Poll: Was It Wrong To Drop The Atomic Bombs In Japan?
- Thread starter Manatee Slayer
- Start date
The Japanese had committed horrendous atrocities to the Chinese. It was like a second holocaust. (Look up the Rape of Nanjing)- 300,000 Chinese killed in one city. Civilians in Japan were indoctrinated into thinking Hirohito was an omnipotent god, and the Tanaka Memorial spelled out how the Japanese would take over the world. The majority of the Japanese wanted to continue fighting to the death. So the Japanese were fanatical and arguably the bombs saved many lives.
ps English AS History student here trying not to be biased.
ps English AS History student here trying not to be biased.
I'm at a loss as to how A-bombing anyone can be seen as the correct route to take? More so when you consider it was on civilians.
Of course, no matter what I, or anyone, says against/for it, changing the mindset of someone who has already formed their opinion will be nigh on impossible anyway.
Cna't help but feel that if roles had been reversed and Japan had dropped the big one on America then that poll would show very different results.
Of course, no matter what I, or anyone, says against/for it, changing the mindset of someone who has already formed their opinion will be nigh on impossible anyway.
Cna't help but feel that if roles had been reversed and Japan had dropped the big one on America then that poll would show very different results.
Was it wrong to kill millions of innocent people when they were trying to surrender, just so that you could show off to the Russians? Yes, I'd say that qualifies as morally dubious.
If they wanted to surrender, we would have let them. THEY DID NOT.Indiscrimi said:
People waiting with sharpened bamboo poles are INNOCENT? People who cheered the fact that their soldiers were cutting off heads? NOT INNOCENT.
Should they have bombed Tokyo? Then people would complain we bombed a major city.
For what it's worth in a discussion based on opinions (nothing) former A2 History student here (former due to, you know, passing exams).Frozenfeet2 said:
I would hope that after studying History, as you clearly are (kudos fot that by the way, best subject out there!) you wouldn't say that because a populace has commited atrocitites or is convinced they're the next world power they should be bombed just in case?
The British mindset was to never give in ('Fight them on the beaches' and so on) meaning that we would have fought to the last man, does that mean we should've been a-bombed as, arguably, that might've saved lives as well?
I'm know I'm playing devil's advocate, but worth thinking about don't you think?
Let's try a hypothetical situation, o ye of great judgment:
Your the ones who are the superpower with the bombs. You have sent out negotiations to the Japanese specifically stating that they risk "prompt and utter destruction," and they will not back down. Let's explore some options:
1. Use the bomb. Hundreds of thousands of enemy dead, but few to no casualties on your side.
2. Wait them out. Stalin is coming, maybe he'll have the balls to do what you don't and invade Japan, at which point, congratulations, you just allowed another nation to fall to the Red Menace.
3. Regular bombing runs, no use of the A-bombs. Worked so well when Hitler did it to Britain, why wouldn't it work for us on some people even more fanatical than they were?
4. Land invasion. Projected casualties: upwards of one million.
5. ...Actually, let's hear it, what's your option five if you won't do the above?
I'm very interested on what you idealists would've personally done as an alternative to the bomb.
Your the ones who are the superpower with the bombs. You have sent out negotiations to the Japanese specifically stating that they risk "prompt and utter destruction," and they will not back down. Let's explore some options:
1. Use the bomb. Hundreds of thousands of enemy dead, but few to no casualties on your side.
2. Wait them out. Stalin is coming, maybe he'll have the balls to do what you don't and invade Japan, at which point, congratulations, you just allowed another nation to fall to the Red Menace.
3. Regular bombing runs, no use of the A-bombs. Worked so well when Hitler did it to Britain, why wouldn't it work for us on some people even more fanatical than they were?
4. Land invasion. Projected casualties: upwards of one million.
5. ...Actually, let's hear it, what's your option five if you won't do the above?
I'm very interested on what you idealists would've personally done as an alternative to the bomb.
What I find far more interesting than the topic itself is the recent shift in attitude towards WW2 on the internet. We've always known the Axis were bad, but over the last couple of years there's been an increasingly vocal group villyfing the Allies as well in some sort of counter culture thing.
For one thing I don't really get the point of it all. WW2 is history now, an all out war from a different era. And it's not like we've been lied to or anything, for real historians all the information is documented to be studied & debated, while the rest of the population learns about it in high school and/or some form of entertainment and generally adopt a 'we did what we had to' attitude and don't question it. But recently there's been many people like this:
Really I just don't get where this all started from, and consider this far more intesting than the actual discussion it creates. And before anyone like the poster I quoted calls me a patriotic American or something I'm actually Canadian.
