I just want to remind everyone that the bombing of Hiroshima was not justified

[mudesi]

http://ingred.com/


Unless, of course, you have no problem with a nuclear bomb going off in, say, New York city. After all, who started the Iraq war? Wouldn't a patriotic Iraqi citizen be fully justified in such an act?

Let's remember that we're supposed to be peaceful liberals.

[Deja Q]

1. "Let's remember that we're supposed to be peaceful liberals."

Anything else you want to tell us we ought to be, seig heil?

/irony

[mudesi]

3. That's a new one

Okay then. We're supposed to be warmongering xenophobes?

:wtf:

[Bitwit1234]

11. It saved my friend's and lives of his whole battalion

and did the Japanese think they wouldn't have killed anybody when they performed their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Did they mind when they swooped in low and shot women and children running for cover. Hell I didn't agree with that. But I was glad the dropped the bomb and ended the war and SAVED AMERICAN LIVES. Besides...if you want to blame anybody blame Hirohito he was asked to surrender before the first bomb was dropped and again before the second bomb was dropped. HE SAID NO.

[Smarmie Doofus]

22. Pearl Harbor was a *military* target; where there may have ....

reasonably assumed to have been a scarcity of non-military personnel. Hiroshima and Nagasaki incinerated , by design, entire civilian populations.

>>>Besides...if you want to blame anybody blame Hirohito he was asked to surrender before the first bomb was dropped and again before the second bomb was dropped. HE SAID NO.>>>

No offense but that's silly. Poland was asked to surrender before Hitler invaded it. Kuwait was asked to surrender before Iraq invaded it. Iraq was asked to surrender before the US invaded it. Elizabeth was asked to surrender before Phillip sent the Armada.

What country surrenders because another country 'asks' it to?

[neverforget]

62. When the side kicking their ass says so

[rockymountaindem]

63. Exactly, no country surrenders because it is asked to

It must be forced to do so. That's exactly what the atomic bombs did.

[Az]

67. Actually they did offer to surrender

Trouble was it was not an unconditional surrender. The US insisted that the Japanese must renounce their Emperor. As it turned out we weren't really that concerned about it and let them keep their Emperor. So in reality we killed two cities for nothing.

[Moochy]

47. Jerks

[hobbit709]

2. Neither was the fire-bombing of Dresden

[WinkyDink]

86. No, it wasn't. More proof of our bellicosity.

[seemslikeadream]

4. was not justified

[11 Bravo]

5. Neither was Pearl Harbor, nor the Bataan death march, nor the Rape of Nanking ...

War sucks, ace, but the bad shit is distributed far and wide.

[mudesi]

6. Which is neither here nor there

But I don't see people defending Pearl Harbor like I see people defending Hiroshima. It's quite unsettling.

[11 Bravo]

7. You'll not hear me defend either, although ...

if I had to come down on one side, the fact that my dad was a fighter pilot, sitting on a jeep carrier off the coast of Okinawa, preparing to try and survive further waves of Kamikaze attacks long enough to provide air cover for an eventual invasion of Japan, just might color my thinking. (That eventuality might have resulted in my unavailability to respond to the OP.)

[Joe Fields]

20. You must be a youngster.

It is hard for the young to have any frame of reference on this matter.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

102. Lynyrd

I have to say that although I detest the horror of the bombings on Japan - there are undeniable FACTS that Japan was well on the way to developing its own nuclear bombs and had plans on using it/them on the coast of CA. Had Japan been allowed to continue with its nuclear program they and their German allies may have won WWII. Nothing about war is good.. But allowing Nazi Germany and Japan to win that war would have caused many millions more people to die than in the tragic bombings of Japan.

If you post the images of the horror of the bombings, you may want to post images of the poor souls who died building the Japanese train tracks through S.E. Asia and of the Nazi Death camps.

[kestrel91316]

8. I just want to remind YOU that if not for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

being bombed, I probably would not exist. My grandfather would almost certainly have died in the invasion he was sailing toward, and my grandmother would have returned to NE from CO (to be with family), so my mom would never have attended Colorado A&M and would never have met my dad.

If I DID exist, I'd probably be poor white trash in a tiny dying town in NE like the rest of my mom's relatives are to this day.

[SharonAnn]

12. I would exist, but would probably have been raised fatherless.

My father was in the Army Medical Corp, a physician, stationed in Hawaii and training for the Japanese invasion. He would've been going in right behind the first troops to invade. He didn't think they would live through it. As a physician, he had very mixed feelings about the relief of serving in the Occupation Army in Japan for a year (instead of dying in the Invasion Army) and the horror of the Atomic bombs.

