please keep an open mind, was the nuclear attack on hiroshima and nagasaki an act of terrorism? the pearl.....

Question

harbot attack was strictly on a military installation but the nuclear attack was on civilians

Answer 1

When Pear Harbor was attacked , the President of the United States declared war on Japan for what they did at Pearl Harbor. War is war and each country who is at war, aims to win. Terrible tragedy where so many innocent civilians died and was tormented from burns and melting of their skin. The Surrender came and thus the war was over. Japan did many cruel , torturous things on the American, British, and other countries soldiers. They were cruel to the prisoners, and torture was horrible. So I guess when a country like Japan did what they did, they should have considered the pay back. Pay back is a Mother and they found that out. Pearl Harbor was not only Military. Many civilians and Military families lived there. So they did not only bomb on a Military base. It was civilians there too.

Answer 2

Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were huge military industrial sites. Most of the population was either directly employed in factories making military hardware, or in a job that supported that effort. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a high concentration of troops, military facilities and military factories that had not yet been subject to significant damage unlike other Japanese cities.

After the bombing of Hiroshima Japan did not surrender, so they bombed Nagasaki, then Japan surrendered.

I am quite sure that the attacks were terrifying. However I would not say that they were an act of terrorism in that it was an attack on military targets that just so happened to kill civilians during the course of the destruction of the military targets. This idea seems barbaric by todays standards, but it was how they did business during WW2 due to the fact that they did not possess the technological advances we have today. There were no pinpoint laser or GPS guided bombs, and you simply had to firebomb a whole area to get rid of a factory.

Whatever you want to say about it, those attacks ended WW2, and Japan had not surrendered and did not give any indication of surrender until after those attacks.

They infact were attempting to mobilize their civilian population to fight Allied forces should they have landed.

Allied casualties were expected to be 1 million+ and if there had been some type of amphibious landing on the home islands of Japan it was expected that a huge number of the civilian population would have been killed.

I know it seems like it cant be true but those bombs actually saved the lives of countless Japanese as well as Allied troops.

Answer 3

The Japanese military and civilian population were both somewhat fanatical and would have fought to the death in a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland. You have to remember that these were the same people who would commit suicide rather than surrender and flew kamikaze attacks on our ships. The nuclear bombs saved countless lives on both sides by ending the war immediately.
Besides, we did not yet fully understand the effects of the radiation and fallout from nuclear weapons at that time.
Also, the attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were at a time of war.

Answer 4

It was the strategically correct thing to do, and, in the long run, saved lives. The Japanese understood conventional weapons, they had no fear of them. In January of '45 we tried a conventional firebombing of Tokyo similar to what we did to Dresden, more people died there than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The Japanese high command didn't even blink. It was the realization that they were faced with weapons totaly outside their comprehension that could result in the extermination of the Japanese people and end of the Japanese Culture that finally forced capitulation. What many people don't understand is that you can't make war on an army, you make it on the nation as a whole, the purpose of war is to destroy the ability and or will of the enemy to continue the conflict. These attacks were part of a declared war and pursuant to it's successfull conclusion. As to the question of the people being civilians, is it your contention that the Japanese did not attack civilians anywhere in Asia during WW2? History makes it clear that war is one of the ugliest and most tragic of all human endeavors, and that there will always be terrible cruelty on both sides.

Answer 5

No. It was a very difficult decision for President Truman to make but given the circumstances he felt no choice. It was estimated that it would cost more than a million troops to take Japan. No President could make a decision to commit that many men to possible death when we had the means of ending it with no loss of our troops. However, we were not sure of just how effective the bomb would be since it had never been used except in testing. We did bomb civilian populations because those two cities were industrial centers & the Japanese were all trained to fight to the last person standing. This was not terrorism, this was a declared war. When the pictures were shown of how devastating the bombs were, the American people were appalled! One of the main reasons we are so reluctant to use that power again.

Answer 6

Read your history about the Japanese treatment of civilians in the lands they conquered like China, and Indo China prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor!!!! Not only did Imperial Japan pull America into the war, but they also established the rules of war long before we were combatants. Anyone who believes the attacks on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were inhumane, have no understanding of the war or what was going on at the time. Also, Japan was given ample warning before the attacks, a consideration they never bestowed on any of their victims!!!!!!

Answer 7

This kind of speculation make's me MAD.Yes MAD.You didn't live thru a concentration camp of the Jap's where they worked the men to death on little or no food.The death march of Batann where they walked the prisoner's till they fell from exhaustion hunger and heat where they executed them with no mercy.The Japanese would have fought to the last man woman and child.they had been taught that we were monster's and they commited suicide,women and children, by jumping off of cliff's as the American troop's approached.The terror attack's the pilot's took against the allied ship's .The Japs were in a habit of attacking Chinese civilian's by air and killing defenseless civilians.So terrorism NO.

Answer 8

Simple one American is worth more than 50 imperialist Japanese, and we were trying to end the war if you new anything about the way the old Japan was then you new that they would rather kill themselves then be caught or be killed fighting. We did not through the first punch they did remember Pearl Harbor. Remember them capturing American in Alaska and putting them into slavery, sending some back to the main land Japan. We wanted them to stop and they wouldn't so we just encouraged them to stop by shocking them with how much damage we could inflict on there country. It was not terrorism it was saving our lives. So that we may have the life we have now. Posting this kind of question is like pissing on the graves of those who have fought and died in that war.

Answer 9

NO! This was a military campaign,not an act by radicals.This attack saved many more people on BOTH sides.The Japanese were entrenched and ready to fight to the very last person,civilians included.The bombing forced the Japanese to surrender almost immediately thus ending the war.Also don't forget the Japanese were working on an atomic bomb of their own and I doubt they would hesitated to use it on us.

Answer 10

But what about the bombings during World War II on cities then. I mean the atomic bombs was just devastating to many innocent civillians. But it ended a war that could of killed much more. Interesting answer though.