Nuclear attacks on Hiroshima - the biggest terrorist attack ever?

Question

Dont judge me for my opinion, but i wondered what everyone would think of this:

America bombed two cities in 1945 killing at least 140,000 people mostly civilians, at the time the japanese goverment was trying to end hostilities (covertly).

The bombs were completely unnessesary, because japan was ready to surrneder - this was even said by the Chief of Staff to President Trueman.

I would class this act as cowardly, and a terrosist act far, far worse than anything the muslim extremeists have thrown at us.

opinions welcome......

Pearl Harbour does not count as a reason - the deaths at pearl harbour were insignificant compared to the nuclear bombs!! plus they were mostly navy etc.

check your sources people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

getting some involved responces - and one pillock so far.

i think it would be really interesting to know the nationality of each answerer (wish id said that sooner)

also it would have been interesting knowing if the japanese would have surrendered if USA had simply threatened to use the bombs

Answer 1

Yes - What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was 'bang out of order' - no pun intended.

Pearl Harbor was at least a tactical military attack on a US military site. The US nukes however were dropped DIRECTLY on innocent civilians and someone ( or alot of people ) should have gone down for war crimes over that.

Another reason the US used their Nukes is because they had reached a stage in their development of arms where they just needed to test it in a real life situation. In doing so they advertised their military superiority to the whole world - a tragic statement that they were the NEW Big Boys.

It was terrorism and cowardice - absolutely! Anyone who tries to excuse it is just as much a coward. If we cannot protect the rights of innocent civilians from that sort of atrocity, we might as well just throw away the law book and open up the world to a free-for-all slaughter fest.

(My nationality: Canadian / English)

Answer 2

Others have covered many of the main points adequately, so I don't need to go over old ground.

Just a couple of points however.

A military general is charged not only with defeat of the enemy, he is also reponsible for the highest possible survival of his own troops. The Japanese did not surrender, and there was massive loss of life in close combat fighting....the Australians know all about that.

There was a also a religious dimension to the Japanese campaign, in the sense that the Emperor was regarded as a divine entity, and therefore, under the Shinto tradition, he was not permitted to surrender. That was also further complicated by the honour of Bushedo; the very reason why Japan could recruit not only suicide pilots, but suicide submariners also.

Surrender, to the Japanese military, was simply not possible, and each man would fight to the death....honour being everything in battle.

Faced with this, the "west" (not just the US) decided upon the A-bomb, because it was the ONE thing which could end hostilities and prevent enormous loss of life on the battlefields.

Finally, lest we forget, a great deal of input into the A-bomb came from England, and the Manhattan Project was a truly international effort, with Italian and Jewish know-how included.

It is pointless to look for moral justification, because war HAS no moral justification. One act of violence is much the same as another, and the size of the bang is not the important thing.

Answer 3

If you look more closely into the history books, and if you can get any information on the movement of troops at the end of July 1945, you would realise the talk of ending hostilities was primarily to throw the allies off long enough for the Japanese to re-take the Phillipennes while we were unprepared. Also without being given good reason to end hostilities it's unlikely the majority of the Japanese military would have stopped fighting until they were all dead, resulting in far more casualties.

I would also like to point out to you the number of people that died to Japanese hands building a railway through Burma, of playing the games to amuse Japanese soldiers such as Roulette. These numbers far exceeded 140,000 by a factor of almost 5. And these are just 2 of the many hundreds of war crimes the Japanese committed during the war.

Pacifism at a time like that can result in masses more casualties, its rarely ever a good thing.

Answer 4

An excellent question. It prompted me to further check out the history of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings

I personally find it incredible that not only one, but two, nuclear bombs were dropped on the two Japanese cities, 3 days apart in August ‘45. At the time, the Japanese were in a weakened position and surely another alternative to ending hostilities should have been sought. What on earth was going through the minds of the decision makers ???!!!! Here is an extract from The Pathology of Power, Norman Cousins

“However, at the time the atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese position was extremely weak and its defeat was considered inevitable even without the use of the atomic bombs. Further, many American military leaders opposed the bombings, including General MacArthur, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor”

How can some of you even consider comparing the Pearl Harbour attack to the bombings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki ??!!!
Sure, the Japanese cities had military significance, but killing tens of thousands of civilians in process as compared to several thousand mostly military personnel at Pearl Harbour, come on people!!

Answer 5

I'm sure that more Native Americans died.

But every western country has done their bit.

Germany...

The UK in India and Africa when they were being thrown out, that's around a 100thousand.

USA, the Native Americans, even with the Wilsonian doctrine in south America, that's got to be millions of people

Russia to the Chechen's and east Germany.

China, to its own people,

Turkey and its 3million dead

Hell, there are loads, and some very recent

Basically, the world looks pretty fucked up right now.

Answer 6

The japanese government was also trying to end hostilities by diplomatic efforts on Dec 7, 1941 when they launched a secret attack on pearl harbor. so they forfeited the right to be believed when they were using diplomacy.
when you are at war and it is a long and bitter war that you did not start, it is not terrorism to attack an enemy city to conquer the enemy and end the war. we were kind to them after that.

But when we attacked Baghdad without provocation as we did, that was an act of terrorism. we had no right or moral justification to do that. Bombing the empire of japan was a regrettable necessity to end a war, not start a war.

Answer 7

And German cities were firebombed right up to the end of the war by the English and the Americans even when Germany was severely weakened.
When you're fighting a war, that you did not start, and your very survival depends on winning that war, do you stop after only weakening your enemy?
Does a boxer in the ring stop throwing punches because the opponent got a bloody nose?
You can't compare WWII to modern day terrorism.

Answer 8

Pre ww2 Japan had a very respectful culture but on going to war with USA they turned unbelievably aggressive. The US marines were losing thousand by the day fighting in the islands of the pacific and as for what they did to the british POW's. It was beyond horrendous. It was war but dropping the bombs was a necessary action.

Answer 9

it is not the same as the terrorism that we are experiencing right now, there was a declaration of war and you cannot say that they are ready to surrender when if you look at your history book they are all attacking every u.s. naval forces in the pacific with the kamikaze pilots and they only stop because they realize that we are capable of annihilating all of them, the bomb we drop save more of american lives, not that it is right that we kill so many other civilians but this is a war against one country to another not the way this terrorist are doing it, they are killing people who are at work not supporting anything, at school not knowing anything about war, kid , people in the public transit, they just kill just because they want to get their ideas across.. whatever happen to media, united nations, letter writing. demonstrations, public discusions, etc.etc.

Answer 10

I'm Irish and asked a similiar question last week, don't bother, Americans are so far up there own arses that they don't even try to understand what somebody outside the country might think of them they are always right! But of course it was a war crime, it was as much a war crime as what the have Saddam in front of the cameras now. It not there only one, what about My Lai, look it up, they don't like to be reminded of that and what about Abu Graib, that was forgotten quickly but as long as its done in the name of freedom its all ok then, Americans can kill all manner of people with complete authority and have no come backs, well America better trust God, because they are going to hell and they are being led there by George 'I'm a war president' Bush