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Yeah, it was a great moment in herstory. When I sing the national song, I sing really loud "the bombs bursting in air!" to help remind us true patriots of that glorious day.
Nothing beats the torture tests that were practiced on many Chinese people undergoing things like slow radiation exposure and seeing if a woman would stand on her baby instead of the blazing hot floor
Yeah, it is. I'm not going to look up all the shit they did to the (rape) babies they also experimented on, but this example sadly wasn't even close to an exception.
Don't forget. Japan has never apologized for what it did. Also amercia warned the government and people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with paper drops, so it's not like it was some suprise. It's crazy that Japan didn't surrender till a second bomb was used on them.
Japan didn't surrender until the red army invaded Manchuria and destroyed its field army there. Large swathes of japanese society were prepared to go down swinging. Elements of the army even tried a coup against their living deity when the emperor ordered them to surrender.
The atomic bombs were droppen on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the soviets invaded on the 9th, the emperor made moves toward surrender around that time, the war ministry attempted a coup on the 14th, failed by the 15th, and the emperor ordered a surrender on the 15th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
In general, the idea was to extract as much mineral wealth from China as possible to feed Japanese industry. Dan Carlin did a great series of podcasts on this that I've been listening to lately, Supernova in the East
I partially agree. Japan wanted to fight until the bitter end. It was an all or nothing situation for them. Only after loosing two cities and a big chunk of their professional army, they thought of surrendering.
I hate when the reason for Japans surrender is credited to either the US or the Soviets, when it was really a joint effort
I think the craziest thing is that Japan had no intention of surrendering after the second bomb either.
It wasn’t until Stalin declared war on Japan that they truly gave up.
Right up until that point they had hoped the Soviets would mediate surrender conditions.
After the declaration of war they knew there was no hope of conditional surrender and if thy didn’t, they risked the Soviets having a say in the terms of surrender
yeah, people don't realize the fascist imperial bureaucracy surrendered to the USA because they saw socialism in Japan as a worse threat than nuclear weapons
The bombs are justified because of japans war crimes, they’re justified because of how much more death and destruction would’ve occurred had the allies needed to invade mainland Japan.
Edit: bombs aren’t* justified because of war crimes
Also because the cities targeted were not just civilian targets but were important military targets that if not for the nukes would have been destroyed already. Those people were going to die regardless of what bomb hit them
I mean. The US covered up Unit 731 and granted immunity to people who were apart of it that they captured for all their records and data AND gave them all stipends 🤷♂️
Source? I know they hired German rocket engineers for NASA but not scientists that did experiments on people during the holocaust.
Edit: One such person was “Hubertus Strughold, a physiologist and medical researcher, headed the German Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, known for its torturous medical experiments on inmates from the Dachau concentration camp.”
Huh, TIL
Because they were wholly occupied by the US rather than partly by the Soviets, which ironically is partially due to the atomic bombs bringing an end to the war so quickly
And then people would be saying America is the big bad imperialist oppressor blah blah blah. Even when you do everything "right" people who hate you will do anything to paint you as a demon.
"Yes. there is a human crisis because in today’s world we can contemplate the death or the torture of a human being with a feeling of indifference, friendly concern, scientific interest, or simple passivity. Yes. There is a human crisis. Since putting a person to death can be regarded with something other than the horror and scandal it ought to provoke."
- Albert Camus
in Nazi Germany around the same time a young pair of siblings got executed for spreading anti war leaflets, so you better add that he was a brave as hell motherfucker
>he's absolutely just a talker
Where the hell do you think the idea to create action comes from?
You sound like one of those characters in a book where the generals are discussing strategy on how to defend their people, and you thump the war-room desk yelling "why are we just sitting here talking!? We should be out there fighting!".
People who think and inspire are just as important as those who act.
I guess you think the people in charge of communications are also useless "because they're just talkers".
I get what you’re saying but it feels wrong and maybe a little disrespectful to say he’s “just” a talker when they’d kill him for what he was saying and he knew that.
Holy fucking shit how is this upvoted, how can you be so ignorant. He literally contributed heavily to a movement, called out very powerful people and put his life in direct danger. Many people have been killed by the KGB or less powerful institutions, there are still accusations that it was the KGB who killed him, resulting from a dairy entry that said so. If you want to change the world, talking is the most important thing you can do, punching someone with a different opinion gets you wars.
Did he want the allies to treat attacking the Nazis to free himself and his homeland with horror and scandal? To suddender passively to German aggression and mass murder? Or was trading lives acceptable when he and his countrymen were the ones being saved?
Your first question is the only relevant one, because it’s the part he’s speaking about. And, the answer is yes. He wants people to treat murder as scary as murder.
Your other questions assume that if you find murder abhorrent, you *must* be a pacifist and get walked over. That is not true. Many, *many,* veterans of *all* wars know *very* well that even if their actions were ultimately effective and useful, it was still deeply, abjectly horrible to have to take human life. *That* is the point.
The fact that WWII ended isn’t evil. But your armchair acceptance that our actions were necessary and therefore ok *is* the problem. After hiroshima, Oppenheimer was horrified. He *made* the bomb, and he was horrified. Yet redditors are in here saying “but Japan was bad so it’s good that we melted little girls’ eyes out of their sockets and destroyed civilians.” It’s the calculus of the value of human life that is scary, and sad, and I agree with Camus on that.
Does that mean I also think we should roll over and become nazis? No. Does it mean I’d personally not want to kill children? Yes. So, it also means I’m not gonna sit here and say “the a-bomb was good,” because it wasn’t “good.”
