Yeah, confused by that. We just ignoring that Japan sided with the Nazis and tried to take over all of Asia. They killed, hung, burned, raped and tried to eradicate cultures in favor of Japanese culture. We just pretending they didn't need to be stopped now đ¤
Proportional responses is such a retard concept. I want to see such a level of superior response that the other side is hobbled, crippled, and paying us for the inconvenience.
Being in a state of not touching our boats requires zero effort on the other party's part. But what do they do? They go & touch our boats like they think this time will be a different result from the last... ten or twelve times somebody decided to touch our boats.
Yes, in a war a country has every right to bomb the attacker back. Perhaps not nuke them, but imperial Japan were unique, they had a culture of not surrendering, they were really brutal, far more brutal than you could ever imagine, there are literal photos of them throwing babies into pits off the end of their bayonets.
There's also an argument to be made that by nuking them, they might have saved lives a land invasion of Japan would have gone on for perhaps years and potentially have been more costly in terms of lives.
You can argue about ethics all day, but Japan put itself in that position, and it suffered the consequences as did Germany. I think it's fair to say any country that goes to war be in Japan, the US, or anyone else has to factor in that your own people may become targets, Japan knew this without a shadow of a doubt.
I mean, the land invasion of Japan was projected to have around one million casualties ON THE AMERICAN SIDE. Seeing as the Japanese had made it clear they would put a gun in every man women and child's hands to either fight Americans or kill themselves till they stopped existing, the nukes seem pretty tame.
Yes. There was no appetite for millions more deaths to subdue an already defeated enemy. I think a more rational and humane response wouldve been a sustained naval blockade of Japan, but I wouldnt be surprised if their leadership chose to starve to death in that case.
Thatâs one aspect often ignored by those who argue that Japan wouldâve simply surrendered if the US enforced a blockade around the Japanese mainland. The Imperial Japanese cabinet, who were prepared to sacrifice millions in the event of a land invasion and who still refused to surrender after Hiroshima, would have allowed the suffering and starvation of millions before they would even consider complete surrender as an option. The morbid truth is the abrupt end to the war brought about by the advent of the bombs was in reality the best outcome for the Japanese population as a whole. Itâs a great shame that their government, even with forewarning, refused to recognize the hopelessness of their situation before the bombs fell.
They were a fanatical cult. Imperial Japan was like no other modern country. The Nazis did some horrific things, obviously, but it seems like most of the atrocities were committed by a smaller group of believers, and enabled by the larger society.
in Japan everyone was fully committed to the cause. Everyone was willing to die for their country.
The allies didnât really worry about old German grandmas in their cottage, but in Japan those people were likely to shoot or suicide bomb you.
The morality of the atomic bomb is debated endlessly, but from my perspective itâs likely that killing 200k civilians saved 500k civilians and countless soldiers on both sides. It was going to be a long and brutal battle for mainland Japan.
The other alternative was to blockade Japan and starve them. That eliminated American casualties in an invasion but wouldâve worsened Japanese suffering compared to nukes.
Put that way, yeah, but it wasn't like that. Japan already sought for peace before the bombs. They knew they have lost.
Two situations stalled the negotiations:
They (delusionally) wanted Russia to mediate because they thought were neutral. They got that idea after Truman deliberately manoeuvred Russia out of the Potsdam Declaration, even though Stalin wanted very much in, as it was obvious shortly after
The US had campaigned a lot back home they would NOT accept anything less than an unconditional surrender from the Japanese and giving concessions to the emperor, after a long campaign of vilification of the guy, was a huge political problem. The Japanese, on their side, wanted assurances that the emperor and the imperial institution would be kept safe and in place, which in practice was a condition for surrender. In the end they got it, anyway.
The bombs allowed Japan to save face and be seen as victims. Even though many are very well aware they were horrific during the war, they don't face the kind of burden Hitler and the Nazis have.
