Debate:Was the United States Justified in Nuking Japan?

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My Grandfather (who served in WWII) thought the bombings as a blessing in disguise. He believed that if the U.S. invaded Japan, the Japanese would have been exterminated.
 
My Grandfather (who served in WWII) thought the bombings as a blessing in disguise. He believed that if the U.S. invaded Japan, the Japanese would have been exterminated.
 +
::With all due respect to your grandfather's service in the war, that's the weakest appeal to authority I've seen in a long time. [[User:TheoryOfPractice|TheoryOfPractice]] ([[User talk:TheoryOfPractice|talk]]) 15:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

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Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil!
Information icon.svg This debate was created by HeartOfGold.

Sections exist in this debate in order to reduce edit conflicts. If you want to form your own response, do so in a === section. If you want to respond to another user's repsonse, do so in a ==== section after the === section in question. Rather than break up paragraphs, try to create a new section or sub section, and quote as necessary. If you must break up paragraphs, please cut and paste the signature located at the end of the paragraphs your breaking, including the original time date stamp, and paste it at the end of each broken paragraph. (feel free to reword this if you know what I mean but think I did a poor job articulating it).

Contents

Debate point

Was the United States justified in nuking Japan?

Responses

HeartGold

HeartGold: Yes. For two reasons, one widely repeated, the other less so. First, the United States was justified because it saved the lives of American and allied soldiers. Our government has a duty and obligation to treat our own citizens as much more valuable than our wartime enemies (soldier or civillian--though I am not for unnecessary and wanton bloodshed, civilians in Japan worked for their military/industrial complex, and were legitimate and strategic targets). The Japanese were fanatical soldiers who only very rarely surrendered, and even though the United States could have won the war without the help of the bomb, doing so would have cost thousands of American lives. Even Robert McNamara (Secretary of defence under Kenedy) says we were justified in an extended interview contained in the documentary The Fog of War. Second, Japan was ruthless and evil in their treatment of other asian peoples who were not Japanese. The treated and propagandized against the Chinese as "weeds," used them as subjects in painful medical, chemical, and biological studies, and generally treated conquered races as bad if not worse than the Germans treated the Jews in Europe. HeartGold tx 22:34, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

Responses to HeartGold

Being a non-American civilian myself, I certainly don't agree that American soldiers' lives are worth more than the lives of non-American civilians: (non-drafted) soldiers know what they signed up for; they know they can get killed and that they can be sacrificed by their COs, innocent civilian's lives are always worth more!

I do agree that the dropping one atomic bomb was the least worse best course of action as a full scale bombing assault of a large city would cause even more casualties (see Dresden), the Americans were at the time, unaware of the radiation threat and the swift ending of the war saved more lives than were lost at Hiroshima.

However, I condemn the use of a second bomb and I believe the first bomb should have been used to destroy a large Japanese military base on an island, instead of a city.

"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."

Leó Szilárd (Manhattan Project scientist)

MiddleMan

I don't think HoG meant it quite that way. Through the eyes of a military commander, the lives of his soldiers are (and must be) more important than the lives of civilians from the enemy country.Prof0705 10:38, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

I don't agree with that, a soldier who is willing to sacrifice civilians loses his honour and his humanity, he would be nothing but a ruthless killing machine and wouldn't deserve to be called a hero. If you're not willing to sacrifice your own life, then don't sign up, it's as simple as that! MiddleMan

It largely depends on how the circumstances surrounding the civilians' deaths. I by no means advocate kicking down a door to kill civilians, or killing out of spite. But in certain situations, it is justified. The object of war is to kill, destroy and maim in order to occupy ground and push an objective. That cannot be done if soldiers lives are lost trying to minimize civilian casualties. A good example is when a group of soldiers came under fire from some enemy soldiers hiding in a mosque. The mosque also held some civilians. The building could have been assaulted and cleared to minimize civilian casualties, but that would have cost alot of soldier's lives. So we hit it with artillery fire. Problem solved, objective taken, lives saved. Our lives. Sacrificing a life is different than throwing it away, and killing machines is what we are. Forget all that crap on the Army recruiting posters, there ain' a whole lot of honor in war.Prof0705 10:57, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Not trying to create a debate within a debate here, but a pinch of gas would have knocked everyone inside the mosque unconscious.

