Hiroshima at 75: bitter row persists over US decision to drop the bomb

You have persisted with this without giving one single authoritative source that agrees with you. We would have been fighting on Japanese soil. They would have resisted even more than they did in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Hundreds of thousands of American lives would have lost.

 

Ike.

Japan was crushed and prepared to surrender.

What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is NEVER okay regardless.

 

There's been a debate about Japan's willingness to surrender, but the debate began in the 1960's and 70's.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/12/if-the-atomic-bomb-had-not-been-used/376238/

From what I read, Japan was ready to fight on. Only to have some revisionist come up with another theory that they would have surrendered. I do think Okinawa was a prime example what an invasion of Japan would have taken place. But you're free to believe otherwise. It's this day and age we live in where events in history are taken completely out of context of the times.

Sure, dropping the bombs was inhuman. So too was the bombing of London, the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo. Fighting and war was completely different in WWII. 200,000 civilians lost their lives in Dresden, another 100,000 in the firebombing of Tokyo. London got off easy with 32,000 dead.

The problem is Dresden and Tokyo were as much military targets with all the industry located there, the manufacturing of military equipment, supplies, airplanes, ammunition etc. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also industrial cities helping Japan continue the war.

I wasn't born in 1945, but my dad was in the Pacific at the time and made it home alive for me to be born in 1946. There's no guarantee he would have if he was one of those who would have invaded Japan. But let me finish as one who been there by saying all war is inhuman. But as long as there are human beings, you'll have war and killings.

But in the context of the times, I'd say it was the right decision. Revisionist history and or looking back through 21st century eyes and mores, maybe not. But you and me might not be here today if those bombs weren't dropped. At least I might not have been. I know nothing of your history. I also don't think you defend the dropping of the bombs, you don't defend WWII and war, you accept it as fact. There's no changing history, the best we can do is to place everything into the context of the times the event took place in the hopes of understanding it. If one doesn't understand the reasons, the whys, if one doesn't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Perhaps the big difference here is I can look back on the bombings through 1945 eyes whereas your looking back at it through 2020 eyes. And let us not forget, it was the Japanese who started the war with as FDR put it, an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. Without that attack, there would have been no atomic bombs. Now of course there are dozen of conspiracy theories out there that say FDR provoked the attack by his sanctions he placed on Japan for their invasion of China. But that is left for another day.

 

I'm looking at it through the morally sane eyes of a man who lived two thousand years ago, the smartest man who ever lived (& alive at the time), and our greatest president, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe at the time; no 2020 at play.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

There are people you can negotiate with, and people you can't. Those you can't- you must either destroy or they will destroy you. Like it or not, that is a truth of life. They make that rule by the position they take, and they leave you only those two choices. You may feel differently, but I will never choose to be destroyed so that such a person can continue to live and destroy others.

 

Bombing those two helpless cities has nothing to do with such a creed.

It was and is wrong.

Always.

 

There was approximately ZERO public support in the U.S. for continuing the war any beyond the surrender of Japan. We had problems enough hanging on to public support for that long.

They didn't warn Nagasaki. Nagasaki wasn't even the original target. Kokura was but it was covered by clouds. And that was not why Hiroshima was selected.

 

No!
Not without a declaration of war
thus, "infamy"

 

What makes you think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were helpless?

Why are you so squeamish about bombing civilians? No doubt you'll simply respond with snide remarks and name calling.

 

Ike never said Japan was ready to surrender.

What was NEVER okay was to be attacked by Japan to start with.

It was a war which we did not start. We would have gotten many more casualties if we invaded Japan, which all the experts, especially at that time, said would be necessary..

That is the way of wars. Our people are more worthy of living than our enemy's people.

I had relatives which would have likely lost their lives during an invasion of mainland Japan. A pitchfork can kill you just as dead as a gun.

 

Hiroshima had tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers awaiting deployment to resist our invasion, and was the military headquarters in charge of repelling that invasion.

Kokura Arsenal (the intended target of the second A-bomb) was a massive (4100 feet by 2000 feet) arms production complex.

 

Attacks on military targets are not genocide.

Hiroshima was a huge military port with tens of thousands of soldiers awaiting deployment to resist our invasion. It was also the military headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion.

Your definition of genocide is indeed inaccurate. However, wartime strikes on military targets do not fit even your inaccurate definition of the term.

Not when the bombing is trying to destroy military targets.

The UK is responsible for the firestorm that killed all of those people. US bombers focused on attacking the railyards.

 

Then they should have done so instead of waiting around for us to nuke them twice.

My opinion differs from yours. I feel that airstrikes against military targets are OK in wartime.

The A-bombs were dropped on military targets, so were not in any way terrorism.

Defending an airstrike against a military target does not defend the slaughter of civilians at the World Trade Center.

You are the only person here who is doing this.

My opinion differs from yours. I feel that airstrikes against military targets are OK in wartime.

Wrong again. Everything that I wrote is true.

What's wrong with that?

You are the only person here who lacks an education on this subject.

The rest of us are well informed.

 

Hiroshima received leaflets warning that we were about to destroy the city.

We didn't tell them that we were going to attack it with an A-bomb, but they knew it was about to be destroyed.

 

They were not warned of the A-bombs specifically, but I think Nagasaki received generic "we're coming to bomb your city" leaflets.

They should have spared Yokohama from conventional attack. It would have made a much better alternate than Nagasaki did.

 

Why is it immoral to kill people wholesale but morally acceptable to kill them retail?

By the way, in almost every war the U.S. fights we're criticized because

"the people we killed didn't even have a chance to fight back".

MOST people killed in a war have no chance to fight back. Because you try to avoid people that are so prepared. That is simple common sense. I remember the legendary Sargent Alvin York I think said that "if you are shooting a column of men you always shoot the ones in the rear first because if you shoot the ones in the front first those in the rear see what is happening and scatter."

Though fighter pilots have promoted their image as "knights of the sky" since aerial combat begin, most fighters are shot down by aircraft that they never even see.

 

Ridiculous question.

Ditto. Irrelevant ad hominem.

 

Educate yourself - Ike said Japan was on its knees.

Japan: Crushed and prepared to surrender

Terrorism: Never okay

Adherents of Hitler and bin Laden may defend mass atrocities and horrendous terrorism, but I never will.

 

I would appreciate a more "accurate" definition of genocide.
Between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki died. Civilians.
In Dresden it was around 25,000 civilians and you avoided whether it was the right thing to do no matter who was the perpetrator..

 

Fictional & morally insane arguments for terrorism are grotesque.

 

Like a broken clock, you HAVE presented a fact here - well done.

The act of bombing Hiroshima still the single most horrendous act of terrorism in human history, followed closely by Nagasaki.

Defending crimes against humanity is nothing less than morally insane.

 

The other day on the 6th, my Wife and I went into a Japanese restaurant commemorate the anniversary of the bombing.

All we ordered was mushrooms.

 

Do you try to be mean to everyone or just Japanese?

 

You are the only person here who lacks education on this subject. The rest of us are well informed.

Wrong again. Everything that I said is true.

I've presented lots of facts. Everything that I've said is true in all of my posts.

The A-bombs were dropped on military targets, so were not in any way terrorism.

The A-bombs were dropped on military targets, so were not in any way a crime against humanity.

 

Genocide is an attempt to extinguish a race or culture, either worldwide or within some geographic area.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

Not all civilians. Those figures include all the soldiers that were killed at Hiroshima.

I commend you though for posting accurate death totals. Many places grossly inflate the figures.

I haven't studied Dresden well enough to assess the nature of the UK's targeting.

I'm sure though that if I did study it, I would find that they were attempting to destroy valid military objectives.