Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Rolling Thunder]

1. Kill everyone? That is hardly my policy, Sarukin. My policy is to utilise brute force on such a massive scale that even numerically superior forces are either neutralised due to logistical or morale failure (both of which the A-bombs achieved) or simply destroyed. That means that you kill whomever stands in your way, but no more. Killing everyone is leviathen waste of resources and time. It worked in Korea, it worked against Japan, it worked against Germany, and it continues to work to this day. It is the one infalliable strategy.

2. Sask- as I mentioned before, we already sort of buried this, didn't we.

3. Spicy Meatball: Using nukes against Iraq and Afghanistan would have been useless and stupid. These nations do not have the same concentrations of industry, their militaries are not conscripted, and, most importantly, this is not a case of 'total war'. It is a limited war of one superior, in military and moral terms, force, against one that is barbarous and crude. And, contrary to reports, we are winning, which is all that matters in the long run.

 

[vfaulkon]

Personally, I think it was alright to have dropped the bomb for two reasons:

1) The idea in any war is to scare the enemy enough to make them want to surrender. As it has been postulated, the A-bomb, while an extreme measure, did scare the crap out of Japan and helped us stop fighting a war on two fronts at once.

2) The A-bomb was a next-gen weapon in terms of sheer power and devastation. Weapons like that are, as I've said, the most extreme of extreme measures, and should only be fired as a very last resort. Now, we know this because we used the bomb, saw its effect, and realized we'd gone a liiiiiiiittle too far. That is why, despite having modern nukes now, we (and other nations that are nuclear-capable) use them as a big, threatening shadow to other nations instead of actually launching them.

Now, think about if we hadn't used the A-bomb back in the 40s, we hadn't learned that lesson, and we fast-forward to today where we have our modern missiles of utter destruction. Think of the damage we might've done if we used it in, say, Vietnam (probably obliterating our own forces and other innocent civilians in the process) or just one of the Middle-Eastern countries in the 90s or more recently, which are now also nuclear-capable. Without the realization, without actually seeing the kind of death that kind of weapon could cause, for all we know the Taliban and the U.S. may have opted for mutually-assured destruction, and we wouldn't be here typing right now.

Millions of lives, two cities in Japan, but gods willing we're never going to do something like that again. It was a lesson that had to be learned the hard way for the entire world, and I'd rather it was learned before global irradiation was a possible after-effect.

 

[itsnotyouitsme]

although the war was practically over anyways, it was far from it. Every soldier was willing to commit suicide to defend japan. It would have been very, very, very bloody for both sides.

 

[beddo]

Post

[...] You wouldn't happen to be of Japanese descent, would you? You seem rather riled about this, maybe you're a Japanophile or Otaku[...]

Reverting to moronic insults which make assumptions about my racial decent speak volumes about your own opinions. Not only do these personal insults invalidate any reason to take your argument seriously they also draw attention to the significant racist undertone of your reply.

It is unbelievable to you that someone who is not from the Japan could have a problem with the use of atomic bombs? No I am not of Japanese decent to the best of my knowledge. I am from Great Britain, moreover, I am English.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Post

[...] You wouldn't happen to be of Japanese descent, would you? You seem rather riled about this, maybe you're a Japanophile or Otaku[...]

Reverting to moronic insults which make assumptions about my racial decent speak volumes about your own opinions. Not only do these personal insults invalidate any reason to take your argument seriously they also draw attention to the significant racist undertone of your reply.

It is unbelievable to you that someone who is not from the Japan could have a problem with the use of atomic bombs? No I am not of Japanese decent to the best of my knowledge. I am from Great Britain, moreover, I am English.

*Cringes in shame at this revelation*

I swear, not all of us are like this!

*Cowers*

PS. Don't read racism into everything. That was hardly racist, it was simply an inaccurate assumption.

 

[beddo]

Post

[...] You wouldn't happen to be of Japanese descent, would you? You seem rather riled about this, maybe you're a Japanophile or Otaku[...]

