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

T-Bone24

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Either way was wrong, bombing civilians was wrong, but so would launching into a war with Japan be. I'm just glad I wasn't the one who had to make that choice.
 

Xeros

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I believe it was a "pick your poison" kind of thing. Anyway they went with would have cost a lot of lives.

Manatee Slayer said:
they would probably take over the country and install communism.
I like how you phrased that, it makes me think of Communism as a form of computer program. Like if Apple ran a country, and Microsoft invaded.
 

TheDoctor455

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Apr 1, 2009
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To my mind, there is no possible justification for using such devastating weapons.
And before you check my profile for my nationality, let me save some time: I'm an american.
Doesn't mean I'm proud of this nation's "achievements".
 

HK_01

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Regiment said:
-The Japanese had enough of an air force to get to Pearl Harbor and do a lot of damage.
They sure did. 4 years before...

By that time, the Japanese air force and navy were utterly crushed. That's why they sent barely trained pilots as kamikaze. They were so desperate that they even sent their strongest battleship on a kamikaze mission, but because they lacked anything to defend it on that suicide run, it was quite literally blown out of the water by hundreds of American planes before it could do anything.

OT: I don't know whether it was right or wrong. The Americans could have probably starved the Japanese to death by blockading them, or at least cripple them because they wouldn't get any oil for their war machinery. The dropping of the bombs sure helped to end the war more quickly than a long, drawn-out blockade.
 

KeyMaster45

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Jun 16, 2008
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Manatee Slayer said:
Welcome to the escapist! Might I introduce you to our wonderful new technology known as the search button?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.96092-Should-the-atomic-bombs-been-dropped-on-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki#1492146

Also here is a map directing you to the politics/religion sub-forums where this should probably be

Once again, welcome and happy posting :D

--On Topic: Should we really care? Analysts have been debating this topic since even before both bombs were dropped. The fact of the matter is they were dropped, people were vaporized, and we were lucky enough to get aireal footage of it to bask in the awesomeness and to be reminded of its terrible destructive force.

Here's a better question for you to ponder. By showing the world the destructive power of an atomic bomb it could be said their use was effectively deterred by other global powers who also developed them because of the M.A.D scenario that would inevitably come about should another one ever be used as a method of war-time tactics. So, the question in point is: Did the bombings prevent the Cold War from ever escalating to the feared M.A.D scenario? And if you do not believe so explain why? (if you haven't guessed by now I take alot of history classes that ask questions like that)
 

Sephychu

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JaredXE said:
Sephychu said:
After the first bomb was dropped, three days were given to make peace agreements. The Japanese remained firm in their decision to continue the war.
They also couldn't believe that an entire city was wiped off the face of the earth. They had to check that out first. Nothing like that had ever been seen before, so of course High Command could be a bit sceptical about it, hence a delay in any kind of peace talks.
Well, in essence it wasn't, but I get what you mean. I wouldn't have thought three days delay, in any case. Furthermore, peace talks aren't necessarily begun with an immediate surrender, so I think, and this is just my opinion, they they could have started the talk regardless. Confirmed reports were reliably sent, though.
 

mad825

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well I would say that its Japan fault for being an attention whore, launching an pre-emptive attack on U.S.A was not smart instead there should have been a joint operation with the Germans to take Russia.
having saying that, a war where everyone is the enemy it is only within our nature to use the most destructive weapon in our arsenal
 

Regiment

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HK_01 said:
Regiment said:
-The Japanese had enough of an air force to get to Pearl Harbor and do a lot of damage.
They sure did. 4 years before...

By that time, the Japanese air force and navy were utterly crushed. That's why they [used desperation tactics]
That's the big one, though. Japan was in a bad position and unwilling to accept defeat, and directly confronting such an enemy can't end well. America was basically forced to choose between "kill a whole lot of people" (bomb) or "probably kill a whole lot more people than that" (war).
 

Destal

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Can someone actually post a link to a reliable source that says the Japanese were about to surrender before the US dropped the bombs?
 

Kortney

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How are any of we to know?

It's funny - some people in this thread are claiming that Japan were about to surrender anyway, and other people are claiming that they would have fought until the last man. Someone has gotta be wrong.
 

SlowShootinPete

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Me55enger said:
oppp7 said:
Saved a lot of lives, but it's caused a lot of health issues with everyone for years afterwards.
Plus, many of the generals advised against it when it was being decided.
I reckon if you tallied it up now, you'd find that more have been lost to date from two A-Bombs over two days than a land-based invasion of a resource starved country with the Morale of a British Somme soldier in 1916.
Operation Overlord:

http://doinghistoryproject.tripod.com/id28.html

550,200 estimated casualties

Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html

225,000 estimated casualties

The second site does say that the death toll was probably higher, but that's still a huge difference.
 

InvisibleSeal

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May 3, 2009
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Yes, I really do. The Japanese were on their way towards a truce, so it was in no way necessary, and it killed so many people.
SnootyEnglishman said:
It wasn't completely necessary to do it, however, would the Americans have engaged them on land we would have lost many more men to the Japanese armies because at the time those soldiers would not have surrendered until the Emperor had given the final word. The bomb was our way of telling them "we aren't fucking around here"
I don't usually completely disagree with anyone, but I can't understand how you feel that the killing of over a hundred and fifty thousand civilians (alot of them by the after effects of the blasts, which is an absolutely horrid way to die) was justified to save the lives of many less allied soldiers, who would have actually had a chance to survive the war, whereas those hit by the bomb had no idea what was happening, and were civilians.

