Was the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan Justified?

No i am simply suggesting that japan had no choice but to surrender and would have surrendered pretty soon. The al kaida did not commit any ware crime when it attacked the WTC with those planes the goal was not to kill civilians but to shock America into surrender. Would you agree with this statement?

I'm not even sure how Al Qaeda could ever commit a war crime no matter what they did.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Yea the technicality that they are not a country but still

Obviously not, however I do know that in a case of total war, civilian casualties are inevitable, particularly in the days of carpet bombing.Hiroshima was a military target because:

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At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan.[22] Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing a pristine environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb.[23][24]

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Nagasaki was a military target because:

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The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.

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from: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - WikipediaTherefore you are arguing these cities had no military significance? Why do you think they were picked, other than the fact they had not already been carpet bombed? No, I drink baby blood for breakfast. Happy now?Would you like to seriously discuss the issues or just impugn my character? You are already so impatient for me to answer your five assertions, you have posted them three times. I will answer that question later here or in a new thread eventually if I have time. I don't recall any supporting links, just a vague reference to some paper you read several months ago you can't seem to find now. IMO your assertions are not supporting links, references to primary and reliable secondary supporting documents are. My next post in this thread.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis Bacon

Why would anyone agree with that statement? It's ridiculous on its face.Surrender? America? Over the loss of a couple buildings? To who? What the hell are you even talking about?9/11 was an act of terrorism. Literally, the intent was not at all to eliminate the US' military means or will to make war on Al Qaeda, but rather to just kill as many Americans as possible and make us feel really scared.Only an absolute idiot would ever think for even a moment that the US would "surrender" over the loss of a couple of buildings.The point of such a mass-murder attack was blatantly obvious, as were its reasons. Al Qaeda, being a small, loose organization of fanatics who hate the West in general and America in particular for varying reasons, most of them religious in nature, is not a state. Neither does it have the resources of a state, let alone the military assets to prosecute a war against a superpower. Instead of futilely trying to force capitulation through small-scale military action, they resorted to mass-murder on a scale as large as they could manage in an effort to "terrorize" the American public.They wanted us scared. They wanted us afraid. They wanted us worried that we could be next, that they could get their hands on a nuke, or a dirty bomb, or another plane, or who knows what, and that they'd set it off in out back yard. They wanted us to become our own enemy, changing our way of life out of fear of additional attacks on civilians. And they succeeded, at least that part.But 9/11 was not an act of war. An act of war can only be committed by a state. A nation. Al Qaeda is no such thing; it can no more commit a "war crime" than a bunch of soccer hooligans in England can do so. They can commit "crimes against humanity," but they aren't a legally recognized state with a legal military - they can;t declare war, you cant declare war on them, etc. They're just criminals, murderers with a cause, not soldiers.

The "Big Six" planned to draw out the war as long as possible, extracting as many casualties as possible, until they could surrender on their terms.This did not change after the first bomb was dropped, which is why it took the intercession of the emperor to end the war.Japan had been losing battles for three years prior to this - they knew they had already lost the war. This did not change the Japanese government's determination that they should continue fighting as long as possible.Without the bombs I doubt we would have invaded Japan - a naval blockade seems more likely which would have resulted in the disintegration of the government as Japan's cities starved and depopulated into the countryside. All of which would make a complete surrender by a legitimate government unlikely and would likely have invited Soviet involvement.Moral idealism only exists when there are ideal moral choices to be had - I don't see any of those here.

