Posted on 08/03/2020 7:06:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
It is August, 2020, now seventy-five years since the end of America's World War II hostilities with the nation then known as the Empire of Japan. August 6 and 9 are the historic anniversary dates of the first and only use of nuclear weapons in warfare. In the ensuing three quarters of a century, the attacks of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki their usefulness and their rectitude have been the subject of vigorous debate over their military, scientific, political, historic, and moral significance.
Schools of thought regarding yes-or-no justification generally break down as follows:
Yes. The European and Pacific wars were already too costly in lives and property. A quick end was mandatory.
No. The European war was already over, and the Pacific conflict was winding down. The Soviet Union, free from battling Germany, was soon to engage in hostile action against Japan.
Yes. There were no good options. This was the least bad alternative.
No. Regardless of military considerations, the attacks were a crime against humanity for the massive carnage of Japan's innocent civilian population, and Japan was presumably about to capitulate. America should apologize to Japan.
Yes. Western notions of chivalry, honor, and humane treatment of vanquished opponents were alien to Japan's ruthless, barbarous, and sadistic military culture. A powerful checkmate was required, and Japan should apologize to the world.
The atomic attacks by the United States Army Air Force on the two Japanese cities undeniably were horrific tragedies. Abstracted from historical context, by themselves, they do suggest extravagant cruelty in a purely vengeful act by this nation. And they provide ready ammunition for the "Shame America" movement, now in high gear over America's history of slavery, accusations of endemic racism, and other assorted offenses.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Are you also counting the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor? (2008 Obama reference).
No, the retaliation for Yoko breaking up the Beatles...
Some urban renewal was good for them.
Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki today compared to Detroit...
This is what Hitler did to Warsaw...
So again, don't ask me to shed any tears about Dresden.
The Japanese were not getting ready to surrender. It did save millions of lives both the American and Japanese.
Wow.
“Our demand, from President Truman...was for unconditional surrender...the Japanese were ready to make reasonable surrender...” [OVERTIME, post 118]
“The Japanese would have surrendered in June or July ...But, no, we had to demand unconditional surrender, until we could drop the bombs,...” [ScholarWarrior, post 132]
Criticizing the decision in 1945 of senior American leaders to use atomic bombs in combat is a form of virtue signaling.
Those who today deplore their use against the Japanese are also moral imbeciles; the rest of us already know that in war, first you win, then you worry about morality. To try it any other way is to court disaster.
Don’t set too much store by the claims of senior officers, that the Imperial Japanese “would have surrendered.” These objections weren’t voiced at the time of decision. Most of the commanders in the senior armed services were angry and jealous, because the advocates of long-range strategic airpower had displayed the worst imaginable manners by winning the war against Japan before they could one-up each other, so they attempted to argue (after the war) that they’d always been against using the bombs. US Naval and US Army officers still resent US Air Force’s very existence because of it.
Unconditional surrender was not President Truman’s whim. It was formal Allied policy, agreed on long before and set in place by treaty. Americans were not at liberty to
change it.
Yep, there’s roughly 150,000 left in stock.
“The fire bombing raid on Tokyo killed more civilians than the atomic bombs did. That raid was non-nuclear.”
I don’t think most people are aware of either the bombing that was going on before the dropping of the a bombs or aware of how vicious the war was up to that point. It is only in that context that the bombing makes sense. Too many see it as a toy war, not what it was.
Exactly. My uncle came home as well. He fought on Okinawa and to this day despises the Japanese. Two years ago was the only time I’d ever heard him talk about the war. All he said was, “Bad things happen in war and we have to get over them. After being on Okinawa for two days we had a pile of shells two feet high from firing so much (he was a machinegunner)”
He’s now 97, almost blind and can hardly walk. But he’s one hell of a man! Been married to my aunt since he came back.
Justified?
Of course it was war. Killing the enemy is justified in order to win.
The problem with the world now is that dying Europe will not let you kill your enemies.
Peace is the interval between wars
“...I dont think most people are aware of either the bombing that was going on before the dropping...It is only in that context that the bombing makes sense. Too many see it as a toy war, not what it was.” [Dennis M., post 150]
An important insight. Your “toy war” phrasing is the best.
Seventy-five years have passed since the Allied victories in the Second World War. In human terms, that’s one generation longer than the interval of time between the end of the American Civil War and the start of the First World War. In a society as dynamic and forward-yearning as that of the United States, historical context cannot help but be lost as the years pile up: memories dim, survivors die off. The horror, urgency, and sense of looming threat fade.
A phenomenon has been growing: among our chattering classes and self-appointed moral arbiters those Allied victories take on an air of inevitability. Since we won, the outcome was never in doubt. Therefore, the violent acts the Allied forces did commit appear less and less justified with each passing year.
We might anticipate anti-Western, anti-military Left/Progressives to act this way. Critiques from the Right (broadly defined) are more troubling; condemnation of Allied air offensives from religious leaders, conservative-leaning philosophers, and the academics inclined toward a Right worldview (a dwindling presence) are problematic.
That would be raids plural. Tokyo was obliterated except tor the Emperor’s palace that was not touched.
There are several very good videos on you tube showing the detailed planning and contingency targets. The hundreds of planes departed the bases at Guam, Saipan and Tinian in massed raids of unbelievable scope. The planning included rescue ships all along the way and detailed routes for P51 escorts.
I don’t remember the number but I cannot grasp mentally the amount of gasoline required for just one such raid. I can’t grasr the number of tankers it took just to transport gasoline much less all the munitions.
Those raids continued after the atomic bomb detonations pretty much up to the day of surrender
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