Was the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan Justified?

No, they wouldn't have. It was completely against the Japanese ethos. Their plan was to put every citizen on the front lines, even if all they had was pitchforks. The only reason Japan surrendered was that their entire population could be destroyed without a single soldier stepping foot in Japan. Their only plan could never come to fruition.To better understand the Japanese psyche I would suggest that you read up on the cultural significance of "Kamikaze". In Japanese this term means "divine wind". This term was used to describe two typhoons that destroyed an invading Mongol navy in 1247 and again in 1281. Each time the Mongols were poised to invade and conquer Japan, and each time the divine wind wiped out the invading navy. Japan had gone millenia without a foreign army setting foot on sacred Japanese soil.It is no coincidence that the Japanese suicide bombers were called Kamikazes. They were to be the sacred wind, the wave of humanity that was to keep the invaders out. It wouldn't have stopped with the pilots. It would have continued as Allied soldiers invaded the mainland.In the long run, an invasion would have resulted in hundreds of thousand more Japanese civilian (if you can call them that) casualties than the atomic bombs cost. Those are the cold hard facts.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

And yet they didn't. Completely false. Japan was ready to fight to the last man carrying a pitchfork against a conventional invading force. Detonating the first bomb over a city didn't convince them. You are wrong again. Baloney. Three days is more than enough time. They knew where the Allied Navy was and how to broadcast to them. If he had fought on Guadalcanal or walked the Bataan Death March he might have thought differently.

That is complete speculation. The fact of the matter is that the Allies DID PRESS FOR SURRENDER, AND JAPAN REFUSED TO SURRENDER. If the atomic bombs had not been dropped it would have required an invasion of the Japanese homeland in order to get that surrender. The invasion of previous islands had taught us this. Japanese soldiers charged machine gun nests with nothing but a drawn katana instead of surrendering. Japanese civilians jumped from cliffs to their deaths rather than be captured by the Allies. This was on islands that were not considered to be sacred like the Japanese homeland. The precedent had been set. The Japanese did not surrender when they were beaten. Ever.The second lesson is WW I. In that war, Germany was allowed to stay intact. What resulted was a continuation of war just 30 years later. That is why the Allies pushed for the removal of all government officials involved in the making of war and the establishment of a government that the Allies could work with. The Japanese did not agree to those terms of surrender.

It isn't a painting. That is exactly what happened. You are aware of the Kamikaze pilots, are you not? German pilots did not strap themselves to bombs and hurl themselves at the Allied soldiers, but the Japanese did. German citizens did not commit suicide in droves to avoid being captured by Allied troops. The Japanese citizens did.

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At the end of June, Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide.[2][unreliable source?] The order authorized the commander of Saipan to promise civilians who died there an equal spiritual status in the afterlife with those of soldiers perishing in combat. General Hideki Tj intercepted the order on 30 June and delayed its sending, but it went out anyway the next day. By the time the Marines advanced on the north tip of the island, from 8—12 July, most of the damage had been done.[2][unreliable source?] Over 20,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle to take the offered privileged place in the afterlife, some jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff". In all, about 22,000 Japanese civilians died.
Battle of Saipan - Wikipedia

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To put it as objectively as possible, the Japanese expression of patriotism was difficult for western cultures to understand. In Europe, neither side was committing ritualized suicide instead of surrendering. Entire Allied brigades were not charging the Japanese lines with nothing but a sword in hand. It just wasn't part of western culture, and so it was quite shocking to the Allied troops. This wasn't going to change if an invasion of the Japanese homeland did occur. In fact, it would probably be much worse. While the Allied casualties may have been under 100,000 (maybe), the casualties on the Japanese side would have been horrendous. Why not? Japan attacked the US. To use a school yard truism, they started it. They refused to give up. The math was 100,000 US troops dead and millions of Japanese civilians dead or 100,000 Japanese dead and no US troops dead. They were a little off on their estimations of civilian deaths due to the bombings, but not that far off. The cold, hard math is really in favor of nuking their country.

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Incidentally, you realize that your wiki article is filled with 'unreliable source?' marks. I think my initial point was about the level of confidence we have in the 'greater good' type arguments and how we don't have it.

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The description in the Wiki article is on par with several other documentaries and accounts I have seen. Healthy skepticism is a good thing, but there are many independent accounts that relate the same story. Some reports may have 10,000 civilian casualties while others may have 20,000, but the fact remains that a lot of Japanese citizens committed suicide rather than surrender.

Why does it matter if a civilian dies from a bullet or from an atomic bomb? If Afghanis and Iraqis had conquered nearly the entire Pacific theatre and laid waste to our Pacific fleet you might have a point, but you don't. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets. Nagasaki was a vital sea port, not to mention the industry that produced ordinance and ships. Hiroshima was just as important. Every able bodied Japanese civlian was being trained to fend of an invasion. What do you think would happen? What did happen on other islands that the Allies invaded? Collateral damage occurs in every war, even with standard ordinance. The firestorm in Tokyo produced by Allied bombing killed 80,000 civilians in a single raid.

I ask this question because if we had not dropped the atomic bombs then just as many citizens, if not more, would have been killed by bullets and conventional bombs. Both the Iraqi and Afghani governments were overthrown in a matter of weeks. Their troops surrendered without much to-do. The total number of US and NATO troops killed over the last 10 years is on par with a week of fighting against the Japanese during WW II. The vast, vast majority of citizens in each country are not using suicide attacks against US and NATO troops. I guess I fail to see how the two are even comparable. If not for the atomic bombs, there would have been a long campaign of conventional bombing raids with just as many, if not more, civilian deaths. Add to that the thousands and thousands of Japanese civlians that would have been put on the front lines, probably without a firearm. It would seem to me that there were going to be hundreds of thousands of dead japanese civilians no matter what.

In the Middle East, suicide attacks are the exception, not the rule. During the island hopping crusade, suicide attacks were the rule, not the exception. That is the difference I see. Then we will have to agree to disagree. I think we have both made our cases.

The Japanese military were strong enough to take over most of the Pacific. I think that needs to be considered as well. In fact, at the start of the war it could have been argued that their military was better than the Allied forces.Also, there is a difference between murdering citizens and collateral damage from strategic bombing. I think the US was very sure, and I also think history has born that out.

If you are going to discount my arguments in such a flippant manner why do we need to continue this conversation?Was Nagasaki a vital seaport with major war industry? Yes. Please incorporate this fact into your arguments. See what you did here? You have blurred the line between war and murder without any inkling of what war is. If there was a ship factory that was bombed by Allied planes and a bike messenger was killed you would call it murder. You need to rethink your view of what war is. On Saipan, the Japanese were utterly defeated. What did they do? Charge Allied lines with nothing more than katanas, or jump to their deaths. There was no "edge of surrender" where conventional warfare was concerned. I think those quotes are clear examples of remorse that are divorced from logic.