He always hated violence, of any kind, and raised to believe the "real men" could deal with life situations without violence. He taught us that the best thing might be to walk away from some conflict situations and that violence should never be the first response.

[Bill McBlueState]

52. if you didn't exist, would anyone miss you?

Maybe it sounds cold, but seriously, we don't go around worrying about people who never existed in the first place. So I'm not sure why that's relevant.

[Prophet 451]

60. Hate to tell you, dude

But it would have been the US government that got your grandad killed. It's fairly well known that Japan had been trying to surrender for some time prior to Hiroshima.

[MUSTANG_2004]

97. Not true.

The last days of the war were convoluted, but Japan didn't try to surrender, they simply had indicated to the Russians that they were willing to discuss an end to the hostilities. That's very different than actively trying to surrender. If they had really been trying to surrender, they could have done so at any point.

Hiroshima was not a case of the US shooting a poor soldier who was waving a white flag to surrender. It was closer to shooting a group of soldiers who were arguing about whether to get out a white flag.

[stimbox]

9. Amen. Good post lynyrd_skynyrd

Bombing CIVILIANS is a WARCRIME.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian targets.
I love it when self-centered people say that they wouldn't be here if the bombs weren't dropped.
You wouldn't know any better, now would you, since you wouldn't have been born.
How about the people that really were killed. What do you say about them? How about the survivors?
The people who suffer to this day from the side effects of exposure to radiation.
I say good. If you support the dropping of atomic bombs on civilians, then you don't deserve to be born.

[malaise]

10. Like you I'm against all wars

Nothing justifies slaughtering innocent people.

[TahitiNut]

13. There were SIX TIMES AS MANY casualties in the siege of Stalingrad.

There were more people killed in the Battle of Okinawa than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

I guess I can take some measure of comfort that so many are so ignorant of the hell and mass insanity that's war that there seems to be no comprehension of it from the comforts of most lives today. I guess I can take some measure of comfort that so many are ignorant of the soul-chilling nightmare of being in a position of killing other human beings.

In the early 90s, I was "engaged to be engaged" to a gal from Hiroshima ... whose parents lived there still. My father and three of my uncles fought in WW2 in the Pacific. One of my uncles was stationed at Hickam Field on December 7, 1941 - and suffered only a minor injury. He was "lucky."

Life must be nice in Disneyland. :shrug:

Funny thing is ... I support Kucinich. I support the "Department of Peace" idea. But, unlike most, I have some idea what it's like to be in a war. Thus, I'd be the last to sneeringly call Kucinich "woo-woo."

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Let me guess. You're in your late twenties or early thirties and your parents are baby boomers

Yes. Of course.

It is so incredibly easy to stand here, 60 plus years hence and declare what was or wasn't the right thing to do way the fuck back then.

My Dad fought in both WWII and Korea and spent 23 years with the CIA and i am telling you, if the US had not done what it did that fateful week in August, 1945, the world would be an ENTIRELY different place.

Hotlink all the pictures of burned civilians you want. Of course they are horrible images that are difficult to live down but i am willing to bet you were but a glint in your GRANDFATHER'S eye when World War 2 was going on and therefore, your perspective is a bit narrow.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, most Americans felt that we would whip those guys inside 12 months and every GI would be home for Christmas in 1942. It didn't work out that way and we nearly lost the war in the first 18 months.

Perspective is everything. Might as well decry Hannibal's dastardly usage of elephants.

BTW, if you are indeed older than 50, you should know better.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. I'm over fifty and I agree with the OP.

So did plenty of other people, like Douglas McArthur, Winston Churchill, and Ike Eisenhower.

[A HERETIC I AM]

28. And there were plenty of people who thought Truman made the right decision.

You and i, I suppose, just have to come to terms with how we define "plenty".

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. Yes, and they're wrong.

But I don't go around and accuse them of being wrong becuase they're younger than me.

[A HERETIC I AM]

41. No, you don't. But you seem willing to accuse them of being wrong anyway.

Honestly, i have little interest in having this argument - one i had as long as 39 years ago as a project in elementary school and innumerable times since - here on the internet in a text format. I much prefer to have this type of discussion face to face so that i can see the person and better gauge nuance.

Since that is not going to happen here, I'll bow out. My apologies for posting in the first place.

Peace. May it be all our goal.

