Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?

by new hope and happiness 108 Replies latest jw friends

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  Apognophos

  It's not cut and dried. It's a tricky situation because of the nature of Asian cultures, and especially the Japanese one. If the leaders told the people to keep fighting, then in the event of a land invasion, they would have taken tremendous losses in addition to heavy losses on the aprt of the invaders.

  Truman was not a vindictive man and there's no evidence that the U.S. did this as "payback" for Pearl Harbor.

  The quick surrender after the bombings also prevented the deaths of many civilians that the Japanese were keeping in work camps. The way that the Japanese behaved during the war was probably more inhuman than any other nation. They were convinced that they were the true master race and had no compassion for even their fellow Asians.

  Even after the bombings, the Emperor was nearly overthrown multiple times when he attempted to surrender. The leaders were heavily divided over whether a surrender was acceptable at all even though they had clearly lost the war even before the bombings.

  The very fact that this is still debated by historians decades later shows that we simply cannot say whether it was necessary and whether it was moral. There's too many variables.

  Simon: Some of what you're asserting is unproven conspiracy theory. I could tag half of your posts' content with "[citation needed]"s.
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  OneEyedJoe

  Addressing the points maid in the OP:

  A) It was a civillian population.

  B) I don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.

  C) They could have bombed Tokyo where all the generals lived but chose Hiroshima.

  D) The Irony after the bombing America conceeded to many of Japans terms.

  A - As others have mentioned, the firebombing of other cities also largely affected civilian populations

  B - Seldom is anything done in war 'right'

  C - Since Tokyo had already been heavily bombed (it's an obvious target for the reasons you gave, and for the mere fact that it's the capital) so it was never a target for a nuke. The americans purposely kept 4 japanese cities as virgin targets for a nuke, because they wanted to truely demonstrate the power of the bomb. If they'd bombed a city that was already nearly destroyed, it wouldn't have had the same effect. I agree with others here who've said that the nukes on japan where probably about 50/50 motivated by wanting japan to surrender and displaying our supremecy to the rest of the world.

  D - For those that don't know the full story, the irony goes deeper than you let on. The reason for the americans making concessions to the japanese after hiroshima was because they couldn't stomach the devestation of the nuclear bombing. They wanted to make it as easy as they could for the japanese to surrender, so they tried to allow them to keep some of their pride. The irony is that the Japanese likely would've surrendered had they not tried to let them off a little bit. The Japanese saw their concessions as weakness, and therefore refused to surrender. After Nagasaki was bombed, no such concessions where made and they did indeed surrender.

  I'm not sure if I'm really for or against the bombing. It's difficult to know how history would've gone without it. Maybe russia would've eventually nuked us had we not displayed our might. Maybe the japanese would've surrendered soon anyway, since the war was all but lost for them already. Maybe there would've been less loss of life without the bomb, maybe more. I don't think there's much point in speculating on all that, and am comfortable just leaving it as this - violence is to be avoided, but things aren't always black and white. All we can do is use the war as one data point, and hopefully mankind will use it to create more desirable outcomes in the future.
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  Londo111

  Today, we condemn nations that use weapons of mass destruction in war, therefore it would be hypocritical not to use the same standard.

  If we think of WWII Japan as individuals rather than as a collective entity, there were likely many individuals, especially children, who were innocent. Why was it okay to kill those children? Why do we condemn the deaths of children in war today and not those deaths?

  Even the soldiers were captives of a concept as it were, in following their Emperor. They were misled. Once they were no longer misled, it turned out they were as decent human beings as anyone else.
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  hamsterbait

  Isn't it comforting to know that we in the 21st century have the values that are Good and True, and the values of everybody else that has ever lived are inferior to ours.

  Bombing civilian populations was the military strategy right up until the end of the Cold War. That is the fact like it or not.

  Marrying off your 12 years old daughter was normal diplomatic policy in the many centuries before the word "abuse " was even used in this connection. it is a fact like it or not.

  To judge previous generations according to our standards does not mean our moral compass is any better than theirs. What if earlier ages had the chance to judge us according to their values?? More importantly, what will future generations think of how we handled world events and the "civilisation" they will inherit from us?
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  Separation of Powers

  Yes and No. It is an ethical dilemma. Hiroshima was chosen as it purportedly had a high concentration of troops, military facilities and factories. Most other cities had been devastated by bombing, but Hiroshima was still intact and thus, a good "sampling" of what the actual damage from the A-bomb could render.

  Some would argue that it was a life-saving move on the part of then President Truman. He believed, or at least tried to justify the bombing by stating that it would ultimately save thousands upon thousands of lives that would needlessly die if the war continued. That reasoning is understandable. However, if the sole intent was to end the war, as I am sure would have occurred by Japan's recognition of the devastation of Hiroshima, then why drop another bomb on Nagasaki three days later?

