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They didn't know of the effects the bomb would have on the hibakusha. In a total war scenario, civilians who are engaged in support activities for the war effo

They didn't know of the effects the bomb would have on the hibakusha. In a total war scenario, civilians who are engaged in support activities for the war effort are valid targets. If the Germans or the Japanese could have, do you think they wouldn't have bombed American steel factories and weapons plants? After what the Japanese military did to the people in Nanking, they have NO right to stand on moral high ground and complain about what happened to their civilians. Americans didn't force children to watch their mothers being raped, the Japanese did that. Americans didn't give children candy laced with anthrax spores, the Japanese did that. Americans didn't force Japanese women to endure hundreds of rapes as "comfort women", the Japanese did that. Americans didn't force Japanese civilians or POWs to take part in lethal experiments, the Japanese did that. Dropping those bombs was right. Dropping those bombs was just. Yes, those were the times and the existential threat of nuclear weapons was the only message that particular enemy was prepared to receive.

hga 11y ago
They didn't know of the effects the bomb would have on the hibakusha. As far as I can tell, it's the severe discrimination they received at the hands of their countrymen that was/is their biggest problem, e.g. as Wikipedia puts it, "The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation." The physical injuries we inflicted with the atomic bombings were on a par with our systematic firebombings of their cities, especially when everything came together and a firestorm developed, like in the first firebombing of Tokyo that killed 100,000, and Hiroshima.
srean 11y ago
Right. American troops even sang Kumbaya in Vietnam. Napalm, agent orange cough cough. Remind me again which country has dropped the most amount of explosives in other countries and how does that measure up with the second highest.
- LordKano 11y ago
  American soldiers have done terrible things. Know what's different? When they were running amok in My Lai, there were American civilians protesting against the war back at home. There were American civilians being shot by national guardsmen because they were opposed to what the military was doing to strangers on the other side of the planet. The Japanese had been preparing to fight to the last man before those bombs dropped. It was the right thing to do.
  - hga 11y ago
    It should also be pointed out that My Lai and Kent State were aberrations, the former punished, the latter unsuccessfully prosecuted, but the authorities did attempt it. The mass murder of untermenschen in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere by every means known to man, the Bataan Death March and general savagery towards POWs, was Imperial Japanese policy.
  - srean 11y ago
    To me what is very amusingly different is the holier than though, upholder of freedom and democracy chip on their shoulder many wear to a fault. Given history (both old and recent) it takes some chutzpah (and perhaps ignorance / indoctrination) to wear that attitude when one is responsible for enslavement of one race and, for all practical purposes, political depopulation of another. I bear no ill will, far from it, just something that tickles my funny bone in some dark way.
    - LordKano 11y ago
      My ancestry contains enslaved Africans, indentured servant Irish and Native Americans. The history of this country isn't some dry, academic matter for me. It's how I came to exist. This country isn't perfect. This country has done some terrible things, especially to non-whites and Jews but that doesn't change any of my previous points.

hga 11y ago

They didn't know of the effects the bomb would have on the hibakusha. As far as I can tell, it's the severe discrimination they received at the hands of their countrymen that was/is their biggest problem, e.g. as Wikipedia puts it, "The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation." The physical injuries we inflicted with the atomic bombings were on a par with our systematic firebombings of their cities, especially when everything came together and a firestorm developed, like in the first firebombing of Tokyo that killed 100,000, and Hiroshima.

srean 11y ago

Right. American troops even sang Kumbaya in Vietnam. Napalm, agent orange cough cough. Remind me again which country has dropped the most amount of explosives in other countries and how does that measure up with the second highest.

LordKano 11y ago
American soldiers have done terrible things. Know what's different? When they were running amok in My Lai, there were American civilians protesting against the war back at home. There were American civilians being shot by national guardsmen because they were opposed to what the military was doing to strangers on the other side of the planet. The Japanese had been preparing to fight to the last man before those bombs dropped. It was the right thing to do.
- hga 11y ago
  It should also be pointed out that My Lai and Kent State were aberrations, the former punished, the latter unsuccessfully prosecuted, but the authorities did attempt it. The mass murder of untermenschen in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere by every means known to man, the Bataan Death March and general savagery towards POWs, was Imperial Japanese policy.
- srean 11y ago
  To me what is very amusingly different is the holier than though, upholder of freedom and democracy chip on their shoulder many wear to a fault. Given history (both old and recent) it takes some chutzpah (and perhaps ignorance / indoctrination) to wear that attitude when one is responsible for enslavement of one race and, for all practical purposes, political depopulation of another. I bear no ill will, far from it, just something that tickles my funny bone in some dark way.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    My ancestry contains enslaved Africans, indentured servant Irish and Native Americans. The history of this country isn't some dry, academic matter for me. It's how I came to exist. This country isn't perfect. This country has done some terrible things, especially to non-whites and Jews but that doesn't change any of my previous points.