Should we have dropped Atomic bombs on Japan

[BillP]

The answer is no. A naval blockade and fire bombing of military targets would have been just as effective. I have an extensive background in military history and have read the material. A physically weak Japanese population and a severely crippled military infrastructure would have made occupation a less costly option than some claim.

What was the big rush? We had the ships and airpower to wait it out.

This doesn’t speak to the Catholic teaching aspects of the use of Atomic weapons (the Church CLEARLY condemns the use of such weapons, especially against civilian or predominately civilian targets), but the naval blockade and firebombing scenario, if successful, would have meant the deaths of millions of additional Japanese civilian either directly during the air-raids, or indirectly through starvation. In fact, the startegy was predicated on those losses.

Clearly use of atomic weapons saved lives.

Note, that since the Church teaches that “the end doesn’t justify the means”, usage of atomic weapons still isn’t permitted, but the US government wasn’t subject to the authority of the Catholic Church.

 

[Mar044]

a simple question to all Americans, do you want your lines repeated to you when someone drops the bomb on you because you wont give up your homeland…or are you going to scream war crime and try to play the 9/11 victim patriot speech…how we are a nation of heroes…look how we endure…

remember i don’t wish harm on my friends to the south, but remember history for what goes around comes around, it might not be in our lifetime, but if you justify something, someone will justify it on you, as even Jesus has said. Do onto others as you expect it to be done onto you.

 

[bilop]

I say this again, they were going to surrender, the top brass even said it, the war would have been OVER, no need for blockade or anything. this argument is redundant. there is no less evil just as there is no lesser sin…sin is sin. The sad part is…the pilot don’t care, they just see Americans in there eyes…just like a quote i heard from iraq from a u.s. general…“i dont care about these people, if there are babies or mothers, if i have to I will level the town and kill them all, war is hell.” guess who said that…

No one can know this. There were competing factions, and most of the Japanese leaders wanted a negotiated surrender, not unconditional as the Allies demanded.

If they were so ready to surrender, why did they not surrender after the first bomb? They had to wait until the second city was destroyed until Hirohito demanded surrender.

God Bless

 

[bilop]

This doesn’t speak to the Catholic teaching aspects of the use of Atomic weapons (the Church CLEARLY condemns the use of such weapons, especially against civilian or predominately civilian targets), but the naval blockade and firebombing scenario, if successful, would have meant the deaths of millions of additional Japanese civilian either directly during the air-raids, or indirectly through starvation. In fact, the startegy was predicated on those losses.

Clearly use of atomic weapons saved lives.

Note, that since the Church teaches that “the end doesn’t justify the means”, usage of atomic weapons still isn’t permitted, but the US government wasn’t subject to the authority of the Catholic Church.

Use of atomic weapons to specifically target civilians isn’t permitted, not all use.

God Bless

 

[ishii]

I say this again, they were going to surrender, the top brass even said it, the war would have been OVER, no need for blockade or anything. this argument is redundant. there is no less evil just as there is no lesser sin…sin is sin. The sad part is…the pilot don’t care, they just see Americans in there eyes…just like a quote i heard from iraq from a u.s. general…“i dont care about these people, if there are babies or mothers, if i have to I will level the town and kill them all, war is hell.” guess who said that…

It is also asserted that the dropping of the bomb was meant as a signal to the Soviet Union. Remember that by summer of 1945 once Truman became president the Cold War was on.

Ishii

 

[Mar044]

they tried 6 times even wiki talks about the want to surrender, even Eisenhower retired he said it wasn’t needed. They wanted to surrender after midway, but americans wanted total control and unconditional surrender, and culture wise, the emperor was like jesus to them, who would give up jesus, they wanted to keep the country in tact, so in the end it was total control and a bit of revenge.

 

[bilop]

a simple question to all Americans, do you want your lines repeated to you when someone drops the bomb on you because you wont give up your homeland…or are you going to scream war crime and try to play the 9/11 victim patriot speech…how we are a nation of heroes…look how we endure…

remember i don’t wish harm on my friends to the south, but remember history for what goes around comes around, it might not be in our lifetime, but if you justify something, someone will justify it on you, as even Jesus has said. Do onto others as you expect it to be done onto you.

If you don’t want to be conquered, don’t start wars conquering and enslaving others.

Methinks you need to read up on the Japanese brutality in China (Rape of Nanking, testing biological and chemical weapons on civilians and POWs, mass rape, murder, starvation), the Philippinesthe treatment of Allied POWs, etc.

