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I don’t get it: why doesn’t the USA get more flak for being the only country that has used nukes on people? This is a horrific crime against humanity that this

I don’t get it: why doesn’t the USA get more flak for being the only country that has used nukes on people? This is a horrific crime against humanity that this happened not once, but twice. Two bombs that killed ~250,000 people. The USA should be building monuments as a reminder of how they should never let it happen again. Instead, they are taught that it was necessary to end the war.

icelancer 8y ago
> Instead, they are taught that it was necessary to end the war. That is not what we are taught. What we are taught is that it was a terrible evil that was judged to be the better option of two evils. This is still potentially not true, and in hindsight with knowledge that the Japanese were not nearly as stubborn as we thought they were, it looks terrible. But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. Only idiots in America think that it was necessary to end the war. Quit knocking down strawmen.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  > But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. There's no evidence that anyone assumed it was the only way. It was simply a show of force.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    There was plenty of evidence from Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc to indicate that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child, and the plans for a land invasion of Japan assumed body counts that were horrific even by WW2 standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall That said, this doesn't really excuse dropping not one but two bombs on civilian centers. Dropping one a stone's throw from Tokyo (say, the Boso or Izu peninsulas) would likely have made the point as effectively and with less casualties.
    - kev6168 8y ago
      I have often thought about this (why didn't they drop the bombs at a few villages not very far from Tokyo to make the point?). Today I found in this thread and the 2016 discusssion two good(I think) reasons, one was to race against Stalin's possible invasion of Japan, another was to clearly showcase the power of the US to the _world_, not merely to the Japanese, in preparation for the ensuring cold war.
      - chha 8y ago
        This was also considered before the bombs were dropped, and has been documented. Wikipedia has some information on it [1], with the short version being that it wasn't possible to stage a credible demonstration without making an actual attack. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Choice_of_targets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      > There was plenty of evidence from Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc to indicate that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child. There was also a plenty of evidence that the U.S. wanted to "test" the bomb in a real-world scenario and to demonstrate its military might to a much wider audience than just Japan.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        >There was also a plenty of evidence that the U.S. wanted to "test" the bomb in a real-world scenario and to demonstrate its military might to a much wider audience than just Japan. Ascribe whatever nefarious motive you want. Those two bombs brought about the end of the war with a lot less casualties (on both sides) than the runner up option (invasion).
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > Those two bombs brought about the end of the war with a lot less casualties (on both sides) than the runner up option (invasion). You cannot know if a bloody invasion was the only other option. Perhaps doing a test and 'leaking' to the press that Japan was next would work too? Or bombing a non densely populated area? Also, you simply can't count the causalities of nuclear bombs the same way as conventional ones, since there will be related deaths for generations; increased cancer rates, birth defects etc.
- sydd 8y ago
  > But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. This is a bit like forgiving Nazis because they did not have the internet to read about Jews that they are not so evil.
  - ReptileMan 8y ago
    No - it was use nukes or waste 250000 to 500000 US lives (and possibly allow Stalin to occupy half of japan) to make them surrender.
    - clarkmoody 8y ago
      Perhaps there were more than two options?
    - sydd 8y ago
      According to the official U.S. standpoint. According to others Japan was already on the verge of collapse - supply chains broken, morale very low and all their allies were surrendering. Its very much possible the Japan would have surrendered a few months later anyway if the US does keeps up the sea blockade and does a few more normal bombing runs. NOTHING justifies killing 200.000 civilians, its a war crime.
      - ReptileMan 8y ago
        I doubt that they would have surrendered in couple of months in a way that would have not exposed Americans to risk of losing their lives.
- Jeema101 8y ago
  Of course it wasn't necessary, strictly speaking. An invasion may have worked (at probably an even greater loss of life). Waiting things out a while longer might have worked as well, but again may have resulted in more loss of life due to the ongoing blockade. What we do know as a fact - which seems to be glossed over by a lot of people - is that the Emperor specifically mentioned the bomb in his surrender speech as one of the reasons why they were surrendering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Voice_Broadcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Voice_Broadcast
