Current Events > Do you think it was wrong for the u.s. to drop the atomic bombs on japan?

(+) Yeah! (+)

what is your opinion?

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The first one is very hard to say. The second one was utterly unnecessary.

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there is zero justification for the second one. but propaganda has conditioned generations.

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uh

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Yes

It war crimes.
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Depends on if two bombs vs many Japanese cities and towns getting carpet bombed would be worse.

Look at London, Dresden and Stalingrad.

Yea the second was unnecessary.

We could have lied and made it look like we had hundreds of the things that could or would get used.

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If they weren't dropped, there was a serious risk of the Soviet Union invading and splitting it in half like they did with Korea and Germany.

It brought the war to a quicker end, and stopped the further spread of communism.

the alternative was an all out invasion of Japan which would have been far worse

unnamedsoldier posted...

the alternative was an all out invasion of Japan which would have been far worse

Normandy would have looked like practice.


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Yes, obviously.

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imagine if another country nuked our cities and people were like "yeah you had it coming"

of course it was wrong. they were war crimes

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No.
Only historically illiterate revisionists with a political agenda to rehabilitate the image of shittiest genocidal regimes to have ever existed think otherwise.

USER INFO: DUKAT2346
New User
User Since: Oct 2021
Karma: 3

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ThyCorndog posted...

imagine if another country nuked our cities and people were like "yeah you had it coming"

of course it was wrong. they were war crimes

Were there any Naval bases in the Western US at the time to get Nuked?

Anyway I can see shit holes like Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore getting Nuked.


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Shablagoo posted...

Only historically illiterate revisionists with a political agenda to rehabilitate the image of s***tiest genocidal regimes to have ever existed think otherwise.

Shablagoo posted...

USER INFO: DUKAT2346
New User
User Since: Oct 2021
Karma: 3

I mean, he takes his name from Gul Dukat of DS9 fame, and the Cardassians were overtly militaristic and fascist, so

Dukat2346 posted...

No.
Only historically illiterate revisionists with a political agenda to rehabilitate the image of shittiest genocidal regimes to have ever existed think otherwise.

Shut the fuck up.

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No

The second one probably

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Yes, and I'm getting tired of people putting all the blame on the US when this was a meaningless and hopeless war for Japan from day 1.

Especially the last year when it seemed the high command were just throwing youths to their deaths in droves. In order to force a surrender and preserve whatever pathetic samurai pride they still had left. And also to protect their own sorry hides.

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Anyway I recall hearing that the second was meant for Germany... just in case?

Germany surrendered and there was nothing left to do with the other nuke.


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Bombs = evil.

It ain't that difficult.

We should have dropped a warning bombs instead of bombing cities.

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Robot2600 posted...

Bombs = evil.

It ain't that difficult.

We should have dropped a warning bombs instead of bombing cities.

Should've just dropped f bombs

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They probably should have called it quits when they were clearly going to lose.
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(Copy and paste of a saved post of mine)

Here are my opinions.

Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrific? Of course.

Should we be proud of the fact that we're the only country to have engaged in nuclear war? Hell the **** no.

Should we feel horrible for the suffering and pain that it caused, both on the victims, survivors, and national psyche of Japan? You'd better believe it.

Was it justified? Damn right it was.

World War II was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the single most horrific event in human history. It was a truly global affair, with fatalities potentially as high as 75 million and casualties obviously therefore in the hundreds of millions (remember, casualties = killed + wounded + captured + missing). It utterly devastated two continents, wrecked havoc across dozens of countries, and almost wiped out a number of religious and ethnic groups, especially European Jews and the Roma.

Atrocities were committed en masse. From the Bataan death march in the Philippines to the Nazi death camps in Poland to the rape of Nanjing to the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden to untold numbers of massacres, rapes, and other crimes against humanity. It was a war that sometimes brought out the very best in human nature, but more often the very worst as well. Terms like evil are tossed around far too easily in today's parlance, but the death regimes of Japan and Germany and even the Soviet Union can clearly and easily be described in such term.

But all that being said, despite the horror of the nukings, despite the dramatic impact that it had, despite all the claims that Japan really was on the verge of surrender, let's get the facts straight.

