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> Truman’s demand for Japan’s unconditional surrender to end the war was indefensible. I don't think that Japan deserved any sort of mercy after what they did

> Truman’s demand for Japan’s unconditional surrender to end the war was indefensible. I don't think that Japan deserved any sort of mercy after what they did in the 30's and 40's to China and the surrounding area, not to mention provoking war with the United States.

School-Cotton 3y ago
Civilians did not do that
- t3rra 3y ago
  Japanese had killed so many civilians from other countries. They did not do any harm to Japan. So what?
  - JackeJR 3y ago
    2 wrong does not make 1 right
    - nickcox 3y ago
      Yeah, that is pretty much Ethics 101. I think it's time to bring back ethics lessons in schools.
      - shepherdjerred 3y ago
        Ethics is a great intellectual exercise. Ethics does nothing to protect the innocent.
  - seanthemon 3y ago
    Following your logic: "America had killed so many civilians from other countries..."
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      The United States has done a lot of wrong in the world, and has taken many innocent lives. It has not done anything near the magnitude of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. If the United States engaged in _true_, genocide, killed millions, or annexed other countries, then I would fully support a war against it. I don't believe that the United States has done more wrong than good in its existence purely because of the atrocities of the Axis.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    This is the logic terrorist groups use.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  One of the reasons given was the bomb would save more civilian lives by not extending the war. Estimated 30 million.
  - lmm 3y ago
    By that logic any violation of the rules of war is justified, as long as you win afterwards.
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  This line of argument always seems weird to me. The Imperial Japanese Army was made up of conscripted _civilians_. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; ordinary folk from all walks of life were conscripted into the IJA and given training and sent off to invade other parts of Asia, where they committed various atrocities on a par with the Nazis. Civilians did do that. As for why, IMO the strong militarism that was part of their culture in that era is probably a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism
  - TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
    Technically speaking every military is made up of civilians … every soldier was once a civilian. That said, there is a difference between you voluntarily signing up to join the military and you being dragged into it.
    - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
      To state the obvious, civilians can get dragged into something and manage not to commit atrocities. The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. They weren't drugged, lobotomized, or transformed into robots either. What they did came from within themselves.
      - TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
        > The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. Maybe not directly. 100s of thousands of people don't commit atrocities just out of the blue. Their doctrine was pretty hardcore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi
- shepherdjerred 3y ago
  Ultimately it is the civilians who provide the resources for their government and military to function. If your government engaged in widespread offensive wars that leave millions dead, then I think that your civilians become a valid military target. If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians?
  - catlover76 3y ago
    > If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians? At a time when we have seen the Israel-Palestine conflict ratchet up to the worst levels of violence in decades, maybe we should be hesitant to accept this position. This kind of thinking on both sides there is part of how and why they are where they are.
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      You might interpret my previous comment as saying "it's okay to kill civilians", which wasn't my point. To phrase it a little better: if some country is committing atrocities at scale, then I believe any amount of force is justified to bring that to an end.
      - catlover76 3y ago
        Yeah, sorry, after rereading your comment, I realized I may have responded to a point you didn't quite make.
  - kiba 3y ago
    History has demonstrated that kind of thinking is going to harden resolve. It's militarily useless and morally repugnant.
kiba 3y ago
The article argued that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima isn't really a military necessity. I would also argue that the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army can only be remedied through military defeat and tribunals afterward, not terror bombing civilians.
- defrost 3y ago
  The nuclear bombs are entirely orthogobal to the bombing of H & N. What many seem to have forgotten is that H&N were cities already on a kill list. Prior to the atomic bombs being dropped the US had already carpet bombed 72 other cities, including Tokyo, and they had a list of future targets to destroy. H&N were picked off that list as they were essentially untouched at that point and were "clean ground" to test the field use of two different bomb designs after the "lab test" at Trinity. The argument is whether a policy of total warfare | destruction was neccesary, the carpet bombing of cities to date was much more cost effective (at that point in the war) than the use of limited extremely expensive atomic weapons. The neccessity to use bombs developed to counter possible German atomic weapons on a rapidly dwindling Japan now that Germany had been defeated was a kind of military necessity .. the window for live field testing was rapidly closing given the approach of Russians from the north and relative lack of untouched targets. That aside, the bald unpleasant fact of the time is simple; had H&N not been atom bombed they would have been firebombed .. with very similar levels of death and follow on disease.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    Yes, somehow people forget that Tokyo bombing was even costlier in human lives than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Then the military usefulness, and the morality, of these fire bombing would deserve to be questioned as much as the atomic bombing (they may even have prolonged the war, by strengthening the Japanese resolve)
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    Well beyond "live field testing on untouched targets", the purpose of dropping the bombs was to display the capability to the USSR, and thus assert the US position as hegemon.