bleh123 8y ago
How is using a nuke to kill people different from any other bomb (Apart from the obvious immediate scale)? The most lethal air raids were a result of more conventional warheads : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan And yes, this weapon put an end to the massive spilling of blood during WW2 in Japan. In case you didn't read the story before writing this comment here's the quote that reinforces what the reality for the soldiers there would have been: > "In the street, the first thing he saw was a squad of soldiers who had been burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests, and backs. They were silent and dazed." They very much intended to make it a long, slow, bloody combat until this episode.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  > How is using a nuke to kill people different from any other bomb Aside from that thing called radiation, the problem here is that the U.S. feels entitled to tell other nations who can/can't have nuclear arms, yet it is the only one to have used it in a war.
  - qball 8y ago
    >Aside from that thing called radiation Have you heard of "unexploded ordnance"? It's fallout that all conventional weapons become when they fail to explode, and unlike fallout it never actually goes away until someone digs it up. They come in many sizes; it either blows up you and the entire city block (if it's a larger bomb), or maybe just you and the guy standing next to you (if it's a cluster bomb unit or a mortar shell), or maybe it just takes your legs off (if it's a mine or a hand grenade). Europeans (Germans and French in particular), Africans, and people in certain Southeast Asian countries are very familiar with this concept; there has fortunately been no armed conflict on North American soil at a technology level that generates such fallout. The people of France will have to live for at least the next thousand years with the Zone Rouge (for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge), while not only have Hiroshima and Nagasaki been completely rebuilt but Ground Zero is perfectly habitable to the point of being an active tourist attraction. As far as nuclear arms control goes, the most intellectually honest lens with which to view it is through standard gun control with the nation-state as the individual actor; if that view is that the gun should be restricted to higher authorities only (and that it is hazardous to have too many in the hands of the common citizen/state), then the fact that the US feels entitled to tell others who should and shouldn't have a gun is entirely consistent with that. Perhaps that authority can't be held to account (because they have a gun and all you have is a promise that it won't be abused), but that's the trade-off. Perhaps the issue is that nuclear weapons aren't sufficiently easy to acquire; nations that are actually opposed to the American sphere of influence would then be better able to resist both overt and covert bullying by said Americans. (Whether or not that bullying results in a net positive for humanity is left as an exercise for the reader.)
saiya-jin 8y ago
From purely cold numbers and facts point of view (ie fanatical suicidal resistance US troops faced everywhere, projected into conquering whole Japan), it makes sense. That doesn't remove any force from that simple horrific statement of yours to be clear, it was the biggest mass murder of mostly civilians in history of mankind. But indiscrete bombing of German cities at the end of WWII wasn't that much better to be honest. As for why the cold harsh reality of this is ignored/amended, that is pretty easy to understand. You can see it in history of every single country, mine included. Dark parts of the past are not taught at school, and if they are usually in very subjective way. No country would ever approve teaching material that would paint it in any bad way if it can be omitted (but I presume Germany can't really avoid cold harsh look at the topic of WW II for example). One of the reason I am not fan of any form of stronger patriotism (apart from being 'loyalty to the real estate') - probably no country out there deserves to be smug about itself. I am looking at you France, US, Britain, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal etc etc. A bit of humility and self-criticism would benefit us all. Something in the vein of recognizing the mistakes of the past, so next generations can actually learn the hard lessons and try avoid them.
- novia 8y ago
  >but I presume Germany can't really avoid cold harsh look at the topic of WW II for example I'm sure they could find a way to avoid it. From what I've heard, talking to German citizens, Germany has made the choice to confront their history head-on, with no sugar-coating. They don't protect small children from learning about it. Everyone knows.
- justicezyx 8y ago
  What Japanese civilian shown in WWII is more like brain washed. Patriotism is about loving the nation for good. Japan is invading and killing tens of millions in Asia. I find your use of patriotism disturbing as a Chinese. That implies these people willing kill my ancestors because of their patriotism, and supposedly those deeds are less condemnable...
iofiiiiiiiii 8y ago
Perhaps not everyone shares your opinion.
peterwwillis 8y ago
