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Emperors Faithful wrote:

Amaya wrote:
Edit: The debate over the use of the nukes really comes down to whether or not you believe Japan was going to continue fighting. An invasion of Japan would have been incredibly bloody. Who knows how long Japan would have held out during a blockade? The greater crime was the fire bombing of Japan. I think the best thing would be for America to apologize for both actions, even though it is now agreed that the use of WMDs is unacceptable.

It's not the actual use of WMDs (as in that case every test would be a crime), it's the fact that the US specifically targetted dense population centres (in both the carpet bombing and the A-bomb) rather than military targets, which would have been entirely possible given that they had complete air superiority. The massacre of civilians was done with the sole goal of horrifying Japan into abject surrender, rather than neautralizing them as a military threat.

And the question is would Japan have been willing to surrender if the US hadn't done that? Or would there have been a drawn out invasion or blockade that resulted in equal or greater suffering?

Japan is half a world away and not in our euro centric back yard.

I'm pretty sure that The Koreas, China and a host of others talk more about what Japan did to them than what happened to some folk in Germany or wherever those pasty faced giants are.

Amaya wrote:I already posted that. lol immunity

One of the members actually toured Japan talking about what they did. I can't see a Nazi doctor ever getting away with that.

Edit: Really? Taking over Korea was a 'tragic accident'?

Also consider what happened to the respective governments. Germany's government gave complete surrender, everyone involved in it's government was thrown from office and most put on trial. In Japan the Emperor remained, as did much of the civilian government.

The reason for this is at the party most wronged by the Nazis, the USSR, was in a position of great strength at the end of the war, and would have accepted no less than the prosecution of the Nazi leadership. But the Chinese were in no such position to demand the same of the Japanese, as they were drifting back into civil war. The result was the US was much freer to take a pragmatic approach to Japan, to focus on just keeping the place running and not punishing the war criminals.

I agree that the racial element played significant part. But the whole picture is so much more complicated than that.

sebster wrote:

Amaya wrote:I already posted that. lol immunity

One of the members actually toured Japan talking about what they did. I can't see a Nazi doctor ever getting away with that.

Edit: Really? Taking over Korea was a 'tragic accident'?

Also consider what happened to the respective governments. Germany's government gave complete surrender, everyone involved in it's government was thrown from office and most put on trial. In Japan the Emperor remained, as did much of the civilian government.

The reason for this is at the party most wronged by the Nazis, the USSR, was in a position of great strength at the end of the war, and would have accepted no less than the prosecution of the Nazi leadership. But the Chinese were in no such position to demand the same of the Japanese, as they were drifting back into civil war. The result was the US was much freer to take a pragmatic approach to Japan, to focus on just keeping the place running and not punishing the war criminals.

I agree that the racial element played significant part. But the whole picture is so much more complicated than that.

I agree on all counts except that Japan did give a complete surrender. It was deemed necessary to keep the Emperor in power and it's always better to salvage what you can of an infrastructure instead of rebuilding from the ground up.

Emperors Faithful wrote:You're missing the point. Japan is being asked/demanded to make apologies for their war crimes while the single most horrific attack on a civilian target throughout the whole war (indeed really, the past century) was committed by the US. A crime, and that's really what it is, that the victor is unlikely to ever apologize for. BUT HEY! AT LEAST WE STOPPED THOSE DAMN COMMIE JAPS!

You're ignoring the difficult but hard to ignore reality that dropping the bombs probably saved lives, when you look at the on-going bloodshed in China and expected casualties from an invasion of mainland Japan. It's ugly and doesn't make for good ranting, but sometimes something as horrible as dropping a nuke really is the best course of action.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:Was the bombing of Tokyo done over time, or was the flamestorm similar to Dresden? (Funny how a white town gets more media and sympathy than Tokyo)

The point with Dresden is that there was no military point to the bombing. There was military there, no weapons factories. It was later claimed that it was an important road junction, and while lots of people were moving through the town they were almost entirely refugees, and the allies knew this. It was done to horrify the Germans into surrendering. It was a stupid and horrific policy.

None of that applies to Tokyo.


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Amaya wrote:I agree on all counts except that Japan did give a complete surrender. It was deemed necessary to keep the Emperor in power and it's always better to salvage what you can of an infrastructure instead of rebuilding from the ground up.

There's complete surrender where you remove the government entirely, and complete surrender where you let the majority remain in power. And not just the Emperor, but a lot of senior bureaucrats.

