How could US drop the a-bomb on Civilians?

[spidergoat]

the problem with that is it only continues a cycle of violence. that mind set implictily states that there is no value in peace or trying to find peaceful solutions. also it ends up as the view point you take where the morality of violence than becomes predicated on do i like them and/or can they get away with it while ignoring any sense of actual moral justification for violence. whose the agressor whose the victim becomes irrelevant all that matters than is did i deemed them my enemy i did oh well they deserved it.

People with whom there is the potential to form peaceful solutions aren't my enemy. And I don't care about a cycle of violence. People are violent. It will be that way until some radical chemical or biological revolution. You might as well call the relationship between predator and prey a "cycle of violence". One that has lasted millions of years.

 

[Bells]

Even if the Japanese had an atomic bomb - which is somewhat dubious - it would have been useless without a delivery system. They had no way of reaching North America.

They wouldn't have aimed for America.

If Japan had a nuclear bomb, they would either have dropped the bomb on Hawaii or on the Chinese mainland or possibly headed further South in the Asia Pacific region.

the problem with that is it only continues a cycle of violence. that mind set implictily states that there is no value in peace or trying to find peaceful solutions. also it ends up as the view point you take where the morality of violence than becomes predicated on do i like them and/or can they get away with it while ignoring any sense of actual moral justification for violence. whose the agressor whose the victim becomes irrelevant all that matters than is did i deemed them my enemy i did oh well they deserved it.

People seem to forget the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war. They would not have stopped. This was a country that saw fit to have soldiers fly suicide missions. Loss of lives meant nothing to them. They didn't care about the loss of lives when those two bombs were dropped. They were only concerned about how they would impact their war machine. They committed hundreds of atrocities.

And these atrocities were not just against soldiers, but mostly against civilians, the Nanking Massacre, which killed around 300,000 Chinese citizens springs to mind, and the Three Alls Policy that saw nearly 3 million Chinese civilians massacred by the Japanese in a scorched earth policy lasting several years.. Those are just two out of the many many massacres committed by the Japanese forces, which resulted in the deaths of millions.. The torture, rapes, forced labour, mass murders, use of biological weapons, and other atrocities (even strapping Chinese citizens to crosses and using them as bayonet practice and burying people alive, to name a few, and medical experiments on civilians).. They are still to apologise for all the crimes they have committed. Comfort women are still to receive an apology for the atrocities they were made to endure. Japanese history lessons still do not address the role of Japanese forces in the horrors they perpetrated on innocent civilians during the wars they started against numerous countries in the Asia Pacific region.

They would not have stopped, regardless of requests or demands to stop. Telling them the US had an atomic weapon would not have stopped them. It would have spurred them to kill even more people as quickly as possible. Even after the bombs were dropped, it nearly did not stop them. Many suspect it was Marcus McDilda's false confession, obtained under torture, that the US had more bombs and that Tokyo and other cities in Japan were next, and the impending threat of a Russian invasion (the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan), that may have stopped them in the end. Otherwise they would not have stopped and they would have massacred millions more.

No one agrees with the use of nuclear bombs against civilians. But it had literally gotten to the point where the US felt it had no other choice. And frankly, they probably did not. Should they have aimed for civilian targets? No. And these bombs were not aimed at citizen targets. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the least in regards to citizen costs, hence why they were selected. But it took a long time for Japan to finally surrender. It was only when they were left with no choice and they realised there was no way out, did they surrender. The alternative to the bomb would have been a Soviet and American invasion, from both sides, which would have resulted in a much higher cost of civilian life.

I don't agree with the use of nuclear weapons. But I also recognise why they felt it was necessary at that time.

 

[pjdude1219]

They wouldn't have aimed for America.

If Japan had a nuclear bomb, they would either have dropped the bomb on Hawaii or on the Chinese mainland or possibly headed further South in the Asia Pacific region.