Because there's so many other things to give us flak over? Civilian deaths related to the second Iraq war? - Between 155,923 and 174,355 (or if counting 2011-2017, 175,792 to 196,572) Civilian deaths caused by US and SV in Vietnam massacres? - Between 4,000 and 10,000, or 110,000 to 310,000 (Maybe double that, depending on how you count which people were killed and for what reasons) Native American Genocide? - Between 10 million and 114 milllion killed Enslavement and Transportation of Africans? - Between 10.7 million and 12.5 million But the real reason is we still have the most nukes, and a lot of money and influence. We may occasionally get the ICC or the UN condemning us, but we just ignore it, and all the other major powers do too. Why would a country that has done terrible things try to remember any of that, unless a more powerful country forced them to?
- zeroname 8y ago
  The real reason is that no other major country has a white vest either. Look at this list, the USA barely ever shows up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...
tomohawk 8y ago
The crime against humanity was the government of Japan's actions over several decades, culminating in WW II. Here's a light introduction to some of the atrocities committed by the criminals in this government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes Once these criminals attacked the US in Hawaii and the Philippines, it set a series of events in motion. Their unwillingness to stop their criminal activities was eventually met with decisive force. If you want to blame anyone, blame the government of Japan.
- sydd 8y ago
  The other being guilty does not acquit you from a crime. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were an act of genocide, there is nothing that makes this OK.
  - tomohawk 8y ago
    They were stopped. The criminal activities ceased. Japan is a completely different country today. It's not the fault of the US that the government of Japan militarized their whole society and literally made the whole of the country a military target.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Well, it's somebody's fault. Japan wanted to be left alone. Western powers took it to war to force it to their will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakumatsu#Foreign_frictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakumatsu#Foreign_frictions
      - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
        > Japan wanted to be left alone. Yeah, left alone to create the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperit...). You're welcome to ask the various Asian nations of that region whether they thought that was a good thing but I doubt you'd like the response.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 8y ago
>I don’t get it: why doesn’t the USA get more flak for being the only country that has used nukes on people? Who would they get flak from? They are the top dog. They can point fingers on others for even thinking of having nukes, invade countries that don't have nukes, and generally do as it pleases. And they can always say they did it to end the war sooner (which of course anyone can use to justify any such mass civilian killing in a war).
- zeroname 8y ago
  It's obviously not true that the US can do as it pleases, it can't afford to go to war whenever it wants, its army is really expensive. Also, virtually of the foreign interventions done by the US in the last decades have been failures. Just ask yourself, why are there all these crooked foreign leaders that make a living of antagonizing the US? If the US is really so powerful because of its nukes, why don't they just surrender?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >It's obviously not true that the US can do as it pleases, it can't afford to go to war whenever it wants, its army is really expensive. Yeah, and there's also limits due to physical laws and other such things. I thought "does as it pleases" covered things like war costs. >Also, virtually of the foreign interventions done by the US in the last decades have been failures. Depends on their purpose. To destabilize a region, or prevent them from dealing with euro currency and such, they worked well. >Just ask yourself, why are there all these crooked foreign leaders that make a living of antagonizing the US? If the US is really so powerful because of its nukes, why don't they just surrender? Because they have this thing called dignity.
sacado2 8y ago
I can totally buy the narrative that the first bomb was a necessary evil. But, yeah, launching the second one was definitely avoidable.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Five months before the nuclear bombs were detonated above Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US carried out Operating Meetinghouse which, over three nights, killed ~100,000 civilians and displaced 1,000,000 in Tokyo, effectively halving the industrial output of the whole city.[1] Perhaps the general feeling is, when you've already gone to that extent, and the extremes and excesses of WWII in general, which killed about 60,000,000[2] in total, about 3% of the 1940 world population, another 100,000 odd doesn't make much difference. Three percent of global population today would be about 231,000,000 people. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
badrabbit 8y ago