School-Cotton 3y ago

Civilians did not do that

t3rra 3y ago
Japanese had killed so many civilians from other countries. They did not do any harm to Japan. So what?
- JackeJR 3y ago
  2 wrong does not make 1 right
  - nickcox 3y ago
    Yeah, that is pretty much Ethics 101. I think it's time to bring back ethics lessons in schools.
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      Ethics is a great intellectual exercise. Ethics does nothing to protect the innocent.
- seanthemon 3y ago
  Following your logic: "America had killed so many civilians from other countries..."
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    The United States has done a lot of wrong in the world, and has taken many innocent lives. It has not done anything near the magnitude of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. If the United States engaged in _true_, genocide, killed millions, or annexed other countries, then I would fully support a war against it. I don't believe that the United States has done more wrong than good in its existence purely because of the atrocities of the Axis.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  This is the logic terrorist groups use.
ipaddr 3y ago
One of the reasons given was the bomb would save more civilian lives by not extending the war. Estimated 30 million.
- lmm 3y ago
  By that logic any violation of the rules of war is justified, as long as you win afterwards.
ThrowawayR2 3y ago
This line of argument always seems weird to me. The Imperial Japanese Army was made up of conscripted _civilians_. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; ordinary folk from all walks of life were conscripted into the IJA and given training and sent off to invade other parts of Asia, where they committed various atrocities on a par with the Nazis. Civilians did do that. As for why, IMO the strong militarism that was part of their culture in that era is probably a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Technically speaking every military is made up of civilians … every soldier was once a civilian. That said, there is a difference between you voluntarily signing up to join the military and you being dragged into it.
  - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
    To state the obvious, civilians can get dragged into something and manage not to commit atrocities. The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. They weren't drugged, lobotomized, or transformed into robots either. What they did came from within themselves.
    - TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
      > The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. Maybe not directly. 100s of thousands of people don't commit atrocities just out of the blue. Their doctrine was pretty hardcore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi
shepherdjerred 3y ago
Ultimately it is the civilians who provide the resources for their government and military to function. If your government engaged in widespread offensive wars that leave millions dead, then I think that your civilians become a valid military target. If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians?
- catlover76 3y ago
  > If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians? At a time when we have seen the Israel-Palestine conflict ratchet up to the worst levels of violence in decades, maybe we should be hesitant to accept this position. This kind of thinking on both sides there is part of how and why they are where they are.
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    You might interpret my previous comment as saying "it's okay to kill civilians", which wasn't my point. To phrase it a little better: if some country is committing atrocities at scale, then I believe any amount of force is justified to bring that to an end.
    - catlover76 3y ago
      Yeah, sorry, after rereading your comment, I realized I may have responded to a point you didn't quite make.
- kiba 3y ago
  History has demonstrated that kind of thinking is going to harden resolve. It's militarily useless and morally repugnant.

kiba 3y ago

The article argued that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima isn't really a military necessity. I would also argue that the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army can only be remedied through military defeat and tribunals afterward, not terror bombing civilians.

defrost 3y ago
The nuclear bombs are entirely orthogobal to the bombing of H & N. What many seem to have forgotten is that H&N were cities already on a kill list. Prior to the atomic bombs being dropped the US had already carpet bombed 72 other cities, including Tokyo, and they had a list of future targets to destroy. H&N were picked off that list as they were essentially untouched at that point and were "clean ground" to test the field use of two different bomb designs after the "lab test" at Trinity. The argument is whether a policy of total warfare | destruction was neccesary, the carpet bombing of cities to date was much more cost effective (at that point in the war) than the use of limited extremely expensive atomic weapons. The neccessity to use bombs developed to counter possible German atomic weapons on a rapidly dwindling Japan now that Germany had been defeated was a kind of military necessity .. the window for live field testing was rapidly closing given the approach of Russians from the north and relative lack of untouched targets. That aside, the bald unpleasant fact of the time is simple; had H&N not been atom bombed they would have been firebombed .. with very similar levels of death and follow on disease.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Yes, somehow people forget that Tokyo bombing was even costlier in human lives than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Then the military usefulness, and the morality, of these fire bombing would deserve to be questioned as much as the atomic bombing (they may even have prolonged the war, by strengthening the Japanese resolve)
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Well beyond "live field testing on untouched targets", the purpose of dropping the bombs was to display the capability to the USSR, and thus assert the US position as hegemon.