Was it Wrong to Drop the Atom Bomb on Japan?

[Colonel]

A conditional surrender is one thing but what would have happened next ? Japan could have ended up being a wasp's nest of religious cultism that would easily rupture into more violence towards neighbors. The atomic bombs and the unconditional surrender coupled with demilitarization promoted a thorough process to unravel this religious cultism, much like happened in Germany after Hitler was gone. We should remember that the atomic bombs functioned as a scare tactic, the damage was limited in terms of lives expended and geographically, compared to what a full scale campaign would have produced.

[njtom]

No, it's a matter of misplaced emphasis. I literally have never, ONCE, EVER, heard any progressive speak as if Japan had any evil intent. Again, we are talking about misplaced emphasis.

Knowing how badly the war scarred my grandfather and the fact that he witnessed unspeakable horrors wrought by Japanese suicide bombers, NO DIFFERENT THAN IS OR AL QUEDA, it sickens me to no end to hear revisionist tales, making the US the bad guy. Hey, guess what Tom? Maybe if Japan hadn't bombed pearl harbor in the first place, or slaughtered millions of Chinese civilians, fate would not have been so cruel.

Yes, but remember that the original post of this thread raised the question of the morality of a particular action: the atomic bombing of two civilian populations in Japan. The original post did not raise the question of the morality of the Japanese government and army (as there would not be any debate on the question).

[Nikos]

Tell that to the families & loved ones of the innocent murdered at Pearl Harbor.

Are you saying that the Americans who lost their lives are more valuable in God's sight than the Japanese?

[BAP]

Are you saying that the Americans who lost their lives are more valuable in God's sight than the Japanese?

Nope but not sure what your point is in arguing hypotheticals. Afterall one could make the hypothetical case that God himself could have stopped Imperial Japan from rising and initiating the war but he didnt . No ?

[njtom]

Why didn't President Truman listen to him?

Others must have provided evidence that Japan would keep fighting and something had to be done

The following article addresses the topic of the advice given to Truman, in particular the belief of some that the status of the emperor was the key to getting Japan to surrender.

The third and perhaps most important alternative to both the bomb and the land invasion was to modify the demand for unconditional surrender and allow the Japanese to keep their emperor. Of course, he would have to be demoted to a powerless figurehead (much like the Royal Family in Great Britain), but it was possible that this one condition alone might have been enough to satisfy the American War Department’s conclusion that it was necessary to convince the Japanese that they would not be “annihilated” if they surrendered. The American government clearly understood that if they harmed the emperor, whom the Japanese revered as a god, the Japanese would resist forever. And the key to this argument lies in the fact that the American government already planned on letting the emperor stay. All they had to do was find a way to hint their intentions loud enough for the Japanese to hear. On June 13, in a memorandum to President Truman from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew (former American ambassador to Japan), Grew wrote:

Every evidence, without exception, that we are able to obtain of the views of the Japanese with regard to the institution of the throne, indicates that the non-molestation of the person of the present emperor and the preservation of the institution of the throne comprise irreducible Japanese terms...They are prepared for prolonged resistance if it be the intention of the United Nations to try the present emperor as a war criminal or to abolish the imperial institution...Failure on our part to clarify our intentions in this regard..will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives.

Secretary of War Stimson also argued that American intentions regarding the emperor should be made clearer. General Marshall referred to this as “giving definition to unconditional surrender” (ultimately resulting in the Potsdam Declaration). On the Interim Committee, he was joined in this point by Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard. In a June 27 memo to Stimson, Bard wrote:

During recent weeks I have also had the feeling very definitely that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender. Following the three-power conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.