I don't get why you think such rules exist in war. In wars of disagreements you can talk about geneva convention and what not but when you're literally saving your people from death and mass rape-murder(nanjing massacare) the only surprise is how lenient the US was. The fact that the US hangs around a country aftet wars to help rebuild and control/stabilize the postwar government should also be considered. For future security,vengeance and a lesson to others it would be the typical route to commit genoicide and eradicate the germans,japanese and italians or at least permanently displace them from their homeland (which is what happens historically). The lesson here isn't how the US should or shouldn't have used nukes or how terrible the Japanese and Germans were. The lesson behind ww2 is it shouldn't happen again. Period. This is what happens in full on wars. Drill into your childrens minds the horrors of war so they're careful to never let it happen again. We now have the US,Russia and China yet again setting themselves on a global collision course. Americans don't know ww2 well enough to avert a repeat of it. They elect hitler like madmen,extremists and are perfecectly with spending 20% of the gdp on defence in times of peace. Russians who suffered more than americans in ww2 support a trigger happy egotistical leader. Horrors of ww2 should be shown to children with explicit detail. We need adults that understand what war means. I'll tell you another thing,the US and most nuclear powers would not hesitate to change the rules and use a nuke again to avert losing a war. First use policy only applies when you're not getting invaded or a significant number of civilians killed.
- thecanman 8y ago
  The moment you compared the current US president to Hitler is the moment your comment became incoherent and lost any semblance of a discussion you had going. Godwin's law in full force.
Mvandenbergh 8y ago
We tend to see the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki now through the lens of the thermonuclear age where superpowers had vast arsenals of thermonuclear tipped weapons ready to fly at a few minutes notice. As the first and only nuclear weapons used we assume that these must somehow be set-apart and treated as special, a lot of people also assume that they were specifically authorised by Truman (as the use of nuclear weapons was a strictly controlled presidential prerogative during the nuclear age). Another way of looking at it is not as the first nuclear bombing but as the last bombing of the second world war. In that context, even the deadlier of the two, Hiroshima, doesn't seem any worse than the strategic bombing in the rest of the war. Not just Tokyo and other Japanese cities, but the bombing raids on Germany, the Blitz in the UK, not to mention the vast horrors inflicted on civilians in Eastern Europe and in China. This context also explains why the last explicit order to use the bombs was weeks before they were dropped and came from General Groves, while there was some high level discussion about targets, the prosecution of the war was a purely military matter. Of course in retrospect, people began to see nuclear weapons as uniquely horrible, but that's really only because they became so powerful and so numerous.
- Synaesthesia 8y ago
  Firstly, they are the only instance of nuclear weapons being used on people. Secondly they are, by any measure, even by the standards of WW2, massive atrocities. 60000 people killed in an instant, an entire coty destroyed and of course the radioactive aftermath. The survivors experienced pain so great they begged nurses to kill them.
- Someone 8y ago
  ”the last bombing of the second world war.” Not even that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Atomic_bombings_and_final_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Atomic_bomb...: on 14 August […] 828 B-29s escorted by 186 fighters (for a total of 1,014 aircraft) were dispatched; during the day precision raids were made against targets at Iwakuni, Osaka and Tokoyama and at night the cities of Kumagaya and Isesaki were firebombed.
ransom1538 8y ago
https://youtu.be/iqH47MIpuoA https://youtu.be/iqH47MIpuoA
pmarreck 8y ago
Obama’s speech when he visited Hiroshima in 2016 was pretty good
ivanhoe 8y ago
Don't forget the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945, when 100K civilians were killed in a single attack (plus they used incendiary bombs and attacked during the night, when people were sleeping). Over a million people was left without homes as a result of bombing and fires that spread. Japanese and German armies did a lot of gruesome things in war, but the Allies actions at the end of the war agains civilians in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, etc. were IMHO on the edge of being war crimes as well...
Shivetya 8y ago
Simple really, the US action while horrific pales in comparison to the actions committed by the Axis powers. Let alone the bombing of Axis cities to close out the war. Yet even know the US action still pales compared to what some nations have done since. Yes the bomb is bad but it is by far not the worse thing that a government has done to the people of another or its own.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Both sides had already intentionally killed millions of civilians by this point. The nuclear deaths were more shocking, but I don't think you can reasonably argue that they had greater moral weight.
ThrowawayR2 8y ago
> Two bombs that killed ~250,000 people. The USA should be building monuments as a reminder of how they should never let it happen again. ... The Japanese caused somewhere between 17 and 22 million civilian deaths in China alone in that era according to Wikipedia, nearly double the estimate for even the German Holocaust. And that doesn't include what they did to other nations in Asia. By your logic, Japan should have a memorial on every street corner, yet they don't.

