Just a few days ago, it hit me on some new level that we fucking NUCLEAR BOMBED a country. TWICE.
We are literally the only country that has done that. And it’s just sort-of this fun footnote of history. “Fine, maybe that was a whoopsie, but blah blah blah something about land invasion blah blah blah. Our baaaaad!”
In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.
The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).
In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children’s throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.
The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers’ lives.
Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.
*edit: all you 4edgy5me America Bad commenters really need to do some reading about Japanese atrocities during the Pacific War here are some suggestions:
The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them
We nuked them twice after carrying out a campaign of what we cozily referred to as “moral bombing”, where we targeted civilian populations to kill the families of soldiers.
The only fair way to solve this is going to be for someone to nuke us for nuking Japan, then someone needs to nuke whomever nukes us, etc…until everyone gets nuked. Then we can get along.
I mean Japan and the US have a pretty solid relationship now, it’s just internet weirdos who can’t get along, which is probably why a lot of us are on the internet in the first place.
Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much the first stages of the Cold War pivot as the USSR declared war on Japan and took Manchuria and Korea from Japanese occupation.
Imperial Japan had hoped the USSR would arbitrate peace with the Allies as they had not fought or invaded, but the Soviets chose to declare war, sealing their fate.
Especially since it probably wasn’t the reason they surrendered. There are multiple papers on the subject. They didn’t really grasp the difference between the atomic bombs and regular bombing, and the US were carpet bombing multiple other cities at the time. They probably surrendered because of the Soviet advance after failed talks with them, which would definitely reduce their chances to zero.
I used to think along the lines of this too until I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial where they tell you about all the ways the US min-maxed the bomb to kill as many people as possible and did it truly as an experiment.
Well, idk much about history and politics and war, so I’m just gonna trust 'Muricans claiming they need to bomb other countries to bring peace to the world
You’re right. I do sometimes put more effort into my comments, but this one was not one of those. I simply chose to inform of my lack of knowledge in the probably important fields needed to understand this event, and then said I’d trust 'Muricans speaking, pointing out the claim that the bombing was needed for peace
In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.
The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).
In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children’s throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.
The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers’ lives.
Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.
Arguably fighting against Japan and Germany in WW2 is one of the only times the US used their military in a justifiable way. Fascism had to be stopped.
The Japanese military expected to lose 20 million people in the very first battle of the invasion, and the Americans were considering using poison gas because the casualties of fighting it out in the streets would have been in the millions of troops. People don’t realize how dark it was in 1945, food shipments had all but ceased, Japan was entering a famine; if the war had dragged on through a land invasion it would have been cataclysmic.
So prior to the nukes Japan had just lost their entire navy, their air force, and practically all their conquests in Asia where they killed well over 20 million civilians and lost 2 million soldiers in the process.
After Hiroshima the US gave them three days to surrender.
They didn’t. One of most inevitable defeats in modern history and not only did they not surrender after the first, they tried to call America’s bluff, and there was a coup attempt to prevent surrender after the second.
If you’d like some reading on the Japanese militarist cult and propaganda campaigns that enabled a people to be so delusional there’s quite a lot of scholarly work available.
In any event the cause of their delusional dreams was the same cause that led them to having baby-bayonetting contests in China: ethnic supremacist rhetoric functionally identitical to Nazism that told them Americans and Soviets would be doing to them what they’d just done to China, Korea, the Phillipines, and many other nations.
Japan appealed to the USSR to arbitrate surrender. The USSR responded by holding to the Yalta conference agreements and declaring war on Japan and occupying Manchuria and Korea.
USSR broke the neutrality pact they had with Japan to do so, and the US dropped the second nuke after that pact was broken.
The bombing, declaration, and surrender was a period from August 6-August 15. Eleven days.
So prior to the nukes Japan had just lost their entire navy, their air force, and practically all their conquests in Asia
Yep. No point in a genocidal terrorist attack on civilians in japan.
a people to be so delusional… ethnic supremacist rhetoric functionally identitical to Nazism
Lol. Have you seen USA today? It’s the birthplace of racism. They’re still justifying this nuclear terror attack on japan while genociding people in palestine and all over the world. Never changes.
