Use of atomic bomb in WWII: Terrorism?

My reply letter to the Editor:
It is difficult to convey the offense I take to the ideology put forward in the recent article indicating that it is a matter of opinion as to whether the use of the Atomic devices in Japan was an act of terrorism. I must assume that the author knows little to nothing about military affairs, and I further surmise that what knowledge they do have is academic and not based on practical experience.
Japan perpetrated an act of War upon the United States and it's citizens. Their stated goal was the military domination of the Pacific region. They were willing to kill and die to achieve this goal. Furthermore, their military elements were trained to fight to the death and surrender of individual troops was not an option. Many battles in the Pacific show this to be a fact and not an assumption. Furthermore, an invasion of Japan proper would have entailed an armed invasion into their homeland where it was expected that the general populous would be brought to bear to repel the attack and defend the emperor.
The targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen for the RIGHT reasons. They were legitimate targets within the Japanese industrial military complex. Were our objectives to have included the annihilation of the Japanese people then Tokyo would have been ground zero. Additionally, any target within sight of Tokyo would have exposed the city and millions of citizens to the immediate effects of the weapon. Furthermore, an off-shore drop intended to show off the bomb was in fact not a legitimate option for several reasons.
First, a water drop was expected to generate tsunami grade events that would have impacted directly on the city of Tokyo and it's residents. Furthermore, history is very clear. Japan refused to surrender after we dropped the first bomb. A show of force was NOT enough to end the war. This was a royal empire. The people did NOT have the ability nor the inclination to rebel against the emperor. Until he himself was ready to surrender Japan would remain at war. It took the loss of significant military production capabilities hundreds of thousands of lives before he was willing to surrender. The same effect could not have been achieved by an invasion, and thus would have required the loss of even more life in Japan, and unthinkable losses to American troops.
War is not about fairness. War is about surviving when someone would rather have you dead. Survival in war often means that you must either kill or be killed. Our very way of life was attacked in 1941. Children were afraid to sleep at night. Our safety and freedom had been violated. The war that was required to remove that threat and restore our freedom was just and it was right. The decisions that were made in choosing how the war would end were not easy decisions, but they put the lives of our own citizens ahead of the lives of citizens in the aggressor country, as is the charter of our government.
Once again we are engaged in a battle to restore our very freedom, our sense of safety, indeed, our very way of life. It has become all too clear that in order to protect Americans we must completely remove the threat. If we turn the other cheek we will be attacked again. If we endeavor to 'talk it out' we will be lied to, and attacked again. A world without war would most certainly be a better place, but that is not the world in which we live. We live in a world where people and organizations hate others simply because of who they are. We live in a world where countries deny the right of other countries to even exist. And today we live in a world where ideology has turned to unthinkable violence, and the killing of truly innocent people, just because the lived and worked and visited America.
What the author fails to understand is that his precious freedoms of thought and expression have been attacked. His ability to write an opinion article has been attacked. His ability to pontificate about how unjust war is must in fact be defended through war. I find that sad because he doesn't appreciate the sacrifices that were made, and that continue to be made, to defend the freedoms that he appears to take for granted. But regardless of his opinion, his freedoms are in fact worth fighting for, and I salute the men and women at home and oversees who so valiantly act on our behalf.

God Bless America
St. Petersburg, FL

Of course dropping the atomic bombs was terrorisom. The stated purpose was to terrorise the population, military and civilian, into surrender. You can't argue that the US didn't directly target civilians - it's just true. Those corpses weren't collateral damage from an overzealous attempt to blow up a ball bearing factory, the corpses were the goal. Let's see - kill and threaten to kill more civilians until they won't support their government's policies or the government realizes it won't have anything left worth ruling. Yup, terrorism. Terrorism is just a word for a way of waging war. Even granting that the bombing was completely justified to the extent that God would give you pat on the back for doing his work just means it was justified terrorism. The question is whether anything justifies directly targeting civilians. Were ten japenese women and children worth one US Marine? If your answer is yes, and a lot of people's is, and you want to have a moral basis for your position then you can't condem the 9/11 atrocities simply because they were terroristic, you need to show that their cause didn't justify terrorism. And further, you need to show that when the US has used terrorism in the past it was justified. I guess the other choice is to say screw the moral basis - if you f*** with us you and everyone around you is going to be part of the glowing glass landscape. OK, I was wrong - that's a fine pagan moral basis. I'm no liberal peacenik, I design communications equipment for the special forces types, and if any of our gear helps a Marine sniper put some bullets through the heads of certain clowns running around Afghanistan no one will be happier than me. But I am a non-cafeteria Catholic and I will not support indescriminate bombing, nuclear or otherwise, of innocent civilians, Japanese or Afghani. Luckily, Bush seems to be with me so far on Afghanistan. God I can ramble.

I suggest the author look up the Battle of Okinawa before he opens his liberal trap again. The answer: NO. Next question.

Ahh, but you miss the point. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not intended to destroy the battle ships, which were already rather obsolete in those days....those were secondary targets...the main thrust of the attack was the two giant (for that day) aircraft carriers parked in the port...which were moved at the last minute to unscheduled maneuvers to the south of Hawaii and were thus safely out of the way.

