The Energon Pub

It's been awhile since this has had a decent discussion. The anniversary of the atomic bomb has just come and gone. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Do mean, was it ethically appropriate to drop the bombs?

If so, I'm torn. On one hand, I'm totally against the slaughter of thousands of Japanese by dropping two bombs on metropolitan areas. Granted, they had strategic value in destroying them, but there were many civilians that had no idea what was about to happen.

So while it can be justified by the fact that the US just wanted to end the war in the Pacific without having to pay for an amphibious invasion and the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor that caused the war, I still see no excuse for why they targeted mass civilians.

The Japanese never did that, not even in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The question I will now post though is this: Would the Japanese still have surrendered if we would have dropped the 2 Atomic bombs in uninhabited areas of Japan? Or would the Japanese doubt the accuracy of the US to use the bomb to it's full potential and continue the war?

Better than the massive predicted casualties estimated for the U.S. Besides, Japan started it. They knew what they were doing.

Short answer is yes, it was justified. And if we had the balls to be half as aggressive now days third world terrorist countries would be too scared to mess with us. War is ugly. People die. Even innocent people. That's why you use big firepower to end it as soon as possible. The faster you can force your enemy to submit the fewer people will ultimately die. The US developed a weapon that could do that and they made the right decision to do so. And it ended the war. THAT was mission accomplished.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his." - George S. Patton.

Too bad we have lost the balls of people like Patton in this day and age. 'nuff said.

I am unsure of the morality of killing civilians in such large numbers as to force their government to surrender for fear of there soon not being anyone left to govern.

The atomic bomb itself was a pretty bad idea (regardless of who would've completed it first) and the bombing of Nagasaki was quite probably gratitious but it is true that any outcome which results in the least amount of deaths tends to be preferable (all else being equal). Things could possibly have gone better but things could definately have gone worse.


Anyway. Here's to hoping that no one will ever think it a good idea to employ modern nuclear weaponry against cities.

Didn't we drop leaflets over the cities saying we were going to drop a bomb or something like that before doing it?

If thats the case, which I'm fairly certain it is. We gave them ample warning, the ones who stayed chose to stay, and boom.

Although I have to say, I hope it's last time we ever need to use bombs of that magnitude.

It's easy to look back in time over sixty years and condemn the actions of others under the blanket of morality and security. You also have to keep in mind that in this war, at this time, there was little choice. We were against enemies that caused massive casualties just to take small tracts of land. These kinds of loses were unacceptable, by any standard. There was a war going on too many fronts, and if we hadn't put one down we would have to have contended with both Japan and Germany at the same time.

If Germany or Japan had got the bomb first they wouldn't have hesitated about using it and probably more than twice too,with the result being one f'd up planet.
Of course it's wrong to subject so many innocents to such a horrible fate but no war was won by being nice to the enemy and the US were left with no choice,end of story.
Hopefully nobody will have to make such a decision again but with rogue nations like Iran & North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons,who would almost certainly sell them to terrorist groups then the US and it's allies could soon find themselves in a position where a pre-emptive strike will be necessary.

Loki120 wrote:It's easy to look back in time over sixty years and condemn the actions of others under the blanket of morality and security.

I do not so much condemn the bombing of Hiroshima as I'm somewhat torn on how I personally feel about it. To attempt to intimidate your opponent into surrendering by causing mass deaths like that isn't exactly nice by any stretch of the imagination, but it is somewhat preferable to a protracted conflict that would cause even more deaths.

Wasn't the Soveit Union pressing at Japan, anyhow? I'm also trying to find anything that says anything about the US dropping pamphlets before the bombing but I haven't yet had any success.


Fake edit: Wait, seems like the US dropped leaflets after they had bombed Hiroshima. According to Wikipedia, anyway:

After the Hiroshima bombing, President Truman announced, "If they do not not accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." On August 8, 1945, leaflets were dropped and warnings were given to Japan by Radio Saipan. (The area of Nagasaki did not receive warning leaflets until August 10, though the leaflet campaign covering the whole country was over a month into its operations.)

That particular article appears to have some issues regarding dropping sources, so... Yeah.

