5 ms·

> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"? Is sacrificing 100,000 innocent civilians in h

by hnu123 3y ago

> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"? Is sacrificing 100,000 innocent civilians in hiroshima for spectacle any better? > It's really difficult to understand how a highly civilized society for the time could have almost no respect for human life. Ever read the Iliad? Or the hebrew bible? Besides, you become 'highly civilized' by killing everyone who disagrees with you and proclaiming yourself 'highly civilized'. It's always been this way. Rome wasn't civilized. It was genocidal and brutal. The most genocidal and brutal of its time. And if you think caesar was bad, augustus was far more brutal. But his savagery saved the 'civilized' roman empire.

maximus-decimus 3y ago
I think there's a big different between killing people to end a war and killing people for entertainment.
- hnu123 3y ago
  What did Hiroshima have to do with ending a war? By the time of hiroshima, the japanese army, navy, military was nonexistent and had been for nearly a year. It was just a military test of a barbaric weapon on innocent civilians. It literally was the biggest human experiment of ww2. Hiroshima both in scale and barbarity is orders of magnitude worse than what the romans did. But then again, we model ourselves after the romans... Your comment and the downvote proves my point. Though we think we are civilized today, we are just as evil and barbaric as ever. We rationalize our barbarity just like the romans and everyone else does. No civilized person or people would even dream of rationalizing something as evil as nuking innocent and defenseless civilians.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    You are encouraged to read deeper about the end of WWII. If anyone sacrificed the people of Hiroshima, it was the Japanese Imperialist Government that refused to surrender despite the obvious obliteration of their conventional forces. To make it brief, every single landmass occupied by Japanese forces and civilians offered fierce resistance/guerilla warfare to invading/liberating forces. Additionally, as another commenter has noted, the Japanese military had significantly increased their numbers to a staggering 6 million troops towards the end. The death toll projections, based on the above, for a mass land invasion of Japan were many factors greater than the life cost of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - many, many factors greater. The Japanese government did not just refuse to surrender, but continued to wage war. This meant either a land invasion, or some alternative were necessary to compel the government into surrender. Dropping the second nuclear bomb accomplished this goal - particularly when accompanied by the (empty) threat of dropping many more until surrender. It also should be noted both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were central to the Japanese war economy/machine and were not simply civilian population centers. Regardless, the loss of life directly from the bombings and indirectly from the aftermath is still calculated to have been significantly less than the loss of life had a ground invasion been waged.
    - pineaux 3y ago
      We dont know this. It's all speculation. All of it. And it's speculation of a winner. So it's not surprising that it conveniently frames the willing destruction of 100,000 people as the lesser of two evils. Also, many people talk about the bombs. But dont forget: the firebombings killed many more people and were aimed at civilians. General LeMay, who ordered the attack that resulted in the murder of 100,000 innocent people in one single night. Said the following when asked about his motives: “There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.” If you are willing to see the narrative from another perspective here are some links: Firebombings of Tokyo: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-operation-meetinghouse-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-o... Court ruling about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (deemed unlawful acts of war = war crime) https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/53/Shimoda-et-al/ https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/53/Shimoda-...
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        It’s not speculation. It’s basically common sense. How awful and long would a ground invasion of these areas have been? Would it even be possible? How many of your troops are you willing to sacrifice to spare the lives of your enemy’s civilians?
        brabel 3y ago
        Why do you think a ground invasion was necessary? WWI finished without a ground invasion of Germany. Completely occupying enemy's territory was not a common way to end a war. The "normal" way was to end your enemy's capacity to fight, and then negotiate surrender. You can argue that the Japanese would refuse to surrender for a lot longer, but to think the "only way" to end their resistance was to either nuke innocent civillians (and I hope no one here thinks "there are no innocent" people, like they did at the time) or occupy the whole country on the ground seems to be ignoring basically every conflict prior and since then.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
  - its_ethan 3y ago
