The US dropped two nukes on Japanese cities

[ripcord]

The goal was to end the war faster and save American lives, how is what Israel is doing any different?

[Srkdqltr]

1. Its two (2) not to. If Israel dropped nukes on Gaza it would take out most of Israel.

[Chainfire]

4. I think that the OP is assuming that all of us approve of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki bombings. That is not accurate.

Estimates of Hamas supporters in Gaza are in the 15% range, I saw numbers today that indicated that nearly 70% of the people of Gaza have lost their homes, to the bombings. There is no justice in that, none, nada, zip. What happened in Israel on the 7th of October was a war crime. I think that what Israel is doing in Gaza toda is another war crime, one crime does not justify the other.

[WarGamer]

43. Thank you...

In reality... the DoD had a new toy and wanted to play with it.

[Takealeft]

56. Yeah. No.

Truman didn't nuke Japan "just cus" or because he had a "new toy"

[Chainfire]

58. Do you have anything to add to the conversation?

[Takealeft]

70. Some sorely needed context

Apparently.

[Chainfire]

76. The two thoughtful replies are appreciated.

[LeftInTX]

91. I saw an article on Al Jazeera today. They don't want the PA back. Think they still support Hamas.

[getagrip_already]

2. are you referring to israel using nuc's?

Or just massive conventional assault?

Israel has been rumored to be considering using nuc's as a strategic option, but I think most people are misreading that as conventional surface weopons. It's actually most likely more of a bunker buster style of attack they are considering. A sub-surface detonation that is designed to knock out the tunnels and bunkers but not release a lot of radiation or cover a lot of surface area. It would still devastate the surface through ground effects, but more like a severe eathquake than a nuclear blast.

In any event, if you are talking about a conventional attack, I'm not sure the two examples are equivelant.

In Japan, without the nuclear bombs, there would still have been an invasion, and the cost incivilian lives overall would likely have been higher since it would have been spread out over a far greater area and impated many more population centers.

The allies had thousands of planes in the philipines ready to go on bombing runs. hundreds of thousands of troops were staged for assault. Japan would have been devastated far worse than just losing two cities.

That situation doesn't exist here. The moral equivelant isn't the same.

[lpbk2713]

9. And Japan had no navy to speak of by the summer of 1945.

Allied battleships and cruisers could shell Japanese coastal
cities day and night almost totally unimpeded.

[getagrip_already]

10. my father was a physician in the army air corp stationed in the philipines then.....

He said the buildup was just insane. They had so many planes on the base they had no choice but to line them up wing tip to wing tip. They weren't worried about attacks any more.

They were staging for an anihilation. The ground troops were going to get into it thick though. The casualty rates were going to be horrendous.

When the war ended, he said they bulldozed them into piles and burned them in place. Very surreal.

[PufPuf23]

21. Have a friend who was on a crew in Vietnam that used Eimco dozers and earthmovers

to do cleanup after battles. I've known Jim all my life and we have been nit and gritty friends since I was 19 (71 now) and he was 24 and came home from war. Wife and friends got him to go to VA now about 15 years ago. Put him on disability. Even bought the home where they had been long term renters with a VA loan 45 years after he came home from Vietnam. VA keeps him alive now.

Mention the Eimco as Father had an Eimco he used in his quarrying operation and Eimco Dozers were what Jim drove in Vietnam. Just sold the Eimco (that still ran after all these years) about 5 years ago. My Father had bought the dozer Army surplus in late 60s. It was at Mare Island after coming back from Vietnam. Looked exactly even to color as the dozer Jim drove in Vietnam and the Army green dozer at about 40 secs into this youtube.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

25. The sailors

on the USS Indianapolis might have disagreed with that assessment.

[leftstreet]

3. JFC nuking to save lives n/t

[Jedi Guy]

17. An invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been far, far worse in terms of casualties for both sides.

Estimates at the time had Allied casualties pegged somewhere between a quarter and half a million, and that's just Allied casualties.

Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the home islands, was split into two parts, Operations Coronet and Olympic. If they had gone ahead, projected Japanese casualties at the 90-day mark were over a million casualties. Remember that the Japanese believed the Emperor to be divine, the literal "Son of Heaven." If the Emperor had commanded civilians to resist the invasion, they would have done exactly that, right down to the children.

So yes, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as horrible as they were, absolutely saved a ton of lives on both sides. Truman made the right call.

