Was the use of atomic bombs to end WWII ethical?

The thing you have to remember, the Soviets had the equipment, they had the battle doctrines and they had the attitude. Also remember the Soviets drove across a thousand miles to the heart of Berlin by simply punching the Germans in the throat. In the month of operation against the Japanese the Soviets achieved a kill ratio of 10:1 against the opposing forces

 

Yes they did...but we are talking about moving multiple Soviet divisions over 7000 Miles across areas of Russia that had no roads and no infrastructure and no supplies.

The Russian's would have had to move EVERYTHING....Fuel, Men, Weapons, Equipment, Food, Water....and all sorts of supplies. THEN....they would have had to figure a way out to cross from Khabarovsk to Sakhalin Island then from Sakhalin Island to Hokkaido then on to Honshu....without the aid of sufficient troop and equipment carrying ships.

Unlikely.

AboveAlpha

 

Ofcourse it was not ethical , because its directly was thrown on people , on cities . Not on a specific military target.

Already who is waiting for them to behave in an ethical ... They will pay tp price for this as every nation.

 

Hiroshima: Army group headquarters, Army Academy, major logistical bases
Nagasaki: Second largest shipyard in the country, Regional Army Headquarters, Navy Staff College

Well, those both seem like they have some pretty important military targets to me.

 

[video=youtube;gdCe2wBeCiw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdCe2wBeCiw[/video]

 

It was ethical.

We saw what the Japanese did to China. We saw what they did to prisoners of war. We saw the amount of life that would have been lost trying to take the main Japanese islands.

There was no other logical choice. If we'd had the bomb prior to the beginning of the war, maybe it wouldn't have come to that, but we didn't and Japan chose the course of actions they did. Perhaps there was a choice, but the most logical one was the one that was made.

 

How could possibly be unethical to drop 2 atomic bombs over 2 harmless, unmilitarized cities? lol

Following this kind of ethic, americans should nuke all middle east because they could lead to a massive world war! Think of how many innocents you could spare by doing this!

 

I know this is a dated post but I couldn't ignore the reasoning here.

1) You only applied the term 'innocent' to the amount of Japanese killed int the dropping of the atomic bombs while ignoring the amount of innocent Americans killed during Pearl Harbor.
2) By saying it was 'murder' (the dropping of 'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy) you are stating that they were not deployed in the context of war.
3) Comparing casualties should not be optional here as victory or defeat in war is not tallied on the number of lives lost.
4) Your post seems to imply that Japan was undeserving of retaliation. The dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were regarded against the amount of force that the Japanese had asserted in the Pacific. They slaughtered indigenous people on many of the islands there. They unmercifully tortured and killed countless persons in their quest to gain control of the Pacific.

Without the aid of such a device as the bombs used on Japan, they would most likely have gained control of all islands and shipping routes in the Pacific ocean area and the war would most likely had a different outcome. The dropping of the Atomic bombs effectively ended the final push against the allied forces in WWII.

The atrocities of war are are not always the product of the wares of the victor. The US hesitated even joining the war until it was imminently provoked to do so.

 

both were military targets. learn your history troll killer

 

Oh yeah, with half the world pointing their weapons toward japan, surely it was necessary to drop atomic bombs.... to stop a more horrific war to come lol. There were a ton of other ways to resolve that situation man, but your govns choose to test their new toy... and it proved to be awesome! And you still try to defend them? lol... it's absurd to me, not so to americans war enthusiasts like you though.

 

does your momma know your on here troll ???

 

namvet... are you a vietnam veteran? If so you have my respect for the suffering you underwent, but this doesn't change the fact that killing 2 hundred thousand civilians in a flash is not what i could say a correct war conduct... pretty much a terrorist act though. Be proud of your govns war vet!

 

don't patronize me toad. we follow orders or people die.ours. so did they. these were military targets. there's billions of things about this you know nothing about and never will. your just another pacifist. i could bomb your country and you could care less. how many Americans died in this war and who started it??? oops soooooo sorry. didn't mean to make you "think".

