Do you think nuking Japan was a necessary evil?

[fenixazul]

Do you think nuking the twin towers was a necessary evil? It forced USA and most western countries to strength their security policies and armies, probably saving people for more terrorist attacks

IT is the same logic

[Powerogue]

Dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was more about demonstrating to Stalin that the Americans had beaten them to nuclear technology, since Russia had started to flex its muscles by then, than for any military objective in the WWII theater itself.

Potentially averting WWIII, in combination with everyone being militarily exhausted from WWII and really not being eager to hop into another one.

There's no way to know for sure on this stuff, so I don't dwell on it.

[Flatspriest]

I don't get why people think it's evil to bomb people we're at war with. Necessary, yes. Evil, no.

Do you want us to just walk up to them and hug them to death?

Not only that, but the fact they started it by bombing us in the first place when the US was perfectly happy sitting on the sidelines and letting the war stay on Europe. You can honestly say that they brought it on themselves with their sneak attack on Pearl Harbour.

[Deleted]

The peace treaty was bad in many ways. The terms were economically too harsh (the Marshall plan was a better option) - without making it obvious to the population that there were no other option - i.e. no unconditionally.


As far as I recall Japan (together with Germany, Italy, and Russia) were the ones that started shooting first in WWII. I believe those are the ones should stop shooting first.

First, you don't understand the term "unconditinal surrender" at all.
Second, thinking like that is the reason why ceasefires don't work these days.
Wait a minute, do you believe the USA where fighting Russia in WW2?

[Verbatim]

I'm missing a "there is no such thing as an easy answer to this question, certainly not something so convenient as a simple yes or no" option in the poll.

[Gulharum]

Their country is at war, thus every person in that country is at war by de facto. Whether they want to matters little.

And it also matters little what industry they are in. Any good is part of the war effort, food/clothes, everything that keeps a nations modern survival. The whole point of the bombing campaigns is to destroy/damage all that and the very infrastructure of a country which by connection weakeans military capabilities.

Goods other than military goods are used for purposes other than the war too though, so they should not be lumped in with the military goods industry. So I must ask you this, if war broke out between the U.S. and a country you personally have no problems with. You're not a die-hard war supporter in this hypothetical scenario. Your city gets nuked, and you, your family, and friends are killed, even though you did not support the war in any way. Is it morally justifiable that you and your loved ones were killed? I suspect there were plenty of Japanese people in this situation at the time, despite the fact that there were plenty of Japanese people that were die-hard for whatever war their country got in to (I would expect that the vast majority of those people were involved directly in the military).

The reasons for war usually fall under two categories, a) to take over a country, some of its resources, etc., or b) to defend against a country from doing something in the "a" category. Why would it be necessary to kill civilians in either scenario?

[Forogil]

Unconditional surrender means the surrendering nation doesn't get input in the peace treaty. If those nations had a say in the peace treaty they wouldn't have been fucked over nearly as badly as they were by the peace deal.

They did have input in the peace treaty, i.e. they had a chose of accepting the final peace offer or not (and some clauses were changed earlier). But they didn't have any leverage so they accepted the final terms.
The unconditional surrender at end of WWII were simpler - they surrendered unconditionally and the victors decided how to deal with the situation unilaterally.

They were being invaded while having no sign that their sue for peace was having any affect.

They were not being invaded at that time, and they weren't suing for peace in a clear way. Apart from that you are correct.

[Daymanmb]

Only in matters of the destruction of tens of thousands in a second.

Excuse me, are we ignoring how radiation works?

"The excess risk of leukemia, seen especially among those exposed as children, was highest during the first 10 years after exposure and has continued to decrease throughout the study period. However, the excess risk for cancers other than leukemia continues today, and it seems likely that this excess risk will persist throughout the lifetime of the survivors. About 16% of all cancer deaths and about 25% of the excess--or radiation related--cancer deaths for the period from 1950 through 1990 occurred from 1986 to 1990."

