We Were Right to Drop the Bomb

[Unkotare]

Everything about the scumbag fdr's CONCENTRATION CAMPS was immoral and unconstitutional.

Supreme Court Overturns Ruling That Enabled Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II

As part of its ruling upholding the travel ban.

time.com

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[AZrailwhale]

Homicide in camp | Densho Encyclopedia

Seven homicides over four years. At least a couple of which look to be justified based upon the article YOU posted. We aren't talking Dachau here. Here's how the Japanese dealt with their interned civilians in the Dutch East Indies:
"110,000 Europeans were detained in internment camps, where circumstances gradually deteriorated. Camps became ever more crowded, and hunger and illness were reinforced by violent and humiliating treatment. About 13% died."
What the Japanese did to the Americans in the Philippines was worse as was what they did to the Europeans in the camps in China.

 

[AZrailwhale]

What lucky children to be thrown into concentration camps! What kind of low-life, unAmerican scum are you?

What kind of idiot are you? Should the children have been left on the street to starve without their Japanese national parents?

 

[AZrailwhale]

.

The Supreme Court overturned it because AMERICAN CITIZENS were sent to the internment camps. Not because JAPANESE NATIONALS were. It was wrong and illegal to send American citizens to the camps. It was then and is now.

 

[Unkotare]

..... If they had been real concentration camps, the young men wouldn't have been queuing up to enlist for the 442nd RCT, the 100th Infantry Battalion or the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. ....

They were REAL concentration camps. The scumbag fdr said so himself. The brave young men who volunteered from inside the camps did so to prove their patriotism despite they and their families abuse at the hands of the vile scumbag fdr.

 

[Unkotare]

What kind of idiot are you? Should the children have been left on the street to starve without their Japanese national parents?

Maybe innocent families shouldn't have been thrown into concentration camps at all, you fucking idiot.

 

[Unkotare]

....It was then and is now.

Colorado Histories – Colorado Virtual Library

www.coloradovirtuallibrary.org

There were real Americans then just as there are still real traitors like you now.

 

[Unkotare]

Seven homicides over four years. ....

Don't forget the nearly 2000 who died of disease due to the conditions in your concentration camps.

 

[Open Bolt]

The idea that it saved countless American lives is based on the assumption that invasion was necessary. It was not.
That others were 'working on the bomb' is ludicrous as we know no one else was even close.
The only lives that were saved, ironically, were Japanese. Since the suicidally maniacal 'leaders' refused to surrender even in the face of certain defeat, many people would have died of starvation, likely even more than died from the two bombs, before the inevitable finally did come and the white flags went up, as they would have had to.

No argument thus far, but....

The Japanese did not have time to appreciate what had happened after Hiroshima. Nagasaki was totally unnecessary.

This term "necessary" doesn't have much place in warfare. You can always take one particular bullet or gun and say that it isn't necessary, that the outcome of the war would not change if we did not use that one particular bullet or gun.

The fact remains, Japan was still refusing to surrender, so it was perfectly appropriate for us to continue to attack them.

It is a terrible thing that America has to live with the onus of having been the first to use the bomb, especially as it did not win the war, though it did end it a bit sooner.

That's not much of an onus. There is nothing wrong with our use of nuclear weapons in WWII.

That was part of the goal, to settle things before Joe Stalin took even more territory in the East. Arguably, he is the reason the bomb was used at all; i.e., to announce we had it and to demonstrate we would use it.

Actually no. The only reason why we dropped atomic bombs on Japan was to further the goal of making Japan surrender.

Hindsight analysis that the atomic bombs did not cause the surrender does not mean that it was not the intended goal of the people who used them.

Harry Truman was not prepared to be President, and certainly not prepared for the post-war geo-political situation. Perhaps no one really was. Roosevelt did a very poor job at the end and was irresponsible in not better training Harry, who should have been at his side at the last meetings with world leaders.
Things could and should have been much better.

Mr. Truman seems to have done pretty well from what I can see.

 

[Open Bolt]

The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war.

That is unlikely given the fact that we did not target civilians and focused instead on attacking military targets.

the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S.

That is unlikely given the fact that Japan was refusing to talk to us despite all our efforts to talk to them.

desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people?

Actually the opposite. The scientists opposed using the atomic bombs. But they were given no opportunity to voice their opinion to the government.

Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender.

Whatever mystical pressure Mr. Truman may have felt didn't prevent him from presenting Japan with a list of generous surrender terms in the Potsdam Proclamation.

Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin.

Not the wisest choice on their part.

Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway

No one was stopping them from surrendering earlier, before the atomic bombs were dropped.

 

[Open Bolt]

The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day - Salon.com

That Salon article is packed with many outright falsehoods. I do not advise using it as a source.