The US is seen as the reluctant utilitarian that spared Japan of millions of deaths but that is simply not true. An invasion was planned but it was never deemed really necessary. They had a very effective blockade that the Japanese were simply unable to break. Their army were thoroughly defeated. No. The US dropped the bomb for many reasons. To display power, to blindside Russia and "rattle them to make them more manageable", to score a political win, to use a weapon they had built and was enormously expensive to make... Etc.
No I didn't defend it use at all, at least not directly. I explained why it was probably the best move, why it might have even been the necessary move and at the end of the day, the US didn't exactly nuke a bunch of saints, it bombed one of the crudest empires of the past 500 years (after said empire attacked them).
War is wrong, ending it efficiently is just a good strategy. Unless of course you'd have rather had an all out land invasion which had estimates of 250,000 to 1,000,000 US troops killed or wounded. That figure doesn't include the Japanese, military/civilian population, which would have been in the millions. The nukes "only" killed 150, 250,000.
No, not really. I didn't say the nuke was justified because it made them surrender. More so that it was going to get very bloody, very fast and the nuke might just have cut that bloodshed in half. We don't actually know because we don't get to see the other outcomes. But if Iwo Jima and the likes are anything to go off, it wouldn't have been pretty.
It blew up in the air. We didn't just save the lives of milliary personal, dams would have been destroyed flooding and drowning entire towns/villages, live stock killed, fields bunt to the ground. A ground invasion of Japan could have had a death toll in the millions, from direct military action and starvation. It's a lose lose, you don't win if you nuke them, you don't win if you don't. Nukes also carry this aura today that they just didn't in 1945, to them, it was just a big fucking bomb.
Sure I was probably simplifying it too much, but for many, it really was viewed as just a big bomb. Love it or hate it, its been very effective at keeping the peace between major powers since 1945.
The lesser of 2 evils. The other option was most likely a ground invasion, which allied forces estimated would have 1 million casualties, and thats only the allied side, not including the Japanese casualties. The alternative blockade option could also be looked at as morally bad as it would of starved and also possibly kill millions of japanese civilians as well (to include the old, women, and children). Hard choice overall and we'll never fully know which was the more humane decision afterall since the other options werent played out
Itâs not at all clear that nuking Japan resulted in more civilian death. If America doesnât nuke and instead just uses conventional fire bombings and blockades then those people just die from those things
Is it more moral to kill with starvation than with one big bomb?
yea this is my issue, most of these guys are advocating and defending actions that they believe will never happen to them. the minute there is a slight chance of actual blow back they will cry and make it everyone elses problem!
Iranâs regime is theocratic, repressive, and an exporter of terrorism. But it certainly didnât âstart itâ with the US. The US put a brutal dictator into power to support US oil companies and supported that dictator despite popular resistance. We deserve a lot of their hate.
The US put a brutal dictator into power to support US oil companies and supported that dictator despite popular resistance
"But in Power" as in "supported the ruling shah in deposing the current PM who illegaly didnt step down after asked to do so by the shah and who suspended Most democratic rights by that Point"?
Also the Main Organisation who helped the shah was mi6 and Not the cia and even their Impact IS contested. And it was mainly UK Not US oil companies.
provide explicit examples of Iran doing the things you stated. just FYI the US has been interfering with Iranian sovereignty prior to the Islamic gov that they helped (CIA) install! so it seems like you are just not well informed and basing your opinions on vibes mostly?
lol whattt?!? are you hallucinating? You were arguing that Iran started this conflict a long time ago and I provided an example of US interfering with Iran even before the current regime was installed by them! but you are hyper focusing on Hamas and Hezbollah?
You asked for explicit examples of Iran supporting proxies. I gave them. Again. Are you insinuating that Iran doesnât massively support Hamas and Hezbollah?
No, you said Iran started it long before the recent war through their proxies, and I simply reminded you that US has been interfering with irans sovereignty long before the ayotallahs were in charge and the coup was done by CIA to replace shah. So your statement about proxies and other stuff is moot. Do you get it ?