Most bombing is. Firebombing of Dresden for example. The V2 bombs falling randomly on Londoners. I’m not in any way trying to handwave away your premise at all, just offer that war is hell and civilian targets are always targets to reduce the opponent’s will to fight. In historic times we’d burn the town and light the fields on fire, starving the population. WW2 firebombed cities. Even today nuclear weapons would be launched at strategic military targets, critical infrastructure, and city centers. War crime? I guess. Seems like plain old war, even if the US used the weapon that dialed it up to 11 first. (IMO nukes shouldn’t exist on any arsenal, but it’s not up to me)
“War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.”
“There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.”
Just as an aside, due to the use of slave labour from nearby concentration camps and the horrendous conditions at the Mittelwerk factory that an estimated 12,000 people died making V1s and V2s, more than the estimated 9,000 people that died as targets.
Just a few days ago, it hit me on some new level that we fucking NUCLEAR BOMBED a country. TWICE.
We are literally the only country that has done that. And it’s just sort-of this fun footnote of history. “Fine, maybe that was a whoopsie, but blah blah blah something about land invasion blah blah blah. Our baaaaad!”
Yeah that’s why I hate the nationalist “we” that you’re using here. I didn’t have shit to do with nuking japan. Zero respect for those terrorists.
It’s called bigger gun diplomacy
France nuclear bombed Algeria lots of times and nobody makes such a big deal of it.
Maybe because instead of dropping them on cities they dropped them in the Sahara desert?
Meh. Details!
TIL.
In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.
The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).
In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children’s throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.
The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers’ lives.
Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.
*edit: all you 4edgy5me America Bad commenters really need to do some reading about Japanese atrocities during the Pacific War here are some suggestions:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_campaign
We nuked them twice after carrying out a campaign of what we cozily referred to as “moral bombing”, where we targeted civilian populations to kill the families of soldiers.
We ARE absolute monsters.
The only fair way to solve this is going to be for someone to nuke us for nuking Japan, then someone needs to nuke whomever nukes us, etc…until everyone gets nuked. Then we can get along.
I mean Japan and the US have a pretty solid relationship now, it’s just internet weirdos who can’t get along, which is probably why a lot of us are on the internet in the first place.
Fash support fash.
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much the first stages of the Cold War pivot as the USSR declared war on Japan and took Manchuria and Korea from Japanese occupation.
Imperial Japan had hoped the USSR would arbitrate peace with the Allies as they had not fought or invaded, but the Soviets chose to declare war, sealing their fate.
Bombing Japan = good?
Im context, against the Imperial Japanese Government, unfortunately, yes.
Yes, when you grow up deep inside the imperial bubble.
As someone from the country that’s been conquered by japan: absolutely yes.
It’s literally the trolley problem writ large. Do you kill a few hundred thousand civilians to prevent the deaths of probably several million.
But thats dishonest. It assumes that:
The nuking of Japan was the reason they surrendered
The nukes were gauranteed to make then surrender.
Like would it still have been justified if Japan hadnt surrendered? Then youve committed an atrocity for no reason.
Or what about if it was a different atrocity? Would tourturing a few hundred thousand Japanese to death be justified for the same reason?
Especially since it probably wasn’t the reason they surrendered. There are multiple papers on the subject. They didn’t really grasp the difference between the atomic bombs and regular bombing, and the US were carpet bombing multiple other cities at the time. They probably surrendered because of the Soviet advance after failed talks with them, which would definitely reduce their chances to zero.
I used to think along the lines of this too until I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial where they tell you about all the ways the US min-maxed the bomb to kill as many people as possible and did it truly as an experiment.
Well, idk much about history and politics and war, so I’m just gonna trust 'Muricans claiming they need to bomb other countries to bring peace to the world
Poe’s law.
What a lazy and shitty comment.
You’re right. I do sometimes put more effort into my comments, but this one was not one of those. I simply chose to inform of my lack of knowledge in the probably important fields needed to understand this event, and then said I’d trust 'Muricans speaking, pointing out the claim that the bombing was needed for peace
What part of @[email protected]’s statement do you disagree with?
The Allies had just fought the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater.
Have you ever even read any of the history of the proposed plan for the invasion of mainland Japan and the casualty estimates? How about the reasoning for opposing the Imperial Japanese Government?
Or Is this your opportunity to virtue signal to people on the internet by implying Americans are murderous pigs and the jApAnEsE dId NoThInG wRoNg?
