American Terrorism

Do you think America nuking two civilian cities in Japan is justified?

I just reached this in my AP US class.

And I debated this last year in my AP World class.

I believe this was terrorism on American's behalf. Why did innocent Japanese people have to die?

Ironically the country attacking other countries for nuclear programs is the only one to have ever used one ...

Ironically the country that preaches freedom of ideology waged war against communism.

and has politicians willing to attack the holy sites of a religion .. america .. the symbol of hypocrisy and terrorism lol

Nagasaki was a ship building power house and Hiroshima had large depots of military supplies, seem like logical targets if you want to end a war. I do not support America in the cold war, but at the same time was the USSR any better? I mean the only reason they opposed communism is because they feared the USSR with good reason. also why would the holy sites concern us, the war is not with the religion but the people who inhabit them. It's not Americas fault the middle east is going to hell, pin that on on the British. Now lets look at America that has spent so much effort on building the united nations as well as spending so much money to help under developed nations. Ahmed to be quite frank if you hate America this much then leave, unlike other nations they wont stop you.

BUT the US didn't destroy the military targets on those Islands. They killed Millions of innocent people.

And don't go off topic. This is about the US, not the USSR.

And yes it's the West's fault because they made israel.

@ Preid: Whether Nagasaki and Hiroshima had power or military stuff is something, and killing millions of innocent people is something else.

Same thing for in Iraq, WMD, remember?? and how many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died?

Ahmed the American army took the best corset of action to end the most heinous war in history before they would need to kill millions. Ill have you know the American nation has had to live with this ghost because they had not accounted for the damage caused by the radiation. I was on topic when i addressed the USSR, because America never fought communism the fought the USSR in fear of a thermal nuclear war. And ill have you know it was the Balfour deceleration that created Palestine, and in return Israel. now may i ask, what good has the middle east ever done for this world?

btw not even 100,000 were killed gunman also FYI only about 200,000 people died in the nuclear attack, not million.

No it did not. The war was almost over anyways. The USSR had announced that it would enter the battle on the Pacific front after 90 days. Exactly one week before that the USA used the nukes...and not 1, but 2 (the second being the stronger)! It seems to me that the USA just used them for fear of the USSR influencing Japan after it defeats it.

wow more revisionist history .. japan was already finished before the bombs were dropped on unsuspecting civilians ... they had no navy by then ... but instead of killing combatants america decided to mercilessly terminate the life of innocent unsuspecting japanese civilians ... the lasting effect of this nuclear attack can still be seen today .. deformities in children can still be seen today ... if terrorism = killing innocents then this is undoubtatedly the most horrendous act of terrorism ever recorded in the annals of history

you are both idiots you know that? The USSR was in shambles from fighting Germany and even if they entered it wound not make a change, the Japs would fight till the very end had we mot used the bombs, surely resulting in many more deaths. And i doubt that the effects still effect the populous unless you can prove me wrong.

More than 100,000 people died in Iraq..

It had been in shambles for quite a while. It lost 20 million people in WW2. More people dying wouldn't have made a difference to it.

And as Sayf said, Japan surrendered before the nukes. In other words it accepted the Ultimatum. America ignored it.

@Gman: Yeah, a million people died in Iraq.

Ahmed IV wrote:It had been in shambles for quite a while. It lost 20 million people in WW2. More people dying wouldn't have made a difference to it.

And as Sayf said, Japan surrendered before the nukes. In other words it accepted the Ultimatum. America ignored it.

@Gman: Yeah, a million people died in Iraq.

Japan never surrender before the nukes dropped. The emperor would look bad to his people, so he would fight to the very end.

Yes he did. Japan tried to initiate peace talks, and the US refused.

Those who say the Japanese surrendered because of the nukes simply Know no better. Those who say the bombs saved lives are ignorant of the facts. Those who say the Japanese people were prepared to fight to the last man have been duped by the lies spoon fed to them since birth and those who say the Japanese remained in the war because the Emperor ordered it have no understand or knowledge of history.

