We could've starved them to death instead. Or shot and bayonetted them like they did POWs and non-japanese. Or bowed down and bent over as they took over half the world. Alternatively, they could've surrendered, defected, deserted, reteken their country, NOT drag the US into their wars, or all around just not be so fucking evil as to even disgust and terrify the Nazis.
Bruh whatever the reason...but killing 150k CIVILIANS is just fucked up...I really thought as a child that this was just a made up legend that humanity can't be this fucked up...but well here we are...
America was already involved in the war. It got involved in the first one and it was clear that it would get involved in the second one.
And this was better than taking soldiers as POWs? After the Manhattan project was completed, everyone knew what would happen. They still decided to drop not one, but two nukes and not on the same day but with a three day gap.
There were a thousand different ways America could've handled that. It's military wasn't spread thin as much as the Europeans and they were already gaining ground on Japan, by the time the nukes were dropped, only the mainland was remaining to be defeated.
And MacArthur still wanted to drop more. If it were upto him, there would have been nukes in Korea too.
And then in the next war America pulled out Napalm and chemical weaponry.
Just admit that America fucked up with that. The Japanese weren't saints, but there were a million different ways it could've been handled, but America just wanted to prove that they are the big bad-
@spookykink58 exactly, Japan was not that strong of a threat and US still dropped two bombs and that too on the innocent civilians who had nothing to do with this bullshit..this is like guy A punches guy B but guy B as a revenge kill guy A's whole family....there's not justification
Sure buddy. Also wanna talk starvation, fuck the Brits and Churchill. He caused a famine that killed upwards of 4 million people in Bengal. And when he was asked to do something about it, he said let them starve. And the Brits took such a large portion of Indian men as "volunteer soldiers". No one is innocent here.
Do you even realize what you're advocating for? An invasion that would've killed millions more on both sides and left the Soviets in charge of half the Pacific, a blockade that would've starved off tens of millions of more, an incomplete peace that would've let to another Pacific war even worse than the last. You have no idea what Total War entails. Not the slightest clue how cruel and brutal the Imperial Japanese were. And to compare us ending the war in the manner we did after giving them every opportunity to surrender, or even evacuate to any of the atrocities carried out by them or the Nazis? How many of you would trade places with a Sailor in Hawaii? A Chinese baby in Nanking? A Korean or Filipino "comfort girl"? A POW in Bataan?
The refused to surrender, and they had no right to even a drop of our blood when they'd already embraced atrocity, *actual* war crime, betrayal, perfidy, human experimentation, genocide, and evils unimaginable that are still hidden from us.
We are not talking about Churchill or the Brits. Conscription and press gangs happened, big whoop. Even by the standards of their time the Japanese were another level. A new and never since seen circle of torment leading to an ever colder Hell.
In not saying that the imperial Japan wasn't ass...but the military of Japan was already over (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria showed) and it would not take much time for them to surrender (cause their army was already done for what else they gonna do?)...
Ah yes, if we wouldn't have done that, then something else would've happened and I have no idea how cruel the Imperial army was, but you sure do. I wouldn't trade places with any of those similar to how I wouldn't trade places with a mother in Nagasaki, a kid in Hiroshima, a brother during those fire bombings. Because it was all cruelty.
We weren't talking about Brits and Churchill, but you did mention starvation and that was a statement regarding that and to point out that there was nothing good about that war. And millions of people dying of starvation in the country where the ruling country took so many of it's young men is "big whoop" to you? Damn dude, you must be tough as nails.
What they prepared and stated they were going to do. Raise more soldiers, and fight to the last man, woman, and child. Their soldiers were already committing perfidy with suicide attacks after faking a surrender. Their people thought the emperor was a god, and even children were training to charge American rank with grenades and daggers. For crying out loud, they had all been so completely enthralled and conditioned that they killed themselves in droves rather then obey orders to surrender and cooperate.
The options were simple. Show them that their God was powerless before us, commit genocide through starvation, or dedicate millions of lives and the rest of our treasure to Operation Downfall knowing full well that it would be the brutal death of tens of millions.
You don't even know what they did. Then consider this a crash course. Rape of Nanking. Comfort girls. Bataan Death March. Unit 731.
