Was it a war crime? Was it justified?
>>1059886
All war is a crime.
Violence is never justified.
nope (no one complains the firebombing of Tokyo in March of that year was a war crime, and it killed just as many)
yup (still at war)
>>1059906
You're of course right, but it's worth noting that Curtis Lemay himself once said that if the US lost the war he'd be tried as a war criminal.
OP, dropping the bomb saved lives, plain and simple. What about it seems controversial to you?
It prevented a ground invasion which would have killed many more people than the two bombs did.
>>1059934
That naval siege they were planning until invasion in november '45 would have made everyone in Japan awfully hungry. (and imagine if the soviets jointly invaded and the Allies had to split Japan with the Soviets)
But there are also arguments that the Japanese were about to surrender anyways....I still think it was teh best decision of the choices they had at the time.
>>1059886
Daily reminder that when SJW's tell you its a crime, tell them that they should ask what Non-Japanese Asians think about it.
>>1059934
>droping a nucleae bomb over a city saved lives
This faggit lads
inb4
>>1059934
The arguments I hear most are:
>Japan was going to surrender anyway
and
>even if Hiroshima was justified Nagasaki was still excessive
>it was only 3 days later they didn't have time to understand what happened
>>1059934
>OP, dropping the bomb saved lives, plain and simple.
Let's go saving lives by killing people ! I guess the people from Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't deserved saving...
>>1059965
>>1059973
I'm not seeing any arguments.
All acts of war are a war crime if the victims aren't voluntary soldiers, and 99% of the time the victims aren't.
We can't have double standards for local murder and then claim if a large group votes to murder that it's no longer a crime.
I'm using crime in the sense of decided social ethics and boundaries that are taken seriously enough that they've formed the basis of societal norms and laws.
>>1059967
>>Japan was going to surrender anyway
No reason to think this is true.
>>even if Hiroshima was justified Nagasaki was still excessive
Why? They didn't surrender after one atomic bomb. It was fortunate that they found their collective minds after two, rather than the creation of the future site of America's nuclear waste repository.
>>it was only 3 days later they didn't have time to understand what happened
They had time, it was obvious what nuclear weapons could do to their industrial power. If anything you could argue that 3 days wasn't enough time for Japanese thought to come to terms with the fact that human life has value.
>>1059988
But why drop it on civilian population centres in the first place? No warning or demonstration first, just straight up slaughter right off the bat.
Also isn't it worth noting that the people who got to decide when they surrendered aren't the ones who were getting nuked?
>>1060002
>But why drop it on civilian population centres in the first place?
Because it had been standard practice prior to this with other kinds of bombs. This was merely a larger form of ordinance.
>No warning or demonstration first
Why warn them? So that they could shoot down the Enola Gay?
>Also isn't it worth noting that the people who got to decide when they surrendered aren't the ones who were getting nuked?
Why would it be a good idea to nuke the people who could end the war? The average Jap was brainwashed. The only thing that made them lay down arms was the Emperor's renouncement of his divinity.
>>1060006
>Because it had been standard practice prior to this with other kinds of bombs.
How is that a justification?
>Why would it be a good idea to nuke the people who could end the war?
I'm not suggesting that, in fact I'd suggest no one should get nuked. My point is that the decision to stop the large scale murder of the population wasn't in the hands of the people being killed, and the attitude of the Japanese leadership seemed to be that peoples lives were pretty expendable.
>>1060048
>How is that a justification?
Why aren't you making a thread about the firebombing of Dresden? Oh, right, because this is a bigger meme because the word "atomic" is scarier than the word "fire."
>My point is that the decision to stop the large scale murder of the population wasn't in the hands of the people being killed, and the attitude of the Japanese leadership seemed to be that peoples lives were pretty expendable.
I honestly don't understand what you think this is supposed to signify.
>>1060002
They dropped leaflets on the target cities warning that they were going to be destroyed by bombs.
>>1059965
>>1059973
Sorry, I assumed you were at least moderately well informed on the subject. Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed ~110,000 people in the initial blast. Estimates about the effects of radiation sickness vary, but most estimates put the total dead as a result of the bombs at around 250,000. Operation Downfall would have cost the Allies alone greater than one million lives, extended the war at least into 1946, and likely required the extermination of large numbers of Japanese civilians. Are you following this at all?
