Atomic bombs argument

[CaptainLost]

Continuation of an argument began in this thread which is definitely worth its own thread and partly doesn't have to do with history.

Did the US compensate Japan (enough) for the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Do you think any compensation is sufficient for those kinds of inhumane acts?

They started the war. We owed them no compensation.

The people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki started the war?

Nuclear bombings saved some lifes as well. This guy would have killed his family and himself, if not the fact that he got wounded by both nuclear explosions (as the result, he lived to a ripe old age of 93, instead of committing Seppuku in 1945):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

Quote:
he considered killing his family with an overdose of sleeping pills in the event that Japan lost.[3]
Quote:
In Nagasaki, he received treatment for his wounds, and despite being heavily bandaged, he reported for work on August 9.[3] At 11 am on August 9, Yamaguchi was describing the blast in Hiroshima to his supervisor, when the American bomber Bockscar dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb onto Nagasaki. His workplace again put him 3 km from ground zero, but this time he was unhurt by the explosion.[6] However, he was unable to seek replacement for his now ruined bandages, and he suffered from a high fever for over a week.[3]
Quote:
Died: January 4, 2010 (aged 93) - Nagasaki, Japan

The people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki started the war?

No. And neither did the (roughly) one million that would have died as a result of an invasion.

Nuclear bombings saved some lifes as well.

If there's a sale at a store, where everything is 1/3 off, and you buy $60 worth of stuff "to save money," you didn't save $20, you spent $40.

No. And neither did the (roughly) one million that would have died as a result of an invasion.

I've heard that, but the reasoning always turns out to be premise on a massive great heap of old-timey racism, on a simply untenable assumption that the Oriental ant-men would willingly hurl themselves and their children onto American bayonets rather than surrender. It's the sort of thing that liberals would usually be tripping over each other to expose, if only their beloved New Dealers didn't carry the blame.

And if, you know, the Japanese hadn't demonstrated being that suicidal already.

Look, I'm not saying that you're racist. I'm just letting the implication hang heavily in the air between us. Y'see?

What I don't understand was why the US didn't just launch the bomb off to the sea near the shore of Japan. And why 2 bombs, one was enough. The Japanese government didn't even know what happened until after both bombs had been dropped and the Americans asked for their surrender.

I've heard that, but the reasoning always turns out to be premise on a massive great heap of old-timey racism, on a simply untenable assumption that the Oriental ant-men would willingly hurl themselves and their children onto American bayonets rather than surrender. It's the sort of thing that liberals would usually be tripping over each other to expose, if only their beloved New Dealers didn't carry the blame.

Don't get me wrong, I think part of the reason for the use of the Atomic Bomb went along the lines of "we built the damn thing, of course we're going to use it." Second, I think their thought process was that the American casualties would be significantly high rather than the Japanese ones (certainly they would be higher than they were when they used the atomic bomb). Through the fog of war, however, it is impossible to know what the other side is going to do. In retrospect, I think it's probably fairly likely that Japan was close to the breaking point and would have surrendered relatively easily. But, after Okinawa, I don't think an American belief to the contrary was unjustified.

I've heard that, but the reasoning always turns out to be premise on a massive great heap of old-timey racism, on a simply untenable assumption that the Oriental ant-men would willingly hurl themselves and their children onto American bayonets rather than surrender. It's the sort of thing that liberals would usually be tripping over each other to expose, if only their beloved New Dealers didn't carry the blame.

Isn't this what actually happened during the island-hopping?

Don't get me wrong, I think part of the reason for the use of the Atomic Bomb went along the lines of "we built the damn thing, of course we're going to use it." Second, I think their thought process was that the American casualties would be significantly high rather than the Japanese ones (certainly they would be higher than they were when they used the atomic bomb). Through the fog of war, however, it is impossible to know what the other side is going to do. In retrospect, I think it's probably fairly likely that Japan was close to the breaking point and would have surrendered relatively easily. But, after Okinawa, I don't think an American belief to the contrary was unjustified.

I buy that the Americans could reasonably over-estimate the Japanese capacity and will to exist. But the "nuke 'em for their own good" argument relies not only on stiff military resistance, but on the suicidal enthusiasm of civilians, for which no substantial proof has been mustered. The Germans could never put together their Volkssturm, why would the Japanese? The only clear difference is that the Germans are white, so we assume that they retain some basic level of rationality even in the throes of Nazism, while the Japanese, so they will naturally bow to the order of the Oriental hive-mind.

