Captain Walker: I've made the point (in this thread and in others here) that the annual discussion of the Bombs is a sideshow; we were dumping napalm on Japanese cities for months prior to unleashing the two Bombs on the country.
You are deflecting!
Answer the question: Was or was not the dropping of the A-Bomb(s) the most-humanitarian act (to end the war - incl. in China - quickly) conceivable, under the circumstances?
Your previous comments suggest that you think that a naval blockade would have been more effective - i.e., would have resulted in a net lesser loss of human life. But now you are focussing on fire-bombing (What? As an alternative to the A-Bomb?! Or as a supplement to a naval blockade?! In any event: I am perfectly willing to weigh the relative benefit of dropping A-Bombs versus any other military method or combination of methods you care to mention.)
Defend your position! Demonstrate your logic! Explain how a naval blockade would have resulted in fewer deaths!
Captain Walker: Japanese non-combatants were considered legitimate targets for the US military long before the Bombs were even invented. (That was the real crime, my friend.)
In view of the demonstrable monstrousness of the Japanese Empire and its absolute refusal to recognize any standards of decency or humanity in waging its war of aggression in the Pacific and Eastern Asia - I remind you that the infamous Rape of Nanking, lasting from Dec. 1937 till March 1938, i.e., occurred long before the Einstein–Szilard letter had even been conceived - there was no "moral dilemma" on America's side, once hostilities erupted.
Captain Walker: Make it a discussion about lives saved; after all, we're the Good Guys.
Indeed, we (the U.S.A.) were the "Good Guys." And the dropping of the two atomic bombs was the optimal solution to saving lives.
If you dispute that, I'm willing to listen to your counter-arguments.
Regards,
LOL- i made the same exact point, we firebombed the Japs, and Tokyo, well before the atom bombs were dropped, and they refused to surrender- he’s not deflecting- he is stating a fact...
I don’t know what he said about a naval blockade, nor do i care, but it was in fact a blockade, or more to the point an oil embargo, that prompted the Japs to attack in the first place...
And yes- fewer people died as a result in the dropping of A-bombs then would have perished in the inevitable- a full out assault on the Jap mainland...
Except the war crimes committed by the Japanese at Nanking were committed almost exclusively by the Japanese military.