Was the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan Justified?

My view is that if the defence for murdering hundreds of thousands of people is that it was for the greater good, the evidence supporting that assertion needs to be cast iron. As far as I can tell, the evidence might support the notion, but not sufficiently to justify the action. I am cautious that the impression sometimes painted of the Japanese as being suicidally loyal to the bitter end, man woman and child is a dehumanising one. Yes, there were men who were willing to die for their country, but this is true for all sides in the war, even if the Japanese expression of this willingness was reputedly more direct.If we don't demand this absolute certainty we could easily find ourselves justifying the deployment of nuclear weapons in countries where we fear a lengthy guerrilla war with the citizens, many of whom are thought to be fanatical killers who will kill themselves to take out the enemy. Much like some of the very wars that are being carried out today. Indeed.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

As I said, there were people prepared to die for their country on both sides, and that the Japanese's expression of this may be more direct.Further, regardless of the accuracy of the painting, I am cautious of it's dehumanising impact. Even if every man woman and child was prepared to kill and die, it doesn't render them less than human, but the picture might help people think of them as less than human - a common and easy state of mind to slip into. Surely the impression does not, for instance, extend to babies? I suspect that at least some German pilots and infantry died performing an act they knew was as good as suicide but would help achieve the goals of their nation.Facing suicidal troops is not sufficient justification for nuking the country they live in.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. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I understand all of this, but I haven't seen an argument that justifies murdering civilians on a massive scale. As I said, I need more than, 'they might have fought relentlessly and more of them might have ended up died if we didn't press ahead immediately'. My position is that we should have something more concrete than that. If it were, that same justification would have us nuking Afghanistan and Iraq. If you don't think that's a problem, fair enough, but I do. When a military makes a military strike against a military target, the appropriate response doesn't seem to be to murder hundreds of thousands of civillians. If Japan had dropped a nuke on New York - then your 'they started it' line would have more merit. And I've yet to see this math, supporting to a degree that would sufficiently justify murdering as many people as they did. But that doesn't justify murdering other citizens, right?

It doesn't. Which is why I didn't say it does. Why would you even ask this question? Your response is nonsensical. I was answering your question as to why 'Facing suicidal troops is not sufficient justification for nuking the country they live in.'. It seems you now agree that it isn't, and you want to say that conquering a certain amount of territory is an important factor. Even if that were true, it doesn't seem to address what I said. What does it matter what I think would happen? We know what would happen if the bombs were dropped: huge civilian deaths. I am just saying the justification for doing that had better be cast iron, and I don't think it was. If you want to persuade me otherwise, you are free to do so. And I condemn the firebombing of Dresden, the blitz on London and the above mentioned attacks on Tokyo.

No.If you want to understand my position, I wrote it down in Message 49

So goes the 'greater good' claim. My original point was that the evidence to support this claim was not sufficiently strong to guarantee the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Then read what I wrote again. I said that suicidal combatants was not sufficient reason to use nuclear weapons. You asked why not. I answered. I did not say that the Pacific Theatre in WWII was otherwise comparable to the Middle Eastern conflict of the present day. You are hoping I'm saying they are otherwise comparable because that would be a crazy position that would be easily rebutted. I am aware of the 'greater good' argument. I'm just saying that the evidence I have seen justifying it is insufficient. I think I said that in my first post even.

No. Do you always think that a person will radically change their opinions on biology when someone has a differing opinion than yours with regards to military strategy and morality while also conceding that it is an 'unstudied view'? I haven't ignore it once, so your characterisation that I am continuing to ignore it is fallacious. And this justifies murdering other families?

My entire argument is that there need to be absolutely solid evidence beyond any shadow of doubt that dropping the bombs was for the greater good, before it could be a moral act to drop them...and that such evidence wasn't in existence.Does that not make sense somehow? Do you think we should commit mass murder based on fear rather than reason? Maybe we did have evidence beyond any shadow of doubt, but dronester is putting forward a good case that there was significant shadows of doubts.