God Bless

 

[bilop]

they tried 6 times even wiki talks about the want to surrender, even Eisenhower retired he said it wasn’t needed. They wanted to surrender after midway, but americans wanted total control and unconditional surrender, and culture wise, the emperor was like jesus to them, who would give up jesus, they wanted to keep the country in tact, so in the end it was total control and a bit of revenge.

False, they did not try to surrender after Midway. They wanted a negotiated peace that would let them keep their conquests in China and the East Indies.

The US could not morally agree to peace that would condemn hundreds of millions of Asians to slavery and mistreatment by the Japanese.

Again, trying to negotiate peace is not the same as surrendering. Hirohito wasn’t Jesus. You don’t get to keep your gov’t when you start and lose a war.

Should the US have agreed to leave Hitler in power too?

God Bless

 

[Mar044]

False, they did not try to surrender after Midway. They wanted a negotiated peace that would let them keep their conquests in China and the East Indies.

The US could not morally agree to peace that would condemn hundreds of millions of Asians to slavery and mistreatment by the Japanese.

Again, trying to negotiate peace is not the same as surrendering. Hirohito wasn’t Jesus. You don’t get to keep your gov’t when you start and lose a war.

Should the US have agreed to leave Hitler in power too?

God Bless

actually, china had nothing to do with america, its like saying canada is going to go to war with america over the invasion with iraq, how is it americas business.

the war would never have happened if america had stayed at home, instead the blocked a island nations supply chain in the 1930’s and forced them to attack pearl.

they thought the emperor was a living god.
even after the war, the emperor stayed in place.
i like how history is selective, Japan attacked china yes, but whos business was in for america to do anything?

who stopped america from invading iraq for no reason? they did NOT get permission from the u.n. so in sense they did the same thing as germany or japan did.

and before you talk about china killing…speak for your own country en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

 

[bilop]

actually, china had nothing to do with america, its like saying canada is going to go to war with america over the invasion with iraq, how is it americas business.

the war would never have happened if america had stayed at home, instead the blocked a island nations supply chain in the 1930’s and forced them to attack pearl.

they thought the emperor was a living god.
even after the war, the emperor stayed in place.
i like how history is selective, Japan attacked china yes, but whos business was in for america to do anything?

who stopped america from invading iraq for no reason? they did NOT get permission from the u.n. so in sense they did the same thing as germany or japan did.

and before you talk about china killing…speak for your own country en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

China was an Ally of the U.S.

We never blockaded Japan before Pearl Harbor. All we did is refuse to sell them oil and other war materials.
Does the U.S. not have the right to stop trading with a nation that launched a war of agression against an Ally?

The US did stay home, until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and declared war.

I can’t believe a Pole is so blase about wars of conquest.

God Bless

 

[Patrick1540]

I argue no.

Here is my reasoning:

At this point, the japanese economy was in shambles. Their navy was ruined. Their soldiers starving. They were at the breaking point. There were cracks in the glass.

But instead of shooting the glass, we dropped 2 atomic bombs.

Some people may argue that dropping the bombs saved more human life (if the war would have continued, more soldiers would have likely died than the number of citizens)…

But, my point is that the soldier knows what he is up against. THe citizen is completely innocent.

**It just seems morally wrong to drop 2 atomic bombs in large citizen populated areas on a country that is at the breaking point. **

Thoughts?

My father was on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Japan when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.He went in after to disarm the Japan and get American Prisoners out of camps outside the city. They had to drive through what was left. What he saw, men,women,children dying from radiation burns, flesh falling off, no human should have to experence that…Bodies floating in the water burned. No weapon of Mas destruction should ever been used. We were wrong to use it. JFk used a block aid to stop the Russia. We could have done the same thing. It was a bad judgement call on the part of the US. We dropped them to let the World know our might. That is playing God.We could have found other means.My father never got over what he saw and got radiation poison from being there.

 

[bilop]

My father was on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Japan when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.He went in after to disarm the Japan and get American Prisoners out of camps outside the city. They had to drive through what was left. What he saw, men,women,children dying from radiation burns, flesh falling off, no human should have to experence that…Bodies floating in the water burned. No weapon of Mas destruction should ever been used. We were wrong to use it. JFk used a block aid to stop the Russia. We could have done the same thing. It was a bad judgement call on the part of the US. We dropped them to let the World know our might. That is playing God.We could have found other means.My father never got over what he saw and got radiation poison from being there.

The issue is not that the A-bombing were horrible; war is horrible. People were dying horribly from conventional bombings, starvation (especially POWs) and being horribly tortured and murdered by the Japanese.

