The Atomic Bombings on Japan were war crimes and here is why!

reply to post by daaskapital


Pearl harbor and they were in league with the Nazi's..... I do not know what else to say to justify us bombing them but they would have kept attacking Hawaii...should we have just let them keep bombing us??

Just because our bombs were bigger and stronger then theirs doesn't make it a war crime. Again, they bombed us first.

In a world that is on the precipice of economic collapse, why would anyone think that spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars to line the pockets of countless lawyers required to convict a country of war crimes long passed is a good idea? Beating a dead horse will not make it deader ( if that is even a word )

Originally posted by daaskapital

Originally posted by hellobruce

Originally posted by daaskapital
Yes it is! Your ability to ignore the facts is astounding.

You are the one ignoring the facts, the bombings were not a war crime. Funny how a armchair apologist 67 years after the bombings want to just attack the USA!

Oh my God

You still don't get it do you?

I just showed you proof that the USA broke international law on more than 1 occasion in relation to the Atomic bombings of Japan.

So you think that just because the bombing saved lives, it should give the USA a free get out of jail card?

They broke the law, despite whether or not they were trying to save lives.

International Law defaults to the Geneva Conventions in War Time, which the Fourth Convention did not exist till 1949 which specifically addresses civilians. Are you saying Japan bombing pearl harbor was fine, but US bombing Japan was not?

Here are "Grave Breaches" of the Geneva Conventions:

Grave breaches


Not all violations of the treaty are treated equally. The most serious crimes are termed grave breaches, and provide a legal definition of a war crime. Grave breaches of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions include the following acts if committed against a person protected by the convention:

willful killing, torture or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments
willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
compelling someone to serve in the forces of a hostile power
willfully depriving someone of the right to a fair trial if accused of a war crime.

Also considered grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention are the following:
taking of hostages extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly unlawful deportation, transfer, or confinement.[17]

Nations who are party to these treaties must enact and enforce legislation penalizing any of these crimes.[18] Nations are also obligated to search for persons alleged to commit these crimes, or ordered them to be committed, and to bring them to trial regardless of their nationality and regardless of the place where the crimes took place.

The principle of universal jurisdiction also applies to the enforcement of grave breaches when the UN Security Council asserts its authority and jurisdiction from the UN Charter to apply universal jurisdiction. The UNSC did this via the International Criminal Court when they established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to investigate and/or prosecute alleged violations.

Now remember the fourth convention wasn't until after WWII, in 1949 so none of this applies to us bombing Japan..

Originally posted by daaskapital

Yes, but both military targets were in the presence of civilians, therefore the bombings were war crimes.

Again, i quote Article 24 from the Hague Rules of Air Warfare:

3. Any bombardment of cities, towns, villages, habitations and building which are not situated in the immediate vicinity of the operations of the land forces, is forbidden. Should the objectives specified in paragraph 2 be so situated that they could not be bombed but that an undiscriminating bombardment of the civil population would result therefrom, the aircraft must abstain from bombing;

The bombings were clear war crimes even though the cities were valid military targets.

edit on 23-12-2012 by daaskapital because: quote

edit on 23-12-2012 by daaskapital because: (no reason given)

Hague Rules are not valid any longer, we follow the Geneva Conventions now, and the Article 24 from the Hague laws were created for tossing projectiles out of balloons, not planes dropping bombs.

There is of course, the theory that the real target of the atomic bombings was not Japan, but rather Soviet Russia.
They were Message Bombs.
The messages read "sure, we were allies in this war but in fact we are mortal enemies.

You(Russia) and all of Europe have been devastated by this war while we(the US) mainland remains unscathed.
All the worlds advanced economies lay in ruin while the US economy is set to produce, based on the fantastical momentium of our war time economy and are preparing to produce and sell our products to the whole world.

You, and your communism which would undermine our capitalist expansion throughout the world need to sit down, shut up and stick your head between your knees because looky here, we got this big huge MFer that we just dropped on these little Jap dudes, when we didn't even need to
and WE CAN DO IT TO YOU TOO.

