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Atomic Japan

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Poll Question: Do you believe it was neccessary for Japan to be nuked at WW2?
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  Quote Genghis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Atomic Japan
    Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 12:31
Originally posted by Omnipotence

Yes, a nuke would have been able to bring the war to a close a lot earlier than a full scaled invasion. But did they have to drop it on a city? Why can't they just drop it, say... , in the ocean nxt to Hiroshim/Nagasaki where everybody can see?
 
Because that would have made us look weak, and we also had only enough atomic material for both of the nukes we did drop on Japan.  We had to make sure that they had the maximum effect or risk prolonging the war needlessly.  Many Japanese didn't even think we had enough atomic material for two bombs and after Hiroshima said that they had little to worry about.
 
On an abstract level, I feel the essence of war is to win through inflicting maximum violence against your opponent at every possible moment.  Anything which helps further the cause of victory is completely justified.
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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 13:22
I doubt that there was only Uranium for two bombs. The required amount could be mined in 50-60 hours. The amount is quite small. I don't remember it unfortunately.
 
But why does the US have to control the Pacific?
Can't it accept the fact that she is not the best and most magnificent?
Why does the US have to control anything else besides the US?
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 14:36
Originally posted by rider

I doubt that there was only Uranium for two bombs. The required amount could be mined in 50-60 hours. The amount is quite small. I don't remember it unfortunately.
 
But why does the US have to control the Pacific?
Can't it accept the fact that she is not the best and most magnificent?
Why does the US have to control anything else besides the US?
 
 
rider-  The amount of actual uranium metal that can be derived from ore is about 1/500th of the total amout. In other words if you want 1lb of uranium you must have 500 lbs ore.  The 1lb of uranium that you have is u238, which is useless for fission. In order to have an A bomb you need u235 which must be refined from u238. U238 has u235 at about 1 to 19 ratio. The trick is to separate the 235 from 238, a slow process even now, but in 1942-43 it was painfully slow and required a massive processing plant, all of which was experimental at best. [Oak ridge was the first of it's kind] It took 6 months just to refine enough U235 for the Trinity test.
 
 
Being anti American is the "In thing " right now, it's always been a popular hobbie, However, if your going to bitch and moan about the US at least Know what the hell your talking about.  One more thing my young friend, wishing the Nazis had developed the bomb first is the kind of suit that doesn't fit well on anyone, especially someone who is intelligent and informed, or claims to be so.  
 
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  Quote Gundamor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 16:03
Originally posted by red clay


rider- The amount of actual uranium metal that can be derived from ore is about 1/500th of the total amout. In other words if you want 1lb of uranium you must have 500 lbs ore. The 1lb of uranium that you have is u238, which is useless for fission. In order to have an A bomb you need u235 which must be refined from u238. U238 has u235 at about 1 to 19 ratio. The trick is to separate the 235 from 238, a slow process even now, but in 1942-43 it was painfully slow and required a massive processing plant, all of which was experimental at best. [Oak ridge was the first of it's kind] It took 6 months just to refine enough U235 for the Trinity test.


Both bombs were also not the same type. If you wanted to make another plutonium bomb thats even more time added on.
    
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 17:04
Originally posted by Gundamor

Originally posted by red clay


rider-  The amount of actual uranium metal that can be derived from ore is about 1/500th of the total amount. In other words if you want 1lb of uranium you must have 500 lbs ore.  The 1lb of uranium that you have is u238, which is useless for fission. In order to have an A bomb you need u235 which must be refined from u238. U238 has u235 at about 1 to 19 ratio. The trick is to separate the 235 from 238, a slow process even now, but in 1942-43 it was painfully slow and required a massive processing plant, all of which was experimental at best. [Oak ridge was the first of it's kind] It took 6 months just to refine enough U235 for the Trinity test.


Both bombs were also not the same type. If you wanted to make another plutonium bomb thats even more time added on.
    
