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Hiroshima (1946)

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Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#141

Post by thaumasiotes »

vinay427 wrote: post #83
xenocyon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up outside of the US, I have found that Americans have a unique view on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American schoolchildren are raised to believe that it was morally justified because it won - and therefore ended - the war. This attitude is so deeply and fundamentally ingrained into most Americans (including many who would self-identify as liberals) that it is very hard for them to see it as a war cri…

Honest question: can it not be both a less fatal end to the war and a war crime? This classification of something as a war crime, even if appropriate, isn't the ending of a discussion.

A lot of people are uncomfortable with the concept that the best possible outcome should be considered a crime.

(And I'm not limiting this to the circumstances under discussion -- I'm talking about the view that, no matter what situation you're in, there should be a way out that isn't a crime. Such people will, for example, object violently if somewhat incoherently to the fact that, under Qing Chinese law, a man ordered by his father to commit a crime had no way to get out of that situation while following the law: following the order is illegal, but so is disobeying the command.)

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#142

Post by mixmastamyk »

growlix wrote: post #58
EarthIsHome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those interested in arguments about whether the bombings were necessary, there's a good Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombi... I do believe the bombings were a strategic show-of-force to the Soviet Union since they were coming out of the war as a global power; USSR were instrumental in ending the war.

An interesting perspective summarized here [0] is that the bombings were not just unnecessary to end the war and were conducted as a show of force to the Soviets. They were conducted in an attempt to end the war ASAP, before a planned Soviet ground invasion of Japan so that the US wouldn't have to share control over post-war Japan with the Soviets. [0] https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-america-used-n...

^Ground invasion of China. Not sure if the Soviet navy was up for a significant assault on Japan at that time, but I'd guess no.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#143

Post by mixmastamyk »

There are two "WWII - HD in Color" documentaries on Netflix right now. I recommend them if you find this subject interesting.

The old one is more comprehensive, but a bit numbing in that it just hits you with fact after fact after fact.

The newer one is a bit shorter, and breaks up the action with recent interviews with historians, who delve deeper on the "why" of what happened.

The second one skips a few important things, so I recommend the older to fill in a few gaps even if you don't watch both.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#144

Post by adventured »

mcguire wrote: post #124
xenocyon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up outside of the US, I have found that Americans have a unique view on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American schoolchildren are raised to believe that it was morally justified because it won - and therefore ended - the war. This attitude is so deeply and fundamentally ingrained into most Americans (including many who would self-identify as liberals) that it is very hard for them to see it as a war cri…

There were 4 alternatives. Nuclear weapons were one. 2. Invade. The Japanese had 900,000 troops in Kyushu, plus militia forces. Japanese estimates were for 20 million deaths. Look up the battle for Okinawa some time. 3. Let the Soviets invade. Same deaths, just not US soldiers. Plus Stalin didn't like to give up territory the Soviets conquered. 4. Continue the blockade, with or without conventional bombing. Likely, t…

On #3, it would not have been the same deaths. Russia hated Japan and would have genocided the Japanese by the millions, torturing, starving, brutalizing, slaughtering them. Russia would have conquered and enslaved Japan for the next half century.

Instead the US occupied Japan and forced cultural changes upon them, which resulted in Japan becoming a democratic, peaceful economic power and tremendous contributor to the global economy and both global and regional stability.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#145

Post by KingOfCoders »

supernova87a wrote: post #3

When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen" reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?" Then, in college and especially after, learning about the eq…

I thought it was settled now that the entry of the Soviet Union in the Pacific theatre ended the war, not the two (!) atomic bombs - it's a sad fact that Nagasaki is so often forgotten.

The US had already destroyed mostly all Japanese cities. There was no large difference between a firestorm bombing and the bombs to Japanese cities. In Tokyo more than 700.000 buildings were destroyed and in one night more than 100.000 people killed by fire bombing.