[obamanut2012]

20. That is pure speculation

The second bomb especially did not have to be dropped -- a demand that the Emperor immediately surrender and broadcast that to his people would have ended it. It happened after the second bomb.

[Jedi Guy]

28. Truman warned the Japanese after Hiroshima that more bombings would follow, along with an invasion.

If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.

The Japanese estimated that the Allies had no more than one or two atomic bombs left, and so decided to endure and continue to fight. The decision to surrender wasn't made until the day after the bombing of Nagasaki, and even then it was a conditional surrender.

The fact remains that the casualties caused by the bombings are far, far less than those that would've resulted from a full-scale invasion of the home islands.

[Chainfire]

57. Well that is certainly the government line on the story.

The Japanese were whipped, they knew it and they needed an honorable way out. The only demand that they had was that the Emperor be left alone but we would not accept a conditional surrender. So we nuked them and still didn't hang the Emperor.... (To Dugout Doug's credit) We had spent so much effort and so much treasure on the war, that we needed to show the world, especially the Soviets, what we were capable of. The Japanese were a good target because in the racial climate of the day, they were not Europeans so they were not completely human anyway. The war could have ended without the nukes and without the milliion casualties that folks love to talk about.

In any case, using an atrocity from 80 years ago to justify an atrocity today is in plain language, bullshit!

[Jedi Guy]

60. I'm going to have to disagree with you that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atrocities, I'm afraid.

Would an invasion of the home islands, with a million or more Allied deaths and potentially tens of millions of Japanese deaths, have been less of an atrocity, somehow? Would those deaths have somehow been better? I don't think so. American leadership weighed their options and chose the path that avoided risking millions of American lives. As it happened, that choice also avoided millions of Japanese deaths, though I suspect that wasn't super high on the priority list. But that's war.

As pointed out, the Japanese could have surrendered after Hiroshima. They didn't, so Nagasaki happened. Then they surrendered. They made choices, and the consequences played out. Was showing the Soviets what we were capable of factored into the calculus? Probably, yeah. The Western Allies already knew the Soviets were the opponents of future decades. Was showing the Soviets what's what a primary reasoning for dropping the bombs? I rather doubt it.

[SocialDemocrat61]

64. It should be noted

that even after the second bomb was dropped, the Japanese cabinet was deadlocked on surrendering. The Emperor had to break that deadlock and decided to surrender. Even then, several Japanese Army Officers tried to kidnap the Emperor to stop the surrender.

[Jedi Guy]

72. Yes, the Kyūjō incident, as EX500Rider mentioned downthread.

Simply put, there was a significant element of the Japanese government that was hell bent on continuing the war. A ground invasion would have been a total bloodbath for both sides.

Awful as they were, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a much better end to the war, given the possible alternatives. I don't consider that an atrocity, but that topic's been debated for nearly 80 years now.

[Chainfire]

74. As I said, that is the government line on the history.

It is justification after the fact. We don't know what would have happened if we had not nuked Japan, because we nuked Japan!
And yes, we thought that the demonstration would keep the Soviet Government in check, and yes that was a condideration.

For the sake of current events, arguing over 80 year old history is a bit absurd in any case. This reason this subject came up is to somehow justify what is happening in Gaza because of what happened 80 years ago in Hiroshima, and that argument is no more valid than justifying the Mexicans bombing Madrid to ashes, next week, and justifying it because of the Inquisition.

This is just a personal opinion, but I do not believe there is any justification for the way the war on civilians is being carried out today. I am not hard-hearted to believe that it has been necessary to sacrifice over 5,000 children in a state temper tantrum. It appears to me that Israel is behaving in a way that is contrary to human decency if not international law. This is looking more like genocide than war.

I have always been a supporter of Israel I will not follow them down this path.

[Jedi Guy]

82. "As I said, that is the government line on the history."

The facts are quite clear that the Japanese could have surrendered when it was obvious the war was lost. They could have surrendered after the bombing of Hiroshima. In both cases, they chose not to do so, and surrendered only after Nagasaki was bombed. And even then, hardliners in the Japanese government were staunchly opposed to surrender.

That's not a "government line." Those are historical facts. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Insofar as the current situation in Gaza is concerned, Hamas is placing its personnel and assets in and among civilian areas, leaving Israel with the gut-wrenching choice of destroying them to protect Israeli civilians and killing Gazan civilians in the process, or doing nothing and allowing Hamas to continue killing Israeli civilians unchecked.