Truman did not seriously consult with military commanders who had objections to using the bomb. He did, however, ask a panel of military experts to offer an estimate of how many Americans might be killed if the United States launched the two major invasions of the Japanese home islands scheduled for November 1, 1945 and March 1, 1946. Their figure: 40,000 — far below the half-million he would cite after the war. Even this estimate was based on the dubious assumption that Japan could continue to feed, fuel, and arm its troops with the U.S. in almost complete control of the seas and skies.

There were many estimates of the casualties that the US would face in an invasion. Some estimates were low. Some estimates were quite high.

Invading Japan would have involved two subsequent "D-Day scale" amphibious invasions, first in southern Kyushu, and then on the Tokyo plain. It is reasonable to suppose that the invasions would have been a horrific bloodbath.

The US military ordered half a million purple hearts in anticipation of the invasion of Japan. There were still leftover medals from this stockpile after the Korean and Vietnam wars. So it can safely be said that the US military was expecting that the invasion of Japan would be more horrific than the entire Korean War and the entire Vietnam War combined.

We dropped the bombs to intimidate the Soviets, not to get peace with Japan.

That is incorrect. The reason why we dropped the atomic bombs was to make Japan surrender, something that Japan was steadfastly refusing to do at the time.

here's the thing, they had already offered to surrender, as long as we allowed them to keep Hirohito as Emperor. We held out on that point until after the USSR got into the war, and all of a sudden, we were all cool with Hirohito, who remained emperor until 1989.

That is incorrect. Japan did not present us with any surrender offers until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Also, when Japan did finally present that surrender offer to us, their condition was that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power. We flatly rejected that condition and told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.

None of them went anywhere because the Americans weren't willing to talk peace. That's really not an excuse.

That is incorrect. The Americans would have been delighted to talk peace.

The feelers to the Soviets went nowhere because Stalin stonewalled them.

The feelers to places other than the Soviets went nowhere because Japan stonewalled them, insisting on working only with the Soviets.

We used an indefensible weapon to try to intimidate our allies in the post-war world.
There was no excuse for it.

Atomic bombs are perfectly defensible. Legitimate acts of war do not require excusing.

Our reason for using atomic bombs was to force Japan to surrender, which they were steadfastly refusing to do.

If we had to invade Japan, it would have cost less lives than the 250,000 we killed with the bombs.

We did not kill 250,000 with the atomic bombs. The high estimate is around 200,000. There are also credible estimates closer to 100,000.

There is no reason to think that the deaths from the invasion would not have exceeded 250,000. And many of those deaths would have been Americans.

Not that it matters. The true justification for using the atomic bombs was not an attempt to save lives. The true justification for the atomic bombs was the mere fact that Japan was still refusing to surrender.

We bombed to try to intimidate the Soviets, not because of any military necessity.

That is incorrect. We bombed to try to force Japan to surrender.

Point is, we dropped two atomic weapons on a defeated country for no good reason.

We had a really good reason for doing it. We wanted to force them to surrender.

 

[Open Bolt]

BS. Been debunked over and over again, but statist brainwashing is difficult to overcome.

Actually no. It has not been debunked.

Murder innocent women and children of a defeated defenseless nation is okay to protect the lives of your soldiers.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder. Also, Japan was far from defenseless. They had millions of soldiers waiting to fight to the death when we invaded.

If they were defeated then they should have surrendered instead of waiting for us to nuke them.

[the post-nuke bombing raids against Japan]

How does anyone approve of or defend this?

Easy. Japan had not yet surrendered when we launched that bombing raid.

That last bombing raid was actually key to Japan surrendering too.

No. Murdering innocent civilians is hell.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.

The massive aerial bombing of civilians by the American military in WWII, was a war crime.

The massive aerial bombing of civilians by the American military in WWII, never happened.

US bombers focused on destroying military targets.

Histories greatest war crime was the A bombings.

That is incorrect. Attacks against military targets are not a war crime.

You can try to justify the mass murder of civilians all you like, but you will fail. There is no justification for it.

I can point out that no such murders ever happened.

Attacks against military targets are not murder.

...sadly our political leadership is fully prepared to murder civilians on a vast scale, no matter what the American people want.

Wartime strikes against present-day military targets are not murder either.

Did Korea or Vietnam MAKE us fight them?

Yes, when they attacked our allies.

We had no business getting involved in WWI or II either.

Pearl Harbor says otherwise.

Of course FDR provoked Japan and he tried desperately to provoke Germany.

Japan provoked the US into dropping the atomic bombs.

I don’t see the logic in massacring defenseless women and children, of a nation trying to surrender.

The atomic bombs were dropped on military targets. Women and children were not the target.

Japan was still refusing to surrender when the atomic bombs were dropped.