[Prophet 451]

61. "the world would be an ENTIRELY different place"

Of course, if the US government had been willing to accept Japan's conditional surrender prior to dropping the bomb (Japan had been trying to surrender for months), then the world might well be very similar.

[hack89]

71. What were the conditions?

how many more Chinese, Filipino, Korean, etc lives would it have cost?

[Prophet 451]

78. Good question

I'll give you that one. My source (Truman's published diaries) doesn't explain what the conditions were so it's impossible to say if or how many lives it would have cost.

[Oblong]

16. Of course it was justified!

Would you rather see pictures of the 500,000 American military casualties we would have suffered in an invasion of mainland Japan and the pictures of the Japanese would have been much more grotesque. My father would have been one them. Instead I was privileged to have a father come back from that war and he was all in one piece.

If you did not live in the time of their lives, you can't possibly make the decision those who lived it did.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. So would an atomic bombing of Seattle and Portland by Japan have been justified?

Presuming that it would have ended the war and saved hypothetical lives?

[Oblong]

23. Yes, to them it would have been.

But they didn't have the tools. Aren't you glad?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. How about Pearl Harbor.

Was that justified too?

[Oblong]

29. To the Japanese it was.

Their miserable definition of the worth of human life was something well known to us at the time we dropped two nukes down their stack.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. LOL

Looks like you and them have the same miserable definitions of the worth of human life.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[11 Bravo]

30. In a perfect world, you would have a been a resident of Nanjing, China on December 13, 1937.

Had you survived the ensuing 6 months, I doubt that you would currently embody the unctuous and abrasive caricature we have all come to know and love.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. And you'd be a resident of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Note how you're attempting to justify the bombings as revenge.

[Prophet 451]

64. I would rather the US had accepted Japan's surrender

Japan had been trying to negotiate a conditional surrender for months prior to the bombing. The US dropped the bomb purely because they wanted Japan to surrender unconditionally. So really, if your government hadn't been so determined to establish themselves as the new sherrif in town, your father would have survived anyway.

[Critters2]

74. The US dropped the bomb to let the Soviets know we had it.

The war with Japan was all but over, and Truman knew it. His biggest concern was the Soviets. The bombs were dropped to scare the bejesus out of them. Dropping it in Japan just made it palatable for the American public.

[fujiyama]

82. Why should the US have accepted a conditional surrender?

After all, Japan was the aggressor nation, having invaded and brutally occupying several nations and starting the war against the US in the first place.

BTW, I would be interested in hearing what the conditions were. I heard the Japanese wanted to have kept the emperor, but I am unfamiliar with the other conditions.

[Prophet 451]

83. To avoid dropping the nuke?

Yes, Japan was the aggressor nation. However, there is an arguement to be made simply for forcing them back within their own borders, especially given that the Japanese military machine was essentially spent at that point.

As I said in the reply to the other comment, Truman's published diaries (which I'm pulling this from) doesn't detail what the conditions were (Truman often abbreviates words and names so he seems to have been writing as an aide memoire rather than a full account of the history) so I have no idea on that one although I've also heard that one of them was to retain the emperor.

[hack89]

88. The Chinese lost 16 million civilians in WWII

That averages almost 40,000 per week. 4 million Indonesians, 1 million Vietnamese, etc, etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

How long a delay in ending the war would you accept to avoid dropping the bombs? How many more dead Chinese, etc?

Don't you agree that sometimes there are simply no "good" choices and ending the war as quickly as possible was the only real choice? When you look at the scale of human suffering in WWII, weeks, if not days, represent many deaths.

[Prophet 451]

101. I'll agree with "no good choice"

However, we have to question whether there would have been any delay anyway. Truman was told that Japan wanted to end the war almost three weeks before the nuke was dropped. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said, about a week before the bomb was dropped "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary". In his memoirs, Henry Stimson (then Sec of War) said "no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb".

In addition to that, why two bombs? The devestating firepower unleashed in one would obviously have been enough so even if the bombing of Hiroshima can be defended as a military necessity (and I don't think it can, see above), the bombing of Nagasaki cannot.

[hack89]

103. Even after two bombs the Japanese leadership

was still split on surrendering - that is why they went to the emperor. He made the choice - and only after the second bomb.

[tabasco]

18. Hundreds of thousands of infantry on both sides

survived the war because the bomb ended the war.

Let's not forget that side of the equation.

[Auggie]

19. I believe the Allies estimated a manned invasion of Japan would have cost

one million lives.

