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Was the use of nuclear weapons against Japan justified?
Was the use of nuclear weapons against Japan justified?
I managed to forget to add this on the forum yesterday.
The sixth of August is A-bomb day. It is a day of remembrance as the 67th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A second bomb was dropped three days later on Nagasaki. The Mayor of Hiroshima used the city’s annual Peace Declaration to urge the world to abolish nuclear weapons. He also acknowledged the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year saying ‘Japan is now engaged in a national debate over its energy policy, with some voices insisting, “Nuclear energy and humankind cannot coexist”’ but stopped short of calling for the abandonment of nuclear power as well. He also highlighted the ‘living hell’ the city became and the suffering of those caught up in the bombing ‘Countless corpses lay everywhere, piled on top of each other; amid the moans of unearthly voices, infants sucked at the breasts of dead mothers, while dazed, empty-eyed mothers clutched their dead babies.’ It was President Truman who ordered the dropping of the bomb and this year for the first time a member of Truman’s family attended the memorial. It is still an ongoing question whether he was right to do so with many Americans still believing he was.
Debatabase debate: This House believes that the use of atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified http://idebate.org/debatabase/debates/peace-security-human-rights/house-belives-use-atomic-bombs-against-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-was-justified
Asia Sentinel has an article on this http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4727&Itemid=201
41 weeks 3 days ago
Dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski was justified under the information they had at the time. When critizing the actions of the Truman administration one needs to consider the effect of knowledge in hindsight.
Truman was working under the knowledge that dropping the nuclear bombs would bring a short and fast victory to the Pacific front of the Second World War. As the war had alredy ended in Europe by this time, leaders were looking to end the campaign in the Pacific as quickly as possible. From a cost benefit perspective dropping the bombs on Japan meant that very few American lives were lost, and the cost of building the bombs compared to the cost of a minimum six month continuation of fighting.
Additionally, there was no testing done on the impact on human lives with atomic bomb. The assumption was that they were simply significantly more powerful than traditional bombs. If Truman had not dropped those bombs we would never know the actual effects of the atomic bomb, as it is unethical to test it on people. Which is why they dropped it without full knowledge of the effects it has in terms of cancer, and radiations effects on the body.
In terms of international politics, dropping the bombs that once, and learning about the devestating consequences meant that they have not been dropped ever again. An entire theoretical framework emerged of how to manipulate the power of these weapons without actually using them because they are too powerful.
But how would we have ever known that unless they were used at least once?
41 weeks 2 days ago
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The whole point of my point was to remove the 'short and fast victory' argument from the issue, If you like I dodged the moral question about dropping the bomb by asking why the Allies would not consider diplomacy.
The cost of the bombs compared to the cost of continued fighting is irrelevent; if there had been no potsdam declaration the Japanese were at the point where they could accept defeat but not unconditional surrender, indeed the points made in the debate that Alex linked to show the japanese cabinet deadlocked on the issue of surrender before and after the dropping of the bombs, so the bombs made no difference. Since this was on the unconditional surrender terms, it is logical also to assume that had unconditional surrender condition been dropped then the Japanese could have reached a negotiated peace, presumably on the basis of stripping them of their empire and some limited arms controls. Whether that could have brought lasting peace, who knows.
If diplomacy is to be ignored then it is still not a bomb them or invade them choice because the US blockcade made Japanese defeat by starvation a very real possibility, quite probably dropping the bombs involved less suffering than that would have done, but the advantage of in would be that it shifts the onus from the allies killing people to the Japanese chosing to save themselves.
I am fully aware that the radiation effects were unknown, indeed the US proposed to drop 10 bombs on the landing beaches then land their own troops through the nuclear wasteland that resulted, no-one could have considered that knowing the radiation, they would have destroyed their own army. However it is irrelevant, if I was asked if it was right to firebomb Dresden I would also say that was wrong without the radiation of a nuclear bomb. In short I am unconvinced that the bombs actually shortened the war.
41 weeks 2 days ago
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Nuclear war is never the answer to any world issues. Peace may never be between all corners of the world, but mass murder of innocent people is not the right way to go about anything. It really touched me when they mentioned that infants were nursing off of their dead mothers, and wide-eyed mothers clung to their dead children. What a powerful image this gives. Those innocent people didn't deserve to live life in hell because of the actions of their leaders. It is so sad that leaders from all over the world can't sit down and be adults about certain topics. Although I am American, I don't believe it is our duty as the United States to try to govern other countries and convince them that, "Our way is the best way". Sure, it has worked for us, but you can't force someone to believe or think a certain way. I think Truman was wrong in dropping those bombs, and I believe that Japan was wrong for their attack on Pearl Harbor. I wish we would do away with all nuclear weapons, because attacks directly affect the innocent.
41 weeks 2 days ago
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I wish we would do away with all nuclear weapons, because attacks directly affect the innocent.
One of the suggestions given in the past has been that the bomb should have been dropped just offshore - this would have limited casualties while still showing the immense destructive power of the bomb. I would be surprised if it forced a surrender but then we are doubtful about whether the actual bombing caused the surrender. Perhaps dropping it in the middle of Tokyo Bay would have been more effective as presumably members of the government would have then seen it for themselves.
41 weeks 1 day ago
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Nuclear war is never the answer to any world issues. Peace may never be between all corners of the world, but mass murder of innocent people is not the right way to go about anything. It really touched me when they mentioned that infants were nursing off of their dead mothers, and wide-eyed mothers clung to their dead children. What a powerful image this gives. Those innocent people didn't deserve to live life in hell because of the actions of their leaders. It is so sad that leaders from all over the world can't sit down and be adults about certain topics. Although I am American, I don't believe it is our duty as the United States to try to govern other countries and convince them that, "Our way is the best way". Sure, it has worked for us, but you can't force someone to believe or think a certain way. I think Truman was wrong in dropping those bombs, and I believe that Japan was wrong for their attack on Pearl Harbor. I wish we would do away with all nuclear weapons, because attacks directly affect the innocent.
41 weeks 2 days ago
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Of course it was not justified. All the reasons that justify it stem from a fundamentally wrong allied decision; to seek unconditional surrender. If this decision was not taken then there would be no need to consider Operation Olympic (the invasion of the Japanese home Islands) which brought in a favourable balance of death into the use of the bomb. Almost every other major war between great powers has not ended in total defeat or unconditional surrender of either party. Only the defeat of France after the Napoleonic wars was remotely comparable.