icelancer 8y ago

> Instead, they are taught that it was necessary to end the war. That is not what we are taught. What we are taught is that it was a terrible evil that was judged to be the better option of two evils. This is still potentially not true, and in hindsight with knowledge that the Japanese were not nearly as stubborn as we thought they were, it looks terrible. But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. Only idiots in America think that it was necessary to end the war. Quit knocking down strawmen.

AsyncAwait 8y ago
> But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. There's no evidence that anyone assumed it was the only way. It was simply a show of force.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  There was plenty of evidence from Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc to indicate that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child, and the plans for a land invasion of Japan assumed body counts that were horrific even by WW2 standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall That said, this doesn't really excuse dropping not one but two bombs on civilian centers. Dropping one a stone's throw from Tokyo (say, the Boso or Izu peninsulas) would likely have made the point as effectively and with less casualties.
  - kev6168 8y ago
    I have often thought about this (why didn't they drop the bombs at a few villages not very far from Tokyo to make the point?). Today I found in this thread and the 2016 discusssion two good(I think) reasons, one was to race against Stalin's possible invasion of Japan, another was to clearly showcase the power of the US to the _world_, not merely to the Japanese, in preparation for the ensuring cold war.
    - chha 8y ago
      This was also considered before the bombs were dropped, and has been documented. Wikipedia has some information on it [1], with the short version being that it wasn't possible to stage a credible demonstration without making an actual attack. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Choice_of_targets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    > There was plenty of evidence from Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc to indicate that Japan would fight to the last man, woman and child. There was also a plenty of evidence that the U.S. wanted to "test" the bomb in a real-world scenario and to demonstrate its military might to a much wider audience than just Japan.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >There was also a plenty of evidence that the U.S. wanted to "test" the bomb in a real-world scenario and to demonstrate its military might to a much wider audience than just Japan. Ascribe whatever nefarious motive you want. Those two bombs brought about the end of the war with a lot less casualties (on both sides) than the runner up option (invasion).
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > Those two bombs brought about the end of the war with a lot less casualties (on both sides) than the runner up option (invasion). You cannot know if a bloody invasion was the only other option. Perhaps doing a test and 'leaking' to the press that Japan was next would work too? Or bombing a non densely populated area? Also, you simply can't count the causalities of nuclear bombs the same way as conventional ones, since there will be related deaths for generations; increased cancer rates, birth defects etc.
sydd 8y ago
> But these are luxuries afforded to people with the Internet and decades of time to analyze the situation that President Truman did not have. This is a bit like forgiving Nazis because they did not have the internet to read about Jews that they are not so evil.
- ReptileMan 8y ago
  No - it was use nukes or waste 250000 to 500000 US lives (and possibly allow Stalin to occupy half of japan) to make them surrender.
  - clarkmoody 8y ago
    Perhaps there were more than two options?
  - sydd 8y ago
    According to the official U.S. standpoint. According to others Japan was already on the verge of collapse - supply chains broken, morale very low and all their allies were surrendering. Its very much possible the Japan would have surrendered a few months later anyway if the US does keeps up the sea blockade and does a few more normal bombing runs. NOTHING justifies killing 200.000 civilians, its a war crime.
    - ReptileMan 8y ago
      I doubt that they would have surrendered in couple of months in a way that would have not exposed Americans to risk of losing their lives.
Jeema101 8y ago
Of course it wasn't necessary, strictly speaking. An invasion may have worked (at probably an even greater loss of life). Waiting things out a while longer might have worked as well, but again may have resulted in more loss of life due to the ongoing blockade. What we do know as a fact - which seems to be glossed over by a lot of people - is that the Emperor specifically mentioned the bomb in his surrender speech as one of the reasons why they were surrendering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Voice_Broadcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Voice_Broadcast

bleh123 8y ago

How is using a nuke to kill people different from any other bomb (Apart from the obvious immediate scale)? The most lethal air raids were a result of more conventional warheads : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan And yes, this weapon put an end to the massive spilling of blood during WW2 in Japan. In case you didn't read the story before writing this comment here's the quote that reinforces what the reality for the soldiers there would have been: > "In the street, the first thing he saw was a squad of soldiers who had been burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests, and backs. They were silent and dazed." They very much intended to make it a long, slow, bloody combat until this episode.

