Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Rigamortiz]

Oh, and civilians are a valid target in a total war - no such thing as an innocent civilian, so long as they were supporting their soldiers - Particularly considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen due to their industry - Which was certainly supporting the war effort on Japan's part - With a demoralized or destroyed civilian population, a war cannot continue - Look at Germany in the First World War - The civilians were starving to death, and as such demoralized enough to put pressure on those in charge to end the war.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Ok. Seriously. I'm really starting to wonder. Can people read my posts at all? Can you read this? Reply if you can read this.

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I can read this

Me too I still think we should have dropped them though.

i can read this but i think people are not talking to you, sorry dude.

Why no. Why aren't they. I've posted the Strategic Bombing Survey that shows that we knew we didn't need to invade or bombs. I've posted from Eisenhower's autobiography that shows he knew we didn't need to invade or bomb. There's yet more well documented proof of this.

Why is everyone continuing to cling to a myth?

Because one man thought we didn't need to invade or bomb. Also, hindsight is 20-20. He knew after the war that the Japanese were at their breaking point, but the facade they put up during the war gave an air of determination. At the time we thought it would become a guerrilla war on the Japanese mainland resulting in a tactical quagmire. It just turned out to be a bluff.

One man? Eisenhower!? HA! Do you even have a clue what you're talking about. Hindsight!? THIS IS WHAT WE KNEW AT THE TIME.

And the Strategic Bombing Survey was put together by an entire team. It is the governments definitive account of areal bombardment in WWII.

And some sort of tough guy facade caused us to bomb?? We had unobstructed access to the entire island. No one shot at our planes anymore!!!! They were beaten. ~According the the government's own reports had we done nothing we would have achieved unconditional surrender.~ Read that sentence over and over because you seem not to be getting it.

I'd like to point out that your sources were written after the war. This is hindsight and that's the end of it. We knew later that most of them were unwilling to fight but at the time we thought that some or most of mainland japan would fight us out of Japanese solidarity and desire for an honorable death. We didn't know most of this at the time. For all we knew it was between killing a quarter million of their civilians in an instant or killing most of their civilians in the streets while losing our forces while staring at the Soviet Union and it's love of converting other nations. If nothing else, we had to keep our forces strong in case of a red invasion and this had the dual effect of scaring them as well. Of course they developed their own weapons so maybe it wasn't a good idea but hindsight is 20-20.

The sources ~collimated~ information after the war, but everything you read in that report, we knew at the time. Once again, we had cracked the Japanese code. We knew they had no infrastructure to fight with. We knew that they would not fight because their leadership was imploding. We knew that all we had to do to end it, was say that they could keep a figurehead leader.

A country isn't made of leaders, it's made of people, even if the majority of the leadership wanted to end it, as long as the war generals had enough followers, they would fight. We knew that some government officials wanted to surrender, but we didn't know how many civilians and soldiers were willing to surrender. Like I said, it wouldn't be the Japanese hoard, but there would be resistance from the common Japanese person. The number of resistors was unknown and our leaders went with what they thought was best at the time.

Read the report. It shows you exactly what we knew at the time. We knew that by May 1945 half the military wanted surrender, and the other half wanted unconditional surrender. That's what we knew. The military did not want to fight. Civilians, sure, who knows. But civilians aren't soldiers. The military did not have the resources to fight, and did not want to fight.

Again, a majority of the government wanted to surrender, and some, if not all, of the standing army wanted to surrender. But the only real difference between a civilian and a soldier is a gun and the will to use it. Would you rather of had the political fringe being shot and stabbed in the street by their own country men?

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I think that comparitively due to the situation and technologies of the time it was a necessary evil.
though don't forget that japan by being hot headed and going after the US practically won the allies the war. Since if they had listened to Hitler's request and attacked the soviet union from behind while they pushed in. the Russians wouldn't have been able to push the Germans back out, and also attacking the US forced their hand and brought the Americans into a more direct role in the war.

it's kinda funny how that all worked out in our favor in the end isn't it?