.
Spoiler alert, you'll see babies thrown in the air and caught on bayonets. Fathers forced at gun point to rape their daughters, and mothers their sons, only for them all to be burned alive partway through. Entire races of women reduced to playthings and sex-slaves. POWs tortured and executed for fun, with new Japanese recruits making a game of cutting off a GI's penis and cramming it down his buddy's throat, just to gamble on if one will bleed out before the other chokes to death. Children learning how to be effective suicide bombers. I could go on.
Oh I would volunteer to be in the first wave of Downfall. Gladly visit reprisals on the entire damned Island for what was done to my brothers and to millions of innocents throughout Asia and the Pacific. It would be bloody, cruel, lawless. Feeding into a spiral of atrocity and bloodshed that would not stop until the survivors, likely too few for the Japanese to remain as an ethnic group, were under the iron fists of Soviet-American organization.
Or
We give them warnings. Beg for their surrender, and drop a bomb. And if they refuse? Another. And still they hold out? Allright, fine. Keep Downfall in reserve. Maintain the blockade and see what their fighting spirit looks like when they're eating rot. And then the family pet. And the their own children.
Y'all are some sick and cruel bastards to prefer saying "fuck the new bombs, let's kill millions more and prolong the terror and bloodshed for another generation".
Yes the new bombs the entire government knew what it can do. And no, we don't drop those bombs somewhere else where there wouldn't be so many civilian casualties, but in the middle of two cities.
And we are the sick fucks for saying that the people should have tried something else. And we all know that if they wouldn't have surrendered, another nuke would've been dropped, Downfall wouldn't have been the course of action, MacArthur already wanted to drop more.
Let me put it this way, people wouldn't have the same tone if it was The Riech who dropped two nukes and ended the war. Then people wouldn't be justifying it.
It was a bluff. We only had two bombs ready, and we weren't even sure that they would work. I've laid out all the facts. It's on you to stop being a genocide/slavery apologist.
It doesn't matter what would've happened if the Nazis won. The world would be too different for us to ever comprehend, and it ain't the conversation at hand.
So we are being a genocidal apologists by condemning an action and you aren't being one by defending the same one? No one here is defending what the Imperial army did, everyone is aware of their horrors and what they were doing, the point is dropping two nukes in the middle of two cities is never justifiable. If America was so eager on dropping the nukes and stopping the war, they could've dropped it somewhere else with lesser casualties.
And yes the conversation at hand isn't about Nazis winning, it's about nukes being justified and people wouldn't justify them if it were them instead of the Americans who dropped them.
If the nukes didn't go off where they could be seen and felt, they wouldn't matter. We killed so many more with the bombing campaigns and still the Japanese refused to capitulate. We needed shock and awe, and knocking out legitimate military targets at the same time is a hell of a bonus.
Japan was already backing out because of the Soviet Invasion. It was one of the most crushing defeats for Japan, they would've surrendered.
There were a lot of other solutions that were proposed, but the American people were all flared up because of Pearl Harbor and didn't want anything other than unconditional surrender. That's why the nukes went off. And it wasn't only just those 100k civilians who died, the nukes had lasting effects. People are still born weird in those cities.
They had every chance to surrender. They had more still to not be monsters. They refused to surrender absolutely, and with their culture and martial spirit that was unacceptable.
The only acceptable outcome was absolute and unconditional surrender. Or their culture would have only rebuilt and come back worse. Nevermind half the world aside from us wanting their pound of flesh for how they were tormented.
Of all the feasible ways to force that surrender, the bombs were the least harmful to them and risky to us.
These facts are indisputable.
Nukes were bad but there was a type of logic behind it (confirmation bias).
The firebombings though were totally, fscked up. Even the guy (Curtis Lemay) responsible for coming up with the plan knew he would have been tried for war crimes if the US lost the war.
Im not saying this was a good thing. Im saying invading Japan wouldve costed way more lives. If you read the book Operation Downfall, you will find out that the casualties leading to a Japanese invasion wouldve been in the millions. I am not supporting the massive genocide of civilians but if I was in a situation where I could end a war without the risk of losing a single one of my men, I would've done the same. But also before the nukes were dropped, the US sent out planes with flyers to evacuate the city.
