Japans culture of death before dishonor compelled them to fight to the last man. This would have been costly for the americans, but soldiers serve their country in life or death, its there job. nearly 200,000 innocents, of all ages and genders were burnt to a crisp and babies were born defeacted. and still are to this day. The first bomb wasnt even justified, the second was a crime against humanity.
and to who ever said atomic weapons had to be used on a civilian population just once.... WTF. I would rather my country lost a war than know that it would degrade its self to the mass killings. Gassing thousands or obliterating them into dust are equally evil acts.
lest see here... attacking a naval base and killing sailors, pilots, soildiers or whatever was there and then dropping nukes on two CITIES...[start sarcasm] no it was the completely right thing to do. just like the bloody blitz in london was the right thing to do [end sarcasm]. makes them not much better than hitler that way.
I'd say it was wrong because war in general is wrong. But hey, relatively speaking it was probably much less worse than if we had attempted a land invasion. Even the japanese civilians were willing to fight the fight to the death.
War is not wrong, to say so is ignorant.
Regardless of what country you live in, it became a country through WAR.
There is no more slavery in America because of WAR.
America is an independent country, because of WAR.
Without WAR, we would all be speaking German and saluting a Nazi flag.
War is wrong, and I fail to see how to say so is ignorant? (Ignorance is not knowing information).
While it is true that slavery is gone in America because of it, it wasn't the only way that could of happened.
America could have become an independent nation without specifically declaring war on Great Britain.
Really, my take on war, is that it is not necessarily wrong for a nation to defend itself if directly attacked, but war itself is nothing more than legal murder.
(btw, with Nazi Germany, the reason they were a threat in the first place was because of WAR). But even without our involvement, Nazi germany would have fallen. Long before our intervention there were dissident groups all over the third reich and several assassination attempts against the fuhrer.
Some people can't talk things out. Actually, a lot of people cant.
War is totally necessary. And it's not "wrong" if it's a justified war for good reason, so all war is not "wrong"
It's easy to say "sure, this could have happened without war" When in reality it's much more complicated. America TRIED many times to become it's own nation peacefully, they even tried to stay a colony under British rule if they would just be treated fairly. They were ignored each time. So they finally made them listen with war, the only solution.
From what Ive learned, Japan was training up every man, woman, and child to fight off the U.S invasion forces. On each island we saw that they never surrendered so I feel the bombs saved more lives than they took
but Japan didn't do anything.
America dropped it and Japan got buggered up. Then America warned then that they would do it all again if they didn't surrender, and they still didn't. They got another bomb dropped on them. Then they surrendered. It was the fault of the stubborn Japanese emperor.
It was war. During war, you don't think of the other country, but your own.
Ok this really, really, really, pisses me off!!!! So there are 3 possible endings for now(warning, this is just a side note, regarding what may happen after I post this; this doesn't directly regard the subject):
1. I have my facts wrong(but I doubt it, I mean it was the only History class I actually listend to the facts!), and I'll be ridiculed.
2. The Escapists(most of them) haven't been attentive to a particular major detail in History class(witch bugs me) although simply your country-here I'm referring directly to America-(don't wanna be a racist/jerk about it, but some countries leave parts of the truth untold so they can justify what they did, or simply out of shame; I mean just look at the Germans, I'm sure they don't go all full detail of WW II in classes)
3. I should stop hanging out on this site, before I lose all my approval(and love) points towards the community.
Ok from what I know(I'm sorry but I'm 100% percent sure I heard his during History class), America bombed Hiroshima, because of a misinterpretation of what Japan said. They used a word with a double meaning("we'll think about it" and "no"; can't recall if these were the exact meanings regarding the document). And America went for the "no" meaning and dropped the bomb.
And that clearly was fair.
Ok, let's say they got the message right, and they understood that Japan was taking into consideration surrendering. But did they give Japan a chance to discos the terms of surrender, to think about it, to see what resources were they willing to give when they surrender, and what they weren't?(If your in a castel under attack, and your opponent gives you till X to surrender, do you surrender immediately when he proposes? NO! I think a normal man would need a little time to think about it.)
