What makes My Lai wrong and Hiroshima right?

[Unionoob]

Yes.
Negotiating with your enemy is what diplomacy is all about.

Well. I guess at time US just wanted either Surrender or die and no peace negations.

[Deleted]

Out of interest, if the red army had reached Berlin and Hitler had said "Okay, we've had enough, let's just call it quits and everyone goes home k?". What do you think Stalin's response would have been?

I don't know.... plus.... who cares?

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Well. I guess at time US just wanted either Surrender or die and no peace negations.

And that's wrong.

[PaladinBash]

I'm okay with winning and Hiroshima was how we won. The deaths of millions of enemies, even civilians, is preferable to the loss of one Allied life to me.

[Deleted]

And that's wrong.

Okay, question, Hitler and co say "We want to surrender But...." and then doll out a huge list of things they want. Including things like accepting the german holdings of Poland, Denmark, Belgium, france etc. No appology for the death camp system (which WILL continue), and that the Allies have to pay repatriations for the damage done to Germany. And they will NOT budge on that.

Would you go "Okay, lets talk and agree on this."

[Deleted]

Okay, question, Hitler and co say "We want to surrender But...." and then doll out a huge list of things they want. Including things like accepting the german holdings of Poland, Denmark, Belgium, france etc. No appology for the death camp system (which WILL continue), and that the Allies have to pay repatriations for the damage done to Germany. And they will NOT budge on that.

Would you go "Okay, lets talk and agree on this."

No. Negotiating means you propose something, the other side refuses, you then proceed in the NEGOTIATIONS until an agreement is carved out.
Considering the state of Japan at the time, negotiations would have been pretty one sided

[caervek]

And that's wrong.

No it isn't, when you start a war, commit mass genocide and then demand that the other side stop fighting you and let you keep all the territory you've captured that's wrong.

[Deleted]

No it isn't, when you start a war, commit mass genocide and then demand that the other side stop fighting you and let you keep all the territory you've captured that's wrong.

What makes you think they would have kept their territories? You think Japan was in a position to make demands?

[caervek]

Considering the state of Japan at the time, negotiations would have been pretty one sided

And they were, surrender or be made to surrender, their government chose door number two. Luckily for the people of Japan the Americans had invented some super-weapons that would end the war with 10 million less Japanese casualties.

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What makes you think they would have kept their territories? You think Japan was in a position to make demands?

You're kind of arguing against yourself now lol.

[Deleted]

No. Negotiating means you propose something, the other side refuses, you then proceed in the NEGOTIATIONS until an agreement is carved out.
Considering the state of Japan at the time, negotiations would have been pretty one sided

Okay but the Japanese were basically going to go "We're not saying sorry, we're keeping our holdings. Thats it. Nothing else. Fuck off." their 'negotiations' were to be a statement of demands in the disguise of a negotiations.

And the Allies had said "No, surrender or thats it. Simple as."

[Deleted]

I never thought Hiroshima was right

[Deleted]

And they were, surrender or be made to surrender, their government chose door number two. Luckily for the people of Japan the Americans had invented some super-weapons that would end the war with 10 million less Japanese casualties.

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You're kind of arguing against yourself now lol.

Yeah and that's wrong. The results were catastrophic and completely avoidable.
In fact, what Japan wanted was to keep the emperor safe. Funnily enough, that was given to them after the bombs.

No I'm not. Negotiating doesn't mean you get what you want.
You have A and want to achieve X
Other side has B and wants room achieve Y
Is A good enough to guarantee X?
Is B good enough to guarantee Y?
Let's find out.
No actually let's not, let's drop 2 atomic bombs at random to prove the rest of the world how STRONK we are.

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Okay but the Japanese were basically going to go "We're not saying sorry, we're keeping our holdings. Thats it. Nothing else. Fuck off." their 'negotiations' were to be a statement of demands in the disguise of a negotiations.

And the Allies had said "No, surrender or thats it. Simple as."

No... not at all actually:

In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:

Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
Surrender of designated war criminals.
Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M. Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968], pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, May 10, 1958):

The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.

[Deleted]

No one would have negotiated with the Japanese, they started a war of aggression against their neighbours, committed countless atrocities which they are still a bit edgy about saying 'sorry' about to this day and were run by a goverment that was fundementally insane.

And there's also the shitty truth that not only are the Japanese culturally collectivist, but governments in general often hold their citizens to ransom, as human shields for the state. And they viewed this as being RIGHT because they KNEW they were right and that the Yamato spirit and the corrupted version of Bushido they'd been pouring into the peoples ears since the 20s was the way forwards.