I dont know me saying this would add any validation to my arugument but I am Korean. The Japanese killed many of our people and when people shout at the US for killing 100k people while the Japan plays the victum it hurts. This wasnt a atrocity that happened thousands of years ago, but something that happened 70 years ago. Idk, going on a rant here but I do think its justified. Vicitums of the circumstances.
Who are "they" in your sentence? The civilians who got vaporised/saw the burnt carcasses of their loved ones/saw them rotting away for a few days after the attack? Or the country as a concept, in which case the "punishment" fell on the wrong persons?
Both. The people are never blameless when they sign on already willing to torture prisoners to death or catch babies on bayonets. Nevermind the civilian populace that propped up and supported the war efforts, knowing full well what that entailed.
Maybe some of them were innocent, but the fact remains that too many of them would have refused to back down, *did* refuse. And that all of them, women and children included, were being trained. And unlike anyplace else of note at the time, they saw only honor and blessings in sending children to charge tanks with a grenade.
We picked the least terrible and most sure option. Your own ignorance is no longer a defense.
@tarotnathers13th I love the Japanese, I really am fine with them. But it just disturbs me that a crime that is as severe as the holocaust gone unoticed. See how the Germans were sorry about their past while some, dare I say the majority consider their empire during world war 2 to be its peak. They disregard and reject the accusations of genocide because of political leverage and comensation worries while we just want the acceptance of those crimes and a apology. My grandparents still remember the days their neighbors were shot for learning Korean because during those times the Japanese tried to delete our culture. We have significantly less histroical sights due to the japanese burning them down. I cant just forget and move on with these crimes without a legitimate apology or it is lost in the past and would be a spit in the face to my grandparents.
@spookykink58 Then you are simply a fool. Far, far worse would have happened had the bombs not been dropped and Imperial Japan been invaded. The nukes were terrible, yes, but far more stomaching to an America who wanted the war over instead of lasting long enough to kick off more connected conflicts i.e. Soviet Russia's plan to invade, occupy, and colonize Japan was only halted and scrapped when the US of A demonstrated it had the capacity to end all wars at the time. And they did. They prevented projected and very real deaths that would have occurred in the millions had they not decided to use Fat Man and Little Boy. Deaths that would have simply added to the total the nukes amounted to.
The Japanese not acknowledging their war crimes is deplorable and they still have to own up to that. The passing apologies by politicians gone by don't count. And a Neuremberg should've had taken place for the Japanese too. And it's weird how they weren't tried for war crimes and no reparations were issued to the Manchurians and Koreans. What they did in the entire South China region was horrifying, but I would still hold my ground about the nukes being unwarranted.
The nukes took 100k civilian lives, but they have lasting effects till today and a few more generations will experience them.
So, you would happily have millions of Americans and Russians die, and the potential genocide of the Japanese people so 100k lives that could well be lost anyways might be saved?
I appreciate your ad hominem about my ignorance, but unlike you who seems to feel attacked by one question, I don’t need smokescreens to defend anything.
• "The people are never blameless [...] when they sign on [...]" Do you actually think Imperial Japan did a referendum or something before Pearl Harbour?
• The civilians did work for their country, that much is of course true and a contingency of total war, congrats! But "knowing full well what they entailed" is not. Once again, Imperial Japan wasn’t liberal and keen on transparency, there’s a reason the Doomei existed. What they did tell the civilians, at the time, was the same they told civilians in other countries : they needed to defend their values.
• "too many of them would have refused to back down" is only your assumption, "did refuse", once again, no one asked them on a large scale. The ones who didn’t stop fighting after the surrendering were marginals.
• "they saw only honor and blessing in sending children to tanks with a grenade" this one just sounds like racist propaganda, but it might just be something I don’t know and I am therefore genuinely curious about your sources.
What I know did happen is that high schoolers were forcefully recruited to join the army, but because of this they weren't civilians anymore. Additionnally when the father died the child could be invested of his potestas, as the notion of personal life was less important than duty towards the country. So the child then enrolled in the army, and once again was not a civilian.