The Soviets wouldn't have ever tolerated that in Germany, so we got the trials and the executions. The Chinese were in no similar position, so we got something very different instead.

There was no point in horrifying the Germans. They had the full force of England, Russia, and the majority of America bearing down on them. Unlike Japan, they didn't have a particulary strong geographical defense. Germany was going to fall quickly.

Amaya wrote:
And the question is would Japan have been willing to surrender if the US hadn't done that? Or would there have been a drawn out invasion or blockade that resulted in equal or greater suffering?

This is the part where one has to ask if War Crimes can be justified. But you're certainly not naive enough to believe that the US commanders (especially MacArthur) were concerned about the suffering of the Japanese.


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sebster wrote: It was done to horrify the Germans into surrendering. It was a stupid and horrific policy.

None of that applies to Tokyo.

I would disagree, strongly. I fail to see how the extensive massacre of civilians was done for any other reason but to horrify Japan into surrender (which paid off superbly).

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Amaya wrote:
And the question is would Japan have been willing to surrender if the US hadn't done that? Or would there have been a drawn out invasion or blockade that resulted in equal or greater suffering?

This is the part where one has to ask if War Crimes can be justified. But you're certainly not naive enough to believe that the US commanders (especially MacArthur) were concerned about the suffering of the Japanese.

In this case the bombings of Japan are at least potentially defensible, which is not the case in regards to Japan's atrocities. The primary issue that US commanders had with invading Japan was the cost of American lives. There is no denying that. However, in war at least, I would think that the needs of your people outweighs those of your enemies to a certain degree. At the same time, I think very few US commanders really wanted Japan to suffer millions of civilian casualties.

Amaya wrote:
In this case the bombings of Japan are at least potentially defensible, which is not the case in regards to Japan's atrocities.

Suppressing a population through terror in one way is little different from another.

The primary issue that US commanders had with invading Japan was the cost of American lives. There is no denying that. However, in war at least, I would think that the needs of your people outweighs those of your enemies to a certain degree. At the same time, I think very few US commanders really wanted Japan to suffer millions of civilian casualties.

I think very few US commanders cared.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I would disagree, strongly. I fail to see how the extensive massacre of civilians was done for any other reason but to horrify Japan into surrender (which paid off superbly).

Because we had observed that strategic bombing of cities didn't force a nation to surrender. We had witnessed the Germans try this against the British and against the Russians, and the effect on the civilian population was only to increase their resolve, not reduce it. We'd then been bombing Germany for some time before Dresden, and the results were exactly the same, the Germans became only more determined in their resistance.

On the other hand, the ability to entirely level a city with a single bomb, from a single plane was likely to have a wholly different approach, and as we saw it did.

There always has to be a pragmatic element to morality, where a thing that produces a positive result is more moral than a thing that does not. The bombing of Dresden was incredibly unlikely to produce a positive result (surrender), while dropping the bomb was very likely to produce a positive result. So one can easily be seen as morale while the other is not.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

I recommend you watch The Fog of War, it's a great documentary. Basically it's a long interview with Robert McNamara, who along with holding a senior position in the Kennedy administration, he was in strategic bomber control, working for LeMay. It's a fascinating thing, to compare McNamara's view to LeMay's.

sebster wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I would disagree, strongly. I fail to see how the extensive massacre of civilians was done for any other reason but to horrify Japan into surrender (which paid off superbly).

Because we had observed that strategic bombing of cities didn't force a nation to surrender. We had witnessed the Germans try this against the British and against the Russians, and the effect on the civilian population was only to increase their resolve, not reduce it. We'd then been bombing Germany for some time before Dresden, and the results were exactly the same, the Germans became only more determined in their resistance.

On the other hand, the ability to entirely level a city with a single bomb, from a single plane was likely to have a wholly different approach, and as we saw it did.

There always has to be a pragmatic element to morality, where a thing that produces a positive result is more moral than a thing that does not. The bombing of Dresden was incredibly unlikely to produce a positive result (surrender), while dropping the bomb was very likely to produce a positive result. So one can easily be seen as morale while the other is not.

I'd agree with you up to the point where you claim that the bomb was very likely to induce a surrender. Few of the US Pacific Commanders beleived Japan would capitulate following the bombs. It can be argued that they completely underestimated the destructive capability or the effect on morale such instant destruction ("Even the bravest are frightened by sudden terrors"), but the fact that they did not believe it would work but went through with the slaughter can be considered immoral (regardless of the actual outcome).