 
Good point, fat man was a plutonium device. Today plutonium is available in quantity as a result of the many reactors working worldwide, but just to give you an idea of what it took to produce plutonium for two bombs and the incredible undertaking the whole process was, some statistics follow-
 
Uranium enrichment was done at Oak Ridge Tenn. the production of plutonium took place at the Hanford Facility in Wash. state.
Hanford works total area- 586 square miles

The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) broke ground in March 1943, and immediately launched a massive construction project. Before the end of the war in August 1945, the HEW Built 554 buildings (in addition to building living quarters and the City of Richland), including:

  • Three reactors (100-B, 100-D, and 100-F),
  • Three 250 meter long plutonium processing canyons (200-T, 200-B, and 200-U),
  • 64 underground high-level waste storage tanks,
  • Many uranium fuel fabrication facilities (300 area),
  • 386 miles (621 km) of roads,
  • 158 miles (254 km) of railway,
  • 50 miles (80 km) of electrical transmission lines,
  • Four electrical substations,
  • Hundreds of miles of fencing.

The Hanford Engineer Works used 780,000 cubic yards (600,000 m) of concrete and 40,000 tons of structural steel and consumed US$230 million dollars between 1943 and 1946.

They had less than 2 years two construct and produce.  And also make it up as they went as this had never been done before.
 
 
 


Edited by red clay - 29-Jul-2006 at 17:06
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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 18:24

Interesting. I hate it when my history channel lies... Besides, it seems that they didn't need Uranium for the second bomb. They had bombed it with Plutonium.

I am not anti-American, I am just for the Japanese. I didn't say the Germans had to get the bomb first, I just mentioned that thanks to a small mistake (well, not small actually) the bomb couldn't be finished. [=Source: History Channel]
 
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  Quote Gundamor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 21:10
Originally posted by rider

Interesting. I hate it when my history channel lies... Besides, it seems that they didn't need Uranium for the second bomb. They had bombed it with Plutonium.




Well they usually use Uranium using nuclear reactors to make plutonium. One process use to be something like this 238U --> 239U --> 239Np --> 239Pu   
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  Quote Qin Dynasty Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 23:29
Japan had already decided to surrender, it was not the nuke made she do the decision. Militarily speaking,  the bomb was unnecessary. That's it.
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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Jul-2006 at 03:01
Well, but the extraction of plutionium is much faster.
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  Quote bagelofdoom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Jul-2006 at 04:02

The bomb was, I believe, necessary for a number of reasons both military and otherwise.  The first is the most commonly used, but I will say it again: the bombing convinced the High command to end the war.  In order to end the war, the Japanese Cabinet would have to vote for surrender unanimously.  A simple majority would have been unlikely with this cabinet, as it was comprised mostly of militarists.  They believed that by drawing out the war, they could dictate more favorable terms.  Essentially, they had decided to make it as hard as possible for the US in the hope that they would just give up and go home.  Many countries had successfully fought wars which essentially consisted of waiting until the other guy got fed up with fighting.  It worked for us Americans during our revolution.  They had no reason to surrender yet.  That was logical prior to the bombs: with conventional munitions, you cant really do all that much damage.  Think about it, it wasnt the bombing campaigns that brought down Germany, despite events like Dresden, it was the soldiers marching into their cities.  The bombs convinced even the militarists that the US didnt need to fight a war on their terms, that the US could simply bombard Japan into rubble without fighting a war that they could drag into an elongated struggle. 

 

Secondly, the bomb allowed a clean end to the war.  The American occupation had no resistance to contend with because, as I said above, the Japanese people, and the Japanese high command had no incentive to resist.  There was not an insurgency in post war Japan.  This allowed the humanitarian projects (such as the massive distribution of food that Macarthur ordered) to go off relatively easily.  That food distribution saved millions of lives.  This also allowed the new Japanese constitution to be brought out into daylight.  The original plan for the revised Japanese constitution was exactly that, a slightly revised version of the Meiji constitution, which as we know had led to a militarized constitutional monarchy.  Macarthur saw this plan and literally threw it out.  He had his staff write a new one, and this constitution was among the most liberal ever set in place for a nation state.  Remember that whole flap about the equal rights amendment here in the US a while ago?  That was written into the original Japanese constitution.  This constitution, the one that has resulted in a democratic and prosperous Japan was really only implementable at the end of a gun, and the only gun that could possibly be big enough to force a national bureaucracy to change was nuclear. 

 

Thirdly, the speedy end of the war saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  Even those who believe that the A-bombs were unnecessary say only that Japan would have surrendered by November or December.  At the rate that civilians were dying on the mainland and in concentration camps (200,000 a month (check wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)) the Japanese would have killed at least 600,000 more people.  That is more than died in the bombings.  This estimate also includes the assumption that the US would have continued bombing Japan.  This would have undoubtedly included Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only difference being thousands of incendiary weapons as opposed to one nuclear one. 