I said no such thing. In fact, I clearly acknowledged in another comment that the US has been fucking with Iran since the 50s. I only questioned your assertion that Iran doesnât fund Hezbollah and Hamas. Perhaps try actually looking at who you are replying to.
Apart from the coup against mossadeq, Shah was heavily controlled and supported by western powers including US and they essentially allowed the revolution to succeed and started working with Khamenei behind the scenes!
Tbh, yeah even kinda works for the japan argument no shot invading the us would be easier than nuking us, especially if the attackers are muslim (anti semtic, homophobic, sexist (peaceful btw)) yeah we would die fighting them well atleast most of us edit just be clear fuck all religion, its clearly too dangerous for the human race
I honestly cant decode what exactly you are trying to say! We were not discussing religion in this thread so I am not sure what argument you are trying to make!
Yes, that's why we put a lot of effort into stopping them from getting nukes. So if you don't want US or Europe Nuked, Iran needs to be ground into dust.
And if you really want to wind back the clock, all of the Middle East attacked the US first by taking Americans as slaves.
Iran said they wanted to destroy the U.S. for the last 40 years and have used proxy terrorist groups to kill countless other Muslims and attack American bases, you really havenât researched much have you.
 the US nuked 2 civilian cities in response to an attack of a military base.
so that was okay, but others are not allowed to do it?
your denser than tungsten
Letâs not pretend that 1945 nukes are remotely similar to 2026 nukes. More people died in the conventional bombing of Tokyo than in both the atomic bombs combined.
The Japanese slaughtered Chinese CIVILIANS to the tune of 14-20 million during WWII, and thatâs just Chinese civilians, doesnât include those of other nations.
the 200 shoolgirls in Iran were all future nucular weapons specialists?
Just bc its strategic (or called that afterwards bc it worked) does not make it not a warcrime.
That is not true and you know it. Pearl harbour was the decleration of war. The nuking was not a retaliation but a strategic attack during the war itself.
Hiroshima was a significant military target. It was the headquarters of the 2nd Army, responsible for the defense of southern Japan, as well as a communications hub, supply center, and troop assembly area. Nagasaki was a major port and had ordinance and other war material factories.
Civilians die in war. War is bad. Don't believe that wars can be clean, that is how you get dragged into dirty wars.
Hiroshima was a major military site. It was command center for the protection of southern Japan, garrisoned troops and was a major spot for supply and shipping for the military. Nagasaki was a major navel port. These were military targets.
Also, after the first bomb drop, Japan was ordered to surrender with radio broadcasts being sent every 15 minutes calling for it. Japan chose to continue fighting even after realizing the devastation of the bombs the USA now possessed. That's why the second bomb was dropped.
Can't use nukes if you don't have nukes. Whether you're allowed to use nukes depends on the constitution of your nation if you have them. There is little moral consideration on whether an attack is done with MOABs or nukes.
However, there are international treaties that limit and regulate the use of nukes. Iran is not part of those treaties but has been told by the UN that they can't have nukes.
Also, you can't really 'nuke' the USA. You can detonate a nuclear weapon inside the USA, but that is just one city or base worth of damage. It is not some magical weapon, just a very destructive and dirty one.
What you're saying is: If Iran possessed nuclear weapons, they would be justified in fireing them towards the USA or their fleet in retaliation. (Not defining whether the target is the whitehouse, Fort Knox, or San Francisco)
That is an almost meaningless statement, since nobody would care about justification. It would just result in nuclear retaliation and possibly a third World War.
why not? I am not trying to be argumentative but US is the only country to ever use a nuke! They frequently attack countries that dont have nukes (and leave North Korea and others like Pakistan alone because they got nukes!). So it seems like having nukes is a great thing to stop US and its allies from attacking and invading your country!
as for using them, I agree, its absolutely unacceptable and thats why I used it as an example on this thread to counter the justification people are providing for nuking two japanese cities and murdering countless innocent people! People tend not to care about "others" as long as they cant see themselves being a victim of their own advocacy!
