dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?
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As someone else cleverly pointed out, they did not have youtube at the time. Someone comes and says to you "Sir,Hiroshima is gone" and you look at them like they are nuts. Even assuming all your arguments are true, there would have been no harm in waiting a week before the next bomb. Or sending a message to go see what was left of Hiroshima, and take a few days to think on that.RicoADF said:
But what do I know?
It occurred to me that you basically just argued that it was the will of the emperor, who cleverly avoided the desires of his commanders, that stopped the war. Thus, according to your explanation of things, it was about the emperor and the will of the peasants. So all you needed to convince the one man who, you state as fact, managed to end the war single-handedly anyway. Therefore, it may still have been possible to do this without killing 66,000 civilians (the lowest estimate, made by the people who dropped the bomb). So, my idea of blowing up a small island (and despite what Vetterthorir783 thinks, there are many small islands in volcanic regions) still might have worked. I don't know for sure, and neither do you.Mimsofthedawg said:
I never attempted to be neutral. If I didn't make it clear (and I think I did make it clear, because you threatened me with violence for my belief) I think that dropping the bombs was a horrible thing. I think that there are other things that should have been tried first. I think that dropping atomic weapons is one of the worst things you can do to a people and that they should have been a last resort. And, frankly, I think that people desperately need to feel that it was justified because the alternative is horrific.Mimsofthedawg said:
I did not say I was neutral, what I said was that this discussion is useless. And you know what? When you saw that I wrote something you disagreed with, you first response was not "reflexion" but the sentiment that I was so wrong that I needed to be hit. I think, therefore, that my supposition was shown to be correct. You talk about this like it is a platonic dialog, but there is no logic here because we are making statements about the unknowable (i.e. what would have happened).
If you REALLY wanted to get into a meaningful dialog about this, we should drop the whole real world example and start from the ground up trying to determine the worth of a human life, how much responsibility a civilian carries for the actions of his or her leaders, whether civilian targets are ever justifiable in warfare, and several other topics that can be used as a baseline to understand the situation. That isn't what we have here. What we have here is a group of people arguing about unknowable variables to rationally back up their previously held emotional reactions. And, yes, I include myself here: all my arguments hinge on the belief that killing that many civilians is unjustifiable, something that I admittedly have not done the philosophical legwork to determine for sure. If you wish to do that, I would gladly start that discussion with you (in another thread) so long as some ground rules are in place. Specifically, there can be no real dialog when the chief means of argument are name calling and ridicule, as is so prominently displayed in this thread.
Another of these. To add to the continuing quoting of quoting, here is what I've said previously on the subject:
And a link, so you don't have to follow the string of quotes to get to the intelligence intercepts mentioned: "MAGIC" - Diplomatic Summary 1214
So Becaus a Goverment doesnt listen.. You Kill ppl that had nothing to do with the war.. Yea it makes Sense.. Real American Tactic.. I think Pearl Harbor was a Good move.. Atleast Those soldiers died for there country.. and they Choose to be there.. But Bombing a Town full of Woman and Children is just Playing wrong :smaddawg IAJI said:
I think the bombings were needed as a political tool for the US to have power in japan instead of the Soviets who would have steamrolled in. Which I think we should have let them. A million casualties on their side but power over the japanese island would have changed the politics of the next half century.
That was one of the options put forward by the US government as a way to demostrate the power of the bomb (although I beleive they wanted to perform a demostartion over Tokyo bay) but they had spent billions of dollars (in there money) on develpoing the bomb's and they were going to use them on real targets.CitySquirrel said:
I think overall as many people have already said although devastating with the effects still felt today I think it overall resulted in the immediate lowering of the death toll. Also it sent a good message to the world that nuclear warfare is dangerous and should never ever be implemented again.
This is a beautiful post and I applaud you for it.paulgruberman said:
I'm still of the conviction that dropping the bombs was the right thing to do, and nothing anyone has said over the last 13 pages has convinced me otherwise. We can sit back and judge the American government, condemning them, acting like Americans are a bunch of brutal animals for what they did, but you have to look at things relatively, and with the information available at the time.
Japan was going to continue to fight to the death, come hell or high water. If they weren't stopped, immediately, the death toll would have been unimaginable
Do people REALLY think we just dropped the bomb on them for giggles?
On wikipedia it says they had plans to make more if they didn't surrender after the second. I'm not sure how true this information is howeverEvil mr dave said:
"The U.S. expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October"
And this, folks, is what's known as extreme naivete. You simply can't resolve every dispute by just talking. That's not how the world works.Cazza said:
In a way, the desision to drop the bombs may have saved Japan.
With the end of the war in Europe, the soviet union was starting to turn it's attention towards the Far East. Being that Russia is pretty close to Japanese ocupied China and Japan itslef, they were likely considering an invasion of their oun. It is likely that such an invasion would have coincided with the American invasion and would probably resulted in a similar post-war situation as was experienced in Germany.
Yes, dropping the bombs killed thousands of people. Yes, two major cities were destroyed in the process. And Yes people are still suffering the effects of radiation. But when you consider the potential loss of life that would have resulted from an invasion (most likely on two fronts), and the suffering that would have resulted form a country divided (like what happened to Berlin, and all of Germany), one can maybe see that the dropping of the bombs was the lesser of two evils.
With the end of the war in Europe, the soviet union was starting to turn it's attention towards the Far East. Being that Russia is pretty close to Japanese ocupied China and Japan itslef, they were likely considering an invasion of their oun. It is likely that such an invasion would have coincided with the American invasion and would probably resulted in a similar post-war situation as was experienced in Germany.
Yes, dropping the bombs killed thousands of people. Yes, two major cities were destroyed in the process. And Yes people are still suffering the effects of radiation. But when you consider the potential loss of life that would have resulted from an invasion (most likely on two fronts), and the suffering that would have resulted form a country divided (like what happened to Berlin, and all of Germany), one can maybe see that the dropping of the bombs was the lesser of two evils.
To be fair we judge outer contrary on there historical decisions(England,France treaty of Versailles). Turnabout is only fair play.JeanLuc761 said:
I guess it was necessary. The Japanese were possibly the best soldiers in the world. The only reason they didn't stop is because their emperor, who was essentially a god to them, admitted defeat. Probably a good thing the Americans didn't invade the main land. The losses would have been insane, especially for the americans.