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I'm sure Hitler was pondering these thoughts when he funded his own version of the Manhattan project.
I don't believe anything in that war was justified but if you're arguing purely about the bombs, you're going to run into a lot of pigeon holing.
1) More people died in the napalm raids in Japan the USA carried out against japan then in the Atomic bomb drops. (Civilians)
2) Number 1 wasn't enough to force a surrender - Japan would've turned into the first Quagmire (Vietnam-esque) - Occupying forces can't win against a country that doesn't want to surrender. This was not Germany; both the military and civilians were fanatic in belief to follow the emperor.
3) The Invasion wouldn't have just cost Military lives, but as well civilian, so I'm not quite sure why you people believe the Invasion would've been Military specific.
Own input
1) The rest of the world had no idea the USA had such a capability, save for Russia through, through spying on the Manhattan Project.
http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/espionage.htm
Also before we go around trying to Justify 'Military Actions in a Military time (Dropping a bomb on a country that fully believes to at war with another country)' how about we try and Justify the Japanese-American Internment camps.
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Wow you people don't know your history.
yutgoyan is on the right trail though. The dropping of the bombs had nothing to do with defeating Japan quickly, Japan at that point was fucked by a total sea blockade and had been ready to surrender since February. The first bomb was dropped to show russia that the us had the technology, and were willing to use them; the second bomb was to show that they had more than one.
There's no was it right, was it wrong, If you read what all the material from that time point, it's what fucking happened. And if you think it's right to kill 200k+ people to show a billion other people that you can kill them to is right, then you're fucking retarded.
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On November 02 2008 15:13 Jibba wrote:I love that Godzilla is supposed to be some giant guilt trip for whities, but most people just laugh at it.
Nah, the guilt trip came from the book we had to read in middle school; the one with a girl contracting leukemia and making paper cranes...
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baal ir right, I saw a program about that were they interviewed survivors, what american government did was a horrible thing and ruined generations of people.
I'm sorry, but I understand dropping a bomb would be a given to be horrible, regardless if you think it is justified. Every European and Asian government did horrible things in that war.
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On November 02 2008 14:47 baal wrote:Only a fucking ignorant heartless redneck would think so. A bomb thrown at fucking civilians??, it was inhumane and its amazing its not classified in history as an horrible crime against humanity like the holocaust was. It wasnt dropped on a military base or something of that sort, it was dropped in the middle of a city full of civlians, women and children being burned alive while they were having a family meal wtf.
You sir are highly uneducated on the dropping of the atomic bombs. First off both of those cities were home to massive military factories and stocks of food which were used to fuel the Japanese war machine. Second dropping bombs on civilians was commonplace at the time and was a main tactic in dropping morale on both sides.
Crimes against humanity? By that respect the entire war was a crime against humanity. But there were certain decisions which had to be made by the American President (Truman at the time) and he made the one which he thought best. Whether it was for better or for worse is debatable but I think that given the facts and the circumstances it was really his only option. Sending more than One million Japanese and Americans to their death by land invasion, or send half a million Japanese to their death.
Ultimately non of us have the right to even say whether Truman was right or not. None of us could even imagine the enormous pressure on him not to mention the shock when he saw how truly devastating the bombs were.
On November 02 2008 14:51 baal wrote:
oh god i knew the "it saved lives in the long run" card was going to show up, but no so fast... you ignorant retards that swallow all the shit in your history book.
Japan is a fucking island, it lost all his naval capacity, its allies were defeated, surrender was matter of time, are you stupid faggots so naive to think they needed 2 cities evaporated to surrender?
There is a reason why nuclear weapons are banned dont you think?
Ok man have you ever heard of Vietnam? Iraq? Well let me tell you man just because the countries naval capacities are spent, their soldiers are underequipped and out of food does not mean they wont fight back. Surrender is never a matter of time its a matter of convincing your opponent that their is no hope left and no other option. Clearly the Japanese did not think that us being hundreds of miles away trudging through their island nightmare was enough to surrender.
What do you expect America to do? Send our own men to their deaths when we have a option that gets us out of that? Just sit outside Japan and allow our men to remain in the interment camps? This was not the only way out but it was what Truman thought best.
Edit: Also the invasion of Japan would have resulted in the carpet bombing of major Japanese cities as well as strategic points along the way. More than just two cities would have been leveled, maybe not the total devastation like that but more costly in terms of life and property.
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On November 02 2008 14:51 baal wrote:
oh god i knew the "it saved lives in the long run" card was going to show up, but no so fast... you ignorant retards that swallow all the shit in your history book.
Japan is a fucking island, it lost all his naval capacity, its allies were defeated, surrender was matter of time, are you stupid faggots so naive to think they needed 2 cities evaporated to surrender?
There is a reason why nuclear weapons are banned dont you think?
Japan wasn't going to surrender, they were trained to fight til the very end.
Edit: It was something I remember reading from our text books.
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General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"[It was] my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and ... I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet:
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman:
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials)
On the basis of the above quotes, I think the first nuclear strike was extremely questionable, and the second nuclear strike was completely unnecessary and a bona-fide war crime.