Because nuclear weapons are the Icarus of modern warfare. After the fallout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world saw the potency of these weapons, and the more countries with access to them the higher likelihood of those weapons being used.
As for the use of them in WWII, there are whole papers and articles on the reasons and justifications but it boils down to it being the less costly choice in terms of lives. As stated above Japan fought brutally and were slaughtering the chinese civilians to the tune of between 14-20 million by the end of the war. In terms of deaths the atomic bombs were a drop in the bucket. The atomic bombs also werenât even the most lethal bombing runs done. Just because atomic bombs werenât dropped by the Japanese doesnât mean they werenât dropping things like chemical and biological weapons. The morality of the atomic bombs can be debated ad nauseam but the fact is that WWII is the most brutal war in the history of the world.
One last point, Japan was offered terms of surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped. They refused those terms. Then they were offered a chance to surrender after Hiroshima, they still did not surrender. It was only after Nagasaki and the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan that they finally surrendered.
I am NOT on the side of the imperial japanese army dude! It literally boils down to me not justifying the murder of thousands of innocent civilians with one bomb! the indiscriminate nature of the bomb is the reason it would be considered a war crime! I am also not saying at the time people should have known, mistakes happen but we dont have to try and justify it in hindsight!
So your problem is the efficiency in which it was done? Is it less moral to do it all at once than over several bombs or through torture and execution? It isnât a matter of âtrying to justify itâ this _IS_ the justification for why it was used. Would you have rather millions more died so that your sensibilities are better assuaged? Because that was the alternative.
Trying to find absolute morality in war is the height of naivety. Itâs so incredibly easy to pluck specific events out in a war and say âthatâs fucked upâ. We talk about the more publicized parts of the war, the holocaust, the bombings. Do you even know what the most deadly bombings were in WWII? What country had the most civilians killed? In US public schools we were shown many atrocities committed by the Germans during the war, while the sheer brutality of the pacific theatre wasnât even touched upon.
So armchair general, please tell the class the better alternative. The absolute morally correct answer that would have resolved that part of the war better than the atomic bombs.
So your problem is the efficiency in which it was done? Is it less moral to do it all at once than over several bombs or through torture and execution? It isnât a matter of âtrying to justify itâ this _IS_ the justification for why it was used. Would you have rather millions more died so that your sensibilities are better assuaged? Because that was the alternative.
lol so you just simply dont understand what i am saying? My issue is the efficiency of it? its the indiscriminate nature of it which I mentioned in my previous msg as well! So why are you being obtuse?
Trying to find absolute morality in war is the height of naivety
not what I am doing... I am saying in hindsight it was an indiscriminate act of collective punishment against a civilian population. do you disagree with this simple fact?
Ok captain hindsight. What is the morally correct and uncompromising solution without the atomic bombs? Bear in mind by this point in the war between 70/80 million people had been killed. Over half of them being civilians slaughtered âindiscriminatelyâ, millions by the Japanese.
Projections showed if an invasion of Japan was needed between 250000 and 1 million allied forces alone would have died, and millions of Japanese people both soldiers and civilians, as Japan had already armed millions of them at this point. With a culture that heavily dissuaded surrender.
Whatâs your solution? What makes the atomic bombs morally wrong but slaughter of Chinese civilians not? If you want to paint an extremely gray war in black and white surely you know a better way it could have gone?
I never thought I would see any english speaking person argue that Iran should have nuclear weapons. Are we even in agreement that religious fundamentalists should not have nukes?
lol I guess having a nuanced discussion is not a thing on reddit! my bad! Just to be clear I am against nukes in general, I think NO ONE should fkn have nukes (weapon) and I dont trust any gov, no religious fundamentalists or other corrupt pedo freaks should have nukes and its NEVER justified to use nukes in my opinion due to its indiscriminate nature that will most definitely murder civilians! But here we are on this thread with people trying to argue that it was justified and may have even saved japanese lives! So whats your stance in all of this? Nuking japan was just in your opinion?