From the wiki link:

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Because the U.S. military planners assumed "that operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population",[10] high casualties were thought to be inevitable, but nobody knew with certainty how high. Several people made estimates, but they varied widely in numbers, assumptions, and purposeswhich included advocating for and against the invasion.

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Wherever I look, there seems to be a large swathe of doubt, uncertain assumptions and so on. My position is that before dropping atomic bombs on heavily populated areas, we should be sure - not just afraid - of higher casualties via the alternatives. Alternatives, I believe, included waiting for the Soviets to make their move.Unless we were trying to set up a cold war with the Soviets...Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I'm not ignoring it. I am just suggesting that there were resonable doubts about Japan's continuation of the war, the casualties that would result from waiting or continuing a standard bombing and the loss of life resulting from strategic nuclear attack.And that, in the face of such doubts, it's better to think first drop nukes later. I have no clue. I'm just saying that before killing hundreds of thousands of people whether through invasion or via strategic nuclear bombs, one had better be fucking sure one knows what one is doing. And it appears that the USA wasn't completely sure.

Yep, there are differences. more than just that. But suicidally aggressive enemy forces is not, on its own, sufficient grounds to murder hundreds of thousands of civillians in my view. I didn't make a case! Dronester seems to be the only one making a case, I just gave him my view because he asked for it.Do you disagree with my central point that we had best be very sure that dropping the bombs would result in a net saving of lives before we do it?

Then perhaps there is never a time when using strategic nuclear deployments on cities is ever justified, in my opinion. If that is the case, then my view is in error. Perhaps you can address the case for doubt made by dronester in Message 47? I'm sorry, I haven't a clue.

I agree. Only in name. Strategic bombing in WWII is basically another term for indiscriminately bombing areas with the intent of killing the opponents workforce, factories and other citizens for the purposes of lowering national morale, capacity and will to make war aka intentionally and with malice aforethought, killing citizens.If you're going to do that, my opinion is that you need to be very sure it is the right thing to do.If, for instance, the nation is teetering on the edge of surrender and are just looking for a suitable exit strategy, that might not be the time for strategic nuking, unless you want to send a message to other potential enemies. What do you make of the quotes that dronester posted that seem to indicate that some big names were not sure at all? And feeling sure and being sure might be different things, no?

When discussing the moral path to take, you must account for all possibilities. It is not a dichotomy. So sure, one might conclude that an invasion might have been worse for civilians than two nuclear bombs dropping on them, but if doing neither results in less lives lost and the goal of Japanese surrender - it seems a pertinent point in a moral discussion as to what course of action the US should have taken.We could argue all day about whether shooting someone in the gut is justified because it is better than shooting them in the face, but when an alternative option of 'shoot them in the leg' exists which has the same end result - doing one of the other two might seem morally questionable.

Flippant? Are you suggesting that my definition of strategic bombing is in error?

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Strategic bombing in WWII is basically another term for indiscriminately bombing areas with the intent of killing the opponents workforce, factories and other citizens for the purposes of lowering national morale, capacity and will to make war aka intentionally and with malice aforethought, killing citizens.

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wiki:

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Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...
One of the aims of war is to demoralise the enemy, so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing the conflict. Strategic bombing has been used to this end. The phrase "terror bombing" entered the English lexicon towards the end of World War II and many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids have been described as terror bombing by commentators and historians

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I consider deliberately targetting civillians to be murder. When civillians are accidentally killed as part of targetting military assets we might call that 'collateral damage'. And war creates one hell of a blurry line, right? No I wouldn't. That would not be indiscriminate, and it wouldn't have been done with the intention of killing civillians, but rather to destroy a factory. Of course, if 5 square miles of land was carpet bombed just to make sure the factory was hit, and a sizeable portion of workforce was killed or demoralised - that would be closer to murder. And yet the Japanese surrendered without committing mass suicide within days. I see.