Should US apologize to the japanese people for dropping atomic bombs on civilians?

Question

214,000 people died as a result of bombing two cities, hiroshima and nagasaki.this included innocent japanese civilians, Korean Prisoners of war, japanese Americans who were studying there prior to the outbreak of the war and then could not leave, and allied POWs in prisons.

Answer 1

Yeah... the war was pretty much ending already when we dropped the bombs. Japan was on the verge of surrendering but we dropped the bombs anyway. There are alot of things the US should apologize for.

Answer 2

The death toll from Allied firebombing raids on other cities was far greater than those killed by nuclear weapons. The Japanese executed that many Civillians and Allied POWs in Manilla alone. The death toll of executed civllians in China might be much higher.

Targeting of civillians started when the Brits accidentally bombed a residential section in Germany. The Germans retaliated with the same. After that civllians became a normal target for bombing raids by all sides in the war. Japan had plans for raids on Honolulu and San Francisco so they'd bombed US cities if they could have.

So no, I don't think we should apologize. The use of nuclear weapons saved the Japanese as a people I feel. Preserved much of their culture. Had we been forced to carry out an invasion of Japan then few Japanese males above the age of 12 would have been left alive at war's end. The Japanese fought with amazing tenacity. The Allies with Germany out of the war would have invaded with millions of soldiers. Air raids on Japanese cities and strongholds alone would have killed millions of Japanese. Civillian casualties would have been high and it is highly possible that some Japanese young women would have taken up arms before the invasion was finished. Many Japanese would have committed ritual suicide rather than submit in the end. Japan would have been finished as a nation, as a culture and as a people. There would be too few to carry on the traditions. Too many people from elsewhere flocking to Japan to fill the shoes of the dead. The archtecture of the nation would have been left in ruins.

So in the end dropping the nukes was the right thing, though I do feel we should have dropped the first one on a military institution just to show we had them and the devestating potential, then dropped the second on a city. I feel this would have been just as effective as bombing two cities.

Answer 3

Research Operation Overlord, the name for the invasion of Japan. Estimated causalities for the Allied forces were 4-5 million (dead and Wounded) and anywhere from 10-20 million Japanese casualties. Japanese figures were as high a our estimates. And to those that say the Japanese weer about to surrender. Even after the A Bombs were dropped some Japanese Army units took the Empire hostage in an effort to stop him from issuing the surrender message. Without the A Bomb which the Empire felt they could not fight, they had every intention of fighting on. Look at the Causalities on Okinawa. In three months American causalities were 15 thousand dead and three times that wounded. Japanese somewhere over a hundred thousand killed. If you would research things before you rant about them you would not look so stupid. Or would you rather have 20 times the dead because you hate the weapon?

Answer 4

YES!!
OK, Japan did start the war AND they did many terrible things during that time as well. (They should apologize to China and Korea and other Asian nations for what they did to them, although according to many of my Japanese friends Japan already did apologize many times...) However, dropping a weapon that we (the US) had no idea about how strong and powerful it was and how much damage it would do is inexcusable. Did it save Japanese and/or American lives in the end? Very possibly, but that's still no excuse for using such a weapon. I hope and pray that it is never used again. PLUS there was no excuse to drop a 2nd bomb on Nagasaki. Yes, the Japanese didn't surrender after Hiroshima, but if you know anything about Japanese culture even the smallest decision goes through long processes that take a lot of time, so a big decision like giving up would take a really long time. They should have waited much longer - like a few weeks or months.

Answer 5

No... Japan initiated the war... They attack the US on our own soil.

It is war... there is no apologizing... the only reason we won was because we were merciless... It is unfortunate thing to say, but they would have done the same thing...

If you watch a lot of the documentaries on the pacific war you will see that Japan was just as ruthless and very brutal... If they had the technology they would have done the same thing....

They would torch a lot of the local islanders... killing lots of woman and children...

"What was never examined at the War Crimes Trials in Tokyo were the actions of Unit 731 in China. Using biological, chemical and thermal tests on Chinese and Allied prisoners, they dropped bubonic plague on Chinese cities, froze naked Soviet prisoners in refrigerators, and experimented with anthrax, mustard and phosgene gas on POWs. Very little about unit 731 was known until the 1970's. The Tribunal does investigate the forced sexual slavery of hundreds of thousands of Korean, Chinese, Dutch and Filipino women. No compensation, or even a statement of apology, is given."

Answer 6

As soon as the Japanese apoligize for the bombing of innocent civilians in China, the executions of allied and civilian POWs, the poor conditions in the camps, the torture and murder of captured airmen, the Rape of Nanking, the invasion and brutal occupation of the Phillipines (there was no sectarian violence, so dont even think of relating that to Iraq you hippie pricks), the underhanded peace accords with American Govt. (which ended when Pearl Harbor was attacked), the Bataan Death March, the list goes on. So if you want to complain about two bombs dropped on the Japanese to finally end that bloody war and the Militaristic Empire that brought us into it, then remember the brutality that the Japanese military inflicted on civilians and allied soldiers alike. The soldiers and civilians they murdered behind the lines and in those camps, outnumber the Japanese that were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Answer 7

Answer me this. Will Japan apologize for the atrocities the it did during WWII? The use of POW's and captured civilians as slave labor, the intentional execution of said people by starvation, and be headings? The use of POW's for "medical" research learning the effects of biological weapons? What about the reparations to the families of the murdered POW's and civilians in the Asian countries? NO the U.S. shouldn't apologize for it's past in dealing with a hostile nation. We should be proud we are Americans and never apologize for the defense of our country.

Answer 8

As absolutely horrible as it was and I hope it never happens again, it occurred during war. I do not think the US should apologize.

That doesnt mean not to show remorse or concern. It means no formal apology.

Side note: Many historians agree that a US invasion of Japan would have been even costlier in terms of human lives.

TO ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE SAYING "WHY DROP TWO BOMBS?" please reread your history. First off, the US warned Japan quite clearly that the US was going to launch a major attack against Japan. Remember, this was when Japan had been forced out of the Pacific Islands. They were very much on their heels. Japan remained defiant.

After the first bomb was dropped, the US demanded Japan surrender. Again, Japan remained defiant even in the wake of the nuclear attack. So a few days later, the second bomb was dropped.

No one here can imagine what it was like to live through WW2. The sooner that war ended, the better.

Answer 9

NO. Japan brought the US into the war by attacking us first. You reap what you sow. As a matter of fact I think the same should be used against Arab nations harboring terrorists. The fact is that war is hell and the only way to keep it from coming to your own doorstep is to make the cost to the other side so high that the thought of attacking us would be unfathomible. I do not hate Arabs or Muslims but I do not think they control their own kind and they allow the zealots to exist. War is terrible but in the end it is our survival or theirs. I do think this is a war that can be won but only when the other side decides the cost is to high to continue.

Answer 10

Yes but only after Japan apologizes for the rape of Nanking, Bataan death march, Manila massacres, Hell ships, biological warfare experiments.

Answer 11

the bombing of Japan actually saved lives because the mentality of the Japanese people at that time was that they would fight to the last person.. this included women and children. had we not used nuclear weapons on them the death toll would have been many times the number of people that died in the attack(s).