 

Fourthly, the dropping of A-Bombs on Japan ended the era of total war.  The era had begun back during the American civil war, when Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan laid waste to vast swaths of the south.  It had continued up through WWII with the massive bombings of civilians in order to stop their war machines.  After the pictures of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki got out, there was no longer any public support for bombing civilians.  Before that, there had been loads of it.  Look at what happened with the bombings in Vietnam.  There was an uproar.  Look at today, whenever there is a bombing raid in Iraq, we hear about how many civilians were killed.  During WWII, those numbers would have been newsworthy only with a couple of zeros added to the end, and they would not have been mourned.  It is my firm belief that without the bombings of Japan, without the horrors that they allowed the world to see, the concept of simply laying waste to entire cities would be far more commonplace today. 

 

In conclusion, I think that the bombings saved American and Japanese lives then, due to the fact that there wasnt an invasion, saved even more lives by ending the killing by the Japanese Army on the mainland and in the POW cages, and then saved lives later, by ending an era of unrestricted war on civilians.  It took an act that was morally wrong to a vast and public degree to show the wrongness of many lesser degrees.

 

Wow, I kinda wrote a lot.  Sorry for making all of you read my unedited ramblings. 

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  Quote clement207 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Aug-2006 at 20:57
I am from singapore and I say the bomb was necesary if there is no bomb my country could still be under the stupid japs.
No offence I am just speaking the truth.
But besides the bomb drop on 2 of their smallest and weakest and less industralised city.
They even lied in theirn #@%$ history books saying they liberated the others south east asia countires.
That is a damn lie trying to brainwash their civilian about the truth of the war
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  Quote maqsad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Sep-2006 at 23:39
I'm not sure the bomb was necessary to save lives at all. Certainly not Japanese lives. The Japanese rulers had offered a conditional surrender many times but that was refused by the US.

The US had also offered total ceasefire upon unconditional surrender but that was refused by the Japanese.  U.S. wanted unconditional surrender which the Japanese did not agree to. I'm pretty sure the atomic bombs were just dropped to shock the entire world into submission as well as the Japanese. 

Also the Japanese may have wanted to hold out at all costs for 90 more days because by that time their first batch of 6,000 jet fighters would be ready to fly and could easily have beat back the allies out of east asia. They were also rumored they had a Germ Warfare and dirty nuke plan that was about 2 or 3 months away from hatching as well.
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  Quote maqsad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Sep-2006 at 23:41
Originally posted by clement207

I am from singapore and I say the bomb was necesary if there is no bomb my country could still be under the stupid japs.
No offence I am just speaking the truth.
But besides the bomb drop on 2 of their smallest and weakest and less industralised city.
They even lied in theirn #@%$ history books saying they liberated the others south east asia countires.
That is a damn lie trying to brainwash their civilian about the truth of the war


Well isn't it a fact that they "liberated" Asian countries from European colonial powers? Wasn't that part of their strategy."asia for the asians" or something like that. I don't see what the lie is. They replaced the european colonisers with asian colonisers so where is the lie?
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  Quote Batu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Sep-2006 at 01:48
a five year old Japanese girl is not guilty for anything.anyone encourages a-bombs are nothing but bloodthirsty killers.
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  Quote bagelofdoom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Sep-2006 at 06:06
Originally posted by maqsad


Also the Japanese may have wanted to hold out at all costs for 90 more days because by that time their first batch of 6,000 jet fighters would be ready to fly and could easily have beat back the allies out of east asia. They were also rumored they had a Germ Warfare and dirty nuke plan that was about 2 or 3 months away from hatching as well.


If that were true, it would be the greatest argument in favor of dropping the bomb that I have ever read.  As you can see, the arguments on the necessity of the A-Bomb's use go one of three ways.  One (that to which I ascribe): that the bomb was necessary because the war would have gone on long enough that the casualties from the bomb were acceptable in comparison.  Two: that the war would not have gone on long enough for the casualties from the A-Bombs to be acceptable.  Three: that the use of such weapons is inherantly immoral and that they should never have been used at all.  This argument generally ends up using the same arguments as the second for a number of reasons.  6000 jet fighters would undeniably have prolonged the war, thereby increasing casualties in both armies and in mainland Asia, where both civilians and soldiers were dying.  If casualties there would have increased dramatically, those who stand by argument number one would have a greater justification. 