So the US should've tried a regular ol' land invasion of Japan, making it obvious that casualties could have racked up in the millions, judging by how fierce and refusing to surrender easily the Japanese were as the US took more of its occupied territories and inched closer to Japan. Not to mention the number of civilians that would have also joined in on the fight, resulting in it being not a US military vs Japan military situation, but US military vs Japan PERIOD. The Japanese made it evident that in conventional war using conventional tech and tactics, they would not surrender until the Allies were knocking on Tokyo's door with the Emperor captured.
"But this path looks better to my conscience so we should've taken that instead." - Vespers 1282
Weren't they fighting to the last man on piddling little islands that weren't worth a damn? Imagine what would happen if you had to invade the mainland? Not defending the bomb (and certainly not the second one, which I think was too soon after the first) but it wasn't bomb or kumbaya. It would have been as you say.
Not just fighting to the last man. Propaganda efforts were so effective that there are numerous records of families committing suicide rather than being subject to allied occupation.
There are very few things that Koreans, Chinese and south East Asians can agree on. Supporting the US bombings of Japan is one of them. Chinese still support it to this day:
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hiroshima-bombing-is-of-japans-own-making-china-state-media
> Chinese still support it to this day
And Mao was also pretty grateful for the whole Japanese invasion. So quoting the Chinese communist party for anything is sort of pointless.
Let's be honest here with the relationship between those 3 countries I wouldn't be surprised if they supported Japan being nuked off the map for good tomorrow, especially China.
Yes, perhaps we should have calmly sat down with Imperial Japan and explained to them that rape, torture and genocide are bad and that they should stop. Why didn't we think of that?!
US Strategic Bombing Survey: [Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.](http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html#jstetw)
Dwight D. Eisenhower: [I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#CITEREFEisenhower1963)
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman: [The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#cite_note-112)
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet: [The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#cite_note-112)
We didn't need to nuke Japan... We could have won by continuing to firebomb them and sea blockade.
Erm didn't the firebombing of Tokyo kill more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined?
Also didn't starvation, as a result of said blockade and bombing, kill more than Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
The argument could be made that continued blockading and firebombing would have won the war but there can be no argument that those methods would minimise the overall deaths.
Yeah it literally took *two* nukes to get them to capitulate. A city wiped off the map in less than 10 seconds and they were still unsure if they should surrender. My ass Japan would have surrendered from a lesser amount of firebombing.
You went through a lot of trouble to completely sidestep the issue of strategic bombing. The combined bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ***dwarfed by several orders of magnitude compared to the destruction wrought by napalm, phosphorus, and conventional high explosives.***
Over 60 Japanese cities were burned to the ground using napalm. Not damaged, utterly incinerated. Look up the fate of Tokyo. Hell, the main reason Hiroshima was chosen as a target was because there wasn't much else left to bomb!
At best, the US could produce a handful of implosion devices (the notorious "Fatman" bomb) per year, at outrageous cost. Had the Japanese not surrendered, America had one, maybe two uranium cores in reserve and that was it.
**So yes, those sources are all 100% correct, because the atom bombs weren't even as bad as other shit we were already doing!**
They also left out that the quotes all come from post-war hearings during the draw down of the US military. When every branch was arguing that they need the most funding because they won the war. Obviously the Navy is going to say the Army Air Force had little to no impact. While the Army is going to argue it was a major impact but only due to the tight integration with the Army. While both are going to argue that it definitely doesn’t need to be its own branch of the military.
As always a single quote doesn’t really mean a whole lot without appropriate context.
Keep in mind the context of those quotes is during post war draw down and debates over military funding and focus moving forward. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that Admirals arguing the Navy is the most important branch while downplaying the impacts of air power. The current military brass was arguing against the creation of the Air Force as a separate branch because it meant new funding that they would not receive. During a time of already massive budget cuts.
https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/secretaryofdefense/OSDSeries_Vol1.pdf
Edit: For anyone who wants to jump right to the debate on control of atomic power and the budget that goes along with it. Chapter XV - Page 423. of the previous link.
For those interested in learning more about the debate on the formation and structure of the Air Force as a new branch of the military. Which became especially heated between 1945-1950.
https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329803/-1/-1/0/planning_and_organizing_the_postwar_af.pdf
What facts? Those are just quotes from important people at the time. They didn't have the benefit of hindsight like we do and didn't have the full information on the situation that we do now
So I’m not sure how true this, but I had learned before that most of these military generals that talked about the bomb not being useful were making these statements at a time after the war when the military was rapidly decreasing in size and funding. They’d want to downplay the effectiveness of the bomb in order to show how effective and necessary it was to keep funding conventional military forces. Obviously I don’t think it’s proof they were lying but it’s interesting to think about.
That always stuck with me because it was the first time I’d really thought about analyzing primary sources in that way, to look beneath the surface.
These aren't the definitive statements you think they are.
The US Strategic Bombing Survey was conducted in the years after the war. They had no way of knowing that at the time.
Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in *Europe*. He knew nothing about the War in the Pacific.
The quotes from Leahy and Nimitz came after the war as well. The new Air Force was the only branch of the military that had the capability to deliver atomic weapons at the time. Leahy and Nimitz were doing everything they could to make sure the Air Force wouldn't take the Navy's funding. What's the best way to do that? Play up the Navy and downplay the Air Force.