As I said, I don’t know much about history, politics, and war.
Clearly not.
how about: they are both murderous pigs?
Imperial Japan was far more murderous, in the context of the 2nd World War, which is what this thread is about.
sure, let’s dice and slice the context until the USA is always right
Just like Ukraine bOmBiNg CiViLiAn TaRgEtS in Russia amirite
Both sides bad I is very smart
(Of course America was bad, but not for bombing Imperial Japan)
Arguably fighting against Japan and Germany in WW2 is one of the only times the US used their military in a justifiable way. Fascism had to be stopped.
The Japanese military expected to lose 20 million people in the very first battle of the invasion, and the Americans were considering using poison gas because the casualties of fighting it out in the streets would have been in the millions of troops. People don’t realize how dark it was in 1945, food shipments had all but ceased, Japan was entering a famine; if the war had dragged on through a land invasion it would have been cataclysmic.
Americans ***ARE ***murderous pigs, and we haven’t changed in the decades since.
Bombing Japan == horrific but better than the alternatives we had.
Though even then there were variables.
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/
The alternative of having to let the soviets get a say in what happens to Japan?
It’s alot easier for them to post a link to a blog than to just say the quiet part out loud.
Sorry, but repeatedly posting a link to some blog doesn’t justify murdering hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people.
more like least path of resistance to peace.
Those Palestinian children were going to be used to populate the schools and hospitals so they can’t be bombed. Better starve them.
Yeah and as we do, we fucked up their transition to a democratic state but in the process created a very unique nation
https://youtu.be/YzRWPGSaKDk
“western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them” They were right
To be fair, the people they were stabbing and running from were about to fucking NUKE THEM. TWICE. So.
So prior to the nukes Japan had just lost their entire navy, their air force, and practically all their conquests in Asia where they killed well over 20 million civilians and lost 2 million soldiers in the process.
After Hiroshima the US gave them three days to surrender.
They didn’t. One of most inevitable defeats in modern history and not only did they not surrender after the first, they tried to call America’s bluff, and there was a coup attempt to prevent surrender after the second.
If you’d like some reading on the Japanese militarist cult and propaganda campaigns that enabled a people to be so delusional there’s quite a lot of scholarly work available.
In any event the cause of their delusional dreams was the same cause that led them to having baby-bayonetting contests in China: ethnic supremacist rhetoric functionally identitical to Nazism that told them Americans and Soviets would be doing to them what they’d just done to China, Korea, the Phillipines, and many other nations.
Japan appealed to the USSR to arbitrate surrender. The USSR responded by holding to the Yalta conference agreements and declaring war on Japan and occupying Manchuria and Korea.
USSR broke the neutrality pact they had with Japan to do so, and the US dropped the second nuke after that pact was broken.
The bombing, declaration, and surrender was a period from August 6-August 15. Eleven days.
Yep. No point in a genocidal terrorist attack on civilians in japan.
Lol. Have you seen USA today? It’s the birthplace of racism. They’re still justifying this nuclear terror attack on japan while genociding people in palestine and all over the world. Never changes.
Deserved
Still a war crime against civilians.
Most bombing is. Firebombing of Dresden for example. The V2 bombs falling randomly on Londoners. I’m not in any way trying to handwave away your premise at all, just offer that war is hell and civilian targets are always targets to reduce the opponent’s will to fight. In historic times we’d burn the town and light the fields on fire, starving the population. WW2 firebombed cities. Even today nuclear weapons would be launched at strategic military targets, critical infrastructure, and city centers. War crime? I guess. Seems like plain old war, even if the US used the weapon that dialed it up to 11 first. (IMO nukes shouldn’t exist on any arsenal, but it’s not up to me)
Ofc the state is run by criminal terrorists. It’s nothing to excuse or celebrate.
“War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.”
“There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.”
Just as an aside, due to the use of slave labour from nearby concentration camps and the horrendous conditions at the Mittelwerk factory that an estimated 12,000 people died making V1s and V2s, more than the estimated 9,000 people that died as targets.
That’s a grim aside.
Very unfun fact.
US dropped notices for days ahead of the bombing. warning of the imminent danger and horrific results of a nuclear bomb.
many didn’t believe in the warnings as they had been disillusioned by their government.
the rest is history.