Were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrorist acts?

We could have stopped bombing and started allowing food shipments while the surrender was being negotiated. Sure, that's not all gung-ho, everything for victory, America must utterly crush her enemies... but it probably would have worked.

 

we can always say it never happened. It's propaganda. We'll call these people AtomicBomb Deniers. yeah. That'll do it.

 

That is foolishness. Allowing your enemies to regroup and resupply without the surrender is asking to prolong the war and thereby prolong the suffering. The effect of dropping the bombs was horrific no doubt, but it likely shortened the duration of the war and possibly saved more lives than would have been lost; though that is certainly debatable.

 

It was used to create terror, that's for sure. But you could make the case that dropping any bomb during war would be then as well. The US warned Japan beforehand, which doesn't usually happen with most acts of terrorism.

 

Laws of War :
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907
IV

CONVENTION RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND


SECTION II
HOSTILITIES

CHAPTER I
Means of Injuring the Enemy,
Sieges, and bombardments


Art. 25.

The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.

 

Allowing humanitarian supplies through would not have significantly effected their ability to wage war by that point in the war. At that point we pretty much controlled all trade going into Japan anyway, so there's not much war material that could have gotten by, and it's not like Japan is blessed with tremendous natural resources.

So what if they "regrouped" if they had nothing but pointy sticks to fight with? We could always have dropped the bombs later if the peaceful option didn't work out. It's not like they had anywhere else to fall back to to build up their forces again. They were at the end. There was nowhere left for them to go, and they had nothing left to call on.

By three months maybe.

Well, yes, clearly that is debatable, and almost certainly false. There were plenty of options on the table, among which would have been to simply declare a cease fire and go home having made our point sufficiently. Without the threat of US forces, it is incredibly unlikely that Japanese leadership would have been able to retain power, especially not if the Russians rolled in after we left.

 

Actually it's pretty common. The IRA for instance would quite often give a warning about where they had hidden a bomb.

 

Why do you hate Chinese people?

 

Wrong. Japan still controlled most of its empire when it surrendered.

 

It's not our business to protect Chinese people, or anyone but ourselves.

 

And had no meaningful method of transport between the various parts.

 

That would have changed if a call of, "No bad," had been issued instead of asking Japan to hand the entire thing over.

 

In answer to the question: No. Were they necessary? Not for you. For the people in line to invade Japan, yes. So my question to you is, if you were President, how many American families would you be willing to meet with to explain why you allowed their sons to be killed to protect Japanese lives?

 

I'm not saying that going home would have been the best option, but it was an option. It is unlikely that the Japanese empire would have survived had we simply packed up and gone home. By that point, fighting us was really the only thing that would have kept them together. If we had simply expressed no interest in further engagement--if we had dismissed them utterly as unimportant--it would have been a severe blow to their legitimacy that they likely would not have recovered from. It would have been a profound social cruelty, to essentially say that "do what you will, but you are no threat to us, and we do not care to bother with you."

 

No, they would have sold it to the Japanese people that even though they had endured terrible hardship Bushido had won through and the Americans had given up.

 

Or we would have left and the Russians would have taken over Japan.

 

Or not. However, at the time dropping 2 atomic bombings on a country already bombed countless times probably didn't seem like that big of a deal.

It's only today, a time in which I doubt the average person even knows much about the war except for the nukings, thinks that the atomic bombs were so much worse than anything else.

 

It was a brutal way to end the war quickly but to force the Japanese Empire's capitulation, Hirohito and his advisers had be convinced that the war was unwinnable. Most major cities had been bombed extensibly by then but the emperor still wanted a final showdown with America. Moreover, an invasion of Japan would possibly have cost between 250,000 and three million Japanese and American lives and ended the war four months later.

 

WW2 was filled with "terrorist' acts. Civilians were targeted to demoralize the enemy.

War is hell....but when we are afraid to fight it, is when we are defeated by the enemy that isn't afraid to do what is necessary to win.

 

I studied it. The atomic bombs that targeted and incinerated civilian women, children, babies, hospitals, day care centers, schools, the elderly, pets, and pretty much every other living thing were pretty much equal to what the Nazis did to the Jews. You guys can gloss this over but it was Truman's last chance to test the bomb on cities and prove something to the russians.

He was a murderer and if there's a hell somewhere I hope he's in it.

Bee

 

So how does that differ to every other bomb ever dropped in history?

And to compare that to lining civilians up AFTER you capture them and shooting them in the back of the head, herding them into cattle trucks and offloading them at extermination camps to be gassed, performing medical experiments upon them............... IS THE DUMBEST THING I HAVE READ TODAY. Congrats.

 

America was at war, a war that was prompted by a terrorist attack on Pearl Harbor. Heck they even tried to invade via the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

I do not consider dropping the atomic bomb terrorism when you have fully declared war against an adversary.

For freakin sake, these people had Kamikaze Warriors who were willing to sacrifice their lives to sink American ships in the Pacific. They were fanatical in their determination to destroy us. They would not have surrendered until we had proven our own determination through those bombs. Were they horrific? Absolutely.

But this is the biggest load of BS I have ever heard, trying to rewrite history and make ourselves look like terrorists? If it would have been against a country that was not at war with us, and we dropped them in the middle of the night, then I would agree we were the aggressors and could be considered terrorists. But this was war, plain and simple.

And need I remind you about how nicely they treated our soldiers who were captured? These were not the Japanese we know today. This was an entirely different time, and the Japanese had a completely different leadership than they do today.

 

Maybe you should ask the surviving members of the families incinerated if their extermination was any different. And, a quick view of your post history makes your insult pretty normal fare.

Bee

 

no, it was NOT a terrorist attack, Japan knew full well that we were at war.

We didn't sneak in and bomb them, they were throwing everything they had at us, we threw everything we had at them...

war isn't pretty...and if they had the bomb first they would have used it too.

 

They're not objective.

The FACT remains that they are entirely different to anyone with a clue.