People are still actually defending the nukes on Japan as necessary and justified here?

[daedalus_dude]

:crazy: Jeez. Go read a book or something.

[aquart]

1. Piffle.

[elocs]

2. You know, a good way to make friends and influence people

is not to cop an attitude when you just come into their house.

Historical hindsight is always easy.

[omega minimo]

51. "Historical hindsight is always easy."

Ask the survivors.

[cali]

3. Actually, opinion is divided among historians and others

on whether bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified/necessary. I tend to think it was not. Perhaps you, new DUer, need to expand your reading list.

[taterguy]

4. Which book would you suggest?

I'm genuinely curious.

[LooseWilly]

5. Are you not US centric or something?

It was necessary to show the USSR not to fuck with the USA. That necessity justified... well, anything. Hence... necessary and justified. Ohh, and it made it unnecessary to try a land invasion of Japan... which would've been awful all around.

Sure, that first sentence is rather US centric jingoism... but that's the argument. Your counter-argument?...

[liberalmuse]

16. That's the argument I heard growing up.

In a sense, it was necessary to nuke two civilian populations in Japan in order to win the war. Makes perfect sense. We had to slaughter civilians to show them who had the big brass cojones. Oh my god. :mad:

[Moochy]

41. Jingoists and Fascists... Peas in a Pod

[Art_from_Ark]

63. Counter-argument

The USSR actually took the Hiroshima bombing as a cue to declare war on Japan. They began invading the northernmost Japanese islands on August 7, 1945 and continued invading and occupying all Japanese islands down to Hokkaido until the end of October 1945. All as a result of the Yalta Conference, where Stalin was promised these islands if the USSR joined on the American side in the Pacific War. Russia continues to occupy these islands, some as close as 2 or 3 miles to the coast of Hokkaido.

[excess_3]

6. stuff tends to get blowed-up during war

two legit targets
two bombs

what else needs to be written?

[uppityperson]

40. How was Nagasaki legit? Serious question, looking for you opinion

[Posteritatis]

56. One suggestion...

And I'm not sure if it's the one used, but it makes sense, is that it was mainly meant to send the message that there was more than one nuclear weapon - that Hiroshima wasn't just a one-time thing that wasn't going to be repeated anytime soon.

If one city goes up in smoke, well, that happened a lot during the war, even if the method was new and shocking. If, three days later, another city went up in the same way, though, that suggests that there's no reason a third, or a fourth, or a tenth could follow in time. A second following so shortly after the first could be seen to have had a hit on the leadership's morale out of proportion to the mere physical damage.

If that's the case, it was also a monsterous bluff, since the US only had two nuclear weapons by the time they dropped the first on Hiroshima, but the Japanese or even the other allies didn't know that.

[uppityperson]

64. Why those cities?

I can see proving that you can do what they did, but why those cities? I have wondered if blowing up somewhere where there weren't people might have done the same thing. However, showing that you were willing to destroy a city with people in it makes a different statement.

I am torn on whats and whys, see both sides. Just wish it to not happen again

[excess_3]

66. 'cities' as such, were not the targets

officially, the targets were

IJA 5th Army H.Q. at Hiroshima
the port of Nagasaki

edit, IAJ --> IJA, Imperial Japanese Army

[uppityperson]

67. They weren't targeting the cities they bombed? W.T.F?

They were only trying to bomb Army HQ? Were there no legitimate military targets outside of cities?

[excess_3]

68. Its not like the US had fifty A bombs to shoot off

My opinion, 'spillover' was intended, but not officially.

It would have taken years to completely flatten Japan,
and by then the people would have fled the cities.
..................................................
the idea of 'demonstration' blasts has been extensively
discussed elsewhere.
Some things are just unknowable.

[excess_3]

65. the port of Nagasaki aided the war effort in several ways

the bomb was off target, by the way

[RedCloud]

61. Skin color, my fellow avatar, skin color!

[sarge43]

7. So, what was the alternative?

Invasion? Read a book about the condition of the US military at the end of WWII

Blockade? Read a book about the tactical problems of blockade. Read a book about the effects of slow starvation.

Continued conventional bombing? Read a book about the fire bombings of Tokyo

[WeDidIt]

8. ABSOLUTELY Necessary AND Justified

Everybody involved in the program were heroes to both the American public AND the Japanese public.