The reason Stalin moved those Siberian divisions out of the Japanese border to protect Moscow is that he knew for a fact which direction the Japanese were going to attack. Further more, recently declassified American documents (remember the English do not declassify for 70 years as opposed to 50 in the US) showed that Chruchhill knew full well several months ahead of time where the attack was coming. Overall, Pearl Harbor was more of a symbollic blow on obselete ships...the main industrial capacity which built a much larger navy in 2 years was untouched, as were the main aircraft carriers that helped fight a holding action until the new fleets were ready to take the fight back to the Japanese. Even several of those battleships were then raised. Do any of you honoestly believe FDR would pass up such an opportunity to get the nation riled up to get into a war he was itching to join? Do you trust FDR that much? Or is it incomprehensable that your government might surrender the lives of some of your citizens to reach its desired objectives in its desired manner? What about the US Army battalion that was walked through ground Zero after an atomic blast and studied as they died...its even on old film footage of them advancing following a test blast.

Well, that's the interesting point. German war production actually increased throughout the war. With local businesses destroyed only the factories...which had earlier had to rely on slave labor, were still hiring...but I guess your point is that exterminating the civilian population is A OK with you.

Be careful, the fanatics will label you a communist liberal faggot peacenik red swine hater of all things American...hell, some will even call you atheist.

The atomic bombed ended the pacific war months, perhaps even years sooner that it otherwise would have. It meant we did not have to invade the Japanese mainland and therefore prevented the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers, not to mention possibly 100,000+ Japanese soldiers, most of whom would have been younger than 20 years old.

For many years I have agreed with this line of reasoning. I also agreed with this line of reasoning when Sherman shelled Atlanta. Part of war is to stop the enemy's desire to continue prosecuting the war. The other part is stopping his ability. A good strategy employs both. From a military standpoint it is totally justifiable.

From a moral standpoint it is more questionable. Do we really have the right to sacrifice noncombattants to speed the end of a war? Morally, not militarily, how is that different from China forcing women to have abortions so they won't become overpopulated and starve their population? What about a mother sacrificing her unborn child so she will not face a financial burden. There is a "line in the sand" question, do we sacrifice innocents to save the lives of others or to make their lives easier? In the generic it applies to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. In the specific it applies to the bombing of Berlin as well as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also applies to MAD.

I recognize that all of these strategic plans were pragmatic. And the good guys did win. But do the ends justify the means? Did we fight morally? I'm not as sure as I was when I was younger. If I had been a soldier and someone had shown me a Japanese mother nursing her baby and said, "Grunt, if we bomb this couple we can end the war without you risking your life. Or we can let you go against the Japanese military, but you will probably die. Which do you choose? Morally, I might have to choose taking my chances with the soldiers. I'm not sure what I would really do.

Don't throw out the question out of hand. It is an important question. We don't have to condemn those who came before to use hindsight to resolve some thorny questions.

But we weren't terrorists. We were morally superior to OBL and his bunch. At least we were in a declared war and had announced who we were and what our intentions were. The scum who blew up the WTC haven't had the courage to do this.

Shalom.

But I am a non-cafeteria Catholic and I will not support indescriminate bombing, nuclear or otherwise, of innocent civilians, Japanese or Afghani.

I'm Catholic also, and moral theologians have different opinions on the dropping of the atomic bombs.

If you, as an AMERICAN, believe that the loss of 200,000 soliders to an enemy is justified when other means were available to save those soldiers, then you're beyond hope.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

It's not 2 but 20 we should have sent on Japan. And the Soviet Union and CHina should have been bombed to dust too.

Ithaca the city of evil that would rather see innocent US soldiers be killed rather than Japanese fascsits bin Ladens who needed a lesson.

Guess if they'd killed more Southerners parties like the Southern Party wouldn't exist and you wouldn't have to worry about them southern politicians...should have burned down ever southern city and village...by your reasoning and why not they did it to the indians.

Pulling up short in war is a dangerous thing. You hit the enemy as hard as you can as often as you can (there were only two atomic bombs in the world at that time, and both were used). Anything else is the height of folly.

War is a nasty business; there is no getting around it. Squeamishness, though, is a fatal conceit and cannot be surrendered to. Sorry. The U.S. made a good call in 1945.

Ahh, the sychzo psychopath has spoken...well said...now don't mind the rubber room and the jacket so you can't bite anyone.

A synonim to your statement is: mercy. Hope you never find yourself on the recieiving end of an enemy that has none.

Yes, but this is the same bull$hit that has been put out by Raimondo and antiwar.com, LewRockwell.com, and put out here on FreeRepublic by their shills, most noteably SendtoScott.

Thanks for the plug - the only bad publicity is if they spell your name wrong.

Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly
against the law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of
knavery, mark you now, as can be offert; in your
conscience, now, is it not?
-Fluellen, Henry V, IV.vii

If you're using our Civil War as evidence of a war where civilians weren't targeted, you don't know much American history.

BTW, I'm no fan of the Southern Party.

As someone whose Dad was a captain in the USMC on Guam and Iwo Jima who was lined up for the invasion of Japan, I, for one, am grateful President Truman made the decision to use the bomb. Most estimates are that over a million Japanese lives were saved and 100,000 Marines. The Japanese were very aware that the US possessed weapons of enormous power. Their spies had the information. It failed to persuade the Emperor and the ruling junta in Japan. It was only the loss of life twice that made them surrender.

I'm also a shill for the FFF. See this

Problem is that many here who advocate using any means to reach their desired ends simply can't seem to understand or comprehend when the same law is applied to them. To the Islamics, those planes were an ends to a means and the civilians who died were equally an ends to a means...and killing them was not an ends, it was only a means....their deaths...ends..the toppling of American foreign policy and eventually of all Christiandom.