Remember: Rape of Nanking, Bombing of Shanghai, Ping Fat medical experiments, Massacre in Manila, Death March of Bataan, and other atrocities inflicted by Japanese Imperial Armies and Kempitai!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Position:Home>History> Was the nuclear attack on Hiroshima/Nagasaki justified?Question: Was the nuclear attack on Hiroshima/Nagasaki justified!? Remember: Rape of Nanking, Bombing of Shanghai, Ping Fat medical experiments, Massacre in Manila, Death March of Bataan, and other atrocities inflicted by Japanese Imperial Armies and Kempitai!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Consider first the practical dimension of the issue!. When we used nuclear weapons to decimate population centers in Asia, we set a dangerous precedent!. How will anyone deny that it's only a matter of time before we are treated with such devices ourselves!? That is a sobering thought!. The USA has a long and venerable tradition of genocide!. If you want the details, study history!. Read Chalmers Johnson!. When he was in the Navy, Mr!. John McCain felt it was OK to bomb Vietnamese civilians!. Do you know what napalm is!? Agent Orange!? We dropped more bombs on the Vietnamese people than all the tons of bombs we dropped in WWII!. Now this war criminal and absolute terrorist is considered a "war hero!." What business did we have in Vietnam!? What American interests justified such behavior!? What other nations behaved as we did!? Did Congress declare war as required by our Constitution!? Now our chickens are indeed coming home to roost!. We are going to pay a high price for our ugly ambitions and callous disregard for those folks who are not quite as "exceptional" as are we!. Not only did we commit genocide in Vietnam, we keep doing the same over and over again!. How'd you like to be in one of those tiny Pakistani villages when one of our lovely CIA operated drone aircraft comes overhead firing missiles or depleted uranium ordnance!? Charmant!Www@QuestionHome@Com Yes as the alternative was far worse!. What many people of today fail to realize is that the USA was at WAR with Japan!. WWII was a total war, not some minor conflict!. In total about 60-70 million people were killed, and some historians felt that number is higher as the Death tolls for Japan and the Soviet Union cannot be fully counted!. By the end of 1944 Japan knew it was on the Road for defeat, yet they still fought for every square inch of space!. Iwo Jima and Okinawa were battles at the end of the war in which entire military divisions of the Japanese were destroyed and they knew this going into the fights they would lose!. The Japanese have a great honor in fighting and dying by the "sword" is a great honor to them!. Plans were drawn up for an invasion of Japan called Operation Downfall!. If was the planed invasion of southern Japan and Tokyo Bay!. The estimates of the attack put casualties of 1,000,000 on the Allied side and 10,000,000 on Japan's side!. Prior to enacting this invasion, President Truman along with the UK and China met at Potsdam to discuss the surrender of Japan!. There he gave Japan two choices: 1) Surrender without condition 2) Be destroyed!. This was July 26, 1945 After waiting 10 days for a response Truman got none and then authorized the bombing of Hiroshima!. Hiroshima had been largely untouched by conventional bombing!. Hiroshima was a large city with several military targets and based surrounding the city!. After the bomb was dropped there was still no response of surrendor of Japan!. Nagasaki was bombed 3 days later only because the primary target of Kyoto (this maybe the wrong city) was covered by clouds!. In all 200,000 Japanese perished in the inital bombing with an unknown amount affected by the fallout!. However this number falls far short of the numbers that would have perished had the allies invaded!.Www@QuestionHome@Com It is true that the Japanese military committed horrible war crimes from 1931-1945!. But very few of the citizens of Hiroshima or Nagasaki actually committed these crimes, any more than the citizens of Baltimore or Duluth committed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam!. The Geneva Conventions adopted after WW2 specifically prohibit reprisals or collective punishments against the general civilian population!. "No person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed!." Some may point out the fact that these provisions of the Geneva Conventions were not in effect at the time of the atomic bombings!. By this logic, slavery in the US prior to 1865 was morally acceptable because the 13th Amendment was not ratified until December 1865!. Many Americans say the bombings were justified because of the lives that were saved!. But again, the current Geneva Conventions do not recoginze this as an acceptable reason for the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians!. "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack!. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited!. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited!. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction!." Otherwise, every nation that has ever fought a war could use that as a reason to kill civilians!. Why should the US be the only country allowed to slaughter enemy civilians to save the lives of its soldiers!?Www@QuestionHome@Com Revenge is a very poor motivator in war!. It will always lead to such bad decisions!. It also degrades the perpetrator of the revenge!. There is also the very practial point "An eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind" The only justification for action in war is: How few will be killed to achieve what we must achieve!. I have examined this question so, what are the arguments!? What follows is an unhappy realisation!. Japan will have fought hard and long!. How many millions would die!. The bombs shortened the war and saved lives on both sides!. Could it have been handled any other way!? When I served in the RN, we were taught riot control!. It comes in four parts: 1 form a firring line 2 Verbally warn the rioters to disperse 3 If no compliance - fire over the heads 4 If still no compliance fire at the ring leaders!. Where was the allies warning!? Why was there no warning shot If they had exploded a device in a low population zone, then the Japanese may have complied earlier with less casualties!. There is a foot note: It is probable because of the bombing of the two cities, that no one used nuclear weapons in the cold war!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Good question, The Allies anticipating over a million casualties with the impending invasion of the Japanese mainland sought to bring the war to an end with minimal loss to Allied troops, combined with forthcoming elections in both the US and UK a prolonged war could prove fatal in elections and re-elections, After the Potsdam conference the Western Allies wary of Soviet ambitions in Europe sought to 'flex its muscles' with the new super weapon!. Www@QuestionHome@Com Remember: Abu Ghraib, water boarding, the racism against their southern neighbors, all the rapes of women and children by American soldiers in Japan, Iraq, South Korea, Philippines and Afghanistan!.Www@QuestionHome@Com |