7 ms·

Well yes, some consider that the atomic bombs saved lives by ending the war. If the bombs weren't dropped and the ware continued then those fire bombings would

by dalore 7y ago

Well yes, some consider that the atomic bombs saved lives by ending the war. If the bombs weren't dropped and the ware continued then those fire bombings would have killed even more.

robocat 7y ago
Your comment is based on the myth that the atomic bombs ended the war. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stone-kuznick-hiroshima-obama-20160524-snap-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stone-kuznick-hi... """ The atomic bombings, terrible and inhumane as they were, played little role in Japanese leaders' calculations to quickly surrender. After all, the U.S. had firebombed more than 100 Japanese cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just two more cities destroyed; whether the attack required one bomb or thousands didn't much matter. As Gen. Torashirō Kawabe, the deputy chief of staff, later told U.S. interrogators, the depth of devastation wrought in Hiroshima and Nagasaki only became known "in a gradual manner." But "in comparison, the Soviet entry into the war was a great shock." """ """ Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan. This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today. """
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Exactly, the soviet entry is clearly what led the leaders of Japan to surrender - the timeline also matches very closely. Not sure what we keep hearing the A-bomb propaganda such a long time after the facts.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    I have a U.S. Political History textbook (highschool level I believe) from 1949. The first page after the table of contents features a picture of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion, and a blurb about how the U.S.A. created an ultimate weapon that saved the lives of millions by forcing Japan to make peace. It was such a shock opening to that page the first time I opened the book... Understandable that the myth has propagated for so long; we were indoctrinating our children with this misinformation.
    - craftinator 7y ago
      Interesting, I started off by getting 6 or so upvotes; 1 day later, I'm down to -1. I wonder what changed?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    In the end the atomic bombs weren't really any different than the other tools of total war though, like all the aforementioned fire bombings. There's a lot of reasons the Japanese capitulated, and the relentless damage being inflicted across the entire country by the US (including the atomic bombings) was a very important reason. If the US had just backed off and stopped applying pressure on Japan, the war may never have ended, at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got). The continued bombing campaigns (including atomic bombs) was one way of continuing to apply pressure and force the war on towards its conclusion. You can get into a more general argument about what kinds of acts are tolerated in war, but the atomic bombs don't seem to stand out either way. The real question is, is it acceptable to target a civilian population? What about even if doing so will ultimately save more lives? Look at the civilian death toll Japan had been inflicting on China, for instance; is it ethical to inflict a smaller number of Japanese civilian deaths in order to prevent a larger number of ongoing Chinese civilian deaths?
    - soperj 7y ago
      > at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got) Terms that were un-necessary. Japan still has an emperor no? Could have ended the war much earlier if they wanted to.
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        It's hard to say with certainty. It's not like we can re-run history and try it again. Japan certainly turned out well with what did happen; it's not clear that a better outcome would have resulted from a less total surrender on their part. There's a lot of value in helping to move forward when you admit that you were completely beaten, not just mostly beaten; the latter leaves the door open for a repeat. And another factor is that we haven't had a nuclear war since Japan, which showed the horrors of nuclear warfare. Had that not happened, maybe real nuclear weapons would have been used by someone later on, when they were much more powerful and more numerous, and even when both sides possessed them? The bombings have helped ensure that something much worse hasn't happened since. And you know what, the Japanese government deserved it. They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary.
  - Fins 7y ago
    That's something that Soviets very much want the world to believe, but they have never had shown how they could even possibly get their troops anywhere near Japanese mainland, what with Russian/Soviet/Russian navy historically being more dangerous to people who serve there than any enemy. And whatever happened in Manchuria or Korea didn't really concern Japan by that point anyway.
    - Bendingo 7y ago
      There were enough of Soviet troops to invade Japanese puppet Manchukuo, and they were planning on going to Hokkaido. [1] Japan was plenty concerned, especially remembering the last time they met USSR military. [2] In fact, memories of that smashing were arguably the reason Japan turned east to Pearl Harbour, rather than west to Soviet Union. [3] [1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/red-army-invasion-manchuria.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/red-army-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13102802-nomonhan-1939 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13102802-nomonhan-1939
      - Fins 7y ago
