Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Nigh Invulnerable]

u do realize that if the US would have stormed japan, the Japanese government would have made everyman women and child fight, and all of japan would have been destroyed! so would u rather lose 50,000 lives or 10 million, that ten million doesn't count the 4-6 million Americans that would have been killed in the assault!

oh and the UN should arrest bush if so how come they dont arrest the leader of north korea or cuba? why just americans?

Your assumptions aren't entirely accurate. Japan has not been invaded for a very long time, I doubt that women and very young children would have fought. In any case, how would this be different from much of Europe and the US? We all had conscription and many of those who went to war were under 18.

Firstly, I doubt the US would have reverted to a significant ground offensive against Japan. They were simply spread to thin and lacked adequate resources. Under the rules of war you should not fight with the intention of killing, it should be avoided with prisoners taken where necessary.

I fail to see why you believe the US would have "destroyed" the entirety of the Japanese state. Guerilla fighting and on-going resistance would pose a huge problem. Even in all out war it would have been difficult for the US to defeat Japan. Looking to the military history of the US they haven't been that successful; Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are all examples of failed offensives.


I in no way suggested that the International Criminal Court should solely target US authorities and war criminals. They should be issuing warrants against the military Junta in Burma, against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, against both Government and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and many, many more.

My point was that if the World's most powerful country does not back the UN and the International Criminal Court by also being accountable to them then they undermine the whole system. Saddam Hussian could have been tried in a meaningful court for his crimes rather than the Kangaroo Court in Iraq.

"The rules of war"? I'm pretty sure that no matter how we like to pretend we're all nice and civilized by making up rules about how we're only allowed to kill each other in certain instances and have to treat prisoners in specific ways, when things get hairy and people are left to their own devices they're bastards who will rape, pillage, murder, and generally wreak havoc on their enemy. Everyone who says, "The Geneva Convention/rules of war say blah blah blah" need to get over the whole rectal-cranial inversion they have going on and realize that when people fight and get desperate, things happen quickly and there's no going back after the fact.

If someone who looked like they knew how to fight decided to get into fisticuffs with me and seemed intent on doing real harm, I'd have zero problem pulling a knife or gun on them, kicking them in the nads, or any other 'dirty' tactic I could manage to save myself.

Despite all of my above ranting, I think that while we now know that the American military had deemed the bombing unnecessary, we have little right to judge since we do not have the same perspective. Also, I fail to see how dropping one bomb or 1700 tons of bombs to kill people is really any different.

 

[damn12369]

[/quote]Your assumptions aren't entirely accurate. Japan has not been invaded for a very long time, I doubt that women and very young children would have fought. In any case, how would this be different from much of Europe and the US? We all had conscription and many of those who went to war were under 18.

Firstly, I doubt the US would have reverted to a significant ground offensive against Japan. They were simply spread to thin and lacked adequate resources. Under the rules of war you should not fight with the intention of killing, it should be avoided with prisoners taken where necessary.

I fail to see why you believe the US would have "destroyed" the entirety of the Japanese state. Guerilla fighting and on-going resistance would pose a huge problem. Even in all out war it would have been difficult for the US to defeat Japan. Looking to the military history of the US they haven't been that successful; Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are all examples of failed offensives.


I in no way suggested that the International Criminal Court should solely target US authorities and war criminals. They should be issuing warrants against the military Junta in Burma, against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, against both Government and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and many, many more.

