Poll: Was It Wrong To Drop The Atomic Bombs In Japan?

[Not G. Ivingname]

The problem with judging history is that, it is history. We can't change it, and it is impossible to judge. Who knows what might of happened if we didn't? Maybe Japan didn't surrender, used spies to find out how to make their own A-bombs, and tried to use kamakazi's with Nukes in the planes. Maybe they would of surrendered and that was that. Who is to know weather it was or was not the right thing to do, how many lives would of been lost or saved if the US hadn't. We simply can't know.

 

[Jazoni89]

Wow...you can tell who's american and who is not in this topic doesn't that say alot.

 

[mightymouse3]

wow. You say you have done "research", but half your facts are wrong.

-The Japanese did in fact have a navy AND an airforce. They used their airforce to attack Pearl Harbor, so they obviously had one, and the War in the Pacific was fought almost completely with aircraft carriers, battleships, planes, and the occasional skirmish on an island. So the Japanese did in fact have an airforce as well as a navy.

-The Japanese were NOT terrified of the Russians coming to invade. In fact, the Japanese had no fear of ANY communist power. They had invaded, taken over, and expelled Mao Zedong and the Communist forces (for the time being) so Communism was not in any way a threat to them. Also, the Russians have not beaten the Japanese before, it is the other way around. The Japanese absolutely slaughtered the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, which is one of the causes of World War I, but thats a completely different story.

-Near the end of the war in the Pacific Theater, the United States was faced with two options. End the war through an invasion of Japan and possibly get involved in a lengthy, costly, and unnecessary war over occupation of a foreign country, or end the war through the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time, many high-ranking officials were in support of the bombing of Japan, as it seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

Next time get your facts straight before you present an argument about a topic as controversial and broad as this.

 

[jad4400]

Yes definatly, there no two ways about it, an atomic weapon was dropped on a city which had a militant to civilian ratio of about 1:7, children to this day are born without limbs, organs, and bones, there were better ways to achieve the same goal (Churchill and Pattern both agreed on that).

So if anyone anywhere feels that either Hiroshima or Nagasaki were in anyway justified, congradulations; you're as mad as a holocaust denying neo-nazi.

Okay really?

Winston Churchill is not the god of knowledge, how did he think we were going to end the war? Starve them out? That would have killed more people. Invade them? That would have killed more people. Continue to firebomb them? That would have killed more people in the long run too. George Patton actually advocated launching a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union to be followed by an invasion.

As for your second comment, I won't dignify it with a response, but I will say that you're a dumbass for saying it.

P.S Congratulations doesn't have a "D" in it.

 

[tristow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHg0-fph1Vg

this could help

 

[DarkDain]

Well, let's see. The U.S. was well on its way to winning, had a substantial number of troops ready to invade Japan, and Japan was ready to surrender anyway. So, no, dropping the bombs was not the correct tactic. People like to say that dropping the bombs saved more lives than it took because it ended the war. I call bullshit. We dropped those bombs on civilian targets as a terror tactic when we easily could have stormed Tokyo, and probably lost less soldiers than the civilians we killed. What, is an American life worth more than a Japanese life? Was that why we didn't send our troops into the country to give Japan a fair fight?

yyyyyyyeaah you might wanna read most of the posts prior to this one. Especially the 'fair fight' thing. Several years of fighting an entrenched zealous enemy in mountain territory.. They had a small sample of that before, its pretty horrible stuff. Then giving guns to everyone with a trigger finger in japan to fight.. That wouldnt be fair having to shoot 'civilians' and children who will shoot you, it would of been a huge 'war crime' accusation too since un-armed civilians would probably be shot too since so many would be hostile.

Except we had a blockade on Japan. Being the resource-poor country that it is (at least concerning minerals), they would have run out of military supplies quickly enough. I would hope that even the 1940s United States army would have been able to defeat an opponent in such dire straits. Have you ever been to the museum in Hiroshima which is specifically meant to remember the dropping of the bombs? It's chilling. I'm no military tactician, but there were plenty of other options for us to defeat Japan that had less ethical ramifications. Still want to bomb them? Get some planes up there and hit key targets. Don't just hit the "fuck you button" on millions of innocents. It's not as if the bombs were our only way to victory, and I highly doubt that they were the best.

Well after reading all 6 pages of this post, it seems japan had plenty of resources stocked up. I've heard about that thing, and i think they should make another one across the road, except it should be about what they did to the Chinese people. They are simply pulling on peoples emotions while sweeping what they did under the rug, and what the did was so far worse than the bombs, not only in death toll to civilians and militants alike, but in the 'slowly massacre your entire country in a brutal fashion'. As its been pointed out, only 250,000 people died (initially), it WAS a military target, the fire bombings were alot more deadly and destructive, and the japanese would of fought till the end.

@The guy who made the post, can you re-set the vote? make everyone read all the history information here and then re-vote.

