RE: The Nuking of Japan
September 11, 2012 at 8:58 pm
(This post was last modified: September 11, 2012 at 9:04 pm by Creed of Heresy.)
No offense here, Shell, but preferring the US to surrender in the face of the Japanese aggression? That's a foolish sentiment to take, though I'll assume you mean it rhetorically rather than literally, given the absolute cruelty the Japanese showed towards those they defeated. The way history played out resulted in the nation of Japan being what it is today...and you know, a pacifistic nation with a mandate to never use its military for the purposes of aggression? Hm.
Now, see, the thing is that the Japanese were told that absolute annihilation of their military forces and their homeland would be inevitable if they refused to surrender via the Potsdam Declaration. The Soviets did not declare war or begin its move upon Japanese territory until after the first atomic bombing, when the second demand for surrender was made and rejected...and when the Japanese learned of the Soviet invasions, they began imposing martial law to prevent ANYONE from attempting to broker peace.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bomb...939_August
Now, if we move on to the point of killing that many civilians...this is always a dark thing to talk about and is exactly why WWII is so infamous. Overall, somewhere between 50-million to 70-million people died, and only 15-million of them were military personnel. The Japanese, for their part, accounted for about 15,000,000 civilian casualties, directly targeted in fact; not industrial centers or military targets leveled through bombings. Rather, about 12,000,000 of these were DIRECTLY TARGETED by the Japanese military as part of their plans to cull the populations and make them more subservient to Japanese authority via intimidation. It also had a lot to due with racial beliefs held by the Japanese Empire; that they were the Children of God, as they felt themselves children of the Emperor who was God on earth, and all others were inferior to them.
Now, the entire thing about WWII is how utterly immoral it all was...but the Japanese weren't innocent, and in fact from everything that's been learned over the last almost 70 years about them, they were at least on par with, if not actually more heinous and disgusting than the Nazis. Comparing the 250,000 killed in those bombings to the tens of millions they murdered, raped, and actually enslaved?
All the same...I agree. I abhor the targeting of civilians under any circumstance. I'm not saying the nuclear bombings were good. Not in any sense. Only that I understand why they were done. Doesn't mean I forgive the fact it happened. And in truth if I had to make such a decision, I don't know how I would react to it.
I mean if we consider all the options...would Soviet rule over the Japanese have been so much better? Look at East Germany, and what state it was in when the wall finally came down, and all the hundreds of thousands of people that kept disappearing there while they were under Soviet domination. If the Russians had invaded Japan, and taken them under control...I don't think Japan would be in as good a state today as it is.
In this case it's the lesser of two evils. It was part of what brought Japan to its knees. We don't know what might have happened otherwise but we can glimpse at what might have happened by looking at history, both before, during, and after the bombings...and I am pretty damn sure that if the bomb hadn't been dropped...it would've been much worse. Horrible as it sounds.
Shell: Wrong, hun. August 8th, 1945, Russia declared war. August 6th, 1945, the US dropped the first nuke. I DID look it up.
Now, see, the thing is that the Japanese were told that absolute annihilation of their military forces and their homeland would be inevitable if they refused to surrender via the Potsdam Declaration. The Soviets did not declare war or begin its move upon Japanese territory until after the first atomic bombing, when the second demand for surrender was made and rejected...and when the Japanese learned of the Soviet invasions, they began imposing martial law to prevent ANYONE from attempting to broker peace.
Quote:The Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had informed Tokyo of the Soviet Union's unilateral abrogation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 5 April. At two minutes past midnight on 9 August, Tokyo time, Soviet infantry, armor, and air forces had launched the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Four hours later, word reached Tokyo that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan. The senior leadership of the Japanese Army began preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Korechika Anami, in order to stop anyone attempting to make peace.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bomb...939_August
Now, if we move on to the point of killing that many civilians...this is always a dark thing to talk about and is exactly why WWII is so infamous. Overall, somewhere between 50-million to 70-million people died, and only 15-million of them were military personnel. The Japanese, for their part, accounted for about 15,000,000 civilian casualties, directly targeted in fact; not industrial centers or military targets leveled through bombings. Rather, about 12,000,000 of these were DIRECTLY TARGETED by the Japanese military as part of their plans to cull the populations and make them more subservient to Japanese authority via intimidation. It also had a lot to due with racial beliefs held by the Japanese Empire; that they were the Children of God, as they felt themselves children of the Emperor who was God on earth, and all others were inferior to them.
Now, the entire thing about WWII is how utterly immoral it all was...but the Japanese weren't innocent, and in fact from everything that's been learned over the last almost 70 years about them, they were at least on par with, if not actually more heinous and disgusting than the Nazis. Comparing the 250,000 killed in those bombings to the tens of millions they murdered, raped, and actually enslaved?
All the same...I agree. I abhor the targeting of civilians under any circumstance. I'm not saying the nuclear bombings were good. Not in any sense. Only that I understand why they were done. Doesn't mean I forgive the fact it happened. And in truth if I had to make such a decision, I don't know how I would react to it.
I mean if we consider all the options...would Soviet rule over the Japanese have been so much better? Look at East Germany, and what state it was in when the wall finally came down, and all the hundreds of thousands of people that kept disappearing there while they were under Soviet domination. If the Russians had invaded Japan, and taken them under control...I don't think Japan would be in as good a state today as it is.
In this case it's the lesser of two evils. It was part of what brought Japan to its knees. We don't know what might have happened otherwise but we can glimpse at what might have happened by looking at history, both before, during, and after the bombings...and I am pretty damn sure that if the bomb hadn't been dropped...it would've been much worse. Horrible as it sounds.
Shell: Wrong, hun. August 8th, 1945, Russia declared war. August 6th, 1945, the US dropped the first nuke. I DID look it up.