And pearl harbor was an unwarranted act of war They started it, were asked to surrender, they kept it up they got dealt with. go cry elsewhere hippie, this time focus on a current event so atleast its not a complete waste of time.

Where's the outrage over the Japanese war crimes? Or the German war crimes? Have you ever read up on Unit 731? You want war crimes? Go read on their activities.

Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.[1][16] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.[1][17] The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.[18]
Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.[1] Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.[1] Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.
Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.[1] Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.[1][16][19]
In 2007, Ken Yuasa testified to the Japan Times that, "I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it." He believes at least 1,000 people, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.[20]

Germ warfare attacks
Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.[1] To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied.[1] Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare[citation needed].
Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.[1] Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians.[21]

en.wikipedia.org...

From the Hague Conventions:

Art. 4. Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or corps who capture them.
They must be humanely treated.
All their personal belongings, except arms, horses, and military papers, remain their property.


Art. 5. Prisoners of war may be interned in a town, fortress, camp, or other place, and bound not to go beyond certain fixed limits; but they cannot be confined except as in indispensable measure of safety and only while the circumstances which necessitate the measure continue to exist.


Art. 6. The State may utilize the labour of prisoners of war according to their rank and aptitude, officers excepted. The tasks shall not be excessive and shall have no connection with the operations of the war.
Prisoners may be authorized to work for the public service, for private persons, or on their own account.
Work done for the State is paid for at the rates in force for work of a similar kind done by soldiers of the national army, or, if there are none in force, at a rate according to the work executed.
When the work is for other branches of the public service or for private persons the conditions are settled in agreement with the military authorities.
The wages of the prisoners shall go towards improving their position, and the balance shall be paid them on their release, after deducting the cost of their maintenance.

www.icrc.org...

I'd call those war crimes, wouldn't you? Where's the outrage over them? Most of the Unit 731 members were never even arrested, let alone charged with a crime.

So the UK and USA are guilty of what exactly ? Winning ?

Both were dealing with an enemy that ignored the "rules" of war as they set out to not only defeat but exterminate us, thats people like you and me. How lucky we are that we can now look back and criticise those who made certain choices to defeat the enemy.

Japan were not going to surrender, even after the first A bomb the emperor refused to surrender and actively armed children against an expected coming allied invasion.

War is horrific and must be a last choice for any culture that supposes that it is civilised. Sometimes its a case of needs must.

Germany also made choices, how many war crimes were they guilty of, how many war crimes were Japan guilty of ?

What should be looked at are the great strides all sides made in the aftermath of the war to try and ensure nothing like that would happen again. Both Germany and Japan are amazing countries with amazing people, the Uk and USA are the same.

The freedom you have to raise your point was hard fought for, without the sacrifices people made in the allied countries that freedom would not be there.

Seasons greetings to whatever faith and beliefs you may have, enjoy your right to relative freedom of thought and expression.

Originally posted by Djayed

Originally posted by daaskapital

Yes, but both military targets were in the presence of civilians, therefore the bombings were war crimes.

Again, i quote Article 24 from the Hague Rules of Air Warfare:

3. Any bombardment of cities, towns, villages, habitations and building which are not situated in the immediate vicinity of the operations of the land forces, is forbidden. Should the objectives specified in paragraph 2 be so situated that they could not be bombed but that an undiscriminating bombardment of the civil population would result therefrom, the aircraft must abstain from bombing;

The bombings were clear war crimes even though the cities were valid military targets.

edit on 23-12-2012 by daaskapital because: quote

edit on 23-12-2012 by daaskapital because: (no reason given)

Hague Rules are not valid any longer, we follow the Geneva Conventions now, and the Article 24 from the Hague laws were created for tossing projectiles out of balloons, not planes dropping bombs.

edit on 12/23/2012 by Djayed because: (no reason given)

The Hague Conventions applied to WW2 however. During WW2, crimes also fell under both, the Hague Conventions and early articles of the Geneva Convention.

It doesn't matter what the Hague laws were originally applied to. It is still bombardment, just through the use of planes. Also, the article you are referencing actually comes from the Hague Rules of Air Warfare (1923), not the Hague Convention of 1907.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Where's the outrage over the Japanese war crimes? Or the German war crimes? Have you ever read up on Unit 731? You want war crimes? Go read on their activities.

