[Xbow]

I can't separate Justification for inflicting mass casualties on an enemy from the perspective of the combatants and all those in the target zone. In my mind the question becomes to whom is it Justified or unjustified?

For the Japanese that experienced those events and survived with massive burns, to the thousands that were contaminated with black-rain and suffered for years with results of radiation poisoning, birth defects. Then of course there is the social stigma of having been nuked or being descended from someone that was. For those the bombs can absolutely never be justified.

But then what of the Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that were to take part in operation Olympic and operation Coronet? 300,000 more graves and another 300,000 wounded and a hundred thousand or more psychological injuries. Then there is the effect on the millions back home in Jerk-Water USA that lost family members or have to face a life caring for an angry Quad. So to all those people the bombs were absolutely Justified.

As far as I am concerned the question, "Was the nuclear strike on Imperial Japan justifiable" doesn't have just one answer because those answers are entirely dependent on the perspective of the observer.

[Eran]

Even if the nuclear strike could be justified by the prospect of likely casualties associated with an invasion and occupation of the Japanese islands (and I don't think it was), it is far from clear that such invasion and occupation could themselves be justified.

At the very least, one would have to demonstrate that credible efforts have been made to resolve the problem of Japanese aggression using alternative means such as a negotiated surrender (as opposed to an unconditional one).

Since no such efforts were made (correct me if I am wrong), the use of massive force against civilians was, at the very least, premature.

[Xbow]

Even if the nuclear strike could be justified by the prospect of likely casualties associated with an invasion and occupation of the Japanese islands (and I don't think it was), it is far from clear that such invasion and occupation could themselves be justified.

Again justified to who? You really need to research the two components of Operation Downfall: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet and read the casualty estimates for both sides. Clearly from a perspective of which action would have less negative impact on both sides the nuclear bombings were clearly the more justifiable actions.

And who says that the aggressor nation JAPAN should have been spared invasion and occupation? Would the correct course of action have been to beat them back to their home islands and then stop? Hell, why not help them rearm and build them a new navy so that the fighting can continue forever?

At the very least, one would have to demonstrate that credible efforts have been made to resolve the problem of Japanese aggression using alternative means such as a negotiated surrender (as opposed to an unconditional one).

The allies gave them an opportunity by demanding unconditional 'military' surrender only. They could keep their emperor and the civilian instruments of government which is a better deal than the Germans got. The Japanese rejected and dismissed that offer with Suzuki's famous Mokusatsu comment (To kill with silent contempt). But in any case the Japanese started the war without declaration and conducted their war in a barbaric fashion so what makes you think they deserved terms?

Let me explain their terms prior to 9 august 1945. They wanted to:
•maintain their current military government and their emperor,
•maintain some of their stolen territory,
•suffer no occupation,
•no war crimes tribunals,
•Administer the reduction of the Japanese military according to their own plan without supervision,
was that realistic on their part? I don't think so.

Since no such efforts were made (correct me if I am wrong), the use of massive force against civilians was, at the very least, premature.

Yes the Japanese carpet bombing of Chinese cities and their use of biological warfare that accomplished the murder of 5 million civilians in the late 1930's was premature.

Why do you think the Japanese were the victims in this? Get real man. The controlling faction of Japanese government was psychopathic from A to Z and its civilian population was brainwashed into believing that the emperor was in fact a living god and that dying for him was the highest honor one could achieve. The Japanese created the situation and in the end reaped what they had sown...why is that so hard for you to understand?

[Eran]

Again justified to who?

"Justified" in the sense of being morally appropriate. Most moral theories are universal in nature, stipulating even-handed treatment of people regardless of race and nationality. Yours, of course, may be different.

Why do you think the Japanese were the victims in this? Get real man.

Sometimes it feels like I am shouting into the wind.

There is no "The Japanese" as far as guilt or victimhood are concerned. Some (perhaps many) Japanese have been guilty, and couldn't claim to be victim. Other Japanese people, specifically women and children, have been innocent of any crimes, and thus have been victims.

You attitude, which I am sure was shared by American decision-makers, is to group the entire Japanese nation and treat it as a single moral unit, towards which notions of guilt or innocence, victimhood or villainy can be assigned.

This is a dangerously mistaken attitude. This attitude can be (and often is) used to excuse arbitrary atrocities.

The only moral position is to treat people as individuals in terms of guilt and innocence. Japan's political and military leaders, and many of their soldiers were clearly guilty and deserving of any sanction against their person. But none of those crimes create guilt in people who are ethnically, nationally or even blood-related, but who are distinct human beings.