Reverting to moronic insults which make assumptions about my racial decent speak volumes about your own opinions. Not only do these personal insults invalidate any reason to take your argument seriously they also draw attention to the significant racist undertone of your reply.

It is unbelievable to you that someone who is not from the Japan could have a problem with the use of atomic bombs? No I am not of Japanese decent to the best of my knowledge. I am from Great Britain, moreover, I am English.

*Cringes in shame at this revelation*

I swear, not all of us are like this!

*Cowers*

PS. Don't read racism into everything. That was hardly racist, it was simply an inaccurate assumption.

It had racist undertones. I hate this idea that says if you criticise the US then you are bad and clearly wrong. I'm allowed to criticise it! It's called freedom of speech, it doesn't make me anti-US or anything like that! I have been to the US and thought it was fantastic!

 

[Scarecrow38]

Yes. The lives lost when the bombs were dropped was much less than what would have happened had the Americans had to invade Tokyo on foot as had been done in Germany with Berlin. Consider the casualties of the Americans and Japanese defenders/ civilians alike had they tried to invade the islands.. especially when you take a look at the suicide-over-surrender concept that the Japanese believed in.

 

[Spicy meatball]

3. Spicy Meatball: Using nukes against Iraq and Afghanistan would have been useless and stupid. These nations do not have the same concentrations of industry, their militaries are not conscripted, and, most importantly, this is not a case of 'total war'. It is a limited war of one superior, in military and moral terms, force, against one that is barbarous and crude. And, contrary to reports, we are winning, which is all that matters in the long run.

We?..as in the US?. No contrary to reports we are not achieving what we set out to do. That is not the definition of winning!. We haven't won a war with or without a coalition since the US-Mexican war. Every engagement since then has either being a "withdrawal" or a defeat. "We" never finished anything in Afghanistan (which is why NATO is there now, cleaning up the mess we left), Iraq is still in a rut and half our troops are still there, dying.

These loose terms like "total war" and "limited war" is utter garbage. War is war, there is no "mildness" about it. You shoot the enemy to kill not to hurt. It's the same in WWII its the same now. The only difference is the players and the theater of operations. New enemy, new land. And what was not so industrial about Iraq, it was the enemy then, "stockpiled with weapons", just like Japan was. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed being only mediocre weapons depots. (If they really wanted to do damage they would have dropped it on Tokyo first), so why then did they not nuke Baghdad?. The real reason?..because it is a deplorable act. We would be shunned in the eyes of the world!. Why?. Well, we all know why, it's the reason why everyone is arguing here. Use of Nuclear weapons is not acceptable at all. If it such a "be all and end all weapon" then why all the bans on its research?.

If you all think it's fine to drop them on civilian cities during war/total war or limited war or what have you, then what is the big problem with building them?. Why must there be bans on their research and people watching where they all are?. You don't see the worlds leaders going about accusing other nations of building tanks do you? No!. The minute someone say country X has a nuke the world is in an uproar.

The fact of the matter is simple. They are mass murdering weapons, that kill indiscriminately; by which I mean it's force can not be contained once released. An air strike is a precision thing, destroying the thing you aimed at. A nuke will kill anything and that is not acceptable under any war situations.

 

[Saskwach]

2. Sask- as I mentioned before, we already sort of buried this, didn't we.

Yeah we did. I'm just trying to show the people who still think the corpse is alive that it is, in fact, six foot under. But since my logic is irrefutable in every way, I see I've suffered the ignominy of simply being ignored rather than quoted and - I shudder to use the word here - debated with.
*sigh* I guess I'll just content myself with being right.

 

[VaioStreams]

why is this being asked now?
I love Japan. i love what most countries have to offer. We shouldn't have dropped it but we did and there's nothing we can do about it. this could have been prevented but hands that caused this did what they did to keep Japan at war with out thinking of what might happen. it's history. we dropped a bomb. made a mistake and now it's time to move on. it was 60some years ago.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

@Meatball: You didn't get what I said. I wasn't making some cissy, pansy, limp-wristed moral argument- I was stating that a nuclear device would be a waste of military resources in a conflict like Afghanistan or Iraq. Nuking Bagdahd was needless, as it would achieve little and would lose us support from the Iraqi people, lose us a valuable base of operations etc etc.