People seem to forget the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war. They would not have stopped. This was a country that saw fit to have soldiers fly suicide missions. Loss of lives meant nothing to them. They didn't care about the loss of lives when those two bombs were dropped. They were only concerned about how they would impact their war machine. They committed hundreds of atrocities.

And these atrocities were not just against soldiers, but mostly against civilians, the Nanking Massacre, which killed around 300,000 Chinese citizens springs to mind, and the Three Alls Policy that saw nearly 3 million Chinese civilians massacred by the Japanese in a scorched earth policy lasting several years.. Those are just two out of the many many massacres committed by the Japanese forces, which resulted in the deaths of millions.. The torture, rapes, forced labour, mass murders, use of biological weapons, and other atrocities (even strapping Chinese citizens to crosses and using them as bayonet practice and burying people alive, to name a few, and medical experiments on civilians).. They are still to apologise for all the crimes they have committed. Comfort women are still to receive an apology for the atrocities they were made to endure. Japanese history lessons still do not address the role of Japanese forces in the horrors they perpetrated on innocent civilians during the wars they started against numerous countries in the Asia Pacific region.

They would not have stopped, regardless of requests or demands to stop. Telling them the US had an atomic weapon would not have stopped them. It would have spurred them to kill even more people as quickly as possible. Even after the bombs were dropped, it nearly did not stop them. Many suspect it was Marcus McDilda's false confession, obtained under torture, that the US had more bombs and that Tokyo and other cities in Japan were next, and the impending threat of a Russian invasion (the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan), that may have stopped them in the end. Otherwise they would not have stopped and they would have massacred millions more.

No one agrees with the use of nuclear bombs against civilians. But it had literally gotten to the point where the US felt it had no other choice. And frankly, they probably did not. Should they have aimed for civilian targets? No. And these bombs were not aimed at citizen targets. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the least in regards to citizen costs, hence why they were selected. But it took a long time for Japan to finally surrender. It was only when they were left with no choice and they realised there was no way out, did they surrender. The alternative to the bomb would have been a Soviet and American invasion, from both sides, which would have resulted in a much higher cost of civilian life.

I don't agree with the use of nuclear weapons. But I also recognise why they felt it was necessary at that time.

i don't agree with that mind set. and i think the japanese refusal to surrender is overblown in attempt to ensure the atomic bombing remains justified. i get why leaders than did it. but to have people to this day continue to cheer lead is not ok.and your focus on the japanese crimes seems hollow the allied power didn't exactly have a squeaky clean slate either.

 

[pjdude1219]

People with whom there is the potential to form peaceful solutions aren't my enemy.

funniest joke I've heard all year. I've seen you label people with whom a peaceful resolution as enemies that need to be killed.

And I don't care about a cycle of violence.

thats the problem you don't care the death toll is irrelevant to you. the lives wasted by your love of hate and violence just doesn't even register that you could have tried peace never fazes you because well you made sure they were dead right.

People are violent. It will be that way until some radical chemical or biological revolution. You might as well call the relationship between predator and prey a "cycle of violence". One that has lasted millions of years.

that's a load of crap. thats trying to excuse taking a postition thats morally untenable. there will always be violence but that does mean our solution must always be violence. your operating from the same mind set that allowed world war to happen. the need to harm the bad guy to put him in his place.

 

[spidergoat]

I've seen you label people with whom a peaceful resolution as enemies that need to be killed.

Who, the Japanese? I never wanted to kill them all, only end the war in the most expedient manner possible. Because war sucks and stuff.

 

[sideshowbob]

If Japan had a nuclear bomb, they would either have dropped the bomb on Hawaii or on the Chinese mainland or possibly headed further South in the Asia Pacific region.

After Midway, they didn't have the capability of reaching Hawaii either - even assuming that carrier-based aircraft could lift an atomic bomb.

If they had used it on China or elsewhere, quite frankly nobody would have cared.

 

[Bells]

i don't agree with that mind set. and i think the japanese refusal to surrender is overblown in attempt to ensure the atomic bombing remains justified.