Using those two bombs saved at least 2,000,000 Japanese from certain death.

[Sherman A1]

12. Agreed

Perhaps the OP needs to read up on the plans for Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet taking a very, very close look at the projected casualties.

It was a choice made to hopefully end the war more quickly, which was a decision made necessary by a decision several years earlier by the Japanese to start the war. Had the Japanese not made that decision, then perhaps this one would not have been made?

[Ohio Joe]

18. Also agreed - nt

[scheming daemons]

21. 2,000,000 Japanese, and probably 1,000,000 American lives SAVED

[rd_kent]

47. Agreed, 100%

It is too easy for people to look back and try to say it was the wrong move. It was the right move at the right time, period. Saved millions of lives and ended a war that could have lasted years more.

[OllieLotte]

43. Agree as well. n/t

[LostInAnomie]

62. Agreed.

It saved a lot of lives.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. More People Were Killed In The Conventional Bombing of Tokyo

War is hell. Everything about it is awful

I don't know why anyone would think that not using the bombs would have achieved Japanese capitulation with less loss of life.

[Confusious]

10. I have

Maybe your the one who needs to study MORE.

NECESSARY AND JUSTIFIED.

[sofa king]

11. Yes. Read this Wikipedia article... or something.

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

If you had the choice, would you kill 300,000 innocent Japanese, or would you kill 300,000 American soldiers, at least as many Japanese soldiers, and a couple million innocent Japanese?

That was Truman's choice, and he pretended to never regret it.

[5X]

13. I agree...

and for the naysayers, try "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

[Echo In Light]

15. *

:thumbsup:

[KharmaTrain]

14. You Obviously Never Met Someone Who Lived Through WWII

A person like my father who had spent the better parts of 1942-1945 away from his family in England and then from Normandy into Germany. After VE Day he received orders to stand by...that he and others in his medical unit would soon deploy to the Pacific...in anticipation of the invasion of the Japanese home islands. Predictions, even at that time, was that casualties would be in the thousands just for American troops...the Japanese toll would have been far greater. Conservative estimates were that at least 1,000,000 people would perish if the US had to invade Honshu and drive on Tokyo. That's far greater than the number who died in the attacks on Hiroshima & Nagaaski.

Do I condone the US using the atomic bomb? No, but then I don't condone the Japanese launching a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the US in the Pacific war nor do I condone the Japanese torture and murder of millions...including thousansd in the Phillipines in their death camps and on the Bataan death march.

I suggest you go read a book...read about how difficult those times were and the sacrafices not just the fighting men paid but their families back in this country. It was a war nobody wanted...but once the Japanese forced the issue, there isn't a single person who I met who lived at that time who didn't think that dropping the bomb shortened the war and saved more lives than it destroyed. If you want a real massacre, look into the US bombing of Tokyo just prior to the A bomb drops...more people were killed by incendiaries than by the nukes.

[kgnu_fan]

37. Both of my parents were there

Running from one ditch to another, my mom was trying to find a safe place to hide from indicriminate carpet fire bombing. She went from one shelter to another and turned away, all were full and she could not find any places to go. Bomb exploded everywhere around her. She survived by a chance. She saw a young mother who could not reach a shallow bomb shelter all burnt to a black heap on the ground. Under her body, her baby was found dead. The mother's finger were all gone as she was trying to dig the earth with her own finger nails to protect her baby. Later my mom walked back to those bomb shelters that turned her away, and found all of those people inside were burned as fire bombs exploded at the doors of those makeshift shelter which became a meat oven. Here trauma never healed.

All through my childhood, I heard thousands of horror stories of war.

I want to stop all wars. War accomplish nothing, except for enriching the war machine (Military Industrial Complex).

After the war, Japanese people vowed never to use force as means of settleing international disputes. It is stated in Article 9 of Japanese Constitution. However, this Peace Constitution is now under attack by the US foreign policy and the right wing elements in Japanse politics who want to build militaristic capacity again. Not a good idea....

Peace. Peace. Peace.

[KittyWampus]

42. Peace and sending Love and Healing thoughts to you and those around you.

[kgnu_fan]

45. Thank you.. I cry easily.... No More War!!!!!

[AsahinaKimi]

70. This subject...

Always makes me cry a lot..for everyone involved. :cry:

[LanternWaste]

17. I imagine it's disconcerting...

I imagine it's disconcerting to run into opinions, perspectives and positions that differ from one's own dogmatic and intractable beliefs.

