The most tasteless and insensitive museum exhibit ever.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'd say that the bombs are both justified based upon a pure analysis of the numbers. If the allies invaded they expected 1 million allied casualties and something like 10 million Japanese casualties. To compare even if you include people who died years later then less then 500,000 people died as a result of both explosions.

Which is worse 11 million deaths or 500,000 deaths?

Those numbers are highly debatable, and make the assumption that an allied land invasion was necessary at all. I think that's where the crux of the debate comes from. Many top allied officials, including people ranking as high as Eisenhower, believed the bombs were not necessary and Japan would have surrendered anyway by December.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Osweld



Actually, I think there should be more focus on the atomic bombs from the west, because we where responsible for that atrocity. Would you rather we focus on atrocities done by other cultures over the ones we do ourselves?

No, I don't think we should. Koreans, Indians, Burmese, Viet Namese, Chinese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos and Pacific Islanders all suffered under the supposedly 'liberating' anti-colonialist Japanese.
It was a similar situation to that following the English Civil Wars, when the Commonwealth collapsed and Charles II returned. The Act of Oblivion and Indemnity was described as oblivion for the King's friends and indemnity for his enemies. In some respects the facts of Japanese atrocities and the perpetrators were consigned to oblivion and indemnified respectively, because the Commies were the new enemy, and victims of the Japanese should have the good grace to be quiet and get with the programme.

There was no equivalent of glasnost in Japan post WWII, no truth and reconciliation commission to weed out unrepentant militarists and those who took part in atrocities. What is worse is that scientific research into germ warfare by the Japanese was used by the Americans, and in the post WWII Red scare climate, Japanese troops were used to police the European colonies they had previously been occupying, and Korean collaborators were 'reinstalled' in positions of power.

I'd still be angry if I had been a Korean comfort woman (what a disgusting euphemism for a victim of serial rapes, press ganged into prostitution), or if my father or grandfather had been killed and eaten by Japanese soldiers.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by molly bloom


No, I don't think we should.

Why not? Atrocities done by your own culture are the worst.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Those numbers are highly debatable, and make the assumption that an allied land invasion was necessary at all. I think that's where the crux of the debate comes from. Many top allied officials, including people ranking as high as Eisenhower, believed the bombs were not necessary and Japan would have surrendered anyway by December.

Now this is a good argument against the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs. The primary defense of dropping them is that they saved lives, not vengence. But that argument is based on the Allies analysis of their casualties in taking the mainland.

I think before the bombs were dropped an invasion of the mainland was inevitable for victory and to humble the Japanese mentality. If they were not resoundly defeated they would probably have kept their arrogance and racial superiority concepts, just setting asia up for another great war.

Once the bombs were dropped and Russia declared war on Japan out of fear it would be over and Russia wouldn't be in a position to bargain for holdings, an invasion of the mainland wouldn't seem to be warranted. But, then that all developed from the dropping of the bombs in the first place.

[Cookie Monster]

good

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

There are many here who justify and have justified the refusal to apologize because of Japan's own war crimes.

And there are many who feel we have no need to apologize because it was a legitimate military weapon in a total war.

Truman finally accepted the Japanese offer of conditional surrender.

Can you not read, Ned? The Japanese UNCONDITIONALLY SURRENDERED!

As to one, yes. Many do feel the bombing was justified. It is assumed by these folks that the bombs were necessary to end the war without an invasion. But most Americans are never taught the full facts surrounding the final months and that Japan had much earlier had "offered" to surrender on essentially the same terms they in fact did surrender. The question is, would the knowledge of these facts change their views.

As to two, I have an hard time understanding where you are coming from. The only condition they insisted upon was that they retain the emperor, and we agreed to that. Why do you insist that the facts are different?

[Ned]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Why do you keep saying conditional surrender, Ned?

Because the condition was retention of the Emperor.

That condition was ACCEPTED.

[Patroklos]

It seems that the main problem people are having is the word "atomic." Even with radiation poisoning, they were hardly the worst weapons we had. A hundred plane conventional firebombing raid, which incidently cost less than the Manhatten program, was far more destructive. So we will just call the "big freaking " bomb instead.

Basically, if you don't support every piece of history that has ever directly or inderectly caused harm to a person having a casualty figure plaque and monumnet next to it, you are a hipocrit.

The word "atomic" is not magic, or evil. When dynomite came out it was magnitudes more destructive than the nearist equivalent. And did it turn out to be evil? Eventially nukes will be eclipsed (some say bio has it already) and the word will be as scarry as , oh my god not a TANK!!!! Is that a MACHINE GUN, THE WORLD IS AT AN END!!!!


-Pat

[Patroklos]

It wasn't accepted, it was denied and they surrendered with out it and later, out of the goodness of our hearts, we decided to let them have it. See we are not just nuke weilding world destroyers.

-Pat

[Q Classic]

Most Japanese are not taught anything at all about the butchery their soldiers did.

[Ned]

Originally posted by laurentius
IMO The plane should be destroyed.

No, the plane should be accompanied by the truth. One of the truths was that Truman announced that we had bombed "Hiroshima, a military base."

Just reading that statement will tell people a lot.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Patroklos
It wasn't accepted, it was denied and they surrendered with out it and later, out of the goodness of our hearts, we decided to let them have it.

I am still amazed by how rosy your image of the US is. Is your country the new incarnation of Jesus or something?

[SpencerH]

I like this comment

""They (Japan) started the war by bombing our servicemen in Pearl Harbor. They should go and stand on the deck of the Arizona," said one man referring to a US ship sunk in the raid, now a memorial. "

I wonder if he understood exactly what he was saying?

There was no military necessity to use the atomic bombs. Obviously we could have destroyed the Japanese cities the same way we did Tokyo and Dresden. It probably would have killed more people that way and allowed the war to drag on so that the Soviets would have claimed more Japanese islands (possibly the mainlands).

[Ned]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Ned:



You are missing the point that I am making. War does not work like this: I bomb you, so you bomb me in a fair manner relative to my action, then it proceeds *** for tat until somebody has enough.

No. When you are at war, the objective is not to exchange equal blows, but to utterly defeat the enemy, which requires that you use as unequal a blow as you can. Whatever you think about the morality of dropping the A-bombs, you cannot say that it was "unjustified," as we were in a state of total war.

TOTAL WAR?

I can assure you that to the extent the American people actually learned about the attrocities we were committing in their name, they were entirely revolted. Dresden is the primary example. When announcing Hiroshima, Truman had to say it was a "military base." Else he would have been publicly lynched in the press.

Blow for blow, yes. But not against innocent civilians. Not against the elderly. Not against women. Not against children.

Even Truman began to understand and be revolted by the horror he was imposing on Japan. He called a halt and accepted the conditional surrender that Japan had been offering for some time.

[Ned]

Originally posted by cyclotron7

Ned:
See, now you're getting it. I've said that in war everyone tries to use unequal force, but it's debatable whether the force was too unequal for the situation. "Could a lesser blow have worked" is a valid question, but also an overdone one, so I say we let it rest here.

What you fail to understand, C, is that Japan was prepared to surrender in June and perhaps even by April. They had had enough. IIRC, the Emperor had fired Tojo in April, replaced him with a new PM and given him directions to negotiate a surrender. The government communicated the offer to enter into surrender negotiations to the Russians who passed it on to Truman. Truman ignore the offer.