 

[Rigamortiz]

No, i think it was wrong. Sure, an invasion of Japan might have cost more lives than the dropping of the two atomic bombs, but then it would have been soldiers fighting soldiers, and not civilians being bombed to hell or suffering a painful dead over the coming years. I think, if the US had shown their destructive power by dropping an atomic bomb outside an urban area or on the sea, clearly visible to armed forces, the japanese capitulation would have come maybe a bit later.

So, no Russian civilians died in the German attack on the Soviet Union, because it was being fought by soldiers? No. Industry is vital a war, if a city is producing weapons and supplies for the army, it is deemed a legitimate target - Hence civilian losses.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Oh, and civilians are a valid target in a total war - no such thing as an innocent civilian, so long as they were supporting their soldiers

Allah akbar, my friend. Total war, most definitely.

American ironies.

I'm assuming your referring to what America is doing now, and that's why we dropped the atomic bomb. Iraq and Afghanistan aren't total war because the people we are fighting aren't government sponsored soldiers. They're people with guns. We can't just kill all the people because some of them don't like us. That's what would have happened in Japan if not for the nukes.

 

[Rigamortiz]

Oh, and civilians are a valid target in a total war - no such thing as an innocent civilian, so long as they were supporting their soldiers

Allah akbar, my friend. Total war, most definitely.

American ironies.

We can't just kill all the people because some of them don't like us.

Shame though.

 

[k3v1n]

Yes.

...but consider this: would USA have dropped the Atom bomb on Germany if the war in Europe had lasted longer than the war in Japan? Because Germans are white, and Japanese are not, and considering the racism in '40s America, I think using it against white people highly unlikely.

I very much doubt military actions are taken because of matters of race, as you probably know has LOTS(3.000) small islands where japanese troops were, and taking just one island costed many men for the americans, so , looking for their benefit, they decided to throw the A-bombs so that it wouldn't cost more american lifes.

and no they wouldn't throw the A-bomb into germany, because, the russians got there first

P.S.I'm sorry if someone answered to you something similar as what I said, but I couldn't be bothered to read the 6 pages of comments

 

[rdaleric]

I'd say on balance, no

And is it just me but is seems that it's ok for the USA and her allies to use a certain weapon ( Nukes, Napalm, Agent Orange and Cluster bombs) then it is decided using them is a war crime?

 

[belgarion_eternal]

Ragdrazi,

The Strategic Bombing Survey you link to has a whole section explaining how the Survey supports the use of the atomic bombs. It shows:

* The Survey assumed that continued conventional attacks on Japan -- with additional direct and indirect casualties -- would be needed to force surrender by the November or December dates mentioned;

· The Survey's estimate of Japan's likelihood of surrender without the atomic bombings, subject only to continued conventional attack, was based largely on information collected after the end of the war, and not known to decision makers in August, 1945;

· The Survey acknowledged that use of the atomic bombs hastened the end of the war; and

· The Survey did not, in any way, criticize the use of the atomic bombs or suggest that they were not the most humane and least costly means for ending the war. (They merely opined that Japan's surrender could have been achieved through conventional air power only; they did not say that the use of conventional air power would have been more merciful or less costly.)

All of which is directly copy and pasted from the very same page you linked to.

They have a whole explanation on how that to get the Japanese to surrender they would not of had to invade but still continue strategic bombing measures that in the end would of caused much more problems for the Japanese in the years to come. It clearly states that the atomic bombs ended the war quicker. Also your statement that the Japanese had no military significance by the end of the war is wrong. They still had many soldiers throughout other islands that continued to resist against the Americans weeks afterward.

 

[Kaeldurn]

Oh, and civilians are a valid target in a total war - no such thing as an innocent civilian, so long as they were supporting their soldiers

Allah akbar, my friend. Total war, most definitely.

American ironies.

I gotta say, reading this entire thread reminds me exactly how well off the world seems to be these days.

So comfortable are the majority of our lives that people seem to now believe that it is somehow possible to go through life doing absolutely no ill.