As I said above, if it were true, it would be a powerful arguement.  Unfortunately, it is not.  The Japanese airforce was is horrible condition at the end of the war, and their industry was in no way capable of producing 6000 planes within a 90 day timespan, let alone giving them ammunition and fuel.  Also, the only Japanese jet plane had only one prototype.  It had made one flight.

Check it out for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka


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  Quote bagelofdoom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Sep-2006 at 06:13
Originally posted by Batu

a five year old Japanese girl is not guilty for anything.anyone encourages a-bombs are nothing but bloodthirsty killers.


And what is the 5 year old Chinese girl who was not killed by the Japanese soldiers guilty of that she should have died in her place?  Or the drafted American and Japanese soldiers that would have died in the invasion? 

Saying that some are more deserving of life than others simply because the method of death is abhorrent is wrong.  The A-Bomb was a tragedy, but in killing a large number of people, it prevented the deaths of at least as many.

I say that anyone who believes allowing the deaths of at least half a million simply to save 300,000 is morally justified is a bloodthirsty killer. 
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  Quote maqsad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2006 at 22:48
Originally posted by bagelofdoom


If that were true, it would be the greatest argument in favor of dropping the bomb that I have ever read.  As you can see, the arguments on the necessity of the A-Bomb's use go one of three ways.  One (that to which I ascribe): that the bomb was necessary because the war would have gone on long enough that the casualties from the bomb were acceptable in comparison.  Two: that the war would not have gone on long enough for the casualties from the A-Bombs to be acceptable.  Three: that the use of such weapons is inherantly immoral and that they should never have been used at all.  This argument generally ends up using the same arguments as the second for a number of reasons.  6000 jet fighters would undeniably have prolonged the war, thereby increasing casualties in both armies and in mainland Asia, where both civilians and soldiers were dying.  If casualties there would have increased dramatically, those who stand by argument number one would have a greater justification. 

As I said above, if it were true, it would be a powerful arguement.  Unfortunately, it is not.  The Japanese airforce was is horrible condition at the end of the war, and their industry was in no way capable of producing 6000 planes within a 90 day timespan, let alone giving them ammunition and fuel.  Also, the only Japanese jet plane had only one prototype.  It had made one flight.

Check it out for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka




I am going by a documentary I saw called "Secret Axis Aircraft of WW2" or some similar title which included the German batplane or stealth bomber and I recall clearly that the plan was to have a virtual air armada of thousands of these planes on the Island of Japan to deflect an invasion.

I don't really see how this is a strong argument to drop the bomb since the Japanese had been offering conditional surrenders months and months. Yes from the point of view of billionaire American and European bankers and industrialists that was a great reason to drop the bomb because it meant total control and recolonization of pacific SE asia without a chance of Japan getting a  piece of the pie.  But saving lives? Come on please!

I don't believe the primary reason the U.S. entered the war was to "save lives" at all. It was just for expansion of power and preventing Japan from becoming the new Asian superpower. If you look at history you see that the Japanese kicked out the french and british and became the new colonizers in SE Asia, also they built up manchuria as one of their favorite economic colonies as well. I speculate this is why the U.S. sent the flying tigers to China to provoke and pressure the Japanese. The U.S. wanted to prevent Japan from becomming the top dog in Asia. It had nothing to do with saving lives and everything to do with sacrificing lives in exchange for power and wealth. Thats what most wars of expansion are about. Pearl Harbor was just a domestic catalyst.

The undeniable fact that the nukes saved american lives by stopping american deaths right after their use distorts the whole 5 year picture. Its not false that they saved american lives at the expense of Japanese civilians but its an exagerration to say that their use was necessary and that their use was only to save lives. They were used to show off power and dominance to an extent too. The saving lives part was more of an excuse and less of a reason than is conventionally recounted I believe.


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  Quote bagelofdoom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2006 at 23:58


I am going by a documentary I saw called "Secret Axis Aircraft of WW2" or some similar title which included the German batplane or stealth bomber and I recall clearly that the plan was to have a virtual air armada of thousands of these planes on the Island of Japan to deflect an invasion.