For one thing I don't really get the point of it all. WW2 is history now, an all out war from a different era. And it's not like we've been lied to or anything, for real historians all the information is documented to be studied & debated, while the rest of the population learns about it in high school and/or some form of entertainment and generally adopt a 'we did what we had to' attitude and don't question it. But recently there's been many people like this:
To which I don't get the point of it all. That last part especially, you do realize tyou'd be digging up corpses to put on trial right? Is this because of some sort of Che Guevara like counter culture thing? Is it because we have a generation growing up whose grand parents weren't involved in WW2 and don't have that same respected reverence for them that my generation does? Or maybe it's a generation that grew up in Europe free from the grips of war after the USSR collapsed, that have become anti-American due to the current shenanigans in Iraq and apply the same lofty "fight soldiers & insurgents only, never harm civilians" standard to the past?Bobzer77 said:
Really I just don't get where this all started from, and consider this far more intesting than the actual discussion it creates. And before anyone like the poster I quoted calls me a patriotic American or something I'm actually Canadian.
Dunno if this is already said or not, but people are looking at this whole thing wrong. You count up all the deaths you would get with the bomb and compare them to an invasion. But in such an invasion, most people that would die would be Japanese MILITARY units, who were already willing to die for their country. However with the bomb the Americans decided to throw they did not only cause giant chaos, harmed alot of nature, made Hiroshima a second Chernoybil and killed most of Japan's economy, the main victim of the bomb were CIVILIANS. Civilians who were just going to do the laundry, wash the dishes, play with their dog (if he wasn't eaten already) or play with a ball. They had nothing to do with the war and they weren't ready to die for their country. Even innocent harmless children fell victim to the monstrous blast. I see what you guys mean, but it is just heartless not to think about WHAT you kill, instead of how many.
We were never near as fanatical as the Japanese and Japanese war crimes are disgusting, burying people alive, tossing babies in the air to catch on bayonets etc. You pose an interesting point but I feel that people capable of this are not innocent.Cgull said:
Quoting myself feels weird.
Yes and no. While it was a good idea to show the devastating force the USA had it wasn't right to do it to a large area populated by tons of innocent people. Even if you reduce an uninhabited, barren area to a large spread of lad that will be uninhabitable for decades to come it would still get the point across. If they still didn't surrender then drop it on a big military base, preferably far from civilian areas if possible.
they attacked us
a few months later we attack them
a few years later we drop a bomb strong enough to split an attom and start a chain reaction thusly destroying a city or atleast a lot of it
so...no it wasent wrong in my eyes (sept that it killed a lot of people not in the miltary as far as i know,but the actual droping of it i dont belive that was wrong) everything is fair in war
a few months later we attack them
a few years later we drop a bomb strong enough to split an attom and start a chain reaction thusly destroying a city or atleast a lot of it
so...no it wasent wrong in my eyes (sept that it killed a lot of people not in the miltary as far as i know,but the actual droping of it i dont belive that was wrong) everything is fair in war
Not to mention bamboo poles and decapitations don't make a large area impossible to live in.Cgull said:
Dude, America didn't even want to be in the war in the first place, but they were thanks to the Japanese. If we had the ability to go back in time, I'm sure we'd hear first hand that no one wanted to drop the bombs. It was a means to an end because Japan didn't want to give up even after Germany had surrendered months before.Cgull said:
All's fair in love and war is the exact phrase /literature nazi. Besides, no one respects the Geneva convention in a major war, but at least we now know that no-one will ever drop another a-bomb on a populated area as there would be MAD. Mutually assured destruction. We now know what the bomb does now.ryanxm said:
It's an odd sensation but you get used to itFrozenfeet2 said:
I'm not arguing over who was more fanatical as I'm sure if we looked around we'd find some properly loony British escapades somewhere, though would be more than a little off topic.
War crimes by any definition are going to be disgusting, war itself is hardly an abundance of joy, anything that breaks the 'rules' is going to be horrendous.
Anyway, actualy point was; is it not a little dangerous to say 'people capable of this are not innocent' when the 'people' you refer to are an entire nation?
It's equivalent to saying that all German nationals during WW2 were Nazis, which is just a painfully wrong assumption made far too often.