My point was that if the World's most powerful country does not back the UN and the International Criminal Court by also being accountable to them then they undermine the whole system. Saddam Hussian could have been tried in a meaningful court for his crimes rather than the Kangaroo Court in Iraq.[/quote]

NOTE TO EVERYONE: i am merely debating here so dont get mad at me for my opinions, i actually got kicked of my debate team b/c my teacher didnt agree with my ideas! so please dont insult or mock me for my beliefs!

okay this is to all people u are thinking of war in todays terms, u cant do that when u are making this kind of argument! times are different and war has drastically change! back in WW2 people still had hand to hand combat! you dont see that now a days!

also america was spread true, but the war in europe was over, so they were planning, i repeat planning on invading japan, with up to ( i may be off by 1-2 million) 10 million soldiers! and i know Japanese people they are the most patriotic people i know, and this has been the case all through history, trust me they would love to die there honorable death by fighting every last American solider!

also america bomb the crap out of germany during ww2, (infact the village i live in was reduce to rubble during the war, and was rebuilt) u dont think they wouldn't do that to japan!?

about the UN if u were to post that topic separately i would love to talk about, but putting that into one form with this is just to much!

 

[darkeldar1]

yes, If we had not, there would have been millions more lives lost, both japanese and American, in the invasion of Japan. They would have fought to the last man, woman and child do defend japan and broke their spirit before they could. It also showed the world how powerful the atomic bomb was and I believe that if we had not dropped it, we would not have the age of nuclear deterence that we have now.

 

[Lightbunny]

I'm sorry, but I cannot find the text you are referencing anywhere in the report. I don't want to call you a liar, but I simply doesn't seem to be there. Is this on some page linking to the report? Regardless, the Japanese code was cracked at the time and Japan was incapable of unmonitored communication.

Regardless, the report states clearly:

"Japan would have surrendered even if atom bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

Note #4, not even half a page down. Here is a link to the page it links.

http://www.anesi.com/bomb.htm

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;

 

[bkdlsf89990]

Short answer, yes. By the time we dropped the bomb the assertion that anyone in Japan remained a noncombatant is actually pretty questionable. Civilians, including women, were trained to fight in the case of invasion, with bamboo spears if necessary. School children were trained to dive under tanks and detonate bombs. And no, don't say you doubt they would've done it because they would and did. So yes, it was justified.

 

[DarkBlood626]

Some one may have mentioned this before but Japan wasn?t impressed by the atomic attacks they already received considerably more damage by the multiple incendiary weapon attacks by the allies ( considering most of japans architecture and general buildings where made of wood)

 

[Virus017]

The hilarious fact here is that no war ever ends on "unconditional" terms. Ever.

I guess we will just have to accept we have different definitions of "attempting to surrender"

I hereby declare this definition quote war closed.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

Very bad.

Using nuclear weapons on civilian cities is a big no-no children.

 

[damn12369]

u do realize that if the US would have stormed japan, the Japanese government would have made everyman women and child fight, and all of japan would have been destroyed! so would u rather lose 50,000 lives or 10 million, that ten million doesn't count the 4-6 million Americans that would have been killed in the assault!

oh and the UN should arrest bush if so how come they dont arrest the leader of north korea or cuba? why just americans?

Your assumptions aren't entirely accurate. Japan has not been invaded for a very long time, I doubt that women and very young children would have fought. In any case, how would this be different from much of Europe and the US? We all had conscription and many of those who went to war were under 18.

Firstly, I doubt the US would have reverted to a significant ground offensive against Japan. They were simply spread to thin and lacked adequate resources. Under the rules of war you should not fight with the intention of killing, it should be avoided with prisoners taken where necessary.

I fail to see why you believe the US would have "destroyed" the entirety of the Japanese state. Guerilla fighting and on-going resistance would pose a huge problem. Even in all out war it would have been difficult for the US to defeat Japan. Looking to the military history of the US they haven't been that successful; Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are all examples of failed offensives.


I in no way suggested that the International Criminal Court should solely target US authorities and war criminals. They should be issuing warrants against the military Junta in Burma, against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, against both Government and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and many, many more.

My point was that if the World's most powerful country does not back the UN and the International Criminal Court by also being accountable to them then they undermine the whole system. Saddam Hussian could have been tried in a meaningful court for his crimes rather than the Kangaroo Court in Iraq.

