70th anniversary of atomic bombing of Hiroshima

[Politenessman]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

I thought we're getting rid of assumptions?
Why do you claim I am happily sacrificing anyone?
Why do you claim I did not suggest an alternative, when I did?

It is easy to say "this or that wouldn't have worked" but as I said: Assumptions.
I can only repeat myself, if necessary.
Nothing, in my opinion, justifies the usage of nuclear weapons to end ten-thousands of lives in a heart beat, nothing.
It doesn't matter - at all - if I'd be first on the beach or not, do you understand this point of view?
I do not ask you to agree, I ask you to understand.
Earlier, I said rather clearly that I do indeed understand this war crime, looking at it through the eyes of a General, a President or similar.
Still, I argue that this doesn't make it right.

Call me Ghandi if you wish, but this is my position on nuclear weapons.
As to willingly let them starve - I never said that and honestly I think it is a very different thing to drop 2 bombs, killing thousands, or be passive about it and give things a CHANCE to maybe work out not as bad as we all predict today.
"Hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette."

All these claims about saving millions of lives (by killing ten thousands of civilians) and the quick ending of the war which would have ended in a bloodshed never seen before - is all just speculation.
In the end, I wouldn't drop these bombs because "maybe...".
No.

Unfortunately you are either ill educated (which can be fixed) or unwilling to know the facts (which cannot), the casualty estimates provided are the official estimates that were informed by actual casualty rates invading other islands that the Japanese considered part of the home islands (rather than occupied territory).

The only "alternatives" you have provided simply drag out the war, while civilians die in the occupied countries and, as noted from every blockade and siege in history (including that of Japan in WW2), disproportionately kill civilians of illness and starvation.

BTW, please explain why it is morally acceptable to you to starve a child to death but not blow them up?

You have access to all of this information, yet you choose to maintain an opinion that is demonstrably amoral - all so you can feel good about yourself, you'll starve civilians (it had already started in Japan), let civilians be raped, tortured or murdered in occupied countries and condemn a million allied troops to die or be crippled, and this is where it becomes relevant if you would lead them up the beach or not - since you are prepared to see them die because "nothing justified dropping the bombs" are you prepared to die beside them or do you lack the courage of your stated convictions?

Originally Posted by Politenessman

BTW, please explain why it is morally acceptable to you to starve a child to death but not blow them up?

I never said it is morally acceptable.
But I already explained why I would prefer (for example) a blockade, a demonstration, further tries of negotiations (yes yes, fanatic suicide samurai, all of them, I know...) over directly, instantly and willingly killing a few ten thousand people, favorably civilians.

If you drop these bombs and turn thousands to ashes, you bear the responsibility for that.
If you block the island because a stubborn government is unwilling to accept defeat - the responsibility shifts towards this government.
That makes a huge difference to me.

All I said in the end is that, for me, nothing justifies the usage of nuclear weapons. You start to disappoint me for not understanding this rather simple point of view/opinion, insisting that only because I condemn these actions I therefore have the burden to find a better solution, which is nonsensical actually.

[Catfish]

From what you can read, there was no careful waging of how much japanese civilians would die by a blockade, versus numbers of an invasion and own GIs killed, versus dropping the bomb.
It is all about justification.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

All I said in the end is that, for me, nothing justifies the usage of nuclear weapons. You start to disappoint me for not understanding this rather simple point of view/opinion, insisting that only because I condemn these actions I therefore have the burden to find a better solution, which is nonsensical actually.

I don't understand your point either but I can live with that. We don't have to agree on everything and live still goes on.

To me it's a numbers game. Over all I think the Nukes were the option with the least casualties on BOTH sides. An invasion of Japan would most likely have cost millions of lives considering how the invasions of other home land islands worked (military units fighting to the last man, civilians committing mass suicide, the announcement of executing all POWs, horrific medical situation with shortage of everything). I think a bit over 200.000 lives lost, as tragic and regrettable/disgusting as it is, is the lower price to pay than any alternative that I can think of. So the nukes would actually be my choice to end the war, simply because they allow MORE people to be alive once it's over.

[Wolferz]

Regardless of any assumptions or what ifs in regard to using such a devastating weapon, I try to comfort my tormented id in the knowledge that it only had to be used twice. After Hiroshima was reduced to glass, the Japanese still tried to sue for peace. Stalling tactic? You bet it was. So Nagasaki got the horns of the bull too. It wasn't until the Japanese were overtly informed that Tokyo would be next in line that they finally saw the light.