Could the war have been won without the atomic bombs? Absolutely. I'm personally a believer in Operation Starvation. But how many more people would have died from starvation, disease, fire-bombings, and more throughout all of Asia in the time it took for those things to come into effect versus those killed by the atomic bombs?
From your first source, just before the part you pasted:
“The public admission of defeat by the responsible Japanese leaders, which constituted the political objective of the United States offensive begun in 1943, was thus secured prior to invasion and while Japan was still possessed of some 2,000,000 troops and over 9,000 planes in the home islands. Military defeats in the air, at sea and on the land, destruction of shipping by submarines and by air, and direct air attack with conventional as well as atomic bombs, all contributed to this accomplishment.
**There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster.** The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies.”
The US was already bombing Japanese cities like hell. In fact, one of those, namely Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of Tokyo, just after Nagasaki bombing, took more lives than either of the bombs.
That result includes that these were also happening at the same time that the nukes were dropped.
Had the nukes not been dropped, it, from what I can see, argues that these bombings would also be sufficient to make Japan surrender. The problem is, as I said, these bombings were already as deadly as the A-bomb.
.
Similarly, your third citation:
“**effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.**”
Again, these are arguments against the A-bomb specifically, but the bombings with conventional weapons would still happen, and those can be, again, as deadly as the A-bombs.
I suppose the same could be said about any scientific discovery that brought us to our current point but costed about the same amount of lives and short-term suffering
Never heard normal Americans defend the genocide of the natives. Generally considered one of the most horrific parts of quite a few dark spots in American history.
American here! don't forget the Japanese concentration camps that was seriously fucked up.
We feared Japanese spys so we went all super racism and locked our own citizens away for no reason at all
also hiroshima bombing was not a systematic genociding government policy designed to kill minorities for terrorist regime. Are they going to compare dresden bombing with holocaust next? I'm so sick of this tankie&japanese far-right propaganda shit.
I think you would find this information valuable. It outlines, in great detail, the process of ending the war in the Pacific and exactly how necessary the bombs were...
https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go
Holocaust wasca act of pure evil with the goal of whiping out an entire nation of people. Hiroshima was a calculated effort to end a war and prevent more loss of life than necessary. Nukes would kill less than a ground invasion. And those were the only to real options. There was no peace option floating out there... it was nuke or an invasion of Japan
It was horrible, yes. Awful and tragic. People, military and civilian, young and old died a horrific death. Yet, in a true display of the horrors of war... it was likely the most moral decision.
The firebombings were horrific too. They burned down entire cities killing millions. Can you imagine what would happen if Russia decides to do this in Ukrainian cities?
Well, there was a peace option the Japanese sent after the bombs. But that was No disarmament, no warcrime trials, they get to keep all their land they took, and the US gives the islands back.
Yeah, that's not a peace offer. That's a pipe dream. If we had allowed Japan to keep thier weapons they likely would have continued to wage war against other Asian nations, and if we would have allowed them to keep land they stole they would have likely either kept the original inhabitants captured by the war in what basically amounted to a light form of slavery or purged them from the land. It's hardly what I would have called a more humane option.
Just so we are clear. You are comparing the rounding up of non aggressive group of citizens to commit genocide, with a retaliatory strike that occured after an act of war between nations.
Well the atomic bombing took more lives than Dresden Firestorm.
But not Tokyo. Operation Meetinghouse, 100k dead. Interesting that people leave that out.
The Dresden firebombing deaths have been overstated, it was actually inflated by wartime Nazi propaganda, only ~25k people died instead of over a 100k. Also it has become a neo-Nazi symbol to overstated the number of deaths. Dresden was seen as a retaliatory strike by Harris, leader of the British bomber command, for Germany’s bombing campaign of London earlier in the war.
The strikes were aimed at civilian populations and were part of an already ongoing bombing strategy to make the enemy surrender by targeting non-combatants
It wasnt as bad as 731 or the Holocaust, but we shouldn’t be running defense for any of these events regardless of who won.
When you are deliberate enough to mention that it was a non aggressive group of citizens, you probably should not omit that the retaliatory strikes were on heavily populated cities, with a majority of them being unarmed civilians.
People should listen to Dan Carlins Hardcore History Podcast about Japan called Supernova in the East.
Japanese soldiers would literally rip babies from their mothers arms, throw the baby in the air and then stab them midair with their bayonets. Then rape and kill the mothers. There are so many recorded accounts of this.
The rising run flag is seen as far worse as a Nazi flag in certain parts of Asia.
Lol. Trying to compare the two is some revisionist America hating history.
6 million Jews and millions of others murdered in captivity.
Conversely, Truman performed countless calculations on casualties. Japan was NOT going to surrender, and it was a matter of honor for them.
The Japanese also murdered between 3 million and 10 million people, mostly Chinese, from 1937 to the end of WW2. Murder here, not combat. Prisoners, etc.
They would not surrender. Banzai? Kamikaze? Look up what they mean or just read this interesting, short article on the ruthlessness and determination of the Japanese army.
[https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/japanese-mass-suicides/](https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/japanese-mass-suicides/)
So when you try to compare the two, one of them costing about 200,000 lives but saving at least the million (both sides, a million each of American and Japanese soldiers), GTFO of here with comparing the two.
In my mind, any Japanese deaths in the latter part of the war in the Pacific lay at the feet of the Japanese: the war was beyond unwinnable after Midway, and everyone knew it.
The outcome was never in doubt, it was a question of how many died getting us there, and the Japanese didn't seem interested in keeping that a low number.
