did US did the right thing by bombing Japan ?

[toant103]

yes

 

[chuckieland]

yes of course
entire japan was ready to fight to death
therefore there are no civilian at the time.
so the bomb is justify. they bomb two military city that used to be civilian city
Testify

 

[darren]

while it is true that Japan brutally killed millions of innocents elsewhere - like in China - something that my grandfather and his immediate family are very well aware of -- read 'the rape of nanking' etc.,

that does not justify what the US did by bombing Japan with 2 nukes.

I spent about many hours reading primary and secondary texts concerning this topic a few years ago and came to the conclusion that the second bomb was certainly unnecessary to end the war. and that the argument - that dropping the first bomb was necessary to save allied forces' lives as well as japanese lives on the ground war - is at best questionable.

from what i read, i believe the primary motivation for dropping the bomb was to demonstrate American military superiority to the Soviets as well as to test America's newest weapon.
other humanitarian considerations were certainly set aside.

 

[LoneWolf1]

<< did US did the right thing by bombing Japan ? >>

Ask the Marines who fought in the island hopping campaigns thru Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa, the Philipines and many other battles I can't think of at the moment

 

[Linux23]

yes.

 

[Jfur]

<< When you can tell me the good in dropping a nuclear bomb on a heavily populated city that will not only instantly kill massive amounts of people, but will also affect generations for many years to come, I'll be all ears. >>



My former roommate's mother was there Luckily she survived -- her children had some horrible effects believed to be from the radiation. Another really sad thing is all of the Pacific Islanders who were severely affected by testing in that region. Only recently has much of the truth about this been made available

 

[FreeAgent]

If the U.S. didn't flex her muscle at that time things may have been different for the people of the U.S..
They hit first we hit the hardest and thats the way its got to be to keep the U.S. safe.
Do you realise that back in that time the Japanese (not all) soldiers were eating American P.O.W.'s.
They were allowing U.S. soldiers to die of horrible septic bacteria that would eat the skin to the bone!
At that time The U.S. nation was threatened and defended herself appropriately.


Yes that is the past but so is the bombing, my point is wrong or right its done and second guessing that decision will have no affect on its outcome that came to be.

 

[Lucky]

The japanese certainly had no qualms about killing millions of innocent civilians themselves. And calling the japanese "civilians" is debatable-as formerly posted, tens of millions were trained to fight to do the death in the case of an invasion. While certainly tens of thousands of the victims of the bombing would have had no part in the fighting come an invasion (i.e, children), its no question we also killed many more tens of thousands of "civilians" who were trained "military" forces, if you want to call them that.

Yes, it was justified.

 

[Random Variable]

The U.S. would have had to drop a third atomic bomb (or maybe even a fourth) if the Russians had not have expelled the Japanese from Manchuria.

 

[Nitemare]

Was it right? No

Was it effective? Yes

Would I do the same thing if given a second chance? Yes.

We had no choice. Do not stab a superpower in the back when they have nuclear capability. There was alot of innocent lives lost there along with the guilty and the military. We punished the Japanese population vs the governing party who was responsible. Japan forced us to play our wild card and though I regret having done it, I can not see a viable alternative option.

 

[Tominator]

darren

There is enough revisionist history floating around on this subject to sink the island of Japan.

 

[yakko]

There should be an I don't know option.

 

[jjones]

easy question to answer. after bitter island fighting in the pacific, the US saw no reason to think that the Japanese would ever surrender. the bomb was the most effective means of ending the war with the least amount of lives lost. sure, the use of the bomb had other values but that's not the question nor are these other reasons the primary motivation. the motivation was to stop the war as effectively, conclusively and quickly as possible.

in some of the posts here it certainly seems to me some people know that we dropped bombs on Japan but know nothing of the rest of the war in the pacific with Japan leading up to hiroshima and nagasaki.

 

[Cyberian]

<< When you can tell me the good in dropping a nuclear bomb on a heavily populated city that will not only instantly kill massive amounts of people, but will also affect generations for many years to come, I'll be all ears. >>

Unfortunately, I don't think these effects were known at the time.
It was a difficult but necessary decision that was made.

 

[Tominator]

And the effects feared were not as long lived as first thought. The area is perfectly safe to live in.

 

[Pliablemoose]

The brutality shown by the Japanese during WWII justified the use of nukes.

They'd gone into "Mad-Dog mode" and never would have surrendered otherwise.

I'd suggest you ask an American POW of the Japanese, but there are few to ask, they were nearly all killed, tortured, shot or used for weapons testing (they used our soldiers to test anthrax weapons).

 

[Mursilis]

<< I'd suggest you ask an American POW of the Japanese, but there are few to ask, they were nearly all killed, tortured, shot or used for weapons testing (they used our soldiers to test anthrax weapons). >>



Very true - military studies show that the death rate of U.S. Army personnel held in captivity by the Germans was .9%. For U.S. Army personnel held by the Japanese, the death rate was 35%!! The difference is clearly explained by the abysmal treatment of Allied POW's by the Japanese.

For anyone who still questions the U.S. decision to drop the bombs (both of them!), I'd suggest reading "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire" by Richard B. Frank. This book was the winner of the 2000 Harry S. Truman Book Award and is an exhaustive study of the question. It is abundantly clear that the decision to drop the bombs brought peace and saved lives.

 

[Spoooon]

I don't feel like reading through the thread, so someone may have posted this. In Japan, there was a documentary talking about Japan's wartime atrocities in their war against China. link

 

[AreaCode707]

Wow, really interesting thread guys. I've read all through it, learned a lot.

 

[Looney]

I mean japan @ pearl harbor bombed military targets and that's it , but US bombed civilians ...

Did they only attack military targets because of morality, or did they only attack military targets because of strategy? I'll go with the latter. Take a history lesson in what the Japanese did to China, Korea, Phillipines, and countless others... you'll see what they would have done to the American citizens if they got the chance.

 

[manuelku]

Japan deserved the atomic bombs man. ShXt, the images of the raping of Naking are helluva nasty, i looked through many of those pictures on the net and stuff with cropping heads... raped and cut bodies with lungs or shxts removed out of bodies... bunch of killed woman and babies... man.. I fill sick about the Japanese's thought. They should be colonized and the japanese government should be ethernally banished.

o well, they brings up the economy and give us something like Panasonic, Sony, Toyota, Honda, Acura, Pioneer.... I can't say anything about that.

 

[ShawnReeves]

Yes it was the right thing...sad as it may be.


My wife and I just watched the movie "Pearl Harbor" earlier tonight. Personally, I wish it had more of a political view. None the less is was a great film!