The Israeli government and military's first duty is to protect Israeli civilians. If Hamas leaves them no choice but to kill Gazan civilians to do so, the culpability for that lies on Hamas, as far as I'm concerned. You are, of course, free to disagree if you wish.

Note that I'm not saying Israel is as pure as the driven snow and can do no wrong. They're not, and they've done a lot of terrible things to the Palestinians over the years. But in this case, they're destroying a terrorist organization that has killed over a thousand civilians and loudly proclaimed its intent to do it again. They have a responsibility to destroy Hamas and prevent them from following through on their threats.

[Disaffected]

85. When one considers the grim, fanatical tenacity

with which the Japanese defended the outer islands, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to think an invasion & defeat of the mainland would have been utterly horrendous in both military and civilian casualties.

They also had about a week(?) to consider their position after Hiroshima and did not even then surrender which IMO attests to their belief that surrender would have been worse than annihilation. It took the second bomb to finally convince them to give in.

[Jedi Guy]

90. Their grim, fanatical tenacity to turn the tide of the war gave birth to the kamikaze.

Suicide attacks were nothing new in warfare, of course, but when a professional military turns to them as a preferred tactic, it sure says a lot about just how far they're willing to go to win. Apply that same ferocious tenacity to the defense of the home islands by that same professional military and a civilian militia numbering in the millions, all believing it's their duty to die in the service of the Emperor, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture at all for anyone involved.

Hiroshima was bombed on August 6 and Nagasaki was bombed on August 9, so they had a couple days to consider surrender and decided against it. Japanese scientists advised the military leadership that the Allies couldn't have many more atomic bombs and the hardliners were ride or die. They only reconsidered after Nagasaki was attacked, and even then the hardliners still wanted to pursue the war.

People who think that they would've surrendered quickly if we'd just waited them out or done this or that really, truly do not understand who the Japanese were as a people in the first half of the 20th century.

[yagotme]

92. People nowadays don't understand the "Bushido" code.

Fight until you die. No surrender. To do otherwise, brings dishonor to you and your family.

[pfitz59]

67. I agree with you

just because we did it, doesn't make it right. There has to be a better way.

[Silent Type]

26. Invasion wasn't necessary. Japan was broken and we had them surrounded.

[Jedi Guy]

30. Then they should have surrendered, don't you think?

If the war was that obviously lost, the smart thing to do would be to recognize as much and surrender. They didn't, and things happened as a result. That's how it goes in war.

[Silent Type]

37. They were no threat to us at that point.

[Jedi Guy]

38. Then they should have recognized reality and surrendered. They didn't. Things happened. N/T

[Silent Type]

41. OK, kill a 100,000 innocent men, women, and children because Asians wouldn't bow down,

though no threat to us. More Americans first BS.

[Jedi Guy]

48. Yes, American leadership had a duty to preserve American lives over Japanese lives. That's war.

Speaking personally, I have no regrets whatsoever about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If Operation Downfall had proceeded as planned because the bombs didn't exist, my grandfather would have been part of it and could very easily have been killed in action, preventing my entire family from ever existing.

The Japanese waged a war of aggression not just against the United States, but against many of their neighbors in East Asia. They committed atrocities beyond counting. Does the Rape of Nanking ring a bell? Or how about Shiro Ishii and Unit 731, his house of horrors that rivaled the atrocities committed by Josef Mengele?

They fucked around, then found out when the war turned decisively against them and they still refused to surrender. Truman made a difficult decision to drop the bombs to spare millions of American soldiers from being killed or wounded in Operation Downfall, to say nothing of the far, far higher casualties, military and civilian, the Japanese would have incurred.

If the Japanese military leadership had recognized reality and surrendered, the bombs never would have been dropped. They were willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child, and dropping the bombs spared uncounted innocents that fate.

[Jack from Charlotte]

65. They were a huge threat to any American who stepped foot in their country.

And the US was definitely coming ashore, if need be.

[EX500rider]

66. 600,000 Japanese troops were still fighting in China

Every month the war lasted 10 of thousands+ were going to die, on avg a million people died every month in WWII

[EX500rider]

32. However millions of Japanese were going to starve to death as we had the islands blockaded with subs/mines

It took the shock of the bombs and even then many in the military wanted to go on, to the point where there was a attempted coup

The Kyūjō incident (宮城事件, Kyūjō Jiken) was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies.