NOTE TO EVERYONE: i am merely debating here so dont get mad at me for my opinions, i actually got kicked of my debate team b/c my teacher didnt agree with my ideas! so please dont insult or mock me for my beliefs!

okay this is to all people u are thinking of war in todays terms, u cant do that when u are making this kind of argument! times are different and war has drastically change! back in WW2 people still had hand to hand combat! you dont see that now a days!

also america was spread true, but the war in europe was over, so they were planning, i repeat planning on invading japan, with up to ( i may be off by 1-2 million) 10 million soldiers! and i know Japanese people they are the most patriotic people i know, and this has been the case all through history, trust me they would love to die there honorable death by fighting every last American solider!

also america bomb the crap out of germany during ww2, (infact the village i live in was reduce to rubble during the war, and was rebuilt) u dont think they wouldn't do that to japan!?

about the UN if u were to post that topic separately i would love to talk about, but putting that into one form with this is just to much!

 

[bkdlsf89990]

In fact the atomic bombs might not have even been what tipped Japan back over the edge of sanity. It might have been the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war and the invasion of Manchuria.

 

[ninesky]

Yes and no.
Yes if we stick to what actually happened. Japan would not have surrendered, and Russia had been at war with Japan long before the First World War even started. Russia had been looking for an excuse to take back the Islands it had lost to Japan. And although it's uncomfortable to think of all the lives lost and the continuing effects of the Atomic bombs, the Japanese were as racist as the Germans, maybe even more so. (They abducted millions of Koreans and shipped them back to Japan to be slaves.)Back then we could say the US was fairly innocent, yet after the bomb they got a taste for power, which ultimately led to the Vietnam war.
Britain may have bombed German cities at the end of WW2 but that was mostly in retaliation to the Blitz (the mass bombing of all major British cites and ports).
It also made us aware of the lasting effects of WMD, and although the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima most likely led to the start of the cold war, things may have turned out quite differently. Russia was most likely going to declare war on Europe at some point in the future.

And no. It's not a case of we should have convinced Japan some other way. It's a case of the Second World War should never of happened. If the treaty of Versailles had not been so hard on Germany and been written as terms of defeat instead of and armistice Hitler would never have risen to power. It's hard to say that WW1 should never have happened, because although there was an enormous loss of life it did help Russia over throw it's monarchy. ( And helped women's rights in Britain)
If we had listened to the US President Woodrow we never would have put Germany in the conditions that led to Hitler's rise to power. And if we had known the lasting effects of the A-bomb we should of never used it.

My point is, (yes I'm finally getting to it) that we cannot pick out many events in history and said that should not have happened. However the Second World War should never of happened. If we had thought longer about the effects of the Treaty of Versailles, instead of lording it over the Germans we could have prevented the Holocaust, the Blitz, the A-bomb and the cold war. If we had not got that taste of power we probably never would have gone to war with Iraq or Afghanistan and the Vietnamese war would never have happened.

What we should take away for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that no one country has the right to police the world and decide who lives, how they live their lives and who dies. Something that any of the major countries in this world need to remember.

 

[bkdlsf89990]

Quite honestly it's pretty obvious that things like "radiation" we didn't really have any clear idea of at the time.

This can be shown by the fact that John Wayne filmed a movie in the irradiated desert. He and his crew lived, breathed, and rubbed the stuff all over themselves. Then when they had to leave they just couldn't leave that sand so they took a couple truck-fulls back to the theaters with them.

John Wayne died of cancer a few years later.

Even my own grandfather (who worked on the atomic bomb by the way, so I might be biased) walked right out there and picked up the melted pieces of glass. His hands started chaffing and turned white but he never blamed it on picking up fresh nuclear waste.

 

[beddo]

u do realize that if the US would have stormed japan, the Japanese government would have made everyman women and child fight, and all of japan would have been destroyed! so would u rather lose 50,000 lives or 10 million, that ten million doesn't count the 4-6 million Americans that would have been killed in the assault!

oh and the UN should arrest bush if so how come they dont arrest the leader of north korea or cuba? why just americans?