Good reading for people on both sides of the issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
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I do think that second bombing should have been delayed longer. The arguments for it being necessary was that the Japanese government would not admit what had actually happened and keep any kind of decision from its people through lies and control of the media.
The Japanese cabinet did try to do that citing that it was a natural disaster. However, one would think the truth would leak out if given more than 3 days.
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Braavos36388 Posts
It was completely unnecessary, and the way it is taught in the US schools really offends me. I'd say its one of the single biggest mistakes in American history and I am not proud at all of it as an American.
I can go on and on about the reasons why, like the true economic and social state of Japan, the incorrect estimated US invasion losses, the untested nature of the weapon, and the necessity of using it at that time, but one of the things that really makes me question the decision was
a) why it had to be dropped on a large civilian city
b) why a second bomb had to be dropped so soon after the first
i think if the US wanted to end this war they could've at least dropped it on an island or a military base.
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United States22883 Posts
On November 02 2008 15:21 a-game wrote:Show nested quote +General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"[It was] my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and ... I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." Show nested quote +Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet:
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Show nested quote +Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman:
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Show nested quote +Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials) On the basis of the above quotes, I think the first nuclear strike was extremely questionable, and the second nuclear strike was completely unnecessary and a bona-fide war crime. Good reading for people on both sides of the issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
It's true that it was militarily unnecessary and largely political. Notice none of those quotes are coming from Air Force people.
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Hmmmm
+ Show Spoiler +Justified - 1 a: to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable b (1): to show to have had a sufficient legal reason (2): to qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property
Justified? Prolly not.
That doesn't mean that it was not one of the better solutions to a completely unjustifiable clusterfuck.
Truman had to make a decision and with what he knew and what we know now, there aren't many other such efficient solutions that save as many lives.
Also all the bullshit about civilians lives is silly. All Lives are of equal value and it was fairly norm back then.
I guess what I want to know is -- What do you think Truman should have done in response to Pearl Harbor and all else that was WW2?
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@Jibba Those people run the military man not a particular section. Dwight Eisenhower was the leader of the European theater though. I think Nimitz was over the airforce since it is part of the Navy.
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I really can't believe that anyone that knows the facts would think that the bombings were justified.
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United States22883 Posts
On November 02 2008 15:30 SpiralArchitect wrote:
@Jibba Those people run the military man not a particular section. Dwight Eisenhower was the leader of the European theater though. I think Nimitz was over the airforce since it is part of the Navy.
Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander in Europe, but he was still an Army man. Nimitz was only over the Navy, not the Air Force. The lessons of WW1/2 were that air power rulz and this was when the Air Force started to gain influence over the other branches. There's very distinct opinions from the three seperate branches, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Army is against them because of fire and radiation. Air Force doesn't really consider fire and radiation, just blast (even today.) Navy personnel actually died because of the blasts, btw. No one knew what to expect, and I think 1 vessel sunk and a bunch of other people got radiation poisoning because they put on sunglasses and decided to watch.
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On November 02 2008 15:26 Hot_Bid wrote:
It was completely unnecessary, and the way it is taught in the US schools really offends me. I'd say its one of the single biggest mistakes in American history and I am not proud at all of it as an American.
I can go on and on about the reasons why, like the true economic and social state of Japan, the incorrect estimated US invasion losses, the untested nature of the weapon, and the necessity of using it at that time, but one of the things that really makes me question the decision was
a) why it had to be dropped on a large civilian city
b) why a second bomb had to be dropped so soon after the first
i think if the US wanted to end this war they could've at least dropped it on an island or a military base.
Trail of Tears and Japanese-American internment camps strike me as fairly high up there on that single mistake list - but make no mistake, few Americans are proud of the bomb dropping, but just like politics, arguing the point of the necessity of this bomb, will get you no where. Furthermore people probably won't change their opinion anyway.
Truman had no idea such ramifications existed for a bomb. There was no thing as mass destruction prior to this and had little idea how much damage it would do - and to be completely fair the napalm raids against japan had been going on for months and got little to no attention as a mass destruction tactic. The only reason the Atomic bomb become much more interesting and scarier to the public was that it could be done with one plane rather then the massive a mount of plans under taking the napalm raids. And don't think the napalm raids were for military purposes. Their sole purpose to strike civilian targets.
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This thread is a BAD idea.
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On November 02 2008 15:30 iPF[Div] wrote:
I really can't believe that anyone that knows the facts would think that the bombings were justified.
What about war is ever "justified" in the true sense?
I think most people are answering the poll as to whether or not it was the lesser evil of the alternatives...
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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On November 02 2008 15:34 Motiva wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2008 15:30 iPF[Div] wrote:
I really can't believe that anyone that knows the facts would think that the bombings were justified. What about war is ever "justified" in the true sense? I think most people are answering the poll as to whether or not it was the lesser evil of the alternatives...
i'm just mad that people don't know wtf they are talking about
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/fm_victim.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.warchat.org/pictures/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_victims_nuclear_bombing.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.japanfocus.org/images/UserFiles/Image/2642.kuznick.tibbets.abomb/hiroshima_afterbomb.jpg)