I understand that you said it wasn't completely necessary, but to justify it by saying it was a necessary message to the japanese emperor (at least that's how I took what you wrote) kinda pisses me off.
 

Manatee Slayer

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Two, wouldn't you change your mind after two bombs leveled two cities, and killed loads of people. I know that if someone dropped two A-Bombs on my country, I'd have the treaty written real fuckin' quick.
If my belief was to fight until the last man...probably not...
 

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
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Manatee Slayer said:
Two, wouldn't you change your mind after two bombs leveled two cities, and killed loads of people. I know that if someone dropped two A-Bombs on my country, I'd have the treaty written real fuckin' quick.
If my belief was to fight until the last man...probably not...
This is one thing I like to point out. The Japanese are not a hive mind. A common response to this question is "they would never surrender" and even worse, "the citizens were trained to kill US soldiers if they invaded. Even school girls." However, while that element was certainly present, it doesn't represent the entire populace.
 

Squid86

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The bombs were a message to the world, yes it is sad about the civilian casulties, but if you're going to start a fight you have to accept that the guy you're picking a fight with is crazy and will not stop until you are completely beaten within an inch of your life. The bombs being dropped probably stopped a lot of other nonsense happening from the Russians during negotiations over Germany as well. It also secured the U.S.'s place as a top world power. And I agree that it did save American lives, which during a war with a country that started the aggression I can fully support. Most importantly without the bombs being dropped, would there be a Godzilla?
 

ShankHA32

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Sephychu said:
TheNamlessGuy said:
Sephychu said:
Que?
This is not accurate, to my understanding.
Apparently it's true.

A bunch of really old japanese guys have said so in interviews.
Not to be almost disgustingly insensitive, but they would say that.

After the first bomb was dropped, three days were given to make peace agreements. The Japanese remained firm in their decision to continue the war.
I've always disagreed with people who say that three days was a sufficient time to give Japan.
Shock and Awe is a tricky thing, it takes a bit for it to set in. Is three days really enough time for the government to fully grasp what the atomic bomb has done? Of course not.

It takes our government years to debate the simplest of issues, and we expect Japan to be hyper efficient about it? A nation so steeped in patriotic zeal?

Three days was not enough time in my humble opinion.

However, many have debated this and have never come to a consensus, so I feel a bit silly right about now.
 

Cody211282

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Considering after the second nuke dropped the army still wanted to keep fighting and the emperor had to step in and fight it, yea I think it was the right thing to do. If I remember correctly the estimated casually toll for doing an invasion was about a million. So I think the nukes were definitely needed. Also as bad the civilian casualty were, the firebombings killed a lot more then the nukes did.
 

Doug

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Apr 23, 2008
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For the thousandth time, no it wasn't.
Manatee Slayer said:
-The Japanese had virtually no Navy or Airforce to speak of.
And yet they still refused to surrender and infact were training a vast number of civilians to fight any American invasion (if their own figures are to be believed, something like 28 million [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Fighting_Corps] - and given the kamikaze, I'm fully willing to believe they would have charged US marines with spears). As such, even with Air and Sea superiority, American casualities would have been high - and even if they weren't, millions of Japanese would have been killed in the fighting; far more than where killed by the nukes themselves.
-The Americans had blockaded Japan, meaning they couldn't get any imported recources, which is nearly everything. lol
True, this includes food, so this option was causing mass starvation agmonst the Japanese population, who where still refusing to surrender. Its highly likely that had the war continued, the Japanese would have starved to dead in their millions rather than surrender. And all the time they where holding out, thousands of POWs where being used as slave labour and worked to dead, millions of Chinese were undergoing the same, and thousands of Chinese women were being used as sex slaves.
-The japanese were terrified by the thought of the Russians coming, due to the fact they had lost to them before and that they would probably take over the country and install communism.
The Russians didn't declare war on the Japanese until after the first atomic bomb was used.
-Many high ranking officials were against the attack saying it was unnesisary and that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway.
I believe they were only willing to accept conditional surrender - the Allies refused to accept conditional surrenders from either Japan or Nazi Germany, partly due to the war crimes they had committed, partly because the Axis forced had to accept that they were defeated, as the Allies didn't want a repeat of this war, like what happened at the end of WW1.
-Winston Churchill in his book ("The World At War") said that the bombs did not play any part in the defeat of Japan.
As great a man as Churchill was, he wasn't the god of all knowledge, and certainly wasn't an expert on what was happening on the pacific front.
-The only reason people think that the bombs won the war in the Pacific is due to American Propagada.
...Ok... thats option stated as fact - I think dropping two super weapons on the Japanese made it extremely clear to them that, inspite of their 'warrior spirit' and 'devotion to die to protect the Emperor', it simply wouldn't be enough - it showed the Japanese that the US could simply wipe them out with minimum to zero casualities if the Japanese refused to accept the unconditional surrender.

Basically, the atomic bombs, though highly unpleasant, where the best way to end the war with the minimum loss of life, and I'm sick and tired of people acting like the Japanese where wronged - the Japanese who killed millions of Chinese and Pacific islanders, tortured and enslaved millions more Chinese, and thousands of POWs, and where as bad as the Nazi's; just more disorganized in their war crimes.