Irrelevant.Formal surrender and acceptance of a formal surrender must come from the leadership. These intercepted messages were feelers and did not constitute the unanimous decision of the leadership to accept surrender according to the principles put forth in the Potsdam Declaration.The leaders of the war effort in Japan at the time were the big six. They included:

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* Prime Minister: Admiral Kantarō Suzuki
* Minister of Foreign Affairs: Shigenori Tōgō
* Minister of the Army: General Korechika Anami
* Minister of the Navy: Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai
* Chief of the Army General Staff: General Yoshijirō Umezu
* Chief of the Navy General Staff: Admiral Koshirō Oikawa (later replaced by Admiral Soemu Toyoda)

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Additionally -

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Emperor Hirohito and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido also were present at some of the meetings, following the emperor's wishes.[15]

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sourceOn Aug 8-9:

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These "twin shocks"the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the Soviet entryhad immediate profound effects on Prime Minister Suzuki and Foreign Minister Tōgō Shigenori, who concurred that the government must end the war at once.[82] However, the senior leadership of the Japanese Army took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. With the support of Minister of War Anami, they did start preparing to impose martial law on the nation, to stop anyone attempting to make peace.[83] Hirohito told Kido to "quickly control the situation" because "the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us."[84]

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This is in accordance with the dozens of books I have read on the situation.Not only did the big six deadlock then they did so as late as Aug. 13-14.

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At a conference with the cabinet and other councilors, Anami, Toyoda, and Umezu again made their case for continuing to fight, after which the emperor said:

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"I have listened carefully to each of the arguments presented in opposition to the view that Japan should accept the Allied reply as it stands and without further clarification or modification, but my own thoughts have not undergone any change. ... In order that the people may know my decision, I request you to prepare at once an imperial rescript so that I may broadcast to the nation. Finally, I call upon each and every one of you to exert himself to the utmost so that we may meet the trying days which lie ahead.[107]"

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The cabinet immediately convened and unanimously ratified the emperor's wishes. They also decided to destroy vast amounts of material pertaining to matters related to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders.[108][109] Immediately after the conference, the Foreign ministry transmitted orders to its embassies in Switzerland and Sweden to accept the Allied terms of surrender. These orders were picked up and received in Washington at 02:49, August 14.[107]

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It took a formal decision from the emperor to get the big six to agree to end the war.

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The text of the Imperial Rescript on surrender was finalized by 19:00,[clarification needed] transcribed by the official court calligrapher, and brought to the cabinet for their signatures. Around 23:00, the emperor, with help from an NHK recording crew, made a gramophone record of himself reading it.[110] The record was given to court chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa, who hid it in a locker in the empress's secretary's office.[111]

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Even after this, there was an attempted coup to destroy the record and force the emperor to change his mind.Conclusion:Those who had the authority to surrender did not decide to do so until Aug. 14.Next - Assertion #2{ABE} In case anyone is interested, the correspondence dronester is referring to may be found here. {/ABE}Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis Bacon

Uh, no. This is such a ridiculous statement to anyone who's ever studied history that it doesn't even warrant a response. I guess you really have to be as passionate about history as I am to see the ridiculousness of this suggestion.Good day to you, sir.

No, they wouldn't have. It was completely against the Japanese ethos. Their plan was to put every citizen on the front lines, even if all they had was pitchforks. The only reason Japan surrendered was that their entire population could be destroyed without a single soldier stepping foot in Japan. Their only plan could never come to fruition.To better understand the Japanese psyche I would suggest that you read up on the cultural significance of "Kamikaze". In Japanese this term means "divine wind". This term was used to describe two typhoons that destroyed an invading Mongol navy in 1247 and again in 1281. Each time the Mongols were poised to invade and conquer Japan, and each time the divine wind wiped out the invading navy. Japan had gone millenia without a foreign army setting foot on sacred Japanese soil.It is no coincidence that the Japanese suicide bombers were called Kamikazes. They were to be the sacred wind, the wave of humanity that was to keep the invaders out. It wouldn't have stopped with the pilots. It would have continued as Allied soldiers invaded the mainland.In the long run, an invasion would have resulted in hundreds of thousand more Japanese civilian (if you can call them that) casualties than the atomic bombs cost. Those are the cold hard facts.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

And yet they didn't. Completely false. Japan was ready to fight to the last man carrying a pitchfork against a conventional invading force. Detonating the first bomb over a city didn't convince them. You are wrong again. Baloney. Three days is more than enough time. They knew where the Allied Navy was and how to broadcast to them. If he had fought on Guadalcanal or walked the Bataan Death March he might have thought differently.

