USA - WW2 War crimes never addressed and held accountable!

Hello ATS,

Yes so first of all i will admit and understand this is a touchy subject for both people of the US and Japan. However, to get straight to the point. Although Japan was the first to break the rules of engagment with the sneaky and blatant attack on Pearl harbour, along with all the fighting and trench battles of WW2 that followed. Does this justify the means that stopped the war with Japan?


The means i speak of is the Atomic weapons used on the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

Now fair enough there were some military casualties in these missions but what needs to be addressed are all the civilian casualties. How could the US governement at the time justify such a radical use of force against a majority civilian population??

That is the question? They have never been held accountable and i believe it is a disgrace!

Here are some videos and also statistics on deaths, it was a sad day for humanity!


The precurser - Pearl Harbour ( Military targets only )




Then we have the Atomic bombing ( civilian cities )

First the bombing of Hiroshimi and Nagasaki -




Then we have the aftermath -





Also a re-inactment - also USAF pilot and and civilian interviews




Do you think you would deserve this, if you were a civilian stuck in the middle of a war your government had started?


Here are some stats on death tolls:

www.atomicarchive.com...

Also form Wiki we have this:

According to the U.S. Department of Energy the immediate effects of the blast killed approximately 70,000 people in Hiroshima.[44] Estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945 from burns, radiation and related disease, the effects of which were aggravated by lack of medical resources, range from 90,000 to 166,000.[1][45] Some estimates state up to 200,000 had died by 1950, due to cancer and other long-term effects.[2][7][46] Another study states that from 1950 to 1990, roughly 9% of the cancer and leukemia deaths among bomb survivors was due to radiation from the bombs, the statistical excess being estimated to 89 leukemia and 339 solid cancers.[47] At least eleven known prisoners of war died from the bombing.[48]

en.wikipedia.org...


AShould they have been held accountable for war crimes? Hell yes i think so!!

reply to post by Havick007


"USA - WW2 War crimes never addressed and held accountable!"

Yes... Because we won.

I am not condoning the actions of the U.S. against Japan, only pointing out that 'history is written by the victors' so-to-speak. Every time. Some horrors are glorified, and some are simply not spoken of and buried, some actions are simply glossed over until their are relegated to the historical dust-bin, and sometimes you get one, big, fat Elephant In The Living Room that everyone shimmies around looking uncomfortable.

What goes around comes around sometimes in these matters. I know these actions have not been forgotten, and will not be for many, many generations.

reply to post by redhorse


Yes you won - good for you... and at what cost? Do you think there could have been a better way?

Was it worth it? Using a Nuclear Bomb? Was it worth it? It all comes down to persepctive, what if your family had been there? Look i cant say i know what its like or how they felt. But if it had been me, id still be angry, the first and only ever country to have a Nuclear Weapons used and actually tested on them? Yes great it ended the war but once i again i ask at what cost?

It was a sad day for humanity

Dropping the bombs saved exponentially more lives than they took.

A land invasion of Japan wouldve cost many hundreds of thousands of lives if not more.

It's a simple numbers game.

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by redhorse

 

Yes you won - good for you... and at what cost? Do you think there could have been a better way?

Was it worth it? Using a Nuclear Bomb? Was it worth it? It all comes down to persepctive, what if your family had been there? Look i cant say i know what its like or how they felt. But if it had been me, id still be angry, the first and only ever country to have a Nuclear Weapons used and actually tested on them? Yes great it ended the war but once i again i ask at what cost?

It was a sad day for humanity

edit on 27-12-2010 by Havick007 because: (no reason given)

Yes. It was worth it. I'm sorry, but there was no "better" way.

Certainly, the survivors were and are angry, sad, traumatized, etc. That goes without saying. However, I'm just not sure I understand the point of using our comfortable armchair hindsight to criticize the course of action the military leaders of that time chose.