 

I'm sorry sir, i didn't mean to offend you, but do you think every order coming from above is right? If so you are a good soldier sir, but surely not a very smart one. If they ordered me to drop a huge bomb over civilians, i would just say no. And no wonder why the pilot wasn't told what he was carrying, they already knew that was a very bad thing! I'm no pacifist sir, i'm realist. I'm italian and i know very well of the crimes made by my people both recent and ancient times but by no mean i try to justify them! A low strike is a low strike no matter what you say.

I'm sure there are other ways to deal with the enemy, other than nuke em' all! I'm sorry again to bother you honourable war vet but i'm saying the thruth, not trolling. I suppose all really good soldiers should question their superiors and orders from time to time... otherwise they are just mindless war machines

 

Wow, troll is right. Hardly "unmilitarized", Nagasaki was the second largest shipyard in the country! The Battleship Musashi was built at Nagasaki, as well as the aircraft carrier Kaiyo, and dozens of submarines including the I-19 (which sank the USS Wasp), and the I-25 (which was off Portland in December 1941 for a cancelled Christmas attack on the US - then returned in June 1942 and shelled Fort Stevens in Oregon).

At the time of the surrender, the shipyard was building thousands of Shinyo "Baka Boats", suicide boats designed to be rammed into US ships:



The fact that people still try to claim these cities were "peaceful" is something I find fascinating. A total ignoring of truth and reality, a serious mental illness.

 

So basically americans had to deal with this kind of problem: to bomb and destroy a lot of enemy military equipment, together with a massive amount of civilians, or follow with the naval siege, spending money and resources but sparing many civilians.

Your choose to bomb them and plain ignore civilians, a brutal but effective way to end the conflict and give a clear message to all possible opposition.

 

Then kindly list for us a few "purely military targets" without civilians nearby, ok?

 

Welcome to total war

 

(My bold)

Of course, in Japan during WWII, there weren't any. Only 15% of the surface area of Japan is arable land - & people & factories & all the usual infrastructure have to be shoe-horned in there too. Japan had been @ war from 1895 on, against China, Russia, Germany, Korea & so on sequentially. The Imperial Japanese forces started out on a high note - they took exemplary care of prisoners & wounded & the Chinese in general in the Boxer Rebellion. Japan's population pressure & lack of natural resources & living space gradually sapped the elite military culture - their senior officers were often Samurai or the descendants of. In time, the conscript army - the 2nd & 3rd sons of poor struggling peasants - lent themselves to a violently expansionist Japanese military, which in effect captured the Japanese government. To the extent that the young officers & some senior military used this pressure to attack & assassinate senior government officials & royalty who did not support the extremist positions.

Japan was late to imperialism, & the rising officers felt cheated - Japan had closed itself off from the World for 200 years. By the time Japan was dragged back into the World, & modernized its heavy industry & military, the age of colonialism was nearly over.

In a direct political sense, the people of Japan were not represented by the expansionist military government. In an economic sense, they were. Conquest seemed to the military to be the only outlet left them to assure the future of Japan. They were wrong.

 

he's just another pacifist who believe's you can have a war without killing anyone. don't waste your time

 

Oh, I am not wasting my time. And remember, most of the time when I am replying to individuals like this, it is not to them I am talking to but to others who might actually think.

And remember, I am a pacifist as well. However, to me it is more like I will do whatever I can to avoid a fight. But when it gets to the point that is not possible, make it as quick and bloody and short as possible to show as an example of why people should not go around trying to start fights with me (or anybody else).

A great example of this mindset was when my son was at a bar a few years ago, and somebody wanted to get into a fight with him. Pushed him around, knocked over his beer, my son finally had enough and decided to leave the bar (a few weeks before I had told him that getting in a fight is something to be avoided).

Well, the guy attacked my son from behind, knocking him to the ground. Bad move, my son was in the Nationals 2 times for Tae Kwon Do. My son had a few scrapes and bruises, the guy had a concussion, broken collar bone, broken nose, and a broken wrist.

The cops arrested my son, even the guy's buddies showed up and told the judge he was a dumbass, and that my son had done everything he could to avoid the fight, the guy simply wanted to get into a fight with somebody.