  The reality is the evil outweighs the good. The US had developed 2 bombs, distinct in their characteristics, both with lethal capabilities. There is no question in my mind that from the beginning it was the intent to drop both of them. The US had the opportunity to end the war, solidify their position as THE military superpower, and prove that all the efforts of the Manhattan project were justified.

  In the words of Oppenheimer, " I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." (Vishnu, fromn the Hindu sacred writings of the Bhagavad-Gita)

  Sounds pretty evil to me.
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  Band on the Run

  I've argued and researched this question. My position is that the United States had a moral duty to drop a demonstration bomb in a remote corner of the Pacific and invite the Japanese through a third party to watch the results. My mom who was actually alive would tell me I did not know what it felt like when the US was losing. The Witness sensibility towards persecution was active. She told me what it felt like when the US retreated from Corregidor. My analysis was too intellectual.

  I had to study Japanese civilization for a while. The reality is that a test would have convinced no one in the Japanese high command. Even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the military and the emperor refused to even discuss any form of surrender among themselves. It is a very different culture. Many more Allied troops would have died in a land invasion. Also, the way we firebombed Dresden and even French cities under Nazi occupation killed more civilians than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb. It was only when I went to see a gorgeous exhibit of Dresden art that I heard about the firebombs.

  I don't know the answer. Robert Lifton wrote a beautiful book about the survivors. It is not happy reading. The survivors became pariahs in Japan.

  Peace activists in the sixties claimed that we would never drop such a bomb on Germans, Europeans. The bomb was racist. It made sense to me until I read about the fire bombs in Germany.
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  James Brown

  Man is evil.

  War is big business.

  The people of the United States did not want to enter world war 2.

  But Roosevelt allowed us to be attacked at Pearl Harbor to stir up and motivate the public for war.

  Just like Bush and Chaney allowed 911, to stir up the public for invading Iraq.

  Man is evil and does evil things. Especially when there is money and business involved.

  The United States is the world center of Capitalism.

  It will do anyting to make a profit.

  I think the United States evil mistake was getting involved in World War 2 at all

  We should have let Japan and Germany expand.

  They were only doing what the United States had previously done.

  The United States expanded from coast to coast and killed the natives.

  Why all of a sudden were we trying to stop other people from doing the same thing?

  Japan would have not attacked us at Pearl harbor if we were not a threat to them

  obtaining thier goal of expansion.

  The same with Germany, the USA was sending armaments to England in a passenger ship

  and the Germans blew it up. So the USA went to war.

  That was kind of like putting a chip on your shoulder and being supprised someone knocked it off.

  And it was evil and greedy to put weapons and armaments on a passenger ship.
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  Still Totally ADD

  My father was a radio man on B29's that flew over Japan and drop the fire bombs on their factories. He also got to see the first A bomb before it was drop on Hiroshima. He told me it was smaller than the ones they was dropping. They all had no idea at that time what it was capable of doing. A few weeks after both bombs was dropped my father told me they took all the B29's in the area and flew 500 feet over Japan main cities and also Hiroshima as a sign of force to the Japanese people to show them they need to give up and the US was superior over them. He first hand saw the destruction the first bomb did in other words the pictures we all may have seen in our history books he witness it first hand. He always said the Japanese was reglious fanatics and they would have fought to the end but the dropping of the 2 bombs he felt saved more lives than they took. It wasn't until a few years ago before he died did he feel regret on the part he took in that war. Was it evil? I feel it all depends which side of coin you was on. To me all wars are evil. It's all about money and power. Still Totally ADD
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  WrongweektostopsniffingGlue

  When those bombs were dropped the world was rapidly changing. One of the reasons they were dropped was to prevent what Truman's experts were saying would be death tolls in the millions just for the U.S alone and many more on the Japanese side if there was a land invasion. There was another reason they were dropped. The European side of the war was over and the allies were dividing up what was left over. At this point the Cold War begun and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a message to the the world specifically the Russians. To the U.S at the time it ended the Pacific war and put the Russians in their place.

  None of this justifies those bombs and the suffering they caused. But if you look at the modern consequences of those bombings it has shown mankind the serious consequences of using those weapons and maybe is reason they haven't been used since. It also left Japan refusing to ever have nuclear weapons and adopting a somewhat peaceful stance. There other terrible consequences like the proxy wars of the Cold War. But war is rarely justified especially the number of civilians lost in WW11.
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  DNCall

  Just to add a bit of information I came across: my late step-father-in-law was of the strong opinion that it was the fire bombing of Tokyo that brought Japan to its knees, not the two A-bombs. Unfortunately, I don't remember whether he felt the A-bombs were unnecessary or not. I should probably mention that his name was General John Beverly Montgomery, assistant to General Curtis LeMay, head of the United States Strategic Air Command.