Truman is no different than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.

That is incorrect. Mr. Truman never committed genocide.

One thing is for sure, nuking a defenseless nation trying to surrender mass murdering thousands of innocent women and children, is a war crime.

It's a good thing then that the United States has never nuked a defenseless nation trying to surrender.

They had been trying to surrender for months.

That is incorrect. Japan did not offer to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

All they asked is don’t harm the emperor. Truman nuked them and then agreed to their terms. Nice guy old Dirty Harry.

That is incorrect. When Japan did finally ask to surrender, their request was that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.

Mr. Truman did not nuke them after this surrender request.

Mr. Truman never agreed to Japan's terms. He told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.

The war was over long before the bombs dropped.

That is incorrect. The war ended only when Japan surrendered, which was after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Lol. You’re not getting this. Japan had been trying to surrender, but old Dirty Harry said no way…we need to keep killing your defenseless women and children.

Japan only offered to surrender after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Mr. Truman accepted their surrender, although he refused Japan's request to allow Hirohito to retain unlimited dictatorial power.

Lol. You recognize the heinous actions of the Japanese military, but not Truman’s mass murdering of defenseless civilians. You have no credibility.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not mass murder.

So you conclude from that Truman was justified in mass murdering thousands of defenseless innocent women and children with the a-bombs. CRAZY!

A more accurate conclusion would be that Mr. Truman did not commit any murders.

Oh please. FDR set up events at Pearl Harbor, knew the attack was forthcoming, failed to warn commanders at Pearl, and sacrificed thousands of American boys for his nefarious goals.

Japan set up the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

No. Civilians were not targeted early in the war.

All the civilians murdered by Japan and Germany would beg to differ.

The US and Britain targeted civilians with their massacres from the air.

The US certainly didn't. I doubt that the UK did either.

Germany tried to avoid civilian casualties early on, other than targeting Jews.

Jews count as civilians.

Not to mention the Germans also murdered gypsies, gays, and mentally handicapped people.

The Japanese were ruthless and did kill civilians, but not any more than the US.

Nonsense. Japan's genocide killed more than ten million of their Asian neighbors.

Truman should have been hung at Nuremberg for his mass murdering of innocent civilians.

That would have been a terrible injustice considering that he did no such thing.

 

[Mushroom]

 

[Open Bolt]

When you have to tell numerous lies about something you did, that's a pretty good indication that you did something wrong.

Note the fact that Mr. Truman always told the truth.

Few people realize that initially the Truman administration and its allies in the press claimed that Hiroshima was a "military target"

Hiroshima was indeed a military target.

and that the bombing mission encountered fierce anti-aircraft fire,

The mission to drop the second atomic bomb did indeed encounter such resistance.

and in the ensuing months the government tried to suppress accounts of the horrific nature of the deaths and injuries that were inflicted.

True, but they thought it was propaganda.

The government also withheld vital information about radiation effects from the Japanese and refused to treat victims of the atomic blasts. The Army set up a center in Hiroshima to study the effects of radiation on Hiroshima's residents but refused to provide any treatment for them.

Nonsense.

There was a small garrison at Hiroshima of about 10,000 troops, most of them garrison troops, out of a population of about 300,000.

That is incorrect. There were 43,000 Japanese soldiers in Hiroshima.

The garrison was located on the outskirts of the city,

The soldiers were located in several parts of the city. Many were right in the center of the city.

20,000 of them were close enough to be killed by the blast.

and could have easily been taken out with a conventional bombing mission.

That is unlikely. Had we taken Hiroshima with a large carpet-bombing raid, most of the soldiers would have taken shelter and survived. The atomic bomb caught them out in the open.

But even if that had actually been true, so what? The atomic bomb did a satisfactory job of killing the soldiers. There was no need to consider an alternative method of killing them.

Hiroshima's port had long since been closed by the U.S. Navy. Numerous disabled ships sat lifelessly in the harbor.

The soldiers were still able to be deployed to the beaches to resist our invasion.

There is a reason that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender argue that nuking Japan was completely unnecessary and criminal.

The premise of your claim is untrue. The vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender do not argue that any crime was committed.

As far as necessity goes, 100% of the scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender say that Japan was still refusing to surrender when they were nuked.

Look, if we were really worried about the "headquarters" garrison at Hiroshima, we could have easily taken it out with a small conventional bombing mission.

Hardly. Conventional missions in WWII were not small. They carpet-bombed entire cities.

More to the point though, there was no reason to use a conventional mission. The atomic bombs were adequate to the task.

The garrison's buildings were on the outskirts of the city.

That is incorrect. The main military facilities in Hiroshima were in the center of the city.

