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Well, a controversal topic ever since it has happend. The dropping of the two Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945, August. It killed over 200 000 people instantly, and over the effects of 60 years has claimed over 1 000 000 lives, and hundreds of thousands of birth defects. But was America justified in doing it?
Not at all. There is absolutely no way of justifying the cold blooded murder of 1,200,000 innocent people. Absolutely not. There's not much I need to add to this argument because there's absolutely no justification :)
I'm a pacifist, as you might have guessed...
Lol how can you say it wasnt justified? yes it was justified. ummm Pearl Harbor. fuck with the US and get whats comming to you.
Deaths of Pearl Harbour:
Roughly 10 000 Military and Civilian Personell, 1/3rd of the American Pacific Fleet.
Deaths of the Atomic Bombs: 1.5 Million dead, over a million birth defects, the economic halt of two entire metropolises.
Hmm, well i guess you need to look at the ends here.
Japan, they're one of the world powers and have a very strong economy...no? And how did they get there? US, WE BUILT THEM! They're now able to help millions in poorer countries, and without us they'd be nowhere near what they are today.
So do the means justify the ends? I'd say more good has come of it than not. Also, that allowed us to stop worrying about japan, and stop the nazis. Otherwise, hitler may have developed other weapons while we were fighting the japs, tortured more ethnic groups, etc.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xtremerunnerars @ Apr 30 2006, 03:34 PM) [snapback]167218[/snapback]</div>Hitler was defeated before the atomic bombs were dropped.Quote:
Also, that allowed us to stop worrying about japan, and stop the nazis. Otherwise, hitler may have developed other weapons while we were fighting the japs, tortured more ethnic groups, etc.
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President Truman did have to make one of the most hardest decisions, he concluded that more lives would be lost trying to invade Japan, than dropping the bomb. If the US invaded Japan, it was estimated that over a million American soldiers would die, countless more Japanese civilians as well as the scourging of the land. Although some have said that there are other reasons: a signal to the Soviet Union to back off.
And also, did you really think the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour because they wanted to try to beat the US? The United States gave them no other choice unless they wanted to disgrace themselves by backing down. There is no doubt the Japanese were highly militaristic and aggressive, the US imposed economic sanctions (embargo on steel, oil), froze their assets in America, and sent a hostile note to the Japanese government, somewhat of an ultimatum, in response to it.
The 'ultimatum' demanded Japan to withdraw from Indochina, and withdraw from its alliance with Germany and Italy. While this may seem legitimate to do, the United States were following an isolationist policy and thus why should they care what the Japanese are doing in IndoChina? No country could accept these demands, that is like saying the British Empire should give up all that it had gained. America might've been surprised by the attack on Pearl Harbour, but Washington certainly wasn't.
Of course I can say it wasn't justified. Pearl Harbour is no justification. The Japanese attacked the US MILITARY, the US attacked Japanese CIVILIANS. There's a difference. Japan's actions were those of war, and America's those of terrorism. America should have responded by attacking the Japanese military instead.
There is absolutely no justification. None. The innocents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki paid for the Japanese governments aggression. It should have been the Japanese Government or Military who paid, not the innocents in Hiroshima/Nagasaki. It's like Britian going to war and the opposition dropping a bomb on my city, when in fact I know I would be an innocent member (who would probably have opposed the war. period.)
Oops, sorry..i wasn't sure if germany had lost or not. Lol we haven't officially covered the war in any classes yet, so i didn't learn that...though i shoulda figured.
danny, if we hadn't done something that drastic there wouldn't have been a point imo. Dropping that nuke also showed everyone that we meant business, and showed that nukes really are powerful and not something to be taken lightly.
however...if you google terrorism, the first definiton is the us government's definition. And...by that definition it WAS terrorism.
I say nonsense. They should have fought a proper war: attacked Japan and hit its military. Not taking the coward's way out by droping two atomic bombs at the expense of innocent lives -__-
I agree that the use of the bomb was overly abusive. But there weren't many other options. A land invasion of Japan would have been horrific, even more so than the bombs. If you think that less innocent people would have been killed by a land invasion, just take a look at vietnam (all of vietnam, not just when the US came into it). If any stereotype is accurate it is the fanaticalism of the japanese people during WWII. A military target would have had a miniscule effect on the moral of the Japanese. And moral was really what the war had become about.
Japan wasn't a shining example of humanity either. Actually research the war and you'll find out just how dirty both sides where.
Danny,
You talk like just because someone is in the military their lives are less important and more expendable than a civilians.
I just hope this doesn't turn into an America bashing thread, because god knows Britian has done much worse in it's lifetime. No country is without it's dark past, except maybe Canada...
Well a lot of views are going to be Biased.
A lot of ppl from the void are american, and Americans are very patriatoic.
Go figure Americans think it was justified, everyone thinks not.
I dont really have a view on it.
I'm not saying people in the military are less important. They join the military to fight for their country -- their government. If America are at war with the Japanese government, then they should attack the government and the military, not the innocents who just want to stay out of it.
And I really can't see how Britain is worse than America. If it were, I would move from my country in an instant :S
Not attacking the 'innocents' is a noble idea, but it simply will not work in the long run. During a major war, most nation's economy is a war economy, and the civilians on the 'home front' produce all the supplies that will be needed on the frontlines. By attacking the major areas of manufacturing, a nation can destroy the heart of another nation's supplies and economy.
In this case, Hiroshima was a major industrial area, it was a division headquarters, communication hub, storage areas, and had several industrial plants. Nagasaki was a port city, obviously manufacturing ships and shipping weapons and other materials to the Pacific theater.
Had the United States wanted to kill simply civilians they would've bombed major cities like Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka or Sendai. w/e
The debate whether it is justified is iffy, since Japan was essentially 'forced' to attack Pearl Harbour you cannot say that Japan deserved it. But a drawn out invasion of Japan would've potentially destroyed the nation, and cost countless lives.