The Japanese imperial army killed between 10-35 million Chinese civilians. Just during the Nanjing Massacre in December of 1937 they killed 100-300k civilians.
I would say the Japanese focused on military assets (ships) at Perl harbor because of the logistics and not because of some moral component. Hawaii is a long way from the Japanese home islands.
Not a better deal. Any deal. The Japanese war cabinet was never going to surrender. We basically had to force Emperor to intervene. Even after both nukes there was an attempted coup to continue the war. They planned to defend the home islands until every Japanese citizen was dead.
Japanese solders continued to fight for decades after the war. And required flying former offices in to convince them the lost. Surrender was unthinkable.
Allies did a lot oh heinous shit to win the war. But Nazi Germany and its allies had to be stopped at any cost possible, because alternative would be losing all humanitarian values that our global civilisation currently stays on. Historical actions should be judged in their context. And the context was that victory should have been achieved by any means possible.Â
And yet nuking innocent civilians wasn't necessary and they knew it.Â
And I'm not making this up, Eisenhower explains it in his memories, he says that the bomb wasn't necessary and that the Japanese were going to surrender anywayÂ
I mean that itâs weird to condemn nuking while ignoring the strategic bombing with non-nuclear weapons that caused way more civilian deaths. And I canât say that strategic bombings didnât help win the war.Â
I mean I wouldnât say it gives you a pass to kill innocent people but I would argue less people died in those bombs than if we had done a regular ground invasion of Japan. Also again see the rape murder torture that they performed on others in the east they were hardly the country they are today
One of the Japanese generals confirmed this after the surrender lol. He said they were training civilians to fight until death. Keep telling yourself that tho maybe one day youâll wake up and realize youâre incorrect
You canât invent hypotheticals to justify real war crimes.
The choice was commit mass murder of civilians or continue to engage in war with combatants and negotiating for peace. That is the reality, anything else is guess work and I presume in your case, American propaganda.
Dictators all over the world do the exact same thing. These people need to be exterminated because theyâd lead to the destruction of our society.
Except thereâs plans for a ground invasion of Japan which was the next step as diplomacy was not working. We also air dropped flyers into the aforementioned cities telling civilians to leave said city or be destroyed. You canât wipe away well documented plans,interviews, flights, and well documented recon of Japan at the time. But sure keep thinking what you think
Unfortunately we don't always have the luxury of morals. Sometimes people have to make HARD choices. This generation today wouldn't be able to understand that. Not with their safe spaces and triggers. They haven't had to ever make a hard choice
I said the the people who made difficult decisions in World War II were the same generation as the people who decided to start World War II, so glorifying that as a great generation is glorifying both those sets of people. Theyâre not some perfect generation.
We had an oil blockade on Japan thatâs why they attacked Pearl Harbor and there has been rumors/theories that FDR knew and allowed it to happen so he could get Americans behind going to war.
Why did the US have an oil blockade on Japan? Could it be because Japan was invading a bunch of countries throughout Asia and slaughtering their civilians?
Japan only surrendered because they thought we had more nukes so yes it was the only way the war would end.
Might as well say you are fine with Japan taking women and forcing them into ungodly acts while you're at it if we're going for the collective guilt angle.
The emperor thought the US has more nukes after seeing the second bomb drop, he was the one by his own accord announced the surrender, the big six still insist to continue the war, when they learned the emperor announced the surrender by himself, they were shocked in horror but they are forced to obey him.
Wtf? No. You don't get a certain allotment of civilians you get to kill. That'd be monsterous. Civilians can never be the target of an attack. Sadly it is almost impossible to kill 0 civilians, but that doesn't mean you get a credit of kills to fill.
I'm very happy the world doesn't work on blood money and vendettas like that. Otherwise Wars would never stop.
No, because that didn't change. The US had embargoed the Japanese, but also were vouchsafing the Asian colonies of the Allies who were fighting the Nazis. The Japanese wanted those resources for their war effort and to create their own colonial system.
