Hiroshima calls for nuke-free world (4 Viewers)

[Iron]

woops. it's fixed now.
please reread

Stll doesnt make sense. The Empire of Japan was by no means an 'innocent sister' that the Allies were determined to perform some cruel amputation on.

 

[Rockyroad]

Stll doesnt make sense. The Empire of Japan was by no means an 'innocent sister' that the Allies were determined to perform some cruel amputation on.

No no, the innocent sister is the innocent Japanese civilians.

For America (and you) to say the murder of hundreds of thousands is ok because they were planning on killing more ...is retarded.

Capiche?

 

[loquasagacious]

I agree with Iron. While the bombings did cause immense loss of life they were the best option available.

- firebombing had proved ineffective
- the last islands captured had fought to the death
- kamikaze attacks had commenced in earnest

In short there was every reason to believe that an actual invasion would have been drawn out and bloody. The loss of life would have been monumental for both sides. In this instance I believe that nuclear weapons were actually the lesser of two evils.

 

[loquasagacious]

No no, the innocent sister is the innocent Japanese civilians.

For America (and you) to say the murder of hundreds of thousands is ok because they were planning on killing more ...is retarded.

Capiche?

Option A: kill 2 million
Option B: kill 500,000

It is more ethical to choose B.

 

[Rockyroad]

I agree with Iron. While the bombings did cause immense loss of life they were the best option available.

- firebombing had proved ineffective
- the last islands captured had fought to the death
- kamikaze attacks had commenced in earnest

In short there was every reason to believe that an actual invasion would have been drawn out and bloody. The loss of life would have been monumental for both sides. In this instance I believe that nuclear weapons were actually the lesser of two evils.

Bah

This was extremely unconvincing

My point is that there were not only two options - invasion or atomic bomb.
They demanded unconditional surrender when Japan wanted out. Then after the bombing, they let Japan keep the emperor anyway! What does that say?
Did my brilliant metaphor not convert you?

 

[Rockyroad]

Option A: kill 2 million
Option B: kill 500,000

It is more ethical to choose B.

lol
If those were the options then I agree with you.

If those were the two options, then everyone would agree with you. Doesn't the fact that there is this huge debate prove that it isn't that simple?

 

[Iron]

Bah

This was extremely unconvincing

My point is that there were not only two options - invasion or atomic bomb.
They demanded unconditional surrender when Japan wanted out. Then after the bombing, they let Japan keep the emperor anyway! What does that say?
Did my brilliant metaphor not convert you?

Provide these documents.

I believe that the evidence is that the military rulers wanted to fight on after the nuclear weapons were used. It was only the Emperor who was decisive in ending the conflict and even he was almost silenced by the army.

But even so, it would be totally unacceptable to leave Japan in the same state in which it launched its devastating assault upon the region - just like a deal with Hitler could never be made. These regimes were intent on violence - it was their underlying philosophy. They had to be occupied, disarmed and put on trial for the good of the world.

 

[loquasagacious]

I eagerly await academic (not green left weekly, et al) references to substantiate the argument Rockyroad is making.

In the interim I would suggest the the so called controversy is not all that controversial. There have been a handful of revisionist historians who published books which basically alleged a conspiracy to ignore Japanese surrender efforts and nuke Japan to scare the Russians. The primary evidence from the time does not really support this and the vast majority of the literature doesn't either.

PS: Even if you accept the 'scare the ruskies' hypothesis that could have been achieved by inviting them and the media to a nuclear test.

 

[katie tully]

Yea I pretty much agree with Tangent.
It's obvious Tangent isn't a troll. No?

And can you please further explain this:
Australian kids aren't terrorist nips, are they.

I'm so confused.

I also think, like Tangent, that the atomic bombings were unjustified. America refused to allow Japan to keep the emperor, then after bombing them they let them keep him anyway. How does this make sense?

Learn your history. It was totally justified, and they allowed the Emperor of Japan to remain because they effective disarmed Japan and demilitarised it. Japan no longer posed a threat without any weapons, did it.

They also placed a trade embargo on Germany and Japan which effected their economies for years. Poor, disarmed countries aren't a threat.
The a bomb in Japan effectively ended world war 2, at least on the pacific front. If not, there is a good chance that
a. Japan would have kept fighting
b. We'd be nip terrorists.

 

[katie tully]

lol
If those were the options then I agree with you.

If those were the two options, then everyone would agree with you. Doesn't the fact that there is this huge debate prove that it isn't that simple?

No it only proves it isn't that simple if you're an idiot and you know nothing about World War 2, which you have clearly demonstrated you don't.

Bah

This was extremely unconvincing

My point is that there were not only two options - invasion or atomic bomb.
They demanded unconditional surrender when Japan wanted out. Then after the bombing, they let Japan keep the emperor anyway! What does that say?
Did my brilliant metaphor not convert you?

Again - after the war, when Japan was disarmed, they had no reason not to let the Emperor stay. Secondly, the surrender option was ignored by the Japanese. They had no intention of surrendering, and as soon as the allied forces became lax and decided that perhaps Japan had had enough, they'd have been raped in the arse by the Japanese, Pearl Harbour v2.0 style.

