Here I go...sigh.........
I think he was actually talking about the number of bombs not deaths (but I could be wrong). But your right there were 3, but one was a test bomb and wasn't used on humans.
Several of Japan's major military production factories (not bases) were in those cities. We gave them a week to leave the area. The civilians who died could have left in BOTH cases. We only wanted the military targets and to show not to f*** with us, that’s why we warned the civilians.
You are also right in saying the civilians would die for their country, which is exactly the reason why we bombed them instead of invading them. And Japan didn't have a weak anything at the time of the bombing. OK yes they were weaker then when they started the war but the fact was that they could still use their air force to attack America, and we were still fighting them in the pacific ocean.
America was winning. yes you got that right. we were not winning the way wanted and by how much we wanted.
and to those out there that were saying that they were major military areas, they were not that important. it was warfare on the civilians. and yes they new the effects, i agree with you, they knew what was going to happen and they did it to win without loosing American SOILDERS lives. "war is hell."
the best way to win a war quickly is to attack the civilian.
That's sick.
Yeah because Americans>Japanese
American soldiers>Japanese women, men, children, teenagers, unborn childern and some soliders.
Attacking hospitals with wards, with operations, baby wards, special wards ect, Schools with children playing in the swings, people, working and worrying a bout daily matters and much, much more.
Yeah, nuking those people was worth it.
Had we invaded, those same civilians that are supposedly innocent would have been the ones killing American soldiers. Plus I'm pretty sure terrorists don't warn their targets in advance.
It's ridiculous that America really thought the civilians were like that. It's called BRAINWASHING! with proper gander. The exact same thing happened in Germany. Hitler knew that at the current time the German people would have never have accepted the war. So by using various technique (while I won't going into because it'll make this post even longer.) he made them believe that the war was just, that Jews were evil and that German race (can't remember the real name right now) were the best race. Japan's government did the same thing. E.g.) Iraq, if you were a soldier and no one in your country was supporting you how would you feel? Moral.
eg) If the people of your country rebel against a war, especially with the goals Japan were attempting, that war is doomed to fail.
@Slave1: They wanted to show the destructive power of the bombs as those two areas had not been affected by the war yet. This way they could see its true power.
In peace talks they warned Japan that they would utterly destroy Japan if they didn't surrender. They didn't so we dropped the first bomb. Sounds like a warning to me.
The same effect could have been achieved by showing them the test bomb explosion in person. Yet they chose to use it on people who had nothing to do with the war instead.
Actually it would be more appropriate to say Florida since Japan and Florida are roughly the same size. And yes if I lived in Florida and they said we are going to bomb a Florida city anyone who stays is an idiot.
These weapons had never been seen before. How could anyone predict that a weapon like that would have been created. Even the solders didn't know how it would be like. Heck, the priest that blessed the bomb said it was a bitter mistake himself.
By midsummer of 1945 most responsible leaders in Japan realized that the end was near. In June, those favoring peace had come out in the open, and Japan had already dispatched peace feelers through the Soviet Union, a country it feared might also be about to enter the war despite the existence of a non-aggression treaty between the two nations. As early as the Tehran Conference in late 1943 Stalin had promised to enter the war against Japan, and it was agreed at Yalta in February 1945 that the USSR would do so three months after the defeat of Germany. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 the Soviet Union reaffirmed its agreement to declare war on Japan. At this conference the United States and Britain, with China joining in, issued the famed Potsdam Declaration calling upon Japan to surrender promptly, and about the same time President Truman decided to employ the newly tested atomic bomb against Japan in the event of continued Japanese resistance.
Despite the changing climate of opinion in Japan, the Japanese did not immediately accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Accordingly, on August 6 a lone American B-29 from the Marianas dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; on the 9th the Soviet Union came into the war and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria; and on the same day another B-29 dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The next day Japan sued for peace, and, with the signing of surrender terms aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, the bitter global war came to an end.
I never said they didn't sue for peace, I said the ones that mattered did not.
After Germany's surrender in May the United States embarked upon a huge logistical effort to redeploy more than a million troops from Europe, the United States, and other inactive theaters to the Pacific. The aim was to complete the redeployment in time to launch an invasion of Japan on November I, and the task had to be undertaken in theface of competing shipping demands for demobilization of long-service troops, British redeployment, and civil relief in Europe. By the time the war ended, some 150,000 men had moved directly from Europe to the Pacific, but a larger transfer from the United States across the Pacific had scarcely begun. In the Pacific, MacArthur and Nimitz had been sparing no effort to expand ports and ready bases to receive the expected influx and to mount invasion forces. The two commanders were also completing plans for the invasion of Japan. In the last stage of the war, as all forces converged on Japan, the area unified commands were replaced by an arrangement that made MacArthur commander of all Army forces in the Pacific and Nimitz commander of all Navy forces.
By the end of the war Japan's Navy had virtually ceased to exist; Japanese industry had been so hammered by air bombardment thatJapan's ability towage war was seriously reduced; and U.S. submarine and air actions had cut off sources of raw material. At the time of the surrender Japan still had 2,000,000 men under arms in the homeland and was capable of conducting a tenacious ground defense; about 3,000 Japanese aircraft were also operational. Nevertheless, the Japanese could hardly have continued the war for more than a few months. On the other hand, the fact that an invasion was not necessary certainly spared many American lives.
On May 10–11, 1945 The Target Committee at Los Alamos, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer , recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The target selection was subject to the following criteria: (1) they are larger than three miles in diameter and are important targets in a large urban area (2) the blast would create effective damage, and (3) they are unlikely to be attacked by August 1945. "Any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb." These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids and the Army Air Force agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the weapon could be made. Hiroshima was described as "an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target." The goal of the weapon was to convince Japan to surrender unconditionally in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Target Committee stated that "It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.
They were strategically chosen targets, they were picked to end the war quickly and save millions of American lives, nothing else.
They were on a defence, with the amount of force that the allies had, how could they start assault?
Those numbers are clearly exaggerated. Millions of lives had been lost already at that point. With all the allies there was no way that that the further lost of lives was going to be more than the amount of people that died during those two bombs. Let’s face it, Japan were screwed.
Ahem,
Principles of the Just War
*A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
*A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
*A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable. Japan
*The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
*
The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
*
The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.
Also IIRC deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime.
When the value of human live is based on the country you were born in, you know the world you live in is screwed up.
That has got to be one of the worst comparisons I have ever heard. Attacking an enemy of war to save your country men's lives versus an unprovoked terrorist attack (if you believe that) are hardly comparable and not even close to being hypocritical.
Perhaps Janitor was talking about the deliberate target on civilians and large loss of live. On from a terrorist organisation, the larger scale one by the American government.
Ok 9/11 happened long after this, this is not a time for 66 year different comparisons. we got hit in pearl harbor (a military target) also. and about the whining if you watched two planes crash into a few of your building you would be singing a different tune.
Or if a day started out normally then watch people I knew around me die in front of my eyes, the landscape I live in changed. Nor have my child suffer deformities and catch cancer 66 years later.
If you can quote good reliable sources, I would be more than interested in reading them. I find war history very fascinating.
I definently see were you are coming from, however if America had invaded, those elderly and children would have been armed and shooting at the soldiers or at least relaying info to Japanese soldiers who would in turn kill them instead. And just for the record I agree it was worse than 911 and I also value human life, but I believe it was better than the alternative outcome.
Normally I would laugh at this but I'm not in the laughing mood right now.
There's bound to be some mistakes in here because on the time and length, I'll edit accordingly...