And no, my concept of honour doesn't derive from recruiting posters, if those soldiers weren't willing to sacrifice to themselves to preserve the lives of women and children they are not soldiers, they may be mercenaries in it for the money, or brainwashed drones, but not soldiers.

Of course when you find yourself in a where every guy on the streets could be out to kill you and you can't even walk safely past a mosque, you might ask yourself what your business was in that place anyway. MiddleMan

@ Middleman. As a soldier myself I must disagree with the assertion that soldiers are willing to sacrifice themselves for the civilians of a hostile party/nation/army. Soldiers in both the draft and professional armies of American history have long held that their buddies are the most important lives on the battlefield; nowhere in the oath a soldier takes is there mention for the level of sacrifice your morals require. If this were the case, then our military would find itself exhausted from trying to save civilians. Imagine that your getting shot at by a group of people, some armed some not. Absolute terror grips you as bullets ping off the ground and you take a ricochet into your non firing hand. Your best friend beside you takes two in the chest and is convulsing while screaming for his mother. You know that your best friend has minutes to be dragged to an aid station or he will die and that mob is approaching. Do you fire into the group to save yourself and your buddy or do you let them overtake you and kill both you and your friend? I would pull the trigger and it would be completely legal under the United State's Code of Military Justice. Read the Art of War some time, it defines soldiers almost as we do today and that 2000 year old book advocates the killing of civilians in situations that would otherwise result in a loss of combat power.
Also gas, even tear gas, is illegal for American military forces to deploy in combat. The laws of war are a bit funny when it comes to individual weapon systems and in a firefight you must use what you have.
In war civilian's die, it is a utilitarian imperative to ensure that civilian deaths are kept to a minimum. Yet this ethos is exploitable by the unconventional fighter. To assume a magic solution like the gas statement is to miss the point of military ethics. There is no clean solution, only the one with the least blood, both in the short and long term.--DylanB 05:26, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Prof0705

As I remember reading though, Japan was dependent on outside sources for virtually all of their raw materials. Their oil came from the South Pacific and Indonesia, the steel with which they built their ships came from the US. Given the strategic position of Japan towards the end of the war, they would have had to surrender because they no longer had access to raw materials. A naval blockade may have been able to break the Japanese command. Of course, the nukes we dropped were no worse than firebombing Tokyo, which I believe killed more people than both nukes combined. However, in response to your second point, those were the actions of the government and military of Japan. There weren't too many fisherman or school kids out experimenting on Korean prisoners. How often are is the government really under the control of the people? There are some instances of our own government testing biologial and chemical weapons on our own citizens. Did you know about that? Could you stop it if you did?

Responses to Prof0705

"...they would have had to surrender because they no longer had access to raw materials." Logic says they would have had to surrender many times in smaller battles, but they largely did not. "...the nukes we dropped were no worse than firebombing Tokyo..." Or the firebombing of Dresden. Today, we have smart bombs, smart rockets, and are even making smart artillary and someday probably smart bullets. The need for carpet and firebombing has dwindled in the eyes of many military planners. But at the time (WWII), smart bombs were experimental German contraptions, easily thwarted by allied scientists. (The Germans actually had and used television guided radio and wire controlled bombs in WWII to bomb U.K. ships--but the British figured out ways to thwart these devices). The problem in Japan, as in Iraq, is that information and misinformation is also a weapon of war, and enough of the masses can be persuaded to keep on fighting even in the face of defeat.