Regardless, even the surrender of Japan (as opposed to an armistice) is difficult to justify at the cost of life.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

I recommend you watch The Fog of War, it's a great documentary. Basically it's a long interview with Robert McNamara, who along with holding a senior position in the Kennedy administration, he was in strategic bomber control, working for LeMay. It's a fascinating thing, to compare McNamara's view to LeMay's.

You've perked my interest, and I'll try to find it.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

Well they cared more than the cowardly, yellow Australians. See, you aren't the only one that can make up total crap about other people.

An of course they underestimated the effects, no one had ever done it before. We had some idea of the fallout (both the real and political) but we can't act like this was a normal event and that they had decades of hindsight to consult when using a nuclear weapon.

Ahtman wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

Well they cared more than the cowardly, yellow Australians. See, you aren't the only one that can make up total crap about other people.

An of course they underestimated the effects, no one had ever done it before. We had some idea of the fallout (both the real and political) but we can't act like this was a normal event and that they had decades of hindsight to consult when using a nuclear weapon.

They understood the potential fallout so poorly that there plans to send invading troops into the regions nuked.

Ahtman wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

Well they cared more than the cowardly, yellow Australians. See, you aren't the only one that can make up total crap about other people.

Actually, I'll be the first to admit the Aussies had more issues against the Japanese than the Americans (which was evident enough during the occupation of Japan). But we didn't have access to Nuclear Weaponry.

An of course they underestimated the effects, no one had ever done it before. We had some idea of the fallout (both the real and political) but we can't act like this was a normal event and that they had decades of hindsight to consult when using a nuclear weapon.

They knew that it would cause far more devastation than conventional weaponry. They didn't exactly expect very nice things to happen to the civilian population they dropped it on.


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Amaya wrote:They understood the potential fallout so poorly that there plans to send invading troops into the regions nuked.

Hey, hey, hey! They were going to send them into the nuked areas 48 after they were dropped. That's plenty of time for fallout to stop being a problem right?

Emperors Faithful wrote:I'd agree with you up to the point where you claim that the bomb was very likely to induce a surrender. Few of the US Pacific Commanders beleived Japan would capitulate following the bombs. It can be argued that they completely underestimated the destructive capability or the effect on morale such instant destruction ("Even the bravest are frightened by sudden terrors"), but the fact that they did not believe it would work but went through with the slaughter can be considered immoral (regardless of the actual outcome).

I agree that if the bomb wasn't expected to end the war then it wasn't a moral decision, but I don't believe that people were unconvinced it would. Japan as it was was teetering on the edge, and from what I've read there was a heavy assumption that the bomb was expected to end the war. This may be coloured by the final outcome, but I doubt it.

Regardless, even the surrender of Japan (as opposed to an armistice) is difficult to justify at the cost of life.

Compared to the lives being lost as the Japanese tried to maintain control in China? The lives lost as the Russians steamrolled over them? The lives lost in an invasion of Japan?

It was an ugly choice and I'm glad it's one I didn't have to make. I'm not comfortable judging Truman for the choice he made.


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Ahtman wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I think very few US commanders cared.

Well they cared more than the cowardly, yellow Australians. See, you aren't the only one that can make up total crap about other people.

But there has been condemnation of strategic bomber command for their approach to the war, and LeMay in particular, whose war at all costs approach got a lot of civilians killed that shouldn't have been.

sebster wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I'd agree with you up to the point where you claim that the bomb was very likely to induce a surrender. Few of the US Pacific Commanders beleived Japan would capitulate following the bombs. It can be argued that they completely underestimated the destructive capability or the effect on morale such instant destruction ("Even the bravest are frightened by sudden terrors"), but the fact that they did not believe it would work but went through with the slaughter can be considered immoral (regardless of the actual outcome).

I agree that if the bomb wasn't expected to end the war then it wasn't a moral decision, but I don't believe that people were unconvinced it would. Japan as it was was teetering on the edge, and from what I've read there was a heavy assumption that the bomb was expected to end the war. This may be coloured by the final outcome, but I doubt it.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here, sebster. As you've admitted, it's easy to say now that Japan was expected to surrender after Hiroshima (and then Nagasaki), but the reality is that the invasion was expected to go ahead, exactly as planned (the rivalry between US commanders over the exact date or whether to delay it notwithstanding). Perhaps in the end the bomb did save more lives, and was expected to.

