There was no good reason for dropping Nukes on Japan during WW II

Originally posted by Komonazmuk
Perhaps they shouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor unprovoked.

Long long ago before WWII, Japan had an internal civil war. The Samurais were fighting each other. One side didn't like what outside influence was doing to Japan. They won their civil war and executed all foreigners (Christians) who were meddling in their internal affairs. They closed off Japan to the outside world.

The US Navy sailed into port and told them to open their cities to trade or their cities will be bombed. The Japanese must have been impressed by the Navy's firepower and tactics....overnight they went from old Samurais to Business suit wearers and quickly adopted what they were taught. THEY started going around Asia and the Pacific doing the same thing. Forcing islands/ countries to start trade/businesses with them...or else.

The US stopped selling crude oil to Japan. Japan told America, open up to trade with them or you will get bombed. We opted to get bombed. It was expected they would only seize Guam and a few other islands first. 99.9% of Americans have no clue why Japan attacked. They needed oil. WWII was over oil. Japan and Germany had no oil.

The 2 nukes dropped on Japan were nothing compared to our firebombing campaigns. They did more damage to Japan than the 2 nukes did.

reply to post by Kokatsi


Indeed it is simplified. You understood it, didn't you?

There really is no such thing as total war. One can come close, using for example the Mongols, and occasionally the Romans. Usually war, or its aftermath rather, are very conditional. As was the end of WWII in the Pacific. Any one who's studied the war, and its aftermath knows that.

pearl harbor false flag? no? sorry then i thought you humans had woken up.

don't beat your self up when you do wake up.

kay-o?

reply to post by MorkandMindy

pearl harbor false flag? no? sorry then i thought you humans had woken up.

Didn't have to be a "false flag"... we just let them attack us as an excuse to drop the bombs...

reply to post by DeReK DaRkLy


many years after the attack on pearl harbor yeah.. no paper clip in between? don't think so.

kay-o?

reply to post by MorkandMindy

many years after the attack on pearl harbor yeah.. no paper clip in between? don't think so.

It wasn't ready until then... kay-o?

Originally posted by DeReK DaRkLy
reply to post by MorkandMindy

 

many years after the attack on pearl harbor yeah.. no paper clip in between? don't think so.

It wasn't ready until then... kay-o?

so you concur they didn't have the atomic bomb ready until early August and used the false flag operation on Pearl Harbor years before to have an excuse for dropping two atomic bombs in 1945.

kay-o?

reply to post by FortAnthem


yeah there was. The usa wanted to flex its power... it was a huge statement.

Japan was preparing surrender documents but refused unconditional surrender. That was not acceptable. Moral to the story. DON"T POKE THE BEAR!!!

This topic has been discussed I don't know how many times.

Stop regurgitating the nonsense that your "so called' professors told you.

Originally posted by MorkandMindy

Originally posted by DeReK DaRkLy
reply to post by MorkandMindy

 

many years after the attack on pearl harbor yeah.. no paper clip in between? don't think so.

It wasn't ready until then... kay-o?

so you concur

they didn't have the atomic bomb ready until early August and used the false flag operation on Pearl Harbor years before to have an excuse for dropping two atomic bombs in 1945.

kay-o?

There would have been no Atomic Bomb for America to develop without the help of British and Canadian Scientists:-

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

Given the situation at the time, the A-Bombs kept Soviet totalitarianism out of Japan, and prevented millions of causualties on both sides.

The Japanese northern-most home island of Hokkaido was in the invasion plans, but Japan surrendered before Soviet forces were ready to mount such an invasion.

