mabrookes said:
They got involved because they had too not because "they were tired of this stupid shit" (a statement that instantly puts you on the same level as most trolls to be honest), luckily for them some countries actually fought back and completely decimated German naval and air forces before the US even joined.
End of WW1:
US: Hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't shit all over Germany.
Great Britain and France: Naaaaah.
Less than 50 years later: WW2 breaks out.
US: Not this shit again.
The leadership of the US was doing everything to get involved but the simple fact of the matter was that public opinion was generally dis-favorable surrounding WW2. Most Americans saw it as Europe's problem. So FDR worked loop holes. The Lend / Lease program kept Russia afloat when they were desperate and kept the British alive when they were getting hammered.
The German air force wasn't decimated before the US got involved. It was actually a prolonged air campaign- one that wasn't even feasible without the US- that crippled German production that ended it. The germans lost a great deal of aircraft in the Blitz but they still had the resources to simply rebuild.
German navy is an inside joke. It's a bunch of submarines.
It was a good attempt at changing what I was saying, but it doesn't work. I never said the killing of soldiers was acceptable because they are paid, I only pointed out that in this situation they are the ones who should be in that position and only a absolute low life would think that it is reasonable to wipe out many, many times more innocent civilians (men, women and children and the after affects for generations) to save a proportionally much smaller number of the people who are meant to be fighting and can defend themselves etc (the level of cowardice involved was immense).
I changed nothing. I actually only went off of what you said. If you meant something else you may want to change your wording.
mabrookes said:
Japan would likely have surrendered - every country other than the US at the time thought it was fast approaching. And in reality, the US government probably did think so as well but were more interested in demonstrating the bombs, which is why they had to drop them fast while they had the chance.
There was little to no chance an invasion would have happened so yes, I think less combatants would have died. If you think differently though it does not matter too much, we all have our opinions.
Edit: Meant to answer your other question as well, of course the blitz was a horrific ordeal and some of the responses from the British were just as bad - but are you really telling me you cant tell the difference between the standard bombing raids where casualties were actually pretty minimal most of the time and there was always chances to get to shelter etc and the silent killer parachuted from a plane that detonated as a nuclear explosion with all the after affects and death?
Those broadcasts saying that the Japanese would fight to the death days and weeks before the US dropped both atomic bombs really sends the message of, "We're just about ready to surrender unconditionally." Up to that point the Japanese were ready to surrender, but they refused to do so unconditionally. If you can't grasp why that's a problem read my brief history of what led to WW2. The US were not stupid. They had a fair idea of what would happen to a country that was shamed and defeated, but not exactly dismantled.
If the nukes were not an option, the invasion was going to happen. It was the entire reason the US spent so many resources on little spits of land like Okinawa and Iwo Jima. If they had any reason to believe that they could have just ended the war with two nukes they would not have been seeking land assets that held no value other than staging grounds to invade mainland Japan.
And to address your claim that the nukes dropped on Japan were somehow morally more reprehensible than the Blitz, I would like to point out that the Germans specifically ignored military assets like airstrips and instead favored dis-ambiguously civilian targets (cities) because they figured if they killed enough civilians and made enough others panic they could make the British sue for peace. No one made any bones about it- civilians were going to die, and it was actually a decision that would haunt president Truman for the rest of his life, and in all reality did save lives. The simple fact that the US had a very real example to go off of for what nukes were capable of defined their strategic use (and lack there of) for the rest of the 20th century. While the military may have seen it's use as a tactical weapon the civilian side only saw it as a strategic weapon, which set the precedent for it's lack of use through out the cold war.
In WW2 both Germany and Japan demonstrated an extreme disregard for civilian life long, long before the Allies ever did anything comparable.
But lets ask China, or those civilians the Japanese would strap live grenades and mines to what they thought about them.
Still don't quite get why people are butt mad about pearl harbor though. The largest losses the US lost that day were purely resources- battleships, fuel, and so on. In terms of actual lives lost it was actually one of the smallest fights in the war, and easily the smallest "major" battle in the Pacific.
Let's have a look:
