NationStates Jolt Archive

In 1945, the American government made the monumentous decision to drop two atomic weapons on Japan in order to bring about its immediate surrender. The instant death tolls are estimated at:

Hiroshima at 70000 to 80000

Nagasaki at 35000 to 40000


Here is an official US report on the death toll figures and the proportion of the casuality rates and the destruction rates:

Nuclearfiles.org (http://www.nuclearfiles.org/redocuments/1946/460619-bombing-survey1.html)

However these figures do not take into account the huge suffering that the survivors and their descendants endured. Survivors had no water, no hopsitals, no sewage systems. The badly burned and injured could not be treated. Many would die from radiation sickness and cancer within a decade. Those who didn't would go to give birth to deformed children and such children are being born in Nagasaki and Hiroshima today. Cancer rates are still high in these two cities and so many more still die from atomic bomb related illness. This has lead some historians to make a rough estimate of 350,000 people killed by the two atomic bombs, both indirectly and directly.

At the time, the US government made this intial estimate at the losses of invading what was left of Japan:

I was informed that such operations might be expected to cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone. Additional large losses might be expected among our allies

However Rufus E.Miles, a senior fellow of Princeton University and a retired US official with 30 years service, has this to say:

American deaths prevented by the two bombs would almost certainly not have exceeded 20,000 and would probably have been much lower, perhaps even zero.

Source:Real History (http://216.55.175.240/History/General/atombomb/strange_myth/article.html)

To what extent were the Japanese close to surrender?

The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war over Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…

The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb had nothing to do with end of the war at all

I felt…that the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective blockade would, in course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials.

Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives…

Please note that all of the above were commanders during World War Two and their professional opinions must be respected. We have the force of a US President in the mix.

The entry of the U.S.S.R. into the war would, together with the foregoing factors, convince most Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat.
If…the Japanese people, as well as their leaders, were persuaded both that absolute defeat was inevitable and that unconditional surrender did not imply national annihilation, surrender might follow very quickly

When Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.

The historian, Doug Long, has this to say about the necessity of dropping the bomb due to imminent Japanese surrender

The Japanese sent messages to their ambassador in Moscow stating that they were seeking peace and were, in fact, interested in pursuing the American offer of surrender under the terms of the Atlantic Charter. The Americans were aware of this at the time.

The U.S. had long since broken the Japanese code for sending messages in an operation known as MAGIC. In July, 1945 MAGIC intercepted numerous messages between Tokyo and Moscow dealing with the subject of peace. One from July 25, 1945 read in part: “The fact that the Americans alluded to the Atlantic Charter is particularly worthy of attention at this time. It is impossible to accept an unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we would like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter.”

The Japanese messages intercepted by the U.S. in July showed the Japanese government’s view toward the war had changed. However, the U.S. didn’t keep up with this change, and the advantage of combining diplomatic methods with military methods was largely missed.

The opportunity for peace hovered over the situation, but it was not seized upon by either the Americans, the British or the Soviets even though all knew that the possibility existed.

The source for this and most of the above quotes is:

Challenging the A-Bomb (http://www.angelfire.com/ga/wkb/abombchallenge.html)

So what conclusions have I made?

1) The American administration were determined to use their new toy in order to prove their dominance against the communist USSR and to show the world that they were the new super power. Why they had to take 105,000 lives (conservative estimate there) in order to do this shows the extreme ruthlessness of the American government in regards to Japan - indeed so ruthless was this that Stalin actually called the bombing of Japan a 'barbarity' - Stalin being the man at least 10 million Russian deaths can be directly attributed to.

2) The American administration wanted revenge for Pearl Harbour. No one likes being kicked up the arse when they least expect it and I suppose most Americans were still angry and shocked at the attack. But is it even remotely morally reprehensable to kill 105,000 Japanese innocents in revenge for an attack on active US servicemen? I seriously doubt it. Revenge can be no real justification for an attack of this magnitude.

3) Preservation of allied lives is indeed a subsidary factor but I, as the numerous quotes above point out (from Churchill to Eisenhower to the Joint Intelligence Committee plus many more senior military officials and historians), seriously doubt that Japan would have continued to fight once the USSR entered the war and a blockade had been imposed. Even if the allies had been forced to fight through Japan, it is highly doubtful that the death toll would have risen to anyway near the figure estimated by the President and his government.

4) The Americans deliberately kept the issue of Japanese surrender out of the Potsdam conference and ensured that any peace treaties offered lacked the singular Japanese stipulation: that their Emperor be allowed to remain. This weaving and dodgying on the behalf of the US government lead me to conclude that the US wanted peace through one way only: through the haze of a mushroom cloud. By making this singular, limited concession to the Japanese, it is very likely that they would have surrendered to the Americans.

5) A final contributing factor to this decision could have been worries over a USSR presence in the Pacifics. This is probably the one reason which has some logical thought behind it. However this stand of situation between the Western allies and Russia was also being played out in Eastern Europe.

It is my opinion that the dropping of the two atomic bombs was an unnecessarily brutal and savage act of mass murder on innocent Japanese civilians. Their country was within days of surrendering with a singular, pitiful condition: to allow their symbolic Emperor to remain. The USSR, British and US forces could have battled and besieged the Japanese Home Isles with estimated losses that were, at most, 1/5 of those lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese wre close to surrender and the American government knew that the USSR and a simple naval blockade would probably have been the only pressure needed to push Japan into surrender - this is the united opinion of numerous generals, air force commanders, navy staff, historians, one President and one Prime Minister. Effectively, the use of the atomic bomb on Japan was the equivalent of using a naplam to burn down a single hedge row. It was done not out of care for US lives but out of a desire to flagrantly show off to the USSR and the rest of the old world that America was now the only country that ever could matter. Such an act is not excusable on that basis and it is with that in mind, I place the charge of war crimes in Japan firmly at the door of the United States of America, the land of liberty and justice for all. All it appears except 105,000 Japanese innocents and their descendants, guilty only of supporting their country. Just like everyone else.

It's the sad truth but no one had the imagination to fully realize how powerful, destructive and absolutely devestating an atomic detonation on a city would be. Now we know and not a single bomb has been dropped since.

It might as well have been when we only had two instead of somebody pushing the button during the cold war just to see what would happen.

I think we tend to think more thought went into the use of the bomb then actually did. The President was told he had a big bomb. War was still going on. President orders dropping of said bomb due to current state of war. The moral angle wasn't even considered until afterwards.

You are quite welcome to believe what you will about that-thing is, total casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't add up to Dresden and Berlin,both of which were done with ordinary firebombs.
It's also interesting to note that there was an attempted coup d'tat to prevent the Emperor from ordering the surrender-this by radicalized elements within the Nipponjin military in the 72 hours after Nagasaki was destroyed.

The "Horrific Power" of the Atom bomb was that a single plane could do what took whole wings of bombers to do. The Short-term effect of the Atom bomb was to stun the defending military into uselessness and convince the Emperor to surrender before things got worse. (Which is the likely outcome of a sustained seige followed by a ground war in 1945.) Casualties from continued conventional attacks likely would have far-and-away exceeded the loss of life inflicted by two bombs that forced the issue.

There's a base rule to consider also: In wartime, you want to kill the enemy and break his stuff, without endangering your own people in the process. This is called "Minimizing risks". In Germany (where we did NOT drop atomic weapons, and where the Head of State did NOT announce his desire to surrender) the 'Werewolf' problem endured for several months (Local terrorist cells and 'freedom fighters' ) , After the Emperor's surrender, allied occupation forces had little to no resistance and almost zero terrorism to deal with in the aftermath.

Imperial Japan was unique in that, one man (The Emperor) had the moral-authority to tell his Generals to lay down their arms-and they did.
At that time, the Emperor was seen by many of his people as a living god-if god tells you not to fight, you don't fight. This is why the target wasn't Tokyo.

I have no doubt that American troops could have subdued Japan in 1945 and 46 through mean-force-of-bodies, but the casualties would have been unacceptably high with the presence of another weapon.
Likewise, Japan could have been 'seiged' into submission-at the more widespread cost of lives through starvation, disease, and broken infrastructure across the entire nation.
(Those were, incidentally, bad enough without extending it.)

Further, certainly the Soviets (once Japan was nearly defeated) were willing to come in-they secured quite a bit of the Korean Peninsula, and provided their Maoist colleagues with quite a bit of material support. No doubt Seoul would have been a wonderful base for the Red Army if the hostilities had been allowed to drag out in a sustained seige.

Killing one madman to put another in an even greater position of physical power doesn't seem to be that good an exchange-Stalin was every bit as nasty as Hitler, with the exception that he wasn't delusional (This makes that worthy much harder to defeat or contain.)

Forcing the issue saved lives on both sides-it saved lives in cities other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki (because American bombardment of strategic targets was no longer a necessity-of-war), it saved lives because supplies and aid could be moved in after the surrender, and before too many 'extra' casualties were generated. It saved lives of Servicemen in the post-war occupation, and allowed the Marshall Plan to be implemented while there still was a legitimate authority in Japan who could order and enforce the surrender.

You can tell you have said something intelligent on NS when the responses don't fill a page. Really, no one can argue with you on this. The president said "Hey, we got a big bomb, lets use it!" And they used them. There's no real way to defend that.

I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms.

'patriotic American who posts on forums' is just about an oxymoron these days

You can tell you have said something intelligent on NS when the responses don't fill a page. Really, no one can argue with you on this. The president said "Hey, we got a big bomb, lets use it!" And they used them. There's no real way to defend that.

Haha, that's because the people with the counter-arguments didn't feel like writing a two sentance reply just to feel like they are on the winning side. ;)

I refer to the reply above you.

Hm. I don't think most people who would justify the A-Bomb do so on the grounds that the Japs "deserved it" for starting the war. :rolleyes:

All this bloody work for 2 responses. I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms. Oh well back to the drawing board.
Oh, because I'm patriotic I must be ignorant, eh?

...In any case, I'm neutral on the subject.

Hm. I don't think most people who would justify the A-Bomb do so on the grounds that the Japs "deserved it" for starting the war. :rolleyes:
Maybe, I justify based on the simple fact that the Japanese are some of the toughest, most fanatical sunsabitches ever to pick up a knife. There were Jap officers in responsible positions (even in the field) who were convinced they could turn-the-war-around after losing Okinawa and having their sea-lanes cut! Japan imports about 40% of their food... The report linked in the starter-post, and the 'assessments' by Admirals with no face-to-face combat, are both optimistic to the point of lunacy. The Nipponjin had, up to that time, been beating invaders for centuries. Surrender was shame for the whole Family in a culture where that Shame was more important than LIFE.

The only way to get an end that wouldn't involve Millions (rahter than thousands) of dead Jap civilians, was to incinerate a couple of cities in a way that would get the Emperor's attention- i.e. "One Plane, One Bomb, one City" (They already knew we had thousands of planes...).

Only the Emperor could surrender the country, and still have something of a country left standing, and his position insulated him from the suffering of the common people enough that a sustained embargo would have been about as effective a method as we've seen recently in Iraq.
(NOT very effective at all.)

Why? Because, if the Emperor tells you to do it, it's not a dishonour on your whole family line.

You are quite welcome to believe what you will about that-thing is, total casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't add up to Dresden and Berlin,both of which were done with ordinary firebombs.
It's also interesting to note that there was an attempted coup d'tat to prevent the Emperor from ordering the surrender-this by radicalized elements within the Nipponjin military in the 72 hours after Nagasaki was destroyed.

I dont deny the death tolls of Dresden and Berlin probably make them war crimes. However that is another topic for another time.


The "Horrific Power" of the Atom bomb was that a single plane could do what took whole wings of bombers to do. The Short-term effect of the Atom bomb was to stun the defending military into uselessness and convince the Emperor to surrender before things got worse. (Which is the likely outcome of a sustained seige followed by a ground war in 1945.) Casualties from continued conventional attacks likely would have far-and-away exceeded the loss of life inflicted by two bombs that forced the issue..

Please read the quote which state the losses encountered would have been probably in the region of 20,000 at most. Also, do you think creating the effect of stunning the already demoralised military justified 105,000 dead?


There's a base rule to consider also: In wartime, you want to kill the enemy and break his stuff, without endangering your own people in the process. This is called "Minimizing risks". In Germany (where we did NOT drop atomic weapons, and where the Head of State did NOT announce his desire to surrender) the 'Werewolf' problem endured for several months (Local terrorist cells and 'freedom fighters' ) , After the Emperor's surrender, allied occupation forces had little to no resistance and almost zero terrorism to deal with in the aftermath.

Breaking his stuff (yes I am aware of the concept) could have been achieved by blockading the Islands. Food shortages would have starved them into demoralisation and they would have been so grateful when the Americans arrived that they probably would have not attacked. Also the Japanese would have surrendered with their Emperor was intact even if the US did not drop the nuclear bombs so therefore the surrender would have been precisely the same except 105,000 innocents would still be living.


Imperial Japan was unique in that, one man (The Emperor) had the moral-authority to tell his Generals to lay down their arms-and they did.
At that time, the Emperor was seen by many of his people as a living god-if god tells you not to fight, you don't fight. This is why the target wasn't Tokyo.

Once again the Japanese attempts at surrender did stipulate that the Emperor be allowed to remain so once again had the surrender been made without the nukes then order could still have been maintained


I have no doubt that American troops could have subdued Japan in 1945 and 46 through mean-force-of-bodies, but the casualties would have been unacceptably high with the presence of another weapon.
Likewise, Japan could have been 'seiged' into submission-at the more widespread cost of lives through starvation, disease, and broken infrastructure across the entire nation.
(Those were, incidentally, bad enough without extending it.)


A month's worth of blockade would not have created the situation of 105,000 dead. It is in severe doubt that the allied losses would have been that high either. If the infrastructure was already poor, that would have meant the Japanese would have surrendered quicker under pressure, a bomb or no a bomb.


Further, certainly the Soviets (once Japan was nearly defeated) were willing to come in-they secured quite a bit of the Korean Peninsula, and provided their Maoist colleagues with quite a bit of material support. No doubt Seoul would have been a wonderful base for the Red Army if the hostilities had been allowed to drag out in a sustained seige.


Killing one madman to put another in an even greater position of physical power doesn't seem to be that good an exchange-Stalin was every bit as nasty as Hitler, with the exception that he wasn't delusional (This makes that worthy much harder to defeat or contain.)


It is doubtful because of the vast armed presence of the US forces and the British too. They would have acted as much as a deterrent as the nuclear bomb and so would have stopped an expansion.
Stalin was a mad man - in 1945 he had a heart attack which caused aterious sclerosis (sorry for spelling), the hardening of the brain arteries. This caused his many bad traits to be taken to manic levels - Molotov said that "after the war, he wasn't quite right in the head"


Forcing the issue saved lives on both sides-it saved lives in cities other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki (because American bombardment of strategic targets was no longer a necessity-of-war), it saved lives because supplies and aid could be moved in after the surrender, and before too many 'extra' casualties were generated. It saved lives of Servicemen in the post-war occupation, and allowed the Marshall Plan to be implemented while there still was a legitimate authority in Japan who could order and enforce the surrender.

Very nice and well thought out post. You remind me of me. Thanks.

I dont deny the death tolls of Dresden and Berlin probably make them war crimes. However that is another topic for another time.

No, they were Strategic Bombing missions to cripple industrial capacities feeding Hitler's military. Precision-guided munitions didn't exist at that time.



Please read the quote which state the losses encountered would have been probably in the region of 20,000 at most. Also, do you think creating the effect of stunning the already demoralised military justified 105,000 dead?


The Report was based on a western-european psychology, and was hopelessly optimistic. 20,000 american dead on a ten-to-one kill ratio (which the U.S. Marines generated in land campaigns all the way through the war) equals out to 200,000, not including innocent bystanders-who would have been in the line of fire (Japan's not that big, and artillery and aerial bombardment were kind of like hand-grenades...)


Breaking his stuff (yes I am aware of the concept) could have been achieved by blockading the Islands. Food shortages would have starved them into demoralisation and they would have been so grateful when the Americans arrived that they probably would have not attacked. Also the Japanese would have surrendered with their Emperor was intact even if the US did not drop the nuclear bombs so therefore the surrender would have been precisely the same except 105,000 innocents would still be living.

This is also unrealistically optimistic-Japan had been under seige (sea lanes cut, constant bombardment from Air bases) since 1943. The picture at the time was, quite simply, that if they hadn't realized they were whupped by now, they never would.



Once again the Japanese attempts at surrender did stipulate that the Emperor be allowed to remain so once again had the surrender been made without the nukes then order could still have been maintained


Note: The Emperor remains-but he was almost aced by his own guys. The Emperor had to Order the surrender-this is a fundamental cultural difference. How many Jap units were eagerly looking for allied units to surrender to? NOT the German situation at all.



A month's worth of blockade would not have created the situation of 105,000 dead. It is in severe doubt that the allied losses would have been that high either. If the infrastructure was already poor, that would have meant the Japanese would have surrendered quicker under pressure, a bomb or no a bomb.

Again, that 'month' is unreasonably optimistic-only a very poor strategist assumes that the enemy is going to do what he wants. Japan was under nearly constant firebombing, her sea-lanes were cut, her ports a shambles... and they were still resisting fanatically.
My Japanese Culture and History teacher was a child at that time, she showed us pictures of her class training to use spears on GI's when they landed.
I tend to believe the 69 year old lady who lived there over the forty-something whiteguy writing the revision.



It is doubtful because of the vast armed presence of the US forces and the British too. They would have acted as much as a deterrent as the nuclear bomb and so would have stopped an expansion.
Stalin was a mad man - in 1945 he had a heart attack which caused aterious sclerosis (sorry for spelling), the hardening of the brain arteries. This caused his many bad traits to be taken to manic levels - Molotov said that "after the war, he wasn't quite right in the head"

A 'vast armed presence' which wanted, more than anything else, to go home, and comes from nations with elected governments? The demobilization after the war wouldn't have been possible if we had to do in Japan what we had to do in Germany, and unlike Europe, the Allied holdings in Asia were precarious even late in the war-the Soviets could, with time, have rolled through. And you forget the Indigenous forces that were involved.


Very nice and well thought out post. You remind me of me. Thanks.

Thank you.

I think the americans were right to drop the bombs as the subsequent unconditional surrender of japan would have saved hundreds of thousands of american live in the invasion that wold have been needed. For the same reasons i support "bomber harris" in the raids over dresden and other german cities.

One of the reasons the japanese didnt surrender after the first bomb is at first they couldnt believe the destructive power of it so they sent some officials to hirroshema ti see the extent of the damage. The officials were delayed in getting their so the japanese didnt have the full facts and so didnt surrender before the second bomb.

All this bloody work for 2 responses. I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms. Oh well back to the drawing board.
Be careful. Some moderator might read this thread along with others and conclude that you're trolling.

A word to the wise should be sufficient.

All this bloody work for 2 responses. I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms. Oh well back to the drawing board.

Oh, get off your pedestal. Europe hasn't exactly had a sparkling history either comrade.

1. They didn't surrender after the first bomb. With that kind of zeal they would have never given up during an invasion, and that means ALOT more casualities.

2. The Japanese already commited war crimes earlier in the war.

3. All is fair in love an war :)

3. All is fair in love an war :)

I hate that kind of mentality. There are certain things that you just do not do in war. Attacking civilians is one of them. That is why the nuke is such an evil weapon.

Unlike conventional weapons such as missiles (which are aimed at attacking millitary instalations), the main purpose of the nuclear bomb is to destroy population centers...cities with people.

I do not view using nuclear weapons as "war crimes", as long as the attacker takes the time and responsibility to clean up the (radioactive) mess afterwards.

I hate that kind of mentality. There are certain things that you just do not do in war. Attacking civilians is one of them. That is why the nuke is such an evil weapon.

Unlike conventional weapons such as missiles (which are aimed at attacking millitary instalations), the main purpose of the nuclear bomb is to destroy population centers...cities with people.

Not really. During the cold war cities were low on the list in targets.

You're playing under different rules. In WWII wiping out civilians was standard policy on both sides. The goal of war is to END THE WAR VICTORIOUSLY. The generals, admirals, and politicians aren't fighting the war in such a way as to answer the moral objections of armchair philosophers 60 years later.

The wars we fight now are much 'cleaner' because the western powers aren't fighting for their own survival and we have precision weapons. World War II bombs were a matter of getting into the general vicinity with a few hundred bombers and carpet bombing the area.

Clausewitz taught that the goal of war is not to destroy the enemy's people, it's to break the enemy's will to fight. Nothing does this like an atom bomb or firebombing a city. Once a state of war exists you do anything to create this state. The only possible exception is when the use of a tactic or weapon means it will also be used on you (Cold War).

3. All is fair in love an war :)

If that is the case, why is the media harping about the use of chemical weapons in the old Iraqi regime, ethnic cleansing in Sudan (I think it was in Sudan, albeit the media is pretty quiet about that area, probably lacking in political ammunition) and various other weapons normally called 'horrific'?

Following this mentality, why bother people about their possession of these weapons? I mean all is fair isn't it?

Actually, I just thought about an amusing theory. What if the noise the US is making about nuclear profiliation isn't really based on an actual threat of it being used as a weapon, but rather because they see it as piracy of technology they failed to patent in time? The RIAA of nuclear technologies. /p

All this bloody work for 2 responses. I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms. Oh well back to the drawing board.

Your just sick at heart that Britain didn't get the bomb first. With nuclear leverage you might have held onto your tattered and frayed Empire. That's what all this anti Americanism is isn't it? We "Encouraged" you and France out of your slave Empires after WWII.

By the way I don't remember there being any any response from the UK over Hiroshima other than "Jolly Good!" at the end of WWII. The UK was happy as hell to see the Japanese burned after they handed England its ass all over Asia.

In 1945, the American government made the monumentous decision to drop two atomic weapons on Japan in order to bring about its immediate surrender. The instant death tolls are estimated at:

Hiroshima at 70000 to 80000

Nagasaki at 35000 to 40000


Here is an official US report on the death toll figures and the proportion of the casuality rates and the destruction rates:

Nuclearfiles.org (http://www.nuclearfiles.org/redocuments/1946/460619-bombing-survey1.html)

However these figures do not take into account the huge suffering that the survivors and their descendants endured. Survivors had no water, no hopsitals, no sewage systems. The badly burned and injured could not be treated. Many would die from radiation sickness and cancer within a decade. Those who didn't would go to give birth to deformed children and such children are being born in Nagasaki and Hiroshima today. Cancer rates are still high in these two cities and so many more still die from atomic bomb related illness. This has lead some historians to make a rough estimate of 350,000 people killed by the two atomic bombs, both indirectly and directly.

At the time, the US government made this intial estimate at the losses of invading what was left of Japan:



However Rufus E.Miles, a senior fellow of Princeton University and a retired US official with 30 years service, has this to say:



Source:Real History (http://216.55.175.240/History/General/atombomb/strange_myth/article.html)

To what extent were the Japanese close to surrender?









Please note that all of the above were commanders during World War Two and their professional opinions must be respected. We have the force of a US President in the mix.





The historian, Doug Long, has this to say about the necessity of dropping the bomb due to imminent Japanese surrender



The source for this and most of the above quotes is:

Challenging the A-Bomb (http://www.angelfire.com/ga/wkb/abombchallenge.html)

So what conclusions have I made?

1) The American administration were determined to use their new toy in order to prove their dominance against the communist USSR and to show the world that they were the new super power. Why they had to take 105,000 lives (conservative estimate there) in order to do this shows the extreme ruthlessness of the American government in regards to Japan - indeed so ruthless was this that Stalin actually called the bombing of Japan a 'barbarity' - Stalin being the man at least 10 million Russian deaths can be directly attributed to.

2) The American administration wanted revenge for Pearl Harbour. No one likes being kicked up the arse when they least expect it and I suppose most Americans were still angry and shocked at the attack. But is it even remotely morally reprehensable to kill 105,000 Japanese innocents in revenge for an attack on active US servicemen? I seriously doubt it. Revenge can be no real justification for an attack of this magnitude.

3) Preservation of allied lives is indeed a subsidary factor but I, as the numerous quotes above point out (from Churchill to Eisenhower to the Joint Intelligence Committee plus many more senior military officials and historians), seriously doubt that Japan would have continued to fight once the USSR entered the war and a blockade had been imposed. Even if the allies had been forced to fight through Japan, it is highly doubtful that the death toll would have risen to anyway near the figure estimated by the President and his government.

4) The Americans deliberately kept the issue of Japanese surrender out of the Potsdam conference and ensured that any peace treaties offered lacked the singular Japanese stipulation: that their Emperor be allowed to remain. This weaving and dodgying on the behalf of the US government lead me to conclude that the US wanted peace through one way only: through the haze of a mushroom cloud. By making this singular, limited concession to the Japanese, it is very likely that they would have surrendered to the Americans.

5) A final contributing factor to this decision could have been worries over a USSR presence in the Pacifics. This is probably the one reason which has some logical thought behind it. However this stand of situation between the Western allies and Russia was also being played out in Eastern Europe.

It is my opinion that the dropping of the two atomic bombs was an unnecessarily brutal and savage act of mass murder on innocent Japanese civilians. Their country was within days of surrendering with a singular, pitiful condition: to allow their symbolic Emperor to remain. The USSR, British and US forces could have battled and besieged the Japanese Home Isles with estimated losses that were, at most, 1/5 of those lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese wre close to surrender and the American government knew that the USSR and a simple naval blockade would probably have been the only pressure needed to push Japan into surrender - this is the united opinion of numerous generals, air force commanders, navy staff, historians, one President and one Prime Minister. Effectively, the use of the atomic bomb on Japan was the equivalent of using a naplam to burn down a single hedge row. It was done not out of care for US lives but out of a desire to flagrantly show off to the USSR and the rest of the old world that America was now the only country that ever could matter. Such an act is not excusable on that basis and it is with that in mind, I place the charge of war crimes in Japan firmly at the door of the United States of America, the land of liberty and justice for all. All it appears except 105,000 Japanese innocents and their descendants, guilty only of supporting their country. Just like everyone else.

Given that Stimson was basing his information off pre-operational analysis that had, thus far, never been more than 10% off the eventual casualty total, I think it pretty fair to say that a million sounds a lot more probable than 20,000, even moreso when you consider a few things:

1) At the time Truman was preparing to drop the bomb, the Japanese were busily training their women to gut GI's with knives, training their children to strap bombs to themselves and jump underneath tanks, and training their young men to make suicide dive bombings on our carriers.

2) History if anything shows that Truman had no reason to expect that the Japanese would surrender. On Leyte, Americans killed 88,000 Japanese soldiers. . .and took about 800 captives. On Guadalcanal, quite a few Japanese who'd been forced into the jungle chose starvation over surrender. On Okinawa, civilians jumped off cliffs rather than surrender to American GI's. Casualties for Japan, including civilians, on Okinawa totaled better than 500,000. The story of the advance towards Honshu is one of progressively bloodier and bloodier fighting against more and more desperate and ruthless opponents.

3) All the intelligence that says that Japan was ready to surrender is based off post-war documentation, ergo, Truman wouldn't have seen it, and couldn't have factored it into his consideration.

All this adds up to a foe that could not in all honesty be expected to surrender in the face of anything but the most overwhelming show of force. So, what three such options were available? Well, basically, there's an embargo coupled with mass firebombings, there's a ground invasion, and then there's the bomb.

For a person who seems adamant that the U.S. committed atrocities by killing mass numbers of people, I'm appalled that your solution to the problem is by starving them out. Not only would that have killed far more people (women and children especially) far more horribly (oh gee, what a choice! To have to pick between starving to death and burning alive as a firestorm in your city liquefies the pavement under your feet, or if you're lucky sucking you headlong into the firestorm), but it would also have made for us having to fight another war 10 years later again on Japanese soil, this time against Russian-sponsored communists, because believe me, had the Russians had a few more weeks, not only would they have swept across the Kuriles, but they would have taken the northern half of Honshu. Silly me, I thought Korea and Vietnam were bad enough without another one.

The second option was a ground invasion. Had we invaded, it was fairly obvious based on what we'd seen from the Japanese thus far that the only way to capture that island would have been to virtually exterminate them as a race. Hmm, on the one hand, we can blast 110,000, and on the other we can lose half a million servicemen and commit genocide against the Japanese people. Which one to pick. . .

In summation, when you outline what the realistic options were, you quickly realize two things. One, there were no good choices for America and Truman in 1945. Two, of all the bad options, the best possible one was dropping the bomb.

There's a certain unwritten truth about mass civilian casualties and the side that inflicts them.

If you lose, it's a war crime.

If you win, it's a brilliant strategy.

Just posted some relevant stuff here, yesterday: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=411873&page=3


Xenophobialand, regarding what Truman knew of the surrender attempts, this was posted (by Maebashi):
Pages from President Truman's diary, July 17, 18, and 25, 1945 ... Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/fulltext.php?fulltextid=15

1) In the year 1945, no one had an atomic bomb and therefor, it wasn't illegal to use them. Come to think of it, it still isn't illegal to use them though it isn't recommended.

2) Japan wasn't going to surrender. Yes they approached the Soviet Union about surrender but as history has shown us, they didn't forward said messege on to the United States. Japan also fought under the Bushido code. Surrender is dishonorable. They would never surrender. They would fight to the death. Remember that it was Emperor Hirohito that ended the war and not the military and when he did, the military high command tried a coup that failed. Because of their way of life, they would've fought to the last man and woman standing if the bombs haven't been dropped. More civilian lives were saved by those two bombs. The firebombings on Tokyo and other Japanese Cities killed far more people than the two atomic bomb that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Look at the numbers of projected CIVILIAN casualities of an invasion of Japan. The numbers are far worse than the casualties inflicted by the 2 bombs.

I dont deny the death tolls of Dresden and Berlin probably make them war crimes. However that is another topic for another time.

In someways it is but in other ways, nope.

Please read the quote which state the losses encountered would have been probably in the region of 20,000 at most. Also, do you think creating the effect of stunning the already demoralised military justified 105,000 dead?

Yes.

Breaking his stuff (yes I am aware of the concept) could have been achieved by blockading the Islands. Food shortages would have starved them into demoralisation and they would have been so grateful when the Americans arrived that they probably would have not attacked. Also the Japanese would have surrendered with their Emperor was intact even if the US did not drop the nuclear bombs so therefore the surrender would have been precisely the same except 105,000 innocents would still be living.

If you think that the Japs would've surrendered due to a blockade, your in fantasyland.

Once again the Japanese attempts at surrender did stipulate that the Emperor be allowed to remain so once again had the surrender been made without the nukes then order could still have been maintained

And surrender goes against Japanese honor.

A month's worth of blockade would not have created the situation of 105,000 dead. It is in severe doubt that the allied losses would have been that high either. If the infrastructure was already poor, that would have meant the Japanese would have surrendered quicker under pressure, a bomb or no a bomb.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You have no idea what the hell the Japanese were planning for defense were you? They were training civilians to fight incase we did invade. If you think that they would've surrendered quickly you are sadly mistaken.

It is doubtful because of the vast armed presence of the US forces and the British too. They would have acted as much as a deterrent as the nuclear bomb and so would have stopped an expansion.
Stalin was a mad man - in 1945 he had a heart attack which caused aterious sclerosis (sorry for spelling), the hardening of the brain arteries. This caused his many bad traits to be taken to manic levels - Molotov said that "after the war, he wasn't quite right in the head"

He wasn't all right in the head prior to 1945 anyway.

Very nice and well thought out post. You remind me of me. Thanks.

And you need to read up on Japanese Culture abit more.

If I recall my history correctly, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities dedicated to training soldiers. The cities built weapons and vehicles for the Japanese army and the infantry was trained there as well. We chose to bomb those cities because they presented a threat to the United States.

If I recall my history correctly, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities dedicated to training soldiers. The cities built weapons and vehicles for the Japanese army and the infantry was trained there as well. We chose to bomb those cities because they presented a threat to the United States.

And here we have an intellectual! Thanks for posting the truth Philadora.

And here we have an intellectual! Thanks for posting the truth Philadora.

If that was sarcasm (I can't tell) I'm just pointing out that those cities were not chosen at random, nor where they picked because of the amount of civilians there.

If that was sarcasm (I can't tell) I'm just pointing out that those cities were not chosen at random, nor where they picked because of the amount of civilians there.

No sarcasm at all Philadora. Your right. They weren't picked at random. They were picked because of the military capacity.

All this bloody work for 2 responses. I expected at least some patriotic Americans to come on here and call me a variety of insulting terms. Oh well back to the drawing board.

Proposing an interesting perspective on history is one thing. If you're just asking for an argument, then you should reconsider your purpose in life.

That being said. I would consider the U.S.'s attack on Japane a war crime for one reason, and one reason alone. We deliberately focused the weapons' use on civilian targets. Bear in mind, prior to Pearl Harbor we were not at all interested with the events in Europe. We were aware of Hitler's campaign but were trying to avoid continued strugges with Europe. See WWI, Battle of 1812, Civil war, and every other small-to-large military campaign (there's been one every 25 years since).

The major reason was not "revenge," persay, but rather the only possible military reaction. With our Navy severly crippled we had next to nothing to do to retaliate. We had a good number of ships available, but to start a war with Japan while another raged in Europe could possible have pulled us too thin. We didn't want to be busy with Japan when the Germans sailed across the Atlantic. So, we dropped 2 (the only 2 we had, at the time) atomic bombs on the Japanese. Now, there would have been civilian casualties in any situation in which the bomb was used, due to its yield and range of effects. This, most likely, was why the President chose the action with no remorse. Ended conflicts with the Japanese as quickly as possible would allow us to keep quite and comfortable in our own little homes, while the rest of the world was in turmoil.

I personally doubt that this would have been a show to the USSR because at the time, we didn't need to show dominance. With Germany being so agressive with war, niether superpower wanted to show dominance over the other (with a military dominating every known military in Europse save the british navy, I highly doubt you'd want to be labelled the "next big threat.

That's my abbreviated version.

I think we tend to think more thought went into the use of the bomb then actually did. The President was told he had a big bomb. War was still going on. President orders dropping of said bomb due to current state of war. The moral angle wasn't even considered until afterwards.

Agreed. All those who had nuclear capability in WWII used it.

Agreed. All those who had nuclear capability in WWII used it.

Thank God they surrendered when they did. After the second Nuke we didn't have any left :/

Would have taken a year to get a couple again, too.

1) In the year 1945, no one had an atomic bomb and therefor, it wasn't illegal to use them. Come to think of it, it still isn't illegal to use them though it isn't recommended.



actually, isn't it illegal to set off a nuclear device within the city limits of san bernadino? (or somesuch city)

Proposing an interesting perspective on history is one thing. If you're just asking for an argument, then you should reconsider your purpose in life.

That being said. I would consider the U.S.'s attack on Japane a war crime for one reason, and one reason alone. We deliberately focused the weapons' use on civilian targets. Bear in mind, prior to Pearl Harbor we were not at all interested with the events in Europe. We were aware of Hitler's campaign but were trying to avoid continued strugges with Europe. See WWI, Battle of 1812, Civil war, and every other small-to-large military campaign (there's been one every 25 years since).

The major reason was not "revenge," persay, but rather the only possible military reaction. With our Navy severly crippled we had next to nothing to do to retaliate. We had a good number of ships available, but to start a war with Japan while another raged in Europe could possible have pulled us too thin. We didn't want to be busy with Japan when the Germans sailed across the Atlantic. So, we dropped 2 (the only 2 we had, at the time) atomic bombs on the Japanese. Now, there would have been civilian casualties in any situation in which the bomb was used, due to its yield and range of effects. This, most likely, was why the President chose the action with no remorse. Ended conflicts with the Japanese as quickly as possible would allow us to keep quite and comfortable in our own little homes, while the rest of the world was in turmoil.

I personally doubt that this would have been a show to the USSR because at the time, we didn't need to show dominance. With Germany being so agressive with war, niether superpower wanted to show dominance over the other (with a military dominating every known military in Europse save the british navy, I highly doubt you'd want to be labelled the "next big threat.

That's my abbreviated version.


This argument is not totally accurate.. you say True purposefully targeted Civilian targets.. infact this is not true at all.. According to Truemans personal corespondence he himself said military targets within Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen.. however they had no inklining of an idea of the destructive power and nature of the bombs. They had not nessesarly intended to whip out the cities

Thank God they surrendered when they did. After the second Nuke we didn't have any left :/

Would have taken a year to get a couple again, too.

wouldn't have mattered.. from what I understand they had several more in production.. infact inorder to deter the Soviets who were having their armies race toward japan as fast as possible America considered droping 4 nukes along the boarder of Korea and Russia as a show of power to fighten off the Soviets

I feel like the stupid kid raising his hand in class. OK - why must Japan surrender? We've all been arguing (well, YOU have all been arguing anyway) about whether Japan was going to surrender, whether the nuke was necessary to get them to surrender, whatever.

But what I'm wondering is, is getting them to surrender such an important goal that it's worth any price? Is it worth the nukes or, is it worth attempting an invasion of the home islands?

The war started (for us) because of the expanding power of the Japanese military. As well, there was the whole Imperial brutality in Asia but, for the US it began because of the Japanese military posing a problem to our being safe and healthy and happy.

But, by 1945, is this going to still be much of a problem? Let's say there are no nukes, and we're considering the invasion. What are we doing? Destroying what's left of the Japanese navy and air force, taking back all the skipped islands and leaving everything but the home islands. ANd of course, continuing our devastating air raids. How much industry military ports need to be smashed for how many months before it doesn't MATTER whether they've signed some document or not?

I think it's a psychological issue. People want the hunted to die, or the competitor to surrender. A domination thing, if you will. We wouldn't stop until they say 'uncle.' Am I wrong here? Does that not factor in, was it really about keeping us safe? Remember by 1945 the Japanese military was just about no credible threat to, say, Hawaii again. Continue for a few months of smashing them up some more (but without invading) from the air and sea, and strangling any trade and probably food production and everything else... eventually they either starve, or someone wises up and surrenders, or they jump off a cliff in mass suicide (as happened on... er, that one island).

My point is by that time the USA had won, barring any massive strokes of luck or massive fuckups (both of which are certainly possible... however another Pearl Harbor or Rape of Nanking was probably not).

As to whether they were war crimes or not, well no one seemed to bring it up during the war crimes trials. Legally I guess thats it, no?

If that is the case, why is the media harping about the use of chemical weapons in the old Iraqi regime, ethnic cleansing in Sudan (I think it was in Sudan, albeit the media is pretty quiet about that area, probably lacking in political ammunition) and various other weapons normally called 'horrific'?

Following this mentality, why bother people about their possession of these weapons? I mean all is fair isn't it?

Actually, I just thought about an amusing theory. What if the noise the US is making about nuclear profiliation isn't really based on an actual threat of it being used as a weapon, but rather because they see it as piracy of technology they failed to patent in time? The RIAA of nuclear technologies. /p
I think you guys mistook that statement. Putting rules on war is nearly pointless . If somone shoots you when they aren't supposed to, they aren't going to stop just because you say "you broke the rules!". Look at the Revolutionary War. The Brits thought the American's were cheating because they were standing in a line and taking turns shooting. The only thing war rules does is possibly bring other countries into the war, and that only happens if the bigger country is "cheating".

Proposing an interesting perspective on history is one thing. If you're just asking for an argument, then you should reconsider your purpose in life.

That being said. I would consider the U.S.'s attack on Japane a war crime for one reason, and one reason alone. We deliberately focused the weapons' use on civilian targets. Bear in mind, prior to Pearl Harbor we were not at all interested with the events in Europe. We were aware of Hitler's campaign but were trying to avoid continued strugges with Europe. See WWI, Battle of 1812, Civil war, and every other small-to-large military campaign (there's been one every 25 years since).

The major reason was not "revenge," persay, but rather the only possible military reaction. With our Navy severly crippled we had next to nothing to do to retaliate. We had a good number of ships available, but to start a war with Japan while another raged in Europe could possible have pulled us too thin. We didn't want to be busy with Japan when the Germans sailed across the Atlantic. So, we dropped 2 (the only 2 we had, at the time) atomic bombs on the Japanese. Now, there would have been civilian casualties in any situation in which the bomb was used, due to its yield and range of effects. This, most likely, was why the President chose the action with no remorse. Ended conflicts with the Japanese as quickly as possible would allow us to keep quite and comfortable in our own little homes, while the rest of the world was in turmoil.

I personally doubt that this would have been a show to the USSR because at the time, we didn't need to show dominance. With Germany being so agressive with war, niether superpower wanted to show dominance over the other (with a military dominating every known military in Europse save the british navy, I highly doubt you'd want to be labelled the "next big threat.

That's my abbreviated version.

Um... you do realize that there WAS a major Pacific Naval war with the Japanese, and that Germany surrendered months before we bombed Japan right?

If there is no justification for the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki then I suppose the all Japanese atrocities in the war are justified. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Look on the bright side, the nukes herald the dawn of the thermonuclear age. Since the Japs experimented with biological agents on Chinese civilians, the Americans 'experimenting' with atomic weaponry on Japanese dogs is fully justified.

i would like to recomend a movie to anyone interested in the subject of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "barefoot gen"

its a great anime written and drawn by this guy who as a boy endured one of the bombings. the story is about how he surrvived during that time. it was a very powerful movie to watch and think about how the writer/artist actually endured the events that took place.

Europe would be better off under the control of Germany, and Asia (including all mainland, eastern islands, southern islands, south-east continents and islands, etc) would be better off under the control of Japan. America would be better off wiped out by USSR, which would in turn be taken over by Germany.


Yay for my warped view of the world!


No seriously, when you look at the result of the bombings on the world, and in particular, Japan, today, they do seem like an ok thing. However, that's if you can turn a blind eye one of the most horrible crimes commited against the human race by a member of the same race in modern times. It's like... saying that wiping the Earth's population down to about 20,000 would have good consequences for the far future, but it's a fucking stupid and barbaric thing to do nevertheless.
I still hate the U.S. for carrying out those bombings, and the fact that they continue doing things that are equally horrific like they never once considered that blowing up one (let alone more than one) entire city is an outrageous thing to do just makes me hate them even more.

I feel like the stupid kid raising his hand in class. OK - why must Japan surrender? We've all been arguing (well, YOU have all been arguing anyway) about whether Japan was going to surrender, whether the nuke was necessary to get them to surrender, whatever.

But what I'm wondering is, is getting them to surrender such an important goal that it's worth any price? Is it worth the nukes or, is it worth attempting an invasion of the home islands?

The war started (for us) because of the expanding power of the Japanese military. As well, there was the whole Imperial brutality in Asia but, for the US it began because of the Japanese military posing a problem to our being safe and healthy and happy.

But, by 1945, is this going to still be much of a problem? Let's say there are no nukes, and we're considering the invasion. What are we doing? Destroying what's left of the Japanese navy and air force, taking back all the skipped islands and leaving everything but the home islands. ANd of course, continuing our devastating air raids. How much industry military ports need to be smashed for how many months before it doesn't MATTER whether they've signed some document or not?

I think it's a psychological issue. People want the hunted to die, or the competitor to surrender. A domination thing, if you will. We wouldn't stop until they say 'uncle.' Am I wrong here? Does that not factor in, was it really about keeping us safe? Remember by 1945 the Japanese military was just about no credible threat to, say, Hawaii again. Continue for a few months of smashing them up some more (but without invading) from the air and sea, and strangling any trade and probably food production and everything else... eventually they either starve, or someone wises up and surrenders, or they jump off a cliff in mass suicide (as happened on... er, that one island).

My point is by that time the USA had won, barring any massive strokes of luck or massive fuckups (both of which are certainly possible... however another Pearl Harbor or Rape of Nanking was probably not).

As to whether they were war crimes or not, well no one seemed to bring it up during the war crimes trials. Legally I guess thats it, no?

You seem to be deliberately ignoring two things:

1. the only reason that Japan was where it was, is constant pressure. Let up, and under Bushido, they lick their wounds, rebuild, and set off again-with all the lessons they'd learned in the previous campaigns...
Surrender was the only means of assuring that it wasn't going to be a repeat of the previous conflict-a lesson learned by the whole experience of the Second World war. The only prevention of "Round Two" was, under those conditions, total victory.
2. How many civilians, if the bombs were not used, would have died in the Seige, invasion, and Occupation phases?

If there is no justification for the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki then I suppose the all Japanese atrocities in the war are justified. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Look on the bright side, the nukes herald the dawn of the thermonuclear age. Since the Japs experimented with biological agents on Chinese civilians, the Americans 'experimenting' with atomic weaponry on Japanese dogs is fully justified.

One of these days, that eye for an eye thing is going to come back and bite you when you least expect it. Especially when the principle is applied in reverse.

You see, it works like this. Germany fired its V-2 rockets at Britain. Britain in turn, incinerated Dresden. That should make it Germany's turn now.

Japan sank the ships at Pearl Harbor, in the end, America glassed two of their cities.

Nobodies hands were clean, especially those who participated in the war. But even now, after it is over, there are people saying their hands are clean, hiding behind the rationale of being justified.

Where does it stop?

[End out of topic rant]

wouldn't have mattered.. from what I understand they had several more in production.. infact inorder to deter the Soviets who were having their armies race toward japan as fast as possible America considered droping 4 nukes along the boarder of Korea and Russia as a show of power to fighten off the Soviets

We wouldn't have had them ready yet. At the time, it took months just to build a single bomb. We didn't use the nukes for a show of power, and we wouldn't have been able to show that power again until we built an arsenal, which would take about 4 years to complete.

Um... you do realize that there WAS a major Pacific Naval war with the Japanese, and that Germany surrendered months before we bombed Japan right?

Yes, there was. What I am suggesting is that had there not been a use of "total force" (i.e. nukes) that the naval warfare would have continued for quite some time. A busy war in the East and I think the Germans would have re-nicked on their withdrawl. The Germans called the Japanese a "killing machine" for a reason, and I think that Germany would not have stayed at peace for long. In addition, it was the actions of Pearl Harbor which brought us into the war, primarily, so I would assume that the Germans may have anticipated us being preoccupied in the East, possibly distracting the western-european nations.... Just a theory.

I think you guys mistook that statement. Putting rules on war is nearly pointless . If somone shoots you when they aren't supposed to, they aren't going to stop just because you say "you broke the rules!". Look at the Revolutionary War. The Brits thought the American's were cheating because they were standing in a line and taking turns shooting. The only thing war rules does is possibly bring other countries into the war, and that only happens if the bigger country is "cheating".

The only useful rule in warfare is with the treatment of POWs. (Yeah, they may not be perfect, and not always followed, but the penalties for breaking one of these bad boys is harder than almost any other military crime.)

The rest, is hogwash. I'm sorry, but if I see an enemy medic, I'm gonna wanna shoot him. If I see an enemy Chaplin, I'm gonna wanna shoot him. If I see any sort of -Uniformed- combatant, even if unarmed, If he/she is still capable of posing a threat, I'd wanna shoot em.

This argument is not totally accurate.. you say True purposefully targeted Civilian targets.. infact this is not true at all.. According to Truemans personal corespondence he himself said military targets within Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen.. however they had no inklining of an idea of the destructive power and nature of the bombs. They had not nessesarly intended to whip out the cities

I sit corrected. I did not mean that the targets where not military or were exclusively civilian, I mean that we -were- aware of its destructive power because prior to the bombings we had three completed boms. We tested one, then we dropped one on Japan. Japan still refused to surrender, so we dropped the third. After this point, It would have taken us over 8 months to complete another bomb.

The only useful rule in warfare is with the treatment of POWs. (Yeah, they may not be perfect, and not always followed, but the penalties for breaking one of these bad boys is harder than almost any other military crime.)

The rest, is hogwash. I'm sorry, but if I see an enemy medic, I'm gonna wanna shoot him. If I see an enemy Chaplin, I'm gonna wanna shoot him. If I see any sort of -Uniformed- combatant, even if unarmed, If he/she is still capable of posing a threat, I'd wanna shoot em.


There are those idiots who would hand out speeding tickets at Le Mans or the Indy 500.

There's really not much to debate about it. The A-bombs, together with the firebombings of cities such as Dresden or Hamburg, were the single greatest acts of mass terrorism ever committed. Even in war, there are a few rules which apply and the US/UK completely ignored these rules. Not out of necessity to do so, but out of arrogance and contempt against the civilian populations of the opponent countries. That there has been no serious condemnation of these acts is due to the fact that "justice of the victor" still applies after wars. Japan and Germany were condemned for years after the war and partly still are today made responsible for everything that happened during WW2. The UK and US escaped such judgement by being the victors.

Ein Deutscher']There's really not much to debate about it. The A-bombs, together with the firebombings of cities such as Dresden or Hamburg, were the single greatest acts of mass terrorism ever committed. Even in war, there are a few rules which apply and the US/UK completely ignored these rules. Not out of necessity to do so, but out of arrogance and contempt against the civilian populations of the opponent countries. That there has been no serious condemnation of these acts is due to the fact that "justice of the victor" still applies after wars. Japan and Germany were condemned for years after the war and partly still are today made responsible for everything that happened during WW2. The UK and US escaped such judgement by being the victors.


I guess that to you, shoveling 6 million Jews into ovens doesn't count as an "act of mass terrorism".

Trust the Brits to make such a post, just because you didn't get first dibs on the bomb. There is no doubting the fact that had Britain had a Nuclear bomb in 41 then fat little Churchill would have used it.

I guess that to you, shoveling 6 million Jews into ovens doesn't count as an "act of mass terrorism".
It does also qualify as mass terrorism. However it does not justify doing the same by those who combat it. As I said, Germany and Japan to a smaller extent, paid for their acts - not just with money. The US and UK did not.

It pays to be a winner. It also pays not to start something.

Ein Deutscher']It does also qualify as mass terrorism. However it does not justify doing the same by those who combat it. As I said, Germany and Japan to a smaller extent, paid for their acts - not just with money. The US and UK did not.

It's a lot easier to sit back in 2005 and say it was wrong. Given the political realities of 1945 however, I think the use of the bombs was inevitable. The only way to have avoided Hiroshima and Nagasaki that I can see would have been to hit a smaller, more military target- which may or may not have had the same effect on Japanese moral. Nevertheless, I believe that should have been the approach taken by the US, and that their choice of targets was regrettable.

It's a lot easier to sit back in 2005 and say it was wrong. Given the political realities of 1945 however, I think the use of the bombs was inevitable. The only way to have avoided Hiroshima and Nagasaki that I can see would have been to hit a smaller, more military target- which may or may not have had the same effect on Japanese moral. Nevertheless, I believe that should have been the approach taken by the US, and that their choice of targets was regrettable.
It was already proven in the beginning, that the use of the bombs was not necessary for a military victory. Due to this, your argument is null and void.

It was also not necessary to eradicate Dresden, Hamburg and other cities. Yet it was done. That is the main crime in it and the reason why it's terrorism.

It's a lot easier to sit back in 2005 and say it was wrong. Given the political realities of 1945 however, I think the use of the bombs was inevitable. The only way to have avoided Hiroshima and Nagasaki that I can see would have been to hit a smaller, more military target- which may or may not have had the same effect on Japanese moral. Nevertheless, I believe that should have been the approach taken by the US, and that their choice of targets was regrettable.

Moral choices with weapons depends on their capabilities. Consider that the average miss distance with a load of conventional bombs dropped from a strategic bomber of the time was about a kilometer (4 kilometers at night!). That implies that you're not going to be able to hit a military target unless it's vast, and if there are people living anywhere nearby, they're going to buy some of it.

In our current age, with weapons that fall within a few meters of the target, we're talking about reducing the size of our bombs to 100 kg down from 1000 kg - since we're trying to reduce collateral damage. Drop a bomb in the wrong place today, and it's bad PR - your allies will call you on it. Misidentify a target and kill civilians - and the press is all over you.

Back in WW II, if you were trying to hit an industrial plant with military value, it was likely to be in a populated area. Given that you were going to hit civilians no matter what you did (in those days), rationalizations were made to consider civilians to be valid military targets.

The media of the time was just glad that the bombs were falling on the Axis, rather than on the Allies - and no one cared that civilians were killed.

Hard to apply today's standards - where we expect surgical precision and a bloodless (from a civilian perspective) war.

Ein Deutscher']It was already proven in the beginning, that the use of the bombs was not necessary for a military victory. Due to this, your argument is null and void.

It was also not necessary to eradicate Dresden, Hamburg and other cities. Yet it was done. That is the main crime in it and the reason why it's terrorism.

It most certainly was not proven- it was only stated (with convincing quotes from knowledgeable people) that many felt it was uneccesary.
Dresden is obviously morally indefensable, in my opinion. However, as the Japanese had already shown through the use of Kamikaze pilots, and their last ditch to-the-final-man defenses of various islands, they did not back down even when defeat was obvious. They fought to the death. Thus, in 1945, to a nation at war, the use of atomic weaponry was a no-brainer. As I stated earlier, the choice of targets was regretable, as various studies have claimed that the US specifically targetted areas with the densest population, and thus the highest civilian casualties.

In fact, you're wrong. Read the first post again. The highest command of the US did care. Why they still did it though is beyond me.

In someways it is but in other ways, nope.



Yes.



If you think that the Japs would've surrendered due to a blockade, your in fantasyland.



And surrender goes against Japanese honor.



HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You have no idea what the hell the Japanese were planning for defense were you? They were training civilians to fight incase we did invade. If you think that they would've surrendered quickly you are sadly mistaken.



He wasn't all right in the head prior to 1945 anyway.



And you need to read up on Japanese Culture abit more.

Do I? Most of the opinions you so randomly scorned were advocated by US officials, military staff, President Eisenhower, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and various historians. Me thinks they knew a bit more than you.

I guess that to you, shoveling 6 million Jews into ovens doesn't count as an "act of mass terrorism".

One moment here. I hope you are not using the justification system of if they did it, you can do it and escape recriminations as well.

You want to commit acts of random massacre or mass killings by all means go ahead. Just don't cry foul when others do it as well.

Hypocrisy is a fine human art. We've been perfecting the art ever since we learned how to speak.

It most certainly was not proven- it was only stated (with convincing quotes from knowledgeable people) that many felt it was uneccesary.
Dresden is obviously morally indefensable, in my opinion. However, as the Japanese had already shown through the use of Kamikaze pilots, and their last ditch to-the-final-man defenses of various islands, they did not back down even when defeat was obvious. They fought to the death. Thus, in 1945, to a nation at war, the use of atomic weaponry was a no-brainer. As I stated earlier, the choice of targets was regretable, as various studies have claimed that the US specifically targetted areas with the densest population, and thus the highest civilian casualties.
You're wrong again. Japan tried to negotiate for peace. The US ignored it. try again.

One moment here. I hope you are not using the justification system of if they did it, you can do it and escape recriminations as well.

You want to commit acts of random massacre or mass killings by all means go ahead. Just don't cry foul when others do it as well.

Hypocrisy is a fine human art. We've been perfecting the art ever since we learned how to speak.

I was responding to the comment that Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were the "greatest mass acts of terrorism".

Mass acts, perhaps. Greatest, no.

To those who voted YES:

The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved (at least) hundreds of thousands of lives. If America had been made to invade Japan in order to end the war, the losses on both sides would have been catastrophic.

consider that before condemning the nuking of Japan.

Ein Deutscher']It does also qualify as mass terrorism. However it does not justify doing the same by those who combat it. As I said, Germany and Japan to a smaller extent, paid for their acts - not just with money. The US and UK did not.

Japan's having a hard time admitting they did anything wrong in WWII, and that includes Unit 731's active biological experimentation programs. To expect some slack even though Germany did its best to eradicate Jews/Gypsys/and whoever else is folly.

It hasn't been proven the US/UK did anything wrong yet. Some people here think it has, but really you're rewriting the past to suit yourself. That's all that's happening here.

I was responding to the comment that Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were the "greatest mass acts of terrorism".

Mass acts, perhaps. Greatest, no.

Nor were they examples of terrorism.

This is revisionist history at its worst... just trying to hate on the US and the Allies -- the good guys.

When you are dealing with folks like Hitler and Hirohito, who wish to eradicate an entire race of people (Hitler) or conquer half of Asia and the South/West Pacific (Hirohito) under iron-fist rule, small measures do not make a dent.

Japan's having a hard time admitting they did anything wrong in WWII, and that includes Unit 731's active biological experimentation programs. To expect some slack even though Germany did its best to eradicate Jews/Gypsys/and whoever else is folly.

It hasn't been proven the US/UK did anything wrong yet. Some people here think it has, but really you're rewriting the past to suit yourself. That's all that's happening here.

I am a British patriot but I can accept that the bombing of Dresden was a mistake for which the British bomber command can be highly criticised for. I also recognise that virtually every side in the war committed some form of atrocity. However the aim of my post is to lift the rose tinted spectacles that the US has on when regarding its role in the war.

Japan's having a hard time admitting they did anything wrong in WWII, and that includes Unit 731's active biological experimentation programs. To expect some slack even though Germany did its best to eradicate Jews/Gypsys/and whoever else is folly.

It hasn't been proven the US/UK did anything wrong yet. Some people here think it has, but really you're rewriting the past to suit yourself. That's all that's happening here.
It has not officially been proven due to victors justice. That's understandable - why would the good guys admit to doing bad things. It would tarnish the image of the saviours. However the truth remains that acknowledging the acts as what they were would be a step in the right direction, but it's never going to happen.

Ein Deutscher']You're wrong again. Japan tried to negotiate for peace. The US ignored it. try again.

According to some Japanese historians, Japanese civilian leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized on the bombing as a new argument to force surrender. Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors stated that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945 called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Akio Morita, founder of Sony and Japanese Naval officer during the war, also concludes that it was the atomic bomb and not conventional bombings from B-29's that convinced the Japanese military to agree to peace.

As a constitutional monarchy, to surrender the cabinet had to be unanimous. As it was dominated by hard-line militarists who did not change their tone untill after the atomic bombs were dropped, it is unknown whether Japan indeed would have surrendered.

Ein Deutscher']It has not officially been proven due to victors justice. That's understandable - why would the good guys admit to doing bad things. It would tarnish the image of the saviours. However the truth remains that acknowledging the acts as what they were would be a step in the right direction, but it's never going to happen.

If Hitler had won the war, we wouldn't even know that the Holocaust had happened. It was an official secret. It would have been an unproven rumor - something that people would know only by wink and nod.

We certainly wouldn't be discussing it in an open forum.

If that's victor's justice, then I'm glad we won.

If Hitler had won the war, we wouldn't even know that the Holocaust had happened. It was an official secret. It would have been an unproven rumor - something that people would know only by wink and nod.

We certainly wouldn't be discussing it in an open forum.

If that's victor's justice, then I'm glad we won.
Why do you argue with strawmen? Out of arguments, are you? :rolleyes:

Ein Deutscher']Why do you argue with strawmen? Out of arguments, are you? :rolleyes:

No. I think that under the morality of the time, and with the technological constraints on weaponry of the time, we were right in all instances to drop incendiaries on cities and nuclear weapons on Japan.

Ein Deutscher']It has not officially been proven due to victors justice. That's understandable - why would the good guys admit to doing bad things. It would tarnish the image of the saviours. However the truth remains that acknowledging the acts as what they were would be a step in the right direction, but it's never going to happen.

There's enough tarnishing/revisionism being done already to taint history as it is. And why does "acknowledging the acts as what they were" going to help anyone? It hasn't been agreed on (except by those tainting/rewriting history) that anything was done that was "wrong".

To the OP; the alternative to bombing was Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. The projections from that are mainly stastical nightmares, depending on how you frame the equasion. No one could be sure of how many people would be killed; only that it'd be a lot. That number would have included the 300k "white slaves" the Japanese had imported during the war, which ended up being one reason to drop the bomb.

So did all those generals and presidents/prime ministers tarnish and rewrite history with their words that say that the a-bombs were unnecessary? I think you're just selectively chosing what you want to believe to justify something that would paint the US in a somewhat bad light, if they acknowledged that it was a mistake.

Ein Deutscher']Why do you argue with strawmen? Out of arguments, are you? :rolleyes:

Since you didn't reply to my last one, here's another argument for you.

Supporters of the bombing also argue that waiting for the Japanese to surrender was not a cost-free option. The conventional bombardment and blockade were killing tens of thousands each week in Japan, directly and indirectly, and the U.S. Navy's 'Operation Starvation' was aptly named. Also, as a result of the war, noncombatants were dying throughout Asia at a rate of ~200,000 per month.
In addition to that, the atomic bomb speeded the end of the Second World War in Asia liberating hundreds of thousands Western (including about 200,000 Dutch) citizens and 400,000 Indonesians ("Romushas") from Japanese concentration camps. In addition, Japanese atrocities against millions of Chinese were ended.

Ein Deutscher']In fact, you're wrong. Read the first post again. The highest command of the US did care. Why they still did it though is beyond me.

To save on civilian lives as well as military ones.

Do I? Most of the opinions you so randomly scorned were advocated by US officials, military staff, President Eisenhower, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and various historians. Me thinks they knew a bit more than you.

1) Yes, the bomb probably was probably unnecessary. However, they also knew that the Japanese wouldn't surrender due to their culture. Face it, the japanese were beaten in 1944 but they were still fighting because surrender isn't in their vocabulary.

2.) These are also selective quotes.

3) Blockade wasn't going to end it. An invasion would've but the casualties of said invasion were very high. Civilians alone would've outstripped those of military deaths.

4.) The Bomb was the only way to end the war quickly and with little loss of life.

Ein Deutscher']You're wrong again. Japan tried to negotiate for peace. The US ignored it. try again.

Your wrong. They went to the USSR first and the USSR didn't pass it on. Try again.

Your wrong. They went to the USSR first and the USSR didn't pass it on. Try again.
The US intercepted the transmissions.

Ein Deutscher']The US intercepted the transmissions.

But they didn't approach us! Big difference.

Ein Deutscher']The US intercepted the transmissions.

You have a remarkable ability to ignore arguments that you don't like, while systematically (and without references) refuting ones you find easy.

But they didn't approach us! Big difference.
In fact, they did approach the US.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Opposition to use of atomic bombs

* The Manhattan Project had originally been conceived as a counter to Nazi Germany's atomic bomb program, and with the defeat of Germany, several scientists working on the project felt that the United States should not be the first to use such weapons. One of the prominent critics of the bombings was Albert Einstein. Leo Szilard, a scientist who played a major role in the development of the atomic bomb, argued "If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them."

* Their use has been called barbaric as several hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, and the choice of areas heavily populated by civilians. In the days just before their use, many scientists (including Edward Teller) argued that the destruction power of the bomb could have been demonstrated without taking the lives of so many.

* It has been argued that, the use of atomic weapons against civilian populations on a large scale is a crime against humanity and a war crime. The use of poisonous weapons (due to the effects of the radiation) were defined as war crimes by international law of the time. Some have argued that Americans should have done more research into the effects of the bomb, including radiation sickness and the terrible burns that followed the explosion.

, a young victim of the bombing, became a well-known symbol of nuclear war and is now commemorated by a statue in Hiroshima, carrying a paper crane (a symbol of peace).
Enlarge
Sadako Sasaki, a young victim of the bombing, became a well-known symbol of nuclear war and is now commemorated by a statue in Hiroshima, carrying a paper crane (a symbol of peace).

* Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945. [9] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm) The highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater, General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand, but said afterward that there was no military justification for the bombings. The same opinion was expressed by Fleet Admiral William Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials) (all also from [10] (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm)); Major General Curtis LeMay ([11] (http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog23/feature/)); and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (both from [12] (http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm)).

* Others contend that Japan had been trying to surrender for at least two months, but the US refused by insisting on an unconditional surrender—which they did not get even after the bombing, the bone of contention being retention of the Emperor.[13] (http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hitimeline/1945.html) In fact, while several diplomats favored surrender, the leaders of the Japanese military were committed to fighting a 'Decisive Battle' on Kyushu, hoping that they could negotiate better terms for an armistice afterward—all of which the Americans knew from reading decrypted Japanese communications. The Japanese government never did decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme Council was still split, with the hardliners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials, and no occupation. Only the direct intervention of the Emperor ended the dispute, and even after that a military coup was attempted to prevent the surrender (although it was easily suppressed).

* Some have argued that the Soviet Union's switch from wary neutral to enemy on August 8, 1945 might have been enough to convince the Japanese military of the need to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration (plus some provision for the emperor). As it happened, the decision to surrender was made before the scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin Island, and the Kuril Islands was known, but had the war continued, the Soviets would have been able to invade Hokkaido well before the Allied invasion of Kyushu.

* Many critics believe that the U.S. had ulterior motives in dropping the bombs, including justifying the $2 billion investment in the Manhattan Project, testing the effects of nuclear weapons, exacting revenge for the attacks on Pearl Harbor, and demonstrating U.S. capabilities to the Soviet Union. Scientists who had worked on the project later noted that they were pressured to finish the bomb by a set schedule, one which was timed to coincide with the Russian entrance into the Pacific theater, and one which additionally implied that the war would be potentially over very soon.

* The Americans dropped the bombs without any warning. If they had dropped the bomb with a warning, then they would have given the civilians time to leave, and the Americans could have still shown the Japanese the potential of the bomb, so that they would be scared into surrendering. Similarily, the Americans could have dropped the bomb in a less populated area to show them how powerful it was.

* The two atomic bombs were not the only attacks that killed large numbers of Japanese civilians. An estimated 100,000 people died when America firebombed Tokyo in March 1945.

* The decision to bomb Nagasaki only a few days after Hiroshima raises separate issues. Some people hold that most of the arguments for the use of the atomic bomb do not justify dropping the second one on Nagasaki. In his semi-autobiographical novel Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut said that while the Hiroshima bomb may have saved the lives of his friends in the U.S. armed forces, Nagasaki still proved that the United States was capable of senseless cruelty.

You have a remarkable ability to ignore arguments that you don't like, while systematically (and without references) refuting ones you find easy.
If your statement was true, I'd agree. But it's bullshit, so :rolleyes:
I don't repeatedly refute things which were already refuted in the beginning of the thread. It's not my fault if you consistently ignore the facts that were initially presented.

Ein Deutscher']In fact, they did approach the US.

The wikipedia article here quoted has this list of reasons against the bomb, and then an equally long list of reasons for the bomb right underneath. I wonder why only half was quoted.
(For some samples from the second half, please see my two posts that you have as of yet ignored.)

Actually, that article is wrong. We did get our unconditional surrender. :rolleyes:

Hundreds of thousands didn't die in the bombing but only about hundred thousand did.

Yes, Japan was already beaten. Not denying that. I however know of the Japanese Culture. Something that you apparently don't. Culture is everything to the Far East.

Ein Deutscher']If your statement was true, I'd agree. But it's bullshit, so :rolleyes:
I don't repeatedly refute things which were already refuted in the beginning of the thread. It's not my fault if you consistently ignore the facts that were initially presented.

fact:
a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred; "first you must collect all the facts of the case"
a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts"
an event known to have happened or something known to have existed; "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell"
a concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are not facts"

Quotations from prominent leaders are not FACT, and arguments that run counter to yours are not bullshit.
Furthermore, you have ignored some of the most important facts that are on your side-
for instance, the bomb on Nagassaki was dropped three days on Hiroshima, and I consider indefensible for a number of reasons.
If you want to consider quotations as fact, then you must have an interesting belief structure.

Those quotes in the first post show an impressive grasp of the art of selective editing, as well as choosing your source. Example: King was against the Bomb because he thought it would give the Army Air Forces too much clout, a view which was shown correct by the 2nd SecDef, Louis Johnson, being so ga-ga over Air Force nuke bombers as to start planning to dismantle the conventional forces. Only the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 prevented those plans comming to fruition.

Many of those quotes are also postwar, many things look different in hindsight. We must look at the communiques from the time of the decision, what the decisionmakers knew at the time. Okinawa was in everyone's mind. And the question was, how do we avoid an Okinawa on a grand scale when we hit the home islands? The B-29s had been firebombing Japan for months, killed more in one raid on Tokyo than both nukes combined. And what was the result? Thousands of Kamikazes off the coast of Okinawa, and the very, very high likelihood of many thousands more attacking the invasion fleet for the home islands. The US submarine blockade was so complete that US subs were hard pressed to find any targets worth a torpedo, instead using their deck guns on fishing boats and the like. And still, so signs of surrender. Instead, we had mass suicides of civillians on Saipan. At the time there was every indication that the succesful conquest of the home islands would extract a devestating price in US blood, and we had another option. An option that would also save Japanese lives in the big picture. So we took it.

Wow- This is a loaded question! So many sides to this story. In a nutshell: Was it horrific and a terrible thing to do? How can you say it wasn't? Of course it was. A few things to remember. 1) The Japanese started it. When you start it, you have to expect someone will finish it, and you best be prepared for the consequences. 2) The Japanese were prepared to fight to the last man, the last inch of soil, the last drop of blood. Dropping the bomb saved a million American lives and prevented the invasion of Japan, which would have resulted in far more lives lost and damage than the two bombs did. 3) The cat was already out of the bag where development of the weapon was concerned. Since the bomb was dropped in 1945, no one else has dared to do it again, on a populated area. I feel this was because the world witnessed the true horror and full extent of what happens when you do such a thing. Had the US not done it, the world could only guess at what it might be like, this way, an example was set that hopefully will keep anyone else from ever doing it again.

Hello I am an evil American, we saved Europe three times last century (WW1, WW2 and Soviet oppression) and used our nation's wealth to rebuild Europe. Finland has been the only nation to repay us. I gain from the Anti-American posts that Hitler's and Stalin's reign of terror which led to the death of over 33 million executions of unarmed civilians in Europe. We promise not to interfere when Japan releases the Bubonic plague five times in China. When people are slaughtered for interfering with the "master race" plan for world domination and elimination or subdugation of "racially inferior" peoples, we promise to not put ourselves where we are welcome.

You need to study history instead of anti-Americanism.

Hello I am an evil American, we saved Europe three times last century (WW1, WW2 and Soviet oppression) and used our nation's wealth to rebuild Europe. Finland has been the only nation to repay us. I gain from the Anti-American posts that Hitler's and Stalin's reign of terror which led to the death of over 33 million executions of unarmed civilians in Europe. We promise not to interfere when Japan releases the Bubonic plague five times in China. When people are slaughtered for interfering with the "master race" plan for world domination and elimination or subdugation of "racially inferior" peoples, we promise to not put ourselves where we are welcome.

You need to study history instead of anti-Americanism.

Do you think this sort of statment makes people love America?
Having a keen amateur interest in history, I could point out that I think America has done more right than wrong, but your arrogance doesn't make me want to say that. Your arrogance makes me want to point out that the British RAF fought a desperate battle with Germany while the US was still hemming and hawing over entering the war. It makes me want to point out that the US supported Napoleon in 1812. It makes me want to point out that everything the US ever did in Europe was thoroughly back by its own self-interest (WWI- Lusitania sinking/capitalism, WWII- Pearl Harbour, Cold War- desire to be only superpower)
Kindly read the posts and reply to the issues before labelling the thread "anti-American" and tone down the rhetoric and arrogance a wee bit. Thank you.

What about all of the atomic weapon tests putting radiation everywhere.
:gundge: :gundge: UN Press release on atomic testing (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/un/19981014_gaspd138.html)

Hello I am an evil American, we saved Europe three times last century (WW1, WW2 and Soviet oppression) and used our nation's wealth to rebuild Europe. Finland has been the only nation to repay us. I gain from the Anti-American posts that Hitler's and Stalin's reign of terror which led to the death of over 33 million executions of unarmed civilians in Europe. We promise not to interfere when Japan releases the Bubonic plague five times in China. When people are slaughtered for interfering with the "master race" plan for world domination and elimination or subdugation of "racially inferior" peoples, we promise to not put ourselves where we are welcome.

You need to study history instead of anti-Americanism.

:headbang: Hi I am one of those great americans you talk about and you are full of S*IT. If how many people did we kill in world war 1 and world war 2 without the bomb. You should also learn your history you say that Hitler and Stalin worked together. They did for a time but without soviet support the american's would not have won World war 2. Also stop being a hypocrite you are talking like Americans are a master race when you say that people who say they are a master race are bad. Learn your facts.
Military Casualties in World War I
1914-1918

Belgium 45,550
British Empire 942,135
France 1,368,000
Greece 23,098
Italy 680,000
Japan 1,344
Montenegro 3,000
Portugal 8,145
Romania 300,000
Russia 1,700,000
Serbia 45,000
United States 116,516
Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
Bulgaria 87,495
Germany 1,935,000
Ottoman Empire 725,000
Notice americans have almost the least casualties of the major powers. it is because we didn't come until the war was almost over.
same with world war 2
Civilian and Military Deaths in the Second World War

Countries Total Deaths % of Pre-war Population Military Deaths Civilian Deaths
USSR 20,600,000 10.40% 13,600,000 7,000,000
China 10,000,000 2.00% - -
Germany 6,850,000 9.50% 3,250,000 3,600,000
Poland 6,123,000 17.20% 123,000 6,000,000
Japan 2,000,000 2.70% - -
Yugoslavia 1,706,000 10.90% - -
France 810,000 1.90% 340,000 470,000
Greece 520,000 7.20% - -
USA 500,000 0.40% 500,000 -
Austria 480,000 7.20% - -
Romania 460,000 3.40% - -
Hungary 420,000 3.00% - -
Italy 410,000 0.90% 330,000 80,000
Czechoslovakia 400,000 2.70% - -
Great Britain 388,000 0.80% 326,000 62,000
The Netherlands 210,000 2.40% 198,000 12,000
Belgium 88,000 1.10% 76,000 12,000
Finland 84,000 2.20% - -
Australia 39,000 0.30% - -
Canada 34,000 0.30% - -
Albania 28,000 2.50% - -
India 24,000 0.01% - -
Norway 10,262 0.30% - -
New Zealand 10,000 0.60% - -
Luxembourg 5,000 1.70% - -
TOTAL 52,199,262 - - -


Interesting, isn't it?

Notice something Greece lost more people that the USA. DID we really save Europe or did they save themselves and we took the credit


And is it oppresion if the people want it?

World war one and World war two casualties (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2854730)

Your arrogance makes me want to point out that the British RAF fought a desperate battle with Germany while the US was still hemming and hawing over entering the war. It makes me want to point out that the US supported Napoleon in 1812. It makes me want to point out that everything the US ever did in Europe was thoroughly back by its own self-interest (WWI- Lusitania sinking/capitalism, WWII- Pearl Harbour, Cold War- desire to be only superpower)
I don't understand how you can be angry at the US for "hemming and hawing" over entering the war at that time and can be angry at the US now for taking action in another war early.
Despite what you could interpret as "self-interest" motives at the time were likely altruistic. I doubt there is any self-interest in sacrificing thousands of American soldiers for the liberation of Europe for the liberation of suppressed Jewish (and other) people for the desire to spread freedom to those that have none.
I just don't understand why people call the US greedy and arrogant and stupid etc when in most cases the US is the first one to respond to and crisis that occurs. Donating our time, our money and our lives to help others and then get nothing but criticism and turned up noses. Alas, it is the current state of the world. Rest assured, when there is another major crisis, the US will be there to help out again expecting nothing in return and ready to endure more criticism and ridicule.

I don't understand how you can be angry at the US for "hemming and hawing" over entering the war at that time and can be angry at the US now for taking action in another war early.
Despite what you could interpret as "self-interest" motives at the time were likely altruistic. I doubt there is any self-interest in sacrificing thousands of American soldiers for the liberation of Europe for the liberation of suppressed Jewish (and other) people for the desire to spread freedom to those that have none.
I just don't understand why people call the US greedy and arrogant and stupid etc when in most cases the US is the first one to respond to and crisis that occurs. Donating our time, our money and our lives to help others and then get nothing but criticism and turned up noses. Alas, it is the current state of the world. Rest assured, when there is another major crisis, the US will be there to help out again expecting nothing in return and ready to endure more criticism and ridicule.

Please note: I said in the same post that America did more good than evil. I do not hate America, nor do I criticize its hemming and hawing. It was natural, but to claim afterward that America acted only out of purity strikes me as a little naive.
Furthermore, I criticized this particular poster's arrogance, not the arrogance of America, which is far more dubious.
That said, if the spreading of democracy was the purpose of the Iraq war, than I approve of the idea, but not the target. Take a look at places where egomaniacal dictators run the country- there are far more abusive ones than Saddam Hussein. The reason they aren't targetted is self-interest.

Please note: I said in the same post that America did more good than evil. I do not hate America, nor do I criticize its hemming and hawing. It was natural, but to claim afterward that America acted only out of purity strikes me as a little naive.
Furthermore, I criticized this particular poster's arrogance, not the arrogance of America, which is far more dubious.
That said, if the spreading of democracy was the purpose of the Iraq war, than I approve of the idea, but not the target. Take a look at places where egomaniacal dictators run the country- there are far more abusive ones than Saddam Hussein. The reason they aren't targetted is self-interest.
I apologize for incorrectly interpreting your statement.

I do not presume to imply that America acted solely of benevolent motives. I assume there were certain submissive motives also. I don't think the purpose of the Iraq war was to spread democracy. I thought the purpose was to rid the world of a terrorist. I doubt anyone can argue that Saddam was not a terrorist.

The bombings were an act of terror and should be considerd war crimes, as well as the bombings on Germany for i.e. Dresden.
There is not a cause out there, never has been and never will be that can be said to be just enough to fire bomb or nuke civilian men, women and children and destroy homes.
Soldiers are meant to fight and that is what every nation uses them for so to say that 'we had to do it' to save the lives of an X number of soldiers is the most stupid thing I have ever heard.
Soldiers die in war, civilians never should.

British RAF fought a desperate battle with Germany while the US was still hemming and hawing over entering the war

TRUE: FDR was wrong in not taking the country to war. He waited for the attack on Pearl Harbor. To his credit though, the land lease program sent many planes and materials to Great Britain.

America has never experienced the bombing of civilian populations as Europe has and I thank God for that. I also thank God for the men of the RAF who took to the skies without rest, pushed to the breaking point to save their homeland from Nazi atrocities. Hats off to those who endured and shined amidst the ashes of London.

Name a country who does not act in it's own self interest.

The arrogance is a reminder. Americans get slapped in the face in the forums ALL the time, for EVERYTHING. If it's not Americans are evil, then we're stupid, if we're not stupid we're hypocrits...every forum on the net. I'm not asking anybody to wave the American flag. After repeated insults, one gets a little aggravated.

The arrogance is a reminder. Americans get slapped in the face in the forums ALL the time, for EVERYTHING. If it's not Americans are evil, then we're stupid, if we're not stupid we're hypocrits...every forum on the net. I'm not asking anybody to wave the American flag. After repeated insults, one gets a little aggravated.
Maybe you need to change your attitude and your politicians then? Doesn't it speak volumes if you get he same reaction everywhere? Can't you learn from the past and make things better instead of repeating them?

really, that small? I thought it was as much as 2 mill. The Japs didnt deserve it, if US couldnt defeat Japan (smaller then california) without the nukes then the US didnt deserve to win. Think of this, if US was left to only the size of california with 10 cities and the 2 ones that where your main economic powerhouse were nuked destroying it (I still think they cant settle there again) and it was a dense area then wouldnt that mess up the country even though they had very little oil?

Ok what would war crimes accomplish?

Who do you punish? The pilots? The leaders? The men who worked on the Bomb?

Most if not all involved have died.

Why waste all this effort to lay blame?

Why not simply leave it as it and use it for study so we don't do it again?

Meh! ;)

You should also learn your history you say that Hitler and Stalin worked together.

never said it...just two dirtbags who use the same tricks

Also stop being a hypocrite you are talking like Americans are a master race when you say that people who say they are a master race are bad.

America is not a race. You did not pop out of your mother looking like an American. We are a mongrel nation with flaws and bad choices tired of living under the moral microscope of the left.

Americans get slapped in the face in the forums ALL the time, for EVERYTHING.

There are only two possible explanations of such an attitude of the majority of people towards the US.
1. US really saved the world a number of times ... and the world has completely lost its mind and is trying to humiliate their liberators by all means.
2. The world is still ok, but something is terribly wrong with US...

Which answer is more likely to be true ?

When you look back at your nations history, you can find many blanks. If you look in the right places though, some very interesting facts can appear.

Take Great Britain as an example ( not so great it might seem:)

1. In most British history books it tells you how wonderful they were for abolishing slavery. If you look further back, guess who thought up the idea and sent boats to get slave to take to America...Britain!

2. Also in most British history books the Holocaust was said to be in Germany, they where the bad ones! Not exactly true even though yes the German Holocaust was terriable and un-called for, but the British weren't exactly all high and mighty. They had their own Holocaust, we deported jews and only money lenders were allowed to stay, and even they were hated. I know that the germans did was horrible and Britain didn't really kill jews on a massive scale, but I do have a point.



All goverments make mistakes, some which worst than others, but making mistakes is a part of life, its how we move on. We learn from are mistakes, we know now what a horrible and giantic impact A-bomb can have when dropped. We know not to do it again.

I agree that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were war-crimes, and that the goverment really did have other methods to stop the japenesse. But when you think about what could of happened if the American goverment hadn't used them then... German...Britain...Canada...Iraq....Saudi Arabia... the list is endless, so many bad and horrible things could have happened. Maybe if the goverment had held the bombs for longer they would have made more..

Please don't get me wrong i strongly disagree with what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki but sometimes you have to look at the good side of things. So many people died...but I'm sure that has saved a lot of other's life, even maybe yours.

People make mistakes, its the dealing with the affects that determines what kind of person you are.

The atomic bombs were the alternative to an actual invasion of Japan. The whole reason the US decided to drop the atomic bombs was because the postulated casualty figures of an invasion of the home islands were horrifyingly large; the American government estimated that Allied casualties would have been 1,000,000+, and Japanese casualties (both soldier and civilian, since nearly every Japanese citizen was prepared to take up arms should an invasion occur) would have been much, much larger. So, in order to deter those huge casualties, we dropped the bombs and killed 100,000 people. Nowhere NEAR as much as how many would have died had an invasion taken place.

Plus, the atomic bomb was the only weapon powerful enough to convince Japan to surrender... if we hadn't dropped them, guerilla operations carried out by Japanese soldiers would probably have lasted into the 70s or 80s.

Proof that this could have happened: There was a Japanese lieutenant who refused to believe the war was over and terrorized the population of a small island in the Phillipines well into the 1970s before they finally managed to bring him home.

You should also learn your history you say that Hitler and Stalin worked together.

never said it...just two dirtbags who use the same tricks

Also stop being a hypocrite you are talking like Americans are a master race when you say that people who say they are a master race are bad.

America is not a race. You did not pop out of your mother looking like an American. We are a mongrel nation with flaws and bad choices tired of living under the moral microscope of the left.

No clue who said part one, but Adolf and stalin worked together until hitler invaded (What a flaw, invading his strongest ally which caused his downfall) Russia. America supported Hitler in attempt to get Hitler to go to war with Stalin to eliminate the communist threat (I would be more concerned with the German threat but what are you going to do)

Part2: Hitler and Stalin didnt use the same tricks. Adolf used CCs (I abbreviated two words to two lettes) and Stalin was like "Suicide in a week or I will order you and your whole family killed." Hitler targeted "subhumans" and stalin targeted all who didnt look him in the eyes, or if they disagreed with him.

Part3: There is superiority already, just not a race(That I know of). People are naturally genetically superior then others such as the people who have sickle cell dont get one type of lethal disease (I forgot, mosquitos carry it but I forgot the name), while every nonvacinized person would die from it. Some people are even naturally immune to HIV(I dont believe it came from a black man and a monkey).

Part4: Hmm. See nothing wrong unless if he said America when he meant US. Make that distinction, US is the United States of America while America means North and South America (They are continents).

Ein Deutscher']Maybe you need to change your attitude and your politicians then? Doesn't it speak volumes if you get he same reaction everywhere? Can't you learn from the past and make things better instead of repeating them?

Or maybe you are wrong; and the only reason that Americans do not constantly tell you to change your politicians and attitude, is because they are naturally far more polite.

I would think, coming from the country that invented terror bombing and total war, you would be a little less chipper about the whole thing.

Or maybe you are wrong; and the only reason that Americans do not constantly tell you to change your politicians and attitude, is because they are naturally far more polite.

I would think, coming from the country that invented terror bombing and total war, you would be a little less chipper about the whole thing.
I wasn't alive during WW2, so I don't feel I'm responsible for what happened. My country however has done pretty much to atone for it's past. I've not seen the US or UK do that officially.

My mother in law, Aikimoto Sanae of Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan tells me about her Girls Auxillery Unit who trains with bamboo spears to charge landing Marines so that armorpiercing ammunition would be expended on them so that the elderly men could kill more Marines from makeshift fortifications. Her family was eating rations of bird seed at the time of the surrender.

I have walked those beaches and lived there. They tell me they would have gladly died for the Emperor in their state of mind at the time.

I lived Baba Shinichiro who was shot down in June 1942. Pulled unconscious from the water he waited for the Americans to eat him but instead he spent the rest of the war in California in a POW camp. What he was most ashamed of was that while he had gained a pot belly, he could count his wife's ribs when he returned in December 1945.

The war was not weeks from being over. More civilians died on Okinawa than US forces and Japanese together. The Okinawans didn't like mainland Japanese, they were just caught in the crossfire. Millions of Japanese citizens would have chosen death over surrender. The bomb saved lives.

:headbang: Hi I am one of those great americans you talk about and you are full of S*IT. If how many people did we kill in world war 1 and world war 2 without the bomb. You should also learn your history you say that Hitler and Stalin worked together. They did for a time but without soviet support the american's would not have won World war 2. Also stop being a hypocrite you are talking like Americans are a master race when you say that people who say they are a master race are bad. Learn your facts.
Military Casualties in World War I
1914-1918

Belgium 45,550
British Empire 942,135
France 1,368,000
Greece 23,098
Italy 680,000
Japan 1,344
Montenegro 3,000
Portugal 8,145
Romania 300,000
Russia 1,700,000
Serbia 45,000
United States 116,516
Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
Bulgaria 87,495
Germany 1,935,000
Ottoman Empire 725,000
Notice americans have almost the least casualties of the major powers. it is because we didn't come until the war was almost over.
same with world war 2
Civilian and Military Deaths in the Second World War

Countries Total Deaths % of Pre-war Population Military Deaths Civilian Deaths
USSR 20,600,000 10.40% 13,600,000 7,000,000
China 10,000,000 2.00% - -
Germany 6,850,000 9.50% 3,250,000 3,600,000
Poland 6,123,000 17.20% 123,000 6,000,000
Japan 2,000,000 2.70% - -
Yugoslavia 1,706,000 10.90% - -
France 810,000 1.90% 340,000 470,000
Greece 520,000 7.20% - -
USA 500,000 0.40% 500,000 -
Austria 480,000 7.20% - -
Romania 460,000 3.40% - -
Hungary 420,000 3.00% - -
Italy 410,000 0.90% 330,000 80,000
Czechoslovakia 400,000 2.70% - -
Great Britain 388,000 0.80% 326,000 62,000
The Netherlands 210,000 2.40% 198,000 12,000
Belgium 88,000 1.10% 76,000 12,000
Finland 84,000 2.20% - -
Australia 39,000 0.30% - -
Canada 34,000 0.30% - -
Albania 28,000 2.50% - -
India 24,000 0.01% - -
Norway 10,262 0.30% - -
New Zealand 10,000 0.60% - -
Luxembourg 5,000 1.70% - -
TOTAL 52,199,262 - - -


Interesting, isn't it?

Notice something Greece lost more people that the USA. DID we really save Europe or did they save themselves and we took the credit


And is it oppresion if the people want it?

World war one and World war two casualties (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2854730)


You don't win a war by dying. By that logic the Jews regained their independence from the Romans in 135 AD. But they didn't.

Greece fought bravely, they had no real effect on the outcome of the war. Had anyone of the big three allies not been involved in the fight, the outcome of the war could very well have been different.

Saying that, Russia, as usual, contributed the least in terms of actual war fighting effort, and would have collapsed in early 1942 without the extensive aid given to it from the UK and US. (Not to mention that they deserved it, and that UK probably should have declared was on the USSR in 1939).

My point exactly. The bombs were bad, but a US invasion of Japan would have been the worst possible case in terms of total dead.

When you look back at your nations history, you can find many blanks. If you look in the right places though, some very interesting facts can appear.

Take Great Britain as an example ( not so great it might seem:)

1. In most British history books it tells you how wonderful they were for abolishing slavery. If you look further back, guess who thought up the idea and sent boats to get slave to take to America...Britain!

2. Also in most British history books the Holocaust was said to be in Germany, they where the bad ones! Not exactly true even though yes the German Holocaust was terriable and un-called for, but the British weren't exactly all high and mighty. They had their own Holocaust, we deported jews and only money lenders were allowed to stay, and even they were hated. I know that the germans did was horrible and Britain didn't really kill jews on a massive scale, but I do have a point.



All goverments make mistakes, some which worst than others, but making mistakes is a part of life, its how we move on. We learn from are mistakes, we know now what a horrible and giantic impact A-bomb can have when dropped. We know not to do it again.

I agree that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were war-crimes, and that the goverment really did have other methods to stop the japenesse. But when you think about what could of happened if the American goverment hadn't used them then... German...Britain...Canada...Iraq....Saudi Arabia... the list is endless, so many bad and horrible things could have happened. Maybe if the goverment had held the bombs for longer they would have made more..

Please don't get me wrong i strongly disagree with what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki but sometimes you have to look at the good side of things. So many people died...but I'm sure that has saved a lot of other's life, even maybe yours.

People make mistakes, its the dealing with the affects that determines what kind of person you are.

US didnt know what was going to happen with the nukes. At first they thought it would only blind the people and then they could send their troops and shoot them while they are blinded. That is until we used a test one in groom lake. Truman knew exactly what he was doing when he signed for the releases of the Nukes. We threatened Japan with a third but we already used it in the testing.

Now the other guy, the figures would have been at least half that. YOU NEVER KILL CIVILIANS DURING WAR UNLESS IT IS ABSOLUTLY NECCASARY TO WIN. The if US couldnt have defeaten Japan without the nukes then they deserved to loose. Japan wasnt known for having a strong tank (actually a lot worse then the sherman) or too good of weapons (worse then the french machine gun with the holes in the magazine). Superior numbers, tech, and tatics could have easily defeated Japan, we quickly stopped their island hopping.

If not for the use of the A-Bomb, there would have been a full fledged assault on the main Island of Japan. This, no doubt, would have led to millions of more causualties (on both sides) and possibly the end of the Japanese empire. Remember, the citizens of Japan (children, men, and women) believed that they had to protect their homeland at all costs, even if that ment suicide bombings or Kamikazees. So if anything, the United States of America should be recognized for not invading their homeland and ending the war as quickly as possible. The second point is if Japan didn't want to get bombed, they shouldn't have attacked America and provoked it to use what was emerging as the strongest economy in the world against it. So if you want to blame anyone for "war crimes" blame Japan for ravenging China and most of the pacific and for not surrendering after the first bomb fell (they were giving ample oppurtunity and warning to avoid the second bomb). Sorry if anyone posted that but I just wanted to get those points out there.

You don't win a war by dying. By that logic the Jews regained their independence from the Romans in 135 AD. But they didn't.

Greece fought bravely, they had no real effect on the outcome of the war. Had anyone of the big three allies not been involved in the fight, the outcome of the war could very well have been different.

Saying that, Russia, as usual, contributed the least in terms of actual war fighting effort, and would have collapsed in early 1942 without the extensive aid given to it from the UK and US. (Not to mention that they deserved it, and that UK probably should have declared was on the USSR in 1939).

I learned this from my Greek friend and later confirmed it. In ww1 and 2 Italy did more harm then good to its allies. In ww2 they invaded greece, were repelled and germany had to salvage it. That would take troops away from other fronts. Russia probably did the most to stop Germany since that was one of the first conflicts and they were the only people to actually stand a chance against Germany with a full army. France did nothing, GB only defeated the Lauffate (Damn my spelling) because of the radar (not british, made by MIT or IBM or some other US technology type thing.) and were having trouble. The Americans (Canada and US) and austrailians and maybe a few Brits were able to defeat the germans at d-day only because of the french resistance.

Hey [NS]Ein Deutscher,

Japan has made some public statements about it but that's it. As a nation they gloss over it in their public school and university text books and it remains a taboo subject today.

What's the difference? Germany confessed. Nuremburg, unlike the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, actually convicted and removed Nazis from existance. German citizens made a decision to never to allow it to happen again and made that public policy. I haven't agreed with the German government on everything, like Iraq, but it's a freely elected democracy and that's a hell of a lot better than anything else.

US didnt know what was going to happen with the nukes. At first they thought it would only blind the people and then they could send their troops and shoot them while they are blinded. That is until we used a test one in groom lake. Truman knew exactly what he was doing when he signed for the releases of the Nukes. We threatened Japan with a third but we already used it in the testing.

Now the other guy, the figures would have been at least half that. YOU NEVER KILL CIVILIANS DURING WAR UNLESS IT IS ABSOLUTLY NECCASARY TO WIN. The if US couldnt have defeaten Japan without the nukes then they deserved to loose. Japan wasnt known for having a strong tank (actually a lot worse then the sherman) or too good of weapons (worse then the french machine gun with the holes in the magazine). Superior numbers, tech, and tatics could have easily defeated Japan, we quickly stopped their island hopping.

we stopped their island hopping and crippled their stores of oil and food largely by cutting their supply routes. US submarines played a large role in this.

If not for the use of the A-Bomb, there would have been a full fledged assault on the main Island of Japan. This, no doubt, would have led to millions of more causualties (on both sides) and possibly the end of the Japanese empire. Remember, the citizens of Japan (children, men, and women) believed that they had to protect their homeland at all costs, even if that ment suicide bombings or Kamikazees. So if anything, the United States of America should be recognized for not invading their homeland and ending the war as quickly as possible. The second point is if Japan didn't want to get bombed, they shouldn't have attacked America and provoked it to use what was emerging as the strongest economy in the world against it. So if you want to blame anyone for "war crimes" blame Japan for ravenging China and most of the pacific and for not surrendering after the first bomb fell (they were giving ample oppurtunity and warning to avoid the second bomb). Sorry if anyone posted that but I just wanted to get those points out there.

US started by starving Japan's oil supply (they had hardly any natural resources) this started island hopping and they bombed US since they were pissed off.

we stopped their island hopping and crippled their stores of oil and food largely by cutting their supply routes. US submarines played a large role in this.

What oil? Japan had hardly oil left. If we invaded then we would mainly have to worry about the infantry. Infantry are easily defeated if left alone. The lack of oil also would have crippled its economy. Besides the emperor wanted to surrender

The Americans (Canada and US) and austrailians and maybe a few Brits were able to defeat the germans at d-day only because of the french resistance.

The 130,000 Allied soldiers who landed on Normandy beaches would probably take issue with that statement.

The FFI (Free French Resistance) was vital in supplying the Allies with intelligence, smuggling downed pilots but could only enter combat action as Allies arrived because of Nazi reprisals against civilians.

The Americans (Canada and US) and austrailians and maybe a few Brits were able to defeat the germans at d-day only because of the french resistance.

The 130,000 Allied soldiers who landed on Normandy beaches would probably take issue with that statement.

The FFI (Free French Resistance) was vital in supplying the Allies with intelligence, smuggling downed pilots but could only enter combat action as Allies arrived because of Nazi reprisals against civilians.

The germans were recieving reinforcements. The french resistance armed with the horrible Liberator Pistol, shot at the germans. The germans got mad and destroyed their whole town in about 2 hours delaying them long enough to render them useless

emperor wanted to surrender

The Emperor Hirohito did not want to surrender. In 1995 the Japanese government declassified orders from the Emperor ordering the Army to execute all prisoners of war under it's control when the invasion of the home islands began.

He surrendered because of the shock and awe of two atomic bombs not knowing how many more there were.

emperor wanted to surrender

The Emperor Hirohito did not want to surrender. In 1995 the Japanese government declassified orders from the Emperor ordering the Army to execute all prisoners of war under it's control when the invasion of the home islands began.

He surrendered because of the shock and awe of two atomic bombs not knowing how many more there were.

Is that why the Japanese army tried to kill him to recover the disks he made and were going to release?

Bombing of civilian targets was standard practice at the time. It was not a war crime when it happened. If the same were to happen today, it would be a war crime.

We judge the intent of this thread to be dishonorable. The poster's only recourse is to regain his honor through seppuku.

US didnt know what was going to happen with the nukes. At first they thought it would only blind the people and then they could send their troops and shoot them while they are blinded. That is until we used a test one in groom lake. Truman knew exactly what he was doing when he signed for the releases of the Nukes. We threatened Japan with a third but we already used it in the testing.

Now the other guy, the figures would have been at least half that. YOU NEVER KILL CIVILIANS DURING WAR UNLESS IT IS ABSOLUTLY NECCASARY TO WIN. The if US couldnt have defeaten Japan without the nukes then they deserved to loose. Japan wasnt known for having a strong tank (actually a lot worse then the sherman) or too good of weapons (worse then the french machine gun with the holes in the magazine). Superior numbers, tech, and tatics could have easily defeated Japan, we quickly stopped their island hopping.

Wow... you really don't get it, do you? What kind of men would you get back when your invasion is done? The kind who see a smiling kid coming toward them, and think "Bomb". The kind that have nightmares about human-waves in city fighting, the kind that have to deal with in-person genocide.
They were traiining KIDs and Women to use SPEARS and Bombs cully. A land-invasion of Japan's home islands would have meant the extermination of the Japanese people. Do you understand this term, Extermination?. Japan's terrain is not good for tank-battle. It's steep, mountainous, and tight-it's a Guerilla's paradise over there, kind of like Vietnam, but colder and a bit dryer.

Taking it by mean force would have meant fighting the civilians, not just the Army and the Navy. 110,000 Japanese in two cities, or millions on the streets of every city-that's your choices, whom do you kill?

The Japanese tradition of resisting invaders went back hundereds of years, these are people who, when the American Army took Okinawa, committed suicide rather than submit to the invaders. Their "Demoralized" troops expressed their grief in Banzai charges and fighting to the last breath.

And that doesn't even touch on the effects of continued siege of the islands, continued thousand-plane-raid bombing raids, naval gunfire against land targets to facilitate the landings, or the other "handgrenade in a phone booth" conditions that a land invasion would have required. Tank warfare on the home islands would have meant little-tanks aren't suitable weapons on that terrain, they'd be bogged down at best and easy-meat at worst, but the real horror is making American troops shoot children in order to fucking survive.

The land-invasion of Japan would have made Stalin's Purges and starving-the-Ukraine, or Hitler's final-solution look good. The population of Japan was primed by history, culture, and religion to fight any invaders that set foot on their home islands, they were training children to attack American soldiers, it might have been a victory, but it would have wound up a victory in a burnt and blood-soaked cemetary.
Tech-advantages don't make it easier to take someone alive, they make it easier to kill them. We wanted Japan alive, not a slaughterhouse, not VA hospitals full of men who'd done things that make MyLai of a generation later look gentle and kind over actions they were forced to take to stay alive.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the minimum force, at the minimum risk option, given a few thousand documented incidents of false-surrenders by Jap commanders in the Solomans, Phillipines, and other places. Nuclear Guilt is nice, in the luxury of today, with the Luxury of assuming facts not-in-evidence at the time, that may not even be facts, but the speculations of revisionist writers who weren't there, and likely weren't even alive at that time, much less involved.

Further, after those two detonations, there hasn't been a true global war of conquest with all the trimmings since-the power (and the guilt) released by those bombs has probably saved billions of lives over the last fifty years- negotiation became more palatable than war when war became so destructive that talking stopped being just a prelude.

100 extra points for you! Not many folks know about that attempted coup. When did the coup happen...after the bombing. What Jibea referred to...

Hirohito recorded the notification of surrender to the people of Japan on tape to be played the next day on a radio station. That night the coup happened. An aide to the Emperor hid the tapes. As the conspirators raided the residence looking for the tapes, a force of US bombers knocked out the power plant supplying the building with electricity. With no flashlights searched for a while, gave up and decided to take over the radio station. Coup failed. No plan to kill the Emperor, just shut him up and fight for a conditional surrender instead of an unconditional surrender.

What oil? Japan had hardly oil left. If we invaded then we would mainly have to worry about the infantry. Infantry are easily defeated if left alone. The lack of oil also would have crippled its economy. Besides the emperor wanted to surrender


...Japan had hardly any oil left precisely because we cut their supply lanes to Southeast Asia, areas just north of Australia, etc.

If not for the efforts of US submarines, we might not have been in a position to end the war.

I also challenge the point that it would have been easy... we could have lost millions of troops trying to do it (think of all the civilians fighting against Americans too...) , diversified strength (on Japan's part) or not.

Their navy was virtually crushed... if not literally, then figuratively because they were suffering massive oil shortages. They had neither oil nor food... sensing Japan in its death throes, we attacked.

to go the conventional route would have been disastrous for millions instead of 105,000.

I guess that to you, shoveling 6 million Jews into ovens doesn't count as an "act of mass terrorism".

According to Ein Deutsher, the only people that can actually commit a crime are Americans, and in WWII in could only have been the allies. Everyone elses actions are completely justified.

Bombing of civilian targets was standard practice at the time. It was not a war crime when it happened. If the same were to happen today, it would be a war crime.
Using poisonous weapons i.e. things that result in years of radioactive contamination was forbidden by international law at the time. Bombing of civilians has been a war crime before WW2. (http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html)

According to Ein Deutsher, the only people that can actually commit a crime are Americans, and in WWII in could only have been the allies. Everyone elses actions are completely justified.
You are wrong. I never said such a thing.

Basically, if you've seen the movie Tora Tora Tora, the last couple of lines applied to the actual war. Attacking Pearl Harbor hours before the actual Declaration of War was delivered pissed Americans off more than anything.

Why we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

1. The Japanese ideology of fighting to the last man, woman, and child would have cost millions of lives on both sides and could have extended the war well into 1946.

2. America really didn't like Russia back then, and Russia was glancing very disturbing looks at Japan. If Japan had become a Soviet Republic, then, wella lot of things would be different.

3. America wanted retribution for Pearl Harbor, they attacked up by suprise. It was only reasonable that America wanted to suprise Japan was obliverating two of their cities.

Ein Deutscher']You are wrong. I never said such a thing.

But according to your policy of quotations=facts, obviously you did. After all, he said you did.

I learned this from my Greek friend and later confirmed it. In ww1 and 2 Italy did more harm then good to its allies. In ww2 they invaded greece, were repelled and germany had to salvage it. That would take troops away from other fronts. Russia probably did the most to stop Germany since that was one of the first conflicts and they were the only people to actually stand a chance against Germany with a full army. France did nothing, GB only defeated the Lauffate (Damn my spelling) because of the radar (not british, made by MIT or IBM or some other US technology type thing.) and were having trouble. The Americans (Canada and US) and austrailians and maybe a few Brits were able to defeat the germans at d-day only because of the french resistance.

Actually, the unsucessful defense of greece (and also crete) by british troops actually severely hampered operations in North Africa. If anything, ultimately it probably lessened pressure on the Germans, because british logisital blundering led to revesals in the desert and allowed the germans a period of breathing space.

Had vital first line troops not been placed in defense of greece at the last moment (along with vital material), the germans would have been forced to either massively increase manpower lift to North Africa or face a much earlier defeat of the Afrika-Korps. (And the resulting huge numbers of POWs that entails).

Britian - the RAF - to be exact developed the Chain-home system of Radar four or five years before the war. RDF was top secret, and although many other nations (germany included) were well aware of the principle, at the start of the war only the RAF had the capability of tracking range, bearing, speed, and direction of flight. In other words, unlike, say the US at that point, which could only use it as an early warning system giving a rough estimate of the attack, the RAF could use it to vector fighters to a specific group.

In any case, the RAF did a little more than 'defeat the luftwaffe.' Bomber Command's offensive operations - along with 8th airforce - in 1943 did a lot more to destroy German war fighting capacity than the Soviet Army had to the point. It also reduced the effectiveness of german logistics greatly enough to allow the generally inferior Russian forces to gain ground against the germans. It is interesting to note, that in the run up to D-Day, when heavy bomber strength was diverted back to the west in preparation for the D-Day landings, that the germans were able to stall the Russians once again owing to the massive improvement in domestic industry and logistical support in the east.

And having said all that, the only reason why Anglo-American forces didn't take Berlin first was because of politics. General Simpson was more than capable of beating the Russians to it.

The french resitance, in the larger scheme of things, was irrelevant.

But according to your policy of quotations=facts, obviously you did. After all, he said you did.
He didn't actually quote me. He pulled out this crap out of nowehere, whereas the quotes listed in the first post are backed up.

Ein Deutscher']He didn't actually quote me. He pulled out this crap out of nowehere, whereas the quotes listed in the first post are backed up.

No he didn't quote you. However, he spoke, and now I could quote him. The quotes at the front are not backed up by complete data, because there is no complete data. They simply reflect the opinions of people looking back after the fact. That's all.
None of them claim it was a war crime, they only argue that it was unneccesary.

No he didn't quote you. However, he spoke, and now I could quote him. The quotes at the front are not backed up by complete data, because there is no complete data. They simply reflect the opinions of people looking back after the fact. That's all.
None of them claim it was a war crime, they only argue that it was unneccesary.
It was a war crime since it was against the international laws of warfare at the time. That's all it needs to be to be a war crime.

Ein Deutscher']It was a war crime since it was against the international laws of warfare at the time. That's all it needs to be to be a war crime.

Although not versed in international law, I've never heard of bombing of populated areas in wartime being against international law. Please provide a link to the appropriate document.
If you providing one earlier, and I missed it, I apologize.

Although not versed in international law, I've never heard of bombing of populated areas in wartime being against international law. Please provide a link to the appropriate document.
If you providing one earlier, and I missed it, I apologize.
I provided one earlier, but here you go again:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html

Ein Deutscher']You are wrong. I never said such a thing.

Perhaps not explicitly

Perhaps not explicitly
I didn't imply it either. You're pulling it out of nowhere. That's all. :rolleyes:

Ein Deutscher']I provided one earlier, but here you go again:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html

Thank you. Sorry I missed it earlier.
The problem with these rules is that I don't think any country involved in aerial warfare in the twentieth century has followed them. If nobody follows them, they become invalid (by way of analogy, the practice of homosexuality was illegal in many countries for years, but nobody was formally charged. Thus, the law, although still legally binding, was invalid).

Ein Deutscher']I provided one earlier, but here you go again:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html
This implies that those being bombed are civilians. In general, I classify a civilian as non-combatant. Though in previous posts, we have read testimony from young girls and school age children that they were being taught and trained to fight. If push comes to shove, you could argue that the entire population could be considered hostile.

I am a British patriot but I can accept that the bombing of Dresden was a mistake for which the British bomber command can be highly criticised for. I also recognise that virtually every side in the war committed some form of atrocity. However the aim of my post is to lift the rose tinted spectacles that the US has on when regarding its role in the war.


Now that's just pathetic.

"I'm a British patriot" he says waving the Union Jack. "Incidentally we suck."

Dude, the UK didn't start the war, Germany did. They bombed the crap out of your cities. Now I know you must be shocked to find that looking at history through your modern liberal revisionism that "Gentle England" can, when it's back is against the wall, be as vicious and downright nasty as a serial killing pederasty pimp selling puppies.

Well when push comes to shove England is just that nasty. If push came to shove next week you'd become just that nasty again.

Of course America is no better. The truth be told we are far far worse. We are a nation founded by religious lunatics, pirates, convicts, and complete bastards. We choose our leaders by finding the biggest rat fucking bastard we can who can lie with strait face and smile. Seriously screw with us and as soon as you come around in the rotation of all the people and nations we are currently screwing over we will fuck you up, because we're Americans and that's what we do best. :D

This implies that those being bombed are civilians. In general, I classify a civilian as non-combatant. Though in previous posts, we have read testimony from young girls and school age children that they were being taught and trained to fight. If push comes to shove, you could argue that the entire population could be considered hostile.
Naturally people who's country is being invaded, are hostile. Duh :rolleyes:
Would you sit idly by if someone attacked the US? I think not. Then following your logic, any city of the US can be nuked, because the population would be hostile.

Ein Deutscher']Naturally people who's country is being invaded, are hostile. Duh :rolleyes:
Would you sit idly by if someone attacked the US? I think not. Then following your logic, any city of the US can be nuked, because the population would be hostile.

In time of war, if America is the agressor- by this logic- yes those cities could be nuked. Particularly if the various members of militias across the states started mobilizing (as they would)

I think we tend to think more thought.
plz never do that again >.<

Ein Deutscher']Naturally people who's country is being invaded, are hostile. Duh :rolleyes:
Would you sit idly by if someone attacked the US? I think not. Then following your logic, any city of the US can be nuked, because the population would be hostile.

We didn't sit idly by as we were being attacked. We fought back. We will continously fight back when some dumbass individual or nation decides to mess with us.

DON'T TREAD ON ME

We didn't sit idly by as we were being attacked. We fought back. We will continously fight back when some dumbass individual or nation decides to mess with us.

DON'T TREAD ON ME


lol. Others think the same.. ence, 9/11..

No he didn't quote you. However, he spoke, and now I could quote him. The quotes at the front are not backed up by complete data, because there is no complete data. They simply reflect the opinions of people looking back after the fact. That's all.
None of them claim it was a war crime, they only argue that it was unneccesary.

You do have a point though about the larger argument-there are quite a few folks here on the boards (and elsewhere) who seem to operate on the assumption that only the West (The U.S., Britain, etc.) commit atrocities because their enemies are always presumed to be "Justified" no matter what the action is.

The Double-Standard may or may not apply directly to Ein Deutscher, but there are a remarkable number of folks (even with degrees in history and full teaching postions at University levels) that hold that view with full, sincere, and faithful belief.

Ein Deutscher']Naturally people who's country is being invaded, are hostile. Duh :rolleyes:
Would you sit idly by if someone attacked the US? I think not. Then following your logic, any city of the US can be nuked, because the population would be hostile.
That’s not my logic. If you clearly fallowed my logic you would see that those trained to fight would be considered hostile. The rest of my statement was "if push comes to shove" meaning if you were in a court debating the legality of the matter you could interpret the training of people to be combatants as being hostile.
And you're damn right I wouldn’t sit idly by. You can count on me to stand up if the US is under attack. And by doing so, I realize I become a combatant and a possible target.

lol. Others think the same.. ence, 9/11..

are you trying to say that America deserved 9/11?

hmm, rather revolting. it's their problem if they don't like our way of life. they can boycott it... they don't have to buy our products or listen.. to.. music or allow their women to wear colors other than black. I cannot sympathize with the haters of freedom. They deserve everything they're getting (and are going to get) right now. It will be some time before they'll be able to sleep in the same palce 2 nights in a row.

are you trying to say that America deserved 9/11?

.


Did hiroshima deserve a nuke? Most likely not.. but Japan did provoque the situation. Its all the same..

are you trying to say that America deserved 9/11?

hmm, rather revolting. it's their problem if they don't like our way of life. they can boycott it... they don't have to buy our products or listen.. to.. music or allow their women to wear colors other than black. I cannot sympathize with the haters of freedom. They deserve everything they're getting (and are going to get) right now. It will be some time before they'll be able to sleep in the same palce 2 nights in a row.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying America deserved 9/11. Osama Bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law based on their crimes.

Now that that's out of the way, I think your labeling of the reasons for 9/11 is incorrect. Contrary to what the political machine in America says, 9/11 did not occur because Muslims "hate freedom" or don't like American "culture" (I use the term culture loosely) but rather for a variety of reasons, two of the primary ones being:
1) US soldiers in the "holy lands" of Mecca nad Medina in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government's permission of them and
2) the foreign policy of the US, especially during the cold war, of supporting anyone who hated the Soviets, regardless of how those people treated the civilians under them.

My best high school essay was on this subject. Americans new that Japan was ready for peace, before the bombing. Many Japanese lives could have been adverted.

The main reasons why the US dropped the bombs are as follows.
- Spent so much money on the project might as well use the bomb.
- Russian advance on Japan in Manchuria.
- Most importantly to speed up the peace process and for the US to get the Japanese uncondiotionable surrender.

Also America's firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than the atomic bomb's.

Did hiroshima deserve a nuke? Most likely not.. but Japan did provoque the situation. Its all the same..
I'm curious to know how we provoked anything. In history class, I was taught that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor without any decent warning. I am not aware of a similar situation in which the US secretly attacked a country without ample warning.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying America deserved 9/11. Osama Bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law based on their crimes.

Now that that's out of the way, I think your labeling of the reasons for 9/11 is incorrect. Contrary to what the political machine in America says, 9/11 did not occur because Muslims "hate freedom" or don't like American "culture" (I use the term culture loosely) but rather for a variety of reasons, two of the primary ones being:
1) US soldiers in the "holy lands" of Mecca nad Medina in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government's permission of them and
2) the foreign policy of the US, especially during the cold war, of supporting anyone who hated the Soviets, regardless of how those people treated the civilians under them.

I knew of #1, but not really #2. thanks for the thoughtful answer.

My best high school essay was on this subject. Americans new that Japan was ready for peace, before the bombing. Many Japanese lives could have been adverted.

The main reasons why the US dropped the bombs are as follows.
- Spent so much money on the project might as well use the bomb.
- Russian advance on Japan in Manchuria.
- Most importantly to speed up the peace process and for the US to get the Japanese uncondiotionable surrender.

Also America's firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than the atomic bomb's.

you need to read the Pig Boats book chronicling the naval battles in the Pacific (more precisely, submarine activity)

the idea there is that the elder Japanese generals would have fought to the end.

hence, i'm not sure i agree that japan was ready for peace.

the atomic blasts, of course, changed their mind. but if we'd continued conventionally millions likely would have died.

I believe the United States haas lots of more recent war crimes, and violations of the most basic rules of human rights, such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Irak in general, and Vietnam. Don't bring old issues but disscuse the new ones.
And I'm terribly dissapointed on Humanity because someone is so stupid to believe there is anykind of justification for the A bomb.Because there is not sucha a thing. Because there is no justification for that dead people. Because 105000 dead innocent civilian dead people is not a Collateral Dammage. Because we humans are not civilizated enough to have that kind of bomb.

Now that's just pathetic.

"I'm a British patriot" he says waving the Union Jack. "Incidentally we suck."

Dude, the UK didn't start the war, Germany did. They bombed the crap out of your cities. Now I know you must be shocked to find that looking at history through your modern liberal revisionism that "Gentle England" can, when it's back is against the wall, be as vicious and downright nasty as a serial killing pederasty pimp selling puppies.

Well when push comes to shove England is just that nasty. If push came to shove next week you'd become just that nasty again.

Of course America is no better. The truth be told we are far far worse. We are a nation founded by religious lunatics, pirates, convicts, and complete bastards. We choose our leaders by finding the biggest rat fucking bastard we can who can lie with strait face and smile. Seriously screw with us and as soon as you come around in the rotation of all the people and nations we are currently screwing over we will fuck you up, because we're Americans and that's what we do best. :D

To be blindly patriotic without acknowledging your countries flaws and faults is completely and totally wrong. There is only one type of accept patriotism and that is educated patriotism. If you follow a country completely and utterly blindly then you get a sort of Nazi Germany situation where people were so fuelled with patriotic fervour they willingly ignored the mass murder of Jews and other minority groups.

Just remember that all sides are guilty of great atrocities in war and thta was the purpose of this thread: to try and draw attention to the fact that America's role in this war was hardly as blameless as some might pretend it is.

I'm curious to know how we provoked anything. In history class, I was taught that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor without any decent warning. I am not aware of a similar situation in which the US secretly attacked a country without ample warning.


Japan historically and in the present never had natural resources. Stuff that industrialized nations need, like oil.

The US embargoed Japan prior to the war, basically grabbing their economy by the balls. Ence, Japan moved to a more.. pro-active policy, grabing resources by force. They played the wrong card, has history as shown, but they just didnt attacked your country out of the blue, because they woke up one morning and felt like it. They were pushed to it.


PS: Provocation to New British Glory: Did you knew that Churchill wanted to bomb german cities with chemical weapons, but his generals stopped him from doing it? So much for all that "Churchillian" honor ...

Japan historically and in the present never had natural resources. Stuff that industrialized nations need, like oil.

The US embargoed Japan prior to the war, basically grabbing their economy by the balls. Ence, Japan moved to a more.. pro-active policy, grabing resources by force. They played the wrong card, has history as shown, but they just didnt attacked your country out of the blue, because they woke up one morning and felt like it. They were pushed to it.
I am well aware of the reasons Japan gave for the attack on Pearl Harbor. This response does not answer my question, I will rephrase:
I wanted to know who or what we provoked to lead to 9/11. If the reasons for that tragedy are military presence and politics, I'm not sure I can agree that the US "deserved" anything.

I believe the United States haas lots of more recent war crimes, and violations of the most basic rules of human rights, such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Irak in general, and Vietnam. Don't bring old issues but disscuse the newones

You would be thoroughly incorrect in each of those assertions, youngster.
Abu Ghraib: by way of comparison, I recommend a stay at a Turkish, Japanese, or Chinese penal facility.

Guantanamo: POW Holding Facility.

Irak: never heard of it. There's a country named "Iraq" which was run by a cheerful little fellow whose holdings included rape-rooms, and whose sons enjoyed such sports as "Barefoot Baseball" (that's swinging the bat at someone's bare-feet, usually the husband or father of the girl they'd just had their fun with). This fellow's name was Saddam, and we still haven't finished finding the mass-graves of the people he sent on to Allah for political reasons.
Beyond that, the removal of his regime had a lot to do with cleaning up our own mess (we kept the bastard in power twelve years past his due date).

My Lai- Lt. Calley was charged, tried, and convicted for My Lai. NVA and VC units routinely did the same things (and worse), but of course, you'll excuse them, right? After all, they're your 'Red Brothers', just like the Shining Path in Columbia, FMLN, FARC, M-19, etc etc.

(let's not forget those cheerio boys in Hizb-Allah...nice fellas, hiring kids to carry plastique onto city busses and go boom... or how 'bout the Khmer-Rouge, who wanted so badly to eliminate foreign 'taint' that they slaughtered people for wearing goddamned Glasses and speaking other languages...)

No, I'm sure you only believe that force is evil when americans use it.

you need to read the Pig Boats book chronicling the naval battles in the Pacific (more precisely, submarine activity)

the idea there is that the elder Japanese generals would have fought to the end.

hence, i'm not sure i agree that japan was ready for peace.

the atomic blasts, of course, changed their mind. but if we'd continued conventionally millions likely would have died.

The Japanese generals were discussing peace before the atomic bombs. The stumbling block was the ego of Japan's emperor. he was not ready agree to America's terms, since he feared humilitiation. Though he was eventually humiliated after looking at the destruction of Nagasaki and then promptly agreeing to America's terms. They were discussing peace, but the war would have gone on longer.

I'm curious to know how we provoked anything. In history class, I was taught that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor without any decent warning. I am not aware of a similar situation in which the US secretly attacked a country without ample warning.
Yeah right, but which country had invaded more countries in the past 60 years that all the rest together? which is he country whose favourite activity on extrnal realationships was to support and give funds to dictatorships in Africa an latin america?

When you look back at your nations history, you can find many blanks. If you look in the right places though, some very interesting facts can appear.

Take Great Britain as an example ( not so great it might seem:)

1. In most British history books it tells you how wonderful they were for abolishing slavery. If you look further back, guess who thought up the idea and sent boats to get slave to take to America...Britain!

2. Also in most British history books the Holocaust was said to be in Germany, they where the bad ones! Not exactly true even though yes the German Holocaust was terriable and un-called for, but the British weren't exactly all high and mighty. They had their own Holocaust, we deported jews and only money lenders were allowed to stay, and even they were hated. I know that the germans did was horrible and Britain didn't really kill jews on a massive scale, but I do have a point.


1. Britain did indeed send some of the slaves to Africa. That is very true and if I denied it I would be a complete and utter liar. However Britain wasn't the only power to use the slave trade, although it was the biggest offender - Holland, Portugal, Spain and France all exported slaves. Also note that many Africans actually took part in selling each other into slavery - indeed some African rulers sold their own people into slavery. Secondly Britain was the first country to abolish the slave trade permeantly (France did briefly in 1789 but it was re-instated by Napoleon) and it then spent a great deal of its naval power putting a stop to the slave trade (and slavery in general) in many other countries around the world - slave ships were seized and smaller countries who practiced it were blockaded. Of course revisionist and American history books chose to omit that for the fear of making imperialist Britain look remotely good. Britain are far from guiltless when it comes to slavery but it is one of the few nations that has actively tried to atone for its part in that abhorrant trade. Also note that America (fabled land of freedom for all) abolished slavery over sixity years after the imperialist British and the imperialist British did not need a civil war to do so. Also note that Britain has never practiced policies of racial segregation while some American states continued to do that until the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

2. Also true but alas you omit to mention when the British holocaust was: it was in the 1300s when Edward the First was on the throne (and that makes it an English holocaust as the state of Britain would not come into existence until 1603 and even then it would take awhile to make it the United Kingdom). You also omit to mention that Britain took many Portuguese Jews in during the 17th Century - they set up large banking houses which eventually became key to Britain's economic dominance of the 19th Century.

To be blindly patriotic without acknowledging your countries flaws and faults is completely and totally wrong. There is only one type of accept patriotism and that is educated patriotism. If you follow a country completely and utterly blindly then you get a sort of Nazi Germany situation where people were so fuelled with patriotic fervour they willingly ignored the mass murder of Jews and other minority groups.

Just remember that all sides are guilty of great atrocities in war and thta was the purpose of this thread: to try and draw attention to the fact that America's role in this war was hardly as blameless as some might pretend it is.

William Tecumseh Sherman: "War is Hell."

Most of the casualties in the last three years among americans, has been because we have adopted this new idea-instead of annihilation, we try to use minimum-force-necessary. It's a new innovation, and it was borne out of the multisided massacres of the second-world war. The idea of "Limited Warfare" is one that has only worked its way into existence in th last fifty years, it didn't work so well in Vietnam, but it did in Grenada, it did in GW1, and it's worked 'okay' in GW2.
It's fighting below the destruction-possibilities curve, and it's "New".

Guantanamo: POW Holding Facility.
.


If Guantanamo is a "POW Holding Facility", then why does the US government refuse to refer to the people detained there as POWs?

To stress the war crimes the US has commited and ignore those of other nations is ridiculous, but to think that the US has never done anything wrong is equally ridiculous. (I'm not saying you are think the US is never wrong, but I have seen people on this board who seem to believe it.)

If Guantanamo is a "POW Holding Facility", then why does the US government refuse to refer to the people detained there as POWs?

To stress the war crimes the US has commited and ignore those of other nations is ridiculous, but to think that the US has never done anything wrong is equally ridiculous. (I'm not saying you are think the US is never wrong, but I have seen people on this board who seem to believe it.)
Examine what goes on at Gitmo, with comparison to, say, the Bataan Death March. The people being held at Gitmo are actually getting better treatment than they would if the U.S. were to enforce Geneva as written. They're "Unlawful Combatants"-which earns you a bullet-to-the-head under Geneva, no trial necessary.
Guantanamo Bay is not a Death-camp, the prisoners are fed, treated for injuries and illness, and restrained-but not executed en-masse or worked to expiration.
They are, in fact, being treated better than our guys would be treated by the buddies of those internees. (I don't know about y'alls, but I tend to think being questioned by interrogators after not getting much sleep is a hell of a lot better than having your head sawed off on videotape for the audience of Al-Jazeera.)

you need to read the Pig Boats book chronicling the naval battles in the Pacific (more precisely, submarine activity)

the idea there is that the elder Japanese generals would have fought to the end.

hence, i'm not sure i agree that japan was ready for peace.

the atomic blasts, of course, changed their mind. but if we'd continued conventionally millions likely would have died.

The Japanese generals were discussing peace before the atomic bombs. The stumbling block was the ego of Japan's emperor. he was not ready agree to America's terms, since he feared humilitiation. Though he was eventually humiliated after looking at the destruction of Nagasaki and then promptly agreeing to America's terms. They were discussing peace, but the war would have gone on longer.

If Guantanamo is a "POW Holding Facility", then why does the US government refuse to refer to the people detained there as POWs?

To stress the war crimes the US has commited and ignore those of other nations is ridiculous, but to think that the US has never done anything wrong is equally ridiculous. (I'm not saying you are think the US is never wrong, but I have seen people on this board who seem to believe it.)

I think that's because we're using lots of chemicals to drain all information from their tiny little minds, and we're taking our time doing it. Think of it not so much as a POW camp, but as "The Village" from "The Prisoner" without the amenities.

The atomic bomb saved lives. The Japanese government was run by a cruel, haughty dictator whose people looked up to him with the fervor of the Nazi's to Hitler times infinity. Hirohito was the "Sun God" walking on earth. The battle of Iwo Jima resulted in almost 7,000 Americans killed - more than 20,000 American casualties. Almost 1/3 of all marines who were killed in action during World War Two were killed at that one battle. About 21,000 Japnese people died during that one battle. Iwo Jima's importance to the Japanese people can be minimized when compared to the mainland. If all remaining defenders of the island would rather jump off a cliff than surrender, then how do you suppose we take over the main island?

Another critical aspect is the Japanese development of the jet engine. Although the Germans and the British (independently of each other) did fly the first prototypes, Japan was in the process of piecing together enough industry to employ the jet fighters on a mass scale. If given the years, which it took to finally defeat hitler in Germany, Japan would have unleashed their awesome, new weapon which would have lead to millions of deaths. To think they could outfly the f6f hellcat by almost 100 mph.

The Germans dismantled their entire infrastructure to delay the American and Russian fronts. To deny the fact Japanese would have fought to the very last man, woman, child would be idiotic at best. The fervor they worshipped their living God completely dwarfs that of the Nazi Germans. Invading mainland Japan would have proved to be as disastrous as trying to invade a small, meaningless island of Iwo Jima. The two atom bombs saved lives.

What is the goal of war anyway? Isn't the goal of a war to minimize your troops casualties while trying to maximize the casualties of the other side? Everyday we hear people complain about how many American troops are killed, and you are advocating millions of American troops being killed to invade Japan when you have a super weapon that will shock the world, to have hundreds of thousands of deaths in an instant with putting only the half-dozen flight crew at risk??

Millions of deaths, possibly tens of millions of casualties or 100,000 Japanese?

Not to mention the death marches the Japanese suffered American troops through. The inhumane conditions in which they put our troops through during the war. How many Japanese military members were punished for that? Hirohito died in 1989.

I'm a member of the school that says that the decision to nuke H&N blows, but at the time, it seemed like the most logical decision to the policy makers at the time. Beyond that, no one really truly understood the destructive force of the atom bomb, and it was often viewed as a really big normal bomb. As such, we have to realize that we had a totally different point of view before the bomb than we did after the bomb.

Beyond that, I'd say that the effect of having seen the weapon in use actually was important in keeping people from advocating offensive use of the atom bomb. As such, we still have a world that is in reasonably decent condition, instead of a radioactive hellhole.

And part of the thing with Guantanamo is the fact that the people being held there were not in uniform, or following the standard rules of the Geneva convention. As such, the arguement is that they don't get the protections, nor do they fit the classifications of the Geneva convention. I don't fully agree with this tactic, but I'm just trying to explain it. I'd much rather see those fellows actually face trial or something.

I'm a member of the school that says that the decision to nuke H&N blows, but at the time, it seemed like the most logical decision to the policy makers at the time. Beyond that, no one really truly understood the destructive force of the atom bomb, and it was often viewed as a really big normal bomb. As such, we have to realize that we had a totally different point of view before the bomb than we did after the bomb.

Beyond that, I'd say that the effect of having seen the weapon in use actually was important in keeping people from advocating offensive use of the atom bomb. As such, we still have a world that is in reasonably decent condition, instead of a radioactive hellhole.

And part of the thing with Guantanamo is the fact that the people being held there were not in uniform, or following the standard rules of the Geneva convention. As such, the arguement is that they don't get the protections, nor do they fit the classifications of the Geneva convention. I don't fully agree with this tactic, but I'm just trying to explain it. I'd much rather see those fellows actually face trial or something.

You say that as if they hadn't tested it before. They detonated the atom bomb and seen the full destructive force. You don't just send in your prototype into battle.

I've got a question about the alternatives, to the atomic bombings. At this point in the war, Japan was soundly defeated in pretty much all aspects. Specifically their navy was essentially destroyed and their airforce could not compete with America's. One of the reasons that is often cited, why America decided against a land invasion, was because they would have been absolutely slaughtered. I have a hard time believing that America even considered this option, since that wasn't the only way to defeat the Japanese. Personally the other option, besides bombing would have been to set up a complete naval blockade of all the major ports in Japan, thus starving the populous. This would have been cruel and lengthy punishment to the Japanese civilans, but maybe there would have been less deaths.

My question is what would have been other options that the US could have used, besides bombing Japan, to achieve peace?

(Note: This information is all from memory, if you require facts I will find some.)

You say that as if they hadn't tested it before. They detonated the atom bomb and seen the full destructive force. You don't just send in your prototype into battle.
You are not quite getting my point on this one. The full impact of the atom bomb was not understood. They could see that the bang was big, but they didn't fully realize the consequences. The policy makers treated it like some new sort of normal bomb, not a radical revolution in weapons. They did not see the bomb as we see it.

You are not quite getting my point on this one. The full impact of the atom bomb was not understood. They could see that the bang was big, but they didn't fully realize the consequences. The policy makers treated it like some new sort of normal bomb, not a radical revolution in weapons. They did not see the bomb as we see it.

So they overlooked the mile high mushroom cloud? They may have not understood the radiation, however, they did see the atom bomb wasn't a big normal bomb. They did see the destructive force was one million times as much energy as TNT. That's hard to miss. The one who invented the bomb said of it: "We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am became Death, the destroyers of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. "

Yeah, they knew its potential.

So they overlooked the mile high mushroom cloud? They may have not understood the radiation, however, they did see the atom bomb wasn't a big normal bomb. They did see the destructive force was one million times as much energy as TNT. That's hard to miss. The one who invented the bomb said of it: "We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am became Death, the destroyers of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. "

Yeah, they know what it could do.
The policymakers did not truly understand the consequences of the bomb, sure Oppenheimer understood the capacity of the bomb, but by and large the upper echelons (Truman, who was very new to the situation is an exceptional example) were more remote. Truman was not at the detonation of the bomb, nor were the other policymakers, if I remember correctly. I would contend that they did not have the same understanding of the bomb then that we do no.

There are only two possible explanations of such an attitude of the majority of people towards the US.
1. US really saved the world a number of times ... and the world has completely lost its mind and is trying to humiliate their liberators by all means.
2. The world is still ok, but something is terribly wrong with US...

Which answer is more likely to be true ?

Mutual.

So they overlooked the mile high mushroom cloud? They may have not understood the radiation, however, they did see the atom bomb wasn't a big normal bomb. They did see the destructive force was one million times as much energy as TNT. That's hard to miss. The one who invented the bomb said of it: "We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am became Death, the destroyers of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. "

Yeah, they knew its potential.

Yeah, they sure did. Scientists were afraid that it would set the air on fire.... (Actually, they really did think that.)

The radioactive reaction coupled with the jet streams was the unexpected part. Of course, this was a brand new scientific discovery, so yeah....

The policymakers did not truly understand the consequences of the bomb, sure Oppenheimer understood the capacity of the bomb, but by and large the upper echelons (Truman, who was very new to the situation is an exceptional example) were more remote. Truman was not at the detonation of the bomb, nor were the other policymakers, if I remember correctly. I would contend that they did not have the same understanding of the bomb then that we do no.

Here is an exerpt from President Truman's diary entry about the sucessful testing of the atomic bomb:

We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era, after Noah and his fabulous ark. Anyway, we think we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling -- to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused a crater six hundred feet deep and twelve hundred feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower a half mile away, and knocked men down ten thousand yards away. The explosion was visible for more than two hundred miles and audible for forty miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10. I have told the secretary of war, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new...The target will be a purely military one...It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.

I think Truman did have know what the power of the bomb was. He not only compares it to the biblical flood and calls it the most terrible thing ever discovered, but also gives examples of the damage this bomb wrought at the test site. Truman says the bomb will be dropped on a "purely military target", and we all know that this did not happen. However, I think the description of the destructive force of the bomb earlier in the diary entry shows Truman knew the bomb's power, and knew what would happen if he dropped it on a city. He was simply deluding himself.

(from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_diary.html)

One, of the reasons why the bombs were dropped on civilians was because the majority of the equipment that was being manufactured, were being manufactured in civilian homes.

i would like to recomend a movie to anyone interested in the subject of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "barefoot gen"

its a great anime written and drawn by this guy who as a boy endured one of the bombings. the story is about how he surrvived during that time. it was a very powerful movie to watch and think about how the writer/artist actually endured the events that took place.
anime and great do not belong in the same phrase...

There are only two possible explanations of such an attitude of the majority of people towards the US.
1. US really saved the world a number of times ... and the world has completely lost its mind and is trying to humiliate their liberators by all means.
2. The world is still ok, but something is terribly wrong with US...

Which answer is more likely to be true ?
You forgot the third possibilty. USA is the most powerful nation in the world, and everybody is jealous. Not of our politics, not of our riches(well maybe a little bit), but of our power. Every superpower in history has been ganged up on after reaching the top. The Romans got assraped by pretty much ever tribe in Europe. It was all vs France during Napolean's reign. During the Revolutionary War, in the peak of UK's power, France Spain and the USA all declared war on them.

You forgot the third possibilty. USA is the most powerful nation in the world, and everybody is jealous. Not of our politics, not of our riches(well maybe a little bit), but of our power. Every superpower in history has been ganged up on after reaching the top. The Romans got assraped by pretty much ever tribe in Europe. It was all vs France during Napolean's reign. During the Revolutionary War, in the peak of UK's power, France Spain and the USA all declared war on them.

The third possibility is typically caused by the fact that once your the only superpower, you don't have to treat your neighbours nicely. For example, the Romans if I recall correctly ran a lot of slavery and general oppression of anyone not Roman. Of course they eventually got punted out of the power circle thanks in no small part to their internal politics (read: infighting). France, I'm not too sure what they did during Napolean's reign, but I can hardly imagine what they did was pleasent to the people they conquered.

USA, well, I can't really say they went about conquering people, but their foreign policies and economic dealings (I'll take your raw materials at 50 cents a piece and sell you a shoe at $50), often left other nations rather disgruntled.

The truth of the situation? Anyone who gets to the top of the heap rarely treats their neighbours nicely. In the meantime, they tell their citizens that their paragons of virtue. And that causes resentment for those not on the top of the heap.

And that my dear NS'ers, is not a singular exception, but the rule of power.

The third possibility is typically caused by the fact that once your the only superpower, you don't have to treat your neighbours nicely. For example, the Romans if I recall correctly ran a lot of slavery and general oppression of anyone not Roman. Of course they eventually got punted out of the power circle thanks in no small part to their internal politics (read: infighting). France, I'm not too sure what they did during Napolean's reign, but I can hardly imagine what they did was pleasent to the people they conquered.

USA, well, I can't really say they went about conquering people, but their foreign policies and economic dealings (I'll take your raw materials at 50 cents a piece and sell you a shoe at $50), often left other nations rather disgruntled.

The truth of the situation? Anyone who gets to the top of the heap rarely treats their neighbours nicely. In the meantime, they tell their citizens that their paragons of virtue. And that causes resentment for those not on the top of the heap.

And that my dear NS'ers, is not a singular exception, but the rule of power.
1. Of course the Romans had slaves. So did the Greeks. So did the Egyptians. So did every other ancient empire. Most people were content under Roman rule. They were allowed their own religion as long as they respected the Roman gods. The reason the German tribes raped the Romans wasn't because they were oppressed. They were running from the Huns and trying to keep their freedom.

It isn't that the superpowers treat the rest of the world like crap, it is that they are expected to do all the good things but aren't allowed to mess up. When you were a kid, did you ever get grounded? I bet you were probably pissed off at them, but you failed to realize how much they did to you. All you concentrated on was the fact that they punished you.

We wouldn't have had them ready yet. At the time, it took months just to build a single bomb. We didn't use the nukes for a show of power, and we wouldn't have been able to show that power again until we built an arsenal, which would take about 4 years to complete.


If it took so long to complete, why did the soveits detonate an atomic bomb 3 years after the year? We had the know how, the manhattan project. So it took them less time to not only research, experiment, and then detonate a bomb for us to reconstruct another one?

Idiotic at best.

One, of the reasons why the bombs were dropped on civilians was because the majority of the equipment that was being manufactured, were being manufactured in civilian homes.


Not to mention Nagasaki and Hiroshima were predominately untouched by the war.

Again, isn't the whole purpose of war trying to have the other side surrender without putting your army at risk?

If the united states doesn't drop the bomb and suffers through millions of deaths and casualties and tens of millions of 'civilian' casualties on the japanese side in the mainland invasion, the debate would be "Should the US have been merciful and dropped the bomb". We saved lives in dropping the bomb. We had a blockade on Japan even before Pearl Harbor...wow...that worked out great.


A sneak attack on a country you haven't even declared war on is okay...but using a weapon that had no rules or regulations against on a country that already declared war on your country is a war crime?

If it took so long to complete, why did the soveits detonate an atomic bomb 3 years after the year? We had the know how, the manhattan project. So it took them less time to not only research, experiment, and then detonate a bomb for us to reconstruct another one?

Idiotic at best.

When we bombed Japane, we had used our last 2 built nukes. At that time, it took approximately 6-8 months to build a single nuke. Meaning we couldn't do a "show of power" because we'd need at least 3 more nukes for that, in almost 2 years time. By that time (as you sucessfully noted) the Soviets had the bomb. So much for a show of force....

I almost have to ask the creator of this thread if you visited Yasukuni Jinja, because when I went through the Yushukan on the shrine's gounds, that's pretty much the same conclusions that they came up with, for the same reasons.

Having been to Hiroshima and the Peace Museum (Who's treatment of this issue is a little better balanced than what I have read today), studied Japanese culture, it's war time acts, talked with those who were there, from both sides, I think the following holds pretty well.

Japan had been attempting to start peace talks with America via the USSR due to the non aggression pact. However, FDR, and later Truman, had stated that only unconditional surrender would be accepted. Japanese historians have been arguing for years that this was obviously not acceptable by the Japanese High Command and that if America had just accepted keeping the Imperial line, all would have been over.

What has not been mentioned is that the keeping of the Imperial line meant preserving the Emporer's power under the Meiji Constitutition as well. Japan had offered THAT proposal shortly after Midway and continued to offer it until the very end.

Japan still had in exess of half a million troops within China's borders, still fighting, at the time of surender. Japan was not quite at toothless as has been stated and a visit to Yasukuni Jinja will show the wonderful ways Japan had come up with the defend the home islands, mainly with kamikaze strikes. Which, by the way, are hugely demoralizing (read some of the Pacific War jounals).

The Japanese High Command's final battle plan called for 100 Million Deaths with Honor, fighting litterally to the last Japanese. But that has been pointed out.

However, yes, the reasons for America to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (both having been spared 'normal' bombing even as valid military targets due to being selected as test targets for the atomic bombs) are not nearly as clean cut and nice as American history books would have it.

Pretty much I find that it was a horrific event, one that was not expected in the ammount of damage that it would cause (look at the journals of those who visited during the occupation, the Hiroshima Peace Museum has them posted), but in placing myself at that time, damned if I cannot come up with a better way to get Japan to surrender under the terms stated and agreed upon. Starving wasn't working, and invasion was going to cause huge casulties on both sides.

More can be said, and has, by historians about this time period. May I recommend that you all go read some of those books?

I almost have to ask the creator of this thread if you visited Yasukuni Jinja, because when I went through the Yushukan on the shrine's gounds, that's pretty much the same conclusions that they came up with, for the same reasons.

Having been to Hiroshima and the Peace Museum (Who's treatment of this issue is a little better balanced than what I have read today), studied Japanese culture, it's war time acts, talked with those who were there, from both sides, I think the following holds pretty well.
Although I think the nuclear attacks on Japan were horrible crimes, Yasukuni hardly has any moral authority to comment on the matter. Hundreds of convicted war criminals, including Tojo Hideki, are worshipped at this shrine, and it would be hypocritical for Yasukuni to condemn the atomic bombing as war crimes while simultaneously celebrating the careers of fascists and mass murderers responsible for butchering millions of Asian civilians. A truly balanced treatment of the issue may come from the Hiroshima government and the Peace Museum, both of which have abhorred and rejected all crimes against humanity, but Yasukuni has a totally biased and nationalist agenda that accepts war crimes as long as it's committed by Japanese.

Although I think the nuclear attacks on Japan were horrible crimes, Yasukuni hardly has any moral authority to comment on the matter.
My apologies, I evidently was not clear on the matter. I was commenting that I found the orginal post of this thread to be close to the conclusions REACHED by Yasakuni Jinja, not that I AGREED with said conclusions. Indeed I was rather annoyed by many of the things stated there, including that the United States tricked Japan into attacking and bombing Pearl Harbor.

Thankfully, Yasukuni Jinja's views are far from representative of the Japanese people at large.

... A truly balanced treatment of the issue may come from the Hiroshima government and the Peace Museum, both of which have abhorred and rejected all crimes against humanity, but Yasukuni has a totally biased and nationalist agenda that accepts war crimes as long as it's committed by Japanese.
And of course, as always, said conclusions are in the eye of the beholder. Various American friends who have made it through the Peace Museum have come out feeling guilty and/or angry at the potrail of America and American actions. I came out feeling as I posted above, that I hate the use of the atomic bombs those days in 1945, but I cannot think of another way to end the war without causing more deaths. It seemed to me that the better way would be to answer Hiroshima's call and work towards banning ALL atomic weapons and working towards world peace so there will never BE another Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Of course people have always said I'm a dreamer. ;)

One, of the reasons why the bombs were dropped on civilians was because the majority of the equipment that was being manufactured, were being manufactured in civilian homes.

The cities were chosen because
a) they were untouched by previous bombing, and so would serve as a reference point for the effects of nuclear weapons (the primary reason)
b) they had factories (real factories, not just ad hoc work in people's homes)
c) there were military barracks present

In conclusion, a mix of target types, none of which could be hit with an atomic weapon and not hit the others. And, the target selection was made mostly on the basis of how clean the target was.

Everyone involved knew that a bomb like that was not meant for select targets like a set of buildings, or a small military area. They were meant for cities.