The allies found lathes, drill presses weapons & machine tools in the rubble that has since been characterized as "civilian." The entire japanese population was dug in for a protracted battle. They were prepared to fight to the death. Do you think it would have been more acceptable, or more politically correct, to fight street by street and risk the deaths and injuries of thousands of American servicemen?

I do not.

the saddest thing of all is that the japanese had agreed in principal to surrender before the bombs where dropped. this act in itself was one of the most evil act of all time.

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by redhorse

 

Yes you won - good for you... and at what cost? Do you think there could have been a better way?

Yes. It would have been slower, riskier to the war effort, and costlier in terms of human life to 'The Allies', but ultimately (I believe) saner. For example: The technology could have been applied to strictly military targets, with minimal risk to civilians. One can always use a smaller bomb. At the end of the day the actions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki specifically were one part military action, two parts experiment, and the rest was 'because we can'. Shameful, shameful thing really.

Originally posted by Havick007Was it worth it?

No.

In my opinion, of course, must be added as a disclaimer.

As an aside... Read the post again there cupcake, instead of snarling at the first sentence. My point was simply that history is written by the victors, not that that justifies the actions. Quite the opposite actually.

reply to post by BigTimeCheater


I land invasion should never have been neccesary, like i said before dont you think there would have been a better way?
A political agreement, perhaps more military force in the means of direct air strikes but using converntial weapons. They could have got to tokya with B-52's and dropped normal weapons on strategic targets. Yet they have to rick the lives of a small number to pilots so instead they bombed 2 cities with very high civilian populations, with a weapon that should never have been built and to this day should not exist in a weaponised means.

Ok lets look at this from yuor persepective as an American, on September 11, 2001 an organisation attacked you, and targeted your civiliations, how pissed off and hateful were you? I mean #, your country went to war and is still at war and all this time have lost many more lives than in 9/11.

This organisation in there own eyes is a type of para-military and yes they acted in the wrong way and did a bad thing against it's own race, they killed innocent people that did not fight wars or agress against a foriegn nation. They were going to work, doing an average days work as per we do today. Now lets go back to Hiroshima, put yourself in that exact position during WW2, in the midst of a war that your government had started and got involved with, yet at the same going about things normally, then suddenly a bomb drops on you, not just any bomb but the worlds most devastating weapon.

The rest is history but seems to forgotten in too many ways and there has never been any accountability.

Look i didn't have a plan to write this thread, but whilst writing another it came into the subject and it took me less than 30 seconds to come up with it because i had too, thats the best way i can put it, it needs to be addressed.


Yes we won the war, the allied nations. But AT WHAT COST! Was there a better way this could have been handled?

Also i am addressing civilian deaths in this thread..... So far with the lack of flags etc i am getting the feeling our American subscibers on ATS think this was ok, that the end justified the means??

Put yourself in thier shoes.... not the military, army or soldiers but the people, the average working class people that lost thier lives and continued to be affected into the 90's by cancer's and radiation poisioning.

reply to post by Havick007


No, there wasnt a better way.

A political solution certainly wasnt going to happen without some additional leverage, and that A-bombs filled that role.

You assume a strategic bombing campaign wouldve been easy to accomplish. Perhaps you are applying modern day standards to a 65 year old war. The first bombing run into Toyko resulted in only 10% of targets hit.

10%. Where do you think all of those other bombs went? Who do you think they fell on?

Japan was going to lose large numbers of people either way, the A-bomb simply expedited the process.

reply to post by Havick007

There are many instances of war crimes carried out by the US and it's allies that have gone unpunished and swept under the carpet.

For instance George Bush has publically stated (in written record) that he authorised an interrogation technique that is illegal under international laws and conventions. This is a war crime and Bush should be held accountable for it. He was even advised not to come to Britain as he may be arrested (Source).

