Was reading about stoners paranoi to nukes (dbw ;p) and I had been discussing this with others, figured i\'d see what my fellow stoners thought. For those who are new on the subject..in 1945 after the bombings of pearl harbor, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was bombed, killing roughly 200,000 people. Days later, after the Japanese did not surrender to the US, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. These were cities, not military installations. The argument for Truman supporters was that it prevented much more killings throughout the course of time. I do not believe personally that it was worth killing innocent civilians by the hundred thousands, but I will let you all debate your stances. *btw sorry to make you all stop and think in this forum filled with sex threads, lol!*
there was always the option of detonating the nuke in the air over water just to prove that we had it....there really was no need to level two cities. truman wanted the japanese to know we had the capabilities but again.....we could have demonstrated it to them by another method. the fact is is that we didn\'t even try. other atrocities by the US in WWII: Dresden, Germany ( worse than the A bomb ) and the Bikini Atoll ( testing the A bomb on a series of islands ). both show what the US is capable of.
i agree totally. there were us troops waiting in ships that could have invaded. i mean yes, the bombs did save americans lives who would have died if infiltration occured, but its a war and im sorry, but i think that the american casualties that we would suffer if we invaded would have been far less than the japanese casualties from the bombs. and why two bombs???? yes, the japs didnt surrender after the first one, but they were probably in shock and trying to decide what to do, then we just go drop a bomb on nagasaki. and pearl harbor was a military base, we attacked innocent civilians, totally heartless in my mind. in a world today total war is almost necessary, but i disagree with it. and these two atomic bombs took total war to a level that it should never been brought to. okay, im done now.
I believe that we needed to use the nuclear bombs against the Japanese, but I strongly disagree with their use on the Japanese civilian population. I think that the idea of an invasion is unrealistic. An American invasion into Japan would have devastated the American military, which was already in poor shape after years of the most brutal war in the history of the world. The chance of a successful American invasion of Japan was not much greater than the chance of a successful Japanese invasion of the American mainland. It just wasn\'t going to happen. As for BlackNasty\'s suggestion, I think that it has some merit, but whether it would have worked is not a sure thing. The Japanese were reluctant to surrender even after two of their cities had been completely annihilated. Remember, we didn\'t destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the same time. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6. When that didn\'t bring a Japanese surrender, Nagasaki was destroyed as well, 3 days later on August 9. If we only showed them that we had the capability, they might simply put effort into developing nuclear technology of their own. Also, I\'m not 100% sure about this, but I believe that the U.S. only had 2 nuclear bombs completed, and the 3rd would not be ready for some time. If one was used for demonstration and it didn\'t work, then that would only leave the U.S. with a single operational atomic bomb. But, overall, I think that logic played a smaller role that it should have in the decision. America was absolutely infuriated with the Japanese. While fighting a war against the racist Nazi Germany, Japanese living in America were being denied jobs, beaten, and moved to American \'camps,\' \'for their own safety.\' The link below has a lot of information pertaining to this. I haven\'t read most of it, but what I have read is interesting. http://www.dannen.com/decision/
I don\'t think Hiroshima or Nagasaki can ever be justified by the states. Countries may perform attrocities in their own land but America is a murderer on the international level. The japanese are masters of war and were dug in amazingly well. It would\'ve been too simple to box the japs in on their island and just let em sit there. Human life is precious, even your enemies, and other nations would respect that.
just to tell you guys, the atomic bombs were more of a threat against the soviets than they were to end WWII. the russians had failed to agree with the points made at the yalta and potsdam conferences so they were now a threat. and they were developing a bomb as well, so we had to show our power and that we werent afraid to use it. it was totally possible to end the war with the fire bombs that we had been using previous.
I don\'t think anyone that time knew about the horrors of nuclear warfare. Just look at the duck and cover vids. Today we know that it you see a flash of light like that, there\'s no need to seek cover, beacuse that wouldn\'t make a difference. And remember the soldiers equipped with film strips to watch the test explotions? If the strip goes dark ,seek cover. (too late) Nevertheless they knew that they would level those cities with the ground. That was the rule that time. Totally unneccesary. Some also regret bombing Dresden, Germany. This event is widely discussed, too. It was an act of revenge.
Please note: This is an opinion, don\'t hate me for it. I was lead to believe only three bombs were in possession of us that were fully functional and working. Anyways, it was impossible for the U.S. to go into Japan, they would have completely handled us. They were kids with warrior mind sets, impressive, and they had their own militairy. With that out of the question, you also need to understand the mind set of all these men. They needed to supress this nation of warriors and genius people from having an uprising of communism, from winning \'\'the war to end all wars\'\'. I don\'t agree they should have done it, but it\'s done, and I feel that I can\'t hold it against them.
it was very possible and i do agree with you that it was wrong, and i too agree that we cant do anything about it now, its just horrible to think about the countless lives lost.
Could the bombs be dropped over any Japanese recources or military bases where casualties would be less, in stead of crowded civillian cities? Honestly, it was a bit much to kill so many civillans especially over some boats. Sorry if this dossent make sense or anything but Im a little stoned
The atom bomb is so large and powerful, and Japan is so small and condensed, that even if we did drop it on a military base it would have probably killed many civilians anyway.
Um...yeah dude, there were people in those boats, but if you didn\'t notice, here is the full casualty list: http://www.usswestvirginia.org/fulllist.htm Just incase you didn\'t know how many actual people were killed. And the US weren\'t even part of the war then, Japan attacked a neutral nation. But I still do think the bombs were wrong, but what you said doesn\'t really make sense.
\"Some boats\"? That\'s like saying that the September 11, 2001 was just \"some towers.\" Over 2400 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. You live in Canada, so you probably didn\'t see the billions of American flags waving from almost every car, house, apartment, and condo in America after September 11. Nothing unites Americans as much as when you piss us off. It\'s what we\'re good at.
Here\'s something I suggest any one of you do... Ask a WWII vet if THEY think it was a good idea or not. It\'s easy for us to sit here 50 years later and point out the mistakes of the past... But go and tell someone who faught in Japan that dropping those bombs was a bad idea. I dare you to. Tell someone who saw his buddies die in combat that we did the wrong thing. But yeah... It may not have been the right thing to do, and I do disagree with killing innocent civilians. I disagree with us killing hundreds of thousands of people to \"save hundreds of thousands of lives.\" And yes, it was done more to scare the Russians than to get the Japs to surrender. America was (and still is) very afraid of Russia, and with good reason. So they wanted to make it known that we would use nuclear weapons if it ever came down to it.
Either choice would\'ve sucked. But we were at war and by doing that we saved many american lives and arguably many japanese and I would think that is the goal in combat.
I did a 15 page paper on this. To summarize it in a few sentences = the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of American and allied lives, and probably millions of Japanese lives. It had to be done.