Jobsite is "hindsite" damn autocorrect
Scoreboard is Americans stupid autocorrect doesn't even come close half the time.

You just avoided my point entirely. I already conceded that it was a good tactical decision to drop a bomb somewhere, I find the choices made given that premise, namely that there should be two bombs dropped and that both of them should be dropped in cities with large numbers of nonmilitary inhabitants and little military importance.

They dropped the damn bomb after the Potsdam conference, when they knew the Japanese were ready for peace talks. Of course it was a display of pure raw military might. Civilized people tend to think that displays of military might that condemn 150k noncombatants to horrendous deaths are, well, atrocities. Even Oppenheimer was shocked and appalled by the bomb being use on "an essentially defeated enemy"

Should we add more? Current use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the sanctions of Iraq, all wars since WWII, etc. But really, the way this thread does just proves my original statement. So again, hypothesis, tactical neccessity of atomic bomb a total aside: If countries were more willing to humbly and in a spirit of mourning and "never again" approach heinous events in their history - not just the US here - it would make future wars and their inevitable awful collateral damage less likely - rather than barely disguised jingoistic displays of bumper-sticker patriotism.

"I find the choices made given that premise, namely that there should be two bombs dropped and that both of them should be dropped in cities with large numbers of nonmilitary inhabitants and little military importance."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because the two cities had been relatively untouched by prior bombings, and the effect of an atomic bomb would have been unmistakable. Dropping it somewhere like Tokyo would've just made a crater where there was already little more than a big pile of ash from prior firebombings.

There was also another Japanese city with some military value (IIRC) that was ruled out for bombing because some American with lots of stars on his military costume (I don't remember who) spent his honeymoon there and had some affection for the place. It is fascinating to see how such seemingly insignificant events wind up having such a big impact in the lives of so many people.

Tolstoy, you're also missing my point. Why did they need to destroy big cities? The demonstration could have just as easily been accomplished with a bombing of a single military target. It was an act of unnecessary violence and loss of life.

And you missed mine. There weren't really any 'military targets' in Japan by August of 1945 that hadn't already been bombed.

The dropping of the atomic bomb was the best thing that happened to the world. After that there was hardly a man alive who would consider a war with lots of the damned things to be a worthwhile enterprise. It put the fear of god into use and as such did more to prevent a major nuclear war than anything else.

As far as Pearl Harbour goes, the Japs saw how successful air attacks against ships in port could be when their people in Italy watched the Brits do it to the Italian fleet in the Med (another UK first). From that point it became a known winning strategy for any power with carriers. The US were a likely target of Japan for reasons stated before. Predicting the attack was therefore very doable... Which does not, of course, mean it was done :p

Tolstoy - thank you for making my point clearly. We wiped I uh t Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the VisuAl Benefit of Russia and other future military opponents. It was A show of force, a future deterrent. Please more that despite the collection of bleeding hearts lamenting all the "wars" since WWII, WWII was in fact the last great war. Why? Because of the fear if nuclear weapons. As for why we continue to have wars (as it is implied war should never happen) - that is a discussion that I will leave to children that believe in fairies and Santa Claus, as I live in the real world.

As I necessaries, all countries commit atrocities, I don't dispute that. But clearly there are done radical lefties here that think the Us champions atrocities and like to list gem off, and in demented fashion expand the definition of atrocities to include "any US foreign interaction" It's like reading a bunch oh Putin-wanna-he's and thus this discussion is becoming pointless.

Necessaries is stated - damned ajtocorrect. Fuck this Android!

"we'd have our fair share of atrocities to choose from if we cared to mourn them. "

That's really the only point I was trying to make. It's called "truth". Never said other countries don't have just as many atrocities. Never said I hate America. Just callin' 'em like I see 'em.

I think it takes some hubris to suggest that the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons, that essentially did it as a large scale test and a flexing of muscles, and killed a quarter million people horrifically, did it to deter the use of them. A little bit of "I'm beating you for your own good" logic in that one. Also the logic of "one nuclear atrocity is good because it maybe prevented (can't really prove a negative) other nuclear atrocities" seems a bit strange.

