Why is America given shit over Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

[Shakadam]

Wasn't shitty. Was actually humane. Ended the war, stopped a brutal emperor in his tracks, saved millions of lives and acted as a deterrent for any future aggressions against us for many years.

It was a win, win, win, win.

"Humane" ehh... maybe. Maybe it was humane for Stalin to kill millions of citizens to save them from death by starvation in the post-war Soviet Union.
Claiming something that caused hundreds of thousands of casualties to be "humane" just feels like people trying to justify their actions.

Look, I'm not saying the bombing were the wrong call at the time, I can understand why it happened and given the choice at the time I might have done the same thing. I'm just saying the US should stop trying to justify its actions as morally right all the time. Own up to the fact that they happened and move on, kind of how Germany later dealt with its role in the war.

[Shadowferal]

Yeah thanks for joining in halfway through when the Japanese forced you into it.

Ignoring the years that the US protected british shipping (under US flags) say loads about your ignorance of what really was going on.

[Machismo]

You people are very quick to point to human rights atrocities by nations whose oil you want to steal. Some hypocrisy here.

What do you mean, "You people?" I have no problem calling out human rights atrocities. If you can point out where I did such a thing, I welcome you to highlight my hypocrisy.

[Deleted]

Ignoring the years that the US protected british shipping (under US flags) say loads about your ignorance of what really was going on.

Oh the "we sold you shit" defense for your pathetic, snivelling cowardice.

- - - Updated - - -

What do you mean, "You people?" I have no problem calling out human rights atrocities. If you can point out where I did such a thing, I welcome you to highlight my hypocrisy.

ISIS...let's move on. Bad stuff happens.

Not a common sentiment in the US on the left or right.

[Machismo]

Oh the "we sold you shit" defense for your pathetic, snivelling cowardice.

- - - Updated - - -



ISIS...let's move on. Bad stuff happens.

Not a common sentiment in the US on the left or right.

That didn't even make any sense. Seriously, are you high right now, or are you just having the first part of the conversation in your head, before you start actually typing?

If you go back, I did condemn the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Kaganfindel]

"But they did so much worse!" is never, ever justification for mass murder.

Never.

[Deleted]

That didn't even make any sense. Seriously, are you high right now, or are you just having the first part of the conversation in your head, before you start actually typing?

Slow, aren't you?

[Machismo]

Slow, aren't you?

I condemned the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I accept your apology.

[zealo]

Oh the "we sold you shit" defense for your pathetic, snivelling cowardice.

Aside from getting leases on military bases in return during the war effort, most of the material sent through the lend-lease act throughout the war from the US were free of charge for the recipient.

[Shadowferal]

Oh the "we sold you shit" defense for your pathetic, snivelling cowardice.

o great...your one of those aren't you? Those that can't get their head out his ass to comment about history because of today's shit that's glued to your nose.

Why don't you just find your way out of this thread before you reveal anymore of your intellectually-challenged view about history.

Because really, you're only option here is to imagine in some deranged way that the UK was going to win WWII all by it's lonesome...

[Dhrizzle]

Japan raped its way across China and was in league with a nation that wanted to commit genocide on those it deemed impure, alcoholics, addicts and so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

They did horrible things that make the atomic bombs look like vacation. While the civilians were not directly guilty ( they still fed those soldiers, produced their weapons and ensured they had a place to retreat to ) of all those things, they were still what kept the army afloat.

So why exactly is it wrong, in a war against an axis of tyrants and psychopaths, to fight fire with fire? Had the Axis won we'd have seen hundreds of millions killed due to their race. Two atomic bombs are a small price to pay in order to quell that evil for good.


What kind of General could look the wives of his fallen soldiers in the eyes and say

'' We could've ended the war sooner. Your husband would still be alive, had I bombed their cities. But I put the lives of their civilians, the ones that feed the army, above that of my own men. "

Holy hell, I'd see that as treason. As the military leader your main goal is to kill the enemy and protect your own men/nation. And that's precisely what they did.

Civilians are not considered "the enemy" in warfare, deliberately targeting them to intimidate a country is terrible. Slaughtering civilians to save the lives of soldiers is awful.

Don't get me wrong, the US was not the only nation to indulge in such tactics - Britain and Germany had been targeting each other's civilians for years and the Japanese army seemed happy to commit atrocities, but I don't think we should be looking at any of those tactics and thinking that it makes some sort of clever or good strategy that our nations should be proud of.

[oxymoronic]

Civilians are not considered "the enemy" in warfare, deliberately targeting them to intimidate a country is terrible. Slaughtering civilians to save the lives of soldiers is awful.

Don't get me wrong, the US was not the only nation to indulge in such tactics - Britain and Germany had been targeting each other's civilians for years and the Japanese army seemed happy to commit atrocities, but I don't think we should be looking at any of those tactics and thinking that it makes some sort of clever or good strategy that our nations should be proud of.

considered by whom? scholars of 2017? who the fuck cares

[Machismo]

considered by whom? scholars of 2017? who the fuck cares

Imagine if someone had said that about the civilians and innocent people who died on 9/11.

[Mehrunes]

considered by whom? scholars of 2017? who the fuck cares

The international community of the time? Geneva convention predates WWII.