[Silent Type]

35. Starved, turned to dust, etc., still dead. And we didn't have to let them starve. Rationalizing our vile action

ain’t my thing.

[EX500rider]

42. You seem unsure how war works

The Japanese certainly weren't going to surrender sooner with amble food for the home Islands and every month the war continued thousand upon thousands of Chinese were dying at the hands of the invading Japanese, they had 15 million +- dead

[Silent Type]

45. They were no threat to us, just Asians waiting for our big bomb. We didn't have to invade.

What friggin “rules of war” say you can’t barricade a big Island with dying people that is no threat to us.

[EX500rider]

47. So, no hurry to get the war over, to hell with the Chinese being slaughtered?

Not to mention Allied POW's dying like flies while working as slave labor.

So let the Japanese have all the food they need to continue the war forever? Great plan

[Silent Type]

53. That's not why we nuked two cities.

[EX500rider]

54. We did it to end the war and it worked.

An average of a million people a month were dying in WWII, getting it over as fast as possible was the best outcome.

[AkFemDem]

55. Have you ever actually studied the war in the Pacific?

Your version of history is pretty simplistic and distorted.

[choie]

94. That's sure easy to say

from your comfy, safe seat in the U.S. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were killed and maimed.

[yagotme]

96. The US had an idea of what the mainland would be like:

See: Tarawa. Saipan. Philippines. Iwo Jima. Okinawa. And all the other islands we had to pry the Japanese off of. Tell me, how many Japanese prisoners were taken, on average, on each campaign. Ratio of troops/surrendered. Pretty doggone low. Not like Europe. Now, invade the home island of Japan, fight in the streets, having to kill women/children who have been training to kill you with a rake or pitchfork. Kamikazes raining out of the sky onto the invasion fleet (like Okinawa). Fighting for probably close to a year to defeat Japan proper. Now, for the alternative, drop a super bomb on 2 cities, killing fewer Japanese in those 2 drops than you would in probably the first couple weeks of a year long campaign. Now decide which was more humane, for them, and us.

[Jedi Guy]

97. Yes, it's extraordinarily easy to say.

True things generally are. Invading the home islands would have been a bloodbath for both sides, full stop.

Had Operation Downfall gone ahead, millions of Japanese civilians would have been maimed and killed. I don't really see how anyone can reasonably doubt that.

[Disaffected]

87. Profanity aside,

yes, that's what it amounted to. Stark reality is sometimes very difficult to accept.

[Doc Sportello]

5. Two totally separate situations, one involving terrorists and the other a country

I could explain but that would require a long, thoughtful post in reply. And that would be meaningless to you since you are all about one-line answers for a complex situation, using endles what-about-isms to anything requiring thought. Same thing that got Israel into this mess in the first place.

[tinrobot]

6. Such a bad analogy.

Last edited Tue Nov 7, 2023, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

Japan was an actual nation with a strong military who attacked the US and her allies, then invaded and occupied her territories.

Hamas is not a nation, has no borders, it does not possess a strong military, and it is not occupying any Israeli territory.

That's just a few of the differences.

[Caliman73]

7. That topic has been debated for a long time now.

Sure, the American story is that the nuclear bombs were dropped "to save American lives". There are reports that the invasion of Japan would have "cost 1 million lives".

There are documents that dispute those estimates and other documents that say that the Japanese were already looking to surrender before the bombs were dropped. There are reports indicating that the bombs were dropped to scare off the Russians who had already invaded Manchuria and were looking to set up a foothold on Japan.

Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that caused all the bloodshed and destruction. However, like the fairly poor analogy you used here, the situation is much more complicated and you can choose to believe the narrative being fed, or you can look at all sources and see that the reality is somewhere within the different narratives.

[EX500rider]

39. "There are documents that dispute those estimates"

Right, cause the 2 previous invasions were such cake walks with so many surrendering Japanese?

Iwo Jima:
US
23,000–26,571 total casualties
5,875–6,102 Marines killed

Japanese
17,845–18,375 dead and missing
216 taken prisoner

Okinawa:

US
Combat casualties: ~50,000 includes 12,500 killed and missing, 36,122 wounded (excludes the several thousand soldiers who died after the battle indirectly, from their wounds)

Japan
77,166 Japanese soldiers dead
over ~30,000 Okinawan conscripts killed
~110,000 killed total (U.S. estimate)

[John Shaft]

8. Saying "moral high ground" and "United States"

in the same breath illustrates the fundamental hypocrisy of America.