Soviet Invasion of Manchuria ( and North Korea)

Re write history huh????Not buying your BS....The Japanese were ruthless...ask the Chinese what the Japanese did to them from 37 on..You are part of the current problem of people shoving their version of historical BS....Turner would hire you at CNN...Our President Truman actually had a pair.....unlike the current coward who dissected Libya and Egypt.......Your brain is not a patriot brain...you are the enemy.....I urge all AMERICANS...330 MILLION OF US TO CHANGE WHAT 545 so called elected people have done to us........
RICKY REVERE

Look.
Not many people can fully understand the devastation a nuclear weapon causes. It's an all encompassing game ender.
It was the end of world war two. People were angry, tired, and we wanted it to be over. Europe had been taken back, and Hitler killed himself. 1 of the 2 evil empires(in the eyes of the allies) was gone. All manpower in not immediately sweeping Europe for the remnants of the Fuhrer's army were sent to the Pacific to finish the fight, island by island. By that point, much of Japan's Navy and Air Force was gone, and all remaining forces had been called home to defend the homeland in a desperate move of self preservation.
A full invasion of Japan was planned, but ultimately dropped when Truman's administration decided that the atomic bomb was a better decision.
We had sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to take back all these islands, and PACOM didn't want to have anymore body bags to send home. They had what was looking to be a very promising game ender, so they went for it.
It wasn't like they just pushed the button on impulse. They gave the Japanese government several different chances to surrender. They refused, and what happened was entirely to blame on their leaders' arrogance and pride.
I mean, we levelled one city with the most devastating weapon ever developed. And still they said they wouldn't surrender.
So we did it again. And they finally caved. We were prepared to nuke more cities if they were still defiant.
So please do NOT make out the United States to be the aggressor here. The Japanese struck first and sent over 2,000 innocent men, women, and even children to their graves in the attack on Pearl Harbor. They also wounded over 1,100 people in that attack. It was a brilliant, but cowardly and dastardly move.
If you ask me, the Japanese military leadership had it coming. But it was their fault, and theirs alone, that their innocent men, women, and children had to pay the price in a nuclear firestorm.

Was there a good reason to drop the nuclear bomb on Japan at the end of WWII ??


Another way of asking the question could be.Could the war have been won without resort to the nuclear bomb to which the answer was yes but at what cost.Also as was alluded to in the reply above me after 4 years (in the case of the US and nearly 6 in the UK's) of all out war everyone was weary and wanting an end to it all.

The invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa just prooved that the Japanese people weren't going to peacefully allow their home territories to be invaded by the U.S.On the contrary they would make the fight hard and die for every yard the gained.The prospect of a full blown invasion of the Japanese home islands would be a costly,drawn out,bloody affair and the estimated casualty numbers nearing one million were enough to make any politician shudder.

The bombing campaign although successful and terrifying,it is trur that firebmbing raids on Tokyo killed more in one raid than the nuclear bomb did but any amount of bombing won't win a war.That was proven in Europe.The truth is that soldiers have to occupy the ground to finish it for certain,once and for all.

Yes some factions of the Japanese government were contemplating surrender but they weren't able to effect a full surrender on their own and the majority of the administration remain defiant while the emporer,as ever,said nothing.The prospect of Japan capitulating on it's own was slim indeed.

The Russian offensive in Manchuria was incredibly successful possibly taking the US by surprise and forcing their hand in the decision they were to take.They were adamant that the Soviets wouldn't be involved in Japan after the war so a rapid defeat of Japan was necessary to quash any prospect of the USSR invading Japan themselves which was highly unlikely but the US were probably in no mood to risk it however unlikely.After seeing the Soviets tendency to hold onto any territorial gains they made they weren't for taking chances.