1) Japan was not on the verge of surrender. Sure, it was slowly beginning to be discussed, and many claim that if we removed the abdication requirement of Hirohito that the war could have ended prior to the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is nothing more that whitewashing the past and looking at the end of the war with 20/20 vision. This is what the Allies knew..... the Japanese became an overly fanatical and warlike country due in large part to the cult of personality that had formed around the mostly powerless emperor. Allied powers initially believed that keeping him in power would, in fact, just push off future conflicts much in the same way that Versailles merely delayed the endgame of WWI in Europe for a generation. Also, note how fanatical the resistance that Japanese soldiers gave on every single island that we battled over. We're talking about battles where 90%+ of the soldiers fought to the death and, in battles on islands with civilian populations, often ended in massacring their own people rather than let them fall into American hands (which a very pervasive propaganda machine led many to believe were raping monsters). Even more, note how even after the nukings were carried out, a portion of the military attempted to overthrow the emperor to prevent his surrender. With all this information in mind, the Allies clearly thought that the Japanese were willing to fight on.

2) With all that in mind, the costs of waging a land invasion of the Japanese mainland were, in short, astronomical. People may like to claim that their estimates were inflated, but that doesn't change the fact that American policy planners really believed that a land invasion would lead to the deaths and woundings of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the deaths of potentially tens of millions of Japanese. In fact, in preparation of the invasion, we began making en masse in preparation for the losses they expected to suffer. To this day, there are still 120,000 WWII era Purple Hearts in stock (at least as of a few years ago), despite all the ones that have been awarded in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the past six decades.

3) Logistically, there would've been only two alternatives to nuking or invading, either increased conventional bombing campaigns or enacting a blockade. Just to give you a reminder, more people died in a single day during the firebombing of Tokyo than died in either atomic blast. And a blockade of Japan would've resulted in mass starvation, as evident by the fact that Japan was already starving by the time that the bombs were dropped and by the fact that thousands of Japanese died from malnutrition-related problems in the weeks after the Occupation began, in spite of the massive amount of foodstuffs and medicine that MacArthur started sending in.

4) Look at the regional theater. China was still suffering losses in huge quantities. The Soviet Union was preparing to (and, indeed, did) invade Japanese Manchukuo (Manchuria). Had it not been for the dual punch of the Soviet invasion and the American nuking, you'd better believe that the Japanese would've tried to hold out even longer, Hirohito in power or not. Additionally, look what happened after the war. The Soviets were prepared to take all of Korea, but they stopped because the Americans asked them to. Do you really think that they would've stopped if America didn't display a willingness to use their exclusive nuclear power? Do you think that Korea would be better off right now if all of Korea was under Northern control? Instead of having one totalitarian regime and one thriving democracy on the peninsula, there'd just be a single totalitarian government. And, with all of Korea, so you think that the Soviets wouldn't have wanted a piece of Japan as well? They could have very well demanded a North and South Japan, which clearly would have worsened the situation for the Japanese up to this day.

So, with all of this in mind, I really don't see how you could possibly say that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't justified. It's not a matter of what's right. War is almost never like that. What it's a matter of is what is the lesser of two evils. Would you rather have inflicted horrific damage on a portion of a country in exchange for a better chance for peace, prosperity, and overall lower casualties or would you rather have a prolonged war with greater suffering, even more widespread destruction, greater fragmentation, and more potential for open conflicts?

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K181 posted...

Here are my opinions.

Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrific? Of course.

Should we be proud of the fact that we're the only country to have engaged in nuclear war? Hell the **** no.

Should we feel horrible for the suffering and pain that it caused, both on the victims, survivors, and national psyche of Japan? You'd better believe it.

Was it justified? Damn right it was.

World War II was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the single most horrific event in human history. It was a truly global affair, with fatalities potentially as high as 75 million and casualties obviously therefore in the hundreds of millions (remember, casualties = killed + wounded + captured + missing). It utterly devastated two continents, wrecked havoc across dozens of countries, and almost wiped out a number of religious and ethnic groups, especially European Jews and the Roma.

