Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Re-enactment

BBJynne wrote:they were gonna bomb tokyo but the weather was bad





tough break hiroshima...........

+1

Null claim.
Civilians were a legitimate military target in WWII, according to the doctrine of total war.
The Germans were targeting civilians (Partisan reprisals, Buzzbomb campaign) the Russians were doing it (admittedly, by the time they started doing it, it wasn't really necessary) the Brits and the Americans were doing it (Ruhr Dams, Firestorm over Dresden, Incendiary Cluster-Bombing of Japanese cities) and the Japanese were doing it (Nanking, Manchukio, wherever they set foot with civilians.)

Rasq'uire'laskar wrote:So, really, what reasons are there to oppose the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Well that's easy.

America has always prided itself to be ideologically superior to other countries. The murder (and it was murder, whether or not it was helpful to a greater cause, the people who were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent civilians of an oppressive government) of 140,000 civilians simply does not fit in with our supposed
ideologies.

We are supposed to be a country that values innocent life above all, and one that is willing to risk personal sacrifice for the lives of those innocent people. You might say that, had we invaded mainland Japan, something like ONE MILLION Allied troops would have died.

So what? Soldiers are supposed to give their lives in the protection of the innocent. To kill thousands of women and school children is simply unnacceptable from an ideological standpoint. We took the easy way out... and it worked... but at the cost of INNOCENT LIFE. Who are we to determine that those lives were expendable in the cause of ending WWII?

That said... I'm playing Devil's advocate here. I think the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an extremely unfortunate but logical decision, but to say that there is no reason to oppose it is just dumb.

While that might be partially true, the Japanese were not the type of people to give up without a fight. As our island hopping campaign clearly showed the Japanese would never retreat and fought with their lives for every inch of ground. Were we to invade the Japanese mainland, do you really think they would have left their villages wide open for the taking? Who knows how many civilians could have died in an invasion, it could have even surpassed the number that were killed in the bombs.

Six million would have died, actually.
If you look at previous assaults on Japanese-held territory, you'll find that the citizens were almost always fighting American soldiers. So, 220 thousand (including Nagasaki) dead was probably substantially less than what would have happened in an invasion.

In addition, the Soviets were busy racing down the Korean Peninsula towards Japan. If Japan didn't surrender right away, more territory would have fallen to the Soviets. And even back then, Harry Truman knew that Japanese Citizens under American Dominion would have fared better than under the Soviets. Unlike Roosevelt, he was under no illusions as to the true nature of Stalinism.
Furthermore, if a demonstration of America's Atomic Might wasn't made, then the Russians would have been tempted to invade the rest of Europe. They'd just marched across all of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, Britain was a sick man, and the Americans would have taken the full brunt of Stalin's insane wrath.

Finally, America was a Democracy. Whether it would have had the will to sustain the war for another four years (With money it didn't have) wasn't even a question.

Sadly, it was a question of breaking with ideology and seeing it's ultimate vision fulfilled, or staying with the ideology and seeing it die.

"Trapped in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children... are... insane..."

I think of our future when I think of the bombings, I hate them.

While it was a "tactical" move by the US, I still have a major distaste for directly killing <insertcasualtieshere> civilians.

ter⋅ror⋅ism  /ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ [ter-uh-riz-uhm]
–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I do not approve of terrorists acts, especially for revenge. Nuclear bombs will be the end of life, or perhaps I should say, humans will be the end of life. We create our own strife, we will destroy ourselves, this is a perfect example of human intelligence.

"War... War never changes."

ReconToaster wrote:

Rasq'uire'laskar wrote:So, really, what reasons are there to oppose the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Well that's easy.

America has always prided itself to be ideologically superior to other countries. The murder (and it was murder, whether or not it was helpful to a greater cause, the people who were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent civilians of an oppressive government) of 140,000 civilians simply does not fit in with our supposed
ideologies.

We are supposed to be a country that values innocent life above all, and one that is willing to risk personal sacrifice for the lives of those innocent people. You might say that, had we invaded mainland Japan, something like ONE MILLION Allied troops would have died.

So what? Soldiers are supposed to give their lives in the protection of the innocent. To kill thousands of women and school children is simply unnacceptable from an ideological standpoint. We took the easy way out... and it worked... but at the cost of INNOCENT LIFE. Who are we to determine that those lives were expendable in the cause of ending WWII?

That said... I'm playing Devil's advocate here. I think the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an extremely unfortunate but logical decision, but to say that there is no reason to oppose it is just dumb.

Thats terrible

KrAzY wrote:200 thousand people died so that over 20 million people could live

Agreed

Avenged wrote:

ReconToaster wrote:
You might say that, had we invaded mainland Japan, something like ONE MILLION Allied troops would have died.

So what? Soldiers are supposed to give their lives in the protection of the innocent. To kill thousands of women and school children is simply unnacceptable from an ideological standpoint.

Thats terrible

Don't make it into something it's not. I'm just saying the lives of innocent Women and Children should be protected at the cost of the lives of soldiers.

ReconToaster wrote: America has always prided itself to be ideologically superior to other countries. The murder (and it was murder, whether or not it was helpful to a greater cause, the people who were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent civilians of an oppressive government) of 140,000 civilians simply does not fit in with our supposed
ideologies.

We are supposed to be a country that values innocent life above all, and one that is willing to risk personal sacrifice for the lives of those innocent people.

The definition of "civilian target" had blurred somewhat during the war.

Rasq wrote:
Null claim.
Civilians were a legitimate military target in WWII.

ReconToaster wrote:

Avenged wrote:

ReconToaster wrote:
You might say that, had we invaded mainland Japan, something like ONE MILLION Allied troops would have died.

So what? Soldiers are supposed to give their lives in the protection of the innocent. To kill thousands of women and school children is simply unnacceptable from an ideological standpoint.

Thats terrible

Don't make it into something it's not. I'm just saying the lives of innocent Women and Children should be protected at the cost of the lives of soldiers.

Ok thanks for explaining the way you wrote it it sounded like you did not care about the soldiers lives at all.

ReconToaster wrote:

Don't make it into something it's not. I'm just saying the lives of innocent Women and Children should be protected at the cost of the lives of soldiers.

Drafted soldiers

KrAzY wrote:200 thousand people died so that over 20 million people could live

Precisely.

Which I have no problem with it.

The War would would of dragged on into 1946, and the battle would be long and bloody.