Emperor Showa was a figurehead, with power somewhat akin to that of a British monarch. Since implementation of the Meiji Constitution in 1890, the power and political influence of the emperor steadily dwindled. In theory, power rested in the Diet and in the Cabinet. During the 1920s and 30s, the military gradually seized control of the Cabinet and usurped all power from the Diet. The Emperor did not make policy and he did not control either the government or the military. In fact, Emperor Showa did not condone the invasion of Manchuria, complained bitterly of the Imperial Army's failure in China and opposed expanding the war to include the Occidental powers. A few foiled assassination attempts helped force him to approve launching Kido Butai, but the plan was going to go forward with or without his tacit approval and he knew it.

By January 1945, Showa was sending messages to the Cabinet to end the war. In April 1945, he sent a message to the Cabinet to "end the war at any cost". He and the Japanese people wanted an end to the slaughter while there was still something left of Japan to salvage. When Saipan fell in July 1944, the Tojo Cabinet fell with it. The new Cabinet included members of the ever-growing peace coalition. From the formation of the new Cabinet to the end of the war, peace overtures went sent from Tokyo by channels through Moscow, Sweden, Switzerland and elsewhere. They were ignored in Washington and London.

By July 1945, Japan was defeated and on the verge of surrender and everyone knew it. However, the dynamics had changed. Churchill, just defeated in his bid for reelection, was no longer a factor. Harry Truman had replaced Roosevelt. Stalin's Red Army had defeated the Third Reich with virtually no meaningful assistance from the Western allies, and he had promised that within 90 days of the fall of Berlin, he would declare war on Japan. He intended to keep his promise and the deadline was approaching. HST knew FDR's policy of conciliation toward Stalin had been naive and foolish. FDR insisted he did not believe Stalin would make territorial demands after the war, but would work with the US to foster democracy across Europe HST viewed the USSR with the same jaundiced eye as he did the German National Socialists. Unlike FDR, he saw them as two sides of the same coin. He also believed that Mao Zedong would prevail over Chiang Kai Shek in China and he knew who would be the next enemies of the US. He had to make a statement. He chose Japan as the victim of that statement.

At Potsdam, Truman told Stalin that the US had developed a new weapon of incredible destructive power. Overtly, Stalin expressed disbelief. Stalin knew better because his spies had infiltrated the Manhattan Project and he knew the Trinity tests at White Sands had been successful. Truman had to show Stalin we had the bomb and weren't afraid to use it (on civilians, no less). It was decided to demand the unconditional surrender of Japan. Unconditional surrender is an inane, immoral, self-defeating concept. An enemy otherwise willing to surrender traditionally has refused to do so unconditionally and has historically found new resolve to fight. Negotiated peace brings some guarantee of the direction the peace will take. Unconditional surrender is another matter, and generally is tantamount to national suicide as the Treaty of Versailles so clearly proved in 1919.

Military leaders in positions to have the best information and intelligence all recommended not using the bombs and recommended negotiating a peace, preferably with a cease fire in place. There is no room to quote them here, but read the words of CinCPac Chester Nimitz, Gen Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff Wm Leahy, Gen Dwight Eisenhower and Gen Carl Spaatz (Commander of USAAF forces in the Pacific). To a man, they opposed use of the bombs, claiming Japan had already sought peace and that the bombs weren't necessary and wouldn't save lives. By August 1945, 67 Japanese cities had been destroyed by conventional TNT and incendiary bombs and some 2 million Japanese civilians had been killed. Curtis LeMay complained that he had no worthwhile targets left against which to task him bombers, which were flying virtually unmolested all across Japan. In fact, Enola Gay and Bock's Car had both been watched for hours as they were inbound, but the Japanese chose not to risk precious fighter planes or the few remaining skilled and experienced pilots they had left to try to intercept such small formations. The Japanese Navy had ceased to exist and the few remaining ships were decommissioned and rusting at anchor. Stalin had kept his promise and the Red Army was eating up the Kwantung Army with the same efficiency by which it had destroyed the Heer Army after Moscow and Stalingrad. In China, Mao and Chaing had turned the tide and were inexorably marching to victory. At home, the blockades were working better than even the most optimistic forecasts had projected. The people were starving to death and Japanese industry, denied essential raw materials never available on the home islands, was grinding to a halt. A number of attempted coups had been discovered and thwarted or had failed, including several plots to assassinate Showa himself. The country was under martial law for fear of a popular revolt against the war and US surveys after the war disclosed that 60% of the Japanese people, including some government and military offices, wanted peace at any price and would not resist and invasion. Truman and US intelligence kenw all this when the decision to incinerate Hiroshima was made.

