The WWII Atomic Bomb Attacks Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Sounds like something this guy would tell his "army"...

 

Validating one's actions based on the atrocities of one's enemy, doesn't necessarily make them right in any way. I think in war, civilians should be off target. If that's not the case, then 9-11 was simply the declaration of war between the US and madmen, and not an act of terrorism. From a tactical standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world, but from a humanistic standpoint, it's very difficult to rationalize.

 

I have no problem with robots as long as they don't have movable eyes and eyebrows. Can't imagine anything scarier than a broken robot that just starts flailing around and taking jibberish, but still has an angry face.

 

Yeah, we should be kissing their ass for actually using all of our resources to fight them. Possibly they don't have animosity because they were the aggressors and themselves did committed much more terrible acts.

i saw that on White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

their were almost twice as many civilian deaths in WWII as military. If you want to start naming countries that caused them, the USA will be lower on the list than axis powers and soviets. If you want to start naming reasons, the atomic bomb will be very very low. WTF is your point really, crap on the us? The USA lost an average of 2.5 of it's best bombers (B29) every day during the months of May and June 1945 before the atomic bomb drop.

The only reason you are talking about it is 1. It is the USA 2. It is intellectually easy.

congrats, your an anti-usa troll.

 

So because Japan committed atrocities during the war, it makes their civilian population fair game? That is not part of war and never has been. It is terrorism and nothing less.

Civilian casualties are part of war, but they are not the objects of war. Nations targeting civilian populations as military objectives are state terrorists.

And in case you forgot, we wanted the Soviet Union to invade Japan. We asked them to at the Yalta Conference and Stalin agreed to do it 90 days after the German surrender. In fact, Truman ordered the atomic bombings 88 days after Nazi Germany surrendered.

I don't believe that Japan was better off because of the atomic bombs. That is ridiculous. Is America somehow better off because of 9/11?

The bombs were excessive and unnecessary to Japan's surrender. They didn't even get an unconditional surrender from Japan.

 

No, civilians can be fair game, particularly in total war, where the only choices are winning or death, which was World War II. In those situations, it's not surprising for morals to be thrown out the window, and while unfortunate, is the result of war.

If your response is that it's just like 9/11, well yes, 9/11 was an act of war. It's the result of a war between the United States and Al Qaeda and I really wouldn't mind if every single member of Al Qaeda was exterminated, and I think most Americans would agree. The problem and difference is that Al Qaeda members are somewhat difficult to distinguish from non-Al Qaeda members which is different from World War II, when it was quite easy to tell who were the Japs and who weren't.

I would argue that the request came during the days when we seemed to think that Stalin was a good guy. We know today, and we knew afterwards, that he was not. And that him, invading Japan would have been very very bad for everyone after the war was over. Except the Commies.

 

Skimming this thread, I wonder how different history would've been without these bombs. I'm not even just talking about having to launch a fullscale invasion of Japan. But rather, people's feelings on atomic weapons itself.

It's one thing to see a big mushroom cloud detonating in some desert in the middle of nowhere. To hear scientists simulate and try to describe what it would be like to have a bomb dropped near where you live. But to actually witness it, witness the aftermath, witness the survivors that deal with the radiation fallout, was it perhaps enough to truly send the message of "HOLY CRAP" to everyone in the world? Not saying it makes it more right, or that it's a good idea to kill some people to make examples out of them. But perhaps it might have been inevitable that someone would've used it later, even if we had not at the time? That at some point, someone was bound to test the weapon anyway?

 

I think it's very sad that there are more people who know about the two bombs dropped on japan and have negative feelings about it, than there are people who are aware of the extend of japan's actions against civilians throughout Asia.

While it's important to remind everyone again and again that civilians should not be the target of war(even though they are the backbone of every war machine...). It's still quite disturbing that those two bombs alone have put one of the initiators of WW2 into the place of the victim and garnered it countless sympathizers.

 

Actually, it is something anybody involved in a war would say. Holy or otherwise. But of course, feel free to keep comparing apples to particle accelerators. Since context is totally irrelevant to you, apparently.

 

Japan attacked first, all bets are off.....

War is hell, and sometimes you have to get dirty to win.

None of us were alive then, so it is really disengenious to be having this converstation.

Different era, different time.....or should we know talk about the Roman Catholic church slaughtering the Cathers in France?

DD

 

I believe that if we hadn't bombed Hiroshima, someone would have nuked someone else by now. The threat of mutually-assured destruction and the uneasy peace that brings would not have been as effective if we hadn't seen the results.

 

Ding...and it stopped Russia from invading Japan......

DD

 

Dude, if you come up and sucker punch me, don't expect me to honor the Marquess of Queensberry rules. I am going to pick up whatever I can reach and beat you to a bloody pulp.

That is the world you live in.

 

I don't think there's any sympathy for the Emperor or those in key roles.

The sympathy is for the civilians...the elderly, women, children, etc who either died directly from the bombs or suffered because of them.

 

As others pointed out, the US realized it would have been very bad to have Stalin enter the war and that everyone would lose. The United States had no intention of being an occupying force after the war.

I also agree had we not dropped the bomb, the chances would be much higher of someone else dropping a nuclear bomb.

The only condition Japan had was to keep their emperor. There are many Japanese who wanted to keep fighting to the very end. They viewed their emperor as a god. The US knew that was their best deal and took it.

 

Anti-Japanese sentiments in the US is weak for obvious reasons that really had no correlation with the bombs. If the Emperor of Japan was in charge of Germany, was white, and committed those atrocities to Europeans and Jews, we'd probably know his name just as well as Hitler. And if Hitler had been Japanese and set up his concentration camps in China, it would be glossed over in the US today as footnotes.

It's for the same reasons today that war crimes in Africa are rarely talked about, but any act done by any Muslim instantly becomes headline news to show just how evil they are.

 

What about crimes committed by African Muslims?

They don't seem to get much attention.

The selective criticism/focus seems to be more of an ethnic thing than a religious thing.

 

Agreed. Surely there were some elements in the Japanese government who wanted to surrender prior to Hiroshima, but that did not become the official policy until after Nagasaki.

 

They were given a chance to surrender and didn't. Thus 2nd bomb dropped. They were given another chance to surrender and did.

Well played, IMO.

 

Would we have nuked China in '50/51?