Atrocities were committed en masse. From the Bataan death march in the Philippines to the Nazi death camps in Poland to the rape of Nanjing to the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden to untold numbers of massacres, rapes, and other crimes against humanity. It was a war that sometimes brought out the very best in human nature, but more often the very worst as well. Terms like evil are tossed around far too easily in today's parlance, but the death regimes of Japan and Germany and even the Soviet Union can clearly and easily be described in such term.

But all that being said, despite the horror of the nukings, despite the dramatic impact that it had, despite all the claims that Japan really was on the verge of surrender, let's get the facts straight.

1) Japan was not on the verge of surrender. Sure, it was slowly beginning to be discussed, and many claim that if we removed the abdication requirement of Hirohito that the war could have ended prior to the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is nothing more that whitewashing the past and looking at the end of the war with 20/20 vision. This is what the Allies knew..... the Japanese became an overly fanatical and warlike country due in large part to the cult of personality that had formed around the mostly powerless emperor. Allied powers initially believed that keeping him in power would, in fact, just push off future conflicts much in the same way that Versailles merely delayed the endgame of WWI in Europe for a generation. Also, note how fanatical the resistance that Japanese soldiers gave on every single island that we battled over. We're talking about battles where 90%+ of the soldiers fought to the death and, in battles on islands with civilian populations, often ended in massacring their own people rather than let them fall into American hands (which a very pervasive propaganda machine led many to believe were raping monsters). Even more, note how even after the nukings were carried out, a portion of the military attempted to overthrow the emperor to prevent his surrender. With all this information in mind, the Allies clearly thought that the Japanese were willing to fight on.

2) With all that in mind, the costs of waging a land invasion of the Japanese mainland were, in short, astronomical. People may like to claim that their estimates were inflated, but that doesn't change the fact that American policy planners really believed that a land invasion would lead to the deaths and woundings of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the deaths of potentially tens of millions of Japanese. In fact, in preparation of the invasion, we began making en masse in preparation for the losses they expected to suffer. To this day, there are still 120,000 WWII era Purple Hearts in stock, despite all the ones that have been awarded in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the past six decades.

3) Logistically, there would've been only two alternatives to nuking or invading, either increased conventional bombing campaigns or enacting a blockade. Just to give you a reminder, more people died in a single day during the firebombing of Tokyo than died in either atomic blast. And a blockade of Japan would've resulted in mass starvation, as evident by the fact that Japan was already starving by the time that the bombs were dropped and by the fact that thousands of Japanese died from malnutrition-related problems in the weeks after the Occupation began, in spite of the massive amount of foodstuffs and medicine that MacArthur started sending in.

4) Look at the regional theater. China was still suffering losses in huge quantities. The Soviet Union was preparing to (and, indeed, did) invade Japanese Manchukuo (Manchuria). Had it not been for the dual punch of the Soviet invasion and the American nuking, you'd better believe that the Japanese would've tried to hold out even longer, Hirohito in power or not. Additionally, look what happened after the war. The Soviets were prepared to take all of Korea, but they stopped because the Americans asked them to. Do you really think that they would've stopped if America didn't display a willingness to use their exclusive nuclear power? Do you think that Korea would be better off right now if all of Korea was under Northern control? Instead of having one totalitarian regime and one thriving democracy on the peninsula, there'd just be a single totalitarian government. And, with all of Korea, so you think that the Soviets wouldn't have wanted a piece of Japan as well? They could have very well demanded a North and South Japan, which clearly would have worsened the situation for the Japanese up to this day.

So, with all of this in mind, I really don't see how you could possibly say that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't justified. It's not a matter of what's right. War is almost never like that. What it's a matter of is what is the lesser of two evils. Would you rather have inflicted horrific damage on a portion of a country in exchange for a better chance for peace, prosperity, and overall lower casualties or would you rather have a prolonged war with greater suffering, even more widespread destruction, greater fragmentation, and more potential for open conflicts?

Where do you copy this?
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treewojima posted...

I mean, he takes his name from Gul Dukat of DS9 fame, and the Cardassians were overtly militaristic and fascist, so

oh lol

K181 posted...

and even the Soviet Union

thanks for dropping this dog whistle early on so I didnt waste my time reading the rest of your post


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Aki_Sora posted...