AsyncAwait 8y ago
> How is using a nuke to kill people different from any other bomb Aside from that thing called radiation, the problem here is that the U.S. feels entitled to tell other nations who can/can't have nuclear arms, yet it is the only one to have used it in a war.
- qball 8y ago
  >Aside from that thing called radiation Have you heard of "unexploded ordnance"? It's fallout that all conventional weapons become when they fail to explode, and unlike fallout it never actually goes away until someone digs it up. They come in many sizes; it either blows up you and the entire city block (if it's a larger bomb), or maybe just you and the guy standing next to you (if it's a cluster bomb unit or a mortar shell), or maybe it just takes your legs off (if it's a mine or a hand grenade). Europeans (Germans and French in particular), Africans, and people in certain Southeast Asian countries are very familiar with this concept; there has fortunately been no armed conflict on North American soil at a technology level that generates such fallout. The people of France will have to live for at least the next thousand years with the Zone Rouge (for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge), while not only have Hiroshima and Nagasaki been completely rebuilt but Ground Zero is perfectly habitable to the point of being an active tourist attraction. As far as nuclear arms control goes, the most intellectually honest lens with which to view it is through standard gun control with the nation-state as the individual actor; if that view is that the gun should be restricted to higher authorities only (and that it is hazardous to have too many in the hands of the common citizen/state), then the fact that the US feels entitled to tell others who should and shouldn't have a gun is entirely consistent with that. Perhaps that authority can't be held to account (because they have a gun and all you have is a promise that it won't be abused), but that's the trade-off. Perhaps the issue is that nuclear weapons aren't sufficiently easy to acquire; nations that are actually opposed to the American sphere of influence would then be better able to resist both overt and covert bullying by said Americans. (Whether or not that bullying results in a net positive for humanity is left as an exercise for the reader.)

saiya-jin 8y ago

From purely cold numbers and facts point of view (ie fanatical suicidal resistance US troops faced everywhere, projected into conquering whole Japan), it makes sense. That doesn't remove any force from that simple horrific statement of yours to be clear, it was the biggest mass murder of mostly civilians in history of mankind. But indiscrete bombing of German cities at the end of WWII wasn't that much better to be honest. As for why the cold harsh reality of this is ignored/amended, that is pretty easy to understand. You can see it in history of every single country, mine included. Dark parts of the past are not taught at school, and if they are usually in very subjective way. No country would ever approve teaching material that would paint it in any bad way if it can be omitted (but I presume Germany can't really avoid cold harsh look at the topic of WW II for example). One of the reason I am not fan of any form of stronger patriotism (apart from being 'loyalty to the real estate') - probably no country out there deserves to be smug about itself. I am looking at you France, US, Britain, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal etc etc. A bit of humility and self-criticism would benefit us all. Something in the vein of recognizing the mistakes of the past, so next generations can actually learn the hard lessons and try avoid them.

novia 8y ago
>but I presume Germany can't really avoid cold harsh look at the topic of WW II for example I'm sure they could find a way to avoid it. From what I've heard, talking to German citizens, Germany has made the choice to confront their history head-on, with no sugar-coating. They don't protect small children from learning about it. Everyone knows.
justicezyx 8y ago
What Japanese civilian shown in WWII is more like brain washed. Patriotism is about loving the nation for good. Japan is invading and killing tens of millions in Asia. I find your use of patriotism disturbing as a Chinese. That implies these people willing kill my ancestors because of their patriotism, and supposedly those deeds are less condemnable...

iofiiiiiiiii 8y ago

Perhaps not everyone shares your opinion.

