Where we justified in using the bomb on Hiroshima?

Question

My vote is yes. By using the bomb we saved American lives and most likely japanese.

Answer 1

Yes, War is hell, and yet we showed mercy by killing a couple hundred thousand vice millions by most estimates. That is the whole point in stopping Iran from getting nuclear, they no longer can kill thousands but millions.

Answer 2

The short answer is yes. The US had three options available at the time of the Potsdam Conference. a) Invade Japan. This would have cost at least 300,000 American lives and in excess of 3,000,000 Japanese lives. It was the first choice. b) Blockade Japan and starve them out. This would have taken several more years of war, and cost several million Japanese lives. It was deemed to be to time consuming and expensive. c) Drop the two bombs available and try to bluff the Japanese into surrendering by claiming there were more on the way (there weren't before 1946). This cost something in excess of 200,000 Japanese lives and no American lives. If it had not worked option "a" was still on the table. Side note: Truman advised Stalin of the bomb at the Potsdam Conference. Stalin already knew as much about it as Truman because the Soviet Union had spies inside the Manhattan Project. The Soviet Union took advantage of the fact that the Americans were about to bring the Pacific War to an abrupt end by invading Japanese occupied Manchuria as soon as the first bomb was dropped. This had almost as much impact as the bombs did in splitting the councils advise on whether to continue fighting or not after Nagasaki was bombed. It can be argued that the Soviet intervention would have worked at knocking the Japanese off the dime just as well as the bombs did. However, without the bombs, it would have been months before the Soviets got around to invading to get a share of the spoils in the Pacific, and the US would have been forced to go with plan "a" on their own.

Answer 3

20/20 hindsight being what it is, no.

The common belief is that our choices were invade and lose a million lives, or use the A-bomb. In fact, there was a third choice.

The Japanese were already sueing for peace. They just didn't want to capitulate to "unconditional surrender."

If saving lives was the goal, negotiating peace at the end would have been the way to go. Certainly a demo of the bomb to a Japanese delegation on some remote island somewhere would have been helpful to negotiating that peace.

Answer 4

The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 200,000 people.

The US Military estimated that directly invading Japan could cost upwards of 1 million us casualties--and take 6 months.

Even if the estimate by the US military was off by a factor of ten you would have to believe that EVERY single Japanese City would have been utterly destroyed by bombings and shelling.

The USA did the Japanese and themselves a big favor by using the bombs.

Answer 5

If we hadn't used the firecrackers that were Fat Man and Little Boy during the '40s, and really SEEN what kind of damage they caused, we would have used the ones we have now which are 1000 times more powerful, and the devastation would have caused way more grief than it would have been worth.

Besides, the war would have lasted longer and cost more lives on both sides.

On top of that, Japan attacked us. Were we not to retaliate? They, and the rest of the world, learned not to mess with the U.S. That was back during a time when we were allowed to finish wars instead of either leaving them unfinished or calling them "police actions and only half-fighting them when we're in them.

Answer 6

No. My grandmother was there when it was bombed. She has medical problems now that doctors here have no idea what to do with and she has to fly to Japan twice a year to get treated. I've done a report at school and used her as a witness and the way she described the horror she saw, the damage it caused... you can't justify that.

Answer 7

Yes, we saved many Japanese lives. It was well known they had committed themselves to that war till death even if it meant every person in the country. We saved tons of lives on both sides.
I vote for leveling the mountains in Pakistan and Aghanistan and finishing this current bit of business.

Answer 8

Yes. Interesting you bring this up. I have been reading about Harry S. Truman, and the similarities between he and Bush are astounding. He was never really respected and had an approval rating at around 20% when he left office and now he is considered one of the great presidents by many. Sometimes time has to pass by before you can really see the outcome of a president's policies and decisions.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

Yes, the Japanese were exploring with atom. They'd have used it on us if we didn't at first. It helped saved many lives in the long run.