[inthewind21]

31. Amen

[EX500rider]

44. When compared to Imperial Japan & Nazi Germany we certainly were on the high ground

Feel free to read up if you have the stomach


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_war_crimes

[John Shaft]

62. The United States did the same shit and codified it within the Constitution

research slavery and Native American genocide.

[EX500rider]

68. The US fought a war to end slavery and neither of those things happened just 78 years ago

[John Shaft]

71. They didn't happen in geological time either

the last Civil War veteran died in 1952.

[ExciteBike66]

11. There is a serious question as to whether what we did was a crime

I mean, if Israel nuked gaza it would be a crime, right?

[albacore]

12. Next step..."Kill them all... God will know his own!" ...

Or maybe.... "We had to destroy the village in order to save it!"
Or.... "Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
JHFC...

[Redleg]

14. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out

another variation on a theme.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. "...how is what Israel is doing any different?"

The atomic bombs were dropped to break Japan's will to make war against the U.S., and that worked, it surrendered unconditionally.

Hamas will not surrender, and that's probably not the primary objective of Israel's offensive in Gaza, if it is even one of the objectives at all.

So yeah, different.

[maxsolomon]

15. I reject this comparison utterly.

the IDF is not carpet-bombing Gaza. it is selective and deliberate, although it is imprecise and massively destructive.

go read the NYT graphics showing where the bombing is occurring. there is a strategy.

if the IDF wanted to raze Gaza from above, it could. that is not what's happening.

[Model35mech]

22. that's hard to believe looking at before and after satellite images of

the Beit Honoun neighborhood of northern Gaza: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/before-and-after-satellite-images-show-scale-of-destruction-from-israeli-strikes-in-gaza/ar-AA1jqtpH

I'm not saying that it cannot be true. It just that the destruction doesn't really look like the plan is to have purpose targets. If there is a plan, the broad destruction suggests it's rather more like the vision of Israel’s Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever," "Blow up and flatten everything, ]delightful. After we are done, we allocate the lands of Gaza to the soldiers fighting and the settlers who lived in Gush Katif.”

[ecstatic]

16. At that time, a lot of things were different

Open segregation, legal lynching, no gay anything much less marriage. Different time. And nuking and killing 100k people was wrong. Period. I'm very confused about why so many people are advocating for a return to those times.

[ShazzieB]

81. I'm very confused about why you think anyone is advocating for a return to those times.

I'm not seeing that at all.

[obamanut2012]

18. I personally think they were war crimes

As was Dresden and Tokyo, and Coventry and the Blitz. I think the US has done some pretty awful stuff since WWII.

I know not being all pro nukes on Japan isn't popular on DU, but whatever. All of these are war crimes, and people have to remember Israel is a signatory of the Geneva Convention.

[LexVegas]

19. Justified in each case. nt

[PufPuf23]

23. That is an extremely weak analogy.

Saw mention from several posters at DU said nukes were an option.

I considered an alert.

Think not a stretch to consider Israel a nuke threat more than North Korea or Iran because of competence and mindset.

Think the current war in general weakens the United States. The progression of the war turns more on World Stage against Israel and has turned what might have been more support and understanding for the plight of Israel.

The Likud rightwing leadership has miscalculated and played right into the Hamas terrorist sick plans. Hamas wants to draw other parties into the war and Israel dares them to under the protective cover of the US Navy. This is an awful situation.

Think POTUS Biden is doing what can be done to contain and stop the carnage.

I have no idea for a solution but probably two states. Can't see Israel ever agreeing to a fair partition with current leadership. Lots of multi-generational hate.

[TheRealNorth]

24. The moral of the story...

Is that everyone should have nukes so that wars can be ended faster and lives saved.

[BannonsLiver]

27. This brought out the revisionists

“Dresden was a war crime!111”

[marble falls]

34. You mean Dresden, that town with no weapons, no military value, no war industry? A purely civilian target ...

... that Dresden? A war crime.

Winners don't face war crimes.

[BannonsLiver]

36. There's been a lot written about both sides of that decision.

We could trade links all day. But let’s not and say we did. I disagree with your characterization. Will leave it at that.