I think it helps for people like Frako to think of it this way. Suppose you see a woman on top of a building panicking and totally out of it. If you leave her alone, there's a chance she's going to fall to her death. So, you try to end the fiasco by slapping her once. She doesn't change. So, you slap her again and after the second time it worked. She comes to her senses.How would you feel if afterwards everybody gets hung up on the fact that you slapped the woman?That's what your argument essentially is. You're ignoring the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Japanese that would have died had there been an invasion.War is horrible. We all agree about that. What's important is how do we end it with as little loss as possible. According to you, the Americans should have blanket bomb the whole country. Think about it. Sure, each bombing wouldn't have killed as many people as a single A-bomb. But over the long run, it would have decimated the population through secondary effects like mass starvation due to the collapse of infrastructure. To me, it sounds like you're the one that's advocating for the ultimate crime against humanity, Frako.Added by edit.I am reminded of my study in police training right before I became a cop. We had to study hundreds of cases to get a feel for police work. There were some that were just ridiculous. For example, there was a case where a cop showed up to a man suffering from a severe allergic reaction. The guy was undergoing an anaphylactic shock. The guy was already unconscious and was dying. The cop searched him and found an epipen. Thinking it was the only thing he could do, the cop injected the guy with the epipen and saved his life.Well, that guy later sued the cop, the department, and won. Why? Cops are not licensed to administer medication.The point of these stories were that we were taught to let people die because usually those people get hung up on the insignificant details and will sue the cops for money.Thank goodness, I never had to come across such a situation. I don't know if I would have been able to just stand by and watch someone die just for technicalities.Frako, think about it for a moment. We know for a fact that the Japanese would not have surrendered. In fact, they were preparing their entire population to defend their homeland. Blanket bombing would not have made them surrender. It would have destroyed their infrastructure and induce mass starvation.The 2 bombs were used as a shock tactic to get them to surrender. And as mentioned above by another person, the A-bombs were also meant to tell the Japanese that they could have been decimated without the loss of American lives.I think dropping the bombs were absolutely horrible. But I am absolutely convinced it was the best way to prevent further loss of lives. Sure beats your suggestion of blanket bombing the whole country.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

I am swamped at work at the moment. Thanks for your patience.

First point:My father served in Europe. After V-E day his unit mustered home and starting training for the invasion of Japan. Being experienced combat troops his unit was slated as one of the first to land.Dad was very thankful to Truman and the bomb. His point to me was that without the bomb most probably I would not exist.Second Point:Japan's immanent surrender is a post-war myth. A demonstration would have meant nothing. Without the bomb, invasion and a hard slog through all the islands would have been the only option. The Emperor's command to the military and the civilians of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Saipan to fight and die or to commit suicide could only be interpreted as an omen of what lay ahead in an invasion of the main islands.Dead is dead whether it is from the bomb or the bayonet. There should be no doubt that many more Japanese lives were saved by use of the bomb than would have survived an invasion.Third point:Your contention that the use of the bomb constitutes a war crime is asinine. You do not get to decide what is a war crime. The rest of world society does. Only those who lived the horrors of the forties can judge the actions and I do not recall in reading history of anything but relief when the bombs forced the Japanese into submission. Your comfortable and safe arm-chair, Monday-morning quarterback view is rejected.

We need to stop pretending that a demonstration didn't occur.A demonstration occurred at Hiroshima. The Japanese then had three days to surrender. With radio technology, there is absolutely no excuse for a delay. Three days is more than enough time for the Japanese leadership to acknowledge that a major city had just been annihilated by an American weapon. The circumstance is no different whatsoever from a demonstration at sea, or in a desert, or any other location where loss of life would be prevented in terms of demonstrating the power of nuclear weapons.It's not just that "a demonstration would have done nothing."There was a demonstration. The Japanese did not surrender after the demonstration, and so another weapon was used. Relocating the initial demonstration would only have had a greater effect if it was done over Tokyo and annihilated the entire Japanese leadership...which would have disabled Japan's ability to surrender.

I cannot disagree. Point taken.