Personally, I think the Americans should build some of those Nuclear artillery shells (and the guns to fire them). That would show the Taliban exactly who has the most force.

The problem with building them is as follows: We have them, you do not. We do not want you to have them, and will stop you by use of any means neccesary from getting them, because you are dangerous to us. Ergo, if you try to get nuclear weapons, we will bury you.

PS- an airstrike is not neccesarily a precision thing. Cluster bombs are not precise. Carpet bombing from Tu-95s or B-52s is not precise. Napalm is not precise. Indeed, most effective antipersonel weapons are not precise, because precision against infantry is like using a stillheto against a rhinocerous. Precision has a rather limited value in military terms- that is why heavy machine guns are more common than sniper rifles, and why massed artillery is still used in place of cruise missiles.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

And I think you have reached heights of condescending, superficial arrogance as yet undiscovered by man. I think you are desperate to plaster your own 'America is teh evilz' interpretation onto the event and are immeasureably pissed off that people are disagreeing with you. I think the only link you have provided was already brought up (by myself during the last A-Bomb debate against Saskwatch) and summarily annihalated back then. I think you need to realise that this is not a place for you to exercise your rhetorical skills but rather hone and practice the art of enlightened debate. And most importantly, I think you should realise that you are seriously outclassed here and should drop your contemptuous tone before less charitable members drop you.

Oh, and your understanding of warfare would appear to be nonextant. Good day.

 

[Max Lazer]

Japan's war industry was largely destroyed, but no completely gone. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely intact, as they were left alone (along with other possible targets) to better judge the effects of the bombs. They were still legitimate military targets.
Tokyo was out of the question because the government was based there, and especially the Emperor. Neither would be a good thing to kill.
Kyoto was also out of the question, as it is the cultural heart of Japan. An attack of any kind on Kyoto would have similar results as the death of the Emperor.

It should also be known that little was still known about what the bombs would do. Hence, the setup of several cities as test sites. Even after the bombings, numerous tests would still be conducted, such as having troops stage a mock attack after a nuclear bomb went off (testing if they could use a tactical nuke in the same manner as artillery).
We now know what kind of horror atomic weapons are. What's more, modern weapons, and the nature of modern warfare, render nuclear weapons almost redundant, except as a blackmailing tool. Precision weapons negate the need to level entire cities to make sure a target is destroyed, and changed views on what is respectable in war (as this debate proves) make the use of nuclear weapons unthinkable to all but the lowliest humans in existence. Our strong desire to win the peace (that we rarely seem to plan for) forces us to try and appear to be the good guys to the people who either don't really give a $#!& about us or already have their minds made up against us. The notion of "kill 'em all; let God sort 'em out," doesn't apply, since almost no army would dare do the necessary part of that phrase, "kill 'em all."
Long gone is the time when anyone could play Pompey the Great to civilians.*


*shame on any of you who don't know what I'm referencing

 

[Jimmyjames]

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.

You need to study your history a little better if you honestly believe that crap.

 

[Spudgun Man]

Should Ug have hit Bongo with the rock?
It's the same question in a different time period but has about the same weight in topic.

 

[Gerazzi]

GUESS WHAT, they SHOULD'VE killed the Germans, but since many, many Americans had relatives that were in Germany, and Germany never directly attacked the U.S. It seems that Japan became the more imminent threat

 

[JB1528]

Yes. The lives lost when the bombs were dropped was much less than what would have happened had the Americans had to invade Tokyo on foot as had been done in Germany with Berlin. Consider the casualties of the Americans and Japanese defenders/ civilians alike had they tried to invade the islands.. especially when you take a look at the suicide-over-surrender concept that the Japanese believed in.

Pretty much what I believe too.

That suicidal enemy was hard enough to fight on small islands. Just think how many would have died in the US actually invaded Japan itself.