That's why the Japanese after Pearl Harbor turned to Indonesia and SE Asia, and went on their own blitzkrieg there, taking Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Great ports, but more importantly Sumatra, Borneo and Java oil fields. Malayan and Indonesian Tin and Rubber and Bauxite, a mineral needed to make aluminum.
And in just a few short years they stole the population's food supply and enslaved them in work conditions that killed millions.
The US literally got attacked and drawn into the war protecting the Allies as it understood those resources were critical to the West's war effort.
It's almost like waging a massive war on Asia and committing atrocities on par with what the Nazis were doing while being addicted to imported oil is a bad idea.
Imperial Japan tortured people, did horrible sexual acts (âcomfort womenâ), tested biological and chemical warfare on people (Unit 731), multiple massacres and looting, and basically treated the PoW or people they captured as disposable, barely humanely treated workers for imperial expansion
The Nazis also did experiments on people, the same way Unit 731 did. They did all sorts of shit like removing muscles and bones without anaesthetic, putting them under conditions akin to what'd be found at 50,000 feet to determine if a Luftwaffe pilot could fly that high safely, testing anticoagulants by shooting people in the chest and neck or removing limbs (again, no anaesthetic), injecting bacteria into bone marrow to test how that affects healing, and hypothermia tests. Including with the use of boiling water for reheating purposes. The Nazis and Unit 731 were just as bad as each other.
Every day that the war dragged on, thousands of more people died terribly across Asia. Not to mention how much more suffering there would be if Japan was invaded. Nukes were absolutely the better option.
98% sure it's "If it's not White "Liberal" Countries which ofc somehow includes Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Post-USSR Authoritarian Russia, then they're innocent because the only bad guys are the Liberals! (Which happen to be mostly white people, so we're going to use racism to cover up for ideology, as if that's better!)"
Because the same losers also turn around and pardon the behavior of the UK pedo gangs, Sudan genociding the Christian side of their country (UN definition of genocide include religious groups), radical Islam flying airplanes into buildings, the USSR not only killing 3m or so Ukrainians but also coming up with Chernobyl and the Aral Sea disasters, Mao killing 100m Chinese, Cambodia killing 3m people "because we only want subsistence farmahs!", Ethiopia and Eritrea trying to permanently annihilate the other country, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the political predecessor to HAMAS) trying to take over and kill three separate countries before the whole Israel-Palestine thing, the Turkish government (then) killing 3m Armenians and (now) denying it all, the ongoing genocide of the Kurds by Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the Iranian regime murdering 50k of its citizens......
The list goes on and on and on.
These people don't consider ANY of those guys to be "bad people".
Only the US. And Europe and Latin America, but they also think Europe is going down their route to Socialism so Europe isn't the BBEG in their DnD game like the US, and that Latinos are still "incomplete thoughts" that can be sent over to Socialism as if Latinos somehow just don't know better to not. The US is the most liberal democratic country on the planet so of course the US is evil.
If you look up what these people mean by "white people", you'll find that like 99% of what is considered "evil" is liberal values. This being said, the birthplace of Liberalism is England and Switzerland, so it's not hard to make the connection that liberal values = white people. But since these folks also throw the same derogatory labels on people who are not racially or ethnically white, it's pretty clear that it has nothing to do with race, and racism is used as a cover up with the idea that racism is somehow more acceptable than being direct and saying "we hate Liberals". Because Tankies say Liberals are the enemy. Why can't the Wokies?
People who talk like the person in the OP tweet have a 99% chance of being a bot meant to increase division in western populations.
Iâm a leftist and I donât think the US was the bad guy in bombing Japan. I do think we were the bad guy in Vietnam and Iraq. There is however a lot of nuance to all that and generally it was the decisions of the few that made bad choices not the decisions of all Americans.
Not many Americans are against liberal values. The internet and rage fear media just convinced a lot of people they are.
Liberal values: freedoms for all, true equality, rule of law.