The issues are a) did Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain enough military and military-industrial targets to be legitimate targets for attack?, and b) was the A-bomb the means to end the war the quickest with the fewest deaths and suffering (vs. invasion, blockade, etc.)?

Destroying the cities with conventional boms is equally moral or immoral to using nuclear ones.

IMHO, the A-bombs should have been used against more specifically military targets, e.g. the Japanese fleet, or a concentration of troops.

God Bless

 

[Mar044]

My father was on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Japan when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.He went in after to disarm the Japan and get American Prisoners out of camps outside the city. They had to drive through what was left. What he saw, men,women,children dying from radiation burns, flesh falling off, no human should have to experence that…Bodies floating in the water burned. No weapon of Mas destruction should ever been used. We were wrong to use it. JFk used a block aid to stop the Russia. We could have done the same thing. It was a bad judgement call on the part of the US. We dropped them to let the World know our might. That is playing God.We could have found other means.My father never got over what he saw and got radiation poison from being there.

washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-to-contain-russian-ambitions.html

read and compare facts if you don’t trust a blog.

a oil embargo is the same as what your doing in cuba, a island nation can’t get anything in, and we poles like war…please…my grandfather fought to free poland, only to hear that america stabbed poland in the back and allowed it to take over the nation…thank you for fighting for us, now live threw years and years of rule under the USSR…and oh ya, remember how you stayed at home “allies” of china…where were you when germany and russia attacked poland…meanwhile uk,france, canada etc delcared war to try and defend us, even if they couldn’t do much…so this allied **** is just that, because you sat back for how many years as hitler took over…

and on top of that, if you go look it up, hitler declared war on america and america never wanted to join the war with germany, they just wanted to deal with Japan…and had no choice, and this is from american historians…

 

[edwest2]

The rush was that thousands of civilians and Allied POWs were dying in China, Southeast Asia, Burma, Korea, etc.

There was no way to end the war without massive loss of life.

A starvation blockade or invasion that kills millions can’t be more moral than two bombings that kill 125,000.

Sometimes the only choice you have is the lesser of 2 (or more) evils.

God Bless

Nope. Fire bombings would have been just as effective. I know what the war situation was. We were helping the Chinese. We were helping those in the China-Burma-India area. The war in Europe was won. You have no case.

And Korea? What did they have? More direct bombing of military targets was the answer.

We had POWs dying in Europe, including volunteers that went over before 1944.

Peace,
Ed

 

[bilop]

washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-to-contain-russian-ambitions.html

read and compare facts if you don’t trust a blog.

a oil embargo is the same as what your doing in cuba, a island nation can’t get anything in, and we poles like war…please…my grandfather fought to free poland, only to hear that america stabbed poland in the back and allowed it to take over the nation…thank you for fighting for us, now live threw years and years of rule under the USSR…and oh ya, remember how you stayed at home “allies” of china…where were you when germany and russia attacked poland…meanwhile uk,france, canada etc delcared war to try and defend us, even if they couldn’t do much…so this allied **** is just that, because you sat back for how many years as hitler took over…

and on top of that, if you go look it up, hitler declared war on america and america never wanted to join the war with germany, they just wanted to deal with Japan…and had no choice, and this is from american historians…

Again, ridiculously false. Japan was free to buy any good thet needed or wanted from any other country, just not the US.

The US betrayal of Poland was horrible. I’m half Polish, and I have family who died in the Gulags. I believe the US should have kept right on going in 1945 and trounced the Soviets like Patton wanted too.

But, as a Pole, you should be more sympathetic to the Chinese who were just as innocent in regards to Japanese agression as the Poles were to German/Russian agression.

God Bless

 

[bilop]

Nope. Fire bombings would have been just as effective. I know what the war situation was. We were helping the Chinese. We were helping those in the China-Burma-India area. The war in Europe was won. You have no case.

And Korea? What did they have? More direct bombing of military targets was the answer.

We had POWs dying in Europe, including volunteers that went over before 1944.

Peace,
Ed

Fire bombings of civilians are equally immoral or moral as Atomic bombs. The Tokyo bombings killed way more civilians than the A-boms.

Something like 2% of our POWs in German hands died; they never mistreated US POWs, despite their many other crimes. With Japan is was more like 30%. Not to mention millions of conquered Asian civilians dying every year under Japanese rule.

God Bless

 

[Mar044]

Again, ridiculously false. Japan was free to buy any good thet needed or wanted from any other country, just not the US.

