Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a cowardly act by the USA?

Question

They had to bomb innocent civilians(mass murder-terrorism) to win the war because conventionally they could not win militarily.

This is the UN definition of Terrorism:
“intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act"

Note :

War is defined as armed conflict. When two different military's attack each other, not when a country attacks innocent civilians.

Answer 1

Bombing civilians,Men ,Women and Children was wrong.It's America's biggest mistake.Nothing could justify that awful act.Had America lost the war Harry Truman would have been tried as the war criminal he was.It was a shameful act.

Answer 2

This question comes up a lot. It's an attempt to second guess a decision made in 1945 with 2006 knowledge and sensibilities. Early on World War 2 had degenerated into total war with whole cities being destroyed in an effort to take out their manufacturing capabilities. The number of people killed in Hiroshima was hot unique. Dresden and Tokyo were both fire bombed and easily lost nearly 100,000 in a night, if not more. The atomic bomb was new and its effects were not well understood. The US knew it was devastating and the hope was it would shock the Japanese into surrender.

Answer 3

The bombing of Japanese cities to end the conflict was a righteous call.

After several severe defeats the Japanese still refused to surrender. If you consider the fact that they're allegiance was to the emperor which, is no different than the fanatical terrorist allegiance to the Koran and that, they would rather die than quit. Along with medical experimentation they were performing on US, Asian and European POW's, and the overt torture to other cultures and the big one that Truman had to sort out: Possibly a million people would have died if we (the US) would have attacked the shores of Japan.

Maybe Iraq isn't working out that well or as intended but, drawing similarities about (mass murder-terrorism) and innocent civilians sounds like your ideological world needs to be grounded. Quit buying into your politicians rhetoric about how the war or the world is supposed to be, look at history and what really happens in war.

Answer 4

I wouldn't say cowardly, I'd say desperate.

During WW2 many innocent civilians lost their lives, not just in the death camps, but in London, Manchester, Sheffield, Coventry, Normandy, Warsaw, Desden, Berlin, St Petersburg, Malta, the Middle East, China, South-East Asia and on and on... Neither the victors, nor the defeated are blameless.

After the War had finished in Europe, it still continued in Japan. The USA was becoming bogged down in fighting the Japanese who were prepared to kill themselves in kamikaze attacks (much like Iraq today).

I believe the use of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of desperation on the part of the Americans. Whatever you think of it, and it was mass-murder, it resolved the War in Asia very quickly.

Answer 5

The thinking at the time was that the US Army and Marines would suffer massive casualties during the planned invasion of Japan.

It was believed (probably correctly) that the Japan Imperial Army & Japan Imperial Navy would use kamikaze tactics on a massive scale to resist an invasion. It was also believed (probably correctly) that the Japanese government would mobilize large numbers of civilians as kamikaze warriors.

I believe that the War Department anticipated as many as 1 million US casualties - so they decided to use nuclear weapons to force the Japanese to surrender.

Was it a war crime?

Well, according to the Geneva Convention ANY bombing of civilian areas by an air force is a war crime! It doesn't matter if the weapons used are conventional or nuclear. So, all of the large air raids on German, Italian and Japanese cities were war crimes (as were all of the raids on British, Russian, Polish, Dutch and Chinese cities by axis air forces)!

Answer 6

Hmm, as I understand it, the japanese knew quite early that they were losing (after all, they are not stupid), but in the style of their culture was morally obligated to fight to the last in order to protect their emperor who they thought the US would kill if they were victorious.

Though, my history teacher was one of those life-time hippies in Australia, so... ;) Back home, in Finland, though we maintained diplomatic relations with Japan throughout the wars, there hasn't really been any focus on the other conflicts, not involving Finland.

Also, it seems to me that the use of the bomb was planned in advance, as Nagasaki and Hiroshima were untouched by bombs to maximize the impact when they actually did bomb them. And besides- they had to use the bomb, they felt, to show their strength to the USSR who was poised to perhaps swallow up the rest of Europe.

Answer 7

Actions always look different in history. Don't know about cowardly action, but a lot can be learned by the past if we will put politics aside from decisions that effect the world.

Answer 8

Yeah they could have won it militariliy, it is just that the japanese would kill their own civilians instead of letting them be captured by the US, as demonstrated in the battles of the Pacific. If anything, the US saved lives

Answer 9

We gave them a warning that we were going to drop the bomb and to get out and they didn't but I don't remember them giving us a warning when they bombed Pearl Harbor and killed people at peace

Answer 10

Yes, Definitely!