[melm00se]

19. When historians

disagree, they dig deeper and deeper (and that is a good thing).

to steal a quote from George Patton (who probably stole it from someone else) which fits here:

"When everyone is thinking the same thing, somebody is not thinking".

there is evidence on both sides of the discourse to "prove" their case.

on the one side, and after the fact, there are quotes and comments from Allied leaders saying that dropping the bomb(s) was unnecessary. Ditto for the case of showing the Soviets (the "better dead than red" fears were beginning to ramp up - communists were still only 1 step above fascists on the on the "threat to the American way of life" scale).

on the other side there is analysis that shows that the bombs were the lesser of 2 evils. doing an analysis of the Japanese and indigent civilian casualty rates during the Allied island hopping campaigns (especially the Okinawa campaign: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm) and the numbers were absolutely staggering, then extrapolate that on to the Japanese Home Islands, for even a short period of time before the inevitable surrender. Once you do that then add in the war weariness of the American (and Allied) public, they had been at war for more than 4 years and were getting tired of the endless conscriptions, war rationing and casualties. the political decision to end the war quickly was inevitable.

It's easy to look back and play monday morning quarterback but to make a solid decision, you must put yourself in the time of "then" and use the solid information that was available to them. Much of what we "know" now wasn't available or considered reliable back then and Truman had to balance his available intelligence against the best interests of his country and citizens.

[Bonobo]

20. Every single year. Can you believe it?

[scheming daemons]

22. This OP has no clue about WWII. *YOU* go read a book.

[Posteritatis]

23. There's some *odd* WWII opinions around here

My "favorite" was from a couple of years ago, where a couple of people started arguing that the US should have stopped prosecuting the war after the Battle of Midway because the allies had beaten Japan and everything else is just being mean or something. (One said it should have after Coral Sea.)

[scrinmaster]

24. Only when it comes to the Japanese, though.

If we had nuked the Germans, very few would be complaining.

[Posteritatis]

33. Weren't they to be the target if they were still in the fight once the bomb was done?

I forget if that's the case (and I'd welcome a reply by anyone who knows; it's going to be bugging me all day now), but you're probably right. I can't see people saying we should have just left the Germans alone after the Battle of Moscow/Britain/El Alamein. I guess that sort of thing's okay when it's just islands full of "primitives" or European colonies or both. ;P

Presentism's a useful mindset sometimes when looking at the past, but when people say something along the lines "we should have left Japan alone after June 1942 because it was obvious we'd have wrecked them by September 1945" I end up struggling as to whether to reach for aspirin or the nearest blunt object.

[melm00se]

25. there are plenty of books

out there.

some that support you and others that support the dropping of the bomb.

ditto for stopping the war shortly after some significant Allied victories

ditto for blaming FDR for standing by to get the US into WWII as the only way to end the Great Depression.

Ain't being an historian grand?

[melm00se]

26. dupe

self delete

[pipi_k]

27. It's always justified when it's someone else getting nuked

I just wonder what most Americans would say if, for example, Japan had nuked NYC and Boston during WWII, using the same justification for their side.

Would the people who think it's OK that it happened in Japan still agree that it was OK for our cities to be obliterated?

I dunno...just seems like "right" always depends on what side one is on...

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. I'd suggest the same

you might be shocked to learn that historians are divided on whether we should. Perhaps in your wisdom you should look up Operation Coronet and Operation Olympic... look down at expected casualties.

That might give you a small fricking clue as to WHY historians are divided. By the way I am in the we did it because we didn't exactly know all the effects, and gosh darn it, close to a MILLION US CASUALTIES and another three allied, is not something people were willing to stomach in 1945.

Something about 20\20 is so damn fucking easy.

[scheming daemons]

30. +1

[Stinky The Clown]

29. My first encounter with you and I have to give it an unrec

You might try reading a book .....

[PVnRT]

31. Certainly not the one on Nagasaki

The question becomes what the Japanese military would have done in the event of an invasion. Of course, I've also read that they were ready to surrender, just not unconditionally, prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, so if that's true, no, it wasn't justified either.