Any way, let's move on. For those who said (America needed to give them a lesson): wasn't the first bomb enough? + They didn't attack a military location, they bombed, undefended crummy little villages, just to show how awesome they are.
Oh, and for those how say that Japan need a lessons for teaming up with Germany: you're a hypocrite thinking that what America did was any different form the genocides the natzis did.
I consider the Joint Proclamation a rehash of the Declaration at the Cairo Conference. As for the Government, it does not attach any important value to it at all. The only thing to do is just kill it with silence (mokusatsu). We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war.
"Prime Minister Suzuki public response to terms offered to Japan on July 26, note the first bomb was dropped August 6th. Russian invaded and the second was dropped on 8-9th."
As quoted by Slycne on the first page.
After the first bomb, Japan still didn't surrender. that is why a second one was dropped.
The atomic bomb was a necessary evil. The Japanese were zealously patriotic. A land offensive would have been devastating for both sides. Japan's military had been mostly destroyed, true, but there would still have been a very stubborn resistance to an invasion.
While the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were terrible events, and there is evidence that they were chosen to examine the effects on a city and it's survivors, it still undoubtedly prevented more deaths.
Also, I would rather that 2 atomic bombs were dropped to astound and horrify the whole world, than Russia and USA annihilate everything in the cold war due to not fully realising the futility of trying to WIN something like mutually assured destruction.
The only reason the bomb was used was to scare Japan into submission before the Soviets came and started demanding their share of the pie. August Storm was a major success, and if the bombs weren't dropped then the surrender would be negotiated on Soviet terms, not American.
It's a very cynical decision, but the only fair fight is the one you win, so I can't really blame US for that one. Wars aren't pretty.
Your other points are fine, but that was a surprise attack and you need carriers to get your planes there. The various fighters and dive bombers used in the attack on Pearl Harbor have a maximum range of around 1,000 miles. It's ~4,000 from Japan to Hawaii.
This, but the thing that really cinches that as a bad arguement was that the Imperial Air Force and Navy were both more or less annihilated. The USN and USMC did their jobs very, very well. The Imperial Army was still fairly strong, but most of what was left of it was fighting US and Chinese forces in China, and without a Navy the Imperials had nothing to bring them back with. This would have meant that an invasion would have faced much less military resistance, but at the same time it would have meant that US forces would have had to fight the civilians, not a great situation for both sides(if you thought PTSD was a problem for 'Nam veterans, just imagine that scenario).
As for me, I said yes. I learned most of what I learned from my father, a historian by training, and as best I can tell, the next step was an invasion of Japan, which, as has probably been explored thus far, would be an ugly, ugly scenario. War is war, that's what happens. Quite frankly, the Japanese should have got the message at Hiroshima, instead it took the loss of Nagasaki to get Hirohito to intervene and order a surrender (to his credit, he'd given control to his generals during the war, seeing as they were better at war then he would have been, which is why he didn't intervene right away).
I find it amusing that the thing people keep coming back to is that it saved lives. You dropped a nuke on a city. What you should be saying is it saved american soldiers lives. Because it sure as hell didn't save civilian Japanese lives.
It saved may Japanese lives, a land invasion would leave million of Japanese dead, along with American soldiers.
Christemo said:
i would´ve understanded it slightly better if they blew a military area. hitting a 100% innocent city was just wrong. wish the Ruskies had bombed them (sorry for any americans, but theres so much wrong with your government throughout history).
I'd say it was wrong because war in general is wrong. But hey, relatively speaking it was probably much less worse than if we had attempted a land invasion. Even the japanese civilians were willing to fight the fight to the death.
War is not wrong, to say so is ignorant.
Regardless of what country you live in, it became a country through WAR.
There is no more slavery in America because of WAR.
America is an independent country, because of WAR.
Without WAR, we would all be speaking German and saluting a Nazi flag.
War is wrong, and I fail to see how to say so is ignorant? (Ignorance is not knowing information).
While it is true that slavery is gone in America because of it, it wasn't the only way that could of happened.