Where do you copy this?

A post of mine that I saved from several years back.

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Shablagoo posted...

oh lol

thanks for dropping this dog whistle early on so I didnt waste my time reading the rest of your post

Aww, pinko sad when Papa Stalin gets called out?

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K181 posted...

A post of mine that I saved from several years back.

Lol nice.
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K181 posted...

Aww, pinko sad when Papa Stalin gets called out?

Youre the direct opposite of a pinko.

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K181 posted...

#26

^This guy gets it.

You an debate about the first one. And I can see both sides. But the second was on was just a show a power. Japan was willing to give up before that.

Trelve posted...

It brought the war to a quicker end, and stopped the further spread of communism.

Why does that matter?


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Shablagoo posted...

Youre the direct opposite of a pinko.

A blue-o?

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All those casualty estimates you see thrown around in regards to an invasion of Japan are bullshit, its ignorant amateur historians who believe anything they read.

The military estimates were not anywhere close to the millions people claim.

They dropped the bomb to see what it would do, it was an act of terrorism not war.

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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

All those casualty estimates you see thrown around in regards to an invasion of Japan are bullshit, its ignorant amateur historians who believe anything they read.

The military estimates were not anywhere close to the millions people claim.

They dropped the bomb to see what it would do, it was an act of terrorism not war.

Then why'd the Americans start mass making huge quantities of Purple Hearts beyond anything needed up to thst date?

And there were loads of estimates of enormous casualty figures far in excess of the two nukings, not to mention that additional traditional bombing campaigns would've killed even more, too.

The experiment of it was part of the equation as well, hence why there were cities previously left untouched, but that adds more credence for it being clear that policy planners flat out didn't believe that the Japanese were close to surrendering.

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K181 posted...

A blue-o?

Hey, that's baby blue-o to you, champ.

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What is everyone's opinion on Russia making the Tzar.


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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

What is everyone's opinion on Russia making the Tzar.

Do Russia drop Tzar at any country and kill many human?
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K181 posted...

(Copy and paste of a saved post of mine)

Here are my opinions.

Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrific? Of course.

Should we be proud of the fact that we're the only country to have engaged in nuclear war? Hell the **** no.

Should we feel horrible for the suffering and pain that it caused, both on the victims, survivors, and national psyche of Japan? You'd better believe it.

Was it justified? Damn right it was.

World War II was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the single most horrific event in human history. It was a truly global affair, with fatalities potentially as high as 75 million and casualties obviously therefore in the hundreds of millions (remember, casualties = killed + wounded + captured + missing). It utterly devastated two continents, wrecked havoc across dozens of countries, and almost wiped out a number of religious and ethnic groups, especially European Jews and the Roma.

Atrocities were committed en masse. From the Bataan death march in the Philippines to the Nazi death camps in Poland to the rape of Nanjing to the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden to untold numbers of massacres, rapes, and other crimes against humanity. It was a war that sometimes brought out the very best in human nature, but more often the very worst as well. Terms like evil are tossed around far too easily in today's parlance, but the death regimes of Japan and Germany and even the Soviet Union can clearly and easily be described in such term.

But all that being said, despite the horror of the nukings, despite the dramatic impact that it had, despite all the claims that Japan really was on the verge of surrender, let's get the facts straight.

1) Japan was not on the verge of surrender. Sure, it was slowly beginning to be discussed, and many claim that if we removed the abdication requirement of Hirohito that the war could have ended prior to the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is nothing more that whitewashing the past and looking at the end of the war with 20/20 vision. This is what the Allies knew..... the Japanese became an overly fanatical and warlike country due in large part to the cult of personality that had formed around the mostly powerless emperor. Allied powers initially believed that keeping him in power would, in fact, just push off future conflicts much in the same way that Versailles merely delayed the endgame of WWI in Europe for a generation. Also, note how fanatical the resistance that Japanese soldiers gave on every single island that we battled over. We're talking about battles where 90%+ of the soldiers fought to the death and, in battles on islands with civilian populations, often ended in massacring their own people rather than let them fall into American hands (which a very pervasive propaganda machine led many to believe were raping monsters). Even more, note how even after the nukings were carried out, a portion of the military attempted to overthrow the emperor to prevent his surrender. With all this information in mind, the Allies clearly thought that the Japanese were willing to fight on.