The Japanese were not going to surrender even after the bombs were dropped. It was only when they thought more were on the way and with the knowledge that the Soviets were about to invade them that they realised they could not win and could go no further. And before they surrendered, they went on a killing spree... Just because.

And you think they would have surrendered before they were dropped? They had no intention of surrendering after they were dropped. Had the bombs not been dropped, it would have been a bloodbath, because the Allied forces and the Soviets would have invaded. And the bombing campaign before the nuclear bombs were dropped probably killed more than the nuclear bombs did. And they still refused to surrender. They didn't even surrender when the first nuclear bomb was dropped. And they very nearly did not when the second was dropped.

i get why leaders than did it. but to have people to this day continue to cheer lead is not ok

No one cheers it. Truman certainly did not. No one does to this day. It was a means to a quicker end against an enemy that refused to give up or stop and that had become an efficient killing machine.

and your focus on the japanese crimes seems hollow the allied power didn't exactly have a squeaky clean slate either.

Hollow? The Japanese killed over 20 million Chinese citizens. And you think my focus on their crimes is hollow?

No one said the Allied forces had a squeaky record in the war. But the Japanese, to me, were more brutal than even the Nazis. From today's standpoint, with hindsight, not even ISIS has come close to the atrocities the Japanese committed in the name of racial purity, imperial expansionism and to show their power and dominance. And we still do not know the full extent of what they did, because it was that horrific, and because of the notion of moving on and trying to instill peace and goodwill. But the more we find out and discover, the worse it gets.

Many Japanese still believe that the massacres against the millions of Chinese citizens was valid, for example. The women who were taken prisoner and forced into sexual slavery for the duration of the war are still to even get an apology for clearly proven state sanctioned and instructed actions and torture against them.

Of course the Allied forces did not have squeaky clean records. But frankly, nothing comes even close to what the Japanese did. The war that Japan waged was meticulously planned well in advance. Their soldiers were indoctrinated from childhood, to be ready for war and to be brutal so that they could wipe out other races around them, whom they considered to be sub-human, and to rape and kill women and children in large numbers, and to eat the bodies of the people they killed as a form of ritual to show their strength. If they had been given more time, they would probably have made the Holocaust seem like nothing at all in comparison. And Japan was not a reasonable nation that could be bargained with at that time.

To carry on about what was a strategic nuclear strikes that tried to kill as few civilians as they could to stop the slaughter is nothing compared to what the Japanese did in Asia and in the Pacific and what the Allies did beforehand to try to get the Japanese to stop. If you focus solely on the use of those two nuclear weapons and ignore what went on before it, of course you are going to have a skewed argument. If those nuclear weapons had not been used, it would have been millions of Japanese killed. The only option to end the slaughter on all sides was to try to force Japan to surrender and thankfully they did.

 

[Bells]

After Midway, they didn't have the capability of reaching Hawaii either - even assuming that carrier-based aircraft could lift an atomic bomb.

If they had used it on China or elsewhere, quite frankly nobody would have cared.

I am sure the Chinese would have. And the Allies would have cared. One of the main reasons they attacked China as they did was for resources and they kept on going and killing millions, for resources. Deeper inroads in China would have meant strengthening the Japanese forces. No one would have wanted that. While China may have been a target, other countries may have been more valuable, certainly against the allies, at any rate. Even Northern Australia would have been a viable target. It would certainly have slashed the morale of Australian soldiers who were fighting against them.

Towards the end of the war, the Japanese were waiting and biding their time and trying to hold onto what planes they had to launch a better offensive on the Allied forces, but the use of the nuclear bombs and then Russia's declaration of war and recapturing what they had taken in China forced them to realise that they could not fight on two fronts to prevent an invasion. Prior to the bombs being used, the war was brutal and the Allies suffered greatly. As did many Japanese, but even as they were being carpet bombed, they still would not surrender.