I mean, the whole logic of it is contradictory. The Japanese will hurl their children at machine gun nests, but drop a couple of bombs on them and it's hands in the air? It's crap, but people buy into it because the alternative is admitting something very unpleasant about how the United States wages its wars.

Isn't this what actually happened during the island-hopping?

Many Japanese soldiers showed an unusual reluctance to surrender, not all, but many. But soldiers aren't civilians, and there's no reason to assume that the entire nation of Japan would mobilise, termite-like, to commit glorious suicide.

All right, that should do it. Let the arguing begin!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The reason for the second bomb was so the results of a Plutonium based bomb could be compared to the results of a Uranium based bomb. Plenty of people are going to be rightfully offended by the callousness that implies, but it is the only thing that was gained from dropping a second bomb when the first was more than sufficient to make the point.

 

[bhsup]

Ancient post I made over a decade ago on a different forum. I saved it so I don't have to retype it out every time this subject comes up.

In a few post I have read on here, I have a couple times
seen people state that the dropping of atomic weapons on Japan
to end World War II was tantamount to a war crime. This post
is directed to reply to that and only that.

First let me say any sentiments revealed here apply to the
past actions of Japan, not now. For over 50 years Japan and
the USA have had cordial and friendly relations and I have no
beef with them whatsoever. They've been good friends to our
nation and I see no reason that shouldn't continue. This post
applies only to our relationship, or lack thereof, while we
were at war.

Those that think the United States committed war crimes by
dropping atomic bombs in WWII, go stick your head in a blender
and hit "liquify", the human gene pool will improve sharply.

I'll just go down a few points here:

1) We were fighting a declared war against the Empire of Japan
which they started by violating International Law with a
surprise attack. Not our fault their communications were
slow and they couldn't translate the code in time.

2) We HAD demanded Japan surrender unconditionally before we
dropping the bomb, several times. That they refused, and
the reasons for such refusal were not then nor will they be
our problem. It is irrelevent and totally without concern
to me that they were concerned about saving honor or the
fate of their Emperor. American lives were taken by them
at the onset of this war and their defeat and surrender was
the only acceptable outcome.

3) Hiroshima: 2nd Army Headquarters, commanded defense of all
southern Japan, communications center, storage area, point
of troop assembly and embarkation throughout the war.

4) Nagasaki: Shipyard, Ordnance, other military materials all
produced there. All critical to a nation in time of war.

NOTE: Points 3 and 4 are taken from the following website
at YALE university, hardly a dubious and questionable source:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp06.htm

5) Even after Hiroshima was utterly destroyed, Japan STILL
refused to surrender, so under ANY logic Japan is wholly
responsible for the continuation of the war and any deaths
after that. Of course, they started the war so were
responsible for all deaths up TO that point as well.

6) Whether you agree with me on this point, I really don't care.
If the bombings saved even ONE American life they were worth
it in my opinion, and actually, estimates range as high as a
quarter of a million American lives saved by not having to
invade Japan. Not to mention Japanese lives saved, yes
SAVED. It was thought up to 1 million Japanese might die in
a mainland invasion because of the fanaticism shown in other
battles and the huge losses they sustained without
surrendering. Since history took a different course, we
will never know of course the validity of these estimates,
but I have no reason to doubt them.

 

[CaptainLost]

I buy that the Americans could reasonably over-estimate the Japanese capacity and will to exist. But the "nuke 'em for their own good" argument relies not only on stiff military resistance, but on the suicidal enthusiasm of civilians, for which no substantial proof has been mustered. The Germans could never put together their Volkssturm, why would the Japanese? The only clear difference is that the Germans are white, so we assume that they retain some basic level of rationality even in the throes of Nazism, while the Japanese, so they will naturally bow to the order of the Oriental hive-mind.

The other difference between the Germans and the Japanese is that the Japanese had a much longer history of military honor dating back to the samurai. Hence the Banzai charges--die rather than surrender.

And civilian casualties do not have to be caused by mindless charges. Bombers were fire-bombing Japan long before the atomic bombs were dropped, causing thousands of civilian casualties. That would have continued for a long time if an invasion had been done instead of the nukes.

Ultimately, put yourself in President Truman's place--do you end the war quickly, using mankind's worst weapon in history to scare the Japanese into surrendering, or do you extend it by possibly months, taking thousands of American, Japanese and Japanese civilian casualties along the way? I do not envy him for having to make that decision.