Edit: Captain hindsight says: Count your lucky stars... We could have dropped both bombs on Tokyo and called it a day.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Regardless of any assumptions or what ifs in regard to using such a devastating weapon, I try to comfort my tormented id in the knowledge that it only had to be used twice. After Hiroshima was reduced to glass, the Japanese still tried to sue for peace. Stalling tactic? You bet it was. So Nagasaki got the horns of the bull too. It wasn't until the Japanese were overtly informed that Tokyo would be next in line that they finally saw the light.


Edit: Captain hindsight says: Count your lucky stars... We could have dropped both bombs on Tokyo and called it a day.

Tokyo wasn't particularly suitable as a target; much of it was burned to the ground over-night several months before in a firebombing raid that killed more people than either atomic bomb.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Tokyo wasn't particularly suitable as a target; much of it was burned to the ground over-night several months before in a firebombing raid that killed more people than either atomic bomb.

True, but it was their capital city after all and finishing it off by turning it into radioactive glass would have driven the point home in a big way.
IIRC they immediately cried "uncle" when told of the next target after Nagasaki. They had no defense against it whatsoever.

It created an insurmountable fear in those people. I have conversed with a former GI who was stationed in Japan during the post war occupation. He related a story of an incensed crowd of civilians getting a little uppity with them and all he had to do was make a gesture with his hands and mouth of another huge explosion and they settled down mach schnell.

[Oberon]

Let's just take a moment to consider Tsutomu Yamaguchi



Three kilometers from two nuclear explosions and he lives to the ripe old age of 93.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Tokyo wasn't particularly suitable as a target; much of it was burned to the ground over-night several months before in a firebombing raid that killed more people than either atomic bomb.

I guess the direction of war is never a task for the squeamish and it's easy to pontificate 70 years later, when you're not caught up in the pressure of events. The U.S. had already participated in a massive bombing campaign which had killed about three-quarters of a million German and Japanese civilians, and to which public opinion had raised few objections. It is much easier to justify the the decision to drop the atomic bombs than the continued fire-raising offensive of the Twentieth Air Force in Japan. The preoccupation of debate with the necessity of using using the bombs had meant that it always gets judged strategically against the looming invasion of the Home Islands, rather than the actual air bombardment underway at the time and with which it was unavoidably linked in the minds of the policy-makers at the time.

Cold as it may seem, General Curtis LeMay regarded the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids as merely an addition ( and a redundant and unwelcome addition) to a campaign he felt his B-29s had already decisively won. If anything he was annoyed that they diminished the credit given his conventional bombers for flattening Japan.

[Oberon]

I always find it...amusing is perhaps the word, that Le May would receive the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun after the war, perhaps for his services in city redesigning?

[Aktungbby]

that I wouldn't be posting at if not for the bomb

Originally Posted by Catfish

From what you can read, there was no careful waging of how much japanese civilians would die by a blockade, versus numbers of an invasion and own GIs killed, versus dropping the bomb.
It is all about justification.

Quite the contrary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

Originally Posted by Wolferz

It wasn't until the Japanese were overtly informed that Tokyo would be next in line that they finally saw the light.

In Nipponese that's "Saw the Right" They can't say L...

[Oberon]

Of course, that's not forgetting the possibility that the Allied invasion force would have been scattered to the four winds by Typhoon Louise which smashed into Okinawa as a Cat. 3 (185kmh/115mph winds) around about the time that the invasion was due to begin. This in turn would have given extra support to the Japanese who would have seen it as a sign from the Shinto gods in the same manner that the Mongolian fleets were scattered by the 'Kami-kaze' at Koan and Bun'ei. Their resistance would have increased even more.

[Torplexed]

One of the great fears of the Joint Chiefs was that historically no Japanese government had ever surrendered or, even if one did, that Japan's armed forces would comply with that surrender. Had Downfall gone ahead, the emperor might at some point been spirited away for "his safety" possibly squelching the only spark of hope for any sort of organized capitulation. If there was no organized surrender, the Joint Chiefs warned in a policy paper that they foresaw "no alternative to annihilation" of the between four and five million Japanese combatants in the home islands, on the Asian continent, and across the Pacific.

So, you have naval blockade that might result in starvation and disease for the millions on Japan with maybe millions more dying in China, the Netherlands East Indies and other Japanese occupied areas as the protracted conflict drags on.

You have a costly invasion pending that could take months if not years, might even entail the tactical use of atomic weapons and would reduce what was left of Japan to cinders.

And then you have the dropping of the two atomic bombs, which along with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria just might shock someone in authority in Japan into surrender.

The atomic bombs were awful. The alternatives seem much worse.

[Politenessman]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

I never said it is morally acceptable.
But I already explained why I would prefer (for example) a blockade, a demonstration, further tries of negotiations (yes yes, fanatic suicide samurai, all of them, I know...) over directly, instantly and willingly killing a few ten thousand people, favorably civilians.

