pearl Harbour. The US's strength at that time was production, so they could easily come back from the hundreds of aircraft lost, and with newer models, better aircaft, than they lost. Production of Tanks(esp the Sherman) aircraft, ammunition, and technology was the US's greatest contribution to the war, with manpower being a close-ist second.

 

[StarCecil]

snip

Last time we let someone go, as was indicated above, Germany started this war.

How in the world did you let them go? do you even no what the treaty of versailles said? it caused world war 2. The french were to be paid by germany. A debt they have only recently fufilled. all of their industry was seized, their monarchy based goverenment was taken down in favour of an extremely unbalanced democratic system. This allowed Hitler to rise to power, by using the hatred accumulated in the german people towards the allies to kick the french out. unconditional surrender caused world war 2 and therefore the bombings.

Civilians were being trained to fight,

just like all the other countries in the world.

as were children. Japanese troops were ordered to commit suicide instead of being captured.

this was because they were told what americans would do to them, truthfully too. the japanese prisoners were tortured, and held prisoner with no rights whatsoever. Here I am not only talking about overseas but in america as well.

Loose enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles and unwillingness to fight Hitler were what caused WWII. Complete and total surrender of both Germany and Japan plus extended occupations thereof would have cured that.

Certainly many civilians world-wide were being trained to fight. But right now the focus is on Japan, and the fact that they were being led to the slaughter by their commanders and there was nothing the US could do to prevent it. Except drop an Atomic Bomb.

Internment camps and POW camps in America were much nicer than their foreign counterparts. Just look up what happened to the prisoners taken during Japan's initial attack. Batan alone will tell you all you need to know.

 

[The Last Parade]

I cant believe what I'm reading, this is so horrible, Japan had made an informal surrender five days before the bombs, and since when was killing 100,000 civilians ever acceptable, and the ongoing back radiation that still makes the area long term uninhabitable, and then to do the same thing again?

Anyone who thinks it was to stop japan from fighting is horribly mistaken, read some history books that aren't from america

 

[D64nz]

The US would never have pulled off a landing on the Japanese mainland. It's why no one else in history has ever managed to pull it off. There are far too few landing spots and it's difficult terrain over most of the country.

The Japanese soldiers who 'fought to the death' were largely dead, but at the same time it's differnt fighting for a terrority than it is fighting for your home. You're talking Red Dawn shit there or the storyline behind MW:2 (loosely).

But like so many of the axis forces, they came into the war for gain. In Italy is was the same. Join up or be left behind. Germany enjoied great sucess early on in the war and many other nations wanted to jump on that bandwagon. But once they saw Germany turned back, and from their own losses most of the Axis forces gave up pretty quickly.

If Japan really wanted to fight to the last man they would have done so. They had already lost so much, and were already looking to exit the war. Again I say, they were already in negoations with the russians to surrender before the US dropped their bombs.

 

[D64nz]

I cant believe what I'm reading, this is so horrible, Japan had made an informal surrender five days before the bombs, and since when was killing 100,000 civilians ever acceptable, and the ongoing back radiation that still makes the area long term uninhabitable, and then to do the same thing again?

Anyone who thinks it was to stop japan from fighting is horribly mistaken, read some history books that aren't from america

Exactly what he said. It was all about politics.