I mean, the whole logic of it is contradictory. The Japanese will hurl their children at machine gun nests, but drop a couple of bombs on them and it's hands in the air? It's crap, but people buy into it because the alternative is admitting something very unpleasant about how the United States wages its wars.

Well, Japanese never hurled their children at machine gun nests and the estimates for casualties for the invasion don't include that. That's assuming every Japanese man, woman and child would die for their country, which means about 70 million deaths.

And, dropping a couple of bombs did not even do it all the way. Tojo and others still wanted to hold out to the bitter end. But after seeing the power of the atomic bombs demonstrated, the Japanese had had enough. They weren't afraid of just two measly bombs, as you say, they were afraid of what could happen if the Americans started chucking tons of those things at Japan.

 

[JollyRoger]

What actual threat was Japan to the U.S. homeland at the time the U.S. targeted hundreds of thousands of civilians?

 

[CaptainLost]

Ancient post I made over a decade ago on a different forum. I saved it so I don't have to retype it out every time this subject comes up.

Well said, do you mind if I save that somewhere?

 

[bhsup]

Go ahead. I've probably posted it 4-5 times since the initial posting here and other places as well.

 

[CaptainLost]

What actual threat was Japan to the U.S. homeland at the time the U.S. targeted hundreds of thousands of civilians?

There were two kinds of bombing that targeted hundreds of civilians: firebombing and atomic bombing. Bombing with planes from that era wasn't too accurate, so they tended to focus on obliterating everything around their target to ensure destruction of the target. Thus the firebombing of Tokyo, which focused on destroying the city's industry, caused well over a hundred thousand civilian casualties.
This was not unique to the Pacific--look at Dresden and Hamburg, and Berlin. Although that wasn't firebombing, it sure tore those cities to pieces.
Firebombing was also another attempt to get the Japanese to surrender. No one wanted to invade Japan--just ask any veteran that fought in the Pacific. So they pulled every string they could to try to get them to give up, including killing thousands of civilians.
And if you think that's inhumane, look at the Eastern front. Millions (not 100,000's, but 1,000,000's) of civilians were killed.
As for atomic bombing, bhsup has already given the reasons for why that was done, and I don't feel particularly repetitive today.

 

[CaptainLost]

Go ahead. I've probably posted it 4-5 times since the initial posting here and other places as well.

Awesome. Thanks.

 

[JollyRoger]

There were two kinds of bombing that targeted hundreds of civilians: firebombing and atomic bombing. Bombing with planes from that era wasn't too accurate, so they tended to focus on obliterating everything around their target to ensure destruction of the target. Thus the firebombing of Tokyo, which focused on destroying the city's industry, caused well over a hundred thousand civilian casualties.
This was not unique to the Pacific--look at Dresden and Hamburg, and Berlin. Although that wasn't firebombing, it sure tore those cities to pieces.
Firebombing was also another attempt to get the Japanese to surrender. No one wanted to invade Japan--just ask any veteran that fought in the Pacific. So they pulled every string they could to try to get them to give up, including killing thousands of civilians.
And if you think that's inhumane, look at the Eastern front. Millions (not 100,000's, but 1,000,000's) of civilians were killed.
As for atomic bombing, bhsup has already given the reasons for why that was done, and I don't feel particularly repetitive today.

So there was no current threat to the U.S. homeland?

 

[Camikaze]

I think the main question Traitorfish is bringing up is one of Orientalism, not war crimes. A question of whether it is or was safe to assume that the Japanese civilian population as a whole was infected with some mysterious exotic mental illness. The answer to that might then have implications for whether the bombings were justified, but you could reach the conclusion that even though perceptions were formed on a fairly racist basis the bombings were still justified, and dismissing the potential role of Orientalism because you think that, in the end, the bombings were justified, misses the point.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ancient post I made over a decade ago on a different forum. I saved it so I don't have to retype it out every time this subject comes up.

I agree with everything you said, up to the point of the second bomb. Do you have any source for 'they still refused to surrender after Hiroshima'? Everything I've read points to the plan for the second bomb was in place and in the two day interval there wasn't even any attempt at negotiations.