Regardless, even the surrender of Japan (as opposed to an armistice) is difficult to justify at the cost of life.

Compared to the lives being lost as the Japanese tried to maintain control in China? The lives lost as the Russians steamrolled over them? The lives lost in an invasion of Japan?

I don't really understand what you're saying, Japan was hoping for an armistice at this point.

It was an ugly choice and I'm glad it's one I didn't have to make. I'm not comfortable judging Truman for the choice he made.

Maybe I'm a fool for it, but I just can't console myself with the readily made decision (Truman said he never hesitated to use it as a weapon) to exterminate hundreds of thousands of civilians in an instant. To me it's just as bad as any massacre of civilian life, despite the goals behind it.

An armistice was unacceptable. Anything less than unconditional surrender was unacceptable. Imperial Japan had to be dismantled. The threat of them rebuilding and coming back as a threat to world piece akin to Nazi Germany can't be ignored.

Well I think the ongoing hypocracy of the US being the only country to deliberatly drop nukes on civillian centres is laughable when they try to stop other countries developing said bombs. It really is pot kettle black.

Also I think that abortion is a greater 'holocaust' than the 3.5 million or so Jews killed. I mean russia lost more men in the war. Yet we have daily holocaust reminders and it ticks me off.

Amaya wrote:An armistice was unacceptable. Anything less than unconditional surrender was unacceptable. Imperial Japan had to be dismantled. The threat of them rebuilding and coming back as a threat to world piece akin to Nazi Germany can't be ignored.

Just what do they teach you in school?

Phototoxin wrote:Well I think the ongoing hypocracy of the US being the only country to deliberatly drop nukes on civillian centres is laughable when they try to stop other countries developing said bombs. It really is pot kettle black.

Non-proliferation means that less crazies have access to it than normal. I'm more worried about Israel having Nuclear Weapons than the US or Russia. I'll admit that would be the case a couple of decades ago though.

I'm giving you a reason as to why Japan was pushed to surrender instead of the US accepting an armistice.

Do you think that allowing Imperial Japan to remain would have been a better solution?

Phototoxin wrote:Well I think the ongoing hypocracy of the US being the only country to deliberatly drop nukes on civillian centres is laughable when they try to stop other countries developing said bombs. It really is pot kettle black.

Actually another country would have to drop a nuke and then critique the US for that analogy to work. If anything the US is in the best position to lecture,along with the Japanese, because we are the only ones to have to actually deal with the aftermath of nuclear weapons. We can speak on why they are terrible things and shouldn't be used.

Phototoxin wrote:Also I think that abortion is a greater 'holocaust' than the 3.5 million or so Jews killed.

Wow. Just...wow. TANGENT ALERT! Also number alert as well.

Phototoxin wrote:I mean russia lost more men in the war. Yet we have daily holocaust reminders and it ticks me off.

Well we have a longer history of Jews having prominent roles in the US as well as something called the Cold War to play down thier contribution immediately post war. We also don't have 'daily Holocaust reminders'. That is a ridiculous thing to say.

Amaya wrote:I'm giving you a reason as to why Japan was pushed to surrender instead of the US accepting an armistice.

Do you think that allowing Imperial Japan to remain would have been a better solution?

How much did Japan's surrender change that?


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Ahtman wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:Well I think the ongoing hypocracy of the US being the only country to deliberatly drop nukes on civillian centres is laughable when they try to stop other countries developing said bombs. It really is pot kettle black.

Actually another country would have to drop a nuke and than critique the US for that analogy to work. If anything the US is in the best position to lecture,along with the Japanese, becuase we are the only ones to have to actually deal with the aftermath of nuclear weapons. We can speak on why they are terrible things and shouldn't be used.

'

Actually, I'd say that rests with those that experienced the Nuclear Bomb and it's effects. Not those that dropped it, and certainly not the descendants of those same people 70 years down the track.

sebster wrote:there has been condemnation of strategic bomber command for their approach to the war, and LeMay in particular, whose war at all costs approach got a lot of civilians killed that shouldn't have been.

That is a much more honest and accurate assessment of the situation than just generically pretending that all US military commanders were indifferent to civilian deaths.

Yeah I'm on my phone so o can't find the link, but I will update when I get home, but basically I went backpacking in Japan for 6 weeks in 2005, and there was a big stink about a Japanese sub that sank and the navy were basically saying they were unhappy because the people would not build a memorial for the drowned sailors and people in government just point blank refused to talk about it due to possible repercussions internationally.

