dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?

[farmerboy219]

It wasn't right. It worked though and thats all that matters now. Anyone who said it "save more lifes" is just wrong. There are more ways to end a war then invade or bomb. It's called talking.

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.

Well live in your depressing "knowledgeable" world. Must suck for you. I believe that everything can come to an understanding. It's just some people don't go to the lenght to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan.

Your statement contradicts itself. This thread contains plenty of examples of people unwilling to negotiate their position for whatever reasons they may have; do you really believe people in power are inherently different?

The leadership in Japan was perfectly willing to trade the lives of its population for leverage at the diplomatic table. Their plan from the very start of the war was to make the war cost so much, financially and in lives lost, that the US would be willing to settle for terms favorable to Japan.

How much suffering would you place upon your own citizens in a war brought to them because the other side decided it could achieve its aims through force rather than diplomacy? Look up rationing in the US during the war. Look up the financial burden placed upon the country. How long do you keep your citizens drafted as soldiers and stationed in harm's way, far from their families, as consideration for your enemy? Governments primary consideration in war should be ending it quickly, and at the lowest loss of life for their own citizens.

War is never 'clean', and trying to make it so will only embolden those in power to resort to it when they can't get what they want by other means.

 

[Darth02]

Absolutely necessary, it was either kill a lot of Japanese with the bombs, or kill even more Japanese while also risking the lives of American soldiers.

 

[Neferius]

snip

Your clever little analogy would have made more sense if you used the rocks to bash open the skulls of his infant children.

Yeah, but then you would have had to use the Car in order to break into his House ...and just try explaining those blood-splatters on your bumper to the Insurance Guy.

PS: Insurance Guy = U.N.

 

[DazBurger]

I don't believe the killing of innocent people is ever justifiable.

you ask if japanese civilans deserved to be bombed as they were. did the dockside workers at pearl deserve to be bombed? did the unsuspecting crews of those battle ships deserve to be bombed, burned or drowned, in an unprovoked attack? think bout who started the war with america first.

The Japanese were attacking soldiers, not civilians.

Thats one think I never really understood.

Why does soldiers have less right to live then civilians?

As you probably already have an answer to that then lemmie ask: What about a conscripted soldier?

It is better than killing women and children.

Why exactly? Why are killing women any worse than men? Sounds like sexism...

War has always been fought by the men and I don't see why WW2 should have be any different

Always? There are many female soldiers in the field today.

BUT! You dident answer my question...

Why is killing women worse than killing men?

 

[farmerboy219]

Obviously, nearly all the casualties from the 2 bombs were civilians. If the Yanks invaded instead, most of the deaths would be military. No civilian asked to be in the war or fight for it.

Yeah... so basically, I would have rather it never happened.

no, civilians would be hurt. as in raped and killed angrily.

I'm fairly sure that no matter how angry the Yanks were by the end of the war, they wouldn't kill and maim as many civilians as the two nukes, and then make their suffering be passed down through generations if they had invaded.

The non-nuclear bombing of Japan killed far more people than the atomic bombs, even including radiation poisoning. The after-affects of using nuclear weapons were not known, as these were the very first, so try to keep that in mind when condemning decisions made decades ago.

The cities that were destroyed in the two attacks would have been bombed by conventional means if the nukes were not available, and a great many people would still lose their life, just not as quickly.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Well live in your depressing "knowledgeable" world. Must suck for you. I believe that everything can come to an understanding. It's just some people don't go to the lenght to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan.

I may be cynical on occasion, but I don't delude myself either.

Let me pose a hypothetical question for you. Let's see you were sleeping comfortably in your bed one night when you wake up to hear a noise. A few moments pass and you realize someone has broken into your home. You have a loaded shotgun in the closet specifically for home defense. Once you're in range of the home intruder, what do you do?

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Yes, I think that it was the right decision, AFAIK the Japanese were willing to fight on and an invasion would have killed many more, even the continued firebombing of japanese cities in preparation would have done so.

I had heard that one of the main stumbling blocks in negotiating a surrender was that while the US wanted an unconditional surrender the Japapnese wanted a guarantee that the emperor would be allowed to remain on the throne and this was why they were unwilling to surrender before the bombs were dropped. I believe that if was the case then the US should have accepted surrender and allowed the Emperor to remain on the throne, which would in turn make the dropping of the bombs unnecessary(sp?) but I don't know how true it is.

 

[Staskala]

Well live in your depressing "knowledgeable" world. Must suck for you. I believe that everything can come to an understanding. It's just some people don't go to the lenght to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan.

I may be cynical on occasion, but I don't delude myself either.

Let me pose a hypothetical question for you. Let's see you were sleeping comfortably in your bed one night when you wake up to hear a noise. A few moments pass and you realize someone has broken into your home. You have a loaded shotgun in the closet specifically for home defense. Once you're in range of the home intruder, what do you do?

I hope you don't expect anyone to answer "Shoot him!".
Threaten him and call the police.

 

[Neferius]

Always? There are many female soldiers in the field today.

BUT! You dident answer my question...

Why is killing women worse than killing men?

Yeah... there WERE the fabled Amazon tribe who consisted of only Women-Warriors who worshiped the hunter-goddess Diana and sacrificed their male infants to her ...allegedly.

But the point is, after killing their men, you can always Rape their women, thus ensuring the future peaceful coexistence between your two Nations.
...hey, that's what the Mongols did with the Chinese!