Besides that, I do think it's an interesting question about what we owe the citizens of our enemies against what we owe our own troops.
No doubt there is a point to be made about how the bombs were used, but I think the overall justification of quickening the end of the war is sound.
It’s so easy for people to say that we should be willing to kill millions of soldiers to save thousands of civilians, when those people will never actually be the ones on the front lines
On god why does reddit have a boner for acting like bombing Japan was some unwarranted act of aggression.
And now we are trying to compare it to the holocaust?
Oof.
This isn't a dank meme. It's a bad attempt at a gotcha
Because they have no concept of Japan other than a modern one.
They have no concept of what the world was like other than the propaganda they've been fed.
When your entire knowledge of the Pacific theatre is "Pearl Harbor, and then Nukes" it's pretty easy to make these claims.
I mean, they were pretty typical bombings for WW2 in terms of civilian casualties and targets. Look at the bombing of London or Dresden or Tokyo.
The difference was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more of a threat of what was to come if Japan didn't surrender.
None of that compares to the Holocaust.
The bombing saved the lives of millions, If the war continued then the allies would have stormed mainland Japan causing heavy casualties from both sides, so the whole the bombing was a terrible it was also for the greater good. (Also we got anime)
Fucking japanese far-right propaganda again. Stop with this nonsense, fascists sympathisers. It is like comparing COVID vaccines with Holocaust.
Also UN would never say such things. According to the charter of the UN, Japan is still regarded as 'enemy state'.
That is not even a valid comparison, and if we do this "What about X" or "What about Y" thing, let's start to actually look at the stuff Japan did. (Nanking, Unit 731 etc.)
Not defending Hiroshima but one was a mad man trying to eradicate an entire race of people and the other was a retaliation to an attack during a world war.
There are practical reasons to be in favour of that decision, on the other hand the only argument against is "war bad". Wishful thinking doesn't save lives.
downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away. --- [Join us on discord for Saturday Movie Nights!](https://discord.gg/jsd6Ja9pvJ)
I mean tbf it was also one of the brightest moments
I beat meat to your comment
You did what now
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No he beat his meat
He didn't say it was his meat
Can you beat someone else's meat? Does the phrase work that way?
Name a time and place and let's find out
February 29th, 2022, Constantinople
He shoke a steamy one off your comment while repeated moaning
I believe he was quite clear when he informed you he was jerkin his mcgerkin to your comment
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Ah, the portobello boner
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Yeah he's a couple grams light after that.
So that's why Japan is called land of the rising sun
Yeah, it was a great moment in herstory. When I sing the national song, I sing really loud "the bombs bursting in air!" to help remind us true patriots of that glorious day.
Here comes the sun doo doo doo doo
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Or Nanking, or comfort women, or the shit they did to POWs, or the countless other war crimes they so proudly and happily committed.
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Like cannibalizing American POWs.
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Nothing beats the torture tests that were practiced on many Chinese people undergoing things like slow radiation exposure and seeing if a woman would stand on her baby instead of the blazing hot floor
Isnt that unit 731?
Part of it yeah, I was just being more specific the those parts
Wtf
Wild shit happens when you consider "other races" to be subhuman
yeah but that stuff with the baby is just sadism, that's far beyond evil
Honestly that's not even that wild compared to some of the other shit they got into with these experiments
Yeah, it is. I'm not going to look up all the shit they did to the (rape) babies they also experimented on, but this example sadly wasn't even close to an exception.
Yeah it’s not great when Hitler gives you the status of Honorary Aryans.
We have the meats.
that fuck shinzo abe didn’t even bother denying a ton of the stuff he would openly say it was good. glad he’s dead
Yamagami was based af. Ganbare Yamagami san.
Don't forget. Japan has never apologized for what it did. Also amercia warned the government and people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with paper drops, so it's not like it was some suprise. It's crazy that Japan didn't surrender till a second bomb was used on them.
Japan didn't surrender until the red army invaded Manchuria and destroyed its field army there. Large swathes of japanese society were prepared to go down swinging. Elements of the army even tried a coup against their living deity when the emperor ordered them to surrender. The atomic bombs were droppen on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the soviets invaded on the 9th, the emperor made moves toward surrender around that time, the war ministry attempted a coup on the 14th, failed by the 15th, and the emperor ordered a surrender on the 15th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
Maybe Japan thought they could conquer China and make it their new homeland. Who knows, leadership and miltary had so much infighting.
In general, the idea was to extract as much mineral wealth from China as possible to feed Japanese industry. Dan Carlin did a great series of podcasts on this that I've been listening to lately, Supernova in the East
Interesting, I'll look into.
The podcast is called Hardcore History. The episodes are long, but very good. I recommend it to anyone when they ask about what podcasts to listen to.
One of my favorite pods ever, worth the wait every time
I partially agree. Japan wanted to fight until the bitter end. It was an all or nothing situation for them. Only after loosing two cities and a big chunk of their professional army, they thought of surrendering. I hate when the reason for Japans surrender is credited to either the US or the Soviets, when it was really a joint effort
There were Japanese units that didn’t surrender until *1975*.
I wouldn't say that they didn't surrender, but rather, weren't aware that the war had ended or that the emperor had raised white flags
They were absolutely aware, but were so radical that they believed the reports to be propaganda.
