Nuclear attacks in Japan justified - Agree or Disagree?

[wet_suit_one]

Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki legitimate? Let's drag up an old discussion:

"The bombings were condemned as barbaric and unnecessary by high American military officers, including Eisenhower and MacArthur.96 The view of Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman's own chief of staff, was typical:

the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. . . . My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children"

From here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico22.html

Interesting article in my view. If nothing else, the article shows us the horror and the glory of human nature. The horror is found in Truman, the glory in Admiral Leahy's views.

Note, there is new thinking on the topic, which contests the usual historical of the end of WWII in the Pacific. See here: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=full

This makes the issue one of more importance in my view.

It is also of greater importance in this day and age when the U.S. has threatened nuclear retaliation for cyberattacks on the U.S. Really? Because someone hacked your porn you're gonna nuke someone? Seriously? WTF? (Yes, I know I'm being facetious, but only somewhat...).

I'd be curious to hear what the commentariat (except the usual morons unless they have something intelligent to add) has to say about this.

Also, one final quote from one of the articles:

"Leo Szilard was the world-renowned physicist who drafted the original letter to Roosevelt that Einstein signed, instigating the Manhattan Project. In 1960, shortly before his death, Szilard stated another obvious truth:

If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them.109

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime worse than any that Japanese generals were executed for in Tokyo and Manila. If Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then no one ever was."

Your thoughts?

 

[red]

i am not certain that the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki was morally worse than the firebombing of tokyo. or the bombing of london. of the bataan death march. or the rape of nanking.

 

[wet_suit_one]

How many women and children were killed in the bataan death march? (Note, I don't mean to derail the discussion, but there may be a bit of difference there. At least with the children anyways...)

 

[LancsLad]

How many women and children were killed in the bataan death march? (Note, I don't mean to derail the discussion, but there may be a bit of difference there. At least with the children anyways...)

WW2 was a "total war", the nukes got the job done and saved countless Allied lives. Thats all the reason needed.


.

 

[red]

How many women and children were killed in the bataan death march? (Note, I don't mean to derail the discussion, but there may be a bit of difference there. At least with the children anyways...)

well the prisoners killed on the bataan death march included civilians, but in any case, they were unarmed prisoners who surrendered. is it morally superior to kill an unarmed prisoner who has surrendered than to bomb a city (with civilians) in a country which has not surrendered? for me the answer is both are immoral acts. but to look at one bombing raid or attack in isolation from the events which led to it, is disengenous at best.

 

[capncrunch]

The Japanese were already a spent force. Fat Man and Little Boy had more to do with showing the Soviet Union the power of the US military machine than it had to do with ending WWII.

 

[red]

thats easy to say in hindsight.

 

[Mervyn]

The Japanese were already a spent force. Fat Man and Little Boy had more to do with showing the Soviet Union the power of the US military machine than it had to do with ending WWII.

Which prevenedt the Soviet Union from important land grabs, which would have included japan.

 

[wet_suit_one]

If you read the articles, you would see that there is a credible argument that the nukes did not get the job done. Other factors were at play in Japan's surrender. Does this change your views on the use of nukes? (Do I really need to ask? Nonetheless, I raise the question).

 

[LancsLad]

If you read the articles, you would see that there is a credible argument that the nukes did not get the job done. Other factors were at play in Japan's surrender. Does this change your views on the use of nukes? (Do I really need to ask? Nonetheless, I raise the question).

Until the nukes were 'placed' the military elite in japan were fixted on glorious destruction. That would have taken out ;lots more civies than a couple of bombs did. the emporer had to see that further resistance would only lead to countless illions more deaths. Plus the all important Allied soldiers whose lives wre spared. So, I don't really care what revision view you subscribe to, the nukes catalysed the fall of japan and thats all I need to know. If you have a Veteran from the Pacific Theatre in your family, ask them their opinion.

 

[red]

If you read the articles, you would see that there is a credible argument that the nukes did not get the job done. Other factors were at play in Japan's surrender. Does this change your views on the use of nukes? (Do I really need to ask? Nonetheless, I raise the question).

a "credible argument that the nukes" did not lead to the surrender. this line of thinking is a red herring. first maybe nukes led to the surrender and maybe it didn't. when the decision was made, the US was at war with japan. japan attacked the US first and committed horrible atrocities during the war. the US (and its allies- though mainly the US) fought japan back across the pacific and japan showed no sign of surrender when the bomb was dropped. if the US had bombed hiroshima with conventional weapons and killed the same number of civilians would we be having this discussion?