And while many assume that no one would have cared if they had used a nuclear bomb against the Chinese, their atrocities had been recognised from quite earlier on and they had already engaged with non-American allies in war before the Americans joined the fray. I suspect they would have used it in the South East Asian region, personally. They had already made huge inroads in China. And striking in South East Asia would have meant that they could take out large parts of the Allied forces as well.

 

[sideshowbob]

Japan also had balloons which it used to deliver bombs to the continental United States. A Japanese balloon bomb killed a pregnant woman and 5 American children on American soil. So the threat of Japanese balloon bombs was a very real threat and could have delivered nuclear weapons as well as conventional weapons. Japanese balloon bombs were Japan's attempt to invoke terror on American soil with indiscriminate bombing.

Those little bombs were a far cry from a nuclear weapon.

Given the Allies were advancing toward Japan and the Japanese battle front was retreating, all Japan need to was to plant the bomb(s) and detonate them after retreating and after Allied troops had advanced...

That seems pretty far-fetched.

... or nuclear weapons could have been placed in artillery shells which was something the US subsequently did. Those weapons are called "tactical nukes".

Subsequently, yes, but in 1945 it was pretty much out of the question.

 

[GeoffP]

Initially, I felt that the dropping was justified. Maybe I still do; I'm not sure. The horrors Japan's military clique inflicted on captured soldiers and civilians makes me less sympathetic sometime... but the target of the weapons was just other civilians. A few industries, I'm sure, an Army headquarters, but overwhelmingly civilians. Could they not have simply nuked a major cultural artifact? How about Mount Fuji? (Apparently Niitaka is in Taiwan.) The symbolism would have been overwhelming and it could hardly have been denied by anyone within sight of the mountain top. That might well have ended the whole thing right there, although there would well have been other problems with fallout and so on. But fewer casualties, for a cert, and one hell of a demonstration. I do appreciate the severity of the cultural impact, of course. Offshore of Tokyo might have well been better. The Emperor and the Imperial Staff would have had a ringside seat.

 

[joepistole]

Those little bombs were a far cry from a nuclear weapon.

You completely missed the point. You asserted Japan had no ability to deliver nuclear weapons if it had them. And you were clearly wrong. In addition to aircraft, Japan had balloon bomb technology which could deliver nuclear devices to the continental United States and in fact was used by Japan to deliver and detonate bombs on the continental United States.

That seems pretty far-fetched.

Oh, and what is so far fetched about that exactly? Remote detonation or delayed detonation of explosives was a well practiced technology or is it you don't think Japan was capable of deceiving US troops? If you think that, then you clearly have little knowledge of WWII.

Subsequently, yes, but in 1945 it was pretty much out of the question.

Oh, and you have evidence that it was out of the question? As previously stated, the US and its allies knew Japan was developing nuclear weapons, but they had no idea how far along they were. Certainly tactical nuclear weapons were possible as they were created.

 

[joepistole]

Initially, I felt that the dropping was justified. Maybe I still do; I'm not sure. The horrors Japan's military clique inflicted on captured soldiers and civilians makes me less sympathetic sometime... but the target of the weapons was just other civilians. A few industries, I'm sure, an Army headquarters, but overwhelmingly civilians. Could they not have simply nuked a major cultural artifact? How about Mount Fuji? (Apparently Niitaka is in Taiwan.) The symbolism would have been overwhelming and it could hardly have been denied by anyone within sight of the mountain top. That might well have ended the whole thing right there, although there would well have been other problems with fallout and so on. But fewer casualties, for a cert, and one hell of a demonstration. I do appreciate the severity of the cultural impact, of course. Offshore of Tokyo might have well been better. The Emperor and the Imperial Staff would have had a ringside seat.

After the loss of two cities and 150k lives, Japan still wasn't ready to surrender. So it is difficult to see how bombing an unoccupied mountain would have had much effect. Japan could have concluded Allied forces were simply crazy or incapable of delivering nuclear weapons on legitimate military targets and therefore would have completely ignored the senseless bombing of a mountain.