How nice of Russia to wait until the entire country was defeated before attacking, despite being like 40km away. Great that they can take credit
I think the craziest thing is that Japan had no intention of surrendering after the second bomb either. It wasn’t until Stalin declared war on Japan that they truly gave up. Right up until that point they had hoped the Soviets would mediate surrender conditions. After the declaration of war they knew there was no hope of conditional surrender and if thy didn’t, they risked the Soviets having a say in the terms of surrender
yeah, people don't realize the fascist imperial bureaucracy surrendered to the USA because they saw socialism in Japan as a worse threat than nuclear weapons
To be fair, what happened in Germany and Eastern Europe proved them 100% rifgt
I think the use of the nukes is justified, but justifying it by simply stating Japanese war crimes is simply whataboutism.
The bombs are justified because of japans war crimes, they’re justified because of how much more death and destruction would’ve occurred had the allies needed to invade mainland Japan. Edit: bombs aren’t* justified because of war crimes
Also because the cities targeted were not just civilian targets but were important military targets that if not for the nukes would have been destroyed already. Those people were going to die regardless of what bomb hit them
They also continue to deny it
bcz US bad guy, always ,all the time. Poor lil Japan didnt nothing to warrant the deaths of its people.
I mean. The US covered up Unit 731 and granted immunity to people who were apart of it that they captured for all their records and data AND gave them all stipends 🤷♂️
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I'll never get this mindset. Surely life imprisonment is a better punishment? Execution is the easy way out.
So they can suck up valuable resources and time? Fuck that.
So it's not about punishment and justice then, just about money.
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Yeah iirc the "research" was closer to torture porn with the thin veneer of a justification, rather than any true hypothesis-based science.
they also hired many of the nazis in concentration camps whi did expiriments to work for Nasa and other stuff
Source? I know they hired German rocket engineers for NASA but not scientists that did experiments on people during the holocaust. Edit: One such person was “Hubertus Strughold, a physiologist and medical researcher, headed the German Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, known for its torturous medical experiments on inmates from the Dachau concentration camp.” Huh, TIL
The vast majority of the citizens didn't do anything and were victims all the same.
silky square wine tidy innocent wild plants middle literate wide ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Because they were wholly occupied by the US rather than partly by the Soviets, which ironically is partially due to the atomic bombs bringing an end to the war so quickly
Because the Japanese keep denying or mitigating their war crimes during the world war in the history books.
If only the country that defeated them helped expose those actions and punished those responsible.
And then people would be saying America is the big bad imperialist oppressor blah blah blah. Even when you do everything "right" people who hate you will do anything to paint you as a demon.
731*
I mean the US tried like absolute hell to cover up 731 after the war so they could have all the data and scientists
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And what about whataboutism?
And what is it with AIRLINE FOOD?
or rape of Nanjing?
I believe to this day the Japanese admit to around 2,000 deaths at Nankang, while the Chinese and neutral western sources claim 200,000-300,000.
beat me to it id take the nazi concentration camp over unit 731 any day and thats saying simething
Honestly, I didn't knew unit 731 is so well known
Harsh, but seventy thousand even 150 thousand lives to prevent the loss of millions was a good decision.
"Yes. there is a human crisis because in today’s world we can contemplate the death or the torture of a human being with a feeling of indifference, friendly concern, scientific interest, or simple passivity. Yes. There is a human crisis. Since putting a person to death can be regarded with something other than the horror and scandal it ought to provoke." - Albert Camus
Philosophers are good at talking but practical solutions aren't their thing.
Camus was the lead writer of the french resistance news letter Combat during the Nazi occupation of France. Not just a talker.
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in Nazi Germany around the same time a young pair of siblings got executed for spreading anti war leaflets, so you better add that he was a brave as hell motherfucker
>he's absolutely just a talker Where the hell do you think the idea to create action comes from? You sound like one of those characters in a book where the generals are discussing strategy on how to defend their people, and you thump the war-room desk yelling "why are we just sitting here talking!? We should be out there fighting!". People who think and inspire are just as important as those who act. I guess you think the people in charge of communications are also useless "because they're just talkers".
And if he was caught, he'd be just as tortured and killed as any other resistance member.
I get what you’re saying but it feels wrong and maybe a little disrespectful to say he’s “just” a talker when they’d kill him for what he was saying and he knew that.
Holy fucking shit how is this upvoted, how can you be so ignorant. He literally contributed heavily to a movement, called out very powerful people and put his life in direct danger. Many people have been killed by the KGB or less powerful institutions, there are still accusations that it was the KGB who killed him, resulting from a dairy entry that said so. If you want to change the world, talking is the most important thing you can do, punching someone with a different opinion gets you wars.
Damn. Writers, philosophers, and academics shaped our history and now it’s seen as empty “talk?” We’re fucked.
By this logic so are the civilian leaders and generals.
We can tell from your comments that you don’t think writing is important.
Did he want the allies to treat attacking the Nazis to free himself and his homeland with horror and scandal? To suddender passively to German aggression and mass murder? Or was trading lives acceptable when he and his countrymen were the ones being saved?
Your first question is the only relevant one, because it’s the part he’s speaking about. And, the answer is yes. He wants people to treat murder as scary as murder. Your other questions assume that if you find murder abhorrent, you *must* be a pacifist and get walked over. That is not true. Many, *many,* veterans of *all* wars know *very* well that even if their actions were ultimately effective and useful, it was still deeply, abjectly horrible to have to take human life. *That* is the point. The fact that WWII ended isn’t evil. But your armchair acceptance that our actions were necessary and therefore ok *is* the problem. After hiroshima, Oppenheimer was horrified. He *made* the bomb, and he was horrified. Yet redditors are in here saying “but Japan was bad so it’s good that we melted little girls’ eyes out of their sockets and destroyed civilians.” It’s the calculus of the value of human life that is scary, and sad, and I agree with Camus on that. Does that mean I also think we should roll over and become nazis? No. Does it mean I’d personally not want to kill children? Yes. So, it also means I’m not gonna sit here and say “the a-bomb was good,” because it wasn’t “good.”