If you drop these bombs and turn thousands to ashes, you bear the responsibility for that.
If you block the island because a stubborn government is unwilling to accept defeat - the responsibility shifts towards this government.
That makes a huge difference to me.

All I said in the end is that, for me, nothing justifies the usage of nuclear weapons. You start to disappoint me for not understanding this rather simple point of view/opinion, insisting that only because I condemn these actions I therefore have the burden to find a better solution, which is nonsensical actually.

"As to willingly let them starve - I never said that and honestly I think it is a very different thing to drop 2 bombs, killing thousands, or be passive about it and give things a CHANCE to maybe work out not as bad as we all predict today."

You state, as quoted above, that it not immoral to let the children starve,
as long as you have the option of "being passive" to pretend that you didn't cause their deaths. 2 things come from this,

1. you don't know what a blockade is, it is actively sinking or turning back all shipping, so your moral cover is gone - you are killing them, just on delay.
The other thing that comes out of the discussion is that it is all about your feelings rather than facts - Chinese, Malays, Singaporeans being raped, tortured or murdered and you can stop it, but it's no problem as long as you don't do anything that makes you feel bad about yourself.
POWS tortured, starved and murdered, all good as long as you feel good.
Millions of Japanese men women and children to starve in the blockade, no problem as long as you don't do anything "active" that makes you feel bad about yourself, no matter how farcical the excuse that you didn't do it to them.

I also note you have still failed to answer the question, if, since nothing justifies the atomic bombs, the invasion is necessary - would you volunteer to be in the first wave up the beach and die with the other 250,000 or so allied troops you'd condemn to that fate? yes or no will do.

Originally Posted by Politenessman

"As to willingly let them starve - I never said that and honestly I think it is a very different thing to drop 2 bombs, killing thousands, or be passive about it and give things a CHANCE to maybe work out not as bad as we all predict today."

You state, as quoted above, that it not immoral to let the children starve,
as long as you have the option of "being passive" to pretend that you didn't cause their deaths.

What? Are you fantasizing now?
That is not even remotely what I said and I have a completely different point of view on this issue.
Being passive is not actively killing them.
In case of a blockade the responsibility for the casualties (especially in the scenario we speak of) goes towards the Japanese government.
They can make this end any day, any moment - hence any casualties are on their account.

Dropping a nuclear bomb and accepting the instant death of some 70.000 civilians is nothing but murder, you can try to sugarcoat this as much as you want, it doesn't change its very nature.

Originally Posted by Politenessman

2 things come from this,

1. you don't know what a blockade is, it is actively sinking or turning back all shipping, so your moral cover is gone - you are killing them, just on delay.

Just read the above... and just stop trying to make me a villain with some hidden agenda using a "moral cover". I start to wonder what you're actually on about...

Originally Posted by Politenessman

The other thing that comes out of the discussion is that it is all about your feelings rather than facts - Chinese, Malays, Singaporeans being raped, tortured or murdered and you can stop it, but it's no problem as long as you don't do anything that makes you feel bad about yourself.
POWS tortured, starved and murdered, all good as long as you feel good.
Millions of Japanese men women and children to starve in the blockade, no problem as long as you don't do anything "active" that makes you feel bad about yourself, no matter how farcical the excuse that you didn't do it to them.

Ok, at this point you start to massively piss me off.
How twisted are you actually?
My point of view is rather simple, so I must assume you simply deny to understand it at this point and feel the need to take what I said and twist it in a way it suits your own point of view?
Sorry, won't be a apart of this crap.

Originally Posted by Politenessman

I also note you have still failed to answer the question, if, since nothing justifies the atomic bombs, the invasion is necessary - would you volunteer to be in the first wave up the beach and die with the other 250,000 or so allied troops you'd condemn to that fate? yes or no will do.

I also note that you must have reading comprehension problems and reading what you just said while I was writing this gives me the feeling that I hit some nerve as you now retreated to use personal attacks and passive aggressive behavior instead of addressing the topic.

Originally Posted by Politenessman

Also, I note you are still dodging the question I asked, which suggests that you lack the courage of your convictions.

Are you serious right now?
You were the one not posting in two days after I addressed you.
This is not how debates work. You can't just pick what you like and demand answers, you gotta answer for your own crap as well and you so far never addressed what I said/asked, you just tried to find 'something' that somehow suits your point of view even if it means to twist my words or make the wildest assumptions.

Doesn't matter at this point, I am completely done with you and won't pursue this debate any longer. Days ago, I clearly made my point, as did others. You are the only one here blaming others of being ignorant while failing to accept different view points.

Way to go!