To be honest, dropping the first bomb was probably the fastest way to force them to surrender. However I think dropping the second bomb was totally unjustified, the first was more than a big enough demonstration of power. Civilians should never be targeted in any situation.
I also read somewhere (not sure if this fact) that when they dropped them, they had no idea about the fallout or what it would do, and how long it would remain for. They thought their bombs would just go boom, way to research the super-weapons your building.

I have heard the "They attacked us first" argument, in almost every discussion of this topic. Using this logic, I can infer the following:

Attacking a country's civilians in retaliation for the actions of said country's government/military is acceptable.

Is this about right?

The workers on the Manhattan Project felt like absolute **** afterwards. They saw they just created the most devastating weapon humanity has ever created, and learned there is no safe use for it other than intimidation.

What's worse, that doesn't WORK anymore! Everyone has their own nukes, based either off us giving it to them, or their own research!

So, the goal was achieved, we ended WWII. That's the short-term. Long-term is that everyone on Earth now lives in fear of bordering countries, wondering how long it will be until someone pushes the Big Red Button, and humanity makes it's own Apocalypse.

Tangent wrote:To be honest, dropping the first bomb was probably the fastest way to force them to surrender. However I think dropping the second bomb was totally unjustified, the first was more than a big enough demonstration of power. Civilians should never be targeted in any situation.
I also read somewhere (not sure if this fact) that when they dropped them, they had no idea about the fallout or what it would do, and how long it would remain for. They thought their bombs would just go boom, way to research the super-weapons your building.

We dropped the first bomb and gave Japan a chance to surrender and end the war. The Japanese believed in fighting until there were no more left to fight and so they refused to surrender. Then the second bomb was dropped to show them that we really do mean business. Needless to say the Japanese people were ready to rise up and overthrow the Emporer if he didn't surrender and end the war so he ended up giving up.

Now to answer a couple of earlier posts, YES we did drop leaflets BEFORE the bombs were dropped. Up to a MONTH before the first bombe was dropped. People were warned and many thought the warning was propaganda and a bluff. Unfortunately they were wrong.

HoosierDaddy wrote:

Tangent wrote:To be honest, dropping the first bomb was probably the fastest way to force them to surrender. However I think dropping the second bomb was totally unjustified, the first was more than a big enough demonstration of power. Civilians should never be targeted in any situation.
I also read somewhere (not sure if this fact) that when they dropped them, they had no idea about the fallout or what it would do, and how long it would remain for. They thought their bombs would just go boom, way to research the super-weapons your building.

We dropped the first bomb and gave Japan a chance to surrender and end the war. The Japanese believed in fighting until there were no more left to fight and so they refused to surrender. Then the second bomb was dropped to show them that we really do mean business. Needless to say the Japanese people were ready to rise up and overthrow the Emporer if he didn't surrender and end the war so he ended up giving up.

Now to answer a couple of earlier posts, YES we did drop leaflets BEFORE the bombs were dropped. Up to a MONTH before the first bombe was dropped. People were warned and many thought the warning was propaganda and a bluff. Unfortunately they were wrong.

Why is it that we lump everyone together in war? Japan is a country like any other. There is a government, a military, and a civilian population, most of whom don't really care about geopolitical issues and just want to go to work and make a living for their family. Saying that "The Japanese refused to surrender" makes the assertion that every single person in Japan agreed on this. This, obviously, was not the case.

Japan's military, under orders from the Japanese government, attacked the military of the United states. While this was happening, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were going about their daily lives. They went to work, the went to school, and they did what they needed to do to keep themselves busy. The heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor in the same way that most Americans did, on the radio or in the paper.

Later on in the war, America's military, under orders from the American government, attacked a civilian city. The bomb killed 200,000 people who had absolutely nothing to do with the war, let alone the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese government still did not surrender, so the United States government ordered the United States military to kill another 200,000 civilians who had nothing to do with the war or the attack on pearl harbor.

Wars suck, I believe this and I'd like to think that a lot of people agree with me. War is almost always a case of governments sending their soldiers into battle against other soldiers. However, when the only way to "win" a war is to kill civilians, who aren't involved with the war in any capacity except to have been born in a country that's government has declared war, then maybe you need to rethink the whole thing.

I don't believe that the ends justify the means, when the means kill half a million innocent people.

If killing thousands of innocent people in retaliation for what those people's governments did, then you could make the case that 9/11 was justified. And I don't think that anyone, on this message board at least, would make that argument. Why not? Is it because the victims in the 9/11 tragedy were Americans and the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just Japanese?