Harry Truman did what he thought was right and said he never lost any sleep over it.

What would you do?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. That's the standard propaganda.

Of course one million lives wouldn't have been lost if the U.S. had just accepted Japan's surrender.

[Auggie]

25. Do you have a link to that surrender?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan

[11 Bravo]

42. Did you even read your own link?

In a thread where you state that the use of the Atomic bomb was unjustified, and that the use of the bomb did not save lives because no lives would have been lost had the US simply accepted the Japanese surrender, did you happen to notice (as per your link) that the Empire of Japan did not even consider acceptance of the terms of surrender until AFTER not only the Hiroshima bomb, but the Nagasaki bomb as well? Abrasive is one thing, willful ignorance is another. (At least I hope it's willful. If you're just plain stupid then this is pointless.)

[AZ Criminal JD]

33. This is not your WW II video game

There was no Japanese surrender. The bombing was justified. I am not a "peaceable liberal" as the OP implies we should be.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. But there could have been.

The choice wasn't between the atomic bombings and one million dead U.S. troops. That's a canard.

The choice was between the atomic bombings and conditions to the Japanese surrender.

[hack89]

72. What were the conditions? nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Targetting and killing civilians is a war crime...no matter who does it.

Saying that the "other guys do it too" is the thinnest of excuses for doing so.

[blues90]

32. it was absolutely not justified .

none of these people did anything to deserve this horror , they were not military or a threat to anyone . Even the military would not deserve this sort of horrific action .

[OzarkDem]

36. I agree with you on a lot of things

but not on this issue.

[slor]

40. Operation Downfall, which was the name of the...

proposed invasion of Japan, was estimated to cost potentially 6 to 11 million lives. Now I cannot say if that really would have happened, but if it was even slightly possible, dropping an atomic bomb or two, clearly was the preferred alternative. War is always tragic, which is why it should always be last resort.

[-..__...]

43. Some people either don't realize or refuse to acknowledge...

that no military campaign or action can survive long or hope to succeed without the involvement of a civilian work force.

Someone has to manufacture the arms and equipment...

Someone has to keep the supply lines running...

Someone has to grow/raise the food for the troops...

Someone has to maintian the infrastructure...

Someone has to step-up and fill in to make up for troop casualties (soldiers don't grow on trees).

As an example, in WW2 it was the capability of our industry and civilian labor force that was a deciding factor in defeating both the German and Japanese.

Ironically... the atomic bomb wouldn't have even been created without the involvement of it's civilian
inventors.

As such, civilian populations (especially in an industrialized area), are justifiable military targets if it serves a strategic purpose and goal.

[Disturbed]

44. Nagesaki Nuked just to show the world that there was more

than one bomb available. Tokyo would have been next.

[mudesi]

45. WOW

Would it be alright, then, if Iraq nuked Detroit?

What is it about you people who think there are valid reasons to kill civilians? Is it sociopathy?

[slor]

48. Did Detroit surprise attack a city in Iraq...

and then attack many other locations in and around Iraq, all while committing atrocities in the name of Detroit? If so, then yes, they might be justified.

[mudesi]

50. Detroit didn't. The United States of America did.

Iraq was unjustifiably attacked, was it not? Since then, crimes committed by American soldiers such as torture, the killing of unarmed civilians, rape, and any other number of atrocities have occurred.

Yet I don't believe nuking Detroit would be justified, because two wrongs don't make a right, because the killing of civilians has no justification, ever. Yet every sympathizer of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are saying just that: It would be okay for Iraq to nuke any major American city.

[piedmont]

54. Delete. wrong place.

[-..__...]

59. *

Would it be alright, then, if Iraq nuked Detroit?

And what purpose would that serve? Escalation? Surrender? Revenge?

"What is it about you people who think there are valid reasons to kill civilians? Is it sociopathy?

I explained why sometimes it is valid.

What other options are open if an enemy builds/places a munitions plant in the middle of a civilian area? How does one go about destroying a supply line that passes through a populated area without inflicting civilian casualties?

Sure, it sounds cruel and inhumane, but since when isn't that the nature of warfare?

[JVS]

95. Could you conceive of that actually leading to an Iraqi victory?

[MUSTANG_2004]

99. Why is it ok to shoot a simple soldier

But destroying the city that arms him is indicative of sociopathy? Seems to me that either option is horrible. When caught up in a war, the best that we can hope for is to quickly destroy the enemy's war machine to end the slaughter. It's not good, but I think it does help to end the war sooner - as is seen in history by Sherman's destruction of Georgia and South Carolina, and the Allied bombing of the industrial cities in Germany and Japan.