As a soldier it means a lot to me. You can be a true hero and a selfless person who sacrifices everything for your nation, even if you are on the wrong side. Some honorable brave guys died for Japan, and young soldiers don't have a say in policy.

KK is right, I genuinely believe that this whole "Japan never apologies for anything" attitude is a western myth. I found the people to be very friendly and apologetic, even to this day.

And the chicks love blue eyed white boys, so I went back 4 times.

Ahtman wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:Also I think that abortion is a greater 'holocaust' than the 3.5 million or so Jews killed.

Wow. Just...wow. TANGENT ALERT! Also number alert as well.

Phototoxin wrote:I mean russia lost more men in the war. Yet we have daily holocaust reminders and it ticks me off.

Well we have a longer history of Jews having prominent roles in the US as well as something called the Cold War to play down thier contribution immediately post war. We also don't have 'daily Holocaust reminders'. That is a ridiculous thing to say.

Maybe they found more incinerated remains but in history we learned about 6 million died just over half of whom were jews. Wiki says 6 million jews (+misc others as that's all people tend ot regard the non-jews as) but only 3 million identified.

Eitherway it doesn't bother me. People died.

But it's like 9/11 - we'll KEEP hearing about it even though there have been and still are worse things going on.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Actually, I'd say that rests with those that experienced the Nuclear Bomb and it's effects. Not those that dropped it, and certainly not the descendants of those same people 70 years down the track.

That is easy to say when it isn't your country that that actually has to deal with the fact that they were the only one that did it. Japan and the US together have a louder voice in non-proliferation than just either of us alone.


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Phototoxin wrote:But it's like 9/11 - we'll KEEP hearing about it even though there have been and still are worse things going on.

Lot's of bad things happen, some are recognized and some aren't. When dealing with atrocities it is best not to create moral equivalency; there are no degrees of atrocity, there is only atrocity. It is a fool's game to play.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Perhaps in the end the bomb did save more lives, and was expected to.

This is my point.

I don't really understand what you're saying, Japan was hoping for an armistice at this point.

But the terms of that armistice would have left the military in control of Japan, and just made it likely that there'd be another war down the track.

Maybe I'm a fool for it, but I just can't console myself with the readily made decision (Truman said he never hesitated to use it as a weapon) to exterminate hundreds of thousands of civilians in an instant. To me it's just as bad as any massacre of civilian life, despite the goals behind it.

The purple hearts produced by the US in anticipation of the invasion of Japan were only finally used up during the first Gulf War. That's a hell of a lot of dead and injured US soldiers. Meanwhile the death toll in China continued to mount, and with the Russians on the border that was only going to get worse.

Civilians are going to die in war. Taking some moralistic stance that you can't ever target a civilian location is likely to get more civilians killed in the long run, not less.


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Ahtman wrote:That is a much more honest and accurate assessment of the situation than just generically pretending that all US military commanders were indifferent to civilian deaths.

Fair point.


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Phototoxin wrote:Well I think the ongoing hypocracy of the US being the only country to deliberatly drop nukes on civillian centres is laughable when they try to stop other countries developing said bombs. It really is pot kettle black.

They were attacked, you know...

Also I think that abortion is a greater 'holocaust' than the 3.5 million or so Jews killed. I mean russia lost more men in the war. Yet we have daily holocaust reminders and it ticks me off.

Again though, the deaths in Russia were what you see in the brutality of war. Well, it was considerably more brutal than most wars, but still along the same scale. Note that the Soviets repaid the Germans in kind - the assault on Berlin was horrific.

But that's wholly different to the ordered, efficient and deliberate extermination of a kind of people. We've seen genocide before, but here was genocide using the powers of the modern industrial economy. Here was genocide that actually could wipe a people from the face of the Earth. It really is terrifying on a scale never seen before.

And it was 6 million Jews, along with 3 million other people. I'm guessing the 'daily holocaust reminders' aren't really doing their job if you don't know the basic figures.


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Phototoxin wrote:Maybe they found more incinerated remains but in history we learned about 6 million died just over half of whom were jews. Wiki says 6 million jews (+misc others as that's all people tend ot regard the non-jews as) but only 3 million identified.

Eitherway it doesn't bother me. People died.

