neoplacebo wrote: Sun May 04, 2025 9:55 amVrede too wrote: Sun May 04, 2025 8:44 amHiroshima on August 6th, Nagasaki on the 9th. 80 years.
People make a strong case that Japan was on the verge of surrendering regardless of the atomic bombs and Truman knew it. We were firebombing their cities to ashes, anyhow. It's said that the decision to use the nukes was more about trying to scare the USSR into staying in line. That went well.
I remembered that one was August 6th, which was the first one. I've net read anything asserting the Japanese were on the vergw of surrender; I've read stuff over why Truman dropped the second bomb. The conventional reasoning was that doing dso would bring the war to a sooner end. I'm not sure I can go with that verge of surrender thing.....toward the end they were even more fanatical. I mean, they sure didn't start out with the kamikaze stuff. It was a desperate act. In that time, the Japanese sense of "honor" just didn't recognize surrender as an option.
Many Americans question the use of nukes:
70 years after Hiroshima, opinions have shifted on use of atomic bomb
The morality of use is debated:
We had options other than invasion.
... No nation could long resist destruction on such a scale—a conclusion formally reached by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey in its Summary Report (Pacific War): “Japan would have surrendered [by late 1945] even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war [on August 8], and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” ...
Was the Atomic Bomb Justified? A Controversial Debate
The Ethical Dilemma of the Atomic Bomb
There's lots more out there if one googles something like "Was the atomic bombing of japan justifiable?" It's an 80 year old debate and I'm not going to try and settle it here. I'm just saying that there's a credible alternative view out there and people will seize on different elements of the historical record to justify their side.
Personally, I oppose the deliberate or indifferent mass targeting of civilians, whether by firebomb, drone or nuke, and whether it's Japan, Dresden, Gaza or at the Gaza border on Oct 7, Ukraine, WTC, Haiphong, etc.