Japanese civilians (and many soldiers) were very much victims of their own government, as well as of American military actions.

[Rei Murasame]

The thing about war - especially in Asia I think - is that war is often fought between entire peoples, and not just the leadership. I think that most people in Japan believed that the Emperor was a son of the gods (and to be frank, they would not be very good Shintoists if they don't believe that the Royal Family are in some way tapped into a hidden power), and additionally that Axis was engaged in a sacred war against countries that were controlled by international finance.

This is why for example Tokyo Rose and her German and Italian counterparts all used the same rhetoric about how Allied soldiers ought to defect because they were on 'the wrong side' and 'being used', and always incorporated that class interest theme into their appeals. The 'Lord Haw-Haw' character that they transmitted into the UK was similar as well. For example, one of the Haw-Haw tapes has him talking about how the UK couldn't bring itself to raise taxes to spend on the poor, but could bring itself to raise taxes to carry out a war on behalf of finance.

Starting out with only one third of the GDP of the Allies, and numerous logistical problems and the unenviable task of having to capture territory to produce the supplies required to wage war, while being in the war, made for much more desperate fighting on the Axis side, which then came to be characterised as 'barbaric brutality' and so on.

Ultimately though, the Allies were able to figure out nuclear weapons whereas Axis hadn't done it, so there was no possibility of mutually assured destruction. So regardless of what Japan did or didn't do, it was clear that the weapon would be used against Japan. Even if Japan had gone through the war and taken the sort of care and diligence that no one else ever takes, to ensure that not one non-combatant was harmed, the nuclear device still would've been used on Japan, and the rationale used afterwards for blame-transference still would've been the same.

After all, it's not like the Allies would say, "You tried very hard to redress the global distribution of wealth and prevent the control from amassing into the hands of City of London and Manhattan, but now we've beaten you into the ground!", no, that would play into our narrative and our agitprop, so of course they would use their narrative instead, which is, "You guys attacked us brutally because you are bad people, and so we fought back".

I don't like the idea that anyone in Japan could be 'innocent'. I think that to be 'guilty' is better, because a 'guilty' person is invested in the war, and the livelihood of every Japanese person was indeed at stake, so everyone was invested.

And that doesn't exclude women and children:

[Xbow]

You attitude, which I am sure was shared by American decision-makers, is to group the entire Japanese nation and treat it as a single moral unit, towards which notions of guilt or innocence, victimhood or villainy can be assigned.

That is hardly what I think. The United States simply decided that the lives of its citizens were were more important than the lives of the citizens of a country that attacked it. That is called warfare.

The problem is we don't have a piece of ordinance that can discriminate between the innocent vs guilty just yet. Ordinance is by its nature indiscriminate that's just the way it is. In a War a nation is bound to minimize its own casualties and maximize the casualties of the enemy in order to bring a swift victorious end to the conflict. The United States did right by its citizens in inducing the Empire Of Japan to surrender by shocking its leadership into accepting defeat and surrendering. So of course those nuclear attacks were justified as far as the United States is concerned. The Japanese obviously have a different view.

[Smilin' Dave]

This is why for example Tokyo Rose and her German and Italian counterparts all used the same rhetoric about how Allied soldiers ought to defect because they were on 'the wrong side' and 'being used', and always incorporated that class interest theme into their appeals. The 'Lord Haw-Haw' character that they transmitted into the UK was similar as well. For example, one of the Haw-Haw tapes has him talking about how the UK couldn't bring itself to raise taxes to spend on the poor, but could bring itself to raise taxes to carry out a war on behalf of finance.

Taking propaganda, aimed at undermining enemy morale, as proof of why the originating side was fighting, is probably not going to be the best approach. All sides also dropped pornographic-grade leftlets asserting that the soldiers women back home were cheating on them. Should we then assume that the war was fought over T&A? Propaganda focused on class etc. would have been intended to exploit nascent unrest within the opposing military. A large scale example of this from WWI can be seen with the German assistance to Lenin when he returned to Russia in 1917.

[Xbow]

A large scale example of this from WWI can be seen with the German assistance to Lenin when he returned to Russia in 1917.

Yes, almost like injecting a virus into a sick body.

[Rei Murasame]

Taking propaganda, aimed at undermining enemy morale, as proof of why the originating side was fighting, is probably not going to be the best approach.

Yes, but they had to get it from somewhere, no matter how exaggerated and distorted it becomes when it hits the propaganda waves, it re-shows where their thoughts were in the first place.

