Why is America given shit over Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

[draynay]

240,000 people died in the invasion of Okinawa, only 20,000 of them were Americans, ~100,000 were civilians. Who knows how badly further invasions of Japan would have gone?

To those who claim Japan was on the brink of surrender, why did it take a second bomb then? If they were so close, wouldn't the first have provided them all the incentive they needed?

People have their opinions, and it was a terrible thing that happened, but I don't question it, I feel the events of the time support the decision that was made.

[Protean]

here in the uk, bomber command is still getting (unjustified imo) shit for bombing the nazis at the tail end of ww2 in europe, even though the war was "almost" won.
im sorry, but the germans bombed the shit out of our cities & deserved some serious payback, despite the loss of life.

Why do you say you're sorry when you aren't?

[LaserChild9]

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If you are gonna make posts like that as if you are so superior, then how bout you leave a constructive answer? I responded to the absurdity that we needed to nuke farmers with sticks and you just made yourself look like a douche. Congrats!

[Fencers]

I think it's mostly stupidity and jealousy.

[Aeula]

Some ISIS nutcase kills someone with an axe. Millions of yanks go "Waah waah waah SO unfair".

Someone brings up Hiroshima and Nagasaki, same yanks go "There are always casualties in WAR!" like they are some retard in an action film.

Either there are rules to war or not. If there aren't you can't expect other people to fight you with gloves on.

War always has more than one side. When our side kills we celebrate. When our side is killed we mourn and want payback. That might seem hypocritical to some but War is not some social party where we scoff at perceived social fallacies, it's bloody, it's brutal and being on the loosing side has more consequences than being kicked out of the cool kids club.

So yes, I say there are always casualties in war and I very much prefer when those casualties are those of countries who stand against my own. It's the duty of soldiers and governments to make sure their side wins. The second you start being concerned with every living person is the second you've lost.

[Rafoel]

If you are gonna make posts like that as if you are so superior, then how bout you leave a constructive answer? I responded to the absurdity that we needed to nuke farmers with sticks and you just made yourself look like a douche. Congrats!

The person who responded to you wanted to emphasize the fanaticism of japanese people. As you yourself said, fighting soldiers with wooden sticks is ridiculous. Any slightly sane and logically capable person would notice such resistance is futile, pointless, even retarded, and surrender much earlier. Which. Was. Exactly. The. Point.

Japanese didn't know what "surrender" means. It didn't exist in their mentality. Even in most hopeless situation, they would continue to resist. The sentence about wooden sticks was meant to illustrate that. Somehow you didn't understand that nobody was ever going to fight with wooden sticks. It was metaphor. Japanese forces would continue to fight for every mile of terrain, for every household, for every isle, for every city and every street, even if they knew they couldn't possibly achieve anything with it.

Americans knew that. They won the naval war on Pacific Ocean, but the invasion on the Japanese Isles would cost them tens of thousands of soldiers. Much more would be lost on japanese side, but that was irrelevant. USA leadership had two options - either "sacrifice" lots of their soldiers lifes, or achieve exactly the same by revealing for the first time in history the weapon nobody expected could even exist. They knew the horror of that could achieve what nothing else could - forcing japanese to stop fighting.

[McFuu]

Did you even think about what you were saying? We were gonna have to kill them all coz farmers with wooden sticks yo! Seriously? So you think that because we might have had to face farmers with sticks and civilians wielding household objects a nuke was the best answer? That's like using a bazooka to kill a mouse! The mouse may have been a mild irritant but he didn't really pose any danger to you, a bazooka is just excessive.

If Truemans logic about giving the ok to this was 'But those pesky farmers and their wooden sticks need to be vaporized!' then that dude was a nut-job.

Seeing how effective foes like the Taliban and Al-Q are with items from farms (all ingredients for IED's are found on farms.) And the Taliban and Al-Q take up an extremely small portion of the population. The Japanese mainland would have been more like the battle of Nasiriyah. There were plenty of military and weapons located on main land Japan, and most everyone would have fought the invaders. Much like anyone invading America would face a large portion of the civilian population.

During WWII the ranks of the military swelled to over 5 million. If even 1 out of 10 civilians fought against us, of the approx 67 million civilians in Japan, we would have faced another 5 million + combatants.

An invasion of Japan is likely impossible due to its population, culture, and natural barriers. Really the only headway was Russia who invaded a couple of remote northern islands that mainland Japan didn't really care about. Of course we took Okinawa, again another small island Japan really didn't care about other than strategic importance.

[Deleted]

No one said the people deserved to die...

And a military operation is not an act of terror. The differences may be nuanced but they aren't the same.

Would it have been more acceptable for the US to let the war last longer, meaning more civilian on the ground?

When I said "deserved to die" I was referring to how the OP used the argument that the civilians fed the soldiers carrying out the war to justify the bombing civilians.

Also, look up the definition of terrorism: "The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes." No one can dispute that the bombings were necessary to end the war sooner rather than latter. This however does not make it moral.