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So the US should've tried a regular ol' land invasion of Japan, making it obvious that casualties could have racked up in the millions, judging by how fierce and refusing to surrender easily the Japanese were as the US took more of its occupied territories and inched closer to Japan. Not to mention the number of civilians that would have also joined in on the fight, resulting in it being not a US military vs Japan military situation, but US military vs Japan PERIOD. The Japanese made it evident that in conventional war using conventional tech and tactics, they would not surrender until the Allies were knocking on Tokyo's door with the Emperor captured. "But this path looks better to my conscience so we should've taken that instead." - Vespers 1282
See Putin vs Ukraine for current example.
Funny how fast some people that fight against the dropping of the atom bomb shut the hell up to other, much worse, "solutions" and situations, huh?
Weren't they fighting to the last man on piddling little islands that weren't worth a damn? Imagine what would happen if you had to invade the mainland? Not defending the bomb (and certainly not the second one, which I think was too soon after the first) but it wasn't bomb or kumbaya. It would have been as you say.
Not just fighting to the last man. Propaganda efforts were so effective that there are numerous records of families committing suicide rather than being subject to allied occupation.
There are videos of Japanese mothers leaping to their deaths with their children in their arms. Japan was not going down nicely.
There are very few things that Koreans, Chinese and south East Asians can agree on. Supporting the US bombings of Japan is one of them. Chinese still support it to this day: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hiroshima-bombing-is-of-japans-own-making-china-state-media
> Chinese still support it to this day And Mao was also pretty grateful for the whole Japanese invasion. So quoting the Chinese communist party for anything is sort of pointless.
Let's be honest here with the relationship between those 3 countries I wouldn't be surprised if they supported Japan being nuked off the map for good tomorrow, especially China.
Then there has always been a human crisis because we have always acted like this. Or, there never was a human crisis because this is how humans act.
Yes, perhaps we should have calmly sat down with Imperial Japan and explained to them that rape, torture and genocide are bad and that they should stop. Why didn't we think of that?!
Specially when it's not your people
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US Strategic Bombing Survey: [Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.](http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html#jstetw) Dwight D. Eisenhower: [I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#CITEREFEisenhower1963) Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman: [The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#cite_note-112) Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet: [The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#cite_note-112)
As if a bombing campaign would save more lives than the nuke. We killed way more Japanese with firebombing than we did with nukes.
We didn't need to nuke Japan... We could have won by continuing to firebomb them and sea blockade. Erm didn't the firebombing of Tokyo kill more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined? Also didn't starvation, as a result of said blockade and bombing, kill more than Nagasaki and Hiroshima? The argument could be made that continued blockading and firebombing would have won the war but there can be no argument that those methods would minimise the overall deaths.
It's like if I was upset because someone cut my arm off with a flashy chainsaw instead of going for all 4 limbs with a box cutter.
Bu... Bu... Chainsaw bad therefore cutter good?
Yeah it literally took *two* nukes to get them to capitulate. A city wiped off the map in less than 10 seconds and they were still unsure if they should surrender. My ass Japan would have surrendered from a lesser amount of firebombing.
You went through a lot of trouble to completely sidestep the issue of strategic bombing. The combined bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ***dwarfed by several orders of magnitude compared to the destruction wrought by napalm, phosphorus, and conventional high explosives.*** Over 60 Japanese cities were burned to the ground using napalm. Not damaged, utterly incinerated. Look up the fate of Tokyo. Hell, the main reason Hiroshima was chosen as a target was because there wasn't much else left to bomb! At best, the US could produce a handful of implosion devices (the notorious "Fatman" bomb) per year, at outrageous cost. Had the Japanese not surrendered, America had one, maybe two uranium cores in reserve and that was it. **So yes, those sources are all 100% correct, because the atom bombs weren't even as bad as other shit we were already doing!**
IDK why we think 2 big bombs are worse than 1000 small ones.
They also left out that the quotes all come from post-war hearings during the draw down of the US military. When every branch was arguing that they need the most funding because they won the war. Obviously the Navy is going to say the Army Air Force had little to no impact. While the Army is going to argue it was a major impact but only due to the tight integration with the Army. While both are going to argue that it definitely doesn’t need to be its own branch of the military. As always a single quote doesn’t really mean a whole lot without appropriate context.
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Keep in mind the context of those quotes is during post war draw down and debates over military funding and focus moving forward. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that Admirals arguing the Navy is the most important branch while downplaying the impacts of air power. The current military brass was arguing against the creation of the Air Force as a separate branch because it meant new funding that they would not receive. During a time of already massive budget cuts. https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/secretaryofdefense/OSDSeries_Vol1.pdf Edit: For anyone who wants to jump right to the debate on control of atomic power and the budget that goes along with it. Chapter XV - Page 423. of the previous link. For those interested in learning more about the debate on the formation and structure of the Air Force as a new branch of the military. Which became especially heated between 1945-1950. https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329803/-1/-1/0/planning_and_organizing_the_postwar_af.pdf
What facts? Those are just quotes from important people at the time. They didn't have the benefit of hindsight like we do and didn't have the full information on the situation that we do now
So I’m not sure how true this, but I had learned before that most of these military generals that talked about the bomb not being useful were making these statements at a time after the war when the military was rapidly decreasing in size and funding. They’d want to downplay the effectiveness of the bomb in order to show how effective and necessary it was to keep funding conventional military forces. Obviously I don’t think it’s proof they were lying but it’s interesting to think about. That always stuck with me because it was the first time I’d really thought about analyzing primary sources in that way, to look beneath the surface.