[Smilin' Dave]

Yes, but they had to get it from somewhere

Yes, it comes from the common and not totally unreasonable assumption that most societies were vulnerable to labour/class discontent and that conscripted soldiers don't exactly want to be there. A far more likely exercise would be to see the demoralising propaganda as psychological projection, in which the author project their own negative traits, situations etc. onto someone else. So perhaps the Axis talked up international finance etc. because they were projecting about their own governments being perceived (or actually) influenced by industrialists and other business concerns. Perhaps their fondness for T&A propaganda is also reflective of the obession totalising governments tend to have with regulating people's sexual interactions.

[Rei Murasame]

That could well be part of it, but we have to keep in mind that they were talking about international finance long before it came time to scatter war propaganda pamphlets. It wasn't like they just came up with it on the eve of the war like "oh, what are we upset about, by the way?"

It was of course centre-stage quite early in the process.

[Godstud]

Speaking of pamphlets. For days prior to the atomics strikes, the US government had dropped millions of pamphlets on towns that were to be possible targets for the atomic strikes.
http://www.damninteresting.com/ww2-amer ... -citizens/
There was steps taken to try to avoid civilian casualties, despite what people say.

[Eran]

Not really.

The Japanese population was prohibited from reading those pamphlets.

It is very obvious that civilian casualties were of absolutely no concern to American decision-makers. Even today, people on this very forum have the attitude that "the Japanese deserved it", given their sneak attack on Pearl Harbour and treatment of prisoners of war, as if every last Japanese person is personally responsible for the actions of their leaders.

If the US cared even a little about civilians, they could have seriously pursued peace negotiations. In the days prior to the attacks, the Japanese were already close to surrender. A tiny gesture, such as offering to keep the Emperor as a figure-head may well have sufficed.

The United States simply decided that the lives of its citizens were were more important than the lives of the citizens of a country that attacked it. That is called warfare.

Why then the moral outrage over the attack on Pearl Harbour? Isn't surprise attack of the enemy's military installation also "warfare"?

But you are not right. The United States didn't really face a choice between the lives of its own citizens and those of the country that attacked it. American decision-makers didn't give a damn about the lives of innocent Japanese civilians. It would have cost no American lives whatsoever to offer to keep the Emperor as a figure-head, an offer that may well have been enough to end the war.

[Xbow]

Why then the moral outrage over the attack on Pearl Harbour? Isn't surprise attack of the enemy's military installation also "warfare"?

OH! please!!You are comparing apples and oranges....Do you know what a declaration of war is?

But you are not right. The United States didn't really face a choice between the lives of its own citizens and those of the country that attacked it. American decision-makers didn't give a damn about the lives of innocent Japanese civilians. It would have cost no American lives whatsoever to offer to keep the Emperor as a figure-head, an offer that may well have been enough to end the war.

Damn! Have you conveniently forgotten the language of the Potsdam declaration? The Potsdam declaration demanded the unconditional surrender ONLY of Japan's military and the occupation of Japan by allied forces. That offer was rejected by the Japanese instantly with prime Minister Suzuki's famous 'Mokosatsu' comment "to ignore with contempt." Your memory is conveniently flawed.

American decision-makers didn't give a damn about the lives of innocent Japanese civilians.

First off why should they? From 1937 to 1945 had Japan never once given the slightest tinkers damn about the civilian lives it extinguished.

From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture (such as the view that those enemy soldiers who surrender while still able to resist were criminals). SOURCE

Karma---what goes around comes around---one reaps what one sows---violence begets violence---live by the sword, die by the sword. Any of that ring a bell?

•the elimination "for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest"

•the occupation of "points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies"

•"Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."

•"The Japanese military forces shall be completely disarmed"

•"stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners"

•"We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, ... The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established."

•"Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted."

•"The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established, in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible government."

•"We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."

Anything else?

[Eran]

Damn! Have you conveniently forgotten the language of the Potsdam declaration? The Potsdam declaration demanded the unconditional surrender ONLY of Japan's military and the occupation of Japan by allied forces. That offer was rejected by the Japanese instantly with prime Minister Suzuki's famous 'Mokosatsu' comment "to ignore with contempt." Your memory is conveniently flawed.

I refreshed my memory by just finishing a whole book dedicated to the bombings - Paul Ham's Hiroshima Nagasaki. The Japanese leadership was unclear and the Potsdam declaration ambiguous regarding the fate of the emperor. The US made no good-faith attempt to clarify its meaning.

In fact, it is easy to read "the elimination the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled..." to mean the elimination of the emperor. Many in the US explicitly called for the execution of the emperor as a war criminal, and thus the "stern justice" clause could also be fairly interpreted to apply to him.