 

[GeoffP]

They might well have ignored a demonstration, as you point out; madmen do mad things. That's why I suggested blowing the shit out of a cultural treasure: few human losses, massive damage to Japanese dignity that might press them to surrender. I suppose I don't know what they would have done, ultimately. It would have been August 20th before another bomb could be brought to bear. What about nailing Fuji, then an unoccupied target exactly halfway to Tokyo? The mathematical point might have been observed.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Could they not have simply nuked a major cultural artifact?

You don't understand the Japanese. They would have regarded that as the most dishonorable act ever committed. The entire citizenry would have mobilized. As I've said before, they would have kept fighting until the last four-year-old girl was gunned down while charging a battalion of U.S. Marines with her dead daddy's samurai sword.

The world would not have rallied behind us in the postwar era if we had done that. Hell, even I would have been ashamed and I was only two years old.

 

[GeoffP]

I do understand the Japanese, and I expect your position is right. Over the short term it certainly would have been disastrous. In the long term people might recognize the act as essentially humanitarian. I think the non-nuked would have approved of it, but humans really are just naked apes anyway, so I doubt it would have garnered any real appreciation. It's the human way to rack up big body counts in pursuit of the pointless.

 

[pjdude1219]

Who, the Japanese? I never wanted to kill them all, only end the war in the most expedient manner possible. Because war sucks and stuff.

i'm sorry but the ends don't justify the means. you have a major problem with that morally. also it worked is not the type of moral justifcation a decent human being should accept let alone be making.

 

[Bells]

Initially, I felt that the dropping was justified. Maybe I still do; I'm not sure. The horrors Japan's military clique inflicted on captured soldiers and civilians makes me less sympathetic sometime... but the target of the weapons was just other civilians. A few industries, I'm sure, an Army headquarters, but overwhelmingly civilians. Could they not have simply nuked a major cultural artifact? How about Mount Fuji? (Apparently Niitaka is in Taiwan.) The symbolism would have been overwhelming and it could hardly have been denied by anyone within sight of the mountain top. That might well have ended the whole thing right there, although there would well have been other problems with fallout and so on. But fewer casualties, for a cert, and one hell of a demonstration. I do appreciate the severity of the cultural impact, of course. Offshore of Tokyo might have well been better. The Emperor and the Imperial Staff would have had a ringside seat.

The sites that were bombed were industries that fed the war machine. Not to mention with heavy military headquarters and military themselves. The civilians who died were those who were conscripted to work in those factories.

If they weren't ready to surrender after the first bomb was dropped on their factories and military, what makes you think they would have surrendered if the bombs fell on something cultural or of cultural importance? Kyoto was one site they wanted to bomb, but was ruled out because it had even more civilians living there and the impact on them would have been far greater. The point of using those bombs was to try to bomb the factories that were making their armaments and to demoralise them and slow them down and hopefully force them into an immediate surrender. When the first one was dropped, no surrender was given. When the second bomb was dropped a few days later, they still did not surrender until they tortured a POW and who under torture, incorrectly told them there was 100 more bombs and even that tempered their surrender (that airman did not even know about the nuclear weapons that had been used). It wasn't until Russia declared war on them and were preparing to invade Japan along with the Allied forces, that they decided to surrender, because they then realised that they would not win. They didn't care about their cultural artifacts. If the bombs had been dropped on Mount Fuji, it would have demoralised the civilians, but it would have driven the military and those citizens to try to win the war even more. Which is what the first bomb did.

I think a lot of people don't realise of the propaganda and the indoctrination for war that occurred before the war, when many of the soldiers and that generation were in schools.

 

[spidergoat]

i'm sorry but the ends don't justify the means. you have a major problem with that morally. also it worked is not the type of moral justifcation a decent human being should accept let alone be making.

