The atomic bombs dropped in WW2 were unecessary.

Discussion in 'Nuclear, Chemical & Bio Weapons' started by Vegas giants, Dec 31, 2018.

  1. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    A military attacked our military. We justly and valiantly defeated that military. Then a racist, morally bankrupt civilian politician who hoarded power to himself and imperiled our very Republic determined to use a new and terrible weapon to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians with absolute disregard for the loss of human life.

    That is what happened.
     
  2. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    We didn't ask Japan to come and attack us and commit horrible atrocities.

    There was never any such report.

    Hardly.

    The A-bombs were dropped on military targets.

    Japan refused to surrender until after both A-bombs had already been dropped.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2019
  3. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    Denials, non-sequitors, and outright lies. That’s evidently all you’re left with.
     
  4. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    It is proper that untrue statements are denied.

    Every one of my responses directly addressed what I was responding to.

    Everything that I said is completely true.

    I have the historical record and the consensus of all of the historians.
     
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  5. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    .
     
  6. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    If the Potsdam Proclamation was Japan's idea, why did Japan reject the Potsdam Proclamation?
     
  7. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    US lives are more important than that of our economies. Better to kill 100,000 pf them than allow 10 of our boys to be killed.

    The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary and good. Americans should feel no shame about it.

    When you are at war with an enemy the only merciful way to fight is savagely with every resource you have in order to keep the fight as short as possible. We did that and shouldn't feel bad about it.
     
  8. Antiduopolist

    Antiduopolist Well-Known Member

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    They were more than unnecessary - they were evil.
     
  9. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    More evil then killing another 1 million Allied forces, and between 5-10 million Japanese?

    Because that is what would have happened if they were not used.
     
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  10. ToddWB

    ToddWB Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    it's done.. it's history.. why second guess the decision?
     
  11. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    The opinions of U.S. naval leaders regarding the atomic bombings really cannot be taken seriously. Remember that the U.S. Army and the U.S. Army (and thus Army Air Forces) were fierce rivals before, during, and after World War Two. The Navy didn't want the least bit of a suggestion that it was Army Air Force bombing that ended the war.
     
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  12. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    While later knowledge has shown us that it was probably not really necessary to drop the bombs, Truman couldn't have known several things.

    1. We didn't really know how far along the Japanese were on their own bomb. The Japanese had more cyclotrons than any other nation at the time and that could indicate they were working along lines we knew to be more productive than the Germans. If we had just demonstrated it we might very well just be showing them that it worked, it was necessary to show them we would use it too.

    2. The Japanese weren't the only ones in the equation. The Russians were watching this very carefully, and Truman wanted to show them we had the bomb, and they didn't.

    Power politics and hundred of thousands dead. Terrible things
     
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  13. cirdellin

    cirdellin Banned

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    Also a lot of Japanese lives were saved by this action. The only other options were a blockade or a land invasion.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2020
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  14. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    and people forget that even with the war over, Japan suffered a severe famine in the immediate aftermath of the conflict to the point that food aid from the U.S. was shipped in. If a blockade of Japan had continued for any length of time at all, hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Japanese would have starved to death. Starvation is just about the worst way to die. Arguably as bad as radiation poisoning.
     
  15. cirdellin

    cirdellin Banned

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    The Netherlands experienced this too in the hunger winter at the end. But no one cries for them!
     
  16. cirdellin

    cirdellin Banned

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    I can’t stress this enough. There were only two other possible ways to deal with Japan at the end of world war 2. They could have been blockaded causing mass starvation and other suffering or Japan could have been invaded causing untolled human casualties on both sides. The bomb was ironically the most life cost effective way to go. The fact that the Hiroshima bomb went completely unmentioned by the Japanese government is proof that the Japanese population was inconsequential to them!!
    The Nagasaki bomb meant that Tokyo was likely next and then the God forsaken Japanese leadership got scared for their own personal safety. There should have been executions if there were real justice in this world!
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
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  17. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Yes, as well as most of Europe; we had real problems trying to feed them until '47 and into '48. And, many were still in 'displacement camps' until into the 1950's in Europe.
     
  18. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Not to mention countless millions later on if it weren't for the deterrence factor; as it was, most conflicts even today are relatively low intensity compared to a World War; no 50 million casualties in 5 years for a long time now, going on 85 years or so, even in the face of decades of aggressive Soviet imperialism.
     
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  19. Esdraelon

    Esdraelon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My dad and uncles were part of that war and THEY believed that it saved their lives. If you can point to any figure in the Japanese government from the Mikado down to the lowliest soldier that corroborates this story, I'd be interested to read it. There were generals and admirals who refused surrender even AFTER Nagasaki.
    Those "successful bombing" campaigns killed far more Japanese than did both nukes, combined. They also killed in a more gruesome way. They literally burned tens of thousands of them alive with their incendiary attacks. Have a look at Curtis LeMay's strategy if you don't believe me.
     
  20. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Put most plainly, Eisenhower's account was false. Please see Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism by Robert James Maddox, page 17.
     
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  21. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Eisenhower's account of his July 1945 conversations is inaccurate.
     
  22. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    All four had agendas that were served by these later comments. None voiced opposition at the time, and some actually urged use of a third bomb.
     
  23. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The Soviet Union had no real amphibious capability and could not have landed significant forces in Japan for a long time. Soviet operations against Japan were almost all planned to be on the Asian mainland.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2021
  24. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    For those interested in serious historians' views of the matter, there is an excellent summary (pages 190-191) in "Racing the Enemy: A Critical Look" by Michael Kort in Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, edited by Robert James Maddox.

    ". . . Revisionism's heyday lasted until the 1990's. Then the historiographical ground began to shift. A new body of scholarly work emerged, often based on hitherto unavailable documents . . . leaving virtually every aspect of the revisionist case in tatters. . . . "
     
  25. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    Well technically there were only two parties to the conversation, and Stimson never reported his version of the conversation, so I don't think we really know.

    Ike's version of the conversation says that Stimson rejected his claims and told him that he didn't know what he was talking about.

    If Ike did say the idiotic things that he claims he said, I can envision Stimson rejecting his nonsense as forcefully as described.
     

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