But by the time Stimson pushed on this issue, the President was very much under the influence of former Senator James Byrnes, who had become Truman’s personal advisor and was soon to be named the new Secretary of State. Byrnes argued that the President would be crucified politically by the Republicans for “making a deal” with the Japanese. Byrnes won the argument and eliminated crucial language in the Potsdam Declaration about the Emperor, Truman gave a less-than-convincing excuse that Congress didn’t seem interested in modifying unconditional surrender, and the Japanese were left in the dark with regards to American intentions toward the emperor. Although there was certainly no guarantee that taking this action would bring about a Japanese surrender, bomb opponents argue that it was at least worth a try (although bomb supporters counter-argue that doing so could have been interpreted as a weakness by the Japanese military leadership and could actually have emboldened the Japanese to fight on). Instead, the Japanese ignored the Potsdam Declaration, the atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese surrendered, and the Americans, as planned, allowed the emperor to stay on the throne (where he remained until his death in 1989). This is the one area where Secretary of War Stimson had regrets. His biographer later wrote, “Only on the question of the Emperor did Stimson take, in 1945, a conciliatory view; only on this question did he later believe that history might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position, had prolonged the war.”

By the way, the above site contains a discussion of the arguments for and against the atom bomb attacks, in case anyone is interested:

For: http://www.authentichistory.com/1939...ort/index.html

Against: http://www.authentichistory.com/1939...nst/index.html

[njtom]

And for the record, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following:

"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons—especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons—to commit such crimes. (CCC 2314; cf. Gaudium et Spes 80)

[Valiant Woman]

Are you saying that the Americans who lost their lives are more valuable in God's sight than the Japanese?

Are you saying that the Japanese who lost their lives are more valuable in God's sight than the American citizens that were murdered by the Japanese?

[Colonel]

And for the record, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following:

"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons—especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons—to commit such crimes. (CCC 2314; cf. Gaudium et Spes 80)

That doesn't work well with the Old Testament.

[njtom]

No, it's a matter of misplaced emphasis. I literally have never, ONCE, EVER, heard any progressive speak as if Japan had any evil intent. Again, we are talking about misplaced emphasis.

Knowing how badly the war scarred my grandfather and the fact that he witnessed unspeakable horrors wrought by Japanese suicide bombers, NO DIFFERENT THAN IS OR AL QUEDA, it sickens me to no end to hear revisionist tales, making the US the bad guy. Hey, guess what Tom? Maybe if Japan hadn't bombed pearl harbor in the first place, or slaughtered millions of Chinese civilians, fate would not have been so cruel.

Jumping in with a second, and late, response to this post, I just want to point out that there is an important distinction to be recognized: between Japan's government/military and Japan's civilian population. If one says something like "Japan deserved to be bombed because of what it did to the Chinese, etc.", the implication is that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were responsible for the atrocities committed by their government. I don't believe that to be the case.

Another important distinction is between incidental and deliberate killings of civilians. If one's intent is to attack military installations, and accidentally some civilians are killed, that is one thing, but if one's deliberate intent is to kill large numbers of civilians, then that's an entirely different thing.

[CatchyUsername]

No, I never used the word, "deserved", and it never crossed my mind, ever. It is a matter of living in a world where sowing and reaping is a spiritual law.

If I walk up to a perfect stranger and slug them in the face, and they punch me back twice as hard, that's simply a matter of me reaping what I sowed. The dangerous thing about spiritual laws is that they tend to be magnified in their reaping cycles.

Sorry Tom, that's the way life works. That is why I used the word, "fate" when I described Japan reaping what it had sowed.

You progressives can continue to wring your hands over this stuff if you want, as for me, I'll move on with life and I refuse to make the US the most evil empire that ever existed on the planet. We can thank your ilk for that sort of thinking.

Jumping in with a second, and late, response to this post, I just want to point out that there is an important distinction to be recognized: between Japan's government/military and Japan's civilian population. If one says something like "Japan deserved to be bombed because of what it did to the Chinese, etc.", the implication is that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were responsible for the atrocities committed by their government. I don't believe that to be the case.

Another important distinction is between incidental and deliberate killings of civilians. If one's intent is to attack military installations, and accidentally some civilians are killed, that is one thing, but if one's deliberate intent is to kill large numbers of civilians, then that's an entirely different thing.