Japan surrendered less than a week after the bombings. What does that say?

even if that is true
that's like saying:
oh hey it's ok that I chopped my innocent sister's foot off because - I was planning to chop her whole leg off.

the logic sucks

No your logic sucks, you're a dead set imbecile.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were specifically targeted because of their immense importance to the nips. Hiroshima was an arms base, logistics, and it was responsible for the defense of most of southern Japan. Nagasaki was a sea port, which also has obvious significance to the Japanese Navy. This was by no means a random attack on civilians. If they had bombed Tokyo or another area of dense civilian populations, perhaps we could be arguing that the A bombs were unjustified.

They weren't.

And I seem to remember Australia being bombed multiple times, (most notably Darwin which was targeted for the same reasons as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a highly important sea port and base for the Australians and Americans) and I seemingly remember a midget sub coming into Sydney. Do you not think if the nips had the technology, that they wouldn't have done the same to us?

You can't argue ethics in a war that had no rules. Given that the bombs were devastating to Japan, you clearly have no idea what Japan was like as an enemy.

 

[katie tully]

Somebody kill her, fuckshit.

 

[katie tully]

The war was already over. Although there were still Japanese soldiers fighting, Japan as a country was already defeated. America wouldn't accept Japans surrender conditions, instead they wanted an unconditional surrender. The American's were not accepting Japan's conditions because it gave them an excuse to drop the bombs, because technically they were still at war with each other

lol fucking, leftist conspiracy theories.

 

[katie tully]

No no, the innocent sister is the innocent Japanese civilians.

For America (and you) to say the murder of hundreds of thousands is ok because they were planning on killing more ...is retarded.

Capiche?

Fuck a few hundred thousand Japanese.

Close to 70 million people world wide died in world war 2, either as soldiers, as collateral damage, as targets or from disease and famine.

Australia itself had around 700 civilian deaths, China had millions of civilian deaths, MILLIONS OK, Poland had millions of civilian deaths ...

 

[katie tully]

I can't understand these reject fuckheads who think we should have shown Japan some compassion, because they certainly didn't show their enemies or their POWs any compassion.

 

[Sprangler]

Japanese war crimes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Tully B.]

Option A: kill 2 million
Option B: kill 500,000

It is more ethical to choose B.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Are we talking about killing 2 million unarmed civilians?

Actually, even then if that were the case, that wouldn't really matter to me. What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is wrong, whatever way you look at it. I don't care if it ended with a positive outcome, or if more human life would have been expended if they hadn't done it. That doesn't come into consideration for me, at least with regards to deciding whether it was a moral thing to do.

Look at me, I seem like quite the moral absolutist. Me and Iron should switch positions.

 

[Uncle]

Option C: decommision nukes and kill no one.

north korea decides to launch nuke into united states, war breaks out straight away.

united states was about to launch a nuke in the 70's against russia and vice versa.
it was narrowly avoided by black ops.
but if united states were to launch nukes today into other territories, they would get off more easily im afraid (if black ops once again failed to stop the launch), the least that will happen is the severing of all diplomatic ties with other allied nations and get off more lightly.

 

[Rockyroad]

I eagerly await academic (not green left weekly, et al) references to substantiate the argument Rockyroad is making.

In the interim I would suggest the the so called controversy is not all that controversial. There have been a handful of revisionist historians who published books which basically alleged a conspiracy to ignore Japanese surrender efforts and nuke Japan to scare the Russians. The primary evidence from the time does not really support this and the vast majority of the literature doesn't either.

PS: Even if you accept the 'scare the ruskies' hypothesis that could have been achieved by inviting them and the media to a nuclear test.

No way. It's hugely controversial. Hell even the history they teach for the hsc doesn't teach the orthoox narrative. Look in any hsc guide - they have to teach that there is a huge debate around the legitimacy of the bombings. And they outline both sides etc.

It is no way a handful of revisionist conspiracy theorists. Here http://userpages.umbc.edu/~simpson/Hist 725 Summer 2006/Walker on A Bomb recent lit.pdf a guy called Walker examines the huge debate. He's no extremist, he's 'Searching for a middle ground'.

A message from the Japanese foreign minister to the Soviet ambassador:
'His majesty the emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war brings greater evil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated'
shows that he did want to surrender and if America lessened their demand for unconditional surrender it is likely they would have. Why did America have to demand unconditional surrender? If they wanted the war to end, why didn't they compromise etc?

 

[Rockyroad]

I can't understand these reject fuckheads who think we should have shown Japan some compassion, because they certainly didn't show their enemies or their POWs any compassion.

Christ.
What about the children and babies?
Were they innocent. At what point do civilians become deserving of attack because of what their leaders or soldiers did?
So it's about revenge is it?
Melt a few hundred thousands innocent people to death because of the Japanese treatment of POWs?
A lack of compassion is one of your biggest problems.

 

[Rockyroad]

Straight from the horse’s mouth, Truman stated, 'The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true'.

After reading that, how can you believe that American racism and the dehumanisation of the Japanese did not make the decision to use the bomb easier?