Was it wrong for the U.S. to kill so many people to finish the war? Did it save more lives then kill?

I believe, probably to the surprise of no one here, that it was wrong.

It's a complex question you ask, and an answer is almost impossible. It's an experiment with no control group. We did drop the bombs. We also targeted the civilian population with the devastating fire-bombings of Tokyo, not to mention Dresden.

That we prevented even more deaths is the popular position of support, but it's a purely theoretical reasoning. We just don't know.

It also depends what perspective you are coming from. What if you were Japanese?

Since this is a hypothetical question, let's pose another one:

Much of the world sees America's foreign policy in the last 50 years to be very imperialistic. Let's say China drops a nuke on Washington and one on NYC, to stop the killing. 50 years from now, Chinese people may be asking the very same question. And of course, Americans would probably all share the view that, no matter what "good" came out of it, dropping nuclear bombs on the population of the US was wrong. I know it's not an equal example. Another example could be if Germany won in WWII, and at the end of war, they nuked us, to ensure our surrender. Would we ever, even 50 years down the road, think it was OK?

I don't know. I just find frightening the line of thinking that ever seeks to justify force, and particularly such devastating force carried out against civilian targets.

Coming from strictly an American perspective, it was indeed the right thing to do.
Every military historian, at least from the Allied powers, that I have read, agrees that dropping the two atomic bombs saved upwards of 500,000 American lives.
Had Operations Olympic and Coronet been conducted, there was every indication that Japanese soldiers and civilians would have fought to the last man, possibly women.

Not being Japanese, I would have to root for the home team on this one.
Also, the fact that we had proven our will to use the bomb, I believe deterred the Soviets from using atomic blackmail, as opposed to the policy of mutually assured destruction.

Read this and feel good.

http://history1900s.about.com/library/week...terms=Hiroshima

Choose GO (Rt side ).
Choose top subject.

A proud record of being the only nation to use WMD's against civillians.
America did it twice and are capeable of doing it again.

Who's next?.

Regards....Alan

Who said anything about feeling good????

And check your facts, WMD's include Chemical and Bio weapons. Shall we go through the list of countries who used poison gas on civilians??

OK....lets clarify it a bit.

ATOMIC BOMBS.......perhaps thats not WMD's?.

I love people who try and rewrite history. It saved lives...if you can't accept that you are a fool or you have been filled with crap data in your head. BTW they were given a chance to surrender 1st. The first bomb was dropped..they were asked again...then the second was dropped..then they surrendered.

The rest of the world doesn't even know the definition of the word Imperialistic...including in this forum. If we are an Imperialistic power we are doing a *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** poor job of acquiring territory especially with what we spend on the military. I love all these other countries living under our defensive umbrella, not having to protect themselves or spend any money to do so. They live off the American tax payer and claim their socialist governments are viable..hogwash. I think of them as leeches...or those little poodle dogs that just yap and yap.

I say it's time to put up or shut up. Why would be proud of dropping an atomic bomb on anyone? If that were the case Alan, we would have immediately dropped it rather than giving them an option. Heck, what stopped us right after WW2? We could have nuked our way into global domination.

Darcaine

"Monday morning quarterbacks...gotta love em!"

Lets be a little more definitive here.

IT SAVED AMERICAN LIVES.

Uh....yeah....

Given the choice between the lives of your countrymen and those of the enemy, whose will YOU choose?

Let's remember, at the time Emporer Hirohito was recording his speech to the people of Japan, a military coup was attempted by officers who would continue the war at ALL costs.

While I wish that type of force had not been used against civilians, it was deemed a necessary measure to destroy the war production capability and the desire to wage further war, of the Japanese nation.

It would be appreciated if you could give me some information on the war contribution of Hiroshima and Nagisaki.

Regards....Alan

Not only American Alan. There were all countries involved.

Darcaine

Mitsubishi Co. located in Nagasaki.
Hiroshima had a high concentration of troops, military facilities and military factories. It was an important Army depot and point of embarkation.

Another reason:
Japans atomic bomb

Of course there are just as many who would say that it had no effect on the outcome of the war.
As quarkhead said:

Thanks for the clarification DT.

As quark said concerning allied deaths.........its all speculation.

The only thing we know for sure are the number of Japanese civillians dead.
We will never be sure why these cities were chosen. There were many more that were far more significant to the Japanese war effort.
One theory is that Hiroshima was surrounded by low mountains and the impact would be contained.
However, it indicated to the world Americas resolve to use any means at its disposal.