 

[Horton986]

The Nuke was needed just an invasion would have only lead to failure

 

[SonicKoala]

Well, let's see. The U.S. was well on its way to winning, had a substantial number of troops ready to invade Japan, and Japan was ready to surrender anyway. So, no, dropping the bombs was not the correct tactic. People like to say that dropping the bombs saved more lives than it took because it ended the war. I call bullshit. We dropped those bombs on civilian targets as a terror tactic when we easily could have stormed Tokyo, and probably lost less soldiers than the civilians we killed. What, is an American life worth more than a Japanese life? Was that why we didn't send our troops into the country to give Japan a fair fight?

yyyyyyyeaah you might wanna read most of the posts prior to this one. Especially the 'fair fight' thing. Several years of fighting an entrenched zealous enemy in mountain territory.. They had a small sample of that before, its pretty horrible stuff. Then giving guns to everyone with a trigger finger in japan to fight.. That wouldnt be fair having to shoot 'civilians' and children who will shoot you, it would of been a huge 'war crime' accusation too since un-armed civilians would probably be shot too since so many would be hostile.

Except we had a blockade on Japan. Being the resource-poor country that it is (at least concerning minerals), they would have run out of military supplies quickly enough. I would hope that even the 1940s United States army would have been able to defeat an opponent in such dire straits. Have you ever been to the museum in Hiroshima which is specifically meant to remember the dropping of the bombs? It's chilling. I'm no military tactician, but there were plenty of other options for us to defeat Japan that had less ethical ramifications. Still want to bomb them? Get some planes up there and hit key targets. Don't just hit the "fuck you button" on millions of innocents. It's not as if the bombs were our only way to victory, and I highly doubt that they were the best.

You seem to be forgetting that an American invasion of the Japanese homeland would have resulted in far more casualties than the atomic bombs did - and really, lets say your government just spent 2 billion dollars (in the 1940s) and 4 years on this weapon project - are you really going to put more American lives at risk rather than using this weapon which could potentially end the war immediately?

Furthermore, the American military had been through unimaginable difficulties up to this point - the U.S. wanted to end this war as soon as possible, at the atom bomb seemed like the way out. Furthermore, nobody had any idea of how destructive it would be. It's easy enough for us to look back on Hiroshima and say "oh yeah, look at that, it's terrible", when the fact of the matter is even the Manhatten Project scientists had little knowledge of what exactly would happen when the bomb was dropped. They certainly hadn't even considered the inevitable radiation effects which would linger for many more decades.

 

[Romblen]

If we didn't, the fighting that would have followed would have had a massive amount of casualties for both sides. For the Americans, the soldiers would have had to fight their way through the beaches(think d-day only worse) then the soldiers would have had to fight street by street to take the cities. The amount of American casualties would have been huge. The bombs changed that. Call me heartless, but as far as I'm concerned, the more American lives saved, the better.

 

[Asturiel]

My apologies, as you can see I'm new so I hope I get a bit of leeway.

Also, TheNamlessGuy is correct, the japanese were already thinking about signing a truce.

It just seems strange that everone is saying they would never surrender; they would fight to the last man and they hated Americans and yet shorty after the bombs they sign an unconditional surrender. Quite the jump in opinions.

Perhaps it was because two major cities were gone within a few days? The Japanese emperor realized he brought a knife to a gun fight and thought it best for his nation to surrender. No good to be an Emperor of atomic ash and cries of pain right?

I can't imagine dropping an atomic bomb ever being a good thing.

Considering that two of them being dropped made the two world super powers afterword not use them even though they had them, it's a grim good thing right?

OT: I believe that the atomic bomb was a necessary evil, perhaps not for the closure of WW2 parsee, but for prevention of WW3. Although I've heard so much shit on this thread of "they were definitely going to surrender" and they were "definitely going to keep fighting to the last" thats too iffy for me to give my full opinion just yet. I would say it likely was necessary to stop any thoughts of victory but weither that was necessary or not is questionable.

However this was a clear indication to Russia as well as the rest of the world that we had just came across weaponry that could end this world. So once the Russians gained ability to use this as well it may have very well prevented WW3. Seeing how WW2 ended I don't want to see an escalation with both sides being equally armed with those keys to the abyss.

 

[Arduras]

Its a bit of a mixed issue:

Many members in the Japanese government were urging the populous for peace, they saw the war as already on the way to lost, Iwo Jima, the first bit of 'homeland' had been taken, their army and navy had been decimated and the American's and the ANZAC forces had a stronghold nearby capable of bombing the mainland (as happened with the Atomic Bombs).

But, Honour and Pride dictated that Japan wouldn't surrender (the key part of Japanese doctrine at the time was based on the Samurai code, death before dishonour), which would have made a nation need to be 'pushed' to sign a peace treaty.

The other factor would be the sheer number of casualties American's and the ANZACS, not to mention the British would receive trying to attack such a large Island.