[Queen of Hamsters]

For a number of reasons, but usually it's PROBABLY because 'Muricans are pretty damned fond of throwing around the "We saved your asses in WWII!"-card. British intelligence and the Russians did more to beat ze Germanz than anyone else.

USA shouldn't be above critique for what they did during the war. The bombs were more a "we wanna see what happens"-card than "we absolutely MUST do this!" considering how Japan was on its knees already. Watch the BBC documentary on the matter. In that same documentary, the Americans even forced a man that lost his family in Hiroshima to shake hands with the soldier that dropped the bomb on TV. It was disgusting.

That being said, the fact that they used those bombs and saw the effects probably did a good job at preventing nations from wanting to use nuclear weapons. If Japan had not been hit, what's to say that nobody had used nukes in some other battle to a much more devastating effect when more countries had access to the nukes?

[Jimusmc]

US already won the war by that point with their forces assaulting their main islands so no matter how you try to spin it there is no justification for using that kind of weapon to vaporize 2 cities filled with civilians. Theres no heroic or "necessary" thing in it. Its just pure sick genocide.

Japan would not surrender so an assault on mainland japan would kill MILLIONS on both sides.

[Docturphil]

I'm seeing a whole lot of horse shit in this thread. The real truth, as usual, probably lies somewhere in the middle of what everyone is saying.

Yes, this was probably the single most devastating event in the history of mankind. It's tragic. It's unfortunate. It's regrettable. But this was war we're talking about here. Not any old Sunday afternoon. War is hell and a lot of shitty things are done in wars. This wasn't just any war either. This was the grand master daddy of all wars. This was the biggest war in the history of our planet. And there were several motivations behind the decision to drop the atomic bomb.

Is it true that it was an attempt to save lives by quickly ending the war? Yes, absolutely. That was one of the intentions. Japan's military was pretty war crazed and there was some North Korean levels of propaganda going on at the time meant to motivate the people of Japan to sacrifice themselves for the war effort at all costs. You literally had people willingly killing themselves for their country (kamikazes) and gutting themselves to avoid capture (Seppuku). So clearly the propaganda was effective. There isn't really any way of knowing for sure, but it is very possible that this did indeed save lives, both American and Japanese. The alternative to the atomic bombings were Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Estimated casualties for both operations varied, but some estimations at the time predicted millions of Japanese deaths and hundreds of thousands of American deaths. Again, we don't know what really would have happened, but based on the estimations at the time the alternative to atomic bombs seemed far more grim. The idea of using the atomic bomb in order to save lives was certainly not imagined or created purely as propaganda to justify such devastation.

Did America want to flex their nuts? Yes, absolutely. But, again, this was not the only motivation. People mention this as if it was the only reason we did it, which it absolutely was not. And yet again, the intention here was to motivate other countries to maintain peace post-war. And to be quite honest, this seems to have worked at least in the sense that we haven't seen nuclear weapons of that scale used against people since.

Another thing that a lot of people seem to ignore is that the USA, for the most part, did not want to be part of WW2. We tried to avoid it like the plague, but Japan dragged us into it.

I've also read people claiming that Japan was on the verge of surrender. This isn't exactly true. Remember, they didn't surrender after the first bomb.

Also let's not forget when the second bomb was dropped it was a cloudy day so the bombers could not see their target. They missed by quite a bit so it was a lot less devastating than it could have been.

The last point I'd like to make is that the decision to drop the nuclear bombs was not just made by the United States. Under the Quebec Agreement, nuclear weapons could not be used without mutual consent. The United Kingdom was also part of the decision to drop the bombs. They completely and wholeheartedly agreed that it was necessary.

Could WW2 have been ended without the use of nuclear weapons? Absolutely. But we really don't know what else that would have meant. For all we know it could have had the sort of butterfly effect that led to nuclear Armageddon. We have no idea how things would have been different had we not used nuclear weapons. There really is no way to know. It could have lead to a better world or a worse world. So I for one am not going to say it was a right or wrong decision. It's just what happened and that's it.

[Dhrizzle]

considered by whom? scholars of 2017? who the fuck cares

Considered by anyone who thinks that mass-murder is wrong?

[Draco-Onis]

Japan would not surrender so an assault on mainland japan would kill MILLIONS on both sides.

Japan was discussing surrender by their own estimate they would not last a year due to civil unrest, the monarchy called for ending the war. This could have ended with diplomacy Japan had no lifelines left but it's worth mentioning that the Soviets did screw them over.

[minteK917]

That's not why we don't use nuclear weapons. We don't use them because of MAD and weapons becoming more precise.


Japan was a very nasty country back then. It don't understand the "you can't fight fire with fire" (which you can do BTW) arguments.

The US was fighting a country that took total war to the extreme. A country that would use POWs as target practice. The bombs were better than allowing the war to go on any longer and allow Japan to dig in for the long night.

You realize your argument is exactly why chemical weapons weren't used during ww2. The chemicals weapons stockpiled during ww2 made the ones from ww1 looks like toys and neither side were ever willing to use that fearing retaliation. Germany alone had enough cyanide to kill the population of 30 cities like paris. Cyanide stops your blood from being able to carry oxygen killing you instantly. All is fair in war was just never something true because going to the extreme means others will retaliate in kind. This is why we started this tradition with chemical weapons. Nuclear just followed the same footsteps.