In hindsight, a case might be made that the war was unjustified. Like the U.S. wanting a new order in the middle East, Japan was trying to establish a new order in the Far East. Like the U.S. in Iraq, though to a greater extent (at least so far), the Japanese were under a great deal of world pressure via the League of nations to get out of Manchuria. The McCullem memo suggests that the U.S. new that Japan was acting like a bully, and outlined 8 points that were reasonably anticipated to goad the Japanese into attacking the United States. But much of this information was not available to military commanders responsible for waging and concluding the war with Japan. In war, decisions are made in a fog, and based on the information at hand to relevant military commanders, nuking Japan was the only reasonable and viable option to conclude the war with Japan admitting defeat. And, for all of our supposed xenophobia, both conquered powers, Japan and (west) Germany grew to be great economic powers who profitted from peace and defeat. HeartGold tx 09:03, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

"Logic says they would have had to surrender many times in smaller battles, but they largely did not." But in many of those cases, the tools of war were still available for use. At the end of he war, Japan was almost completely isolated, its navy no longer able to control sealanes, and its air force largely destroyed. Yes, the populace could be persuaded to continue fighting, but eventually the fuel runs out, the steel is all on the bottom of the ocean, and for all intents and purposes, the Japanese are reduced to using swords and rocks.Prof0705 10:27, 30 May 2007 (CDT)
Not that I am arguing that it was wrong. At the time, considering what the aims of the country were, the bombs were used at the right time in the right place. I just think that the true reasons should be known.Prof0705 10:30, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

I find that the use of the atomic bomb is less just than firebombing Tokyo regardless of the loss of life. There was at least some tactical advantage in firebombing Tokyo. Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts and time-intensive processes. Firebombing also killed and made homeless many workers who had been taking part in war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut their output in half.

Contrast this to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where people have in hindsight attempted to put justifiability where there is none (see my thoughts below). --e|m|c [TALK] 22:10, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Targets for the atomic bombing were listed in order of their strategic military significance. However weather conditions eliminated some of the larger military targets due to cloud cover forcing the second bomb to be dropped over a relatively insignificant target. The justification was that Japanese propaganda was stating that the Americans had only one bomb. The second bomb was used to disprove that statement and threaten total annihilation through repeated atomic bombing (an empty threat as there were only two in theater). So while the A-bomb targets had less of a tactical advantage, there was a strategic rational for hitting the targets they did and bypassing Tokyo as a target (Nuking Tokyo would have meant that there would be no was to consolidate any possible surrender). Strategic targets take priority over tactical ones.--DylanB 05:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

GodlessLiberal

As this debate started on my Talk Page, I'll copy what I said here, and post Human's response in the section below:

This, for me, is a tricky subject. Being a sixteen-year-old, I'm certainly not as well-read as I'd like to be on several matters, and this is one. MacArthur (I think it was him) told Truman it would cost one million U.S. casualties to invade the Home Islands of Japan. MacArthur had proven pretty accurate in predicting casualties in previous engagements. A million people is a hell of a lot. Given the tenacity with which the Japanese held Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other islands they posessed before the war began, it would almost certainly have been an exhausting, decade-long struggle. Had we not dropped the bombs, it probably would have lasted into the 50s, perhaps even longer. The USSR was securing control of their "gains" in Eastern Europe, and Truman at Yalta (or maybe Roosevelt at Potsdam? One of those conferences, anyway) had asked Stalin for help against Japan. Dropping the bomb before the Soviets could mobilize against Japan (and therefore have a say in the reconstruction, like what happened with Germany) probably saved Japan and half of East Asia from Soviet-brand communism.
Having said that, I don't completely agree with the decision to do so. I could understand blowing away every airport, naval base, and troop barrack we could find. However, I'd like to think that a nation that prides itself on being "civilized" wouldn't nuke innocent civillians. I find that detestable. I could maybe understand the first bomb being dropped. It shocked the hell out of them, and they were considering throwing in the towel. They understood the stakes. We had accomplished our objective. Dropping a second was simply over-extreme. I don't think that another show of such force was necessary.
A little liberal revisionism to close it out: I've read theories that we dropped the bombs on poor little Japan to show the USSR what was going to happen to them in the next few years if they stood in our way. Now, I don't subscribe to this theory, but it's an interesting idea to chew on. If it's the case (which I doubt there is much supporting evidence for), that's really disturbing, and I would be even more disillusioned than I already am. GodlessLiberal 15:32, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