I would say that although that may have been their plan, unless they had massive underground production facilities that have not been found in the 60 years since the war ended, the plan would have fallen through. 

I don't really see how this is a strong argument to drop the bomb since the Japanese had been offering conditional surrenders months and months. Yes from the point of view of billionaire American and European bankers and industrialists that was a great reason to drop the bomb because it meant total control and recolonization of pacific SE asia without a chance of Japan getting a  piece of the pie.  But saving lives? Come on please!

Civilians on the mainland under Japanese control were dying at a rate of 200,000 per month.  That means that unless the Japanese would have offered unconditional surrender within one to two months of the time that the bomb was dropped anyway the bomb's net impact was positive. 

 

Do you think that a conditional surrender would have done that?  The Japanese wouldnt have given up anything for quite some time while conducting negotiations, and eventually, would have ended up with a significant portion of the land that they conquered anyway.  The killing of civilians wouldnt end as a result of a conditional surrender. 


I don't believe the primary reason the
U.S. entered the war was to "save lives" at all.

Neither do I and if you recall, I never said that.  I know that war kills people, and unless FDR was tripping on some kind of superdrug, he knew that too. 

It was just for expansion of power and preventing Japan from becoming the new Asian superpower. If you look at history you see that the Japanese kicked out the french and british and became the new colonizers in SE Asia, also they built up manchuria as one of their favorite economic colonies as well. I speculate this is why the U.S. sent the flying tigers to China to provoke and pressure the Japanese. The U.S. wanted to prevent Japan from becomming the top dog in Asia.

That is true.  The US had a vested interest in seeing Japan not become the dominant power in Asia because then they would be a threat to us.  They did become the dominant power for several years, and they most certainly were a threat. 

It had nothing to do with saving lives and everything to do with sacrificing lives in exchange for power and wealth. Thats what most wars of expansion are about.

I would argue that the Japanese were the ones fighting an expansionist war.  The Americans were at that time trying to get out of the Philippines . They were training an army there when the Japanese attacked.  In the end, after WWII and after giving the Philippines their independence (less than a year after the war was over), America had significantly less land than it started out with.  America fought the war for its own interests, but I believe that those interests coincided with what was morally right: stopping the killing by the brutal Japanese forces. 

Pearl Harbor was just a domestic catalyst.
I would agree with that as well, although without an attack, it is unlikely that FDR could have gotten the populace behind a war.

The undeniable fact that the nukes saved american lives by stopping american deaths right after their use distorts the whole 5 year picture. Its not false that they saved american lives at the expense of Japanese civilians but its an exagerration to say that their use was necessary and that their use was only to save lives. They were used to show off power and dominance to an extent too. The saving lives part was more of an excuse and less of a reason than is conventionally recounted I believe.

Firstly, the bombs didnt just save American lives, they saved the lives of civilians on the mainland of Asia in Korea and China as well.  Secondly, if I said that the primary purpose of the Atomic bombs was to save lives, I misrepresented myself.  The primary purpose was to force the surrender of a belligerent power through total war.  The fact that they saved lives is secondary.  To paraphrase a lawyer in some movie I saw once: the intentions of the US in dropping the bomb are not on trial here.  The question that was asked was whether or not they were necessary.  It is a question that requires we look back and exercise our hindsight.  I will maintain that they were necessary because they saved lives.  I dont care what Trumans intentions were.  He could have done it because he liked the sight of the mushroom clouds, and until someone convinces me that Japan was about to surrender, I will believe that the bombs had a net positive impact in terms of casualties and were necessary.

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  Quote Vivek Sharma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Sep-2006 at 02:21
In India there is a proverb amongst shephards, one who has the stick will control the buffalos. History is written by the victor, who will always find new ways & means to destroy. their are very few communities which will have ethics for fighting.
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  Quote Desimir Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Sep-2006 at 06:19
I totally agree that japanese made many war crimes.But i think that nuclear attacks are also some kind of war crime.You said that every life is equal and nobody deserve to die.Then why US revenged the deaths of 3000 americans in Pearl Harbour by killing ten of thousands japanese with bombing og Hiroshima and Nagasagi.This is not fair.Every country in WW 2 made war crimes including US,USSR ,germany and japan.I dont know if GB and France did such a things and i really doubt.But to claim that you are civilized,democratic and humane during the war is absolutely unacceptable.
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