"The Life Span Study mortality analyses have revealed a statistically significant relationship between radiation and deaths resulting from causes other than cancer (so-called noncancer diseases). A total of 15,633 noncancer deaths occurred between 1950 and 1990 among the 50,113 persons with significant radiation doses. The overall risk for noncancer deaths is considerably smaller than that for cancer deaths"
http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~dinov/cour...vivorsData.htm

[nonameelf]

They did have input in the peace treaty, i.e. they had a chose of accepting the final peace offer or not (and some clauses were changed earlier). But they didn't have any leverage so they accepted the final terms.
The unconditional surrender at end of WWII were simpler - they surrendered unconditionally and the victors decided how to deal with the situation unilaterally.

Having no leverage and having to accept the deal that was placed in front of them that they had no input on is the same thing as unconditional surrender.

[Deleted]

They were not being invaded at that time, and they weren't suing for peace in a clear way. Apart from that you are correct.

So what you are saying is they didn't stop fighting because their not sueing for peace was not answered?

Russia is bad cuz of the cold war so they were never our allies now.

I am starting to believe that he is taking "History is written by the motherfucking victor." to a whole new level.

[Forogil]

First, you don't understand the term "unconditinal surrender" at all.

One side surrenders unconditionally to the other side, i.e. without stipulating any conditions for the surrender - or saying that the peace will be negotiated afterwards. Simple isn't it?

Second, thinking like that is the reason why ceasefires don't work these days.

Ceasefires work since people actually agree to cease firing.

Wait a minute, do you believe the USA where fighting Russia in WW2?

No. Do you believe that WWII was centered around USA? I'm fully aware of where Russia were in WWII in 1939, 1941 and 1945.

[Kelathos]

Japan was not going to fight through a full scale land invasion. The notion that they would is rooted in the racist caricature of the Japanese as mindless savages that was prominent during the war. It wasn't really based on reality.

No racist caricature was needed. Every inch of island taken from them was at bloody cost. We looked at the continuation of the war and decided to end it.

[Dreknar20]

They did have input in the peace treaty, i.e. they had a chose of accepting the final peace offer or not

that's pretty much what an unconditional surrender is "sign or die"

German delegations were barred from the talks. They were just given terms and told to sign.

[Deleted]

Ceasefires work since people actually agree to cease firing.

Great logic, ceasefires always work since when they don't cease fire despite the aggreement it is not a ceasefire since they aren't ceasing fire.

You have a problem with semantics.

[Forogil]

So what you are saying is they didn't stop fighting because their not sueing for peace was not answered?

No, I'm saying that didn't stop fighting and they weren't clearly suing for peace. Some factions in Japan were allegedly trying to sue for peace under some or some other conditions - with unclear mandate.

I have yet to see any clear evidence to the contrary from trustworthy sources.

[DJ117]

This is categorically false. The Japanese had been suing for peace since May. This is part of public record.

Unconditional surrender is unconditional surrender. The Japanese had been signalling for peace but with demands. So what I said is NOT false.

[Dreknar20]

Why would it be necessary to kill civilians in either scenario?

Necesarry? Who knows.
You never know how far/much you need to go in war. Its about tipping the scales in your favor.

And as stated before, bombing the crap out of a countries does and DID weaken Germany/Japans military strength. Was it necessary? Idk, but it sure as hell helped them win the war.

As to the other thing, whether you think something is morally justifiable or not dsnt diminish the sadness/anger of loss.

[Forogil]

Great logic, ceasefires always work since when they don't cease fire despite the aggreement it is not a ceasefire since they aren't ceasing fire.

No, ceasefires don't always work - but a requirement for them working is that people cease firing. Japan didn't clearly communicate about a ceasefire and didn't start one unilaterally. Therefore there were no ceasefire.

[DJ117]

Nuclear fuel for power plants is not nearly pure enough to explode.

Chernobyl disagrees.

[nonameelf]

Unconditional surrender is unconditional surrender. The Japanese had been signalling for peace but with demands. So what I said is NOT false.

And the US later agreed to peace with the Japanese demands(which were mostly about avoiding the emperor being tried for war crimes). The bombs were unnecessary.