[AeneasBK]

Japanese didn't know what "surrender" means. It didn't exist in their mentality.

I quite like how this idea sits along side the fact that they surrendered.

What, ONLY a nuclear bomb could have caused it? Sure

[Akainakali]

Did you even think about what you were saying? We were gonna have to kill them all coz farmers with wooden sticks yo! Seriously? So you think that because we might have had to face farmers with sticks and civilians wielding household objects a nuke was the best answer? That's like using a bazooka to kill a mouse! The mouse may have been a mild irritant but he didn't really pose any danger to you, a bazooka is just excessive.

If Truemans logic about giving the ok to this was 'But those pesky farmers and their wooden sticks need to be vaporized!' then that dude was a nut-job.

A sane foe would have surrendered long before Japan did.

Japan was planning all sorts of insane defensive effort for the American invasion and had it happened, a very large chunk of the Japanese population would died in those efforts. What are you supposed to do if that "helpless farmer" won't stop trying to stab you with the spear. Not a terrifying weapon, but it can still kill you dead.

[Alvito]

They don't need to claim shit. Germany/Japan/Italy started the war.

When you throw the first punch you renounce your claim to cry about being hit back.

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Why is the life of a conscripted soldier less sacred than that of civilians? What's the difference between bombing Nagasaki and bombing the army?


Most of the soldiers in the army were forced to fight, they're about as innocent as the ones at home.

The people in the military signed up knowing that they might go to war. The war was with the government of Japan not the people living inside of Japan. Dropping the bombs saved lives since it instantly stopped the war. Dropping the second one so quickly might have been over kill though.

[LaserChild9]

Seeing how effective foes like the Taliban and Al-Q are with items from farms (all ingredients for IED's are found on farms.)

I feel like the weaponisation of 1940's Japanese farm equipment is laughable at best. What could they possibly have made that would have been a threat to the US Navy?

The Japanese mainland would have been more like the battle of Nasiriyah. There were plenty of military and weapons located on main land Japan, and most everyone would have fought the invaders. Much like anyone invading America would face a large portion of the civilian population.

Americans knew that. They won the naval war on Pacific Ocean, but the invasion on the Japanese Isles would cost them tens of thousands of soldiers. Much more would be lost on japanese side, but that was irrelevant. USA leadership had two options - either "sacrifice" lots of their soldiers lifes, or achieve exactly the same by revealing for the first time in history the weapon nobody expected could even exist. They knew the horror of that could achieve what nothing else could - forcing japanese to stop fighting.

So the US won the naval war... Why did they need to invade? The Japanese were already beaten, whether they admitted it or not, whether they understood or not, it's irrelevant even if these Japanese farmers could fashion weapons, what were they gonna do with them, stand on the beach waving them menacingly?

[Mehrunes]

On such a cusp of surrender that they got nuked, were asked if they wanted to surrender, and said, "No".

Waited 3 days.

Got nuked again, were asked if they wanted to surrender, said, "No".

Waited 6 days.

Were told that they were about to be nuked again, and that the US could do this about 3-4 times per month, grudgingly surrendered.

Alternatively, such a cusp of surrender that there was significant split among their leadership prior to the first nuke and that even some of the opposition was open to minimal condition of guarantees for their emperor. All the while lacking the means to actually continue the war further. Them posturing about the demand for unconditional surrender would have amounted to squat even without the nukes.

Ah well. I guess I can't ask people on the internet who barely know their historical facts to actually try and have a reasonable argument.

For this to have the high ground you pretend exists @Protean would have to be wrong about the child casualties. Which is not the case.

While technically true, Germany did breach the Treaty of Versailles with the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

It's not true technically, non-technically or in any other way. The start of the war was invasion of Poland. Which is on Germany. Anything before that is political background of the war.

But those actions weren't shitty. It was a choice between dropping them and getting unconditional surrender or losing another 500k soldiers as every citizen of Japan took up arms. The emperor would never have agreed to it otherwise.

The issues of influencing Stalin and showing off to the world, while valid, are secondary.

Because the Japanese were a hive species from outer space. Meanwhile, apart from the mythical Japanese hive-mind, the Japanese army was broken and chewed out and their ability to continue the war was nothing more than a wet dream of some of the generals (on both sides). Combined with imminent Soviet intervention that would hasten the surrender even more, US would lose 500k soldiers only if they used them as a substitute for bombs.

"All we did was murder a couple hundred thousand innocent people, come on!"

They were part of the hive-mind. Of course they weren't innocent. But even if they were, it's just a blip on the radar of US jingos.

The "US was wrong" argument boils down to the US is a mass murderer for ending the war but forget everything that Japan did and was back then? Don't even take the nature of war and the alternatives into consideration? Fire bombing and a near scorched Earth ground invasion was was more humane?

And other than deflecting because calling the nukes by their name triggers jingoistic feelings of US' infallibility and most pristine moral high-ground, why exactly would calling nukes that name entail forgetting everything Japan has done?

No one said the people deserved to die...

And a military operation is not an act of terror. The differences may be nuanced but they aren't the same.

