What do you think of the Aug.6,1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, followed three days later by a similar nuking of Nagasaki?

[beefcakebradybatson]

[DrPepper12]

This:

Seriously. It was correct & appropriate given the facts known at the time. Judge them by available information & attitudes, not Monday morning moralizing.

[beefcakebradybatson]

I can see its utility in that it showed that nuclear warfare MUST AT ALL COSTS be prevented.

[DrPepper12]

Yes..

[RavVid]

It was necessary to avoid greater loss of life that would have occurred otherwise.

[Avicenna]

I think it was better than invading Japan‘s four main islands.

[exitseven]

its like this

[msc545]

That is an incredibly poor taste and disgusting. You should be ashamed.

[exitseven]

@msc545 I used to do business with a t shirt place. This was a big seller.

[msc545]

I would suggest you burn that disgusting shirt, and never do business with such people again lest you contaminate your soul.

Have you decency at all?

[exitseven]

@msc545 People had more of a sense of humor back in the 80s apparently.

[msc545]

Nothing humorous about atomic weapons.

[Anonymous]

Two nukes weren't enough

[msc545]

It was a set of major war crimes.

[RavVid]

The alternate plan was to fire bomb Japan and burn them out. Like Bomber Harris and Dresden.

The UK was going to send over 400 Lanc's and the US could relocate their European fighters and bombers after Germany's capitulation. There were 1,000's of bombers available and Okinawa was only a short bombing run away.

Could the war have been ended without capitulation by Japan?

I think you need to be able to argue that because anything else would have been worse than two atomic bombs especially fire bombing.

[msc545]

No, that was the government's excuse for making these kinds of plans, all of which involved war crimes. So what they essentially said is well. Yeah this wasn't so nice but what we were planning to do instead would would have been even worse. What they didn't tell you was that they could have planned to do something that would have not involved criminal behavior had they had the will to do so. They didn't. They wanted the easy way out. And they took it.

[RavVid]

They certainly weren't willing to accept the casualties a conventional invasion would have cost and they extrapolated from Okinawa and Iwo Jina. Several millions for US and allies, and expected 10s of millions for Japanese.

That would not have been especially humane I would say. The two bombs minimized the loss of life which I think is the only way you measure and judge.

The alternative of a perpetual blockade of Japan would have caused civilians deaths. As WW2 was an outcome of leaving Germany intact after WW1 I doubt anyone could see leaving Japan as it was a viable option.

There were 30 million deaths as it was in the Pacific theater.

I think it is beholden on you to show a course of action that could have been taken and would have been apparent to the allied commanders at the time in more detail than a vague "could have planned to do something".

[msc545]

@RavVid Thank you for providing the research error. There was nothing to indicate that Iwo Jima and Okinawa would have cost relative to casualties. Relative to cost, maybe, since the US i fixated on money and was more than happy to radiate and incinerate hundreds of thousands of people to save a few bucks.

All they had to do was blockade Japan, but that, too, might have cost them some money. That is neither vague nor invisible to the Allied commanders, and eminently practical since the US already had many warships in the Pacific and Pacific islands by then.

I think then it is beholden on YOU to explain, in detail, why using nuclear weapons against civilians was or is a good idea.

Still wondering why other countries hate us?

[RavVid]

I use cost as lives cost not in terms of dollars cost to be clear.

As for research error, the resistance and in particular civilian resistance is pretty well documented. The Allied side was shocked at the casualties, the kamikaze tactics, and the willingness of civilians to die in battle with US Marines.

Obvious a simple way to calculate cost (in lives) would be to pro rata from the military and civilian population of Okinwana to Japan proper. Linear approximation would be wholly inadequate but all that could be done. The numbers did indeed shock and persuade US that it was impractical to conventionally invade. If a significant portion of Japan's 72 million population were willing to die, as civilians on Okinwana indeed were, then those millions of troop causalities and 10s of millions of civilian casualties seem quite reasonable estimates.

I'm glad you have got to the point of nominating a course of action that could have been taken. Blockades aren't causality free however. Germany was blockaded in WW1 and it caused high levels of suffering and excess mortality. At least 500,000 and maybe 750,000. That was over less than 4 years. Scale up for a longer blockade.

The question comes down to what scenario resulted in the fewest deaths and therefore was the most humane outcome. On the numbers it was two Atom bombs shocking the Japanese Emperor into siding with the capitulate party.

by the way it is the rabid Global Left that hates the US not countries. Mine, Australia, is quite conscious, If not for the US we would have been toast. We were the first to stop Japan's march - on Kokoda and at Milne bay - but there was only one outcome without the US.

[msc545]

@RavVid You said "The alternative of a perpetual blockade of Japan would have caused civilians deaths". It might have assuming supplies were cut off - they did npt have to be.

Of course, the Left hates the US - the US is the most violent, financially subversive, genocidal country on the planet. Who wouldn't hate them?

[RavVid]

I don't think we are going to come anywhere near agreement on anything here. My position is simply ultitarian philosophy of the greatest good - in this case the minimal deaths once the outcome of the war was established. by the way figthing in Borneo continued after Japanese capitulation because the Japanese forces there would not concede.

The most likely outcome of the US, British and Australian forces not doing anything would have been the Russians torching Japan. Russia still holds 2 of the 4 Japanese Kuril islands from WW2 and at that time were champing at the bit to get more.

Russian forces would have had no compunction in slaughtering Japanese people; in the 1920s they shot Ukrainians who couldn't speak Russian. Probably the Japanese homeland would be somewhere in the Caucasus now. Like the Crimean Tatars were forcibly relocated to Tartarstan. Jews were relocated to far South Eastern Siberia.

The Russian always extensively kill the locals, ship as many of the surviving locals out as they can and ship Russians in to Russofy new territory.

[msc545]

@RavVid Sounds like the Israelis.

[RavVid]

The Russian have more experience. At least since Catherine The Great said to protect my borders I must increase my borders. They are mentally locked into more land = more richer which is no longer true as the country of the mind is where the real riches are now.

Russia won't be happy till that have closed off the 7 classic invasion points. With Ukraine the probable intention was to get to the Carpathian mountains to close off two. It is very outdated thinking.

Israel has much the same objective and unlikely to return Golan to Syria. In their case, compared with Russia, it is not so outdated thinking.

[msc545]

@RavVid, your speculations and false comparisons do not in any way obviate the fact that between the crime at Hiroshima and the one at Nagasaki, about 250,000 people were killed, and an unknown number sickened and grievously wounded. The number of descendants of these people who suffered birth defects and illness due to disruption of DNA by radiation is unknown but certainly not zero.

Nothing that you have cited or alleged so far in any way justifies these crimes on the part of the US.

[RavVid]

We are not going to reach any common ground. I would consider the total number of deaths on an invasion more significant and you consider the deaths caused by the two atom bombs most significant. They are value judgments that we make differently. We can only leave at that.

[msc545]

@RavVid All deaths are bad.

[RavVid]

Of course.