Hell the Japanese didn't admit that they'd lost a battle until some time in 1944 and even then they said they'd basically sunk more than they'd lost. The Goverment was very firmly in control, and they were totally disconnected from reality or blinded by their bonkers desire to not loose face, regardless of how many of their people they had to sacrifice to keep said face. IF, and thats a MASSIVE if they had sat down it would have been a case of "WE keep everything. No war crimes punishment. Accept this and we're not changing our mind."

[Felnoire]

Umm isn't war in general immoral? Going about killing people just never struck me as moral by nature, necessary sometimes of course as it's not wise to just sit on the moral high ground while someone rolls up that ground in a tank. Kiss your morals goodbye, pick up arms and defend yourself.. then when you reunite with morals, justify everything by painting the opposition as villainous as possible.

There were mistakes made though when it came to communicating surrender to the Japanese, starting with a hardline stance and then backing off a bit to coax a surrender galvanized the military chiefs into believing the American's were weakening. Thus may make less demands on Japan if they held off a bit longer, not to mention they had no guarantees for the Emperor's life following the war. They didn't want to have their Emperor carted around and tried in a Nuremburg scenario, Japanese culture wouldn't have reacted well to that at all watching their Emperor dishonored in such a manner.
It might've been possible to get the Japanese to surrender without the nukes, but nobody will know for certain now as nukes were used instead of any other options that may have caused a surrender.

[Deleted]

Umm isn't war in general immoral? Going about killing people just never struck me as moral by nature, necessary sometimes of course as it's not wise to just sit on the moral high ground while someone rolls up that ground in a tank. Kiss your morals goodbye, pick up arms and defend yourself.. then when you reunite with morals, justify everything by painting the opposition as villainous as possible.

Thing is you kinda don't need to paint Imperial Japan up as being really villainous. Because they really really were.

[Deleted]

Do people really consider Hiroshima anything but a war crime? Dropping nukes on their cities with the clear intent of killing civilians to force the Japanese government into submission. Even if this type of warfare was not considered a war crime at that time, it's clearly a crime against humanity.

Hiroshima being thought of as the right thing is the same joke as Stalin being present at the Nürnberg trials to condemn German war criminals.

[Deleted]

Do people really consider Hiroshima anything but a war crime?

Its evil. But the alternative is far worse. Its the best of two bad options.

[Felnoire]

Thing is you kinda don't need to paint Imperial Japan up as being really villainous. Because they really really were.

I was being general, but one could paint American treatment of American born Japanese as villainous if it helped them ease their conscience for fighting for Imperial Japan. Or their usage of nukes, etc, to win a war one does tend to do rather horrible things to their opponent. Germans could paint the allies black over Dresden, even though they were the nation who not only started the war but were involved in what is possibly the worst confirmed single war crime in recorded history. Heck the French who were an ally could paint Britain black for the sinking of the French fleet, mainly cause the french wouldn't follow them to Britain and the British couldn't have those vessels fall into Axis hands. Joys of war, nobody comes away looking all that heroic if you scrutinize every little detail of how victory is achieved. Still not saying going to war was unnecessary of course, but I can't deny it makes monsters out of good men.

[Flarelaine]

What are your thoughts Has he missed something that makes Hiroshima a moral killing of civilians while My Lai an immoral one?

The main difference between the two is... a generation. In 1945, most everyone was "hell yeah, they had it coming". But then a new generation grew up. The America of the 1960's could not stomach My Lai. (And the question of what would have happened if the US went all-out in Vietnam remains an eternal what-if.)

[Dezerte]

I believe there is the argument of the "birth" of mutually assured destruction with the nuclear bomb. Not that I necessarily support that argument but it exists.

[Deleted]

I was being general, but one could paint American treatment of American born Japanese as villainous if it helped them ease their conscience for fighting for Imperial Japan. Or their usage of nukes, etc, to win a war one does tend to do rather horrible things to their opponent. Germans could paint the allies black over Dresden, even though they were the nation who not only started the war but were involved in what is possibly the worst confirmed single war crime in recorded history. Heck the French who were an ally could paint Britain black for the sinking of the French fleet, mainly cause the french wouldn't follow them to Britain and the British couldn't have those vessels fall into Axis hands. Joys of war, nobody comes away looking all that heroic if you scrutinize every little detail of how victory is achieved. Still not saying going to war was unnecessary of course, but I can't deny it makes monsters out of good men.

If I could +1 you I would.