japanese war crimes

[GreatFinn]

We killed more people fire bombing tokyo than the nukes killed.

Point was they weren;t going to surrender and as a result we would have spent another 2 years fighting.  The bombs ended that war and saved many american and Japaneese lives.

Yes, the story goes like that, and no one ever even think it could be a smokescreen. Don't get me wrong, there were justification to that act, but the targets could have been better, like some kind of military installations, if you know what I mean. Instead of that they nuked two cities without none military value what so ever, killing a half a million civilians. What is 9/11 compared to that terrorist attack?   

[JOHN MATRIX]

japs wouldnt surrender.  better nuke them than kill many americans trying to take the home islands

heres the thing i never understood...why would we have 'needed' to invade japan? their navy was destroyed already, their military was no longer capable of any kind of offense towards anyone, they were already beaten.
why would we even need to bother invading japan, just to get a formal surrender?
who cares if they 'dont surrender' if they are already beaten and are no longer a threat? this was the whole arguement for using the bombs-'so we dont have to invade'...but an invasion wasnt even necessary in the first place. we used the bombs to send a message to the world and to the soviets in particular.

[DK II]

heres the thing i never understood...why would we have 'needed' to invade japan? their navy was destroyed already, their military was no longer capable of any kind of offense towards anyone, they were already beaten.
why would we even need to bother invading japan, just to get a formal surrender?
who cares if they 'dont surrender' if they are already beaten and are no longer a threat? this was the whole arguement for using the bombs-'so we dont have to invade'...but an invasion wasnt even necessary in the first place. we used the bombs to send a message to the world and to the soviets in particular.

This view is discussed very much in scientific reports. In 1945 we already are on the beginning of the cold war.

Maybe the US wanted to be THE winner of the war and prove that they are the most powerful nation on earth, maybe they didn't know what they were dealing with when they threw the bomb (But then again, why did they throw 2 of them?).

[Cavalier22]

matrix

by your logic, you could make the same point with nazi germany.  by feb 1945 they were incapable of any offensive action so why bother invading.....

[240 is Back]

by your logic, you could make the same point with nazi germany.  by feb 1945 they were incapable of any offensive action so why bother invading.....

Invading is one thing.

If we would have just nuked two cities in Ger after they TRIED to surrender...

LOL @ the evil pwnage.  I can see you trying to explain that to the Big Guy in the Sky.

[Cavalier22]

trying to surrender?

[Cavalier22]

if they would have surrendered we would not have nuked t hem. 

240 your ridiculous if you think this.

Even after the 2nd one there was a coup attempt by many high ranking military officers to seize power in an attempt to stop the next days planned surrender

[240 is Back]

if they would have surrendered we would not have nuked t hem. 

240 your ridiculous if you think this.

Even after the 2nd one there was a coup attempt by many high ranking military officers to seize power in an attempt to stop the next days planned surrender

We tested it on July 16, then nuked them 4 weeks later.  There were stalled surrender talks (many blame on us) and GER was already surrendered (May 7).  We nuked two civilian targets to scare the world.

I was under the impression that the Japanese tried to surrender all summer, and we cut ties of communication to complete the first nuke.

Are you saying this is untrue?

[JOHN MATRIX]

matrix

by your logic, you could make the same point with nazi germany.  by feb 1945 they were incapable of any offensive action so why bother invading.....

they wasnt a military necessity either, technically. it simply became a race with the russians to see who would hold sway in the region.
no one ended up invading japan and the end results were the same.

[OzmO]

We tested it on July 16, then nuked them 4 weeks later.  There were stalled surrender talks (many blame on us) and GER was already surrendered (May 7).  We nuked two civilian targets to scare the world.

I was under the impression that the Japanese tried to surrender all summer, and we cut ties of communication to complete the first nuke.

Are you saying this is untrue?

It was the details of the surrender.

We we wanted a unconditional surrender. 

Japan wanted terms.

Terms would have allowed the current leadership to stay in power and potentially become another threat in 10 years.

We were very concerned with invading Japan.  Japan was very different from Germany in 1945.

-  Japan refused to surrender unconditionally
-  We had experienced the finatical defense of Okinawa and Iwo Jima  and knew it would cost many US lives to successfully invlade Japan.
-  the Germans were't using kamkasi tactics, they weren;t fighting to the death.  Japan was donig just that.

although in principle i don;t agree with dropping the nuke, this might be a case were the end justified th means even though the means were very tragic.

[DK II]

It was the details of the surrender.

We we wanted a unconditional surrender. 

Japan wanted terms.

Terms would have allowed the current leadership to stay in power and potentially become another threat in 10 years.

We were very concerned with invading Japan.  Japan was very different from Germany in 1945.

-  Japan refused to surrender unconditionally
-  We had experienced the finatical defense of Okinawa and Iwo Jima  and knew it would cost many US lives to successfully invlade Japan.
-  the Germans were't using kamkasi tactics, they weren;t fighting to the death.  Japan was donig just that.

although in principle i don;t agree with dropping the nuke, this might be a case were the end justified th means even though the means were very tragic.

good points.

btw, it's kamikaze.