[jmg257]

32. Certainly. Amazing people still don't get why their use was a good call.

Jeez. Dreadfully deadly fire-bombings, massive invasions, and horrific atrocities due to occuping armies like the Japanese in China ain't trivial.

[Johonny]

34. better yet talk a 80 year old that was waiting to invade Japan

I do every day. He talks about his friends that came back from the other islands in the Pacific. He talks about how glad he was he didn't have to go on that mission. I can't imagine what would of happen had he died in Japan. I mean really read a book about WWII. I mean the bombing of cities was not uncommon. For the Ted Ralls of the world that rather the US sit out world war II I just shake my head. What should we have let Japan continue the mass murder of the Chinese? Was that socially acceptable? Was the dropping of Nuclear weapons wrong, but what we did to Tokyo ok? Was the wasteland we turned Germany into justified? Is it wrong to judge people in different social eras by our own standards? These are all interesting questions. Read a book on the other hand is totally ignorant to the debate. I've read a lot of books. I think it was probably an ok decision based on what Truman knew at the time.

[old mark]

35. Yes I am. You ought to try reading sometime yourself.

Might be a good time for you to get away from the gameboy.

mark

[Xithras]

36. More than 75% of Americans still agree with their use. Including most Democrats.

The percentage of Americans who think it's use was wrong is growing, but it's still distinctly a minority both in our country and in our party.

[Uzybone]

38. every year armchair generals tell us why we shouldn't have dropped the bombs

it is easy to do so with 64 year hindsight and nothing at stake.

[Moochy]

39. DU loves nukes,silly

Stupid conservative democrats showing utter deference for the military industrial complex narrative? I'm shocked that these jingoistic chickenhawk fucks support the use of nukes!!! Shocked.

[KittyWampus]

46. LOL! You try to sound superior but end up coming across as a silly name-caller.

Or are you being sarcastic?

[Moochy]

60. Not Sarcastic

GO ENOLA GAY !!! HOORAY!!! Now I'm on the side of pro-nuke DU!

That's sarcasm.

[SidDithers]

44. Idiotic hit and run...

unrec.

Sid

[kgnu_fan]

48. Winter Soldier is a good book to read

for understanding the universal truth of War --- for any country, any age, any soldier, War does the same thing --- Denying humanity.

Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations
Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz


It is a testimony of humanity, courage and conscience of American people.

go to http://ivaw.org/

[michreject]

49. Nice avatar

What's it mean?

[Raskolnik]

50. Yup. And instead of posting drive-by flame-bait, you might have taken some of your own advice. n/t

[cynatnite]

52. I question the necessity sometimes...

but most Americans, including Dems, strongly believe it was necessary.

It's such a horrible thing, that one can't help but wonder if there had been any other way. Did Truman know the extent of the horror that would be unleashed?

I just don't know.

[SidneyCarton]

53. War has a logic all its own.

Total war, even more so.

Slaughter is easy to initiate, even easier to escalate, and remarkably hard to stop.

The awful loss of life at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an eternal black mark on our nation, but no less than our firebombing of Tokyo, or Dresden, each of which slaughtered more civilians.

Speaking of which, as you have "read a book, or something..." Please enlighten me as to how any of the alternatives to the bomb would have ended the war with a lower loss of life to both the Japanese and Allied forces.

[dysfunctional press]

54. necessary..? debatable- depending on how many deaths were acceptable.

many more would have died on BOTH sides without the nukes.

justified..? hell YES.

pearl. harbor.

they started it their way- we ended it our way.

[TheWraith]

55. Read a damn book yourself. Careful though, you might lean something.

Or better yet, just go and do a Google search for "Operations Olympic and Coronet."

[Umbral]

57. Yep, every year the Slim Pickens Brigade busts out their bombs and rides 'em down. nt

[ItNerd4life]

58. Freeper hit and run. Move along people. nt

[krispos42]

59. Let's say we didn't.

How could anybody justify having weapons that would have stopped the war cold (7 more atomic bombs would have been available by November 1945) AND NOT USING THEM?

[proteus_lives]

69. It boggles my mind that people are saying it wasn't necessary.

They were the justified and correct course of action.

I'm glad that they were used. All other options were far worse.

[Vidar]

71. You're amazed that people disagree with you?