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Hiroshima (1946)

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Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#151

Post by wiseowise »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #52
userbinator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the me that exists right now thinks that our military shouldn't have done what it did. It's worth remembering that if it weren't for them doing what they did, you might not have the life you do now.

Maybe? We can go around in circles on this but there were so many other options the Allies could have tried: - Drop the first bomb in the ocean in front of an envoy of observers and give Japan a week to deliberate their response - Blockade the island, threaten land invasion, and wait for the emperor to call for surrender as they gradually run out of fuel - Drop a bomb on Hiroshima but give more than 3 days for the go…

> Allow the USSR to go ahead with a ground invasion while the US sits on the sidelines

Geopolitics 101 from HN.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#152

Post by Gibbon1 »

alex_young wrote: post #131
throw0101d wrote: post #41

If anyone thinks that dropping the bombs was unnecessary, I would recommend reading Barrett's 140 Days to Hiroshima: The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon : * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51089656-140-days-to-hir... * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/140-... It documents, using Japanese source material including interviews with the principals involved, the decision making…

Isn’t it clearly a horrific crime against humanity to knowingly, instantaneously, and with premeditation, murder hundreds of thousands of civilians? The normal response to this line of reasoning is that they were / could have been doing the same to us. Two wrongs does not make a right does it?

My thoughts about this after 50 years of thinking about it is that war results in a relentless normalization of deviance. It's a good reason not to start wars.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#153

Post by wiseowise »

wat10000 wrote: post #125
bee_rider wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockading Japan would have probably killed countless Japanese civilians via starvation, right? At least, I don’t think the island could sustain itself at that population level, particularly without fuel…

The aerial mining operation was literally called Operation Starvation, so, yeah. The big question is how quickly it makes them surrender. If they decide they’re cooked and give up fast, it might not have been too bad. If they hold out a long time then it would have been terrible.

Given how ideological they were? It would take 5 mil dead at least.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#154

Post by wiseowise »

timuckun wrote: post #103
karlgkk wrote: post #30

The atrocities that the Japanese military committed, consistently and repeatedly and combined with their attack on pearl harbor, meant that Americans of the time on the front lines had few qualms or issues with dropping the bomb. Truman famously called Oppenheimer a "cry baby" when Oppenheimer expressed doubt. Truman had spent the past decade dealing with the war in his capacity as senator and vice president - seeing…

The problem is that the Americans saw no difference between soldiers committing atrocities and old people and children living in a city (fight aged men were out fighting). They were targeting old people and children because it was easier to kill them than the soldiers.

Sorry they didn’t invent HIMARS and satellite precision strikes yet.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#155

Post by okasaki »

ForOldHack wrote: post #128
timuckun wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the Americans saw no difference between soldiers committing atrocities and old people and children living in a city (fight aged men were out fighting). They were targeting old people and children because it was easier to kill them than the soldiers.

The please explain why Kyoto was taken off the lists of targets?

Because the secretary of war spent his honeymoon there and didn't want to tarnish his memory.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#156

Post by Synaesthesia »

throw0101d wrote: post #45
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

> The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances. Lower than the Holodomor? Lower than Dresden or Tokyo fire bombings? Lower than the Holocaust? Lower than Unit 731?

It's the single worst moment in human history. Yes, those crimes were larger, but in terms of the worst instant of time, this has to take the cake.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#157

Post by okasaki »

wiseowise wrote: post #150
udev4096 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Broke: countless of arguments arguing that nukes were justified, citing contemporaries from both sides of the time Woke: you’re all brainwashed, because I said so

So should Russia nuke Dallas and Chicago to end the US proxy war in Ukraine?

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#158

Post by JohnKemeny »

yes_really wrote: post #149
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

The singular horror of this event really is so difficult to describe, definitely one of the low points of human history which we must vow to never again repeat, under any circumstances.

The fault of this event lies on Japan, not the US. Japan was the aggressor who started the war. Japan was "fighting to the end" and gave no indications it would surrender. It is estimated that the war would go on to 1947 had the bombs not been dropped. That would have caused the deaths of millions or tens oof million more people. It is a tragedy that people died, but the blame lies in Japan's actions, not the US'.

"Look what you made me do!"

By the way: that same argument is used by Netanyahu and Putin today!

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#159

Post by strken »

snickerbockers wrote: post #118
slg wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The same result as what? The OP just explained how the bombs being deployed in the manner they were barely led to a surrender. The result of surrendering. What makes you think they wouldn't have surrendered if other targets were bombed?

I'm sure there could have been other targets that would have led to a surrender but if the goal is to do so with a minimal amount of casualties then i find it extremely difficult to believe that it is possible considering that the two targets which were bombed nearly failed to produce the desired result even after a brutal 8-year war.

You're assuming a linear relationship between civilian casualties and Japanese military leadership's willingness to surrender. Why would e.g. dropping the first bomb on a less-populated shipyard and the second on a city centre have been less effective?

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#160

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

kketch wrote: post #92
ForOldHack wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the alternatives of nationalism are to fight to the very last man, and cause 8 times the number of casualties. ( Perhaps somewhat more...). Hirohito knew that the military was going to do that.

You are saying the responsibility for the instant incineration of hundreds of thousands of civilians lies with the bombed, and not the bomber?

One thing that's rarely considered is that by any metric Japan had already lost the war.

And what's interesting - and definitive - about both Japan and Germany is that the regimes kept fighting when this was obvious.

There was plenty of insanity to go around, but it takes an extra special kind of insanity to ignore defeat when outmatched by a superior force, and when continuing to fight will cause massive casualties for your own population when failure is already guaranteed.

This isn't just irrational, it's compulsively self-harming.

At the same time it's recognised now that Germany and Japan both had very limited prospects of victory in WWII. There were voices in the military in both countries making this point before the fighting started. But the regimes chose irrational violence for irrational ends, with horrific self-destructive consequences.

What killed millions wasn't the weapons, it was the culture of mass delusion that made the weapons necessary.

It's the nature of authoritarianism to deny reality until pushed into collapse.

That's the only real enemy in war, and we're still fighting it today - unsuccessfully.

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