Responses to GodlessLiberal (and HG) by Human

Some of what Godless and I say may seem a bit non sequitur-y, since HG changed his original text a bit in reaction to our comments. But that's fine.
  • Just to chime in a bit here, randomly... I know this is a blank appeal to authority, but my ex is a historian, and she lists "showing Stalin our new toy" and "keeping the USSR out of eastern Asia" as two big reason for Truman dropping the bomb.
  • Considering how the western peoples have used the A-bomb (we dropped two, on civilian population centers), I don't think we have a great moral high horse to sit up on.
  • When I was younger, I used to riff on how Nagasaki justified Hiroshima - heck, if they didn't surrender after that, a second helping was certainly necessary! But it's a weak argument. We could just as easily have evaporated an island held only by their military, then cabled them and offered to do another one if they thought we only had one Bomb, before starting on "mainland" cities.
  • The fire bombing of Dresden was equally horrific.
  • MacArthur could have been wildly wrong, some historians cite documents showing that the Japanese were close to surrender anyway - but, we wanted it quickly, as prev. stated, before Stalin could mobilize and get some of the pie.
  • And a last point, using black and white ideological markers such as "McNamara (liberal)" [HG removed what I am referring to from his text]doesn't advance discussion, it shifts it to "not one of mine" and so one. Think of all the "conservatives" that Andy denies on CP, and even the random identification conflicts between HG, RobS (here) and TK (anywhere). And HG at CP. Likewise, look at most of us pawns of Soros on this site, I doubt any two of us agree all down the line on political issues, or even what constitutes "junk science", etc.
  • And a sort of PS, I grew up, not uniquely, of course, thinking "what would I do if I knew, undisputably, that I had only six hours to live (AFB, Navy nuclear sub repair shop, and a nuclear power plant all within 20 miles)? I felt no such worries as we went to war against Iraq, although I did have this said to me by one young lady: "But he has nuclear missiles pointed at us!". He had no nuclear weapons, and he certainly had no ICBMs to mail them with.

Just my .02, well, more like .12 or so. humanbe in 18:32, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

Researcher

I'm coming into this VERY late, but I want to add my bits.

The US had just developed the nuclear bomb. All of the full ramifications of this invention had not been discovered yet, and anything we say about the decision is colored by the knowledge we now have. Yes, many of the decision makers understand that the bomb was levels of magnitude more destructive, and Truman himself was opposed to using a weapon that would totally destroy a whole city.

That said, the destruction of cities and civilians was part of the ethos of that war. What the US meant do to Hiroshima was no worse than what the Japanese did to Nanjing; the Germans did to Stalingrad, Leningrad, and attempted to do to London; or the US/UK did to Dresden. It was part of the nature of "total war." Especially compared to the prospects of invading the islands and house to house fighting that would make Stalingrad look like a picnic.

Now, if it was to be done over, knowing what we know about fallout and radiation, it would be the height of a war crime to do it again. However, at the time, it made perfect sense.

Radioactive afikomen

Well, from a utilitarian point of view, yes, it was justified. From an unbiased point of view, all lives are equal. It doesn't matter if soldiers know or choose to go and fight, with the possibility of dying, a life is a life is a life, regardless of choice. Are we to justify suicides as a glorious manifestation of free will? Or for what it is, a decision driven by depression and despair? Now, we know that Japan was willing to fight the United States for every square centimeter of mainland Japan (or whatever the term for the two biggest islands is). The casualties to the soldiers fighting, on both sides, and the civilian casualties, would have doubtlessly added up to more than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by order(s) of magnitude.

Now, I am not suggesting that Japan be grateful to the US for nuking them. In fact, being Jewish, and having the Holocaust hammered into me at every opportunity ("Never again"), I like to think I can empathize with them. If not directly with the absolute horror of what happened (being far too young to have been present), then at least with the cultural impact.

Electrified mocha chinchilla

Most people concede to the idea that it was just of us to nuke Japan if we were saving the lives of so many Americans, a sort of "cost-benefit" analysis which somehow determines morality on the subject. A surprising argument I've noticed as well is the consideration given to the mentality of Japan's combatants and of their maltreatment of the Chinese. The determination of the conscripted Japanese soldiers (which I would loudly proclaim was the result of the influences of Buddhism in Japan at the time) and the rape of Nanking has no relation to, and cannot be used as moral justification for, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hint that it was justice for Japan's atrocities against China and other Asian countries is ridiculous and without explanation.