If the end is ending a worldwide conflagration that killed 50 million people, then there is moral justification for killing a mere hundreds of thousands.

 

[pjdude1219]

The Japanese were not going to surrender even after the bombs were dropped. It was only when they thought more were on the way and with the knowledge that the Soviets were about to invade them that they realised they could not win and could go no further. And before they surrendered, they went on a killing spree... Just because.

And you think they would have surrendered before they were dropped? They had no intention of surrendering after they were dropped. Had the bombs not been dropped, it would have been a bloodbath, because the Allied forces and the Soviets would have invaded. And the bombing campaign before the nuclear bombs were dropped probably killed more than the nuclear bombs did. And they still refused to surrender. They didn't even surrender when the first nuclear bomb was dropped. And they very nearly did not when the second was dropped.

thats begging the question. we never tried to get them to surrender any other way. thats the problem your saying we had no other choice. but nothing other than melting people was considered in the end.

No one cheers it. Truman certainly did not. No one does to this day. It was a means to a quicker end against an enemy that refused to give up or stop and that had become an efficient killing machine.

your doing it right now. cheering it as a way to save lives.

Hollow? The Japanese killed over 20 million Chinese citizens. And you think my focus on their crimes is hollow?

yes. because your painting them as inhuman monsters while failing to recognize the horrors of a nuclear attack. i won't show the picstures because I'm a twisted person but let me reiterate we melted people.

No one said the Allied forces had a squeaky record in the war. But the Japanese, to me, were more brutal than even the Nazis. From today's standpoint, with hindsight, not even ISIS has come close to the atrocities the Japanese committed in the name of racial purity, imperial expansionism and to show their power and dominance. And we still do not know the full extent of what they did, because it was that horrific, and because of the notion of moving on and trying to instill peace and goodwill. But the more we find out and discover, the worse it gets.

Many Japanese still believe that the massacres against the millions of Chinese citizens was valid, for example. The women who were taken prisoner and forced into sexual slavery for the duration of the war are still to even get an apology for clearly proven state sanctioned and instructed actions and torture against them.

Of course the Allied forces did not have squeaky clean records. But frankly, nothing comes even close to what the Japanese did. The war that Japan waged was meticulously planned well in advance. Their soldiers were indoctrinated from childhood, to be ready for war and to be brutal so that they could wipe out other races around them, whom they considered to be sub-human, and to rape and kill women and children in large numbers, and to eat the bodies of the people they killed as a form of ritual to show their strength. If they had been given more time, they would probably have made the Holocaust seem like nothing at all in comparison. And Japan was not a reasonable nation that could be bargained with at that time.

your pushing a moral high ground on people who were responsible for more deaths. what the japanese did was horrific horrible and criminal. the likes of which out strip just about everything else in human history. the horrors of a nuclear attack out strip that.

To carry on about what was a strategic nuclear strikes that tried to kill as few civilians as they could to stop the slaughter is nothing compared to what the Japanese did in Asia and in the Pacific and what the Allies did beforehand to try to get the Japanese to stop. If you focus solely on the use of those two nuclear weapons and ignore what went on before it, of course you are going to have a skewed argument. If those nuclear weapons had not been used, it would have been millions of Japanese killed. The only option to end the slaughter on all sides was to try to force Japan to surrender and thankfully they did.

i don't ignore it i unlike you think there should be steps in between need to force a surrender and MELTING PEOPLE. there are japanese historians who feel that the real reason japan surrendered was do to the invasion of the soviets. we could have avoided melting people and we probably should have.

 

[pjdude1219]

If the end is ending a worldwide conflagration that killed 50 million people, then there is moral justification for killing a mere hundreds of thousands.

i'm done arguing with your fucked up sense of morality. the end doesn't justify the means. while there is a certain moral jusification to killing more to end a war its not justified when it didn't need to be done to do so which is the problem you and bells have your just begging the question and arguing that because nukes were used that their was no other way. their was.