[leftstreet]

51. So you're saying it's not revisionism

You admit "there's a lot written about both sides..." indicating there are in fact two points of historical reference and inference.

[PufPuf23]

52. Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience which Vonnegut himself lived through as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity"[3] and "one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five#Postmodernism

[Chainfire]

61. The only thing that Dresden had were thousands of additional women and children refugees fleeing the Russians.

[obamanut2012]

46. Dresden was a war crime, and your mocking us doesn't mean it wasn't

Revisionists my ass.

[BannonsLiver]

49. And your contention (revisionism) that it was a war crime doesn't make it one either.

[Chainfire]

77. You got that right!

[TheRealNorth]

59. Because our ancestors were always correct all the time....

And they can never be second-guessed.

[BannonsLiver]

78. They were correct on those decisions.

[marble falls]

29. If you think there's equivelency you need to read some WWII history, let alone ...

... there's been treaty after treaty for nuclear disarmament ever since.

[Silent Type]

33. Hope Israel does not join US as the only countries to use nukes to kill innocents.

[Alpeduez21]

50. Can you teach me to completely disregard human life?

I don’t quite have the absence of morality to casually dismiss the lives of innocents for the sake of expediency. I’m wondering if I can develop this trait or must I have been born with?

[John Shaft]

63. A-fucking-men

[Chainfire]

79. I certainly am not willing to put my human blinders on for any nation, my own included.

I will continue to love, protect and defend, if necessary my Jewish neighbors, but I am done with the government of Israel until some huge changes are made. They have thrown away a liftime of good will from me in one short month.

[Alpeduez21]

86. I'm really sorry you've had to adopt that stand on the government

I truly hope things change for the better.

[SocialDemocrat61]

69. After the war

the United States spent millions to rebuild Japan and make it an viable self governing nation. Is the Netanyahu government planning to do the same for Gaza?

[Earth-shine]

73. Hamas is not going to surrender no matter how many Palestinians are killed.

The end goal of Hamas is creating political instability, fighting, and terrorism.

Hamas may say the end goal is the eradication of Israel. But even they know that will not happen.

We are told the Hamas leaders are not even in Gaza.

[Willto]

75. It is Easy

It's easy to look back at the use of nuclear weapons on Japan now and wrap yourself in a moral cloak to try and show off how righteous and pure you are compared to we war mongering heathens that agree it was justified. Easy when it's not your ass on the line. When you are safe and such events are just a long ago situation to be discussed on a forum.

But it's another matter if you were one of the soldiers who was going to have to go in with the first wave of the invasion. Or one of their family members back home who would never see them again. 1 million US casualties was the estimate for the invasion of mainland Japan. And that's if it had went as expected. (Invasions rarely do) The Japanese government was passing out spears to woman and children in preparation for the invasion. A full scale invasion would have killed millions of Japanese civilians in addition to their military deaths.

War is terrible and many horrors occur in them. Sometimes you are forced to choose the lesser of two evils. The atomic bombs were a horrible thing. But they were a horror drawn down on the Japanese people by their own government. And those two bombs ended that long and horrible war. And yes, as terrible as it may sound to say it, they actually saved more lives on both sides than they took.

[ShazzieB]

83. Good summation.

Ending the war was the absolute top priority at the time, and for that to happen, Japan had to be convinced to surrender. Using the nukes sucked, but it's not as if there was a suckage-free option available at thst point.

The choice wasn't between unleashing horror and not unleashing horror. Horror was going to be unleashed in any case, because the Japanese government wasn't going to surrender any other way. The US chose to use the atomic bombs, and the had the desired effect with arguably many fewer casualties than the alternative of an all out invasion of the home islands.

And anyone who thinks just walking away and leaving the Japanese to their own devices without obtaining a full and unconitional surrender would have been a viable option is living in a dream world.

[Red Mountain]

89. We killed a couple of hundred thousand Japanese civilians

with CONVENTIONAL bombs prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

350,000 - 500,00 in Germany.

[Oopsie Daisy]

84. Correct.

[beaglelover]

88. Yes we did what was necessary to end WW2. Great decision.

[choie]

93. Don't assume that all of us believe dropping

nuclear bombs on Japan was a just thing to do.

[Calculating]

95. It saved millions of lives on both sides

An invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath for both sides.