"The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed during war." -Chinese Proverb

 

[Staskala]

Yes, I think that it was the right decision, AFAIK the Japanese were willing to fight on and an invasion would have killed many more, even the continued firebombing of japanese cities in preparation would have done so.

I had heard that one of the main stumbling blocks in negotiating a surrender was that while the US wanted an unconditional surrender the Japapnese wanted a guarantee that the emperor would be allowed to remain on the throne and this was why they were unwilling to surrender before the bombs were dropped. I believe that if was the case then the US should have accepted surrender and allowed the Emperor to remain on the throne, which would in turn make the dropping of the bombs unnecessary(sp?) but I don't know how true it is.

It's just as you said.
Hirohito was ready to surrender if Japan remained a monarchy. He also negotiated with Russia but it came to nothing because he feared a later Coup d'état even though the Russians were more likely to accept his condition. The allies didn't want to make any concessions, so they dropped the bombs.

 

[JeanLuc761]

I hope you don't expect anyone to answer "Shoot him!".
Threaten him and call the police.

No, I wasn't expecting anyone to answer "Shoot him!" as the automatic first reaction.

Threatening the invader and calling the police is a good action to take, certainly. However, that will not always work. The robber might have a weapon, for example. When someone breaks into your home, you have the right to defend yourself and your property. Give fair warning, and if he/she shows intention of harm, more than likely I'd shoot.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

It's just as you said.
Hirohito was ready to surrender if Japan remained a monarchy. He also negotiated with Russia but it came to nothing because he feared a later Coup d'état even though the Russians were more likely to accept his condition. The allies didn't want to make any concessions, so they dropped the bombs.

Ok then, in that case I believe the allies should have acepted the surrender and not dropped the bombs, especially Japan was allowed to keep the Emeror anyway, seems exceptionally pointless. Although I'm not sure what changes in the political were made and how much the Japanese would have accepted. E.g would Japan have been happy with a UK type monarchy in which case that could be accepted by the US or a more absolutist style monarchy which the US would be less willing to accept?

 

[stinkyrobot]

The Romans didn't survive till today just saying

 

[estoria-etnia]

It wasn't right. It worked though and thats all that matters now. Anyone who said it "save more lifes" is just wrong. There are more ways to end a war then invade or bomb. It's called talking.

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.

Well live in your depressing "knowledgeable" world. Must suck for you. I believe that everything can come to an understanding. It's just some people don't go to the lenght to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan.

You know, trying to come to an understanding is how the entire Second World War started. France and Britain were trying to keep the peace so desperately that they went back on alliances and treaties that had been formed during and directly after the First World War and in the inter-war period when Germany started to militarize again. The same thing goes for Japan.

Both countries were horribly snubbed in the fall-out from the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles and were out to regain the glory that they believed that they had lost and to create their own empires. Look at the propaganda floating around at that time, the people were almost always unanimously behind the two regimes. Most Germans were extremely angry about how they had been treated at the Paris Conference, and Japan was on the victor's side in that particular conflict and they didn't receive the spoils that they felt they so rightly deserved.

As much as I want to believe that everything can be resolved through talking, I know that I can't. Maybe it's because I'm cynical, but the world doesn't operate on sunshine and rainbows. Try looking at and understanding the lead-up to better understand their motivations.

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

Nuclear weapons are never justified.

 

[Knusper]

Obviously, nearly all the casualties from the 2 bombs were civilians. If the Yanks invaded instead, most of the deaths would be military. No civilian asked to be in the war or fight for it.

Yeah... so basically, I would have rather it never happened.

no, civilians would be hurt. as in raped and killed angrily.

I'm fairly sure that no matter how angry the Yanks were by the end of the war, they wouldn't kill and maim as many civilians as the two nukes, and then make their suffering be passed down through generations if they had invaded.

The non-nuclear bombing of Japan killed far more people than the atomic bombs, even including radiation poisoning. The after-affects of using nuclear weapons were not known, as these were the very first, so try to keep that in mind when condemning decisions made decades ago.

The cities that were destroyed in the two attacks would have been bombed by conventional means if the nukes were not available, and a great many people would still lose their life, just not as quickly.

...Damn.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Nuclear weapons are never justified.

We say that now, but we didn't know the full extent of their destructive potential when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people who created the bombs didn't have that information, so we can't use what we know now to condemn the first detonations.

 

[Idocreating]

Ultimately, the deaths caused by those atomic bombs demonstrated just how powerful and deadly they are. People in the regions effected are still suffering to this day.

Without that reminder of just what nuclear weapons do to actual living people, the Cold War may have turned into World War III.

 

[metal mustache]

America had several choices for how to use their nuclear weapon. If i remember from history class, japan was given a vague warning that they would face "total obliteration" if they didn't surrender unconditionally; they were not told that America had successfully devolped a nuclear bomb. If they were told they might have agreed to surrender while the empeorer's sovreignty would be kept, as it was kept when they did surrender anyway. When japan refused to surrender, America used the two bombs they had ready on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities with a high civialian population. Even the president's personal notes indicated he had been thinking of using it on a military target like a harbour of war boats. This also could have gotten Japan to surrender, but it appears that America wanted to be sure of Japans's swift surrender even if it meant a hundred thousand civialian casualities.
So i guess what i'm saying is America went further than needed.