>>1060085
Don't act like the USA dropped the bombs on Japan in order to spare japanese civilians. They wanted to impress the russians and rush the end of the war, we got it.
Now to claim that they killed people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and all the fire bombing raids on Tokyo and eslewhere alongside that) in order to "save lives" is a totally different things.
The only "lives" they were trying to save were their own (which is fair enough), they viewed the japanese as rats and didn't give... well a rat's ass about all of them being killed.
>>1060048
Rather be nuked the fire bombed IMO
Ground zero=a flash and I'm knocking at hells door asking which pit the senpai is in
Fire bombing=watching everything/everyone burn in a hellish flame.
>Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.
>>1060100
But anon, it wasn't about saving Japanese lives, it was about saving American lives. Think about how hard it would have been to conquer the entire fucking island chain after years of island-hopping to get there in the first place.
>>1060100
This. All of it.
>>1060100
Do you understand that an invasion wouldn't have been bloodless? There hasn't been an urban war in the past century that didn't devolve into insanity.
>>1060100
Please read the posts I replied to. No one is debating that the Soviets were part of the decision. These posters indicated the nukes didn't save lives, which they undeniably did. What alternative are you arguing for? Do you think that after spending $26 billion on the bomb the US should have instead not used it & conducted Downfall? Please take your thoughts to their conclusion.
>>1059886
Only if you define all big civilian target bombing as war crime.
>>1060100
Who the fuck implied that the Americans cared at all about the Japs' well being? It ended the war quicker, that's what mattered at the time.
Freemason conspiracy to wipe out Catholicism in Japan. Prove me wrong.
>>1059988
1. Hirohito only grew a pair AFTER Little Boy was dropped. And even then, not even the Soviets taking Manchuria like Nazi Germany taking France did not stop the bloody warhawks from trying to coup de'atat AFTER Hirohito surrendered.
2. Your other option would be to launch a ground invasion, possibly with Soviet help. The American people might be tired of war by then, AND the fact that America would be cooperating with the Soviet Union might turn the opinion of the public against you. As Truman, what do you do?
3. That argument could be made for Nagasaki, but Hiroshima was a military target. It housed the headquarters of several battalions, was a minor supply point, and had tons of military equipment. And even then, Nagasaki was an industrial city that made a ton of war materiel and had ahipbuilding facilities.
>>1060100
As much as I would love to say "FUCK STALIN", the coup by the warhawks shortly after Hirohito's surrender says otherwise. It was both of them. The Soviet entry into the war, PLUS the psychological shock of the nukes jumpstarted the ballsack development and growth of Hirohito.
Now tell me, knowing what the Russians did during the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, would you want the Sobiwta invading Japan and committing warcrimes, or a nuclear apocalypse from the Americans?
ITT Americans who have never even lived through a nuclear winter
>>1060477
t. NCR trooper
>>1059886
Yes
>>1059886
Maybe
>>1059886
I don't know
>>1059886
can you repeat the question
>>1060100
You are fucking autistic.
>>1060002
I'm pretty sure we dropped pamphlets warning about it.
WWII was way fucked up was going to keep being way fucked up unless something drastic and game changing happened. Truman's is always referred to as one of the toughest decisions made in modern history, but I think really any even somewhat sane person would have done the same thing in that situation.
>>1059886
Everything is justified in total war, otherwise there's no justification for war itself.
>>1059886
>Was it a war crime?
Not really. Japan was given every chance to surrender with a warning that US will hit them with something very deadly if they didn't. They even dropped leaflets warning civies that the bombs will get dropped. It's their fault that they didn't listen.
>Was it justified?
It was either a the bomb, or a long blockade which would starve to death even more people or an amphibious invasion where casualties would mount to millions. Yes, nuking entire cities is morally wrong, but it was the lesser evil out of all the other alternatives.
War Crime is a meme used to justify the destruction of foreign governments. Nobody cares about "war crimes" if they are committed by their side (excluding people exposed to foreign propoganda).
>>1059886
>Was it a war crime?
Yes, but not anymore than the literal genocide the US air force committed on Japanese cities with firebombs between 1942 and 1945
>Was it justified?