See what I mean about looking back sixty years with the blanket of security and morality you live in now? It's easy to condemn, it's not so easy to see through the eyes of those who had to make a difficult decision. Maybe if you lived during WWII, or fought in the front lines where thousands died just to take a few tracts of land, or knowing that if you failed you faced war on two, perhaps even three fronts?
It's wasn't the optimal situation, but stopping Japan also allowed us to focus on Germany and stop their slaughter as well, resulting in even more lives saved over the long run.

I also read somewhere (not sure if this fact) that when they dropped them, they had no idea about the fallout or what it would do, and how long it would remain for. They thought their bombs would just go boom, way to research the super-weapons your building.

I'm not sure where your reading your information, but the US government did many tests before finally using the bombs. They had a pretty clear indication of the final result.

So, the goal was achieved, we ended WWII. That's the short-term. Long-term is that everyone on Earth now lives in fear of bordering countries, wondering how long it will be until someone pushes the Big Red Button, and humanity makes it's own Apocalypse.

This is pretty crap reasoning. Much like the space race after it, every country worth it's salt was on the fast track to develop the first nuclear weapon. Regardless if the US using them first, other countries would have developed theirs anyway. The final results would have been the same, if not worse than what ending up happening. Imagine if the Soviets would have developed it first, do you think they would have been morally superior in the use of nuclear weapons and not used them the end the war? How about Germany?

If killing thousands of innocent people in retaliation for what those people's governments did, then you could make the case that 9/11 was justified. And I don't think that anyone, on this message board at least, would make that argument. Why not? Is it because the victims in the 9/11 tragedy were Americans and the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just Japanese?

I've never been one to like comparing Pearl Harbor to 9/11. There are a lot of difference that just don't jive. First Japan was an opposing country in a time of war, Al Queda is a terrorist organization, there's not a country to declare war on. Second, Japan and America do not celebrate the deaths that they have caused, they mourn the victims of those terrible days. Al Queda would soon as spit on the corpse of their victims over mourning.
The comparison is not valid.

Loki120 wrote:
It's wasn't the optimal situation, but stopping Japan also allowed us to focus on Germany and stop their slaughter as well, resulting in even more lives saved over the long run.

Here are some dates I think you should know about:

Adolph Hitler dies: April 39th, 1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Hitler

Germany unconditionally surrenders: May 7th, 1945
http://www.seibertron.com/forums/postin ... 12359&sid=


Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima: August 6, 1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_bomb

Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki: August 9, 1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man

Whoops. Think I would have remembered that, been a long time since history class. I can admit when I'm wrong. I'm wrong.

However, I still stand on everything else though.

The Japense never showed an inch of mercy towards POW´s, and even civilians, specially in China. Be brutal towards your enemies, expect the enemies to be brutal to you. That´s war, nothing more, nothing less.

General Magnus wrote:The Japense never showed an inch of mercy towards POW´s, and even civilians, specially in China. Be brutal towards your enemies, expect the enemies to be brutal to you. That´s war, nothing more, nothing less.

Again: Government/Military and Civilians. Japanese civilians were not out gutting POWs and Chinese. Japanese civilians were reading Natsume Soseki literature and planning dinner. They didn't care about war one way or the other. It wouldn't change anything for them.

I will grant you this, though, killing around half a million civilians DID cause Japan to surrender. Does that make it alright? I'll have to recheck this, but I'm pretty sure that wholesale slaughter of non-combatants is frowned upon and considered a war crime.

Are non-combatants from one country worth more than those of another country? Is 500,000 civilians in a country that's at war somehow worth less than 500,000 civilians in an un-involved country? If WWII could have ended by killing half a million people from some OTHER country, would it have still be justified?

Can this be reduced? Let's say that the police are chasing after somebody who just robbed and murdered an old woman on the street. He flees back into his home and locks himself inside a room full of guns and ammo. If you send in a swat team, he is almost definitely going to kill at least a few of them. So, instead, the police kill his wife and five of his seven children. If he doesn't give himself up, the police will kill his other two children. The man gives up. Was the this action justifiable? It saved the lives of police officers and brought the murderer to justice. That guy's family started it when the head of their household robbed and murdered somebody.