...

I'd call those war crimes, wouldn't you? Where's the outrage over them? Most of the Unit 731 members were never even arrested, let alone charged with a crime.

edit on 12/23/2012 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

Yes, i would definitely call them war crimes. I never said otherwise. This thread however is not focusing in the Japanese or German war crimes, rather the fact that the WMD bombings of Japan were war crimes.

reply to post by daaskapital


If you're going to accuse one side of war crimes, you can't ignore the other sides crimes. What's good for one side, is good for the other as well.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by daaskapital

 

If you're going to accuse one side of war crimes, you can't ignore the other sides crimes. What's good for one side, is good for the other as well.

I agree, but Japan's war crimes and Germany's war crimes, i will save for another thread. They had no place in this thread. I said in my OP that both, the USA and Japan had signed the Hague Conventions, and both should be held liable for their crimes. I didn't expand on the crimes committed by the Japanese because my thread is not about that. My thread focuses on the WMD bombings on Japan and why they were/should have been considered war crimes.

Without categorizing the bombings in the OP, let's remember that Japan committed a war crime itself by bombing a country that it was not at war with, and killed not only military personnel, but also civilians in Hawaii.
Yes. I know two wrongs don't make a right, but let's give equal treatment to both events.

reply to post by daaskapital


All war should be considered a war crime according to that reasoning. The Hague Conventions were outdated by the start of WWII, because they considered aerial bombardment with zeppelins, and dropping grenades and hand held bombs from the cockpit of airplanes at the time of the writing.

Until Vietnam no one had precision guided capabilities, with the exception of highly unreliable remote piloted B-17s and other bombers that had a tendency to explode at random times. Military targets were right in the middle of civilian cities, so there was no way to NOT bomb civilian targets, by either side.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki both were valid military targets, and attempts were made to warn the population to evacuate the cities prior to the bombings. The Japanese gov't and civilians both said there is no way that a single bomb could be dropped and do what the American military said it would, so they stayed.

reply to post by daaskapital


War is war. I always thought that it was a petty distinction to have international "war crimes."

Like, "we agree to kill you in this manner, and we also agree that it is unlawful to kill you in that manner."

Pffffft....Ok.

I don't think anyone ever expected war to be nice. And what is the point of this thread so many years after the fact? Are you looking for us to admit that it was a "war crime" and hate ourselves for it? Are you trying to spread more discontent towards the US? Why? What is your purpose??

All is fair in love and war.

Originally posted by daaskapital

I knew someone would raise that word in this thread. Just because i am talking about an American war crime does not make me anti-American. Nor does it mean i am anti-American. Grow up.

If that is the case you would need to look at every major war and conflict prior to WW2 and pretty much consider them all to contain war crimes. I recently looked at list of wars throughout history and it was shocking, the sheer numbers and so many different countries involved from across the globe was chilling and often times civil wars. So it is odd to start at one point and say "this is it". It is kind of creative, a little whacky though. Imagine if the U.S had stayed out of WW2 completely and it continued, is that what you wanted?

Sir. Excellent work. It is far worse. The bombs did not have to be dropped at all, further the damage was only on civilians and had no effect on the war. Further on this... type in Douglas Dietrich WWII ... and go down the rabbit hole.

reply to post by Zaphod58


False propaganda. Nothing more than Freemason nonsense to the sheeple... Listen to Douglas Dietrich... Find out the appalling truth.

Originally posted by R_Clark
type in Douglas Dietrich WWII ... and go down the rabbit hole.

he is a well known hoaxer, not at all credible, as has been shown here before.

reply to post by daaskapital


In all fairness to the Americans, I believe the Japanese were essentially weaponizing every part of their society. In other words, if American divisions landed in Japan, I would expect the Japanese civilians to meet them at the beaches with spears.
(In all fairness to the Japanese, one WOULD expect people to defend their homeland.)
Personally, I think that we should drop the "laws of war" charade, at least to a degree. War is horrible, and I think our attempts to "civilize" it foolish. That's not to say that people should not be held responsible for their actions--they should.