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> The bomb wasn't dropped on the torturers, the rapists, which in many cases were not held responsible for the crimes they committed. This is the tricky part.

> The bomb wasn't dropped on the torturers, the rapists, which in many cases were not held responsible for the crimes they committed. This is the tricky part. I don't remember exact figures, but wasn't Truman's dilemma a choice between invading Japan or dropping the bombs? I don't really see a viable third option, and I don't remember reading about one either. The tragedy is that the Japanese were not given enough time to surrender after the first bomb was dropped. Also, the United States has also done some terrible things "in the name of democracy," but I still think there is a difference in magnitude between installing a dictator in a foreign country and encouraging the systematic murder and rape of civilians. The problem is that these things are on a spectrum - is it not possible to condemn both while admitting that one alternative was better? I obviously don't want anyone to use nuclear weapons, but how should we react when it is the option that results in the least amount of suffering? And as far as saying "them" -- this was out of convenience. It is a pronoun, after all, and I was merely trying to say that elegant solutions are quite hard to find when you're dealing with ugly problems. Sometimes "less ugly" is all you can find.

CamperBob2 14y ago
This is the tricky part. I don't remember exact figures, but wasn't Truman's dilemma a choice between invading Japan or dropping the bombs? The real concern was probably the Soviets. They had already invaded Manchuria and some say they had their eye on Japan. Seems pretty evil to drop an A-bomb as a warning to someone else, but the next few decades of Soviet occupation would have sucked for the Japanese, too. Also, it was probably a good idea to confront the morality of nuclear warfare by dropping a 20 kT bomb. Would Truman have stopped MacArthur from deploying a hundred times that much firepower in Korea, if he hadn't seen the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs for himself?
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Certainly there were multiple factors involved, but from what I've read, both stopping the Soviet advance (by ending the war earlier), and "sending a message" to the Soviets, were very much part of the decision to drop the bombs.
yesbabyyes 14y ago
Lest you forget, while installing dictators and facilitating genocide is bad enough, the US also oppressed civilians during the time. Mississippi, for instance, was a police state with apartheid a good 20 years after the end of the war. Americans with Japanese heritage were forcibly removed and put in concentration camps. Suffice to say, your moral high ground is not as clear cut to me, especially when you talk about justifying the atom bomb.
- shantanubala 14y ago
  I'm not saying the US was always right - I'm saying that having the US win was a better outcome than the other alternatives. Would you agree with that? And I'm not justifying use of the atomic bomb in every scenario, or even saying that it was the best possible outcome, but out of the options available to Truman, it appears to be the one that would have resulted in the least amount of suffering.
mcantelon 14y ago
>I still think there is a difference in magnitude between installing a dictator in a foreign country and encouraging the systematic murder and rape of civilians There has been a strong correlation between US-trained South American dictators and death squads. http://www.laprogressive.com/school-of-the-americas-grads-become-death-squad-killers/ http://www.laprogressive.com/school-of-the-americas-grads-be... The US CIA and special forces supervised these kinds of tactics in the Vietnam war, with rape used for interrogation and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program#Torture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program#Torture
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
soperj 14y ago
Just so you know, the Japanese asked to surrender before the first bomb was dropped. There was also the alternative that US general MacArthur actually recommended, which was to continue firebombing them into submission. The a-bombs weren't dropped to "save lives", they were dropped to show the Soviets what they were capable of. As an aside, do you really think that in a country that was in complete shambles, that any word of a bomb that had killed everyone around it, or that word of the real damage would have gotten to the emperor in the time it took them to surrender? The most likely reason that they surrendered was that they knew they were hooped once the Soviets finally joined the war against them on August 8th.
- mpyne 14y ago
  > There was also the alternative that US general MacArthur actually recommended, which was to continue firebombing them into submission. You can't actually be serious? The firebombing of Tokyo caused more deaths, not less, than either of the atomic bombs. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo : "The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II;[2] greater than Dresden,[13] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events." > As an aside, do you really think that in a country that was in complete shambles, that any word of a bomb that had killed everyone around it, or that word of the real damage would have gotten to the emperor in the time it took them to surrender? The Emperor knew the same day. However much of a "shambles" the Home Islands may have been in, the Japanese at least had telegraph cables, and when they stopped responding from Hiroshima, and when the outskirts of Hiroshima wired news of a horrific bomb detonation they actually sent planes over to investigate and confirm. > The most likely reason that they surrendered was that they knew they were hooped once the Soviets finally joined the war against them on August 8th. The U.S.S.R. declaration of war certainly caught them by surprise; but the Japanese were certainly not stupid. They knew the war was not winnable by 1943 when they lost the strategic initiative in the Pacific to the U.S. The U.S. had the men, the Navy, and the equipment already in-theatre for the invasion. The U.S.S.R. had the men but not the naval or air forces needed to cover an amphibious invasion before the U.S. could start, so their entering the war only had a strategic impact for Manchukuo (and later, North Korea).