It definitly wasnt
Japan was already in process of surrendering
America wanted to test its new tpy and show it to the world
>explicitly say only an unconditional surrender will be accepted
>Japs fight as hard as they can for a conditional surrender
They had two choices: get nuked or get invaded. Either way, they needed to confront reality.
>>1060789
>Wow, this country has attacked one of our military bases once
>It's not enough that we murdered millions of their civilians through constant bombing for the last 4 years, we want them to become our personal bitch FOREVER! No conditional surrender will be accepted
Americans were overly imperialistic greedy bitch
The punishment went far over the offense, none of what the Japs did to America ever justified what America did to them (be it the constant bombing, the nuking, the request of an unconditional surrender and the never ending occupation)
>>1060809
*tips katana*
*reads Kojiki*
>>1060809
thoughts on Versailles?
>>1060809
t. Jap or weeb
Also,
>what is the Casablanca Conference
The terms were unconditional surrender for all of the Axis powers. Japan was no exception and I don't see why they were under the illusion that they were.
No, It was justified.
The plan was originally to invade in japan. after seeing what the japanese civilians did in okinawa, the US military estimated that over one million japanese people would have died. To minimize this, they used the nukes to scare them into submission, and to get it over with before Russia could split it in two.
>>1059886
> Was it a war crime ?
Definitely yes, if we consider that every voluntary bombing of civilians is one of them.
We often tend to forgot that most major japanese cities were already piles of ashes when the first atomic bomb exploded.
Osaka, Tokyo,etc. had suffered more than 80% surface destruction due to incendiary bombings.
But at the same time, civilian bombing was so largely used during WW2 that it's hard to say, but if this is one, the destructions and deaths caused by classical incendiary bombing are as well, because they definitely were more deadly. Even if it took more time to burn down a city this way, it was as effective (not including fallout, cancers, etc.)
> Was it justified ?
In the context of ending WW2 quickly, maybe.
For a long time, the bombs supposedly decided the japanese army to accept capitulation without conditions, but since a few years, closer analysis of the verbatim of the last meetings of the heads of the japanese army tells us that they were already considering capitulation without conditions before the 6th of august. The deciding point for them was the declaration of war from USSR.
The morning of the 6th august, when the first bomb exploded, and that Hiroshima was basically razed to the ground, it was not that much of a shock for them, as most major cities were already razed to the ground and the civilian death toll has already gone through the roof a long time ago.
But as they came to realize the power of a single atomic bomb, and as the second one dropped three days later, no doubt that it played a role in convincing them to agree quickly to capitulation.
But the role it played must not totally make disappear the major role that also played the USSR declaration of war.
Without the combination of both, maybe an invasion would have been inevitable.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
>>1060822
Absolutly uncomparable
Unlike WW2 Japan, Germany didnt have its civilians murdered en mass and its cities destroyed for the entire duration of the war
Germany was on the contrary the one who murdered foreign citizens and destroyed foreign cities in Belgium and Northern France
And despite that fact, Germany was much less punished by Versailles than Japan was by post-WW2 peace
Versailles left Germany sovereign and free of foreign occupation (aside from a tiny region for 10 years) while Japan have been entirely occupied by US troops since 1945 and it's not gonna end anytime soon
And
>>1059955
>split Japan with the soviets
This is what neither the US nor the Japanese wanted.
>>1059984
Total War calls for the modification of various held societal belief, otherwise, you'd never win.
>>1059886
Do you know that more Japs died in the bombing of Tokyo than the bombing of Hiroshima?
>>1060830
Yeah no.
Germany lost its entire colonial empire, was indeed not entirely occupied for 10 years, but the Ruhr wasn't a tiny region, it was one of the industrial cores of Germany.
Also occupation didn't mean simply having bases lying around and soldiers more than happy to blow their paychecks on your recovering economy, it meant that a large part of the induistrial production of the Ruhr was destined to France (and Belgium, to a lesser extent).
But the main thing is that Germany had an immense debt of war nearly impossible to repay (the occupation of the Ruhr between 1923-25 was caused by the fact that German gov was not willing/able to pay anymore) and making the growth of German economy almost impossible (plus 1929 didn't help at all).