And I hope he learned his lesson, and never did that again. And that is my idea of warfare when it has to be done between nations. Germany never had that happen in WWI, and look at what the result was.

 

I have not read all of the thread, but have read enough to see the jist of what is being discussed. I lived through the war. My Dad had been recalled to active Navy duty in May o '41, he with 5 dependents which made little difference. He was assigned to what was the Navy's largest tanker at the time and he told me much later, his ship had left Pearl two weeks before, after delivering fuel oil and aviation gas to the Island. When the carriers went down at Coral Sea, the Navy was in dire straits for carriers; his ship was dry docked for conversion to a baby carrier, Victory ships were also split in half with additional mid sections added and flight decks made on those. He was assigned to a DE on the Murmansk Run. Later, his ship came back to Norfolk for refit and he was sent to Diesel Engineering school, made a Chief, and sent to a minesweeper in the Pacific again, so in a way, I had a vested interest when the Bombs were dropped.

Looking back, reading a lot, and thinking a lot, it became obvious, the dropping of the bombs were a political move to thwart the Russkies from moving on Japan. We controlled the skies, we controlled the sea lanes, and nothing was going to get in or out without our blessing.

A few additional thoughts. The Germans had started the war in Europe and we were up to our teeth in supplying the Brits and the Russkies with materials to keep them afloat, so to speak.

The rise of Hitler had all but been guaranteed by Woody Wilson getting us involved in Europe during the first war. How in the name of anything did it matter to us if a Serb national shot Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. The was was basically a stalemate until we interfered, then the French and the Brits raped, pillaged and plundered Germany at Versailles. The German's resented it, gave rise to Hitler and the rest is history.

As for Japan- they considered the control of the Pacific Rim as their Manifest Destiny, ( Read the Flyboys ) much as we had considered the rape of the West as ours, and considered it hypocritical for us to interfere by blockading ( an act of war, BTW ) their sources of raw materials with our Fleet. They came after us at Pearl ( surprising some Brass who figured it would be somewhere else. We knew it was coming, yet allowed it to happen. The Giant awoke, the Depression was broken, and we were up to our butts in alligators.

Was the Bombs necessary- I don't think so, even with the possibility my Dad may have been killed during the invasion of the Japanese Homeland.

BTW, my understanding is there were few actual front line troops left to defend the Japanese, they were training the populace, old men, women, and children to fight, which would have taken some toll, but not as much as many would have us believe.

I will always believe Truman was making a political statement, more to the Russian Bear, than anything else.

Making war on innocent men women and children is never considered Just War.

 

if your dad did die and your family found out Truman had a weapon to prevent it what would they think of him then??? he was thinking of all the dad's as well as their families

in the last 10 mons of the war on Germany over 200,000 civilians died. men women and children

 

I have no idea, the chances, and anything said is conjecture at this point in time, is a blockade, noting in and nothing out, was a first option. The bombs could always be dropped at any time.

Maybe. I am inclined to think he was more interested in Showing Uncle Joe that we had the power than anything else.
Of course, Uncle Joe got back at Harry when he snookered Harry into going into Korea.

Which actually is not germane to the Bombs over Japan scenario. We were considerably more racists toward the Japanese than we were to the Germans and Italians, after all, we had people like those as next door neighbors. Few Japanese could have as much said about them.

 

I pretty much got to there, and gave up.

We did not put up a blockade around Japan, we did an internal embargo. They are two very different things.

And just think about what you said, and I mean really think about it. If we were "blockading their sources of raw materials with our Fleet", then why was our fleet attacked in Hawaii and the Philippines, instead off of the coast of Japan? Hmmm?

And fighting in Japan would have been nothing like fighting in Europe. Watch some of the film of fighting on Okinawa, that is what most of Honshu was like. Rough terrain, with hills and valleys and canyons everywhere. Only the plains around Tokyo would have been even remotely like that of France and Germany.

And unlike in Germany, a nation where the majority of civilians would have laid down their own lives in suicide charges or killed themselves in masse.

So yea, maybe we should not have dropped the bombs. Just invade and then let the "innocent men women and children" kill themselves, like they had at Saipan.