To me it was always 'weapons test' but that may be because I know useful data came out of it. That may just be incidental if there was a real effort made to get a surrender during those two days. Another claim is that the second bomb was dropped 'to prove to the Japanese we had more than one and make them think we had many'. I can't quite imagine expecting anyone hit by an atomic bomb to say 'bet you can't do that again', but the claim is out there.

It should also be noted that China benefited hugely from the rapid ending of the war. Had the Soviet invasion of Manchuria been allowed to progress the damage would have been far more extensive. It was cut short when the Japanese surrendered. Overall the decision to use the atomic bomb to force a rapid surrender seems to have worked out for everyone but the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who probably would have suffered very similar casualties from a series of fire bombings anyway.

 

[CaptainLost]

So there was no current threat to the U.S. homeland?

Well, no, but there wasn't really a threat to the US homeland after Midway. There wasn't a threat to the US homeland from Germany at all. Nor from Vietnam, or Korea, or anyone in World War One. Wars don't work that way.

 

[bhsup]

Well, we dropped the first one and they didn't surrender...

 

[JollyRoger]

I guess when we didn't surrender when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, the second one had additional justification.

 

[CaptainLost]

I think the main question Traitorfish is bringing up is one of Orientalism, not war crimes. A question of whether it is or was safe to assume that the Japanese civilian population as a whole was infected with some mysterious exotic mental illness. The answer to that might then have implications for whether the bombings were justified, but you could reach the conclusion that even though perceptions were formed on a fairly racist basis the bombings were still justified, and dismissing the potential role of Orientalism because you think that, in the end, the bombings were justified, misses the point.

Oh. That explains it a lot better, thank you

The US was certainly very racist against Asians at the time. In that way the bombings were not justified in any way, and never would have been. But wars are not fought solely around racism, there is some logic and strategy in there. So I think ignoring the strategic implications of bombing-vs-invasion when talking about racism is utterly useless, since it's oversimplifying things.

 

[Camikaze]

Oh. That explains it a lot better, thank you

The US was certainly very racist against Asians at the time. In that way the bombings were not justified in any way, and never would have been. But wars are not fought solely around racism, there is some logic and strategy in there. So I think ignoring the strategic implications of bombing-vs-invasion when talking about racism is utterly useless, since it's oversimplifying things.

That depends on what you think the strategic implications actually are. If the justification for bombing instead of invading is solely that all Japanese civilians would've instantly committed harakiri as soon as an invasion started, then the bombing can be seen in some ways as saving the lives of many Japanese civilians; saving them from themselves. But if the belief that such a thing would happen in the event of an invasion is entirely the product of racist perceptions, then there's no longer any valid justification.

So it depends how much weight you give to the particular strategic concerns associated with the supposedly suicidal nature of the Japanese population, and how much you think that perception was the product of Orientalism. In terms of bhsup's post, if it's shown that Japanese fanaticism was a racist myth, then his point 6 is largely undercut (he might still hold to it on the basis that mass civilian casualties are worth saving one American life, but that's a much less powerful argument).

 

[CaptainLost]

I guess when we didn't surrender when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, the second one had additional justification.

If wars were fought with soldiers pausing after each shot fired to ask the other nation for surrender, boy, would history have played out differently. The world just doesn't work that way.

And comparing 9/11 to 1945 is a very ill analogy. It's like comparing Pearl Harbor to D-Day.

 

[JollyRoger]

Yeah, it was a mistake to compare intentional attacks on civilians. Obviously, the Japanese were much more willing to surrender than the United States under those circumstances.

 

[CaptainLost]

That depends on what you think the strategic implications actually are. If the justification for bombing instead of invading is solely that all Japanese civilians would've instantly committed harakiri as soon as an invasion started, then the bombing can be seen in some ways as saving the lives of many Japanese civilians; saving them from themselves. But if the belief that such a thing would happen in the event of an invasion is entirely the product of racist perceptions, then there's no longer any valid justification.

So it depends how much weight you give to the particular strategic concerns associated with the supposedly suicidal nature of the Japanese population, and how much you think that perception was the product of Orientalism.

In the end, the bombings were justified, ending the war quickly and saving Chinese, Soviet, Japanese, and American lives. No matter if it was done because of racism or not, that fact remains. And even if you take racism and the Japanese suicide thing out of the question, the casualties from an invasion still would have been immense--just take the invasion of Nazi Germany as an example. Just the Western Front from 1944 on took 800,000 German casualties, including many civilians--a whole lot more than the atomic bombs took.