First off why should they? From 1937 to 1945 had Japan never once given the slightest tinkers damn about the civilian lives it extinguished.

Because Japanese school-children cannot be blamed for the action of their leaders. All civilised people should distinguish between those who are actually guilty, and those who aren't. And with your attitude being even more common back in 1945, why would one be surprised to find utter indifference, if not outright delight in the suffering of such innocent children?

Karma---what goes around comes around---one reaps what one sows---violence begets violence---live by the sword, die by the sword. Any of that ring a bell?

None of these apply. "One reaps what one sows", not "One's children reap what one sows". Those children haven't "lived by the sword". They were children!

Anything else?

Sure.

By the time to Atomic bombs were dropped, Truman all but abandoned his plans to invade the islands.

Casualty estimates have been vastly inflated from original figures of about 30,000 to retroactively justify the bombs.

The bombs played only a secondary role in the Japanese surrender - the Russian entry into the war played the primary role.

The military value of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was negligible by the time the bombs were dropped (Truman explicitly lied in his radio statement characterising Hiroshima as a "military base").

And, most importantly, the Americans made no good-faith effort to ascertain the conditions under which the Japanese would be willing to surrender. A serious attempt of that nature, definitely with the Russian entry into the war, would have quickly revealed that the terms that the Americans ended up imposing (i.e. the preservation of the emperor as a constitutional monarch) would have sufficed, at that stage of the war, to secure surrender.



The truth is that American decision-makers shared your expressed attitude that the lives of Japanese civilians weren't worthy of consideration because of the war-crimes of the Japanese army. Consequently, they delighted at an opportunity to try out their new toys, show them off to the world, and reap the reward of their investment in the bombs in cheap, short-term popularity.

Having read the book and becoming more familiar with the facts, I feel even more strongly that American action was a war-crime and state-terrorism at their purest.

[Xbow]

By the time to Atomic bombs were dropped, Truman all but abandoned his plans to invade the islands.

HORSE SHIT.
So the 20,000 strategic and tactical aircraft that were staged on islands close to Japan didn't exist and what about the shift of allied troops to Japan from the European theater OR the rapid and massive build up of US forces and the redeployment of much of the Royal fleet to the pacific? And the invasion fleet that had been assembled that made the D-Day fleet look like a joke. Operation Downfall was very much alive right up to the moment of the Japanese surrender. Read it from the US Army and weep

Casualty estimates have been vastly inflated from original figures of about 30,000 to retroactively justify the bombs.

FALSE & ABSURD & STUPID
Are you seriously saying that the US Casualties incurred by an invasion of Kyūshū.....Shikoku & Honshū would have only been twice as high as the US Casualties incurred during the Okinawa campaign? look at a fucking map, read up on the number of Japanese troops available for combat and consider the difference between invading an area of almost 100,000 square miles as opposed to the invasion of an island of less than 500 square miles. Good grief Charlie Brown You're Crazy!!

Operation Downfall by Brigadier General R Clements USAF (ret) 2006

The bombs played only a secondary role in the Japanese surrender - the Russian entry into the war played the primary role.

FALSE
Not according to most of the Japanese high command and Hirohito himself. The Russians had no capability to pursue a war on the Japanese mainland without US amphibious assets. NONE! At that time the lend lease operation to loan the Russians much of the D-Day transports and landing craft hadn't yet begun. The Japanese saw the Russian invasion of Manchuria coming more than a year in advance. Do you really think the Japanese missed the deployment of 1.6 million troops and thousands of armored vehicles and tens of thousands of artillery pieces over the course of 14 months? The Russian Invasion of Manchuria as wonderfully massive as it was came as the realization of a much expected dire possibility to the Japanese. The shock that forced Japan into surrender came from two atomic bombs. The Russian Invasion of Manchuria was a side show that was fifteen hundred miles from Tokyo and only concerned an under fed and equipped 1,000,000 man Army that the Japanese had already written off and hadn't been able to re-supply in over a year.

The military value of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was negligible by the time the bombs were dropped (Truman explicitly lied in his radio statement characterising Hiroshima as a "military base")

FALSE
Hiroshima were both valuable MILITARY targets as I have previously proven.

And, most importantly, the Americans made no good-faith effort to ascertain the conditions under which the Japanese would be willing to surrender. A serious attempt of that nature, definitely with the Russian entry into the war, would have quickly revealed that the terms that the Americans ended up imposing (i.e. the preservation of the emperor as a constitutional monarch) would have sufficed, at that stage of the war, to secure surrender.