But in the end, the decision was to drop the bomb, and we will never know if by not dropping the bomb, we would have ended the war sooner or just prolonged it and caused more deaths (military and civilian) by fighting the traditional way.

 

[WTFOMGHAAAXXX]

Yeah probably seeing as the soldiers and civilians were told the americans were the most evil creatures on Earth, which is only 65% true, and would torture, rape, pillage enslave and destroy them while taking over Japan. they would have gone crazy with radicalism resulting in many more deaths than necessary. Now granted, the health issues afterwards...eh...

Ahem...who the hell do you think you are? Americans have been having to deal with things like that ever since we became a country. We are not savages, never were, or plan to be. Your full of crap, have no idea what your talking about, and need to look at what kind of controversy you can unleash with that comment. The US is not some war mongering nation with only greed on our minds. We care about our troops and real Americans won't take that lying down. Your description of our soldiers is closer to that of the Mongols of ancient Asia. And also, we told them we were going to bomb them. We dropped flyers telling the people that the cities would be bombed. We took one down, Japan still didn't surrender. It took 2 cities to get them to stand down. Many people died, but Japan could have prevented it.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

I'd say it was wrong. And even if you don't think Hiroshima's bombing was wrong ('cos, y'know, dropping a powerful bomb that will affect generations to come with radiation poisoning on a major civilian centre might just be defensible!), Nagasaki's definitely was! The second bomb was dropped only as a weapons test, to check which of two designs for the bomb worked best... I can't find any justification for it whatsoever.

We game them 3 days to surrender or have another dropped on them, they said no, how is that "just a weapons test?

Hmm... In that case I apologise, I was underinformed regarding the circumstances of the use of the second bomb. I still don't feel its use was morally defensible though.

 

[EchetusXe]

I wrote an essay on this very topic.

"Despite vocal support for the bombing, including general support from the public, most historians would largely agree with the report?s findings that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary to bring about the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II."

It was basically when your cat has a mouse cornered and badly wounded and then your decides to take your shotgun and finish the job in style. Oh, and also the mouse is a vicious bastard who is half-crazed in devotion to the emperor, whilst a large part of him isn't interested in some delusional sense of honour and wishes to sue for peace with the cat.

My analogies suck.

 

[Uncreation]

Also, i see no way that someone can argue that dropping it on cities was a necessary thing. Thay could have, you know... dropped them on military bases, ports, airports, or some other (large) MILITARY instalation. The devastation would have been obvious in that case too. I mean, the bombs were tested in the desert and their distructive power was still unquestionable. It was not necessary to drop them on cities.

Military bases are normally built inside cities, Hiroshima was the location of several military division's headquarters and a significant stockpile of weaponry whilst Nagasaki was a key harbour and naval factory. Military installations require massive support from a country's infrastructure, building them a few miles away from anyhting makes no sense, they exist to defend the cities and need a constant supply of workers and resources. By the rules of war at the time the cities were valid targets, the same as Dresden.

Nevertheless other targets could have been found. My whole point was that i don't think it was necessary to drop the bomb on a city, in order to obtain the desired effect. The effects and power of the bomb would have been obvious almost anywhere (except maybe for dropping it in the ocean, or some really remote part of the country). I was trying to say that i think that nuclear bombing could have achieved the objective, without killing civilians.
And the whole "rules of war" thing is bullshit in my oppinion. I don't view killing civilians as acceptable. Besides, the rules of war are rarely followed.

 

[WrcklessIntent]

Yes it was necassary because if we didn't drop them it would've taken months and millions of lives later to get the Japan to surrender. Even after the 2nd nuke was dropped milatary officials didn't want to surrender and it took the Emperor to personally ask for them to surrender. We did even drop leaflets saying for the people to evacuate. It's not like we didn't give the people fair warning to leave. http://moodle.salesianum.org/file.php/276/Leaflet_dropped.pdf
It was a needed and if you want something to complain about complain about the Tokyo fire bombings. Over 200,000 people died in those bombings which is over 50,000 more than the nukes combined. So as you gathered it was needed because they stopped what could've been a long, bloody, and terrible invasion of Japan that would've ended in the same result, Japan's defeat. If you want to ***** about something get all your facts straight.

 

[EchetusXe]

It took 2 cities to get them to stand down. Many people died, but Japan could have prevented it.

This defence reminds me of the schoolyard bully who declares that his savage blows are preventable if you simply submit to his will.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Killing civilians is never something to be supported. But the reality is that civilians were going to die in an invasion anyways. In fact the near constant firebombing of Tokyo and other major Japanese cities was wiping out just as many civilians as the atomic bombs did.
I would just like to say however that the nukes were not the only factor in the surrender of Japan like so many people seem to think. It was the nukes in combination with the insanely successful Soviet invasion of Manchuria that sealed the deal. Along with a few other factors.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Think of it this way: Is there anything really "right" in war?