CamperBob2 14y ago

This is the tricky part. I don't remember exact figures, but wasn't Truman's dilemma a choice between invading Japan or dropping the bombs? The real concern was probably the Soviets. They had already invaded Manchuria and some say they had their eye on Japan. Seems pretty evil to drop an A-bomb as a warning to someone else, but the next few decades of Soviet occupation would have sucked for the Japanese, too. Also, it was probably a good idea to confront the morality of nuclear warfare by dropping a 20 kT bomb. Would Truman have stopped MacArthur from deploying a hundred times that much firepower in Korea, if he hadn't seen the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs for himself?

snogglethorpe 14y ago
Certainly there were multiple factors involved, but from what I've read, both stopping the Soviet advance (by ending the war earlier), and "sending a message" to the Soviets, were very much part of the decision to drop the bombs.

yesbabyyes 14y ago

Lest you forget, while installing dictators and facilitating genocide is bad enough, the US also oppressed civilians during the time. Mississippi, for instance, was a police state with apartheid a good 20 years after the end of the war. Americans with Japanese heritage were forcibly removed and put in concentration camps. Suffice to say, your moral high ground is not as clear cut to me, especially when you talk about justifying the atom bomb.

shantanubala 14y ago
I'm not saying the US was always right - I'm saying that having the US win was a better outcome than the other alternatives. Would you agree with that? And I'm not justifying use of the atomic bomb in every scenario, or even saying that it was the best possible outcome, but out of the options available to Truman, it appears to be the one that would have resulted in the least amount of suffering.

mcantelon 14y ago

>I still think there is a difference in magnitude between installing a dictator in a foreign country and encouraging the systematic murder and rape of civilians There has been a strong correlation between US-trained South American dictators and death squads. http://www.laprogressive.com/school-of-the-americas-grads-become-death-squad-killers/ http://www.laprogressive.com/school-of-the-americas-grads-be... The US CIA and special forces supervised these kinds of tactics in the Vietnam war, with rape used for interrogation and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program#Torture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program#Torture

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

soperj 14y ago

Just so you know, the Japanese asked to surrender before the first bomb was dropped. There was also the alternative that US general MacArthur actually recommended, which was to continue firebombing them into submission. The a-bombs weren't dropped to "save lives", they were dropped to show the Soviets what they were capable of. As an aside, do you really think that in a country that was in complete shambles, that any word of a bomb that had killed everyone around it, or that word of the real damage would have gotten to the emperor in the time it took them to surrender? The most likely reason that they surrendered was that they knew they were hooped once the Soviets finally joined the war against them on August 8th.

mpyne 14y ago
> There was also the alternative that US general MacArthur actually recommended, which was to continue firebombing them into submission. You can't actually be serious? The firebombing of Tokyo caused more deaths, not less, than either of the atomic bombs. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo : "The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II;[2] greater than Dresden,[13] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events." > As an aside, do you really think that in a country that was in complete shambles, that any word of a bomb that had killed everyone around it, or that word of the real damage would have gotten to the emperor in the time it took them to surrender? The Emperor knew the same day. However much of a "shambles" the Home Islands may have been in, the Japanese at least had telegraph cables, and when they stopped responding from Hiroshima, and when the outskirts of Hiroshima wired news of a horrific bomb detonation they actually sent planes over to investigate and confirm. > The most likely reason that they surrendered was that they knew they were hooped once the Soviets finally joined the war against them on August 8th. The U.S.S.R. declaration of war certainly caught them by surprise; but the Japanese were certainly not stupid. They knew the war was not winnable by 1943 when they lost the strategic initiative in the Pacific to the U.S. The U.S. had the men, the Navy, and the equipment already in-theatre for the invasion. The U.S.S.R. had the men but not the naval or air forces needed to cover an amphibious invasion before the U.S. could start, so their entering the war only had a strategic impact for Manchukuo (and later, North Korea).