    For what it's worth, by 1945 (Hiroshima) the Japanese army had grown from 1,700,000 (1941) to 6,000,000 (1945). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army#World_W... Also to say it was just some barbaric test sort of ignores the fact that Japan did not surrender after the first bomb was dropped, they weren't some innocent bystander, they were actively running offensive military campaigns through 1944, and their intention was to continue fighting the war - until the US proved that they had the resources to do it a second time (and therefore unknowably many times, as far as Japan knew). There's also a credible argument to be made that the US dropping nuclear bombs on Japan might've had a net positive effect on total lives lost if the war continued another 6 months. You can absolutely debate which lives were lost versus saved, and the ethics of either route - but to just pass it off as some "barbaric human experiment" seems a little disingenuous.
    - hnu123 3y ago
      > For what it's worth, by 1945 (Hiroshima) the Japanese army had grown from 1,700,000 (1941) to 6,000,000 (1945). Yes. A bunch of elderly and young boys 'armed' with broomsticks. That you have to resort this level of nonsense should tell you something... > they were actively running offensive military campaigns through 1944 You do know that hiroshima occurred in the latter half of 1945 right? > There's also a credible argument to be made that the US dropping nuclear bombs on Japan might've had a net positive effect on total lives lost if the war continued another 6 months. There is no credible argument. Just propaganda. There is no defense of genocide and war crimes period. Doesn't stop evil people who rationalize the genocide of the native americans, hiroshima/nagasaki, holocaust, etc. But then again the genocide of the native americans, hiroshima, nagasaki, etc happens because of evil people in 'civilized' nations. It's amazing that you fail to realize that you are proving me correct. Evil and barbarity is alive and well today. Just like in ww2. Just like in the days of caesar and augustus.
      - harimau777 3y ago
        It's bad practice to simply dismiss arguments as "propaganda" without engaging with them. The dropping of the atomic bomb was significantly more nuanced that what you are suggesting. You are correct that the Japanese government had lost at least much of it's will to fight. However, the US believed that the military was likely to stage a coup if the government attempted to surrender. If the Allies had to engage in an island hopping campaign, then the lives lost likely would have outnumbered those lost to the atomic bombs. The US wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union had time to get involved and start gaining territory; which they would likely have annexed. In the long term, it has probably been a good thing for Japan that they did not get that chance. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets under the then accepted doctrine of total war.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. They could have issued an unconditional surrender and the fighting would have stopped within hours. All of the deaths in Hiroshima were entirely their responsibility.
    - hnu123 3y ago
      > The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. No. The US started the war with economic sanctions. This is a historical fact. > They could have issued an unconditional surrender and the fighting would have stopped within hours. They could have. Or the US could have accepted japan's conditional surrender. Just because a government refuses to surrender doesn't justify murdering innocent civilians. Do you think if a criminal refuses to surrender, the cops are justified in murdering the criminal's wife and children? > All of the deaths in Hiroshima were entirely their responsibility. No. The responsibility lies on the people who dropped the nukes. What you and your ilk are doing is using terrorist logic to justify murdering civilians. Murdering civilians because you don't like the actions of a government is terrorist logic. When you share the morality of terrorists, you should reevaluate your moral foundation. But you prove my point. Evil is alive and well. Justifying genocide and nuking of civilians is evil.
      - yongjik 3y ago
        > > The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. > No. The US started the war with economic sanctions. This is a historical fact. Ah, you are the kind of person who consider the US the aggressor of the Pacific War. You could have started your argument with that; it would've saved time for everyone.
        hnu123 3y ago
        > Ah, you are the kind of person who consider the US the aggressor of the Pacific War. You mean the country that colonized japan ( twice ), philippines, korea, china, vietnam, not to mention stole hawaii and a bunch of pacific islands? Yes. We have been aggressors in the pacific for centuries. But if you are talking about US-Japan war, it is historical fact that US sanctions ( an act of war ) was the beginning of US-Japan war. If you are talking about the overall Pacific War, then it's complicated. European and american invasion and colonization of almost all of asia spurred japan militarization and eventual war. But regardless, doesn't matter who the aggressor was. Nuking innocent civilians is evil. Period.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    Personally, I think that people take the wrong lesson away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 was fought under the doctrine of "total war". All of a society's resources; including civilians and industry, were part of your war effort. That in turn meant that civilians and industry were considered legitimate military targets. Under that doctrine, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets. If the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, then the alternative was not that those cities stayed standing. The alternative was that the cities would be carpet bombed. Personally, I think that the lesson that we should take away is not so much that dropping the atomic bombs was wrong; rather it's that the doctrine of total war that made dropping the atomic bombs permissible was wrong.

