Was nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima right or wrong?

[Fkeu 'Awpo]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

All this

can be condensed into

Originally Posted by Fkeu 'Awpo

Japan should have surrendered.

[Woodsprite]

I don't think anyone's gotten the main point of why it was really done.

Japan was a stubborn power. Case closed. No matter how many times we would attack them and display what we were capable of, they would never surrender. They had the freakin' kamikaze for crying out loud. Simply bombing one of their bases or taking out a strike force wouldn't hinder them. Even the superior might of the U.S. navy, army, and airforce wasn't enough. They had no intention of surrendering. Ever.

When we threatened to wipe out one of their cities, they laughed at us. We nuked 'em, and they started listening, but DID NOTHING. So we bombed 'em again with a much larger nuke. Then they finally surrendered, fully knowing the consequences if they didn't. Hirohito was insane to not surrender the first time.

I believe the bombings were absolutely necessary in order to end the war.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

I don't think anyone's gotten the main point of why it was really done.

Japan was a stubborn power. Case closed. No matter how many times we would attack them and display what we were capable of, they would never surrender. They had the freakin' kamikaze for crying out loud. Simply bombing one of their bases or taking out a strike force wouldn't hinder them. Even the superior might of the U.S. navy, army, and airforce wasn't enough. They had no intention of surrendering. Ever.

When we threatened to wipe out one of their cities, they laughed at us. We nuked 'em, and they started listening, but DID NOTHING. So we bombed 'em again with a much larger nuke. Then they finally surrendered, fully knowing the consequences if they didn't. Hirohito was insane to not surrender the first time.

I believe the bombings were absolutely necessary in order to end the war.

Well, I don't think so. At that point in the war Japan was on its last legs, it had very little resources left. A good tactic to employ against Japan at this point would be to simply blockade their entire country until they surrended. It's a win, win situation, Japan surrenders or they starve themselves to death. They were not a threat at this point in the war. So the bomb tests on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were simply an experiment.

Also something of note is that Hirohito was being undermined by the military and his power was diminished significantly. Most of Japan's decisions at that point in the war were military driven.

[Gunny]

I think another point to consider would be that it would also establish the US as someone not to F with or we would blow them to hell LOL! Shows that we are not messing around. Now should it have happened? Well I wont waste time typing and say im with woodsprite and fkeu. They should have surrendered.

Japan new what was coming and decided to do nothing. Also, them being limited on supplies. They were fully ready to fight to the end. So simply waiting for their resources to "run out" would not have worked. Im sure many were also still angry about Pearl Harbor and wanted revenge.

[Human No More]

Gunny, no, all it did is make every dictatorship of religious and/or political nutters want nukes of their own. Eventually some succeed (the USSR first, more recently Pakistan and North Korea, but even worse is Iran's attempts), as a result, nuclear was is the most probable eventual cause of human extinction.

[tm20]

damn, this guy survived



the only building that remained standing

[Loverofnature]

how can people live there today? and damn, i feel sorry for that man

[Dreaming Of Pandora]

Well the American point of view was that millions more lives would have been lost if the US tried to invade Japan's coast as there are many tiny islands in which many bloody battles would take place before actually reaching the Japanese coastline.

America wanted to "demonstrate" their military power by ending the war in one swift stroke. They bombed those two cities and scared the Japanese government into surrendering.

There's controversy though about the necessity of bombing actual cities in order to get Japan to surrender. A simple detonation of the atomic bomb off the Japanese coastline would've done the same trick. However the US wanted to kick the country in the nuts and decided mass civillian casualities was a better idea.

Apologies for the bias in my post.

[Tiberius]

Originally Posted by Aihwa

Do you know this for a fact that he knew about hiroshima before Nagasaki? That blast wiped out the area, communications would have been nonexistent.

Millions died.

It was possible to do it without that much bloodshed.

No Millions did not die. The death toll from Hiroshima was somewhere in the region of 50,000 to 100,000 within the first few days.

Originally Posted by X.,.Pandora.,.X

Yes, but the germans, british, and russians had a "code of war." They didn't shoot medics, didnt kill civilians, ect (or wernt supposed to). They also SURRENDERD. The Japanese were told to fight till the last man AND the Japanese held back resources from going in in preparation for the expected invasion.

The Russians and especially the Germans had NO code of war, the Germans in particular Slaughtered vast numbers of civilians. The Germans Killed far more people than the Japanese.