 

[Aardvark154]

Once again: Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invastion of Japan, 1945-1947 D.M. Giangreco, U.S. Naval Institute Press.


Further may it be pointed out that Fleet Admiral Leahy who was the very model of a "Pentagon Admiral" before there was a Pentagon most of his career being spent ashore in various administrative and technical postings, famously said to President Truman after he had been briefed about the Manhattan Project "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."

 

[danmand]

Of course, the americans were going to use their nukes. They had spent billions (1943 money) developing them. Truman would have been taken to court if he had spent that much money on a secret project without any results.

PS: It is worth noting that the US is the only country that has used nuclear weapons in a conflict.

 

[Aardvark154]

Of course, the americans were going to use their nukes. They had spent billions (1943 money) developing them. Truman would have been taken to court if he had spent that much money on a secret project without any results.

On this Danmand and I agree, if it had come out that Truman had sat on a potentially war winning weapon while millions of American (not to mention allied) members of the military had died in the invasion of Japan, Impeachment and Conviction would have been the very nicest of things to have happened.

 

[richaceg]

How many women and children were killed in the bataan death march? (Note, I don't mean to derail the discussion, but there may be a bit of difference there. At least with the children anyways...)

well here's a story for you. most parents shaved their kids to make them look like boys why? This was in the philippines. And the deathmarch may not be close to what happened to Auschwitz but it is worst in it's own. If you can't walk, you're as good as dead.

 

[richaceg]

To me nothing is more heinous than suicide bombing where most casualties are civvies.

 

[Aardvark154]

i am not certain that the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki was morally worse than the firebombing of tokyo. or the bombing of london. of the bataan death march. or the rape of nanking.

The article from the Boston Globe is basically about the work of Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of the University of California, Santa Barbara including his two books: Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan and The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)

To us, then, Hiroshima was unique, and the move to atomic weaponry was a great leap. . . But Hasegawa argues the change was incremental. “Once we had accepted strategic bombing as an acceptable weapon of war, the atomic bomb was a very small step.” To Japan’s leaders, Hiroshima was yet another population center leveled, albeit in a novel way. If they didn’t surrender after Tokyo, they weren’t going to after Hiroshima.


[However, Barton Bernstein, Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University, (the unofficial dean of American atomic bomb scholarship) cautions] But therein lies the weakness of the Hasegawa interpretation as well, after a long war and in the space of a few days, the Japanese leadership was hit with two extraordinary events - Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion - and sorting out cause and effect, based on incomplete documentation, may prove impossible.

 

[fuji]

Unjustified.

I am not entirely persuaded that they actually saved lives, and in particular, that they actually saved civilian lives. The claim is made that Japan would have fought to the death, but that is contradicted by the fact that Japan capitulated after the loss of only two cities. Presumably a similar level of destruction wrecked by a conventional attack would have resulted in the same capitulation. Otherwise the Japanese are pretty illogical, and they have always struck me as logical people.

However, even if you were to grant that it somehow saved civilian lives, that does not justify it.

It's primarily unjustified because it set the precedent that it is OK to use weapons of mass destruction under any circumstances. I disagree. The use of WMD's is *never* justified. It's an evil act regardless of how you dress it up. Worse, from a practical standpoint, the precedent puts at risk many innocent people around the world. Sooner or later the bad guys are going to get the bomb, and they are going to point to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to justify their use of it. They are going to argue that bombing New York, or Toronto, or Los Angeles is the only practical way to win their conflict, and it's going to be a hard argument to refute unless you insist that Hiroshima and Nasgasaki were equally evil.

To Aardvark's point:

"Strategic bombing", where it means attacks on civilian populations, were not acceptable. The fire bombing of Dresden should be considered a war crime, and if any of those responsible for it are still living then they, along with those responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should be prosecuted for their monstrous crimes against humanity. Just because the Nazis did it to us does not mean that it was ever OK for us to do it back to them.

Now there is a difference between "our weapons aren't accurate enough to hit the target" and "we're attacking civilians". A big difference. To some extent any bombing is going to result in civilian casualties, and less accurate weapons are going to result in more of them. But some of the "strategic bombing" in WW2, and to be honest in Vietnam as well, was meant to target civilians--and that's a crime.

 

[Aardvark154]

I am not entirely persuaded that they actually saved lives, and in particular, that they actually saved civilian lives. The claim is made that Japan would have fought to the death, but that is contradicted by the fact that Japan capitulated after the loss of only two cities

If you would only bother to read books on the topic.

 

[rld]

If you would only bother to read books on the topic.

Fuji clearly eschews such eccentricities it only makes the simple complicated...