by hnu123 3y ago

maximus-decimus 3y ago

I think there's a big different between killing people to end a war and killing people for entertainment.

hnu123 3y ago
What did Hiroshima have to do with ending a war? By the time of hiroshima, the japanese army, navy, military was nonexistent and had been for nearly a year. It was just a military test of a barbaric weapon on innocent civilians. It literally was the biggest human experiment of ww2. Hiroshima both in scale and barbarity is orders of magnitude worse than what the romans did. But then again, we model ourselves after the romans... Your comment and the downvote proves my point. Though we think we are civilized today, we are just as evil and barbaric as ever. We rationalize our barbarity just like the romans and everyone else does. No civilized person or people would even dream of rationalizing something as evil as nuking innocent and defenseless civilians.
- Alupis 3y ago
  You are encouraged to read deeper about the end of WWII. If anyone sacrificed the people of Hiroshima, it was the Japanese Imperialist Government that refused to surrender despite the obvious obliteration of their conventional forces. To make it brief, every single landmass occupied by Japanese forces and civilians offered fierce resistance/guerilla warfare to invading/liberating forces. Additionally, as another commenter has noted, the Japanese military had significantly increased their numbers to a staggering 6 million troops towards the end. The death toll projections, based on the above, for a mass land invasion of Japan were many factors greater than the life cost of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - many, many factors greater. The Japanese government did not just refuse to surrender, but continued to wage war. This meant either a land invasion, or some alternative were necessary to compel the government into surrender. Dropping the second nuclear bomb accomplished this goal - particularly when accompanied by the (empty) threat of dropping many more until surrender. It also should be noted both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were central to the Japanese war economy/machine and were not simply civilian population centers. Regardless, the loss of life directly from the bombings and indirectly from the aftermath is still calculated to have been significantly less than the loss of life had a ground invasion been waged.
  - pineaux 3y ago
    We dont know this. It's all speculation. All of it. And it's speculation of a winner. So it's not surprising that it conveniently frames the willing destruction of 100,000 people as the lesser of two evils. Also, many people talk about the bombs. But dont forget: the firebombings killed many more people and were aimed at civilians. General LeMay, who ordered the attack that resulted in the murder of 100,000 innocent people in one single night. Said the following when asked about his motives: “There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.” If you are willing to see the narrative from another perspective here are some links: Firebombings of Tokyo: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-operation-meetinghouse-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-o... Court ruling about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (deemed unlawful acts of war = war crime) https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/53/Shimoda-et-al/ https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/53/Shimoda-...
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      It’s not speculation. It’s basically common sense. How awful and long would a ground invasion of these areas have been? Would it even be possible? How many of your troops are you willing to sacrifice to spare the lives of your enemy’s civilians?
      - brabel 3y ago
        Why do you think a ground invasion was necessary? WWI finished without a ground invasion of Germany. Completely occupying enemy's territory was not a common way to end a war. The "normal" way was to end your enemy's capacity to fight, and then negotiate surrender. You can argue that the Japanese would refuse to surrender for a lot longer, but to think the "only way" to end their resistance was to either nuke innocent civillians (and I hope no one here thinks "there are no innocent" people, like they did at the time) or occupy the whole country on the ground seems to be ignoring basically every conflict prior and since then.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
- its_ethan 3y ago
  For what it's worth, by 1945 (Hiroshima) the Japanese army had grown from 1,700,000 (1941) to 6,000,000 (1945). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army#World_W... Also to say it was just some barbaric test sort of ignores the fact that Japan did not surrender after the first bomb was dropped, they weren't some innocent bystander, they were actively running offensive military campaigns through 1944, and their intention was to continue fighting the war - until the US proved that they had the resources to do it a second time (and therefore unknowably many times, as far as Japan knew). There's also a credible argument to be made that the US dropping nuclear bombs on Japan might've had a net positive effect on total lives lost if the war continued another 6 months. You can absolutely debate which lives were lost versus saved, and the ethics of either route - but to just pass it off as some "barbaric human experiment" seems a little disingenuous.
