Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Re-enactment

ReconToaster wrote: 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.

Ironically, we'd been doing it all throughout the war. Yay Dresden!

ReconToaster wrote: 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.

Let's not forget the two million Japanese troops and three million Japanese civilians that would have died in an invasion. You see, while Japan had civilians, they had no "innocent" civilians. Every Japanese man, woman, and child was prepared to die for the Emperor. Whether they were deemed as fit enough to serve in a uniformed military or not is another story, but were we to invade, we would be fighting the entire population of Japan, not just its military.

ReconToaster wrote: 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?

Even ignoring my above argument about the difference between civilian and innocent civilian, I'd just like to point out that, in the event of an invasion, more than a couple hundred thousand Japanese civilians would have died. Much much more.

ReconToaster wrote: 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.

Not really. It was the only real option. All other options resulted in more Allied casualties, more Axis casualties, and more civilian casualties.

dragoon9105 wrote:Both options were retarded. People seam to forget Japan is a volcanic rock sitting in a large lake with no natural resources. Without Oil or Iron they couldn't make ships to fight us. Without Fishing ships (witch we would have sunk) they would lose a major food source.

Eventually japan would have surrendered regardless.

Most people also forget what Japan was during WW2. Allow me to illustrate this point with pictures.

Japan Today:


Japan During WW2:


Now, in order to actually blockade Japan, we'd have to physically surround the entire mainland, something we did not have enough ships to do. We'd also have to maintain this blockade in the face of the Japanese's own navy, Japanese kamikazes from the mainland, and their entire army in China, which would not be short on supplies at all.

Ziggy wrote:I think it's mass murder.
In my opinion, they just dropped the bomb to assert the fact that they had nuclear weapons. This was especially significant considering relations with the Soviets weren't going too wonderfully at the end of the war in Europe.

They could have just not used the atomic bomb and forced a surrender. Sure, they would have lost lives, but I doubt it would be anywhere near as much as what was lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Alright, and what options did we have to force a surrender? An invasion would have cost more Japanese civilian lives than the nukes, and a blockade was simply impossible. What option am I missing, here?

ReconToaster wrote: I meant the United States, as we were discussing the lives of mainly US soldiers that would have been lost had we attempted to invade Japan.

And of course it's a matter of opinion, but the fact that other countries were intentionally killing Civilians does not make it okay for us to do the same to them. The Japanese killed quite a few people at Pearl Harbor. That doesn't make it okay for us to kill their innocent civilians.

You seem to forget all of the Japanese civilians who would have died during an invasion. I guarantee you, it would have been more than the losses we sustained in an invasion. Twice, maybe thrice our projected losses.

ReconToaster wrote:The Japanese gave up after we dropped two nukes on their cities.

I doubt they would have fought until the end had we invaded. More lives would have been lost, but I'm sure they would have given up eventually.

That's not actually true. They gave up after we nuked two of their cities, Soviet rush threatened to invade, and then we flew every single aircraft we had over Japan with the implication that each one had a nuke aboard. THEN they surrendered.

Gauz wrote:It wasn't the only alternative, it was a choice. At that time they posed no threat to America or its citizens or its soldiers. Again, AT THAT TIME.

Still looks like America just wanted to demonstrate its power and take the easy way out, in turn killing civilians.

Again, other than the invasion, which would have killed more Japanese civilians and the blockade that was physically impossible, what alternatives am I missing here?

Gauz wrote:Then what were they? Don't bring up total war.

They were the non-combat section of the Japanese military. They built the guns and the tanks. They cooked the food. They paved the airfields. They packaged the supplies. And they were prepared to become members of the combat section in the event of an invasion.

Essentially, they were the minutemen of the Japanese military.