        Oh, they had enough troops for Manchuria, but of course at that time what happened there wasn't all that important to the mainland, and USSR had little in the way of ability to get there anyway. What Zhukov had shown at Khalkhin Gol, just as against Germans, was that with a significant advantage in manpower and equipment (double the manpower, 7 times the tanks) Soviets can actually beat up someone.
    - KptMarchewa 7y ago
      There were no either Japanese Navy nor Japanese Air Force at this point, so quality of Soviet Navy does not matter. All they would need to do is to transport enough bodies to the islands.
      - Fins 7y ago
        You can't really move a massive invasion force on wooden rafts. Unless they would've asked form some D-Day leftovers, it's just not very feasible.
  - Tsubasachan 7y ago
    Well the reality is that the Japanese leadership at the time didn't give a damn about the suffering and death of its own people. There were those who wanted Japanese schoolgirls to charge American tanks with bamboo spears. After WW2 it was more convenient for everyone to say that Hiroshima was what ended the war. The picture of a bunch of crazy generals in a bunker planning Japanese resistance until literally the last man woman and child is not very flattering.
- Joakal 7y ago
  It's also the ending of WW2 in every movie, book and game exported from USA.
- fastball 7y ago
  Oliver Stone is a professional conspiracy theorist.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  Incidentally, after the second atomic bombing the, officers from the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many members of the Imperial Guard staged an attempted coup aimed at preventing the emperor from delivering his surrender. During this 'Kyūjō incident' the rebels managed to seize control of the Tokyo Imperial Palace, but of course ultimately failed, with their leaders committing suicide. To these incredible[ly misguided] men, both atomic bombings and the impending Soviet invasion were insufficient motivation for surrender. It's an incredible incident that few have ever heard of.
dmode 7y ago
I have heard this argument so many times, it almost seems like this has been drilled into American minds post fact to rationalize the only nuclear attack in human history. I can never take this argument seriously. There was no way there would have been more deaths unless the bombs were dropped. Imagine someone suggesting dropping a bomb in a dense city as an argument for “saving lives”. It seems absurd. Nobody knows how the exactly the war would have played out. So there was no guaranteed outcome. So, the bomb was dropped at best based on some probability.
- Double_a_92 7y ago
  > drilled into American minds This was also taught to me in Europe.
  - EmpirePhoenix 7y ago
    I had some suprisingly varied versions of this in school (also europe) a) to save lives b) the bombs were actually planned for use against berlin, but the nazis already collapsed when they were ready c) because how else could you ever test these weapons in a realcase scenario d) to force a unconditional victory The truth is probably as often a mixture of multiple interests at different levels with different motivations
- DanBC 7y ago
  > Imagine someone suggesting dropping a bomb in a dense city as an argument for “saving lives”. But they did say that, and they said that after the war too. Dresden fire bombing was justified partly with that kind of thinking. The US's use of "Shock and Awe" had the same aims. > Using as an example a theoretical invasion of Iraq 20 years after Operation Desert Storm, the authors claimed, "Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese."[10] > Reiterating the example in an interview with CBS News several months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ullman stated, "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."[11]
mikekchar 7y ago
If you are ever in Japan, IMHO, it is really interesting to go both to the Hiroshima peace memorial museum and the Yasukuni shrine war museum in Tokyo. The contrast is really interesting, especially wrt the interpretation of the end of WWII in Japan. I think it's fair to say that whoever you talk to there is a fair amount of propaganda pushing one, mostly political, view over another. What I can say with some certainty is that after the war more than 1 million people in Japan died of starvation due to the combined effects of the US blockade during the war and the poor food distribution system in Japan at the time. In fact, Japan's protectionist agricultural system of today is based on measures put in place by the occupational government, designed to ensure that such a famine could not occur again. Japan was already beaten by the time the atomic bombs were dropped. Firebombing would have been completely unnecessary. The US just needed to wait. The main issue, of course, was whether or not there would have been a conditional surrender or an unconditional surrender. Similarly talks of land invasions and militia trying to defend the main islands is also interesting, but actually pretty unrealistic. If you can find it, I recommend reading "Barefoot Gen" which is a manga about the time period written by someone who survived it. It is available in English. As someone who now makes Japan his home (and hopefully eventually obtain citizenship), I am of mixed feelings about the end of the war. It worked out the way it worked out and I think people would be hard pressed to say that the outcome was ultimately bad for Japan. I suspect that Japan was even dramatically better off for having lost the war. Hindsight is 20:20, of course. However, I think the rationalisation of the use of atomic weapons is pretty darn thin. The argument that it saved lives is incredibly speculative and really not based in any realistic evaluation of the situation at the time. Even today there is a lot of propaganda flying around. I try not to second guess that decision. Whatever reasons there were, it happened the way it did. However, I don't think we need to perpetuate the image of America doing no wrong. We don't have to rationalise the decision. It was what it was.