But it's like 9/11 - we'll KEEP hearing about it even though there have been and still are worse things going on.

It seems to me the most sensible approach would be to demand greater awareness of other atrocities, not demand less awareness of the more famous ones.

Ahtman wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Actually, I'd say that rests with those that experienced the Nuclear Bomb and it's effects. Not those that dropped it, and certainly not the descendants of those same people 70 years down the track.

That is easy to say when it isn't your country that that actually has to deal with the fact that they were the only one that did it. Japan and the US together have a louder voice in non-proliferation than just either of us alone.

Actually, the US has a loud voice because it wields power.

Phototoxin wrote:But it's like 9/11 - we'll KEEP hearing about it even though there have been and still are worse things going on.

Lot's of bad things happen, some are recognized and some aren't. When dealing with atrocities it is best not to create moral equivalency; there are no degrees of atrocity, there is only atrocity. It is a fool's game to play.

So by this definition the dropping of the A-bomb was still an atrocity. As you said, there are no degress of atrocity.

sebster wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Perhaps in the end the bomb did save more lives, and was expected to.

This is my point.

I know. I was admitting your point.

I don't really understand what you're saying, Japan was hoping for an armistice at this point.

But the terms of that armistice would have left the military in control of Japan, and just made it likely that there'd be another war down the track.

Really, you're right. I was just trying to explore any alternatives to such a callous act.

Maybe I'm a fool for it, but I just can't console myself with the readily made decision (Truman said he never hesitated to use it as a weapon) to exterminate hundreds of thousands of civilians in an instant. To me it's just as bad as any massacre of civilian life, despite the goals behind it.

The purple hearts produced by the US in anticipation of the invasion of Japan were only finally used up during the first Gulf War.

Isn't that proof that an invasion of Japan was still expected?

That's a hell of a lot of dead and injured US soldiers. Meanwhile the death toll in China continued to mount, and with the Russians on the border that was only going to get worse.

Civilians are going to die in war. Taking some moralistic stance that you can't ever target a civilian location is likely to get more civilians killed in the long run, not less.

But to do so without warning, into a dense civilian population with the express goal of terror and horrifying the enemy, I can't reconcile that decision (not that anyone particularily needs me to or cares if I do). Was there even a question of providing a demonstration? You can't argue that the shortage of bombs prevented that, a further 15 A-bombs were expected to have been developed by October at the latest.

You know EF, you seem more interested in attacking the US than having a reasonable conversation about this. Your stance lacks nuance and a basic understanding of the events as they happened, not the Jr. High school book version. You are white knighting Japan for some reason that escapes when the US and Japan have to come to terms with their history, they don't need your one sided judgements of decisions you didn't have to make, didn't have to deal with. If you haven't noticed, Japan and the US actually have a pretty good relationship. You can stay hurt about it if you want but the US and Japan have moved on. No one is going to forget it but we aren't going to wallow in it either.

Also, my sentence had nothing to do with the power of the US. As powerful as the US (and let's be honest, Japan ain't no slouch either) is, the combined voice of the US and Japan is still even louder then either alone. And of course the death and destruction was terrible and could be labeled an atrocity, but the alternative was far worse. This wasn't a game of Warhammer, this was an honest to god war and people were dieing and hard choices had to be made. People die. All wars are atrocities. All wars are crimes.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Really, you're right. I was just trying to explore any alternatives to such a callous act.

There were plenty of alternatives, there always are. All had their drawbacks, so that in the end I'm just happy I didn't have to make the decision.

There's a difference between being unsure if a decision was the one I'd make, and being unwilling to condemn a man for making it himself.

If he'd shied away from using the bomb do you think there'd be people condemning him for all those Chinese people who died in the next 3 or 6 months, and all those US and Japanese soldiers who died in the subsequent invasion, that could have been avoided if only Truman had used the new weapon?

Isn't that proof that an invasion of Japan was still expected?

It can be possible for there to be a greater chance of Japanese surrender, while it still being possible that invasion would be necessary.

But to do so without warning, into a dense civilian population with the express goal of terror and horrifying the enemy, I can't reconcile that decision (not that anyone particularily needs me to or cares if I do). Was there even a question of providing a demonstration? You can't argue that the shortage of bombs prevented that, a further 15 A-bombs were expected to have been developed by October at the latest.

In the history of war I don't think there's ever been an instance of displaying a new weapon in some of display for the enemy, to get him to back down. It just doesn't work like that.