The only posetive outcome of this is that Honda had a origin story for Godzilla, that's all.
It's very wrong to attack civilians, that's cowardly and cruel!
Would you like it that your cuntry is at war with a ather nation, andto end it your enemies drop a bomb on you ore your families, how would you feel about that?

And PS.: Germany was nowhere near creating a nuce, they did not have the knowlege of doing so ore the resorces.

It can be argued that it was wrong to bomb the civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all civilians for that matter, due to their own disassociation with the actions of their government and their military.

But I can also argue that most of the military, especially the American infantry, didn't have anything to do with their own nation's decisions, or the Japanese government's, and would have given anything that everything in the world to be back home in a world without the terrors of WWII even being a blip in the historical records. They would have liked to be home in front of the fire, but instead they are now on the front taking fire, because the Japanese government attacked their people and they went by honor or draft. Even a great many Japanese soldiers probably felt they were in the same position.

Both sides would regret the path caused by the actions of the Japanese government and be pawns in a grand scheme-- the question is who is going to die to end it. Ultimately in war, the objective is to kill the enemy's powerbase, ie. raw materials, bodies, and popular support, through any means and end the war as soon as possible, and in best cases not allow your own to die. So the American goveronmnet let the people to whom it had no legal obligation die to weaken the government ruling them (though we did spare Tokyo and other ancient cities to spare both the emperor, for whose death they would fight to the grave, and a bit of the nation's pride).

It saved American lives (note nationalism was, and still is, the major divider), and probably saved significant Japanese lives as well. The Battle of Iwo Jima cost over 40,000 casualties, and near every man in the over 20,000 Japanese guarding that dead rock fought to their last breath. If the same held up with a land invasion of Japan, their homeland and a holy ground being soiled by invaders, we could have expected an embattlement that could have made Stalingrad look like a friendly tea party. (For those not familiar, over 2 million people on both sides were estimated dead in the fight over that single city.) They, both the government and the people, had to be shown we had the ability to make their cities crumble and their country burn without even risking our men or engaging them in battle-- giving your life is one thing, throwing it away is another.

Such a decision leaves a bad taste in any but the most heartless of creatures, but, given data and situation, it was the best possible move.

Didn't we enact an embargo on Japan? Weren't they in an economic stranglehold before attacking us? I've heard the arguement that they were practically forced into the war with us. I don't know all the details on that, however.

So basically to save the lives of "one million" soldiers, we bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians, basically innocent women, babies, and men, to save ourselves. We were all but in this war when the Japanese attacked. Supplying our allies pretty much meant we were in the war, but waiting for a reason to actively join, so speak. Just like with the Lusitania, we still shun the Germans for sinking it, because they fired on a civilian ship and. However, they warned that they would, because we were carrying munitions on civilian ships. So we were asking for that as well.

I've stood over the USS Arizona. It is such a tragedy. But I've also seen Japanese stand over it, and I knew they were probably paying as much (if not more) respect to their dead soldiers as well as ours. Wars sucks no matter what. I should know. My husband was shot in Iraq.

Professor Smooth wrote:

General Magnus wrote:The Japense never showed an inch of mercy towards POW´s, and even civilians, specially in China. Be brutal towards your enemies, expect the enemies to be brutal to you. That´s war, nothing more, nothing less.

Again: Government/Military and Civilians. Japanese civilians were not out gutting POWs and Chinese. Japanese civilians were reading Natsume Soseki literature and planning dinner. They didn't care about war one way or the other. It wouldn't change anything for them.

I will grant you this, though, killing around half a million civilians DID cause Japan to surrender. Does that make it alright? I'll have to recheck this, but I'm pretty sure that wholesale slaughter of non-combatants is frowned upon and considered a war crime.

Are non-combatants from one country worth more than those of another country? Is 500,000 civilians in a country that's at war somehow worth less than 500,000 civilians in an un-involved country? If WWII could have ended by killing half a million people from some OTHER country, would it have still be justified?

Can this be reduced? Let's say that the police are chasing after somebody who just robbed and murdered an old woman on the street. He flees back into his home and locks himself inside a room full of guns and ammo. If you send in a swat team, he is almost definitely going to kill at least a few of them. So, instead, the police kill his wife and five of his seven children. If he doesn't give himself up, the police will kill his other two children. The man gives up. Was the this action justifiable? It saved the lives of police officers and brought the murderer to justice. That guy's family started it when the head of their household robbed and murdered somebody.