Would it have been more acceptable for the US to let the war last longer, meaning more civilian on the ground?

Certain definitions of terrorism (since there isn't some globally agreed upon one yet) would cover that actually. And even when considering those that don't, the nuance boils down to two points:
1. it not being criminal (and the only reason the nuking is not considered a war crime is because US won the war and then appointed itself as the world police)
2. being performed by a state.

Monumental difference.

I think it's mostly stupidity and jealousy.

Supposed stupidity aside, what level of nationalism does one need to ascend to to convince themselves that people are jealous of US killing tens of thousands in singular strikes?

[Wolfman31]

Wholly westernized? I don't even... As someone that's currently residing in Japan, no, they haven't.

As someone who's been to Japan and has studied its history, Japan is wholly westernized compared to previous eras. They venerate American culture almost above their own to the point that the traditions and culture of the old Japan has taken a backseat to more Western values. Personally, I'd rather Japan had not modernize at all than to see what has become of the spirit of the people under America's wing. The Japanese lost more than just two cities in WW2. They also lost a large chunk of what made them Japanese.

[gyrados]

Because history is written by the victors and they decide who was "good guys" and who was "bad guys" , morality have very little to do here

this ^ so basically question everything and do your own research you will learn interesting things that way like for example did you know a rothschild founded israel you know balfour declaration i dont know about you guys but i never learned about that in school i love the internet

[McFuu]

I feel like the weaponisation of 1940's Japanese farm equipment is laughable at best. What could they possibly have made that would have been a threat to the US Navy?





So the US won the naval war... Why did they need to invade? The Japanese were already beaten, whether they admitted it or not, whether they understood or not, it's irrelevant even if these Japanese farmers could fashion weapons, what were they gonna do with them, stand on the beach waving them menacingly?

Because how many lives would have been lost, how much money tied up into turning Japan into a large prison colony where all the inmates are armed, have access to natural resources and plenty of weapons. Ohh and they are all united against us. Who would be in charge of watching after that? The US? Australia? Russia?

The war had to end, and the war had to end through the Japanese Government. If the Japanese didn't actually completely and unconditionally surrender they would have likely continued fighting. Maybe not entirely, but enough to stop the country from rebuilding.

[Akainakali]

So the US won the naval war... Why did they need to invade? The Japanese were already beaten, whether they admitted it or not, whether they understood or not, it's irrelevant even if these Japanese farmers could fashion weapons, what were they gonna do with them, stand on the beach waving them menacingly?

Military operations take lives even if there's no actual combat going on. Just taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier is one of the most difficult things a pilot can do and is significantly risky even today. One of the US Navy's biggest losses in WWII was a typhoon that hit the fleet in october 1945.

I've already covered the kind of deaths that would have been expected if Japan would have been under siege even just through the first winter. Lots of people still died even with food supplies from the US.

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Japanese didn't know what "surrender" means. It didn't exist in their mentality. Even in most hopeless situation, they would continue to resist. The sentence about wooden sticks was meant to illustrate that. Somehow you didn't understand that nobody was ever going to fight with wooden sticks. It was metaphor. Japanese forces would continue to fight for every mile of terrain, for every household, for every isle, for every city and every street, even if they knew they couldn't possibly achieve anything with it.

Actually there WERE plans to have civilians hide and then jump out and try to stab US soldiers with spears. It was actually part of their defensive plans.

They were THAT crazy.

[Independent voter]

I feel like the weaponisation of 1940's Japanese farm equipment is laughable at best. What could they possibly have made that would have been a threat to the US Navy?

How can you be so naive?


LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — When a captured Nazi U-boat arrived at Portsmouth, N.H., toward the end of World War II, the American public was never told the significance of what was on board.

The German submarine was carrying 1,200 pounds of uranium oxide, ingredients for an atomic bomb, bound for Japan. Two Japanese officers on board were allowed to commit suicide.

Two months later, in the New Mexico desert, the United States detonated the first atomic bomb, a prelude to the obliteration of two Japanese cities.

Unknown to many of the people who built those bombs, not to mention the public, Japan was scrambling to build its own nuclear weapon.

http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-..._1_atomic-bomb

[Spaceshaman]

You can argue about if bombing of Hiroshima was necessary but Nagasaki was certainly unnecessary.

Also uranium-oxide is very far from a nuclear bomb. Fermi, Szilard, Wigner, Teller had to calculate and recalculate their numbers for years before they could blow up a bomb.

Anyways I'm here because why no MMO-C mobile site? Only found some topic of offtopic/suggestion in google...

[Moratori]

As someone who's been to Japan and has studied its history, Japan is wholly westernized compared to previous eras. They venerate American culture almost above their own to the point that the traditions and culture of the old Japan has taken a backseat to more Western values. Personally, I'd rather Japan had not modernize at all than to see what has become of the spirit of the people under America's wing. The Japanese lost more than just two cities in WW2. They also lost a large chunk of what made them Japanese.

It's westernized, it's not wholly westernized. Big difference between the two.