INCIDENTAL
It was not the responsibility of the USA to clarify anything for the Japanese. If the Japanese needed clarification they could and should have asked for it.

The truth is that American decision-makers shared your expressed attitude that the lives of Japanese civilians weren't worthy of consideration because of the war-crimes of the Japanese army. Consequently, they delighted at an opportunity to try out their new toys, show them off to the world, and reap the reward of their investment in the bombs in cheap, short-term popularity.

YOU ARE NOW STANDING IN PIG SHIT....PROVE THAT THEY WERE DELIGHTED TO DO SO.

Having read the book and becoming more familiar with the facts, I feel even more strongly that American action was a war-crime and state-terrorism at their purest.

EVERYONE HAS OPINION, YOURS JUST HAPPENS TO BE WRONG BY VIRTUE OF YOUR OWN TRANSPARENT BIAS, SHODDY RESEARCH AND BIASED SOURCE MATERIAL .

Read a superior set of books, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945 by Dr. Dennis D. Wainstock
.................................................Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima (P.S.) by Stephen Walker
.................................................Hiroshima by John Hersey

I will now consider this discussion closed since you are unable to discuss this subject in a rational fashion from a position of some knowledge.

[Mazhi]

Uhmmm.. I've been reading this and some other threads on WW2 a bit and some of the things are just...

To portray WW2 as the victory of "international finance" is basically just recycling Hitlerian propaganda about the Jew-banker. The only thing that's missing here is for someone to say that the US was led by Franklin D. Rosenfeld

[Rei Murasame]

To portray WW2 as the victory of "international finance" is basically just recycling Hitlerian propaganda about the Jew-banker.

It's unfortunate that Axis cannot be taken as having made a good point about this, simply because Axis are 'the bad guys', whatever that even means.

Whether the banking groups are run by Jews or not, is non-relevant, and liberals only introduce this as part of a rhetorical shield to defend JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, HSBC, Citibank, Bank of America, RBS, RBC, UBS, and so on, from any criticism whatsoever, by assigning to them a veneer of being a 'poor[!] persecuted minority' which deserves everyone's pity.

You can't possibly be seriously using this rhetoric in a post-2007 world. They destroyed the entire economy because of their reckless malinvestment and brought us close to financial Armageddon, and then took taxpayers money to bail themselves out, and then got their puppet ministers to enact sweeping cuts to social services in order to try to plug the black hole of debt which the same banks had created through the aforementioned malinvestment.

International finance does not mean Jews. It means international finance, as a class. It is a class that includes people of many ethnic groups.

If you think that Jews are overrepresented in that class of people, then please show some evidence of it, but I have not said that, nor am I aware of such an overrepresentation.

The only thing that's missing here is for someone to say that the US was led by Franklin D. Rosenfeld

You can't be serious on that.

[Eran]

It was not the responsibility of the USA to clarify anything for the Japanese. If the Japanese needed clarification they could and should have asked for it.

I can safely ignore any other points of dispute, as they are ultimately irrelevant to the question in the OP.

Even if one accepts that killing civilians is justified so as to achieve legitimate military goals, it is still the moral responsibility of both sides (i.e. including the American side) to take any reasonable steps to minimise such killings.

Every civilized person has a responsibility to take reasonable steps to try and minimise civilian casualties.

The fact that the Japanese leadership was indifferent to the lives of its own citizens (consistent with its indifference to the lives of others) doesn't absolve the American side from such care. Innocent children are still innocent children, even if they are unfortunate enough to live under a murderous regime.

The least the Americans could do (and never bothered or even seriously contemplated doing) was make good-faith efforts to understand the terms under which the Japanese would have been willing to surrender before murdering tens of thousands of innocents.

Needless to say, a land invasion expected to cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been equally unjustified without such same good-faith effort.

In all likelihood, such a good-faith effort would have resulted in a Japanese surrender under terms similar to those which governed the actual surrender, i.e. maintenance of the emperor as a constitutional monarch.

They destroyed the entire economy because of their reckless malinvestment and brought us close to financial Armageddon, and then took taxpayers money to bail themselves out, and then got their puppet ministers to enact sweeping cuts to social services in order to try to plug the black hole of debt which the same banks had created through the aforementioned malinvestment.

That's one way of putting it. Another is to say that it is the fault of those governments who gave taxpayer money to those bankers, not to mention having given those bankers every incentive to behave irresponsibly.

[Godstud]

Eran, your argument remains the same while Xbow tears it apart.

Every civilized person has a responsibility to take reasonable steps to try and minimise civilian casualties.

This was done, though you remain of the opinion that it wasn't.