Posted on 08/08/2020 9:47:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Agree!
“Certainly a better fate than many defeated societies in past eras have endured.”
And it’s very possible, in a few years, their society will be in FAR BETTER condition than our own (thanks mainly to Republicans sitting out elections because they’re mad at Roberts).
Let’s reverse the question.
Would it be immoral for Japan to go nuclear on the US?
They certainly tried to use other immoral weapons on us.
Toture for one, biological weapons for another
“When we saw our comrades mutilated, with their genitals stuffed in their mouths, I had no problem killing Japs.”
A Veteran of the Battle of Guadalcanal.
It sure saved my late father-in-laws life. He was a 4th. Division Marine recuperating from a serious leg wound he suffered on Iwo Jima.
He came home, met my late mother-in-law and they married. They had four daughters. One of them is my wife.
That’s an excellent point. The problem there is that it exposes the whole “look how many lives — both American AND Japanese — it saved!” argument as a childish non-sequiter.
What would have happened if the Japanese hadn’t surrendered after the second bomb was dropped? If the U.S. felt compelled to drop a second bomb because the Japanese didn’t surrender after the first one, then on what basis would anyone presume today that the U.S. had any intention of invading Japan at all?
Immoral? Nope.
No it was not immoral.The Japanese people were warned in advance if I recall my history to evacuate the targeted cities.They failed to evacuate their deaths are on the Japanese government.
Beside that the Japanese government thought very little about killing thousands of Americans on December 7,1941.Those Americans were at peace minding their own business when they were attacked and killed.
A third one was going to be ready about a week after Nagasaki.
https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/third-shot/
Read Richard Frank’s book, “Downfall”, it will answer most your questions on using the Bomb.
So are you saying that using atomic bombs WAS immoral?
Fair? Was it fair when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
There’s no sound moral principle anywhere that justifies the targeting of civilian populations in combat. That has nothing to do with the two atomic bombs themselves, either. As another poster pointed out on this thread, the U.S. had already crossed the Rubicon on that question long before August of 1945.
“the US had pretty much shot their wad for their nuclear arsenal”
That is what I had thought, but apparently head of the Manhattan Project Major General Leslie R. Grove claimed they would have had a 3rd ready by 8/24, and then they could further produce 3 a month for September and October.
My daughter’s teacher asked this question when she was in 8th grade and we were stationed in Hawaii. I got her to ask the teacher about Japan’s atrocities (Nanking, Battaan, Unit 731 etc). The teacher asked her where she heard about those and she told her from me (I’m a history nut). Teacher said the school didn’t feel that 8th graders were mature enough to learn about them so they would learn them in high school. Yet in 8th grade they were showing them films of the Holocaust.
(At least it was before the United States did it.)
But I don't think we can have a balanced discussion on the subject because we're simply too close in time to the event; there are those living who know people who were physically and mentally immersed in the war effort.
As long as someone is going to be able to believe, "If there wasn't a bomb then my father wouldn't have met my mother at the USO where she gave him a box of Twinkies and danced with him", then the discussion becomes more emotional than rational.
“Groves expected to have another “Fat Man” atomic bomb ready for use on August 19, with three more in September and a further three in October;[87] a second Little Boy bomb (using U-235) would not be available until December 1945.[229][230] On August 10, he sent a memorandum to Marshall in which he wrote that “the next bomb ... should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
“My FIL was a first lieutenant on a ship headed for Japan”
My Dad had just returned from Europe. After a short leave, he was on a train passing trough Kansas on his way to the west coast when the news came. They stopped at Fort Reily for a couple of weeks, and then got their walking papers. You would have had a hard time convincing him it wasn’t the right thing to do.
“all people need to lay down the weapons of war”
That would be nice however war is war unfortunately and by today’s and tomorrow’s standards the A Bomb was a fire cracker.
The US developed the A Bomb out of necessity fearing that Germany would be the first there. And Japan also was at work with A Bomb development, unsuccessfully. Any ideas abou what they would have done with it had they been the first?
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/docsworldwar.pdf
Was dropping A Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki immoral ? Was a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor immoral? War itself is immoral? Yet the invasion of Japan by allied troupes would likely have caused far more deaths and damage than the A Bombs caused and made it possible for thousands of U S servicemen to come home alive when the war was over. Actually a friend of mine was in San Diego ready to ship out to take his part in the invasion when the bombs were dropped and was very thankful that they were.
A better question: “Is war moral?”
If the A bombs failed Lemay was armed and ready to launch an aggressive incendiary bombing program which would have killed MILLIONS.
The reason they were using incendiary devices almost exclusively over Japan was because the air currents from Asia did not allow bombers to accurately drop conventinal HE bombs on target. The AAF went to the incendiary devices because accuracy was out of the question due to prevailing air currents and since much of Japanese industial zones (and the cottage war industries) were in and around cities constructed mostly of lumber, incendiary methods were deemed the most effective.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.