Was dropping the Bomb on Japan racist?

Was dropping the A-bomb on Japan racist?

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ThatOwlWoman said:
We did horrendous damage and horrific casualty counts in Germany as well. Over 25,000 killed in the Dresden fire bombings, and almost that many in Hamburg. I think the decision to use the devices on Japan was not based on racism as much as it was practicality. Japan was the hold-out; Germany had been crushed months before, and Italy wasn't much of a player either.
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Agreed. It was a nasty war, a horrific example of Total War. No doubt you already know the only reason nukes were researched was because the Germans were already attempting to make them. The Manhattan Project was literally a defensive project; an attempt to beat the Germans to the punch.

As for Japan, another great book about the War with Japan was Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. The movie was only a partial story.

I like Hillenbrand's style of writing because she gives a lot of background to the era. Unbroken was dark due to the nature of the war but still included a ton of facts about the time. Example; she detailed how (IIRC) over 67,000 airmen were lost over the Pacific. Some were due to combat, but most were due to the size of the Pacific and the lack of Search and Rescue assets. Most of these airmen just, literally, disappeared like Amelia Earhart.

My favorite of hers remains Seabiscuit because it was lighter albeit about the dark times of the Great Depression.
 
CFM said:
We should have dropped a third one on them for good measure.
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If you knew any history you'd know we didn't have another one. It was a bluff that we did.

Implosion Plutonium device at Trinity.

Uranium shotgun device "Little Boy" at Hiroshima.

Second Plutonium device "Fat Man" at Nagasaki. All of our fissionable material was gone, although more was being manufactured. Japan surrendered before more bombs could be made.
 
Phantasmal said:
The Japanese feared a Russian invasion. We could have negotiated a surrender using these fears. Japan’s army was beaten and could not sustain the fight against American and Russian forces.

The use of nuclear weapons were not necessary.
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We should have dropped three or more. You don't negotiate with the enemy. You teach them a lesson so they never make the same mistake again. You haven't heard of Japan thinking about doing the same type of thing they did 79 years ago have you?
 
Phantasmal said:
The Japanese feared a Russian invasion. We could have negotiated a surrender using these fears. Japan’s army was beaten and could not sustain the fight against American and Russian forces.

The use of nuclear weapons were not necessary.
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You might be right, but our goal was unconditional surrender. Not negotiation, in which they undoubtedly would have angled to keep their government and territorial integrity intact. And I doubt they would have ever agreed by negotiation to submitting to war crimes tribunals, a wholesale dismantling of their government, and a pacifist constitution forced on them.

Those terms were only going to be forced on them unconditionally under threat of total destruction. IMO.

I agree one thousand percent that killing civilians is barbaric and immoral. There was enough barbarity and immorality to go around between 1939 and 1945 to last for a millennium.

I respect your opinion, but that is my two cents.
 
Cypress said:
You might be right, but our goal was unconditional surrender. Not negotiation, in which they undoubtedly would have angled to keep their government and territorial integrity intact. And I doubt they would have ever agreed by negotiation to submitting to war crimes tribunals, a wholesale dismantling of their government, and a pacifist constitution forced on them.

Those terms were only going to be forced on them unconditionally under threat of total destruction.

I agree one thousand percent that killing civilians is barbaric and immoral. There was enough barbarity and immorality to go around between 1939 and 1945 to last for a millennium.

I respect your opinion, but that is my two cents.
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I believe this will debated until it is ancient history and forgotten. I respect your opinion as well.
 
The emperor was fine with the japanese people fighting to the death man, woman and child


It was a cult
 
Cypress said:
You might be right, but our goal was unconditional surrender. Not negotiation, in which they undoubtedly would have angled to keep their government and territorial integrity intact. And I doubt they would have ever agreed by negotiation to submitting to war crimes tribunals, a wholesale dismantling of their government, and a pacifist constitution forced on them.

Those terms were only going to be forced on them unconditionally under threat of total destruction. IMO.

I agree one thousand percent that killing civilians is barbaric and immoral. There was enough barbarity and immorality to go around between 1939 and 1945 to last for a millennium.

I respect your opinion, but that is my two cents.
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You don't negotiate with the enemy. You punish them and teach them a lesson so they don't do the same thing again.
 
CFM said:
We should have dropped three or more. You don't negotiate with the enemy. You teach them a lesson so they never make the same mistake again. You haven't heard of Japan thinking about doing the same type of thing they did 79 years ago have you?
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We only had the two bombs at the time. You look stupid when you don't know the history.

Negotiating with the enemy is fine but only to a point. In this case, it was like the Israelis negotiating with the Palestinians; any negotiations only give the Palestinian terrorists time to rearm and train more terrorists. Japan needed to be completely defeated in order to assure peace.
 
Phantasmal said:
It debatable whether the war would have drug on, I guess that is the debate that will continue on this issue.
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Cypress said:
Americans in general were racist towards Japanese.

I think the bombing was immoral and inhumane.

But without the luxury of hindsight, it can be plausibly also be claimed to have been strategically warranted.

It is possible to believe all these things at the same time, without them being mutually exclusive..

There was little stomach to invade the Japanese home islands. Few Americans realize that the Soviet Army, fresh off their destruction of the Japanese Kwangtung Army in Manchuria, had battle plans to invade and occupy the northern Japanese home island of Hokkaido. That is one reason Truman was keen to coerce Japan into immediate surrender and compel them to submit to American military occupation.

There is no question in my mind that the Soviets would have set up a communist client state in a "People's Republic of Hokkaido", and giving the USSR a key strategic foothold in the north Pacific.

The Japanese were warned in the Pottsdam statement to either surrender or face utter destruction. That was obviously veiled language for a nuclear attack. In an ideal world, I wish the veiled threat we made could have been made more tangible to the Japanese before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
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The USA had no issue with most of Central Europe going Soviet.
 
Phantasmal said:
It debatable whether the war would have drug on, I guess that is the debate that will continue on this issue.
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Truth Detector said:
Germany, Italy and Japan could have avoided all that costly damage and horrific casualties; just don't start a global conflict and engage in criminal murder.

My German uncle once opined about Dresden calling it a war crime; I told him starting a global war and murdering millions of Jews is the actual war crime. He was such a fucking Nazi. I can't say his death bothered me the least.
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Lol, Italy killed less civilians in WW2 than the USA / UK.
 
Phantasmal said:
It debatable whether the war would have drug on, I guess that is the debate that will continue on this issue.
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Phantasmal said:
The Japanese feared a Russian invasion. We could have negotiated a surrender using these fears. Japan’s army was beaten and could not sustain the fight against American and Russian forces.

The use of nuclear weapons were not necessary.
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Yes, agreed considering Soviet armed conflict with Japan. Made the the A- bombs as overkill.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_War
 
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