2) With all that in mind, the costs of waging a land invasion of the Japanese mainland were, in short, astronomical. People may like to claim that their estimates were inflated, but that doesn't change the fact that American policy planners really believed that a land invasion would lead to the deaths and woundings of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the deaths of potentially tens of millions of Japanese. In fact, in preparation of the invasion, we began making en masse in preparation for the losses they expected to suffer. To this day, there are still 120,000 WWII era Purple Hearts in stock (at least as of a few years ago), despite all the ones that have been awarded in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the past six decades.

3) Logistically, there would've been only two alternatives to nuking or invading, either increased conventional bombing campaigns or enacting a blockade. Just to give you a reminder, more people died in a single day during the firebombing of Tokyo than died in either atomic blast. And a blockade of Japan would've resulted in mass starvation, as evident by the fact that Japan was already starving by the time that the bombs were dropped and by the fact that thousands of Japanese died from malnutrition-related problems in the weeks after the Occupation began, in spite of the massive amount of foodstuffs and medicine that MacArthur started sending in.

4) Look at the regional theater. China was still suffering losses in huge quantities. The Soviet Union was preparing to (and, indeed, did) invade Japanese Manchukuo (Manchuria). Had it not been for the dual punch of the Soviet invasion and the American nuking, you'd better believe that the Japanese would've tried to hold out even longer, Hirohito in power or not. Additionally, look what happened after the war. The Soviets were prepared to take all of Korea, but they stopped because the Americans asked them to. Do you really think that they would've stopped if America didn't display a willingness to use their exclusive nuclear power? Do you think that Korea would be better off right now if all of Korea was under Northern control? Instead of having one totalitarian regime and one thriving democracy on the peninsula, there'd just be a single totalitarian government. And, with all of Korea, so you think that the Soviets wouldn't have wanted a piece of Japan as well? They could have very well demanded a North and South Japan, which clearly would have worsened the situation for the Japanese up to this day.

So, with all of this in mind, I really don't see how you could possibly say that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't justified. It's not a matter of what's right. War is almost never like that. What it's a matter of is what is the lesser of two evils. Would you rather have inflicted horrific damage on a portion of a country in exchange for a better chance for peace, prosperity, and overall lower casualties or would you rather have a prolonged war with greater suffering, even more widespread destruction, greater fragmentation, and more potential for open conflicts?

Warfare is supposed to be ruthless and brutal.

Not this proxy shit we've been doing the last 70 years.

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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

What is everyone's opinion on Russia making the Tzar.

"LOOK AT MY ONE MASSIVE PENIS THAT I'LL USE TO FUCK YOUR ASS WITH IF YOU FUCK ME IN THE ASS FIRST"

Aki_Sora posted...

Do Russia drop Tzar at any country and kill many human?

At the time it would have forced retaliation.

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You know, I've never seen it addressed that the way we justify Japan's nuking as the entire country being these rabid loyalists intending to fight to the death is some orc-like dehumanization and it's not even something we do with the Nazis.

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Crono99 posted...

Who died and made you the arbiter of warfare?

People going to fight and maybe die that adds up to no real goal.

Go all the way or don't go at all.

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Snip-N-Snails posted...

You know, I've never seen it addressed that the way we justify Japan's nuking as the entire country being these rabid loyalists intending to fight to the death is some orc-like dehumanization and it's not even something we do with the Nazis.

we are apparently pinkos if we suggest that human beings are human beings

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To be fair Japan would have done the same if they had the Bomb first.

Didn't they attempt to send incendiary balloon bombs to destroy the West Coast?

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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

People going to fight and maybe die that adds up to no real goal.

Go all the way or don't go at all.

This couch tough guy, fuck you

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do i think it was wrong to massacre hundreds of thousands of human beings simply to send a message to a geopolitical rival?

yeah, i tend to think that was pretty wrong.