I would like for everyone to reflect on the history of humanity for a while, and realize the ocean of blood that has been spilled, and continues to be, because of our nature. Is this "Bad"? Yes, in our current way of life, the unnecessary taking of life is viewed as this, because this is how our society has evolved. However that is only due to our mindset, because we've turned all out war into something beyond mere field combat with soldiers, tanks, airplanes, and bombs. We've turned it into Armageddon.

Before you go on about your rantings about how horrible that is, I would like to point out that the first step into this new "Way of War" was taken by the bombings. So in a way, by the blood shed by the so called "Atrocities", we've saved the lives of countless beings.

That said, in terms of the bombings themselves, as I said before, it was a lot more than just "Revenge" for anything Japan did, or a forced end to the war. It was a statement by the United States, to the entire world, and more importantly, the Soviet Union. It was a simple message. "War will be the end of not just this generation, but all generations. The land will burn, people will be naught but ash, and all will be lost."

Ok, perhaps not that dramatic, but it was fairly straight forward. America is, and will always remain to be, a bloody handed country. The day we cease to be is the day we are brought low. That, Dear Escapist, is when our society so forgiving and focused on creation and glorification will give way to the old struggle to survive.

If we "Had Known" (In before: "READ IT, WE DID."), do I think we would've still done it? Yep. You can't send a message if it stays sitting on your desk.

Can't stomach the concept of death to prove a point? Be glad the world is no longer so cruel as it used to be.

----

TL;DR:

Yes. Emphatically yes.

Unrelated: Cball11 makes me happy... in the pants.

 

[beddo]

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

It was not "crime against humanity". It was the application of a new weapon. I'd also like to point out that it is the first and only example of a product of progress, new science and new technology that was only used in one instance and then mothballed due to its power. If you think that using it then was a bad idea, consider what would have happened if we didn't learn the futility of using a nuke tactically. If the first large scale battle of what became known as the Cold War involved nukes, no one would be alive right now. The display of raw power of the nuclear strikes in Japan introduced the concept of grand scale obliteration and opened wide the eyes of everyone in the world. If it hadn't, no one would have known to not use them. No one would have really had any concrete images, any real grasp of that level of power. The Cold War was so cold and so devoid of direct conflict simply because mutually assured destruction was a familiar concept for everyone worldwide.

[link]http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm[/link]:

Yes, it was a crime against humanity. Are you seriously suggesting that they didn't realise the effects of an atomic bomb after conducting tests with it? They knew exactly what would happen. All the bombing did was feed the cold war arms race towards enforceable Mutually Assured Destruction.

As I'm sure you are aware the world nearly did fall into full out nuclear war in 1962. The atomic bombs in Japan did not stop future nuclear wars the realisation of MAD did. The use of Weapons of Mass destruction in Japan may have consolidated the idea of MAD but it was not the origin of the policy.

 

[Virus017]

They had been trying to surrender since 43'.

If they had tried to surrender then the war would be over before the bombs were dropped.

I see what you are getting at but do not say they tried to surrender because THEY DIDN'T. Plain and simple the US proposed demands, however unreasonable they were, and they said no. They were in no position to argue, but they chose too, and for what they had done I see why the US didn't give a shit about what they DEMANDED.

Yes the US were unreasonable, but it was Japan that said no.

Oh ok. So, the documents detailing their attempts to surrender in 1943 in the National Archives in Washington are clearly fakes then.

Yes. It is a fact that the US OFFERED TO ACCEPT THEIR SURRENDER under the condition that they removed their emperor. They said no-therefore they did not surrender.

I'll quote the OP on this.

"On July 27, 1945, the Allied powers requested Japan in the Potsdam Declaration to surrender unconditionally, or destruction would continue."

Check the national archives from the potsdam declaration whilst your validating your article please.

 

[Koeryn]

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

This point is simply not true. Before the US dropped the bomb, they carpet bombed Japan with flyers in (in Japanese) about what they planned to do. The fact that no one headed the warning is not the fault of the United States.