by dalore 7y ago

Well yes, some consider that the atomic bombs saved lives by ending the war. If the bombs weren't dropped and the ware continued then those fire bombings would have killed even more.

robocat 7y ago

Your comment is based on the myth that the atomic bombs ended the war. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stone-kuznick-hiroshima-obama-20160524-snap-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stone-kuznick-hi... """ The atomic bombings, terrible and inhumane as they were, played little role in Japanese leaders' calculations to quickly surrender. After all, the U.S. had firebombed more than 100 Japanese cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just two more cities destroyed; whether the attack required one bomb or thousands didn't much matter. As Gen. Torashirō Kawabe, the deputy chief of staff, later told U.S. interrogators, the depth of devastation wrought in Hiroshima and Nagasaki only became known "in a gradual manner." But "in comparison, the Soviet entry into the war was a great shock." """ """ Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan. This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today. """

ekianjo 7y ago
Exactly, the soviet entry is clearly what led the leaders of Japan to surrender - the timeline also matches very closely. Not sure what we keep hearing the A-bomb propaganda such a long time after the facts.
- craftinator 7y ago
  I have a U.S. Political History textbook (highschool level I believe) from 1949. The first page after the table of contents features a picture of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion, and a blurb about how the U.S.A. created an ultimate weapon that saved the lives of millions by forcing Japan to make peace. It was such a shock opening to that page the first time I opened the book... Understandable that the myth has propagated for so long; we were indoctrinating our children with this misinformation.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    Interesting, I started off by getting 6 or so upvotes; 1 day later, I'm down to -1. I wonder what changed?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  In the end the atomic bombs weren't really any different than the other tools of total war though, like all the aforementioned fire bombings. There's a lot of reasons the Japanese capitulated, and the relentless damage being inflicted across the entire country by the US (including the atomic bombings) was a very important reason. If the US had just backed off and stopped applying pressure on Japan, the war may never have ended, at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got). The continued bombing campaigns (including atomic bombs) was one way of continuing to apply pressure and force the war on towards its conclusion. You can get into a more general argument about what kinds of acts are tolerated in war, but the atomic bombs don't seem to stand out either way. The real question is, is it acceptable to target a civilian population? What about even if doing so will ultimately save more lives? Look at the civilian death toll Japan had been inflicting on China, for instance; is it ethical to inflict a smaller number of Japanese civilian deaths in order to prevent a larger number of ongoing Chinese civilian deaths?
  - soperj 7y ago
    > at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got) Terms that were un-necessary. Japan still has an emperor no? Could have ended the war much earlier if they wanted to.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      It's hard to say with certainty. It's not like we can re-run history and try it again. Japan certainly turned out well with what did happen; it's not clear that a better outcome would have resulted from a less total surrender on their part. There's a lot of value in helping to move forward when you admit that you were completely beaten, not just mostly beaten; the latter leaves the door open for a repeat. And another factor is that we haven't had a nuclear war since Japan, which showed the horrors of nuclear warfare. Had that not happened, maybe real nuclear weapons would have been used by someone later on, when they were much more powerful and more numerous, and even when both sides possessed them? The bombings have helped ensure that something much worse hasn't happened since. And you know what, the Japanese government deserved it. They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary.
- Fins 7y ago
  That's something that Soviets very much want the world to believe, but they have never had shown how they could even possibly get their troops anywhere near Japanese mainland, what with Russian/Soviet/Russian navy historically being more dangerous to people who serve there than any enemy. And whatever happened in Manchuria or Korea didn't really concern Japan by that point anyway.
  - Bendingo 7y ago
    There were enough of Soviet troops to invade Japanese puppet Manchukuo, and they were planning on going to Hokkaido. [1] Japan was plenty concerned, especially remembering the last time they met USSR military. [2] In fact, memories of that smashing were arguably the reason Japan turned east to Pearl Harbour, rather than west to Soviet Union. [3] [1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/red-army-invasion-manchuria.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/red-army-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13102802-nomonhan-1939 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13102802-nomonhan-1939
    - Fins 7y ago
      Oh, they had enough troops for Manchuria, but of course at that time what happened there wasn't all that important to the mainland, and USSR had little in the way of ability to get there anyway. What Zhukov had shown at Khalkhin Gol, just as against Germans, was that with a significant advantage in manpower and equipment (double the manpower, 7 times the tanks) Soviets can actually beat up someone.
  - KptMarchewa 7y ago
    There were no either Japanese Navy nor Japanese Air Force at this point, so quality of Soviet Navy does not matter. All they would need to do is to transport enough bodies to the islands.
    - Fins 7y ago
      You can't really move a massive invasion force on wooden rafts. Unless they would've asked form some D-Day leftovers, it's just not very feasible.
- Tsubasachan 7y ago
  Well the reality is that the Japanese leadership at the time didn't give a damn about the suffering and death of its own people. There were those who wanted Japanese schoolgirls to charge American tanks with bamboo spears. After WW2 it was more convenient for everyone to say that Hiroshima was what ended the war. The picture of a bunch of crazy generals in a bunker planning Japanese resistance until literally the last man woman and child is not very flattering.
Joakal 7y ago
It's also the ending of WW2 in every movie, book and game exported from USA.
fastball 7y ago
Oliver Stone is a professional conspiracy theorist.
darkpuma 7y ago
Incidentally, after the second atomic bombing the, officers from the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many members of the Imperial Guard staged an attempted coup aimed at preventing the emperor from delivering his surrender. During this 'Kyūjō incident' the rebels managed to seize control of the Tokyo Imperial Palace, but of course ultimately failed, with their leaders committing suicide. To these incredible[ly misguided] men, both atomic bombings and the impending Soviet invasion were insufficient motivation for surrender. It's an incredible incident that few have ever heard of.