Regards.....Alan

Actually, drawing upon other islands that were invaded the death toll was going to be VERY high. So, conjecture leads to very formidable theory. Actually, I believe you are placing the wars continuation on the wrong people Alan. The Japanese emperor could have stopped it before the bombs were dropped. And, even more importantly before the second one was dropped.

Darcaine

Darcaine.

They were losing, and they knew it.

Unlike us they believed surrender was inconcievable.
It may well have taken some time, and lives, to 'mop up' the dregs of the Imperial army, thats war.

America used atomic weapons ( WMD's) TO SAVE AMERICAN LIVES regardless of the Japanese civillian losses.
FDR will forever go down in history as the only world leader to condone the use of atomic weapons.
The USSR in all it's evilness never did this.

So the question needs to be asked........Who is the most dangerous?.

Ask yourself.

Regards.....Alan

If FDR were still alive, and still president, I would agree.

But no one from that administration is.

If you hold the mistakes of past presidents against our current president, then wouldn't that be the same as saying that all Australians are criminals and cannot be trusted?

ask yourself...

That whole criminal/Australian thing was generations ago.
As was WWII

The past is the past, and does not predict our actions for the future



Like what city? Please explain

--cheers

The fact is in WWII neither the Allies or the Axis were overly concerned about killing civilians. My Philipino father-in-law still hates the Japanese.Only the losers have to worry about war crimes. The bombing of Tokyo took more lives, at least initially, than the atomic bombs.

I would agree that it saved some lives by ending the war. But, I think all the US had to do was drop the bomb on some unpopulated area and say, "See? If you don't surrender, then we're going to drop some more a-bombs on some cities." If the Japanese didn't surrender, then they were at least given warning ahead of time.

In war, I believe it's military policy to avoid civilian casualties. To premediatively kill thousands of civilians without a chance for surrender I believe was a tragic mistake.

I believe that the reason that the first bomb was not dropped on an unpopulated area was that we only had two bombs. There was even some doubt that the bomb would work. There had been some tests, but the science was not that accurate at the time that we could depend on every bomb working.

It was fully expected that we wouldn't have to drop the second one at all - that they would have surrendered after the first, but they didn't.

No one in America is happy that this was done. At the time we had troops that had already been at war for several years in the European theater - on ships on the way to the Pacific. These men were facing another untold amount of time in a second front against a brave, entrenched and spirited enemy.

There is a very high probability that the use of the A-bomb saved both Allied and Japanese lives. We could speculate that if we had not used the bomb the USSR would have nuked us ,based on a theory that we would not retaliate. Let us get back to reasonable assumptions, military estimates of the cost in Allied and Japanese lives were atrociously high. The only logical thing to do was use the bomb.
One-third of the citizens of Okinawa were killed, or committed suicide, during that battle. Do people seriously believe the use of the A-bomb did not save lives> Yes, Candide, in a perfect world their would have been no need for its' use.

No Alan but Stalin managed to kill around 12 Million of it's own citizens err subjects...stuff that in your fact wallet.

Darcaine

I don't see the connection between your statement and this discussion, Darcaine. Please elaborate.

The sources I have used to teach this subject generally treat this as a non-issue. The a-bomb was one of many new tools of war developed during WWII and when the decision landed on Truman's lap, he gave it the go ahead. In part it was the $2 billion price tag of the bomb. In part it was the brutality of the war. In part it was FDR's Dr. Win the War policy. Morality was pushed to the side (although we balked at carpet bombing early in the war while Germany and Britain started this early.) Of course we got over it and fire bombed Dresden and Tokyo at tremendous civilian losses.

The debate is one that was shaped more after the fact. We opened the atomic age by using the weapon. It's impact far outweighs almost all other forms of killing that ended up in around 50 million dead around the world. (exception or equal, the Holocaust)

The only hindsight solution I see as feasible, is negotiation on the unconditional surrender. For the honor of the Japanese nation they would not surrender without having some guarantees on the fate of their emperor. A promise that he would not be executed or locked away would have been helpful in pushing this defeated population to surrender. But the payback atmosphere of the time and the promise to our allies to not accept anything but unconditional surrender fairly negated this possibility.

Jaime, Alan was elaborating on death tolls and I gave him one that was NOT from an Atom bomb but far worse.

Darcaine

Japan was going to keep fighting even after the second bomb was dropped. Another reason they stopped fighting was Russia. They didn't want to have north and south Japan. They liked us more then Russia. We will never know how many lives we saved. It might not be here if we didn't drop atom bombs.