On the contrary, Japan benefited from huge investments after the war that helped quite a lot their economy to recover and grow so quickly.
So no. Really. Germany was not "less punished" (if that's even a good term to qualify that) than Japan.
>>1059904
This children, is what a well intentioned head looks when shoved way up an ass.
>>1059965
are you intentionally being ridiculous? can someone be this morally inept? this is like ethics 101. what you're basically saying is you wouldn't pull the lever lmfao and what's crazy is that you think it insane to.
The bomb was dropped to save american lives/hassle.
The "saved Japanese lives" is bullshit, fucking for virginity is close idea.
The "warned the citizens" is an excuse, warrings states drop leaflets of propaganda all the time.
American bombing campain was mostly aimed at civillian populations during the war.
But hey, whats the point? War is about using every way possible to subjugate the enemy, and the loser whining about how they were beaten is pointless. America was by far no means a humanitarian state, but it was the best country to lose to in terms of post war occupation.
And i might be paranoiac, but i suspect chinese/korean posters here....
>>1059904
>>>/reddit/
>>1059904
All war is a form of diplomacy
If its not in the Geneva Convention its okay.
And plus if the bombs were never dropped Japan wouldnt be the contry it is today
>>1059886
Justified. I have had the pleasure of talking to a Marine officer who saw combat on Saipan, Iwo and then Okinawa. He said that while he felt bad for the 200,000 deaths, he said that many millions of japs would've died if the US/USSR invaded, not to mention the tens of thousands of american and other deaths
You have to consider two things:
1. There was an active Peace Party instigating the rendition of Japan, and which attempted to initiate peace talks with the USSR during the summer of 1945, and supported by the Emperor but Stalin refused to do so, as he had already agreed in the Tehran Conference of 1943 and Postdam Conference of 1945 to enter the Pacific Theater of War
2. No consideration was given, according to Stimson, to other alternatives. Project Manhattan had been an extremely costly endeavour and once it succeeded in producing a viable means of using atomic energy in a controlled environment, it was decided to put an end to the Pacific War using it. To do so, it was justified as a means to an end, as it supposedly avoided the invasion of Japan.
>>1063323
>if the US/USSR invaded
A good thing Japan was already in process of surrendering
>>1063357
You really think Stalin would have accepted those terms before trying to take as much land as possible?
>>1059886
It was a warcrime, but it was better for the Japanese that way. It gave them the excuse to surrender to the Americans rather than be divided up by the Soviets.
The Americans said unconditional surrender, but they gave the condition that the Japanese get to keep their emperor in the end.
Soviets wouldn't have put up with that.
>>1060477
>Implying a nuclear winter happened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked
ITT man trying to use Americans as an argument
>>1059886
As expected of such a charged topic on /his/, there's a whole lot of hearsay going around. Anyone have any books or articles analyzing the situation in the Japanese goverment before, during, and after the atomic bombings in Japan that might lend credence to these thoughts?
>>1063502
The Japanese didn't surrender until they lost their 2 million man army in a week to the Soviets. They felt as long as they weren't defeated militarily they could go on regardless of how many cities were destroyed.
They put out peace requests to the Soviets, but they didn't ask the Americans directly because of saving face. The Soviets wanted spoils from Japan they so they never passed on the requests.
The bombing of Nagasaki did happened on August 9th. The official surrender decree did not occur until August 15th well after the invasion of Manchuria.
It wasn't the bombs but rather the loss of their army that compelled them. They had loss more people anyway in the fire bombings of Tokyo and didn't surrender.
The bombs gave them a way to surrender to the Americans rather than the Soviets so they took that route.
Either way it was better for them to surrender to the Americans than the Soviets so it worked out for Japan in the end.
>>1063529
That's an interesting explanation, but it conveniently leaves out the attempted coup by military leaders. Clearly there were other factors at work as well that compelled a surrender from the Emperor but not from the military leaders.
>>1060073
Not before nuclear attacks. Last leaflets were dropped in Hiroshima on July 30th, but they only announced that "if the war goes on Japan will be destroyed". Japan wasn't warned about new weapon and firebombing warnings weren't anything new. Collecting such leaflets was also illegal.