• And the civilians didn't attack, kill, rape, everyone they met. I don’t know how to break this to you,but the Japanese lived in Japan, so who would they have killed, raped etc. in this context ? The US military did this to them, though, later, when they invaded the country. As it happens during most wars.
To clarify, I agree that it was efficient to "win" and shorten the war. I know that war isn’t big on morals and more on self-preservation, and striking civilians works. I didn’t say there weren’t exactions committed by basically all the armies involved, nor that the Japanese population was an agnus dei compared to the others.
My question about the notion of deserving still stands : how are the people living in a country deserving, as individuals, of death or heavy trauma, because of something that happened on a geopolitical scale, that they did not have control over? And how did they deserve the nukes more than other nations?
You know for a fact that they would've broken in a week? Even *if* that were true (spoiler alert, it isn't), you're completely ignoring the geopolitical conditions, and the fact that they were not entitled to even a single drop of American blood just to, according to you alone, spare them the consequences of starting evil wars that they could not win.
I am so glad you think my Grandfather should've been sent to die in Japan just weeks after barely surviving Europe.
Purple, you do realize it was documented that the Japanese Army taught schoolchildren and teenagers to attack GI's with spears and improvised weapons, right?
I never said that. I said that I don't see how people morally deserve punishment for an action they didn't commit.
They wouldn't have broken in a week. I don't know how you took that from my comment.
I didn't say they were entitled to your blood.
I said that civilians didn't start the war, but paid for it. I said that the individuals who got nuked weren't the ones who decided the war.
I didn't say that your grandfather deserved to die. That's another crazy stretch. I didn't even say he deserved death because his government was at war with Japan, despite the fact that as military he knew what he signed up for.
You keep deforming what people say and avoiding answering.
Tarot, yes, I do! And thank you for making a sensible argument.
They also dug trenches in their gardens to hide in case of such an attack and have the benefit of surprise. A point could be made that trained soldiers should be able to fight off children, but it is true that this was a problem. And as I said, the sense of honor is high and children would take the place of their fallen fathers. It also comes from difference in the way Japanese society works, where the individual typically doesn't count compared to the coutnry.
Which is why I understand the military reason of the nuke.
However, since the Army teaching children is propaganda, my question about the moral point of view of saying they deserved something as conceptually violent and traumatic as the bomb still stands. It's an actual, genuine question.
Children kill you just as dead as anyone else. My team leader has a black wristband that attests to that. You think bullets and grenades are less lethal because they were fired or primed by a kid? This ain't a video game, you can't level-grind to be invulnerable.
The aggressor, and the enemy, deserves whatever measure their victim and opposition chooses to visit upon them.
And I'll say again, there's a hell of an easy way to avoid that outcome: Don't start wars you don't need and can't win, especially with the sole purpose of annihilation that made even the Nazis balk.
@famousone@spookykink58 calm the fuck down...for fucks sake me and spooky aren't defending imperial Japanese...we hate them just as much as famousone and yes we both believe they deserve even worse than what they got...BUT what we want to convey is that the bombs dropped on civilians were wrong and unethical and as you say that it was better for the greater good?...that greater good was a speculation at that time. I believe that the bombs did do good in the long run but what we are asking is that was this the only way to bring said result? Cause this seems more of a stretch to say that there was no other way...and it's been years goddamnit stop fighting like kids ffs this shit turned out to be such a headache...it's a goddammn war and no one is in the right or wrong and it's still up for debate after years...we are saying the stuff we are taught and you are saying what you are taught...just fuckin end this ffs
We were right, and they were wrong. That's the long and short of it. You don't like the conversation? Hit the unfollow button on Foxtrot Oscar to a conversation you would rather see.
I pointed out the numerous other ways. All of them were objectively worse. Downfall wasn't "speculation", it was a certainty if the bombs didn't work and it wasn't feasible to starve the Japanese to death.
Leaving out their atrocity and fanaticism, it was the least painful way to end the war with a Japan that couldn't take a breather and try again in a generation.
You're so certain there was another way, what was it? And why in the hell would it work after everything short of invasion and nukes failed?