**It has been said that the Soviets didn't allow their allies access to their gains or honour agreements made during the war but Berlin stands as a perfect example of the Russians standing by their agreements.They had full control of the city,won in the hardest fashion by a lot of Russian blood and control of the whole area way beyond.Berlin fell square in the Soviet zone of influence as agreed beforehand yet they allowed the Allies to have occupation zones in the city and free access to them.It has often been claimed since how unreasonable the USSR was in europe at the end of the war over allowing the allies access to their hard won territories but it's not strictly true.Would we have allowed the Soviets direct access and influence in Italy??.No we fought hard for Italy and never offered the Soviets any form of access to Italy.Maybe the conduct of the USSR should be reviewed in modern times,or more likely our conduct towards the USSR.**

Remember also that the whole Manhattan Project had consumed billions of dollars and had been by far and away the biggest project in the whole war effort.It had produced what it had set out to and it's highly unlikely anyone was going to just let it sit on the backburner,never trying it out or making a demonstration of it on the world stage.Even the scientist right at the centre of the development of the bomb didnt truly appreciate the weapons power until it was tested.

The worst thing we can do is to judge what happened from our perspective.We know what the bomb did,particularly in relation to it's long term effects.We also know now how acutely the Japanese population were suffering in those last few months.All things that the US war planners didnt know of to any true sense at the time.Dropping the bomb seems incredibly barbaric and almost gleefully vengeful when you look back from our point of view but thats always a mistake when you judge history through your eyes and not the eyes of the people living through those times.

Was the quick resolution to the war the only reason for dropping the bomb ??

It was the main reason,for sure and it provided the US military the unique oppurtunity to study it's effectiveness in a real war situation which would prove invaluable.That it also demonstrated the power that the US could wield directly and unequivocably to the Soviet Union wouldnt have been lost on the US but it's with the benefit of hindsight and the passing of time that it looks to many that that was the real intention of dropping the bomb but as I say that's our perspective not facts.

In the UK there's been a similar attitude towards RAF Bomber Command and the bombing campaign on German cities which began almost the instant the war was over.They were the only arm of service not to be awarded a campaign medal yet the one that had the highest casualty rates and the highest percentage of dead of all the arms of service from Britain.Everyone,including Churchill tried to distance themselves from the bombing campaign and it wasn't until very recently,this year in fact,that Bomber Command was finally awarded a campaign medal and recognition for their service.

Possibly the firebombing and devastation wrought by the RAF seems out of line with the kind of warfare that a civilised society would wage but after Dunkirk and until Italy and really until Normandy it was the only real weapon we had t strikeback at Germany.It was also a very real 2nd front to assist the Soviet Union.

The Luftwaffe had bombed Warsaw,Rotterdam,London,Bristol,Glasgow etc,etc and burnt the heart out of Coventry so the feelings of revenge were very,very real.The words of 'bomber' Harris the head of RAF Bomber Command,'He's sown the wind and now he'll reap the whirlwind'.It was a total war of survival and as such anything goes I'm afraid but to play down and try to disassociate himself from what happened was very unworthy of Churchill despite the obvious obliteration of Germany that the RAF had wrought.

By the same token to villify those who decided to drop the nuclear bomb because of the consequent effects and our modern day liberal views about such things is completely wrong.There was an incredble lot that happened in that war that was brutal,violent and arbitary done by all sides but to try and see them outside the context of the time does a great disservice to those that lived through it.

Also in a vain attempt to make history align with our values today we loose the chance to learn the very real and stark lessons of the past.

reply to post by JDmOKI

they did not commit suicide with "samurai swords".the correct sword was seppuku which dates back hundreds of years.samurai carried these but they were only used in dishonour but result was the same.

Originally posted by bthek13b
reply to post by JDmOKI

 

they did not commit suicide with "samurai swords".the correct sword was seppuku which dates back hundreds of years.samurai carried these but they were only used in dishonour but result was the same.

Seppuku was not a type of sword rather a method of hara kiri which involved self disembowelment,the type of sword usually involved was called a tanto.

Seppuku (切腹?, "stomach-cutting") is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture), or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed for other reasons that had brought shame to them. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion.[1]

Originally posted by MorkandMindy
used the false flag operation on Pearl Harbor years before to

Please explain why you think Pearl harbour was a "false flag" attack. That term is thrown around a lot here, but most people using it obviously do not have a clue what it means.
en.wikipedia.org...