The second bomb was scheduled for August 13. Fat Man and Little boy were different type weapons and Truman wanted a comparative damage assessment to be done. For that reason, Kokura (the intended target for Fat Man) and Hiroshima were off limits to LeMay's bombers. Truman wanted virgin targets. Bad weather was forecast over Kokura for the 13th. Fearing Japan might surrender before the second bomb could be used, the drop was moved up to the 9th. When Tibbets got to Kokura, it was overcast and he couldn't get the desired photographs, so he diverted to his secondary target, Nagasaki, and fried it instead. Neither weapon killed as many people or did as much damage as the conventional and incendiary bombs had done, but it took fewer planes to do the damage.

Operation Downfall plans had been drawn (for the invasion of the home islands). Casualty estimates ranging from the absurd to the asinine had been projected. No one in the government or in the military seriously believed the invasion would ever happen. It was not going to be necessary. Hitler had plans for Operation Sealion to invade the British Isles. That he never intended to do so is clear by the simple fact that he never ordered the building of landing craft. The US kept updating the Rainbow Five, but never really intended to invade Canada, India, the UK or Australia. One makes contingency plans in war, that is common sense. The vast majority of those plans are never put in motion. Gen Spaatz suggested that by announcing that the US was NOT going to invade Japan, the Japanese might be induced to surrender. His plan, if one reads the details and reasoning, was not without merit. The few high ranking officers and planners that agreed with the use of the bombs asked that they be saved and used sometime near the projected "X-Day" the kickoff of Operation Olympic, and be used someplace near the projected landing sites or that, in the very least, they be used on military targets or troop concentrations so as to be of some actual assistance to the invasion. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.

So why were the bombs dropped in lieu of accepting Japan's offers of peace? Harry Stimson told Truman that anything short of unconditional surrender would cost him votes and probably the White House. Stalin and Mao needed to be shown that the US would use nuclear weapons, on civilians, when there was no militarily justifiable reason for their use. The oceans of money spent on the Manhattan Project had to be justified. Using them on Japan and making the false claim that they ended the war was the justification invented to mollify the masses and the hoi poloi bought it (and, sadly, still buys it).

A commission was organized by Congress immediately after the war to study, among other things, the effect of the atomics on the war effort. It concluded: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, July 1, 1946.

Thus, an arm of Truman's own government confirmed what Nimitz, Spaatz, Leahy, Ike and MacArthur and so many others said before the bombs fell. Surprise. Your government and your teachers have been lying to you. The decision to use the bombs was purely political and had nothing t

your source?

Revisionist History.

that's a very unconvincing source Ahmed.

Why don't you do some research on your own before you say that?

i did, The attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was essential for ending the war in a quick and clean way, the radiation was an unforeseen after effect.

Do research on what I said (The stuff that you doubted).

Also lets not forget the American terrorist sanctions placed on Iraq in the 90s that killed half a million children .. and you ask "omg lyk why do teh hate us lyk they da terr0risztzzz" and "omg i cant belivedededede they attakeded uss" ..

Lesley Stahl asked her (Albright ) "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" and Albright (baby killing terrorist) replied "we think the price is worth it"

i guess she was reading her bible again guys:

15 The Lord says, “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
I will drive them from my land
because of their evil actions.
I will love them no more
because all their leaders are rebels.
16 The people of Israel are struck down.
Their roots are dried up,
and they will bear no more fruit.
And if they give birth,
I will slaughter their beloved children.”
Hosea 9:15-16 (New Living Translation)

I was on topic when i addressed the USSR, because America never fought
communism the fought the USSR in fear of a thermal nuclear war.

You can't seriously think that? The Vietnam war was a proxy war against Communism.

And also, the bombs only fastened the surrender of Japan by two weeks at the most. The Emperor was already discussing surrendering before the bombs were dropped. America was basically showing off to the world that they had the most powerful bombs available at the time.