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As to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I take the view that the former was justified, and the latter was probably not. There is every reason to believe t

As to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I take the view that the former was justified, and the latter was probably not. There is every reason to believe that Japan was preparing to fight on the home islands the way they had everywhere else; to the hilt, with little quarter given. Hiroshima while horrendous, was not terribly different from the firebombings of cities like Dresden and Tokyo. There’s no question that in the absence of an atomic bomb, conventional weapons would still have been deployed, and I suspect far more widely and with death tolls near or in excess of seven digit figures. So Hiroshima made sense. Then we really didn’t give them enough time to process the enormity of what had happened and surrender. They might not have, in which case Nagasaki was an option, but there are enough questions as to their full understanding of the events in Hiroshima that Nagasaki was premature, and possibly unnecessary. At the end of the day the world has been subjected to the second global conflict started by Germany’s desire to conquer Europe in a handful of decades. The appetite for a long slog to inevitable victory over a mountain of allied and Japanese corpses wasn’t there, and I don’t blame them,

cam_l 8y ago
Sure, Hiroshima was no worse than Dresden or Tokyo. I respectfully disagree that it was justified, I take the view all three are war crimes. I fully understand that a lot of people believe Hiroshima was necessary. And at the time I am sure a lot of the people involved believed it (not arguing this). But this was kind of my point. And you pretty much say as much. They were happy to sacrifice a hundred thousand innocents for the benefit of reducing the hard slog. We know now the Japanese forces were close to spent (relatively speaking). We know now they had offered conditional terms to the soviets. It is arguable that the US, in communications with the soviets, also knew the soviets were preparing to attack Japan, knew of Japans lack of offensive capability, but were concerned that the terms of surrender may end in a carve up of japan with the soviets. This was a careful and premeditated attack to further american interests for the post war, rather than a do or die fight for survival. Even with hindsight, (as in, if you knew then what you know now) people are loathe to admit it may not have been the correct course of action. Thing is, even when we know what we know now, and with the benefit of being someone without 'skin in the game', mentally, most people are with Thanos on these things. Somehow when faced with the scale of events people lose their shit, are unable to make morally defensible decisions. How about approaching it from an individual point of view and scaling up from there, what if a person burned someone alive because they believed it would deter some other person from invading their home? And the reason I brought it up, it is a well known story where the views of the designers, the victims, the proponents are all well known. Only one of them quit during the project, they all knew what they were doing. They knew it would kill children. Some of them cared, not enough to stop doing it. No idea who designed the cluster bombs. The only other well known weapons designer who has brought as much havoc I could think of is Kalashnikov, but that case is less certain. The cluster bombs, the atomic bomb, they were designed to kill indiscriminately. They knew it.
ThrowawayR2 8y ago
> Then we really didn’t give them enough time to process the enormity of what had happened and surrender. The whole point of using both bombs was to demonstrate not only that it had been achieved but also that it was easy to repeat indefinitely, since the consensus among German and Japanese scientists seemed to be that atomic bombs were impractical to implement in a reasonable timeframe. Had only one been used, or so the thinking went, the suspicion would have been there that it was a one-off thing. Moreover, by most accounts, use of the atomic bomb didn't really change the behind the scenes politics of the Japanese leadership, though it may have accelerated things. The faction who wanted to sue for peace continued to do so and the military continued to advocate continuation of the war even after both bombs were used.

cam_l 8y ago

Sure, Hiroshima was no worse than Dresden or Tokyo. I respectfully disagree that it was justified, I take the view all three are war crimes. I fully understand that a lot of people believe Hiroshima was necessary. And at the time I am sure a lot of the people involved believed it (not arguing this). But this was kind of my point. And you pretty much say as much. They were happy to sacrifice a hundred thousand innocents for the benefit of reducing the hard slog. We know now the Japanese forces were close to spent (relatively speaking). We know now they had offered conditional terms to the soviets. It is arguable that the US, in communications with the soviets, also knew the soviets were preparing to attack Japan, knew of Japans lack of offensive capability, but were concerned that the terms of surrender may end in a carve up of japan with the soviets. This was a careful and premeditated attack to further american interests for the post war, rather than a do or die fight for survival. Even with hindsight, (as in, if you knew then what you know now) people are loathe to admit it may not have been the correct course of action. Thing is, even when we know what we know now, and with the benefit of being someone without 'skin in the game', mentally, most people are with Thanos on these things. Somehow when faced with the scale of events people lose their shit, are unable to make morally defensible decisions. How about approaching it from an individual point of view and scaling up from there, what if a person burned someone alive because they believed it would deter some other person from invading their home? And the reason I brought it up, it is a well known story where the views of the designers, the victims, the proponents are all well known. Only one of them quit during the project, they all knew what they were doing. They knew it would kill children. Some of them cared, not enough to stop doing it. No idea who designed the cluster bombs. The only other well known weapons designer who has brought as much havoc I could think of is Kalashnikov, but that case is less certain. The cluster bombs, the atomic bomb, they were designed to kill indiscriminately. They knew it.

ThrowawayR2 8y ago

> Then we really didn’t give them enough time to process the enormity of what had happened and surrender. The whole point of using both bombs was to demonstrate not only that it had been achieved but also that it was easy to repeat indefinitely, since the consensus among German and Japanese scientists seemed to be that atomic bombs were impractical to implement in a reasonable timeframe. Had only one been used, or so the thinking went, the suspicion would have been there that it was a one-off thing. Moreover, by most accounts, use of the atomic bomb didn't really change the behind the scenes politics of the Japanese leadership, though it may have accelerated things. The faction who wanted to sue for peace continued to do so and the military continued to advocate continuation of the war even after both bombs were used.