@blazingfrags I agree with you, I originally posted my thoughts acknowledging why the US decided to nuke the Japanese instead of invading their homeland. And to say war is war and using that as an excuse for just killing thousands of civilians isn't right. The only point I would like to put out there is the amount of effort the US put into making the Japanese surrender and to warn the Japanese of the nuclear bomb. To convince them to surrernder they sent airraids to let them know they could bomb their cities and sent out planes with flyers to warn Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens to evacute the city. Those cities were chosen due to their factories and production sites. The Japanese had options to surrender and the evacuate the citizens but none of that happened.
I want you to understand that the nukes were a tradegy. But what I dont like about it is how it is used for the Japanese to play the victum. While they have done terrible things to my people, they hide behind the nukes and
Play the victum of the war they started. A war they couldve stopped. For that reason, I dont like it when they condemm the US for the bombs while completely disregarding what they were doing to millions of people in Asia. If the war has dragged on long enough, how many more years till my country, Korea, was freed and how many more lives wouldve been lost? I might not even be here today if Japanese occupation lasted one more year. Its getting personal now which doesnt help the discussion but please understand that this arguement hits a bit close to home and hard not to get personal about it. Have a nice day.
For what its worth, I think the states were already more worried about the commies at this point, the soviets raped their way in eastern Europe and now their forces were massing for an invasion in northern Japan. And communist types really don't play nice with imperialist. This is not to say dropping nukes on civilian centers is ever OK. But I don't think there is a person alive who can shoulder the responsibility of this setup. This is literally a damned if you do, damned if you don't.
And this was better than taking soldiers as POWs? After the Manhattan project was completed, everyone knew what would happen. They still decided to drop not one, but two nukes and not on the same day but with a three day gap.
There were a thousand different ways America could've handled that. It's military wasn't spread thin as much as the Europeans and they were already gaining ground on Japan, by the time the nukes were dropped, only the mainland was remaining to be defeated.
And MacArthur still wanted to drop more. If it were upto him, there would have been nukes in Korea too.
And then in the next war America pulled out Napalm and chemical weaponry.
Just admit that America fucked up with that. The Japanese weren't saints, but there were a million different ways it could've been handled, but America just wanted to prove that they are the big bad-
The refused to surrender, and they had no right to even a drop of our blood when they'd already embraced atrocity, *actual* war crime, betrayal, perfidy, human experimentation, genocide, and evils unimaginable that are still hidden from us.
We weren't talking about Brits and Churchill, but you did mention starvation and that was a statement regarding that and to point out that there was nothing good about that war. And millions of people dying of starvation in the country where the ruling country took so many of it's young men is "big whoop" to you? Damn dude, you must be tough as nails.
The options were simple. Show them that their God was powerless before us, commit genocide through starvation, or dedicate millions of lives and the rest of our treasure to Operation Downfall knowing full well that it would be the brutal death of tens of millions.
.
Spoiler alert, you'll see babies thrown in the air and caught on bayonets. Fathers forced at gun point to rape their daughters, and mothers their sons, only for them all to be burned alive partway through. Entire races of women reduced to playthings and sex-slaves. POWs tortured and executed for fun, with new Japanese recruits making a game of cutting off a GI's penis and cramming it down his buddy's throat, just to gamble on if one will bleed out before the other chokes to death. Children learning how to be effective suicide bombers. I could go on.
Or
We give them warnings. Beg for their surrender, and drop a bomb. And if they refuse? Another. And still they hold out? Allright, fine. Keep Downfall in reserve. Maintain the blockade and see what their fighting spirit looks like when they're eating rot. And then the family pet. And the their own children.
Y'all are some sick and cruel bastards to prefer saying "fuck the new bombs, let's kill millions more and prolong the terror and bloodshed for another generation".
And we are the sick fucks for saying that the people should have tried something else. And we all know that if they wouldn't have surrendered, another nuke would've been dropped, Downfall wouldn't have been the course of action, MacArthur already wanted to drop more.
And yes the conversation at hand isn't about Nazis winning, it's about nukes being justified and people wouldn't justify them if it were them instead of the Americans who dropped them.
There were a lot of other solutions that were proposed, but the American people were all flared up because of Pearl Harbor and didn't want anything other than unconditional surrender. That's why the nukes went off. And it wasn't only just those 100k civilians who died, the nukes had lasting effects. People are still born weird in those cities.