Let me put this way..

If my nation was at war with other, and in said war if i didn´t win half of my people would be dead, i would devastate the other nation if that could ensure my nations safety and victory. I won´t put another nation abpuve mine, specially in war.

Moonbase2 wrote:Didn't we enact an embargo on Japan? Weren't they in an economic stranglehold before attacking us? I've heard the arguement that they were practically forced into the war with us. I don't know all the details on that, however.

So basically to save the lives of "one million" soldiers, we bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians, basically innocent women, babies, and men, to save ourselves. We were all but in this war when the Japanese attacked. Supplying our allies pretty much meant we were in the war, but waiting for a reason to actively join, so speak. Just like with the Lusitania, we still shun the Germans for sinking it, because they fired on a civilian ship and. However, they warned that they would, because we were carrying munitions on civilian ships. So we were asking for that as well.

I've stood over the USS Arizona. It is such a tragedy. But I've also seen Japanese stand over it, and I knew they were probably paying as much (if not more) respect to their dead soldiers as well as ours. Wars sucks no matter what. I should know. My husband was shot in Iraq.

I'm sorry to hear about your husband.

I agree with just about everything that you said, except for one minor point. WE did not enact an embargo against Japan. Long dead politicians did. We are no more responsible for that action than the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

People seem to think that Japan's government ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor for no reason. That's obviously false. Regardless of what you might see on television, major military action is never taken "just because." There is always a reason for it.

Professor Smooth wrote:

HoosierDaddy wrote:

Tangent wrote:To be honest, dropping the first bomb was probably the fastest way to force them to surrender. However I think dropping the second bomb was totally unjustified, the first was more than a big enough demonstration of power. Civilians should never be targeted in any situation.
I also read somewhere (not sure if this fact) that when they dropped them, they had no idea about the fallout or what it would do, and how long it would remain for. They thought their bombs would just go boom, way to research the super-weapons your building.

We dropped the first bomb and gave Japan a chance to surrender and end the war. The Japanese believed in fighting until there were no more left to fight and so they refused to surrender. Then the second bomb was dropped to show them that we really do mean business. Needless to say the Japanese people were ready to rise up and overthrow the Emporer if he didn't surrender and end the war so he ended up giving up.

Now to answer a couple of earlier posts, YES we did drop leaflets BEFORE the bombs were dropped. Up to a MONTH before the first bombe was dropped. People were warned and many thought the warning was propaganda and a bluff. Unfortunately they were wrong.

Why is it that we lump everyone together in war? Japan is a country like any other. There is a government, a military, and a civilian population, most of whom don't really care about geopolitical issues and just want to go to work and make a living for their family. Saying that "The Japanese refused to surrender" makes the assertion that every single person in Japan agreed on this. This, obviously, was not the case.

Japan's military, under orders from the Japanese government, attacked the military of the United states. While this was happening, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were going about their daily lives. They went to work, the went to school, and they did what they needed to do to keep themselves busy. The heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor in the same way that most Americans did, on the radio or in the paper.

Later on in the war, America's military, under orders from the American government, attacked a civilian city. The bomb killed 200,000 people who had absolutely nothing to do with the war, let alone the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese government still did not surrender, so the United States government ordered the United States military to kill another 200,000 civilians who had nothing to do with the war or the attack on pearl harbor.

Wars suck, I believe this and I'd like to think that a lot of people agree with me. War is almost always a case of governments sending their soldiers into battle against other soldiers. However, when the only way to "win" a war is to kill civilians, who aren't involved with the war in any capacity except to have been born in a country that's government has declared war, then maybe you need to rethink the whole thing.

I don't believe that the ends justify the means, when the means kill half a million innocent people.

If killing thousands of innocent people in retaliation for what those people's governments did, then you could make the case that 9/11 was justified. And I don't think that anyone, on this message board at least, would make that argument. Why not? Is it because the victims in the 9/11 tragedy were Americans and the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just Japanese?

Well then, in the statement above I assume you have no problem with current civilian casualties going on in Afghanastan and Iraq. After all, it wasn't the government who caused the first world trade center bombing, the bombing of the US embassies in Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole, or 9/11. It was civilians that did it. Their governments did not declare war on us. So, I'm glad we got that straightened out.