Your assumptions aren't entirely accurate. Japan has not been invaded for a very long time, I doubt that women and very young children would have fought. In any case, how would this be different from much of Europe and the US? We all had conscription and many of those who went to war were under 18.

Firstly, I doubt the US would have reverted to a significant ground offensive against Japan. They were simply spread to thin and lacked adequate resources. Under the rules of war you should not fight with the intention of killing, it should be avoided with prisoners taken where necessary.

I fail to see why you believe the US would have "destroyed" the entirety of the Japanese state. Guerilla fighting and on-going resistance would pose a huge problem. Even in all out war it would have been difficult for the US to defeat Japan. Looking to the military history of the US they haven't been that successful; Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are all examples of failed offensives.


I in no way suggested that the International Criminal Court should solely target US authorities and war criminals. They should be issuing warrants against the military Junta in Burma, against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, against both Government and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and many, many more.

My point was that if the World's most powerful country does not back the UN and the International Criminal Court by also being accountable to them then they undermine the whole system. Saddam Hussian could have been tried in a meaningful court for his crimes rather than the Kangaroo Court in Iraq.

"The rules of war"? I'm pretty sure that no matter how we like to pretend we're all nice and civilized by making up rules about how we're only allowed to kill each other in certain instances and have to treat prisoners in specific ways, when things get hairy and people are left to their own devices they're bastards who will rape, pillage, murder, and generally wreak havoc on their enemy. Everyone who says, "The Geneva Convention/rules of war say blah blah blah" need to get over the whole rectal-cranial inversion they have going on and realize that when people fight and get desperate, things happen quickly and there's no going back after the fact.

If someone who looked like they knew how to fight decided to get into fisticuffs with me and seemed intent on doing real harm, I'd have zero problem pulling a knife or gun on them, kicking them in the nads, or any other 'dirty' tactic I could manage to save myself.

Despite all of my above ranting, I think that while we now know that the American military had deemed the bombing unnecessary, we have little right to judge since we do not have the same perspective. Also, I fail to see how dropping one bomb or 1700 tons of bombs to kill people is really any different.

I think the content of your last message speaks volumes about your view on war. Yes the rules of war are ignored. Idiesagree with you, we can judge them based on the knowledge we have now and the on the evidence we know they had then. Arguing you weren't there at the time isn't valid otherwise that could have been a reasonable defence at Nuremberg.

Let me explain my position so we can end this circular argument:

Killing is bad. Sadly it is sometimes required to protect people in immanent danger which is regrettable. When it is clearly unnecessary it should be judged and punished accordingly.

 

[bkdlsf89990]

Killing is bad. Sadly it is sometimes required to protect people in immanent danger which is regrettable. When it is clearly unnecessary it should be judged and punished accordingly.

Unfortunately the dropping of the atomic bombs wasn't and isn't clearly unnecessary.

 

[Simalacrum]

no, most definitely not.
for one, despite refusing to surrender the Japanese were on the brink of it: they were running out of resources, they were litterally taking anything they could for metal, taking anything metalic from citizens by the end of the war to melt down for weapons, much of the planes had to be made of wood, and the military was virtually non existent.

furthermore, the bombs targeted civilian targets... if they attacked some military base or something, fair enough, but the problem with nukes is that they're indiscriminate: they won't avoid civillians or innocent people. the total deaths were an approximate 105,000 - 35 times the number of people killed in the 9/11 incident.
+ it wasn't just the two nukes that America dropped on Japan. virtually ever major city in Japan was bombed to the ground: Tokyo (51% of city destroyed), Toyama (99%) Osaka (35.1%), to name but a few.

so yeah, i think the nukes really were a step too far on America's side.

also, i think this thread needs a poll

EDIT: did i forget to mention that the dangerous radio active after affects also killed thousands more survivors years after the war itself ended? + the radiation still affects the areas to this day