Was it right to drop the atom bombs on Japan in WW2 ?

Answer 1

Is it ever "right?" Unfortunately, there are so many conflicts over what is "right." It's often folks on the "right" who feel they have the "right." They often maintain that they're on the side of "right," or on the "right" side. But, that doesn't mean that the "right" folks are in charge, like when the folks on the "right" take charge. But, without "right," what's "left?" Then what's "left" can be "right" and what's "right" can be wrong.

Ah, I've been in the right place, but I must have made a wrong turn...

Answer 2

Dropping the Atomic bomb on Japan surely had less to do with war in the East than in the West. With the war won, the largely volunteer forces of the Western allies would naturally have sought demobilisation which in turn would have left huge conscripted Soviet forces in being and unchallenged east of the Oder/Neisse line. At the time, the Atomic Bomb was thus seen as the only viable deterrent to a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe..."Today, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tomorrow if necessary, Moscow or Leningrad".
At the same time, the A-bomb effectively ended hostilities in the Pacific.
I am not suggesting that this strategy was right or morally justifiable, merely that such an interpretation is worthy of consideration.

Answer 3

In theory, not for a country like the United States that obeys conventions of war. According to these rules, attacks should be on military targets but the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki targetted whole cities indiscriminately, including civilians. Incidentally, the same consideration applies to area bombing of Germany in the Second World War and to fire raids using conventional bombs on Japan, particularly Tokyo, that actually killed more people in single raids than the atomic bombs

However, as has been pointed out rightly and in detail by previous respondents:-
1. Japan behaved appallingly before and during the Second World War towards civilians as well as by flouting the military conventions of war. We think about Allied prisoners of war, but the Japanese also committed major attrocities against the Chinese (e.g. the Rape of Nanking). In consequence, they could hardly complain at the United States use of nuclear weapons.
2. An invasion of Japan was expected to cost millions of lives, both of Allied forces and of the Japanese defenders, including civilians. This argument is complicated, however, because it is not clear that the Allies needed to invade. The Japanese relied on sea transport for food, and this had collapsed. It is arguable that by selective conventional bombing, the Japanese economy could have been so completely destroyed that Japan would have had to surrender. However, this would have entailed the starvation of far more Japanese civilians than were killed by the atomic bombs.
On balance, if you accept these arguments, use of the atomic bombs was probably justifiable on practical grounds: Japan had long since forfeited its moral rights.

There are theories that the atomic bombs were dropped as a warning to the Soviet Union, rather than to defeat Japan. If this is so, the use of these weapons is much more morally dubious. Also, you might think that dropping the atomic bombs was imprudent because it took away any moral argument against their development by Stalin.

I have based this answer upon the presupposition that you believe there are occasions when it is morally right to use force. From a pacifist position there is an obvious and simple answer of NO.

Answer 4

Operation Olympic's forcasted casualties was aprx. 1 million American and 2-4 million Japanese dead. The Japanese government had issued a decree to the population that if the Americans invaded, they should all Bonzai charge the Americans with sharpened bamboo spears. Rather then at least 3 million people dying, aprx. 300,000 did. Dropping the bomb saved lives and ended a war that could have dragged on for years more. The war was far from over, dropping the bombs was possibly the best manuever we could have made at the time. And we needed to drop the second one because the Japanese believed we could not possilby have any more weapons of such power, but by dropping the second one we showed them that if the war continued on this is the weapon they would face, against which they had no defense and no possibility on victory. We saved lives by dropping the bombs, and it was the right thing to do.

Answer 5

Yes. It ended a bloody and brutal war which the Japanese started, and during which they had acted with the most unimaginable cruelty to both captured soldiers and civilians alike throughout Asia and the Pac Rim.

If the war had continued, which the Japanese were commited to do, and an invasion of mainland Japan had been required, then the casualties would have run into at least 2 million, allied soldiers and civilans alike.

In terms of the devastation caused by the bombs themselves the casualty rate, although horrific was no worse than those inflicted on all sides by conventional bombing. The only difference was that in these two instances it only took one plane and one bomb per raid.

Strip away the emotion and slogan shouting.

Answer 6

It's true we lost the moral high ground after use of the nukes on Japan, but looking at what Truman faced in 1945, i probably would've done the same thing. To compare the moral depravity of state sponsored genocide where the death ovens at Aushwitz/Birkenau were topping out at 2,600 per day or 80,000 killed per month and the aerial bombardment of civilians is looking at different scales.

The "Final Solution" was the policy of only one country during the last century, and it wasn't the U.S. My beef is with the multi-national business cartels that allowed it to happen, the top being IG Farben (now BASF, Bayer, among others).

Not only did they finance Adolf, they supplied him with Zyclon B for use in the death camps. The American side of the company was not tried at Nuremburg, although they were just as culpable, go figure.