Nagasaki indeed got leaflet warning about nuclear attack. On August 10th. Good job, USA.
Pic related is the leaflet.
>>1063544
The Emperor and co felt a favorable peace could be acheived as long as they could defend the islands and their Asia holdings.
Sure the Americans took a lot of islands, but those were garrisoned by say 30,000 to 50,000 troops at best.
There were millions of Japanese men in China and Manchuria which the Japanese leadership felt would stand up to the Americans far better.
Once the Soviets put an end to that in quite a short amount of time (due to superior tanks and doctrines), the Japanese had no Army left.
So it was on the Emperor to surrender. The coup facilitated that somewhat, but its safe to say the Japanese would have held out longer for peace if they had a uncontested army in the field.
>>1059886
Rape of Nanking karma.
>>1059886
>muh greatest crime in history
vs
>muh six million potential casualties
It was done for propaganda purposes, nothing more. The Japanese didn't like unconditional surrender because they wanted to keep their emperor, which the Americans ended up allowing them anyways.
>>1060680
>>1060759
That wasn't the case, as explained in >>1063548
This anon knows his shit >>1063312
>>1060828
Kokura, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Niigata and Kyoto - the initial targets - were mostly untouched by firebombings. When they were decided as targets, decision was made to cease firebombings on them, so effectiveness of nuke could be measured reliably. Later Kyoto was replaced by Nagasaki.
Truman's note regarding that.
>This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense in making one of criteria for potential targets this.
>The target was larger than 3 mi (4.8 km) in diameter and was an important target in a large urban area.
>>1063621
Of course. No point in aiming for something small, given what a crapshoot strategic bombing was in those days. And it'd be a total waste of a nuke to target a small target, psychologically and technologically. Remember the nukes did less damage than the rest of the bombing. Even individual raids were known to cause more.
Ultimately what convinced Japan to surrender was the military dictatorship basically running the country stepped down when they ran out of options.
They almost formed a coup and would have continued the war even after the Soviet's invaded Manchuria and the US dropped two nuclear weapons. But they backed down and the closest thing to the peace party in Japan was able to finally negotiate a surrender rather than see their entire country burn down in flames as some wanted.
No more or less then anything else that happened in that war. It definitely is in modern context, but so is everything else.
It was necessary for a quick resolution to the war without an invasion, so it was justified.
>>1059886
Getting nuked was honestly the best thing to happen to Japan since Perry; it was just bitter, bitter medicine.
>>1060809
It wasn't just about Pearl Harbor, Japan was in the middle of a land war with Manchuria and was in the process of taking over multiple countries in southeast Asia. It is estimated that they killed between 6-10 million Chinese civilians alone. And lets not forget about Unit 731 kids. The Japanese were not to be reasoned with on this one.
Let's get this shit started
>it's a Japanese suspiciously surrendering due to 2 bombs when the entire country was flattened to the ground already episode
>>1063621
>targeting women and children with nukes is wrong
>it's ok to burn them to death though :^)
>>1060100
I want weebs to leave. Dropping 2 nuclear bombs was preferable to an all out invasion that would have destroyed Japan and its people, as well as a lot of allied soldiers. How dense are you if you don't understand basic utilitarianism?
>>1064161
>to an all out invasion that would have destroyed Japan and its people, as well as a lot of allied soldiers
And what proof do we have this would even be the case, besides speculation from allied generals?
Who is to say the government wouldn't surrender immediately after the US forces landed and established a foothold, or after they took Tokyo?
>>1064130
If you want to act like a retard, do it somewhere else.
You seem to have problems with reading, strawman.
>>1059886
Pissweak excuse for an experiment on humans.
As yamashita said "consider
yourselves lucky you won the war
because were going to put you on trial"
Countries stupid enough to use a nuclear weapon more than once -u.s.a
Countries that would like to beat the record - israel
Japs committed far more war crimes, shit like the death marches in Borneo and their widespread slavery were well known.
If it were up to the Brits or Aussies there would've been several more bombs dropped. The Americans showed great restraint by only dropping two.
They got far less than they deserved.
>>1064367
Not restraint.
Japanese intelligence got it right when they assumed that America had only two of those things ready.
They did not realize America could make MORE.