The US betrayal of Poland was horrible. I’m half Polish, and I have family who died in the Gulags. I believe the US should have kept right on going in 1945 and trounced the Soviets like Patton wanted too.

But, as a Pole, you should be more sympathetic to the Chinese who were just as innocent in regards to Japanese agression as the Poles were to German/Russian agression.

God Bless

I will not dismiss everything Japan did, but like everything, it’s over inflated, I wasn’t there, but if you run the numbers of the chinese massacre by the Japanese in some cities and more dead then the total population of that cities. its like when iraqis claim a thousand babies are dying by the hands of american, you don’t really think its true do you?
even today china and japan are enemies going at it over small islands, of course they want to play up what happened. but tell me how many people were actually in china to see it other then chinese? I will admit stuff had to have happened, just as ussr lead poles ino the forest and killed them all…(army officers) and then claimed we have no idea what you are talking about.

but i dont forgive some things that are done in the name of war, and i am never going to agree that dropping the bomb was ok, as i will never agree that leaving us to the russians was ok.

 

[Patrick1540]

The issue is not that the A-bombing were horrible; war is horrible. People were dying horribly from conventional bombings, starvation (especially POWs) and being horribly tortured and murdered by the Japanese.

The issues are a) did Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain enough military and military-industrial targets to be legitimate targets for attack?, and b) was the A-bomb the means to end the war the quickest with the fewest deaths and suffering (vs. invasion, blockade, etc.)?

Destroying the cities with conventional boms is equally moral or immoral to using nuclear ones.

IMHO, the A-bombs should have been used against more specifically military targets, e.g. the Japanese fleet, or a concentration of troops.

God Bless

Point taken, but dropping a Bomb on a fleet would not have done much, we did that with Bikini Island to a fleet, after the War. WMD should have never been used. War,innocent die, but the facts are clear Japan wanted to surrender with the condition the Emperior remain so they could save face. We said no it had to be a unconditional surrender,Japan refused and we dropped WMD on them, partly to show Russia our might, and scare every one into our goals.Regular bombs do not have radio activity.There is a big difference in a regular bomb and WMD. WMD’s people suffer for years and years after they are dropped.Where is the morality in that??? Less civilians die from regular bombs, more accurate then dropping an A Bomb.

 

[stevegravy]

We today cannot begin to fathom the desperation to have the war end as soon as possible. If it were not for the film documentaries we wouldn’t have a clue how horrible nations committed to a war to the death acts. It is a fact the US suffered very little when compared to the other Allied nations. Yet there was a palpable desire for the war to be over as well as a palpable hatred of the Japanese. I am surmising this from sitting in the corner listening at family get together when the men talked about WWII, which they did only after debating the pro and cons of Viet Nam. They were not concerned with the fine points of just war doctrine, the subtle arguments of double effect, they were tired of being government soldiers and sailors, watching people being torn to bits and wanted to go home and get on with their lives. Believe it or not, they wanted to live and really didn’t care how Truman got the war to end they were grateful it did end.

While we can wring our hands about 4-year-old kids having the flesh burned off them don’t forget to ask the question who put them in this position in the first place. Secondly, given the reality of modern arms and the necessity of the logistical pipeline linking virtually everyone in the country to the war effort. It starts to blur the difference between legitimate targets and innocents.

We can sit here now when the bombs are not falling and people are not being shredded into hamburger debate the church’s preference for an armed invasion, blockade or nuclear weapons. But at that point in time somebody had to make a call and it was made by a government leader acting in the best interest of his government and its citizens.

Sherman may be nobody’s idea of the perfect general but at the siege of Atlanta he wrote something along the lines. “War is hell. It cannot be refined. It is about killing and the more the killing the better. Because then the killing will be over sooner.”

Think about that as you contemplate who should have done what.

PS Nuclear weapons and MAD have kept the world from another world war for 70 odd years. Not bad given the worlds previous 300 year history.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

I say this again, they were going to surrender, the top brass even said it, the war would have been OVER, no need for blockade or anything. this argument is redundant. there is no less evil just as there is no lesser sin…sin is sin. The sad part is…the pilot don’t care, they just see Americans in there eyes…just like a quote i heard from iraq from a u.s. general…“i dont care about these people, if there are babies or mothers, if i have to I will level the town and kill them all, war is hell.” guess who said that…

There is plenty of evidence out there (if you bother to look for it) to invalidate your argument that Japan was going to surrender prior to the dropping of the bombs. In fact, segments of the Japanese high command attempted to overthrow the Emperor and establish a military dictatorship to stop the surrender after the bombs where dropped.