The fire bombing of Dresden by the 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, caused the destruction of 15 square kms including 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, etc. with a conservative estimate of around 30,000 civilians killed. At the time, the Germans used it as propaganda to advocate against following the Geneva conventions and to attack people's perception of the Allies claim to absolute moral superiority. The military claimed the railroad center was a military target, which it was, altho it was up and running a week later. Feb 1945 was only 3 months away from May 1945 (end of the Euopean war), the outcome of the war was not in doubt, so why bomb a 'cultural' medieval city of 600,000?

The firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, genocide should also include civilian victims of aerial bombardment. Even after saying this, i still don't think the Allies were close to the moral depravity of the Nazis and their wholesale holocaust of the Euopean Jews not to mention the 'rape' of Nanking and the Japanese atrocities too numerous to mention.

Answer 7

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

The bombs were needed to bring the war the a quick end. Even after the bombings, there was an element with the Japanese army that wanted to continue fighting and attempted coup against the emporer to prevent the surrender. Had it come to conventional invasion, just look at the taking of Saipan, a very small island (pop was about 35,000 at the time). 16500 Americans killed or wounded, 25000 Japanese military killed. Not to mention the mass suicides of civilian men, women and childern in order to avoid capture. And before you still think it would have been too much you should read up on Harbin or the Rape of Nanking. A lot more than 220,000 thousand died as a result of that. You can still find images of Japanese soldiers parading the streets of Nanking with dead babies impailed on their bayonetts. So, no, it wasn't too much.

Answer 8

yes. And the war was not over when the bombs were dropped. Japan did not surrender when Germany did. They did surrender after the first bomb was dropped, but their response was missinterpreted. To not drop the bombs meant that allied forces would have to invade Japans mainland with infantry. Which many scholars believe would have killed just as many Japanese. However, the number of allied deaths would have been about the same. They actually saved lives by not invading and dropping the bombs instead.

Answer 9

From what i have read an that Japan was not going to surrender, i believe the bomb save more lives than it cost in the short term. The long term damage to the area!
Had it not been dropped i feel someone would have wanted to see what would happen so it woul have been dropped on Korea or Vietnam later.
overall it was right at the time.

Answer 10

until now answering this question we ought to constantly comprehend the certainty of that war consultation.the dropping the atom bomb is handed off due the technical default together with verbal substitute concern on that factor.jap and American are taking with regard to the war by way of a pair warm controversy jap at the instant are not happy with the yank, so the jap start up the war from the war aeroplanes, after it sluggish as quickly as returned the war stop talks ensue between the two international locations and the the two international locations had happy, so the jap deliver the information to their troop yet regrettably the information s at the instant are not conveyed interior the final time, so the jap start to drop the bomb and start to shout,so this makes the people to drop the atom bombs after this. even however technical default writes the jap fade, dropping the atom bomb by potential of the people is the final comments by potential of mentally. in view that jap is familiar with the mess ups of atom bomb, good now they're removed from the nuclear invasions after occupies the main marketplace of the universe.

Answer 11

There are those who answer this question with an emphatic NO and those who say YES with a caveat.
The YES answer has to be supported by a reason which goes something like this:
'Yeah, the Japs were bad gooks and did nasty things to people so we punished them by slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people' This is the kind of neanderthal logic that since the Stone Age has kept the human race enslaved to a degenerative loop of genocide.
The Pope is bad, kill him. The Korean PM is bad, kill him. Napoleon was bad, kill the bastard. Stalin was bad, kill him. Chairman Mao was bad, kill him. Henry VIII was a fat slob and women killer, kill him. Shakespeare was a cheat, cut off his hands. Pol Pot was an ugly cretin, wipe out his people. Hitler hated the Jews, oh really? - but we'll kill him anyway because he's got too big and arrogant. Bush and the big military corporate empire has got too big and arrogant - kill him. PM Anders Fogh RASMUSSEN, President Robert MUGABE, President Georgi PURVANOV, President Jacques CHIRAC, President Giorgio NAPOLITANO, President Mohammed Hosni MUBARAK, President Vaira VIKE-FREIBERGA, President Nambaryn ENKHBAYAR- kill them all, together with a good swathe of the populace under their care just to make sure that the advance of evil is kept in check! Who knows they may have planned to commit treacherous crimes against women and children by sending soldiers to kill on their behalf because of their 'faith' or their 'country'.
Infact, why not bomb the whole world and get rid of evil that exists in every heart, so that you who justify killing your neighbour can have the whole world to yourself - you perfect little stone-age neanderthal.

Was it right to drop bombs? The answer is: is it right to calll yourself homo sapien?

The fact that these bombs exist is an indictment against the human race and the fact that very serious intellectuals across the world endorse their potential use suggests that homo sapien, despite its ostensible sophistry and surplus of wanking knowledge, has not progressed one little step beyond the stone age. And I'm being generous here.

No, until Jesus is in government, the historical cycle of salvatory violence is a self-fulfilling prophecy about futility that at the end when we have eventually achieved the goal of mass suicide, either by global warming or by a nuclear ecological chain, the gnashing of teeth will be the terrible payment for denial of the truth.