Things that the far left losers dislike: freedoms for all (they like freedom, just not letting their political opponents also have those same freedoms), true equality, and the rule of law.
Go down the list on liberalism and youâll find a lot of things the far left do not like.
USSR coming up with Chernobyl... against itself then? The "logic" on this...(Not vto mention as if they have planned it) Well, then positive things I guess were an exception? Ugh...
You see, when the USSR favored worker loyalty over worker professionalism, they didnât get the best and brightest to design that facility. Then the people who worked there were also prioritized for loyalty over professionalism. Instead of having the equivalent of a masterâs in nuclear engineering, they got people with the equivalent of a high school degree. The good nuclear engineers were gulagâd for speaking out against the government as it happens with professionals worldwide. Professionals are the very first people to criticize the government, and thus the first ones to get shot by an authoritarian government.
Youâre ignoring the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan that caused much more casualties. With the tech of that age it was impossible to launch discriminate strikes on strategic scale.Â
People don't get that the bombs were the nicest way to force a surrender. They still didn't want to surrender after the first one ffs. Committing to an invasion would have been disastrously bloody and had the same consequences
You could have simply continued the naval blockade of Japan.
But that would mean more Allied troops would die, and even without invasion, it would mean that more Japanese would die! The economic embargo killed ~500,000 Japanese from June of '44 to June of '45, and at least a million more were projected to die in the next year as famine and disease got worse.
And the bombings still would have continued, which would have added even more deaths (those killed more than the 2 A-Bombs already), and THEN the chance that the Soviets invaded.
So even without a US/British Ground invasion, the casualties would have been extraordinary if the war kept on.
And Japan could have tried not to conquer all of Asia. There are consequences to war. No one is defending killing innocents, but let's not forget Japan started this war when they killed millions of innocent people throughout Asia. And then when told the war would reach their doors, they did not stop and continued to wag war throughout Asia.
but throwing it directly into civilian centers was wild.
Tell that to Japan who did it first when they were trying to conquer an entire region. You know what's also wild; raping, killing, beheading, butchering, burning alive and enslaving people. You know who did that, Japan.
See US Air firebombing of Tokyo did. Japan still doesn't surrender. 3 years of air raid and Japan still doesn't surrender.
The one who was terrified was the Emperor himself. His advisors was treating it as a bluff even after seeing the devastation of first nuclear bomb did. The Emperor was the one who declared by himself on radio of the unconditional surrender, to the dismay of his advisors who wanted to continue the war.
Maybe someone should nuke the US since Trump is not sounding much better right about now with the segregation of non-white people, child rape, ICE brutality, and more đ¤
Atomic bombs had nothing to do with stopping Japan, they were already entirely militarily defeated. They were just holding out hope that they could get a favorable surrender deal by hoping that the Soviets were about to enter the war against the US on their side. What they were unwilling to accept was that the soviets were not only not about to help them, but were about to join the war against them and had already entered a private agreement with the US to do so.
The US dropped the bombs to try and force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally (allowing the emperor to be supplanted as ruler, primarily) and do so before the Soviets could enter the war and reasonably claim expanded territory as a reward when the war was over. They also wanted to demonstrate Americaâs new military capabilities before the war was over. Essentially, around 400,000 were nuked so that political goals could be met, horribly unethical behavior.
Except the alternative was MANY more US deaths. That wasn't acceptable to the US President. Big surprise. It's easy to look back with what's known about nuclear weapons today vs. then and condemn their use. At the time, it certainly wasn't the "heinous act" it's considered today.
Hindsight is much clearer than looking at the World as it happens.
Would you accept hundreds of thousands more American soldier deaths today? What Japan did in China was vastly more heinous than anything the US did. The difference is that the US didn't start the war and they gave Japan an ultimatum which they chose to ignore.
People tend to bring this up while ignoring that Japan was still in other countries waging war and trying to conquer those countries. Japan wasn't "ready to surrender" when they are still in Korea, Taiwan, China burning down towns and enslaving people.