I would compare denying the immorality of nuking Japan to Holocaust denial.

Few people would share that opinion.

The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.

The facts are Hiroshima was a military target.

You don't bomb civilians, period, and you especially don't bomb them to destroy and to terrorize the surviving civilians. That's not warfare. That's murder.

That's why we dropped our atomic bombs on military targets instead.

You simply ignored the point that we could have destroyed the meaningless military facility in Hiroshima with conventional bombing.

The military base in Hiroshima was far from meaningless. It was the headquarters in charge of repelling our coming invasion of Japan. Hiroshima also held tens of thousands of soldiers, many awaiting deployment to the beaches to resist our coming invasion.

As for your point about using conventional weapons, it is hard to see the significance of that point. The atomic bombs were sufficient. There was no need to use conventional weapons.

Denying the immorality of nuking Japan is as bad as Holocaust denial.

No it isn't.

Japan was prostrate and virtually defenseless against air and naval attack. So defenseless was Japan against air attack that we stopped sending fighter escorts on our bombing missions. Japan's population was on near-starvation rations.

You forgot to mention the millions of Japanese soldiers waiting to fight to the death when we invaded.

What's more, Japan was already trying to surrender when we nuked Hiroshima, and we knew it from multiple sources.

That is incorrect. Japan made no attempt to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

 

[Colin norris]

It's OK to stop and think for a second before posting, you know.

Hes very concerned about American soldiers but doesn't give a shit about anyone else. So merciful and considerate.

 

[Open Bolt]

....nobody at the time thought twice about nuking Japan. Some people even wondered why we only dropped two atom bombs on them. (Because that was all we had, actually).

Actually we had a lot more atomic bombs on the way if Japan had kept refusing to surrender. The reason why we stopped when we did was because they surrendered.

sure they were.

No. Those conditions would have been entirely unacceptable to us had we ever been presented with them.

Those terms amounted to ending the war in a draw (like how the Korean War later ended).

Accepting them would have meant letting the military caste continue to rule Japan instead of us reforming Japan into a peaceful society.

On the American side, the entry of the USSR also changed position. Up until that time, the main sticking point was the status of the Emperor. The US Dropped it's insistence on his abdication.

Our position remained the same when the Soviets entered the war against Japan.

Our main sticking point was Japan's continued refusal to surrender. We never insisted that the Emperor abdicate.

 

[Open Bolt]

Wouldn't that mean that bombing is terrorism?

No. Terrorism requires the deliberate targeting of civilians. Bombing a military target is something entirely different.

 

[Open Bolt]

The Truman defenders are all over the place about the use of the Bomb. Japan was defeated by the spring of 1945 and it's industry was almost completely destroyed.

Funny how Japan kept refusing to surrender.

With the cooperation of the willing media, the Allies managed to deflect outrage about the bombing campaign over Dresden Germany and subsequent fire storm while Dresden was considered a non-military target

I am no expert on UK targeting, but I do not accept that Dresden was not a military target.

Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan changed from high impact to incendiary after almost all the industry was destroyed.

Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan failed to significantly damage industry and were halted.

The incendiary raids were nighttime, and were what finally destroyed Japanese industry.

The dirty little secret was that the FDR administration respected the German army but considered the Japanese to be sub-human and so did the eggheads who were pressuring Truman to use the ultimate weapon they spent so long developing.

The eggheads opposed using atomic bombs against Japan. They were not allowed to voice their views to the President.

 

[Open Bolt]

the nukes should have been dropped on moscow, stalingrad and lenin grad, actually.

Easier said than done considering the limits of our technology at the time.

there was no need to invade Japan. just navel blockade, no shipping, no fishing, and fire bomb them. We killed more people by fire bombing toyko than with the nukes.

We were not going to wait around and drag out the war. If Japan had kept refusing to surrender when we were ready to invade, we were going to invade.

we never had to invade Japan. that was all a lie.

It was no lie. We were going to invade if Japan had kept refusing to surrender.

if we were REALLy so scared of stalin, why NOT nuke him, eh?

Where would the B-29s take off from?

Because, folks, we had no IDEA that we'd have an economic boom after WW2. We mostly thought that if the economy did not have a "war footing", the depression would return. so we "had" to have a boogeyman to justify spending a trillion $ a year on the military and keep everyone doing SOMETHING. Stalin was perfectly suited to playing boogey man.

Stalin was not merely playing. He was genuinely evil.

it's been OUR interefering bs, ever since the Spanish American war, WW1, etc, that made things 10x worse than if we'd stayed out of it.

Just the opposite. The world would be a far worse place if not for us championing freedom and democracy.

 

[Open Bolt]

On a side note, Truman what I read almost used the bomb during the battle of the budge

There were no atomic bombs available for use at that time.