EditI see that most of the issues i covered here were in fact covered in preceding posts ( now that i am reading those after having already made my angry post) so this post can be skipped by those who already believe that while barbarians can be defeated by barbarity you can not make the world less barbarous by in so doing becoming the very 'barbarians' you just rooted out.

Originally posted by hellobruce
The apologists for Japan are busy trying to rewrite history. if Japan had wanted to surrender it could have surrendered anytime up to the first bomb being dropped,

They were in fact negotiating but the unconditional surrender thing is kind of cruel and sadistic? Why would surrender your country to someone who makes such demands? More importantly why did the US accept a conditional surrender of Japan after they had dropped the two nukes but would not consider it before?

Lets see how much you know of the history you accuse others of rewriting.

then they could have surrendered before the 2nd one was dropped, but even after the 2nd bomb was dropped there was a attempt at a coup by some in the military, and only the emporer stepping in and demanding a surrender did Japan surrender.

There was not much time between the bombs so expecting a surrender of a nation such as Japan just because you do more damage than you normally do hardly makes sense. If think that if the US wanted the Japan to understand the full implications of these city destroying bombs they would have waited a few weeks; Japan had no recourse to new defensive methods so there was no additional danger in waiting. The military were always running the show in Japan and they were not so much attempting a coup as trying to prevent the unconditional surrender of their country. If you can not force a westernized highly educated nation such as Germany to the unconditional surrender table by force why on god's earth make such a demand of a nearly feudal-in-structure Japan?

The USA was also getting ready to keep dropping them until Japan did surrender.

Japan surrendered as soon as the understood the scale of the Russian success against their armies in Manchuria and realised that while the US might only keep bombing them from the air fearing invasion the Stalin WOULD invade and that while the US might be a bad master to serve Stalin would be rather worse. The US then accepted the same conditional surrender terms, having apparently achieved their aim of testing their new weapons on populated centers, that the Japanese were in most essentials willing to accept months before to prevent the Japanese coming to independent terms with the Russians.

The US had a very limited supply of nuclear weapons and that is part of why they dropped them days apart; the illusion of plenty had to be created where it did not exist.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets, something else the apologists ignore.

"Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief

Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but he was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... 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 that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

en.wikipedia.org...

And there were others of higher rank and with the purely military credentials that you might better appreciate.

Since the air war against Japan had long ago ceased to have targets of military value that they could further destroy they had , as they did against Germany, started 'dehousing' the population ( the one's that did not die any ways) since what else were they going to do with those hundreds and hundreds of B-29's?

So to restate my original point Japan would have surrendered to the same conditional terms months earlier but the US insisted on unconditional surrender until they had dropped the bombs and the Russians forced the Japanese to choose between a American invasion or a Russian one; even with nukes the US failed to 'scare' the Japanese with their level of barbarity so in the end all it achieved was to further drive home the point that the US was already then engaging in the type of barbarous actions that the US national security state and since become famous for all over the world.

Thanks for reading and i hope i did not upset the delicate sensibilities of those who are arguing that the Japanese women and children 'deserved' nukes for the 'obstinate' actions of a ruling class they had about the same control over as most citizens in most capitalist/corporate fascist countries have over theirs. Threads like these do enforce my occasional depressing thoughts about the future of mankind so please be more sparing with your support of such barbarous actions.

Stellar

Originally posted by hellobruce

Originally posted by MorkandMindy
used the false flag operation on Pearl Harbor years before to

Please explain why you think Pearl harbour was a "false flag" attack. That term is thrown around a lot here, but most people using it obviously do not have a clue what it means.
en.wikipedia.org...

I agree that 'false flag' might be giving the wrong impression. IT WAS the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor.

Have there ever been documents that disclosed if in fact there were stand down orders given to dispatch by a high ranking officer in regards to submarine reports off the the coast of Hawaii that warned of an incoming attack from Japan?

That would be Treason if it were true, not a false flag attack.