Now my point is that we know that the US and it's allies have committed war crimes. Yet as far as I am aware (someone please correct me if wrong) no US citizens and no citizens of their major allies have been tried for war crimes. There is only one logical conclusion to draw from this and that is that the Hague War Crime Commission is a farce.

reply to post by BigTimeCheater


they were ready to surrender before the bombs, i feel like i shouldnt have to make my point twice but it is obviously harder to get through to some people.

how can anyone on any side justify killing civillians in any war even if your own civillians have been killed.

also would you not say the embargoes put on iraq after the first gulf war, are war crimes as starving a nation of clean water and medical supplies will affect civillians a huge amount and iraqi children where lucky to live past 5 .

the same could be said towards cuba but luckly for them, they had a leader who had his people and education (99.8% literacy rate) as his number one priority, and had help from nations who needed doctors and teachers etc.. in return for resources.

reply to post by shakennotstirred


the ironic thing is that the japanese where hung for using waterboarding in interrogations during ww2.
i guess this is the illegal torture you are referring to.

reply to post by lewman

Japan was ready to surrender on their terms, not ours.

If someone is kicking your ass, you dont ask him to stop and then give him a list of conditions under which he must stop beating you.

The ass kicker sets the rules of stopping, not the ass kickee.

THAT'S what happens when you win the war.

/truestory.

At the time it was not a war crime to use nuclear weapons.

And the list of war crimes that japan had committed could not be listed in this thread as it would be way to long.

Ask any WW2 veteran that fought in the pacific what they think about bombing the Japanese with nuclear weapons

reply to post by Havick007


No, the U.S. should have not used the bombs at all, but I never believed war had rules regardless of what people say. Civilian casualties are always high and yet not mentioned or if mentioned, they are merely statistics. "70,000 nameless people died today." Completely meaningless - all those lives.

With the event of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds by Iraq, the still neglected issue of the Armenian Holocaust, the Native American Holocaust, Rwanda genocide, genocide happening NOW in Darfur, it surely seems like those who hold the global political power determine the limitations of war and what is wrong and what is right. If you look at the bigger picture, one could argue the bombing of Japan was necessary to save lives of the allies.

A professor of mine once said, "America would not have never used the atomic bomb on Europe (Nazi Germany specifically) as easily as it did with the Japanese because Europeans are our brothers." I found it odd he would say that but historically, I think there has always been a West vs East power struggle. I think people fantasize that we are all the same under the sun but when it comes to culture, greed, war and politics, we're not.

The lesson here of course is that ALL nations should give up their nuclear weapons for the good of the world. Of course, that will never happen.


Sorry if it sounds like I'm rambling.

reply to post by lewman

Yes I was referring to waterboarding.

I was unaware that they hanged people for this after WWII. If people were found guilty of this crime and executed for it then does this not set a precedent under Common Law that water boarding is illegal. If this is the case then there is no wiggle room for interpretating waterboarding as anything less than torture.

I am no lawyer so I am just speculating, I would be interested to find out more from somebody who is au fait with the law in regard to this.

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by redhorse

 

Yes you won - good for you... and at what cost? Do you think there could have been a better way?

Was it worth it? Using a Nuclear Bomb? Was it worth it? It all comes down to persepctive, what if your family had been there? Look i cant say i know what its like or how they felt. But if it had been me, id still be angry, the first and only ever country to have a Nuclear Weapons used and actually tested on them? Yes great it ended the war but once i again i ask at what cost?

It was a sad day for humanity

edit on 27-12-2010 by Havick007 because: (no reason given)

Just think of all the killing that would have taken place durring an invasion. Form weapons, displacment and starvation and suicide. I suppose that would have been more of a clean war? And why has the thing been put on the US simply becouse they didnt want to lose more men in that invasion than they lost in the war to that point. The guilt here should be put on japans militarism, lust for empire, japans military industrial complex, emperor worship and xenophobia, nationalisim and warror cult code.

Perhaps we need reminding of the Japanese rape of shanghai? where the Japanese army officers let their troops murder, rape, steal, and burn the whole of the city for a week???? beheadings were an hourly happening, also being buried alive was quite popular (not with the Chinese) The japs deserved the bombs.