peterwwillis 8y ago

Because there's so many other things to give us flak over? Civilian deaths related to the second Iraq war? - Between 155,923 and 174,355 (or if counting 2011-2017, 175,792 to 196,572) Civilian deaths caused by US and SV in Vietnam massacres? - Between 4,000 and 10,000, or 110,000 to 310,000 (Maybe double that, depending on how you count which people were killed and for what reasons) Native American Genocide? - Between 10 million and 114 milllion killed Enslavement and Transportation of Africans? - Between 10.7 million and 12.5 million But the real reason is we still have the most nukes, and a lot of money and influence. We may occasionally get the ICC or the UN condemning us, but we just ignore it, and all the other major powers do too. Why would a country that has done terrible things try to remember any of that, unless a more powerful country forced them to?

zeroname 8y ago
The real reason is that no other major country has a white vest either. Look at this list, the USA barely ever shows up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...

tomohawk 8y ago

The crime against humanity was the government of Japan's actions over several decades, culminating in WW II. Here's a light introduction to some of the atrocities committed by the criminals in this government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes Once these criminals attacked the US in Hawaii and the Philippines, it set a series of events in motion. Their unwillingness to stop their criminal activities was eventually met with decisive force. If you want to blame anyone, blame the government of Japan.

sydd 8y ago
The other being guilty does not acquit you from a crime. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were an act of genocide, there is nothing that makes this OK.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  They were stopped. The criminal activities ceased. Japan is a completely different country today. It's not the fault of the US that the government of Japan militarized their whole society and literally made the whole of the country a military target.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, it's somebody's fault. Japan wanted to be left alone. Western powers took it to war to force it to their will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakumatsu#Foreign_frictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakumatsu#Foreign_frictions
    - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
      > Japan wanted to be left alone. Yeah, left alone to create the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperit...). You're welcome to ask the various Asian nations of that region whether they thought that was a good thing but I doubt you'd like the response.

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coldtea 8y ago

>I don’t get it: why doesn’t the USA get more flak for being the only country that has used nukes on people? Who would they get flak from? They are the top dog. They can point fingers on others for even thinking of having nukes, invade countries that don't have nukes, and generally do as it pleases. And they can always say they did it to end the war sooner (which of course anyone can use to justify any such mass civilian killing in a war).

zeroname 8y ago
It's obviously not true that the US can do as it pleases, it can't afford to go to war whenever it wants, its army is really expensive. Also, virtually of the foreign interventions done by the US in the last decades have been failures. Just ask yourself, why are there all these crooked foreign leaders that make a living of antagonizing the US? If the US is really so powerful because of its nukes, why don't they just surrender?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >It's obviously not true that the US can do as it pleases, it can't afford to go to war whenever it wants, its army is really expensive. Yeah, and there's also limits due to physical laws and other such things. I thought "does as it pleases" covered things like war costs. >Also, virtually of the foreign interventions done by the US in the last decades have been failures. Depends on their purpose. To destabilize a region, or prevent them from dealing with euro currency and such, they worked well. >Just ask yourself, why are there all these crooked foreign leaders that make a living of antagonizing the US? If the US is really so powerful because of its nukes, why don't they just surrender? Because they have this thing called dignity.

sacado2 8y ago

I can totally buy the narrative that the first bomb was a necessary evil. But, yeah, launching the second one was definitely avoidable.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

Five months before the nuclear bombs were detonated above Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US carried out Operating Meetinghouse which, over three nights, killed ~100,000 civilians and displaced 1,000,000 in Tokyo, effectively halving the industrial output of the whole city.[1] Perhaps the general feeling is, when you've already gone to that extent, and the extremes and excesses of WWII in general, which killed about 60,000,000[2] in total, about 3% of the 1940 world population, another 100,000 odd doesn't make much difference. Three percent of global population today would be about 231,000,000 people. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

