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It’s debatable because we just don’t know when the surrender would have taken place in the absense of the bombings. We can look at statements by leaders on what
by skh 8y ago
It’s debatable because we just don’t know when the surrender would have taken place in the absense of the bombings. We can look at statements by leaders on what they would have done under the hypothetical of them not occurring but we still wouldn’t know what would have happened if they didn’t occur. Perhaps one nuke was not enough to induce surrender. When the second occurs maybe it’s enough to induce. Maybe they were arguing amongst themselves on how to surrender with honor or some other nitpick but then the nukes quickly ended any internal discussions. Post facto the leaders can say this or that but we’ll never really know what they would have done if bombings didn’t occur.
There is moral ambiguity on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For one, you view the actions with the benefit of hindsight and with the moral views of a different era. So in your mind you can say they were definitely moral crimes but you can’t objectively demonstrate this in the sense of convincing most people that you are right.
Was the bombing of Dresden racially motivated? I’ve never thought it so. There were certain racial views against the Japanese but that doesn’t make the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima racially motivated. Was the Tokyo fire raid racially motivated? What about the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima? We could have blockaded Japan and possibly forced their surrender. Of course that wouldn’t have stopped the 2 million or so Japanese soldiers in China from doing their fighting.
Yes, McNamara said that. Was he right? I don’t think so. The Germans and the Japanese had no need for trials of conquered leaders. They just killed them. It’s interesting to think about the what ifs and claim this action was unnecessary or that action was morally criminal. We’ll disagree on the efficacy of the nuclear attacks. My previous post was mostly to point out that the bombings weren’t meant to serve tactical military considerations. That the bombings were political and hence it’s perfectly reasonable that the military leaders would consider them militarily useless even if they weren’t useless in the broader political context. Military leaders don’t always get it right. McArthur famously wanted to nuke China like 50 times during the Korean War.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoI find the notion that morality can be objectively demonstrated by convincing a majority that your viewpoint is correct very interesting notion... In any case, I also think the charge of racism is a bit uncalled for, the complete disregard for human suffering exemplified by the firebombing campaigns are surely enough to qualify as very serious war crimes all on their own. (Though to claim that an America that was interning all its japan connected citizens in camps was acting without any racial impulses do seem rather implausible)
- krapp 8y agoThe Manhattan Project wasn't focused on developing the atomic bombs just for dropping on the Japanese. The US was afraid of Germany developing a bomb first, and evidence presented here[0], at least, suggests several tactical and strategic reasons for choosing Japan over Germany (such as superior German air support, the perceived greater likelihood of Germany's imminent surrender versus Japan, and fears that Germany might better be able to reverse engineer a dud than the Japanese.) None of this suggests a primarily racially-motivated rationale. The evidence doesn't seem to support the premise that the US bombed Japan because they were Asians and didn't bomb Germany because they were Caucasians. Although, racism and xenophobia likely informed American public opinion of the bombings after the fact. There's no way to know how that would have played out had Germany been bombed, or both Germany and Japan. [0]http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/atomic-bomb-used-nazi-germany/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/atomic-bomb-used-n...
- kcorbitt 8y ago> several tactical and strategic reasons for choosing Japan over Germany (such as superior German air support, the perceived greater likelihood of Germany's imminent surrender versus Japan, and fears that Germany might better be able to reverse engineer a dud than the Japanese.) ...well, there was also the fact that Germany had already surrendered by the time the first atom bomb was built.
- krapp 8y ago>...well, there was also the fact that Germany had already surrendered by the time the first atom bomb was built. That did probably make the calculus a lot simpler.