Also it is incaccurate to state that Germany Surrendered and that the Japanese were told to fight to the last man. As a matter of fact the Germans themselves were also told to fight to the last Man. Even German boys were put in uniforms and given weapons to take on Russian tanks at close range. The ONLY reason the Germans surrendered is because Germany itself had been completely Overrun by Allied forces, the Germans had no other option. Mainland Japan had not yet been overrun, which gave the Japanese some hope, and was the reason they did not surrender earlier.

Originally Posted by Ba'al

I don't think that's what the American top brass was thinking at the time, or perhaps they did think of that and lied to themselves, justify the act internally before carrying it out externally. Personally I feel it wasn't justified considering there were alternatives such as detonating a WMD offshore, or at least somewhere where the Japanese could get the message.

I agree with this, there were definitely alternatives.

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

I don't think anyone's gotten the main point of why it was really done.

Japan was a stubborn power. Case closed. No matter how many times we would attack them and display what we were capable of, they would never surrender. They had the freakin' kamikaze for crying out loud. Simply bombing one of their bases or taking out a strike force wouldn't hinder them. Even the superior might of the U.S. navy, army, and airforce wasn't enough. They had no intention of surrendering. Ever.

When we threatened to wipe out one of their cities, they laughed at us. We nuked 'em, and they started listening, but DID NOTHING. So we bombed 'em again with a much larger nuke. Then they finally surrendered, fully knowing the consequences if they didn't. Hirohito was insane to not surrender the first time.

I believe the bombings were absolutely necessary in order to end the war.

Slaughtering large numbers of defenceless civilians is the ultimate act of cowardice. You can talk all you like about how stubborn the Japanese were and how they did not listen, but does that then justify committing a war crime. If a country wants to take the moral high ground in a war, it does not do so by stooping lower than the enemy.

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by Tiberius

Slaughtering large numbers of defenceless civilians is the ultimate act of cowardice. You can talk all you like about how stubborn the Japanese were and how they did not listen, but does that then justify committing a war crime. If a country wants to take the moral high ground in a war, it does not do so by stooping lower than the enemy.

I like to look at it this way: how many more soldiers, both American and Japanese, would've died if we ordered an all-out assault on Japan and the surrounding islands? Many, many more people would've died than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

It wasn't a war crime; far from it. We were at war with Japan. Don't forget what happened at Pearl Harbor. Just because there's no radiation afterward doesn't mean the crime was any less bad than nuking Japan. We even informed the Japanese government what we were willing to do, and they didn't listen. After Hiroshima, not only did Hirohito not surrender, but tried to cover it up from the general public. This is the extent of their resolve. Even after tens of thousands dying from our first nuke, they still didn't surrender. Yes, what we did was necessary.

We set them in line. Tragically, that's what measure was taken, but a necessary one to prevent further casualties.

[josie20]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

I like to look at it this way: how many more soldiers, both American and Japanese, would've died if we ordered an all-out assault on Japan and the surrounding islands? Many, many more people would've died than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

I tried explaining that. But some people just don't understand what it means to be at war. I suggest they spend some time in combat before judging the actions taken by any country good enough to try and save the lives of their people.

[josie20]

Would Japan have surrendered had the US only showed their might on the coastline rather than on cities? To say either way is pure speculation. However, I don't think they would have surrendered.

Why kill millions of Japan's civilians to save millions of US soldiers? First off, the US soldiers were not volunteers(not most of them, anyway). They were drafted. Being such, it is the responsibility of our leaders to do whatever they can to save American lives, first and foremost. They save American lives first, even if that means killing civilian "enemies". Now, that doesn't happen anymore because of media coverage.

Don't forget that Germany bombed the crap out of England. By the end of May,1941 roughly 43,000 civilians were killed. The US isn't the only one at fault here.

I'm not going to comment on the morality of the issue. But it's the job of the US leaders to save their own people first and worry about everyone else later.

[Dreaming Of Pandora]

Originally Posted by josie20

Don't forget that Germany bombed the crap out of England. By the end of May,1941 roughly 43,000 civilians were killed. The US isn't the only one at fault here.

Search Dresdin, Germany, WWII and you might want to edit that post. But I do agree that alternatives ways of intimidating Japan were an option.

[josie20]

Originally Posted by Dreaming Of Pandora

Search Dresdin, Germany, WWII and you might want to edit that post. But I do agree that alternatives ways of intimidating Japan were an option.

I don't understand what you are getting at. I was only trying to make the point that the US wasn't the only country to kill civilians. The Germans killed 43,000 civilians in bombing England. I never said the US or its allies weren't at fault.

[Isard]

Josie, and we bombed Berlin to its foundations.


And firebombed Tokyo nearly to the ground. We actually killed more people with napalm during our Tokyo air-raid than both Atomic bombings combined.