  - hnu123 3y ago
    > For what it's worth, by 1945 (Hiroshima) the Japanese army had grown from 1,700,000 (1941) to 6,000,000 (1945). Yes. A bunch of elderly and young boys 'armed' with broomsticks. That you have to resort this level of nonsense should tell you something... > they were actively running offensive military campaigns through 1944 You do know that hiroshima occurred in the latter half of 1945 right? > There's also a credible argument to be made that the US dropping nuclear bombs on Japan might've had a net positive effect on total lives lost if the war continued another 6 months. There is no credible argument. Just propaganda. There is no defense of genocide and war crimes period. Doesn't stop evil people who rationalize the genocide of the native americans, hiroshima/nagasaki, holocaust, etc. But then again the genocide of the native americans, hiroshima, nagasaki, etc happens because of evil people in 'civilized' nations. It's amazing that you fail to realize that you are proving me correct. Evil and barbarity is alive and well today. Just like in ww2. Just like in the days of caesar and augustus.
    - harimau777 3y ago
      It's bad practice to simply dismiss arguments as "propaganda" without engaging with them. The dropping of the atomic bomb was significantly more nuanced that what you are suggesting. You are correct that the Japanese government had lost at least much of it's will to fight. However, the US believed that the military was likely to stage a coup if the government attempted to surrender. If the Allies had to engage in an island hopping campaign, then the lives lost likely would have outnumbered those lost to the atomic bombs. The US wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union had time to get involved and start gaining territory; which they would likely have annexed. In the long term, it has probably been a good thing for Japan that they did not get that chance. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets under the then accepted doctrine of total war.
- nradov 3y ago
  The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. They could have issued an unconditional surrender and the fighting would have stopped within hours. All of the deaths in Hiroshima were entirely their responsibility.
  - hnu123 3y ago
    > The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. No. The US started the war with economic sanctions. This is a historical fact. > They could have issued an unconditional surrender and the fighting would have stopped within hours. They could have. Or the US could have accepted japan's conditional surrender. Just because a government refuses to surrender doesn't justify murdering innocent civilians. Do you think if a criminal refuses to surrender, the cops are justified in murdering the criminal's wife and children? > All of the deaths in Hiroshima were entirely their responsibility. No. The responsibility lies on the people who dropped the nukes. What you and your ilk are doing is using terrorist logic to justify murdering civilians. Murdering civilians because you don't like the actions of a government is terrorist logic. When you share the morality of terrorists, you should reevaluate your moral foundation. But you prove my point. Evil is alive and well. Justifying genocide and nuking of civilians is evil.
    - yongjik 3y ago
      > > The Japanese government started the war and was free to stop it at any time. > No. The US started the war with economic sanctions. This is a historical fact. Ah, you are the kind of person who consider the US the aggressor of the Pacific War. You could have started your argument with that; it would've saved time for everyone.
      - hnu123 3y ago
        > Ah, you are the kind of person who consider the US the aggressor of the Pacific War. You mean the country that colonized japan ( twice ), philippines, korea, china, vietnam, not to mention stole hawaii and a bunch of pacific islands? Yes. We have been aggressors in the pacific for centuries. But if you are talking about US-Japan war, it is historical fact that US sanctions ( an act of war ) was the beginning of US-Japan war. If you are talking about the overall Pacific War, then it's complicated. European and american invasion and colonization of almost all of asia spurred japan militarization and eventual war. But regardless, doesn't matter who the aggressor was. Nuking innocent civilians is evil. Period.
- harimau777 3y ago
  Personally, I think that people take the wrong lesson away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 was fought under the doctrine of "total war". All of a society's resources; including civilians and industry, were part of your war effort. That in turn meant that civilians and industry were considered legitimate military targets. Under that doctrine, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets. If the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, then the alternative was not that those cities stayed standing. The alternative was that the cities would be carpet bombed. Personally, I think that the lesson that we should take away is not so much that dropping the atomic bombs was wrong; rather it's that the doctrine of total war that made dropping the atomic bombs permissible was wrong.