dmode 7y ago

I have heard this argument so many times, it almost seems like this has been drilled into American minds post fact to rationalize the only nuclear attack in human history. I can never take this argument seriously. There was no way there would have been more deaths unless the bombs were dropped. Imagine someone suggesting dropping a bomb in a dense city as an argument for “saving lives”. It seems absurd. Nobody knows how the exactly the war would have played out. So there was no guaranteed outcome. So, the bomb was dropped at best based on some probability.

Double_a_92 7y ago
> drilled into American minds This was also taught to me in Europe.
- EmpirePhoenix 7y ago
  I had some suprisingly varied versions of this in school (also europe) a) to save lives b) the bombs were actually planned for use against berlin, but the nazis already collapsed when they were ready c) because how else could you ever test these weapons in a realcase scenario d) to force a unconditional victory The truth is probably as often a mixture of multiple interests at different levels with different motivations
DanBC 7y ago
> Imagine someone suggesting dropping a bomb in a dense city as an argument for “saving lives”. But they did say that, and they said that after the war too. Dresden fire bombing was justified partly with that kind of thinking. The US's use of "Shock and Awe" had the same aims. > Using as an example a theoretical invasion of Iraq 20 years after Operation Desert Storm, the authors claimed, "Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese."[10] > Reiterating the example in an interview with CBS News several months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ullman stated, "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."[11]

mikekchar 7y ago

If you are ever in Japan, IMHO, it is really interesting to go both to the Hiroshima peace memorial museum and the Yasukuni shrine war museum in Tokyo. The contrast is really interesting, especially wrt the interpretation of the end of WWII in Japan. I think it's fair to say that whoever you talk to there is a fair amount of propaganda pushing one, mostly political, view over another. What I can say with some certainty is that after the war more than 1 million people in Japan died of starvation due to the combined effects of the US blockade during the war and the poor food distribution system in Japan at the time. In fact, Japan's protectionist agricultural system of today is based on measures put in place by the occupational government, designed to ensure that such a famine could not occur again. Japan was already beaten by the time the atomic bombs were dropped. Firebombing would have been completely unnecessary. The US just needed to wait. The main issue, of course, was whether or not there would have been a conditional surrender or an unconditional surrender. Similarly talks of land invasions and militia trying to defend the main islands is also interesting, but actually pretty unrealistic. If you can find it, I recommend reading "Barefoot Gen" which is a manga about the time period written by someone who survived it. It is available in English. As someone who now makes Japan his home (and hopefully eventually obtain citizenship), I am of mixed feelings about the end of the war. It worked out the way it worked out and I think people would be hard pressed to say that the outcome was ultimately bad for Japan. I suspect that Japan was even dramatically better off for having lost the war. Hindsight is 20:20, of course. However, I think the rationalisation of the use of atomic weapons is pretty darn thin. The argument that it saved lives is incredibly speculative and really not based in any realistic evaluation of the situation at the time. Even today there is a lot of propaganda flying around. I try not to second guess that decision. Whatever reasons there were, it happened the way it did. However, I don't think we need to perpetuate the image of America doing no wrong. We don't have to rationalise the decision. It was what it was.