Was the atomic bombing of Japan ethical

So killing someone instantly with a gun is less moral than killing someone slowly by denying them food or medicine? I'll have to remember that. Out of curiosity, who decides these things?

It seems to me that killing someone always leads to the same result: their death. Doesn't matter on the method used.

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

Goddamn it, agreed so much that I was just about to say it. What's up with that anyway?

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

To the opening question: definitely. What the Japanese had prepared for a land invasion... that would have been insanity for everyone. The bombings, compared to that, seem merciful to me.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

This was pretty much what the Imperial Cabinet was expecting. The idea was that if Japan could just hold out for a long time, they could probably get a negotiated surrender. The Allies probably weren't gonna give Japan that, so massive starvation was probably just going to be the inevitable outcome. Which is honestly probably worse than the atomic bomb, if accounts of Maoist China are taken into account.

Everyone figured they were going to HAVE to surrender, it's that almost nobody wanted an unconditional surrender and the Allies would accept nothing less. The atomic bomb definitely changed the dynamics. And honestly, if it was the only thing that could keep out Soviet influence, I would have gladly seen a dozen nukes dropped on Japan. It would have been better than a Vietnam-type catastrophe, or even a Korea-type bloodbath on the Home Islands.

edited 4th Jan '11 2:27:24 AM by Tsukubus

"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."

Yes, blockade would have led to some starvation, but mostly it would have led to a proto Cuba. Did Cuba ever give in? No they didn't, and they're fine.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

Cuba sees tourism from pretty much every other nation on the planet, Japan was only friends with the nazi's at that point so their country would have suffered greatly.

EDIT: changed trade to tourism as it is more specific.

edited 4th Jan '11 4:11:31 AM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Droping nukes on civilians? Friggin no.

"But the casualites if we were to invade!!!".. Then don't invade. Simple as that. Japans military was in shambles. Sea and air power were ground down to dust. As it was, it was of no real threat to the US anymore. All conquered territories where taken back.

For the defense standpoint, all conditions were met. Once your army crosses your borders into the territory of another country, you're no longer defending.

Japans was going to surrender. Sooner or later. The US could just keep them contained and wait. Or the US could offer surrender on a more lax terms. But everyone was too anal. Japan for not wanting to surrender unconditionally, the US for not accepting anything but unconditional surrender. Peace without compromise?

^ Japan had industrial capabilities still existent on the Home Islands and in Korea and were actively using it to rebuild their stuff. They also had some 5 million IJA troops on the Home Islands that if left alone to rebuild would be able to bring some serious hurt.

Spare us the pacifist bullshit. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were quite possibly the most merciful case of I Did What I Had to Do in world history compared to letting the war drag on for another year or longer thus inflicting millions more casualties on all sides.

Without the nature of nuclear fallout, such epics as Godzilla would never have been created.

Maybe the nukes weren't ethical, but they were ultimately for the best.

The bombings were bad, but all of the options were bad, so it's not like some hideous aberration that defied the honorable rules of engagement or anything.

More-or-less in the "I can't think of a better course of action than the Hiroshima bombing under the circumstances" camp. Yes, it was appalling. War is appalling. I'm unconvinced that a solution existed that would have resulted in less suffering and casualties, but in a way I think it's pointless speculating because we'll never know for certain.

I'm more on the fence regarding Nagasaki. Would they, given more time, have surrendered after just the one nuke? Again, we'll never know.

I don't buy the "you're just ashamed of your history!" argument, though. History is nothing to be ashamed of. There shouldn't be a stigma attached to criticising the actions of our ancestors. To be honest, I wish the Japanese were a little more critical of their own history and a little less critical of America's, where WWII is concerned.

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Good point. Still not a weapon that should have been developed in the first place. I remember hearing that they tried to go after him when the surrender announcement was read. I frankly wouldn't care either way. Japan is on the Warsaw side of things, they'd be a post-communist country now. Whoopee. If you look at the government programs in place from the reconstruction on, you can tell that the country was always somewhere between Cuba and Canada in socialist policies. I never saw the Cold War as a good justification for nuclear deterrence. What were the terms of this negotiated surrender? Exactly what was so onerous that they were demanding? They still got Yasakuni, they still got the preservation of the imperial throne, they still got a whole assload of murderers away from the war crimes trials, they still got a lot of economic and industrial influence twenty years down the line even with all their colonies gone. What more could we have given them? Then why use nukes? We did more damage with conventional bombing. If we wanted, we could have focused on redevelopment in China and Korea and the Phillipines, and leave three stable, developed countries with old grudges and U.S. military bases behind. Why not let the Pacific Rim sort itself out?