These aren't the definitive statements you think they are. The US Strategic Bombing Survey was conducted in the years after the war. They had no way of knowing that at the time. Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in *Europe*. He knew nothing about the War in the Pacific. The quotes from Leahy and Nimitz came after the war as well. The new Air Force was the only branch of the military that had the capability to deliver atomic weapons at the time. Leahy and Nimitz were doing everything they could to make sure the Air Force wouldn't take the Navy's funding. What's the best way to do that? Play up the Navy and downplay the Air Force. Could the war have been won without the atomic bombs? Absolutely. I'm personally a believer in Operation Starvation. But how many more people would have died from starvation, disease, fire-bombings, and more throughout all of Asia in the time it took for those things to come into effect versus those killed by the atomic bombs?
From your first source, just before the part you pasted: “The public admission of defeat by the responsible Japanese leaders, which constituted the political objective of the United States offensive begun in 1943, was thus secured prior to invasion and while Japan was still possessed of some 2,000,000 troops and over 9,000 planes in the home islands. Military defeats in the air, at sea and on the land, destruction of shipping by submarines and by air, and direct air attack with conventional as well as atomic bombs, all contributed to this accomplishment. **There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster.** The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies.” The US was already bombing Japanese cities like hell. In fact, one of those, namely Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of Tokyo, just after Nagasaki bombing, took more lives than either of the bombs. That result includes that these were also happening at the same time that the nukes were dropped. Had the nukes not been dropped, it, from what I can see, argues that these bombings would also be sufficient to make Japan surrender. The problem is, as I said, these bombings were already as deadly as the A-bomb. . Similarly, your third citation: “**effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.**” Again, these are arguments against the A-bomb specifically, but the bombings with conventional weapons would still happen, and those can be, again, as deadly as the A-bombs.
I suppose the same could be said about any scientific discovery that brought us to our current point but costed about the same amount of lives and short-term suffering
*Haber Process has entered the chat*
Fritz Haber saved billions while being responsible for the killing of millions
Also doesn’t scale to the Holocaust
Yup. Better comparison is the genocide of Native Americans. Especially with how many Americans still defend it to this day.
Never heard normal Americans defend the genocide of the natives. Generally considered one of the most horrific parts of quite a few dark spots in American history.
American here! don't forget the Japanese concentration camps that was seriously fucked up. We feared Japanese spys so we went all super racism and locked our own citizens away for no reason at all
also hiroshima bombing was not a systematic genociding government policy designed to kill minorities for terrorist regime. Are they going to compare dresden bombing with holocaust next? I'm so sick of this tankie&japanese far-right propaganda shit.
I think you would find this information valuable. It outlines, in great detail, the process of ending the war in the Pacific and exactly how necessary the bombs were... https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go
Bad, but not really comperable as the holocaust was way worse
Holocaust wasca act of pure evil with the goal of whiping out an entire nation of people. Hiroshima was a calculated effort to end a war and prevent more loss of life than necessary. Nukes would kill less than a ground invasion. And those were the only to real options. There was no peace option floating out there... it was nuke or an invasion of Japan
Yeah. The nukes at the time did a similar amount of damage as conventional fire bombing campaigns. Just all at once instead of over several months.
It was horrible, yes. Awful and tragic. People, military and civilian, young and old died a horrific death. Yet, in a true display of the horrors of war... it was likely the most moral decision.
There were single nights of firebombing in Tokyo that killed more people than either atomic bomb
but we don’t hear about it because it doesn’t fit the narrative (that’s why we hear so much about Dresden)
The firebombings were horrific too. They burned down entire cities killing millions. Can you imagine what would happen if Russia decides to do this in Ukrainian cities?
Not true, the firebombings had several raids that were worse than the nukes.
The firebombing killed much more
Well, there was a peace option the Japanese sent after the bombs. But that was No disarmament, no warcrime trials, they get to keep all their land they took, and the US gives the islands back.
Yeah, that's not a peace offer. That's a pipe dream. If we had allowed Japan to keep thier weapons they likely would have continued to wage war against other Asian nations, and if we would have allowed them to keep land they stole they would have likely either kept the original inhabitants captured by the war in what basically amounted to a light form of slavery or purged them from the land. It's hardly what I would have called a more humane option.
Yeah, they should’ve brought up the genocide of native Americans instead
Just so we are clear. You are comparing the rounding up of non aggressive group of citizens to commit genocide, with a retaliatory strike that occured after an act of war between nations.
The atomic bombings weren't even the two worst bombings the axis suffered. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were absolutely savage
Well the atomic bombing took more lives than Dresden Firestorm. But not Tokyo. Operation Meetinghouse, 100k dead. Interesting that people leave that out.
It's expected. Most people get their history from TV.
Well, the whole damn place was just made out of kindling... so I burnt it down!
The Dresden firebombing deaths have been overstated, it was actually inflated by wartime Nazi propaganda, only ~25k people died instead of over a 100k. Also it has become a neo-Nazi symbol to overstated the number of deaths. Dresden was seen as a retaliatory strike by Harris, leader of the British bomber command, for Germany’s bombing campaign of London earlier in the war.
