Isn't it mind bending to consider the U.S. deliberately killed roughly 225,000 Japanese in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The outreach, love, and monetary contributions from the majority of American's over the recent events in Japan creates such a strange dichotomy in my mind. What an amazing study of history. And what exactly have we learned from it? I honestly am not taking any side or a political stance. I just think it's a fascinating thought.
There were more Japanese killed in the island campaigns leading up to that, and many more Americans and Japanese that would've died in an invasion of the home islands (the Marines were planning for "millions" of casualties in a Home Islands campaign, and that's not including the Army). Truman literally saved millions of lives by ordering two bombs dropped. The interesting study in human nature isn't necessarily that we won't reach out to others...it's that throughout history there are examples that many times bad people come to power and that diplomacy doesn't work in those scenarios. We were practicing diplomacy with the Japanese right up to Pearl Harbor. The advancing German tanks into Russia passed Russians supplies going to their "ally" in Germany. Etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War#Tensions_between_Japan_and_the_Western_powers In an effort to discourage Japanese militarism, Western powers including Australia, the United States, Britain, and the Dutch government in exile, which controlled the petroleum-rich Netherlands East Indies, stopped selling iron ore, steel and oil to Japan, denying it the raw materials needed to continue its activities in China and French Indochina. In Japan, the government and nationalists viewed these embargos as acts of aggression; imported oil made up about 80% of domestic consumption, without which Japan's economy, let alone its military, would grind to a halt. The Japanese media, influenced by military propagandists,[27] began to refer to the embargoes as the "ABCD ("American-British-Chinese-Dutch") encirclement" or "ABCD line". Faced with a choice between economic collapse and withdrawal from its recent conquests (with its attendant loss of face), the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters began planning for a war with the western powers in April or May 1941.
The "Japanese Militarism" that the western powers sought to discourage was evidenced by the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, expanding by 1937 to all-out war with China, the Panay attack in 1937, and invasion of French Indochina in 1940. They didn't want to buy their oil and resources and raw materials...they wanted to take over the countries who already had them to form their own "Co-Prosperity Sphere". And of course, signing the Tri-Partite Act with Germany and Italy after the US withdrew from their commercial treaty probably meant they were trying to be peaceful neighbors, right? Another example of "diplomacy" and "sanctions" and "embargoes" not doing anything to prevent war, other than allowing the aggressor to build up his forces and making it more costly to stem the aggression later. Clausewitz and Sun Tzu had a few things to say about that.
I agree only "as a nation." If you talk to anyone who was in WWII, they still call them Japs and don't trust them.
I don't disagree. The embargoes clearly pushed the Japanese to attack, which was likely the response FDR desired.
Kim Jong Il just donated 500K to the Japanese as well http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...hat-he-can-do-with-500-000-william-pesek.html
The two nukes did an amazing level of damage, but the overall damage of the firebombing raids on Tokyo and other cities was far more devastating. http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/fire.html
Having personally spoken with survivors of the atomic bomb attacks I think it is greatest war crime that has gone untried in international courts. I think it's interesting that people bring Pearl Harbor into the conversation while ignoring current US nuclear doctrine which reserves the right to use nuclear weapons for surprise attack.
How is it any worse than the firebombing or the night raids by the English against the Germans? Tons of civilians died during WWII, and the 200k that were killed by the two atomic bombs is merely a drop in the bucket. Did you talk to those survivors about the atrocities that the Japanese committed during WWII against Asia and the servicemen they captured? Were those ever tried in international courts?
It's a very subjective question. I'd say it's worse because casualties were higher the atomic bombs were unnecessary and the effects we longer lasting. I don't get you're line of reasoning here. Lot's of people were killed so no one should be held accountable for a small percentage of them?? Yes, I spoke with a Korean lady who was forced into prostitution in WWII. Thousands of Japanese were tried for war crimes. What is the point of bringing this up? Did the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserved to be bombed for the actions of Unit 731? Pearl Harbor? BTW, MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare. That's why they were never tried
I think it's mind bending that the Japanese killed 200,000 civilians in Nanjing, China one at a time. And raped 80,000 women there.
The point is, you're calling the bombing of Horishima and Nagasaki a war crime, when millions of civilians were killed as collateral damage by bombings in England, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, etc etc etc. How were those any different other than the fact that they were done with many bombs instead of one? You're putting more value on the lives of the Japanese, why? WWII was a nasty, ugly, unfair war for hundreds of millions of people, yet you've decided to single out these two events as being "war crimes". I think that's ridiculous.
That's a very good point. And in some circumstances, people forgive, but not nations. It's an odd world sometimes.
While I think we misused the nukes in WWII, I stop short of calling them a war crime. The use of those weapons saved more US soldier lives than it took from Japan. Not that that in and of itself is justification, but it was something that had to be done- as despicable as it was. You are judging history via the decades later arm chair QB method. If you really understood the situation then and how people in the world thought at that time, then I suspect you'd have a different take.
They can all be war crimes. What I said isn't mutually exclusive. I "singled out these two events as being 'war crimes'" because they were brought up in the thread.