People like to act as if the only outcome that could occurred was the one that occurred. So, people can make this nonsense that policy planners were "horrified" at nuclear war due to Nagasaki & Hiroshima. No they weren't. There were plenty of occasions when policy planners did everything they could to escalate conflict so it'd approach the brink of nuclear war, of which the Kennedy threat to annihilate Cuba in 1963 is only the most famous example. The Berlin crisis is the second most famous. The use of tactical nuclear weapons was openly advocated by major party candidates. Drones were flown from NATO airforce bases in Europe for the sole purpose of finding targets in Russia to launch nuclear attacks against.

(also worth pointing out that the Allies had essentially already decided the massive murdering of civilians was fair play - given that the earlier firebombing of Tokyo killed almost as many people as the Hiroshima bomb did. And of course Dresden and Hamburg, etc. Standard warnings of "beware of fighting monsters" apply)

Personally I don't think the US did it with the intention of making future use less likely, but I'm quite convinced that was an effect. If you only want to look at parts of history you can prove you will find there's not that much of it. That seeing nukes turn cities to glass convinced governments that their use was best avoided seems reasonable to me.

It is also very true to say it was a test. There simply wasn't enough uranium about at the time to do any meaningful experiments before they went off. Little Boy was the first uranium bomb to ever explode, and there wouldn't be enough uranium about for another for quite a while. The plutonium bomb was dropped within a few days to give the impression that the US had quite a lot of them. One of the biggest bluffs in history.

Japan didn't even call a special meeting when the atomic bomb was dropped. It was considered par for the course when it came to aerial bombardment. It may ease some people's consciences to claim that nuking civilians for no reason whatsoever had some kind of positive effect, but it didn't do anything of the sort. It was a barbaric war crime.

I think a better way of putting it is, it may have even had a net positive effect, but that doesn't justify its use in the first place. As far as it not being special, that's not exactly true. Japan strongly argued that it should be treated as a new form of attack. "They now use this new bomb, having an uncontrollable and cruel effect much greater than any other arms or projectiles ever used to date. This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization."

Japan did not have any grounds on which to complain about crimes against humanity and civilization.

Basically aguments on this site have convinced me that using the atom bomb was wrong. My experience researching WWII in the Pacific however has left me extremely hard pressed to sympathize for the Japanese in lieu of their barbaric war crimes and the Japanese public's reluctance to face them

*the Japanese of that time.

But Japan was forced to face their war crimes (and war crimes they were, I think a legitimate case could be made for calling them genocide, certainly on a scale larger than the atomic bombs even) in the Tokyo Trials. Not as a public (though i do think Japanese culture has come a long way since then in recognizing the horrible atrocities committed), but certainly at least legally. The bitter pill as usual was that only the loser's atrocities get called war crimes, the winner's are unfortunate collateral damage.

Santa (and anyone with common sense) -- look at the barbarism of Japan, the slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis, the 12 million killed by our "ally" and soon-to-be-enemy Russia...Sitting in our comfortable, exessivley large house, or our well equipped dorm rooms, never worrying about where our next meal will come from, trying to figure out how we will amuse ourselves today with our pile of technology...we have no concept of life in the 1904's, let alone life in the early 1900's in general. The people "on top" waging World War two had lived through a *horrific* war in World War I, where we saw mustard gas killing people from the inside out, and then the escalation of weapons through the course of World War II, up to and including the use of the atomic bomb.

For *anyone* to sit around an say "Well, I read some (biased) paper by some historian, and I have conluded there was no rational cause to use the atomic bomb" is simply ignorance. There were a hell of a lot of good reasons to use the atomic bomb, but the *primary* reason was to say, "Hey, we are the biggest baddest motherf*ers on the block now, we've got this, and you bad better back the f* down...

I will remind you all that *after* this "evil" attrocious act of dropping the a-bomb, we proceeded to essentilaly rebuild out enemies countries, pouring more of our national treasury in to the people that had years prior intended on conquering and subjugating the world.

You simply can NOT take this one event in some narrow context and try to judge it. The use of the atomic bomb is arguably the culmination of global war that started in World War I.

