Smoke'm if you gotte'm.
We had nukes and used them to save American lives, the only ones we were concerned about.
PERIOD.
**The atomic attacks by the United States Army Air Force on the two Japanese cities undeniably were horrific tragedies.***
Bunkum. The only reason people boo-hoo about the A-bombs is it took only two bombs to kill so many people.
Had the US sent 100 planes with 40,000 pounds each of conventional bombs and killed just as many nothing would be said about it.
In fact, the US DID send out several bombing raids AFTER the A-bomb blasts, killing thousands and no one cries or even remembers about it.
WW2 - justified or not?
Just because the big bad AR-15 bombs are scary doesn’t make them unique in war time compared to all the other destructive forces that were used (mustard gas, machine guns, tanks, firebombs, etc;).
Let alone the handwringing over modern weapons of war - cluster bombs, cruise missiles and depleted uranium ammunition (which is, oddly, considered just as dangerous as nuclear weapons)
Should they ever be used again? Dear God, I hope not and that’s probably the best reason for using them originally.
Lest we forget - Hitler was close on the heels of developing the atomic bombs as well AND had the V2 rockets to deliver them to the US and the USSR was right behind us.
If you wanna play armchair philosopher then you have to ask the question “is any war” justified? And that includes “good wars” like the civil war which is now being erased from US history as an inconvenient truth.
The fact of the matter is that humanity is violent, as any protests in Seattle and Portland and now Austin will readily demonstrate. Would BLM justify its use of a nuclear bomb?
You betcha.
A description of what an invasion of Japan actually would have entailed can be seen in Post 27 of http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3777953/posts
The attack on Pearl Harbor.......
....what is to debate?
The Atomic bomb has not been used since!
....so yes, it was a good deterrent.
I refuse to judge the actions of that war, using 20:20 hindsight
Oh its that time of year again? When we do the annual hand wringing on the anniversary for the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
As one who was around when the bomb was dropped, I can state unequivocally that it was an extremely popular act with the American people.
Where’s the “Not this Shit Again” guy?
Without a doubt justified. One, the two atomic bombs ended the war, saving many lives that were being lost day-to-day. Secondly and more importantly, their use made the invasion of Japan unnecessary. An invasion that would have resulted in casualties in the hundreds of thousands for The Allies, and millions for the Japanese.
Was not the rape of Nanking a horrific tragedy?! And many other Japanese atrocities throughout the war? Let's not get carried away here.
If the Japs had the bomb, would they have hesitated to use it on San Francisco or LA?
Absolutely not.
Is is August already? Time for this again?
Leaving aside the expected US casualties from a US invasion of the Home Islands, the Japanese Military was preparing a full mobilization of the civilian population. It would have been necessary for the US soldiers to kill millions and millions of militarized civilians.
The death toll of the bombings, while horrific, was a small fraction of the inevitable death toll amongst the Japanese civilian population if an invasion of the Home Islands had become necessary.
They have been justified because they HAPPENED! Time has justified them.
There are no do overs with nuclear bombs.
Justified or not, the point is moot.
THEY attacked US. They LOST we WON!
Just had an epiphany!
So, like 75 years ago we dropped the bombs. More than 100 years before that, we had slavery.
Do the Japanese HATE US? Are Japanese people rioting and looting and burning down our cities? Are Japanese Americans persecuted and incarcerated disproportionately ( Blacks are incarcerated disproportionately because they commit CRIMES disproportionately) ?
NO! Why is that. Seems like the Japanese people could understandably hold a grudge.
BECAUSE IT WAS SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO!
GET OVER IT!
His response to all the second-guessing and armchair generalship: They never had their balls on the anvil.
Japan had already set in motion a plan to execute every prisoner of war, about 130,000 men and women, on August 22. Had we not used the atomic bomb, we would have lost those 130,000, because Japan would not have surrendered until much later. Most people aren’t aware of Japan’s final strategy plan, Operation Ketsu-Go. Even at the beginning of August 1945 Japan’s leadership thought they could crush an invasion force and stop the allies from conquering the home islands. It was a delusional plan when you consider the Soviet factor, but even at the beginning of August the government of Japan was desperately trying to keep the Soviets out of the war via diplomatic channels. But any way you look at it, those two bombs ended the war, saved 130,000 POW lives and kept the Soviet Union from occupying most of Japan. So was it worth it? You bet it was.
Hell Yes!
The easiest call ever. Totally justified.
And remember the Japanese military was the ISIS of its time. A uniformed mob of torture killers.
Still discussing this after all these years. They made the decision based on what they knew, being intently influenced by what they had just gone through on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.