My position remains: we shouldn't have even had nukes to drop. There are currently extant enough nukes to glass the world many times over. Whatever benefits we gained from ending the war as we did was not enough to justify that.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Yeah, we have a shitload of stockpiled nukes. And we've used all but none of them. Boy, those nukes sure are ruining everything, ain't they?

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

Because we had firebombed Japan 10 times over and still they continued to fight. There was no other option but to keep going nukes or not. World War Two was not a war we could leave unfinished lest we make the same mistakes we did 25 years earlier in the First World War.

A nuclear option said a firm message to the Japanese: "we possess the means to make an entire city vanish in seconds and we intend to use it". The Japanese were no stranger to their cities burning by fire. They were however to nuclear weapons. After all what sends the bigger message? One plane with one bomb vaporizing an entire city and in the aftermath via radiation creating in their minds a plague? Or a fleet of hundreds of aircraft dropping thousands of incendiary bombs that they had seen before and when the flames die down it's over with no secondary effects?

There was only one other choice besides nuclear and that was slog it out with the millions of troops of the IJA and IJN still capable to fight in China, Korea and on the Home Islands. A campaign that would have resulted in the deaths of many millions of Americans, Koreans and Japanese.

If ethical treatment of the Japanese is your concern, it seems ludicrous to me to advocate more firebombing. As if we didn't already do enough damage that way.

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The US deconstructed most of the Japanese military cliques and industrial establishment that dominated the country during the 40's. Obviously, they would have liked to remain in power. Also, a lot of this military establishment viewed Korea and Formosa as core Japanese territories, and wanted to keep them. Which is understandable as by WW 2, the Japanese had controlled both for as long as the US had controlled Hawaii.

Obviously, those concessions would have been really impossible for the USA to agree to. And the military clique had already viewed them as massive concessions. Of course, unconditional surrender was a LOT better than everyone thought, but its not as if anyone knew that. And honestly, the only reason the US allowed Japan to reestablish its sovereignty so quickly was to form an economic/political bulwark against Communism.

edited 4th Jan '11 7:52:50 AM by Tsukubus

"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."

If I were in charge of the nukes at the time, I probably would have made them ground strikes against military targets for the psychological effect. And there probably would have been several dozen.

Fight smart, not fair.

I think we only had 2.

I think he's implying that if he had been in charge, he would have made more.

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

I thought that wasn't feasible for some reason, but I concede that US History is not my field of specialization.

Just telling you what I thought his implications were. In reality, we were lucky to have built three by the time we employed them.

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

^ And we had the ability to make more, but we didn't do so again until 1946.

I would have waited. Kept up the fire bombing, while adding cropland to the list of areas to burn. Destroy any ship leaving or arriving to the island. Then I would initiated ground strikes at military bases and factories, mostly for the big fucking crater it leaves. Japan would have shortly become a radioactive wasteland, but that's something that would have been unknowable at the time.

Fight smart, not fair.

^Sooooo pretty much Operation Downfall?

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

Well you know what, it's extremely hard to say what the effect of not using nuclear bombs would have been. Japan was losing and they were on the edge of surrendering when the nuclear bombs hit. From what I've read, their sticky point was keeping the old powers in place (the Emperor and the military regime) and so they refused to offer an unconditional surrender.

You have to remember that the war wasn't Japan vs USA. The vast majority of fighting was in East Asia, in Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam etc. They lost over four million soldiers there and their entire battle line was crumbling. The Chinese were pushing them back finally and they already switched to scorched earth/retreating tactics using biological and chemical weapons (ironically, they already killed so many civilians that not many died from their use of WM Ds) to raze every last Chinese city before they abandonned them. There was virtually no hope for Japan.

The question we can't answer is how much the Japanese would have fought if you made a land invasion or whether one was even needed in the first place. If you landed troops on Japanese soil they would fight but we're not sure to what extent. Afterall, Nazi Germany didn't exactly become insurgency land after the Soviets and Allied forces tank rolled them but it wasn't a walk in the park for us.

Right now we've lingering problems with Japanese historical revisionism and holocaust denial. They use the atomic bombs as an excuse for their war time crimes. No matter how you cut it (whether justified or not) the atomic bombs were horrible and that is what we are left to deal with today.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:58:00 AM by breadloaf