America could have become an independent nation without specifically declaring war on Great Britain.
Really, my take on war, is that it is not necessarily wrong for a nation to defend itself if directly attacked, but war itself is nothing more than legal murder.
(btw, with Nazi Germany, the reason they were a threat in the first place was because of WAR). But even without our involvement, Nazi germany would have fallen. Long before our intervention there were dissident groups all over the third reich and several assassination attempts against the fuhrer.
Some people can't talk things out. Actually, a lot of people cant.
War is totally necessary. And it's not "wrong" if it's a justified war for good reason, so all war is not "wrong"
It's easy to say "sure, this could have happened without war" When in reality it's much more complicated. America TRIED many times to become it's own nation peacefully, they even tried to stay a colony under British rule if they would just be treated fairly. They were ignored each time. So they finally made them listen with war, the only solution.
If you are so bent on accomplishing your goal that it requires war and you go through with that, you bear all the responsibility for the deaths of that war.
War is war and war is hell. If you think war is just some event where you send trained guys in some remote area than you are retarded. Civilian casualties are expected of almost any war. If we invaded and dragged out our war with them there would have been serious civilian casualties for Japan and troop casualties on both sides.
Killing "civilians" in a war is often a bit of a gray area.
No, he's not the guy SHOOTING at you, but he's the guy making the bullets and the guns. No, he's not driving the tank, but he's the guy servicing it so it can go back out and kill you the next time.
It's like when people complain about wiping out an army in retreat--where do you think they're going, to a monastery to repent? If he is in any way fueling the war machine, he is a combatant.
Now, if I put my weapons manufacturer in the middle of Disney World, whose fault is it if all the kids as Disney World get blown up? Mine. If I'm sniping at you from a school bus full of elderly Alzheimer's patients, whose fault is it if they get shot, too? Mine. I don't get a free pass just because I was twisted enough to do my war business around civilians.
Those that say "Japan was on the way to sign a truce" are very much like someone who gets in trouble for not taking out the garbage a month ago. "I was going to do it tomorrow!"--Sure, you say that AFTER you've been punished for ALREADY waiting too long. And you say it only because there's no way to prove it wrong... but where's the treaty? Surely someone has a draft of it, if it was all that important?
No? Then I guess we're looking at an after-the-fact concoction to teach the US a lesson about the evils of nuclear war... when the fact of the matter is that dropping those bombs did the BEST job at teaching people about the danger of nuclear weapons, which is why no one has used them since.
no it did not. it was like saying 9/11 HAD to happen. Neither HAD to occur. It was a matter of choice. Both event shows how unreasonable people can be.
Was it wrong, no. Sometimes the hard decisions in war bring it to an end. I believe people could argue all day about what Japan would have done, or would not have done. The Japanese fought a brutal war for all of the Pacific, and it is my belief that they would have kept fighting, at least certain factions would have.
I can't say I'm happy about what had to be done, and I don't think that Americans were chomping at the bit to wreak that much destruction on Japan. I just think it was a hard decision that was weighed, with those both for and against its application. In the end it was decided to go with the quickest solution to do what they deemed necessary to save lives.
I guess I just think that they guys who were making the decision were pretty informed about the current situation, something that all of us being secondary observers cannot be...no matter how much we try to interpret from the past.
no it did not. it was like saying 9/11 HAD to happen. Neither HAD to occur. It was a matter of choice. Both event shows how unreasonable people can be.
It does show how unreasonable people can be, but some actions create consequences. Japan's brutality and extreme determination forced an act that many consider to be inhumane. So yes it showed how unreasonable both the Germans and Japanese were when they tried to take over the world for their own gains.
Who cares? I mean its good for people to have opinions but you can't change what happened, so what is the point in debating whether it was wrong or right to drop the atomic bombs on Japan?
How will knowing where people stand (at least as far as what they want to project of themselves into anonymity) on this issue change a fucking thing? How is it going to help? I'm pretty sure that its just because you wanted to see if people supported your opinion of it or not. How will that help you? "I have more support, so I must be right" <-That does not always work.
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