The only acceptable outcome was absolute and unconditional surrender. Or their culture would have only rebuilt and come back worse. Nevermind half the world aside from us wanting their pound of flesh for how they were tormented.
Of all the feasible ways to force that surrender, the bombs were the least harmful to them and risky to us.
These facts are indisputable.
The firebombings though were totally, fscked up. Even the guy (Curtis Lemay) responsible for coming up with the plan knew he would have been tried for war crimes if the US lost the war.
I dont know me saying this would add any validation to my arugument but I am Korean. The Japanese killed many of our people and when people shout at the US for killing 100k people while the Japan plays the victum it hurts. This wasnt a atrocity that happened thousands of years ago, but something that happened 70 years ago. Idk, going on a rant here but I do think its justified. Vicitums of the circumstances.
Maybe some of them were innocent, but the fact remains that too many of them would have refused to back down, *did* refuse. And that all of them, women and children included, were being trained. And unlike anyplace else of note at the time, they saw only honor and blessings in sending children to charge tanks with a grenade.
We picked the least terrible and most sure option. Your own ignorance is no longer a defense.
The nukes took 100k civilian lives, but they have lasting effects till today and a few more generations will experience them.
• "The people are never blameless [...] when they sign on [...]" Do you actually think Imperial Japan did a referendum or something before Pearl Harbour?
• The civilians did work for their country, that much is of course true and a contingency of total war, congrats! But "knowing full well what they entailed" is not. Once again, Imperial Japan wasn’t liberal and keen on transparency, there’s a reason the Doomei existed. What they did tell the civilians, at the time, was the same they told civilians in other countries : they needed to defend their values.
• "too many of them would have refused to back down" is only your assumption, "did refuse", once again, no one asked them on a large scale. The ones who didn’t stop fighting after the surrendering were marginals.
What I know did happen is that high schoolers were forcefully recruited to join the army, but because of this they weren't civilians anymore. Additionnally when the father died the child could be invested of his potestas, as the notion of personal life was less important than duty towards the country. So the child then enrolled in the army, and once again was not a civilian.
• And the civilians didn't attack, kill, rape, everyone they met. I don’t know how to break this to you,but the Japanese lived in Japan, so who would they have killed, raped etc. in this context ? The US military did this to them, though, later, when they invaded the country. As it happens during most wars.
My question about the notion of deserving still stands : how are the people living in a country deserving, as individuals, of death or heavy trauma, because of something that happened on a geopolitical scale, that they did not have control over? And how did they deserve the nukes more than other nations?
I am so glad you think my Grandfather should've been sent to die in Japan just weeks after barely surviving Europe.
They wouldn't have broken in a week. I don't know how you took that from my comment.
I didn't say they were entitled to your blood.
I said that civilians didn't start the war, but paid for it. I said that the individuals who got nuked weren't the ones who decided the war.
I didn't say that your grandfather deserved to die. That's another crazy stretch. I didn't even say he deserved death because his government was at war with Japan, despite the fact that as military he knew what he signed up for.
You keep deforming what people say and avoiding answering.
They also dug trenches in their gardens to hide in case of such an attack and have the benefit of surprise. A point could be made that trained soldiers should be able to fight off children, but it is true that this was a problem. And as I said, the sense of honor is high and children would take the place of their fallen fathers. It also comes from difference in the way Japanese society works, where the individual typically doesn't count compared to the coutnry.
Which is why I understand the military reason of the nuke.
However, since the Army teaching children is propaganda, my question about the moral point of view of saying they deserved something as conceptually violent and traumatic as the bomb still stands. It's an actual, genuine question.
And I'll say again, there's a hell of an easy way to avoid that outcome: Don't start wars you don't need and can't win, especially with the sole purpose of annihilation that made even the Nazis balk.
Leaving out their atrocity and fanaticism, it was the least painful way to end the war with a Japan that couldn't take a breather and try again in a generation.
You're so certain there was another way, what was it? And why in the hell would it work after everything short of invasion and nukes failed?
I want you to understand that the nukes were a tradegy. But what I dont like about it is how it is used for the Japanese to play the victum. While they have done terrible things to my people, they hide behind the nukes and