Correction. The final surrender was NOT conditional. The Japanese kept insisting on keeping the emperor even after the two bombings. Truman, who said he he didn't want to "kill more of those kids" agreed to this condition. There were plenty of Americans, including Senator Robert A. Taft (Mr. Republican), who criticized FDR (suddenly a good guy to conservatives!) support for unconditional surrender. Many, many Americans criticized the dropping of the bombs/unconditional surrender including Eisenhower, MacArthur, Robert McCormick, the conservative anti-New Deal publisher of the Chicago Tribune, and Herbert Hoover. If you want the details, you can find all the sources in the New Dealers War by Thomas Fleming.
Again, we have a different view of the rules of war. According to all the traditions of just war theory, which date back for centuries, it is immoral to INTENTIONALLY target babes, little old ladies, and other civilians for slaughter simply as a means simply to terrorizing the enemy. The fact that the Japanese killed lots of Chinese babies for the sole purpose of terrorizing the Chinese is not a defense of the U.S. doing the same.
Hindsight is always 20/20. The buck stopped in the WH and Truman made his decision based on the best information available and past experience with the Japanese, both in war and in peace. How much could Truman trust the Japanese who launched a surprise attack against our forces in Hawaii? Or used suicide attacks against our forces?
Again, we have a different view of the rules of war. According to all the traditions of just war theory, which date back for centuries, it is immoral to INTENTIONALLY target babes, little old ladies, and other civilians for slaughter simply as a means simply to terrorizing the enemy.
Mass warfare and mass weapons of destruction didn't exist centuries ago. Again, we DIDN'T INTENTIONALLY target babies, little old ladiers and other civilians for SLAUGHTER. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitmate military targets.
At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops.
The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.Nagasaki had never been subjected to large-scale bombing prior to the explosion of a nuclear weapon there. On August 1, 1945, however, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit in the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and six bombs landed at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage from these bombs was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people—principally school children—were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the nuclear attack.
The fact that the Japanese killed lots of Chinese babies for the sole purpose of terrorizing the Chinese is not a defense of the U.S. doing the same.
My point was that the Japanese should be the last ones to be immune from such type of warfare. They set the standard. The fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg killed more than the nuclear weapons did in Japan.
I asked you how old you were, because you seem to buy into this proportionate response nonsense and antiseptic war concepts that are really a luxury for those who have overwhelming power and don't fear for their own survival from the enemy. WWII involved our survival as a nation. The attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent declaration of war against us by the Germans two weeks later galvanized us as never before. Continental Europe was under the control of the Nazis [except for the Soviet Union] and the Japanese were running unchecked in the Far East. And the US was unprepared for war.
Mass warfare has changed the way we fight wars. Whole nations are marshalled into the fight. Troops are supported by a huge civilian infrastructure that supplies the weapons of war, food, ammunition, fuel, etc. In essence, entire countries become legitimate targets. And the objective becomes to break the will of the enemy.
Do you have a problem with our nuclear deterrence or our use of it? Do you believe that the US should adopt a policy of no-first use? Nuclear weapons or even conventional bombs can't distinguish between little old ladies and civilians engaged in the war machine.