dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?

[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

Exactly what he said. It was all about politics.

that's essentially it, it was about testing fun new tech and global intimidation, they took advantage of immediate post war confusion in order to do this WITH the support of thier people

 

[voetballeeuw]

No, the bomb should not have been dropped. The Soviet Union had just joined the war against the Japanese, and were decimating the Japanese Army. Certain historians even believe the bomb was dropped to intimidate the Soviet Union. Destroying one army completely in the period of a few weeks. I had to debate this topic last year in a history class. And one of the papers I had to read discussed Japan's unwillingness to surrender due to a military failure. In their eyes a defeat by the hands of science was preferable. Granted it may not be completely valid but it's still an interesting point to consider. It's true that the Japanese citizens would most likely fight till the end, but Japan was near collapse. Also the amount of people that were killed by the atomic bombs pale in comparison to the normal bombings Japan suffered through. Granted the effects of the atomic bombs were atrocious. The technique of fire bombing was also horrific.

Sorry for the giant wall of text and the random jumble of points. Just to summarize, no the bombs shouldn't have been dropped.

 

[Commissar Sae]

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.

A good part of the no-surrender and fight to the death on the part of the japanese comes from the real and false stories they heard of torture and execution of prisoners by the Americans. Japanese propaganda was such that most soldiers honestly thought that it would be better to commit suicide or figth to the death than spent weeks being tortured and then executed.
Also the term Casualty is thrown around a lot, and while the estimates for a long term invasion of Japan (1000 days of fighting or almost 3 years) via downfall do predict 1,2 million casualties, the vast majority of those are wounded rather than dead. Likewise, those figures were the estimate for a very long term campaign. More reasonably the figthing would probably have lasted a few months, reaching a much lower number of maybe 105,000 total casualties including wounded. (I refer you back to your Wiki post)

Later politicians and arm-chair generals boosted the numbers to further legitimize the use of atomic weapons.

 

[Commissar Sae]

this was because they were told what americans would do to them, truthfully too.

Truthfully? Are you insane? They told their people they would be raped, murdered and eaten! I don't seem to remember any of that happening. Oh wait, must be a 'Merican conspiracy to cover up what really happened.

Well raped and murdered did actually happen a fair amount. And a good number of Japanese bodies were mutilated if not eaten. But for what its worth the Japanese were doing the exact same thing to the Americans so it was general nastiness all around.

 

[ploppytheman]

Its very simple to end this debate.

America dropped an atomic bomb on civillians that vaporized an entire city. People vaporized. Houses and buildings gone. AN entire city gone.

And guess what?



Japan didn't surrender.

Just let that sink in...


atom bomb was NEW, no one had seen something of this magnitude before.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Well raped and murdered did actually happen a fair amount. And a good number of Japanese bodies were mutilated if not eaten. But for what its worth the Japanese were doing the exact same thing to the Americans so it was general nastiness all around.

True, true. But while I personally have no stats, I'm willing to bet the scale of rape on the Allied side paled in comparison to that of the USSR and Japan. Not that that makes it ok, or even understandable-just that it makes the propaganda just that-propaganda.

I don't know, there were an estimated 40 rapes/assaults a day by US troops during the Occupation of Japan, a number that once rose as high as 330 in one day

"There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture"
There really is no moral high ground for anyone where WWII is concerned. Everyone has their share of dirt, we just tend to ignore the allies because we won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan

 

[RedDeadFred]

The only reason the USA wasn't convicted of War Crimes is because they were on the "good" side. Similar to the Gulags in Russia only not as bad. If Russia hadn't been on our side, we probably would have convicted them of committing a War Crime.

Killing tens of thousands of people who did nothing wrong just to make a select few people give the orders to surrender is wrong.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Well raped and murdered did actually happen a fair amount. And a good number of Japanese bodies were mutilated if not eaten. But for what its worth the Japanese were doing the exact same thing to the Americans so it was general nastiness all around.

True, true. But while I personally have no stats, I'm willing to bet the scale of rape on the Allied side paled in comparison to that of the USSR and Japan. Not that that makes it ok, or even understandable-just that it makes the propaganda just that-propaganda.

I don't know, there were an estimated 40 rapes/assaults a day by US troops during the Occupation of Japan, a number that once rose as high as 330 in one day

"There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture"
There really is no moral high ground for anyone where WWII is concerned. Everyone has their share of dirt, we just tend to ignore the allies because we won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan

I love you.

I spent about 3 months researching the Pacific War for a class in my last semester, a lot of the information is still fresh. It pays to have a historian around sometimes huh.

and you're welcome. Though I will need to be getting to bed soon since I work in 9 hours.

 

[Commissar Sae]

The Japanese started the war with the United States, they deserved what they got.

"The US provoked the War with Arab fundementalists, they deserve what they got." (Warning: Not my Actual point of view, only being used as an example!)

Now see how stupid and insensitive that sounds?

 

[Commissar Sae]

Well raped and murdered did actually happen a fair amount. And a good number of Japanese bodies were mutilated if not eaten. But for what its worth the Japanese were doing the exact same thing to the Americans so it was general nastiness all around.

True, true. But while I personally have no stats, I'm willing to bet the scale of rape on the Allied side paled in comparison to that of the USSR and Japan. Not that that makes it ok, or even understandable-just that it makes the propaganda just that-propaganda.

I don't know, there were an estimated 40 rapes/assaults a day by US troops during the Occupation of Japan, a number that once rose as high as 330 in one day

"There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture"
There really is no moral high ground for anyone where WWII is concerned. Everyone has their share of dirt, we just tend to ignore the allies because we won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan

I love you.

I spent about 3 months researching the Pacific War for a class in my last semester, a lot of the information is still fresh. It pays to have a historian around sometimes huh.

and you're welcome. Though I will need to be getting to bed soon since I work in 9 hours.

I just started a work free, 3 day weekend ^_^

Lucky you, I only have 1 day left before I get one though so could be worse.

 

[Commissar Sae]

I speak japanese, and I know many japanese people. Where I live, before the second world war every person from age 8-20 had to attend military training.

Their value's changed a little over the time. They are not same as before when they were 50 years ago. And the bold part is the key that Japan wasn't going to give up no matter what the cause. They were ready to sacrifice the lives of citizen for emperor's honour because I bet there would be dire consequence if anyone disobeyed.

I love you.

Ever heard of unit 731?

Yeah, that was pretty horrific. Those are some images that will not leave my head for several years. I think the worse part is that the lead butchers of that 'medical' division were never tried for war crimes, since they traded in all their notes and information to the Americans. The only ones who were ever jailed were those captured by Soviet or Chinese forces, and even then they were released after a few years.

Like I've said before, there were monsters on all sides in that war, so saying the Japanese deserved it for their war crimes is terribly short sighted.