badrabbit 8y ago

I don't get why you think such rules exist in war. In wars of disagreements you can talk about geneva convention and what not but when you're literally saving your people from death and mass rape-murder(nanjing massacare) the only surprise is how lenient the US was. The fact that the US hangs around a country aftet wars to help rebuild and control/stabilize the postwar government should also be considered. For future security,vengeance and a lesson to others it would be the typical route to commit genoicide and eradicate the germans,japanese and italians or at least permanently displace them from their homeland (which is what happens historically). The lesson here isn't how the US should or shouldn't have used nukes or how terrible the Japanese and Germans were. The lesson behind ww2 is it shouldn't happen again. Period. This is what happens in full on wars. Drill into your childrens minds the horrors of war so they're careful to never let it happen again. We now have the US,Russia and China yet again setting themselves on a global collision course. Americans don't know ww2 well enough to avert a repeat of it. They elect hitler like madmen,extremists and are perfecectly with spending 20% of the gdp on defence in times of peace. Russians who suffered more than americans in ww2 support a trigger happy egotistical leader. Horrors of ww2 should be shown to children with explicit detail. We need adults that understand what war means. I'll tell you another thing,the US and most nuclear powers would not hesitate to change the rules and use a nuke again to avert losing a war. First use policy only applies when you're not getting invaded or a significant number of civilians killed.

thecanman 8y ago
The moment you compared the current US president to Hitler is the moment your comment became incoherent and lost any semblance of a discussion you had going. Godwin's law in full force.

Mvandenbergh 8y ago

We tend to see the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki now through the lens of the thermonuclear age where superpowers had vast arsenals of thermonuclear tipped weapons ready to fly at a few minutes notice. As the first and only nuclear weapons used we assume that these must somehow be set-apart and treated as special, a lot of people also assume that they were specifically authorised by Truman (as the use of nuclear weapons was a strictly controlled presidential prerogative during the nuclear age). Another way of looking at it is not as the first nuclear bombing but as the last bombing of the second world war. In that context, even the deadlier of the two, Hiroshima, doesn't seem any worse than the strategic bombing in the rest of the war. Not just Tokyo and other Japanese cities, but the bombing raids on Germany, the Blitz in the UK, not to mention the vast horrors inflicted on civilians in Eastern Europe and in China. This context also explains why the last explicit order to use the bombs was weeks before they were dropped and came from General Groves, while there was some high level discussion about targets, the prosecution of the war was a purely military matter. Of course in retrospect, people began to see nuclear weapons as uniquely horrible, but that's really only because they became so powerful and so numerous.

Synaesthesia 8y ago
Firstly, they are the only instance of nuclear weapons being used on people. Secondly they are, by any measure, even by the standards of WW2, massive atrocities. 60000 people killed in an instant, an entire coty destroyed and of course the radioactive aftermath. The survivors experienced pain so great they begged nurses to kill them.
Someone 8y ago
”the last bombing of the second world war.” Not even that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Atomic_bombings_and_final_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Atomic_bomb...: on 14 August […] 828 B-29s escorted by 186 fighters (for a total of 1,014 aircraft) were dispatched; during the day precision raids were made against targets at Iwakuni, Osaka and Tokoyama and at night the cities of Kumagaya and Isesaki were firebombed.

ransom1538 8y ago

https://youtu.be/iqH47MIpuoA https://youtu.be/iqH47MIpuoA

pmarreck 8y ago

Obama’s speech when he visited Hiroshima in 2016 was pretty good

ivanhoe 8y ago

Don't forget the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945, when 100K civilians were killed in a single attack (plus they used incendiary bombs and attacked during the night, when people were sleeping). Over a million people was left without homes as a result of bombing and fires that spread. Japanese and German armies did a lot of gruesome things in war, but the Allies actions at the end of the war agains civilians in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, etc. were IMHO on the edge of being war crimes as well...

Shivetya 8y ago

Simple really, the US action while horrific pales in comparison to the actions committed by the Axis powers. Let alone the bombing of Axis cities to close out the war. Yet even know the US action still pales compared to what some nations have done since. Yes the bomb is bad but it is by far not the worse thing that a government has done to the people of another or its own.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

Both sides had already intentionally killed millions of civilians by this point. The nuclear deaths were more shocking, but I don't think you can reasonably argue that they had greater moral weight.

ThrowawayR2 8y ago

> Two bombs that killed ~250,000 people. The USA should be building monuments as a reminder of how they should never let it happen again. ... The Japanese caused somewhere between 17 and 22 million civilian deaths in China alone in that era according to Wikipedia, nearly double the estimate for even the German Holocaust. And that doesn't include what they did to other nations in Asia. By your logic, Japan should have a memorial on every street corner, yet they don't.