I'd also like to address an interesting point that has since been brought up: "...all of the full ramifications of this invention [the atomic bomb] had not been discovered yet, and anything we say about the decision [to use the bomb] is colored by the knowledge we now have." If we could suppose that our leaders did not have enough information due to the lack of advanced testing (whether it was due to the timeframe of events or our leaders' impatient desire to use the weapon), we can safely say our leaders were not adequately informed and ought not to have made the decision to use the weapon in the first place. But we cannot fully make this claim, because the fact of the matter is that our leaders and scientists not only knew the important details of the weapon's capabilities to make a decision, but in some cases overestimated the results. For example, they knew the effects of radiation on the human body, and they knew the atomic bomb exposed individuals within a certain radius to dangerous levels of radiation. Again, if they did not have all of the information we now have, they did have the information to make a decision, and if it should be claimed that they did not have enough information, then we can, without debate or hesitation, accuse them of poor decision-making.

Einstein and Szilard themselves warned against the use of the weapon, and U.S. leaders speculated that the damage would be far worse than what it actually happened to be. Truman may have had objections to using the bomb, but I think it is false to say that he was opposed to "using a weapon that would totally destroy a whole city," considering that Truman decided to use a weapon that totally destroyed two whole cities (one right after the other -- even after learning of the ridiculous destruction of Hiroshima, still deciding to destroy Nagasaki).

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
-- Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.
-- Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

I'd like to also like to simply note the numerous U.S. military officers who personally and professionally disagreed with the necessity of the bombings: General Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), Brigadier General Carter Clarke, Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

These individuals recognized before and after the war that the bombings would play/played no role in the US' decisive victory in Japan, and that the Japanese were well defeated prior to these bombings. Japan had intended to surrender days and hours prior to the bombings due to the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria. Indeed, given the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and Japan's dwindling support for the war at home, Japan was ultimately preparing to surrender. We have evidence that Japan had every intention to end the war soon, and we have evidence that our leaders knew such. Quite a number of Japanese diplomats favored surrender to the United States, while the leaders of the Japanese military hoped that they could negotiate better terms for an armistice after a decisive battle on Kyūshū (the Southernmost mainland island of Japan; anticipated by both sides to be a U.S. victory). The Japanese government did not decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme War Council was still split, with the hard-liners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials would be conducted, and no occupation of Japan would be allowed. The United States government, despite knowledge that the Japanese government was still in discussion over the terms and conditions of the surrender (and according to the viewpoints of some historians, the US was growing impatient with the advancement of the Soviets and the dwindling opportunity to use the weapon), used the atomic bombs. The Japanese Foreign Ministry eventually dispatched a message to the United States on August 10th (after the bombings) stating that Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration (which was originally issued on July 26, 1945 to the Japanese), "with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the perogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler." No indication has since been made that the Supreme War Council's decision was influenced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As though it were an issue, it should probably be addressed. It is well-known that the Second Army and Chugoku Regional Army were headquartered in Hiroshima, Japan and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at a nearby port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was vital for shipping. Nagasaki's main industry at the time was building naval warships for the Japanese. These characteristics, they say, made Hiroshima and Nagasaki strategic targets. In refutation, I can simply claim that nearly all of the individuals killed in the atomic bombings were civilians who did not work in these complexes. Let us not forget the kinds of buildings which rest in cities -- schools, houses, hospitals, etc. (in fact, in Hiroshima, the bomb, due to crosswinds, missed its aiming point, the Aioi Bridge, and detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic). In addition, Japan's navy at the time was wholly ruined, so that Nagasaki's industry was "strategically important" is false.

I have noted earlier in this debate that the firebombings of Tokyo were a bit more just in the context of tactical advantage (Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts and time-intensive processes. Firebombing also killed and made homeless many workers who had been taking part in war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut their output in half.) In combination with the obvious diminishing of morale that comes with having your nation's capital firebombed, I can only concede that the firebombings were paramount in pressuring the Japanese to surrender and were thus tactically important in defeating Japan. I still do have moral objections however to even the firebombings, considering the massive civilian casualties. But on the context of being tactically important, firebombing Tokyo was, and the atomic bombings were not.