The fact remains that nobody has used one since then, and that while it can be argued that war has continued essentially without ceasing since world war II (i.e. there is *always* a war somewhere, and yes, a great many of them are US proxy wars), there has never been conflict or death and destruction that even approximates the global mayhem that was World War II.

It was a damned good decision when examined in the *full* context of global politics and conflict over the last, say, 112 years.

life in the 1940's, not 1904's...

"As far as it not being special, that's not exactly true. Japan strongly argued that it should be treated as a new form of attack."

According to Togo's notes, the Japanese cabinet met on August 7th. Here is what he said about the meeting:

"On the afternoon of the 7th, there was a cabinet meeting. The army minister and the home minister read their reports. The army appeared to minimize the effect of the bomb, without admitting that it was the atomic bomb, insisting that further investigation was necessary."

"My experience researching WWII in the Pacific however has left me extremely hard pressed to sympathize for the Japanese in lieu of their barbaric war crimes and the Japanese public's reluctance to face them"

So how have the Americans faced up to their WWII war crimes? Or the British? Why do the Germans get your sympathy when it comes to the Soviet invasion? I really don't get the special treatment of Japan.

"It was a damned good decision when examined in the *full* context of global politics and conflict over the last, say, 112 years."

Interesting how liberals (and I mean that in the generic capitalist sense) twist themselves in a pretzel pretending that their butchery was for the good of mankind, but yet they ceaselessly condemn the war conduct of others who faced much harsher realities America who was being sent peace proposal after peace proposal in the summer of 1945.

"there has never been conflict or death and destruction that even approximates the global mayhem that was World War II."

Except more material was dropped on North Korea, not 5-6 years after 1945, than was dropped on Japan. Not a single population center in North Korea remained standing. People still don't talk about American & South Korean war crimes in that war, and yet we're expected to listen to lectures about how the atomic bombing of Japan made us all more humane.

But Japan was forced to face their war crimes (and war crimes they were, I think a "legitimate case could be made for calling them genocide, certainly on a scale larger than the atomic bombs even) in the Tokyo Trials. Not as a public (though i do think Japanese culture has come a long way since then in recognizing the horrible atrocities committed), but certainly at least legally. The bitter pill as usual was that only the loser's atrocities get called war crimes, the winner's are unfortunate collateral damage. "

Japan hardly faced their war crimes. Generals who ordered mass killings perhaps, but the rank and file that carried them out with gusto and caused so much hell for civilians and prisoners got through scott free. Meanwhile unlike Germany Japan continues to celebrate their WWII heritage, continues to teach the WWII part line, and only reluctantly admits its crimes, and when those crimes are admitted by high ranking officials those officials are subject to withering criticism. To say Japan was forced to face their war crimes is true only on the most superficial level. They are the axis country that has faced them the least

"So how have the Americans faced up to their WWII war crimes? Or the British? Why do the Germans get your sympathy when it comes to the Soviet invasion? I really don't get the special treatment of Japan. "

I think the Germans have taken it on the chin and as a nation (until recent years at least) have disavowed the Nazi legacy. Japan has not disavowed their legacy of WWII. They celebrate it. When the Japanese prime minister apologized for their war crimes there was an outpouring of hate from elected officials. I think its obvious I hate the Nazis, but you don't have normal Germans visiting Nazi shrines or going on WWII tours where they praise the bravery of the troops that committed heinous atrocities on the defenseless.

"They are the axis country that has faced them the least"

That's an overstatement. Croatia has them beat by a mile.

Frankly part of the problem with Japan is that the victims only fairly recently began saying anything about it. I mean we only began hearing about Nanjing in the 1980s. The memorial for it was only built in 1985. Also the evidence is much poorer than with the Holocaust.

"but you don't have normal Germans visiting Nazi shrines"

What was the hubbub about the Bitburg cemetary about, again?

If Bitburg had a shrine to Heinrich Himmler and it was a pilgrimage site for German politicians it would be equivocal to Japanese attitudes about the war.

Santa: errr sure, but I still don't see what that has to do with the US not facing their war crimes at all, ever, either in international courts of law, nor public opinion, nor history books, nor party lines.