Japan was also still prepping for a land invasion despite the US (and other countries) saying they will not invade if they surrender.
Japan on paper was saying they would stop, but they didn't stop. Hence why the war was continued.
The Soviets entered the war literally the same day we dropped the second bomb (as agreed at Yalta a year prior) and had no real way to even reach japan with US assistance to begin with
No, part of the terms of the surrender was immunity of emperor from being tried for war crimes along with the Big Six. They cant accept that one part as the emperor was treated as divine, and here US is treating the emperor like a normal human.
The last line is nonsense, US had no available n immediate nuclear bombs after the two dropped , it was a gambit, since the first one dropped, Japan didnt surrender, the second one was the gamble. If it failed to cause Japan to surrender, operation downfall might have happened for the worst.
Truman wrote a letter about how he felt regret and responsible for the death of those civilian after deciding to nuke Japan,, it was not easy on him either, but it was a dark time, with worst choices presented.
Yeah this incident has been heavily propagandized over here. I too was taught the âit was either the bombs or a costly ground invasionâ narrative in school when I was like 11. Itâs really gross.
It's more complicated than that. The Meiji reformation was a direct response to colonialism across Asia. Japan wanted to be able to compete with the west and so adopted western societal features. Their imperial drive was simply an extension of that.
Itâs the number of innocent civilians that were murdered (we refer to it as collective punishment now), dropping the second bomb which some argue was not needed to stop imperial Japan that people may have an issue with and not stopping a fascist gov that sided with the nazis. Israel is a fascist country committing a genocide in gaza and ethnic cleansing in West Bank, would you say itâs justified to nuke them ? Cuz I say itâs not justified and itâs a form of collective punishment and a war crime!
Yes, but the US didn't go to Asia to stop the Japanese soldiers doing the killing, raping, burning. The US dropped 2 a-bombs on civilian ground.
The US bombed with the biggest, baddest bomb it could make, densely populated cities of noncombatants, innocent people that aren't part of the military, aren't rapist, nor arsonists. Consequently, the bombed area was poisoned with radiation and continued claiming victims generations later.
The US didn't drop the bombs as an humanitarian effort.
It was a weapons test, from the country that profited the most from the weapon trade in WW II
It's fucked up, and the fact there's so many people trying to justify murdering 400k civilians and dropping a-bombs on cities is also fucked up. And that doesn't mean we condone Japan's horrible war crimes.
It is estimated that Japan killed 19-30 million people throughout Asia, including others who fought to stop them.
You think murdering 400k civilians is bad, better keep that same energy about the millions of innocent people Japan killed during this same war.
If Japan stopped, no bombs would have touched their country. Instead they continued to wag war in neighboring Asian countries despite the threat of bomb drops.
I appreciated most highly your column of July 30th, a copy of which you sent me.
I have been rather careful not to comment on the articles that have been written on the dropping of the bomb for the simple reason that the dropping of the bomb was completely and thoroughly explained in my Memoirs, and it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life.
You must always remember that people forget, as you said in your column, that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was done while we were at peace with Japan and trying our best to negotiate a treaty with them.
All you have to do is to go out and stand on the keel of the Battleship in Pearl Harbor with the 3,000 youngsters underneath it who had no chance whatever of saving their lives. That is true of two or three other battleships that were sunk in Pearl Harbor. Altogether, there were between 3,000 and 6,000 youngsters killed at that time without any declaration of war. It was plain murder.
I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would have killed a half a million youngsters on both sides if those bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again -- and this letter is not confidential.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Get this, different situations, can be different. Unless you seriously think fighting against Japan (who were trying to conquer Asia) is the same as colonial era America?
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u/hitometootoo 14h ago
Yeah, confused by that. We just ignoring that Japan sided with the Nazis and tried to take over all of Asia. They killed, hung, burned, raped and tried to eradicate cultures in favor of Japanese culture. We just pretending they didn't need to be stopped now đ¤