The estimations as to how many American lives would be lost if a mainland invasion of Japan were to occur is actually a very broad range, entirely speculative, and in my opinion used in the wrong context in this debate in that this "invasion" was unlikely to have occurred regardless of the bombings; Japan was already defeated due to various circumstances that Truman was well aware of. So then, why would our leaders authorize such destruction? Whether or not it was to display such a great power in the hands of the United States (perhaps to the Soviet Union in particular), and seeing Japan as an opportunity for the US to do so is speculative at best. Obviously, our leaders believed it was just, possibly for some of the same reasons that people today believe the atomic bombings to have been just.

We do have the questionable morality of such an act. In my opinion, the indiscriminate destruction that occurred in Nagasaki and Hiroshima is as immoral as the indiscriminate bombing of Dresden or the treatment of POWs by all sides during the war, fits the definition of war terrorism, falls short of the definition of genocide, and flagrantly violates the Geneva Convention which prohibits:

  1. Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
  2. Torture or inhumane treatment
  3. Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property

In fact, the indiscriminant nature of the bombings even caused fractricide and other unfortunate casualties. Most were reported by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, which was established by a presidential directive from Harry S. Truman to the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council and conducted investigations of the late effects of radiation among the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among the casualties were found many unintended victims including allied POWs (seven Dutch and two British), forced Korean and Chinese labourers, students from Malaya on scholarships, and some 3,200 Japanese American citizens.

Now, let's be hypothetical here. Let's assume that the only two options (of course, these were not the only two options available to our leaders at the time) available to us are to indiscriminately bomb civilians with an atomic bomb or to risk the lives of (and this is one of the largest and probably most exaggerated figures I've ever heard) one million Americans. If we can, to ourselves, feel the former to be morally just, the collateral damage (otherwise known as "women and children") on the scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so long as we avoid the loss of possibly one million American lives, I think it would be necessary for us to examine our moral compass and consider for a moment what morally justifies something to us. If that's the rationale we agree with, that we could justify war crimes in that way, then I think it'd be difficult for me to find the genocide in Germany or treatment of our prisoners by the Japanese in WWII as immoral. Is what we're saying that, if it's for our cause, it suddenly becomes moral?

--e|m|c [TALK] 21:53, 16 February 2008 (EST)

You make a very good argument, EMC. Certainly, you are more informed than I am about the circumstances of the bombing. Had I been aware of the same information, I even would have come to the same conclusion. Kudos. --Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 23:24, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Rorschach

Yes. -- RorschachQuis custodiet ipsos custodes? 12:24, 4 December 2008 (EST)

Nukes in Japan

The Japanese were working on nukes of their own but had some setbacks, much like the Germans. Looking back, it may have been either them or us getting nuked. I prefer them. CarwreCk 15:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Consideration must be given to how advanced they were in their development of such weapons, and whether or not they would have actually used them. As history would have it though, dropping the a-bombs on Japan was not a preventive strike -- I'm not familiar with Japan's attempts to develop similar weapons as ever having been a rationale for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In hindsight though, if it was even to be an argument, it's a very weak one at best and would probably originate from some attempt to justify actions which have no justification. That, or some odd paranoia or xenophobia (not trying to make accusations of character though; just trying to understand the position and throw out some guesses). --e|m|c [TALK] 01:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Rereading the statement it does seem like a justification or argument for the nuking. But I didn't mean it that way. It's just a reason to feel less sorry for them (as a nation). To my knowledge the US leadership wasn't worried about being nuked. However I do not believe Japan would have hesitated to do it. Why would they? It does the same thing as other bombs just with less of them. Would they have hesitated to carpet bomb NYC? They did it to the Chinese. They wanted to spread their empire and the US was in their way.CarwreCk 10:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

My Thoughts

My Grandfather (who served in WWII) thought the bombings as a blessing in disguise. He believed that if the U.S. invaded Japan, the Japanese would have been exterminated.

With all due respect to your grandfather's service in the war, that's the weakest appeal to authority I've seen in a long time. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 15:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
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