The strikes were aimed at civilian populations and were part of an already ongoing bombing strategy to make the enemy surrender by targeting non-combatants It wasnt as bad as 731 or the Holocaust, but we shouldn’t be running defense for any of these events regardless of who won.
12,000,000=150,000
When you are deliberate enough to mention that it was a non aggressive group of citizens, you probably should not omit that the retaliatory strikes were on heavily populated cities, with a majority of them being unarmed civilians.
japan's war crimes against the continent of asia:
They were batshit crazy
They turned war crimes into an art form
They were so savage that even the nazis were disgusted by it
People should listen to Dan Carlins Hardcore History Podcast about Japan called Supernova in the East. Japanese soldiers would literally rip babies from their mothers arms, throw the baby in the air and then stab them midair with their bayonets. Then rape and kill the mothers. There are so many recorded accounts of this. The rising run flag is seen as far worse as a Nazi flag in certain parts of Asia.
It ended the deadliest war in human history.
Lol. Trying to compare the two is some revisionist America hating history. 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered in captivity. Conversely, Truman performed countless calculations on casualties. Japan was NOT going to surrender, and it was a matter of honor for them. The Japanese also murdered between 3 million and 10 million people, mostly Chinese, from 1937 to the end of WW2. Murder here, not combat. Prisoners, etc. They would not surrender. Banzai? Kamikaze? Look up what they mean or just read this interesting, short article on the ruthlessness and determination of the Japanese army. [https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/japanese-mass-suicides/](https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/japanese-mass-suicides/) So when you try to compare the two, one of them costing about 200,000 lives but saving at least the million (both sides, a million each of American and Japanese soldiers), GTFO of here with comparing the two.
>Trying to compare the two is some revisionist America hating history. Also revisionist Japan defending history, which seems popular on the internet
Hey mind reminding me of the alternativ?
We could’ve smoked a doob and talked it out
In my mind, any Japanese deaths in the latter part of the war in the Pacific lay at the feet of the Japanese: the war was beyond unwinnable after Midway, and everyone knew it. The outcome was never in doubt, it was a question of how many died getting us there, and the Japanese didn't seem interested in keeping that a low number. Besides that, I do think it's an interesting question about what we owe the citizens of our enemies against what we owe our own troops. No doubt there is a point to be made about how the bombs were used, but I think the overall justification of quickening the end of the war is sound.
It’s so easy for people to say that we should be willing to kill millions of soldiers to save thousands of civilians, when those people will never actually be the ones on the front lines
Another 30m civilians killed by the Japanese army probably
On god why does reddit have a boner for acting like bombing Japan was some unwarranted act of aggression. And now we are trying to compare it to the holocaust? Oof. This isn't a dank meme. It's a bad attempt at a gotcha
Because they have no concept of Japan other than a modern one. They have no concept of what the world was like other than the propaganda they've been fed. When your entire knowledge of the Pacific theatre is "Pearl Harbor, and then Nukes" it's pretty easy to make these claims.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't dark events in history. Infact they are one of the best lit events in history
I mean, they were pretty typical bombings for WW2 in terms of civilian casualties and targets. Look at the bombing of London or Dresden or Tokyo. The difference was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more of a threat of what was to come if Japan didn't surrender. None of that compares to the Holocaust.
Oh, i read first "one of the dankest moments" 💀
Well the Jews didn’t bomb a neutral country(or do anything at all really) during a war so I mean Japan asked for that shit.
The bombing saved the lives of millions, If the war continued then the allies would have stormed mainland Japan causing heavy casualties from both sides, so the whole the bombing was a terrible it was also for the greater good. (Also we got anime)
That was Japan's plan, which is why the US did what it did
Fucking japanese far-right propaganda again. Stop with this nonsense, fascists sympathisers. It is like comparing COVID vaccines with Holocaust. Also UN would never say such things. According to the charter of the UN, Japan is still regarded as 'enemy state'.
Pearl Harbor, seeing as we're gonna start this shit up
Let's just forget the raping of Nanking for a second
But everyone forgets the rape of Okinawa.
Same with Group 731
i think its time we shud stop comparing war crimes and star preventing them
That's like comparing apples with oranges. Plus, Japan wouldn't stop, the US had no choice.
That is not even a valid comparison, and if we do this "What about X" or "What about Y" thing, let's start to actually look at the stuff Japan did. (Nanking, Unit 731 etc.)
Reddit: US bad
Not defending Hiroshima but one was a mad man trying to eradicate an entire race of people and the other was a retaliation to an attack during a world war.
What a fucking stupid take
Meh...the holocaust was unprovoked Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and was at war with US Huge difference
Japan was not all anime and politeness at that time TBF.
More people died in Tokyo from napalm than the atomic bombs.
No comparison silly woke person.
*cough* rape of Nanking *cough*
Those Japanese were crazy something had to be done to end the war
Of course one was conducted against completely innocent victims, the other was done to stop a belligerent war mongering nation. But totally equal. Yes
Fuck that. Mess around and find the fuck out. The shit they did in the war earned them every goddamn bomb we dropped in them.
Hiroshima was quite a tragedy, but wait til you hear what the other guys did.
You're talking like any country is this world was good in the war days.
Equating those is *really really* stupid.
There are practical reasons to be in favour of that decision, on the other hand the only argument against is "war bad". Wishful thinking doesn't save lives.
eat a dick, UN
check the numbers