(September 11, 2012 at 8:27 pm)Shell B Wrote: Immoral and unnecessary. Japan was about to surrender, given that Russia had just declared war on them. Yes, they would have continued fighting for a bit longer . . . maybe, but it sure beats killing that many civilians. On top of that, the U.S. was in the process of sending more nukes, as if what we had already done was not enough.
Interestingly, I had a recent change of opinion on this topic. I thought it was necessary to stop the blood bath, or at least successful in doing so. Having done more research, I realize that I was wrong. There is never a reason for nuclear weapons. Ever. I would have preferred the United States surrender and then laugh as the Japanese try to actually enforce the surrender on American soil. I'm happy with our relationship to Japan at this point. I just wish it had a less evil past.
I agree with Creed of Heresy. You are looking at the whole thing from the American perspective. But Japan's conquests of many Asian countries caused untold sufferings to the people there. The Japanese were noted for their cruelty and they massacred a lot of civilians in Asia, eg the Nanking Massacre. For us in the West, it was ok but the A-bombs ended the mass slaughters of Asians by the Japs. Yes, it's unfortunate that Japanese civilians had to die but if it's a question who should die, I'd rather the death of the civilians of the aggressor country. I've read accounts of British prisoners of war in Japanese concentration camps and how many more would have died if the saviour A-bombs had been dropped even a month later.
Interestingly, unlike Germany, Japan remains unrepentant. They have re-written history books for Japanese kids which claim that they were liberating Asia from British rule. And to this day, they have shrines in Yasukuni where they worship and honour the memory of even Class A war criminals. Imagine if Germany had a shrine to worship Hitler and the other Nazi criminals. Whenever there are disagreements between Japan and other Asian countries, Japanese leaders will make a show of going to Yasukuni to worship the war criminals. That's how unrepentant Japan is.