The only difference was one of efficiency. It took 280 B-29 to kill 100k people in one night in Tokyo while it took 1 B-29 to kill 100k people in Hiroshima.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#146

Post by KingOfCoders »

valuearb wrote: post #62
overkalix wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how accurate this information is but they way it was completely explained to me, the Japanese government and population were not that affected by the first bomb in terms of morale. They had already suffered horrible large-scale bombings (e.g. Tokyo) and regardless of the initial effect, the US leadership had already decided to drop two bombs to give the impression that these bombs could keep coming 2-3 t…

The second bomb coming so quickly was key to changing Hirohito’s mind. The military had argued that Hiroshima was a one time thing, and the US couldn’t possibly build another bomb any time soon.

No they hadn't.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#147

Post by KingOfCoders »

j-james wrote: post #66
rland wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a discussion about this in high school, I think my junior year. Most of these types of discussions were very lopsided, so the teacher would usually have to encourage people to take the “bad/unpopular” position somehow. But this one was right down the line in my class and produced a lively debate. I still think about it, but my opinion hasn’t changed — it was the correct decision.

My Modern World History class in high school also did this. Our debate came down to whether or not directly / immediately killing hundreds of thousands of citizens was justified by potentially preventing even more dying in a subsequent invasion. The class was similarly split.

While instead the high school should have taught about false dilemmas.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#148

Post by numpad0 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #42
kingkawn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” There are more quotes, but basically everything you were taught about the necessity of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people in a flash was after the fact American propaganda to justify a war crime.

> " Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face " Not really; some in Japan were seeking a surrender and some, notably nearly all of the Japanese military, were quite definitively not. Had the internal coup intended to prevent the surrender succeeded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident ), Eisenhower's quote would have been entirely false instead of a half-truth.

The point of refusing the surrender and continuing the war was to fight to nation’s death and show their spiritual might.

So saving face is dead on.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#149

Post by pmachinery »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #64
pmachinery wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the number, there was no need to invade Japan. It was already defeated, and offering to surrender, before the USSR joined the fight. Totally surrounded/blockaded, no allies left in the world, bombed at will, what else could it do but accept defeat?

> [Japan was] offering to surrender, before the USSR joined the fight. This is blatantly false. Even after two atomic bombs had fallen on Japan, their military leaders -- and indeed most of their population -- remained committed to fight on until the nation of Japan ceased to exist. It was only the intervention of the emperor himself (who never gets involved in matters of war) that convinced the military and the peop…

> This is blatantly false.

No, it's a blatant historical fact, known to absolutely everybody with even the remotest interest and knowledge of this subject.

Edit: mindlessly downvoting posts about well-known established facts is pretty fucking stupid, as well as bizarre.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#150

Post by Melting_Harps »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #108
supernova87a wrote: post #3

When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen" reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?" Then, in college and especially after, learning about the eq…

> When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen" reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?" This is captured very well in Leiji Matsumoto's "The Cockp…

Also while we're on the subject of the Hibakusha, a seldom noted part of US History is not only the seldom spoken American-POW causalities from the Nuclear Bombings, but also less known are the American-born Hibakusha.

Here is a mini documentary [1] told from perspective of the grandson interviewing his grandfather on just this subject, who was a Californian-born Japanese who went back to Japan to live with his family in Hiroshima while his entire American Citizen family back in California were sent to the one of the worst internement camps of all but he was also an American-Hibakusha (Nuclear bomb survivor).

I'm may be biased as I grew up in the 90s when Japanese culture was mainstream and prevalent but also had Japanese childhood friends growing up in SoCal who were often the grandchildren of those sent to the camps, but it must be said that the way the Japanese were treated during this period is seriously one of the most dark and personally humiliating part of Californian History that I'm ashamed to admit took place. It shows how even being a supposed 'American' can be irrelevant if the State deems you as an enemy for actions that were done by a foreign nation completely unrelated to your own identity/citzenship if it its suits its end. Worse yet, all while lying how the US wasnot involved in WWII, specifically the Pacific Theatere as the AVG (American Air-force mercenaries) were contracted by the Chinese government training its soldiers but also in active combat against the Japanese under the guise of the 'American Volunteer Group' via Executive Order.

I have serious guilt issues, even though my military family actually didn't see active combat in that conflict but were in the Bay Area at that time and (indirectly) benefited from the Property seizures from that period.

Suffice this dark event is one of the main reasons why I'm anti-war.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU0aCc_krX8

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