[stimbox]

55. Some people either don't realize or refuse to acknowledge...

That targetting civilians is a warcrime.
Look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes#United_States_perpetrated_crimes

[-..__...]

58. I guess they had us beat in at least one aspect...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes#Japanese_perpetrated_crimes

Karama is a mother fucker and war is hell.

Rules of engagement are all fine and well, but reality doesn't work that way.

[stimbox]

65. But we aren't supposed to do that. n/t

[-..__...]

89. No nation is supposed to violate the Geneva or Hague Conventions

We're just less prone to doing it.

Truth be told.... I've always thought it kind of odd that in the name of humanity and civilization, we've actually established rules on how, whom, when and under what circumstances we can kill one another. :shrug:

[JVS]

94. Awwww shit! You've opened up pandora's box. Get ready for major flames!

[aikoaiko]

46. I think its hard to say -- I give those involved the benefit of the doubt.

Isn't that swell of me?

[Basileus Basileon]

49. No. It was. And I'm not going to get in this argument again.

Post what you like, but I think after one's 10th liberal-board Hiroshima discussion, one can say "I've said my piece, and I'm done."

[Balbus]

51. "but there's no sense crying over every mistake...

you just keep on trying until you run out of cake
and the science gets done and you make a neat gun
for the people who are still alive."

[gulliver]

53. What is the Japanese opinion?

I have to admit my ignorance. Is the government of Japan pursuing war crimes charges or have they ever? Is there a large body of Japanese opinion that holds that the bombings were unjustified? Do the alleged victims view themselves as victims or do they see themselves as culpable -- or a mixture?

I think the Japanese are in a good position to know what would have happened if an attempt had been made by us to take their country by conventional means. Would there have been more deaths, even more civilian deaths in Japan? Certainly many, many more American soldiers would have died, as so many others had fighting in a war they didn't start. It's just not a simple thing.

[Godhumor]

96. It varies just like here

Most of the people I worked with in Japan talked with me about how Hiroshima canceled out Pearl Harbor. Of course, there are many people who are still very angry, and then you have a few like Fumio Kyuma, who was forced to resign from his governmental post after making the following comment:

“I understand the bombings brought the war to its end. I think it was something that couldn’t be helped.”

The United States “dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki although it knew Japan would lose the war” without having to resort to using an atomic bomb, Kyuma said.

Noting that the Soviet Union was preparing to wage a war against Japan, he said the United States must have thought the use of an atomic bomb could prompt Japan’s surrender, thus preventing the Soviet Union from carrying out its intentions.

“Luckily Hokkaido was not occupied. In the worst case, Hokkaido could have been taken by the Soviet Union,” he said. “I don’t hold a grudge against the United States.”

[piedmont]

56. It helped stop the impending invasion, which would have killed many more on both sides.

From the Emperor's Rescript of Surrender:
"Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers."

[Critters2]

75. He's acknowldeging that they would have lost either way,

and the losses would have been worst for Japan. This flies in the face of the "we had to do it to avoid an invasion" propaganda that's commonly put forward.

[piedmont]

92. We didn't have any more A-bombs-- but he didn't know that.

We made him believe his whole country would be incinerated if they didn't surrender, and that's what finally ended it-- after two demonstrations of the new weapon. If not for that, the invasion would have happened.

[Sweet Pea]

57. The OP is a bunch of crap

Justified and was the smartest thing to do. It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, for both Japan and the US.

I really wonder what these "antiwar at all cost" people would have done had Germany and Italy and Japan been unopposed through the 1940's. The total eradication of Jews via a completion of Hitler's "final solution" would have only been the start.

Crap.

[Moochy]

91. They wouldda hugged hitler and snuggled stalin

Damn Hippies!

And another thing.

Git of mah lawn.

[neverforget]

66. The Japanese rarely surrendered in battle. Why would we think they would

do anything different in August 1945?
http://worldwar2database.com/html/japanpow.htm

I forgot to add this about the casualties each side suffered in the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Allies 61 million
Axis 11 million

Our side suffered a hell of a lot more than they did.

[Az]

68. They did offer to surrender

They just didn't offer us the terms we wanted. We were demanding unconditional surrender. And the single issue that was the stumbling block was they wanted to keep their Emperor. We demanded they renounce the Emperor. After the two cities were destroyed they finally gave in to unconditional surrender. But then we didn't bother to eliminate their Emperor. So it was really just posturing that we killed two cities for.

