@awake_ash his point was that there weren't any other options. Maybe instead of blaming the U.S. for ending the war people should blame the Nazis for starting it... and maybe Japan should take some responsibility for siding with the Nazis.
In all fairness there were options the nukes happened to be the best one.
1. Nukem
2. Invade risking millions of military and civilian lives
3. Do nothing and continue the conventional bombing campaign.
Truman decided killing 300,000+ japanese and 0 Americans was better.
Yeeeeaaahhh because being at war with a country, targeting cities with known military production centers, and making every attempt to warn the government and population that the cities would be destroyed is the same as crashing planes into unsuspecting civilians with an intent of causing as much non-military damage as possible...
That's gonna be a no from me bot-dawg...
How much non-military damage do you think was caused by dropping atomic bombs on two separate cities? Where nothing is left except their shadows? Where those cities are still uninhabitable?
Never forget the lives that were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Japanese purposely put military sites in city areas to use the citizens as human shields. There was a paper drop of flyers warning the people to flee because of a new devastating bomb. They stayed, even after the first, the second warning told them that the first was real.
I mean, I don't know enough about pearl harbour in general, but based on the premise described here - if America warned them, repeatedly and within time, that this was going to happen, there's literally nothing else they could do. Even that they're not obligated to do. Japan attacked them. As far as I know America was largely telling everyone to BTFO.
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I'm not sure what else anyone was expecting them to do. Negotiate with the Japanese? Give them a firm finger-wagging? Smuggle the civilians out? Put them all in pens and dismantle the military presence piece by piece?
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Europe tried the finger-wagging strategy on Hitler and he responded by taking over the Rhineland, so it's safe to say that probably wouldn't have gone over any better with the Japanese
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Any of those actions likely would have cost more Americans their lives. Not diminishing Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but there's also no reason for them to have risked more of their lives to save an enemy intent on destroying them
Also - you'd likely have been better off being a prisoner of the Nazis than a prisoner of the Japanese. So even being caught was largely not worth the risk
Kitty, there was plenty of non-military damage, I never said there wasn't.
But the prime target was military production and as others have mentioned, attempts were made to warn the population.
Im also not saying that dropping these bombs was specifically a *good* thing, as I think we can all agree that loss of life is bad. But one of the deciding factors in using nuclear weapons.to end the war was that the only other option would have been and invasion of mainland Japan.
Based on experience in invading islands just as Okinawa and Iwo Jima, estimates for the death toll *just* on the US side for a mainland invasion were in the millions...
The war needed to end, and based on the options available at the time, A nuclear bomb was the fastest and least destructive way to accomplish that.
the US knew the damage that would be done and wanted to minimise civilian deaths, the Japanese told the citizens they had nothing to fear, even after the first, they still not believed them
I'm not supporting the Japanese and their actions, I'm simply pointing out that America had done their fair share of damage as well. In and out of war civilians have been impacted on and very often killed.
The allies commited plenty of war crimes both at national and individual levels in both theatures of war. The bombs while controversial were justifiable.
I mean, no one said America didn't do damage. It was really more a question of why they did the damage, what the damage was, and whether they attempted to mitigate it as much as possible. Again I'd have to look into it more, but from what little I have seen they distributed leaflets - IN JAPANESE - to Japan, including pictures and a rough description of just what fresh hell was coming their way. If I'm reading this right they also issued additional leaflets between bombings.
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In all of them they lay out exactly what their target is, in what cities (or the general area) and urge the citizens to leave as they do not want to take Civillian lives in a government war unnecessarily.
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So, yeah, of course people died. Significantly less people than if Japan had been allowed to continue.
I don't know the exact timeline of Unit 731 but from what I understand it largely came to a halt due to Japan suddenly being on the losing side of the war.
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They don't even have any idea how many people died at the hands of the horrific experiments and biological warfare being developed there (it's estimated as many as half a million, and considering the facility was only open for around 15 years you have to let that number sink in). Just to add to the horror - they referred to victims of their experiments as "wooden logs." And most of us wouldn't subject a log to what the people inside there went through.
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Japan was very very interested in finding out how they could turn diseases into weapons. And they had every intention of using the findings of their experiments. This includes diseases like syphilis (if you've never seen the end stages of syphilis without treatment don't look it up) and the Plague.
They also did fun things like "let's see how much pressure a live human body can withstand before it explodes." And most of this was done on Chinese prisoners if I recall correctly, though they did drop the plague on a couple cities I think?
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Now I don't believe America was aware this little shop of horrors existed when they went after Japan, but the fact remains that, assuming I have the timeline correct, their actions likely helped save hundreds of thousands of lives from unseen horror. A world where the Japanese and the Nazis were in power would have been the kind of thing to give Ramsay Bolton nightmares.
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So, again, yes it sucks people had to die to the nuclear attacks. But it is what it is. America did everything they could.
2. Youd rather us invade and kill millions more?
1. Nukem
2. Invade risking millions of military and civilian lives
3. Do nothing and continue the conventional bombing campaign.
Truman decided killing 300,000+ japanese and 0 Americans was better.
That's gonna be a no from me bot-dawg...
Never forget the lives that were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
.
I'm not sure what else anyone was expecting them to do. Negotiate with the Japanese? Give them a firm finger-wagging? Smuggle the civilians out? Put them all in pens and dismantle the military presence piece by piece?
.
Europe tried the finger-wagging strategy on Hitler and he responded by taking over the Rhineland, so it's safe to say that probably wouldn't have gone over any better with the Japanese
.
Any of those actions likely would have cost more Americans their lives. Not diminishing Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but there's also no reason for them to have risked more of their lives to save an enemy intent on destroying them
But the prime target was military production and as others have mentioned, attempts were made to warn the population.
Im also not saying that dropping these bombs was specifically a *good* thing, as I think we can all agree that loss of life is bad. But one of the deciding factors in using nuclear weapons.to end the war was that the only other option would have been and invasion of mainland Japan.
Based on experience in invading islands just as Okinawa and Iwo Jima, estimates for the death toll *just* on the US side for a mainland invasion were in the millions...
The war needed to end, and based on the options available at the time, A nuclear bomb was the fastest and least destructive way to accomplish that.
.
In all of them they lay out exactly what their target is, in what cities (or the general area) and urge the citizens to leave as they do not want to take Civillian lives in a government war unnecessarily.
.
So, yeah, of course people died. Significantly less people than if Japan had been allowed to continue.
.
They don't even have any idea how many people died at the hands of the horrific experiments and biological warfare being developed there (it's estimated as many as half a million, and considering the facility was only open for around 15 years you have to let that number sink in). Just to add to the horror - they referred to victims of their experiments as "wooden logs." And most of us wouldn't subject a log to what the people inside there went through.
.
Japan was very very interested in finding out how they could turn diseases into weapons. And they had every intention of using the findings of their experiments. This includes diseases like syphilis (if you've never seen the end stages of syphilis without treatment don't look it up) and the Plague.
.
Now I don't believe America was aware this little shop of horrors existed when they went after Japan, but the fact remains that, assuming I have the timeline correct, their actions likely helped save hundreds of thousands of lives from unseen horror. A world where the Japanese and the Nazis were in power would have been the kind of thing to give Ramsay Bolton nightmares.
.
So, again, yes it sucks people had to die to the nuclear attacks. But it is what it is. America did everything they could.