Every country has a dark history, even Canada :) The Canadian government are guilty of interning the Japanese immigrants in camps after Pearl Harbour, and of course the Orphelins de Duplessis.
Britain and other European nations exercised colonization. That is pretty bad. Something to look at: there have been few ex-colonial nations that have been successful (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, US and some others), but most of them never recovered. The Scramble for Africa, the continent was carved up and became colonies, the profound effect of colonization today is the third-world and developing nations.
Thats another thing, the internment camps, they didnt bother doing those here, but i heard they were pretty bad for us Japanese. Also if we did try to invade Japan, thier morale was so high that the average citizen would probably stand and fight to the death against American forces.
It was wrong to do it, not only was it wrong morally but it was wrong militaristicly as well. If America just HAD to drop the A-bomb then they should have done it on Tokyo, the military HQ and capital of the enemy, they should not have dropped in on two cities populated by innocent civillians.
And I agree with Shurai on the fact that every nation has done some pretty horrible things. Remember the British bombing raids on the german city of Dresdan in WWII? It killed 175,000 people. The bombs caused a ring of fire around the city so the oxygen was taken up by the flames and people in the city died of suffocation and affixiation. Another pretty gruesome fact is that the incredible amount of heat actually caused people to melt! Yes you heard me, people actualy melted in there.
Every country screws up sometimes, and the USA should not have dropped the A-Bomb and they DEFINATELY should not have dropped them on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
lol @ coward way... yea lets send our military guys in on FOREIGN LAND and let them fight that makes so much more sense than dropping a bomb.. that would be killing our people when we can simply drop the bomb .. japan would of destoryed us.. they have 3 times as many men as we do.. it would of been just like vietnam
being from the uk u have no room to bash america uk use to be the dirtiest country there was
actually no americans dont think it was justified... better rethink that one.. americans HATE war and are never for it.. the reason why americans hate bush and every republican that goes to war... but we also dont think it was justified for them to bomb pearl harbor when we werent even in the god forsaken war
they didnt bomb the civilians they bombed the factories it just spread out too far and they didnt know the effects of the bomb or what it would do if they wanted to bomb civilians they would of dropped it on communties and not factories... even if we werent justified they still bombed us and capped a boat with boys inside... is that justified? military or not NONE of it is justified... war is never justified and nothing that happens in war is justified so how can u ask if dropping a bomb is justified..well duh of course not.. america wasn't in the war and wanted nothing to do with it they shoulda stay the hell away and surrended when we threatened them with the 2nd bomb... we rebuilt them what else could we do? we didn't know that would happen and america is still sorry about it
i agree every country has screwed up... germany killing innocent jews..
but atleast our screw up wasnt purposely and we didnt start it
i love how when america screws up its the first thing to be brought up and nobody remembers what other countries have done... during the same time we dropped this bomb...after japan attacked us for NO REASON AT ALL germany was killing jews just because they were jewish yet everyone remembers america bombing the poor little japs
exactly magic!!!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Magic @ Jul 2 2006, 12:10 AM) [snapback]177612[/snapback]</div>Wow I thought you had something going there until you said that. :P What in the world makes you think that the Holocaust is less known than the bombings of the 2 cities?Quote:
..after japan attacked us for NO REASON AT ALL germany was killing jews just because they were jewish yet everyone remembers america bombing the poor little japs
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Worst of all, why would Japan attack Pearl Harbor for NO REASON? That's just stupid. The US had been meddling and had trade embargos on Japanese resources. Cutting them off from valuable war materials needed to continue their campaign. That's not a very neutral move from an apparently neutral country the US said it was. The 'surprise' attack was hardly surprising at all, the US cut an agressive country from its resources, and froze their assets. What else would you expect to happen? Plus the area of Pearl Harbor had numerous warnings of attack and yet they were unprepared.
The bombs had some justification, but it would be insulting to history to say that the Japanese were the 'bad guys' to this. The bombs were hardly a black spot on American history, I would say the Vietnam war was.
yes this i know... we knew it was going to be hit and our president and military did nothing.... no one mentioned the holocaust...t hey are talking about us bombing japan but at this same time the holocaust was going on and it was far more worst then what we have done that was the point i was making with that
ok so because we take away their resources it justifies them killing our soldiers? wow..... didnt know that was jusitification... i dont care we didnt bomb them we didnt threaten them with bombs we werent in the war they shouldnt of bombed us they were wrong and we fought back we went to the extreme which was wrong we shouldnt have dropped the a-bomb still again they didnt know it would have those effects anyway...
my point being on this is just because we took away their resources doesnt give them the right to kill soldiers and that the holocaust was far more worse then us dropping a-bombs on a country that bombed us first
The reason for the embargos was because of Japanese aggression in the Far East. The Americans sent them an ultimatum to abandon their campaign, and withdraw from the Axis alliance.
Any nation with an ounce of dignity would rightly refuse this. Especially Japan, whose pride and passion for their nation was the very reason the bombs had to be dropped. To them, there was no other choice.
While Nagasaki and Hiroshima were mainly cogs in the war machine, they were still cities, civilians were still killed, along with them American POWs.
Have you ever wondered why Pearl Harbor was not prepared to defend the attack? The US economy was shit because of the depression. A war economy stimulates supply and demand and will stabilize it, nations involved in the War at the time experienced a stable and booming economy (although the losers of wars don't benefit :P). It would not be unreasonable to suggest that the US wanted a war to help its economy.
yes i know but after seeing the first bomb they should of surrended i know i would of lol... thats true about the war helping the economy but even so civilians are killed in all wars and it doesnt make any war more wrong then the other