[Old_Growth]

69. Not necessary...

Really they could have bombed an uninhabited area of Japan and then threatened to bomb cities if they didn't surrender. Probably would have had the same effect.

[WindRavenX]

70. targeting civillians for hypothetical saved lives is never justified

Ever.

Bombing for peace is, as the saying goes, like fucking for virginity.

It's utter madness.

[defendandprotect]

73. As so many have pointed out, America is rarely encouraged to see our history from the victim's . . .

point of view ---

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally disastrous for our nation ---
as the atomic bomb has been ---

and we only continue to add victims to our very, very long list of victims.

[nashville_brook]

76. amen. thankyou.

[Mountainman]

77. That is so illogical it is laughable. Put yourself in context of 1945 not 2005.

[eridani]

79. Accepting for the purposes of argument that Hiroshima was justified--

--then what in bloody hell was the point of Nagasaki?

[Botany]

80. The A-bomb was awful & brutal but it saved millions

About 25 years ago I knew a pilot from WW II and met one of his friends who was a
POW in Japan during the war he was beaten daily and all but told that when the
Americans invade you die .... after the A-bomb he was never touched again.

And a land invasion of Japan with B-29s dropping thousands of fire bombs a few
miles in front of advancing troops would have killed millions.

[WinkyDink]

87. And we know the future so well how?

[Moochy]

90. a true believer believes truth!

[CrispyQ]

81. What you do to one, you do to all.

A black mark in US history. Along with many other black marks, beginning with the annilation of the American Indians.

As time goes on, I have less & less hope for our species.

"The more I know people, the more I like my dog."

[TheWraith]

84. You're comparing apples and fruit loops.

The situations aren't remotely similar. If you want to have a debate on the use of the atomic bomb, fine--but don't try to precondition it on a bogus comparison.

[leftofthedial]

85. Hiroshima ended WWII

Nagasaki was for the Russians

[JVS]

93. meh

:shrug:

[ShaneGR]

98. Neither was the rape of Nanking, kamikazee pilots, arming children, Bataan death march...

I could go on and on. War is hell, and the Hiroshima bombings in the end saved lives. I'm sure someone will jump out and say, "but the Japanese were gonna surrender!" Got any proof for that statement?

[tomg]

100. I think my father summed it up rather

well. He was in Hawaii in the military but finished his enlistment before Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor he was called back in. Long story short, after VJ day, he was among the first sent into Japan, and while there he went to see Hirsohima. He only described what he saw twice - once when I was 17 and my brother was 19 (this was in 1967) and later to my sons when they were around the same age. That was it.

As to whether we should or should not have done it, he was scheduled to be in the invasion, he said. He was also a history buff and was very well read in history. As he read more and more about it, he told me his feelings changed over time. At first, he thought it absolutely necessary- horrible but necessary, but at the end of his life ( he was 90 when he died last year) he said he just didn't know. He did say if there was any other way to end the war they should have done that first. But he honestly did not know, and he thought about it deeply and seriously.

I have to be honest, I am far more concerned with preventing our dropping the next atomic bomb - which is looking like a real possibility - than I am with going over whether we should have dropped the first ones.

[Canadiana]

104. This must be examined as a moral issue from a philisophical point of view

and frankly, many of the above posters have it wrong. Those saying that it was justified because it saved many American (or American AND Japanese) lives in the end, or that the world would be far worse now, have clearly never taken a basic ethics or philosophy class. You are basing your opinions on the Utilitarian school of philisophical thinking that really is not valid. Basically Utilitarianism states that the moral choice is the one that brings about the greater good. HOWEVER...these are human lives we are talking about and I will propose a thought experiment that shows the flaws with Utilitarian thinking and that the killing of civillians in this case (and the vast, vast majority of cases) is NOT right:

Suppose there is a woman, a horrible terrible old woman who is really quite nasty and mean and aweful in every way. However, she has decided to leave all her money to an orphanage...2 million dollars. This money will better (maybe save) the lives of many children. Would it be right to kill her since that will technically cause the greater good?

The bombings were designed to kill thousands of innocent civilians. That is wrong. It does not make a difference that lives were saved in the end (and who knows how many actually were...one cannot see into the future) because It MALICIOUSLY KILLED THOUSANDS. I believe in war in the rarest of circumstances...I follow the Just War Theory...thats for another post though.