<< If you are going to recite american history you should at least know what you are talking about. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genuine military targets. Both those cities were huge military industrial war complexes. While the cities were full of civilians there was a large military presence as well and a huge industrial complex manufacturing war materiels. The whole thing was unfortunate but considering the circumstances It is understandable why the bomb was used. It wasn't to show the world our power but to show Japan and bring the war in the pacific to a quick conclusion. The other alternative was a drawn out invasion of Japans home islands which most likely would have had a much higher price in the loss of life that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings are estimated to have killed 270,000 people immediately and as a result of injury and sickness. The planned U.S. invasion force for Japan was well over 1 million military personel. Casualties most likely would have totaled much higher than the 270,000 who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the japanese civilian and military casualties were added to the expected U.S. casualties. People tend to forget just what we were up against in the war with Japan. The Japanese military was brutal and likely to fight to the death. We were up against an enemy who had committed numerous atrocities. Have you ever heard of the Rape Of Nanking? That was a massacre conducted by the Japanese military in 1937 in which they murdered nearly 370,000 men women and children nearly all civilians. I would say that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pales somewhat in comparison. The Japanese committed that act as part of their war of conquest in China. We on the other hand nuked Japan as part of our war that was begun by Japan when they surprise attacked Pearl harbor. In hindsight nuking them was probably the only way of getting their attention short of a massive invasion that would most likely have totally destroyed the country as well as killing a significant percentage of their citizens. Before you try to run down the U.S. for nuking Japan you better take a hard look at the enemy we were facing when we decided to do that. One other thing Jeremiah the misled please keep your "Arse" to yourself the though of it is repulsive. >>
NesuD,
To argue that there is one correct view to the relative nature of "history" is inaccurate, at best. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not absolutely necessary military targets; there was a rationale to attacking them, but at the same time, the rationale is not the spoonfed history you are regurgitating now.
I am about to cut & paste something from Google which summarizes an alternate view. Note: I do not necessarily accept this view any more than I accept yours. It is, nevertheless, a valid view, and has many valid points; it has been argued - and validly, from a historical perspective - that the bombing was not necessary, and the estimates of the cost/benefit analysis is not entirely accurate in the sense you portrayed it. Before you go on attacking someone's knowledge of history, you may want to think about how blindly you accept your own.
<< The atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in August 1945 killed 200,000. The cities were reduced to rubble, and many who were ?lucky? enough to survive the initial blast died slowly over the next few weeks. Even today, more than fifty years after the event, there are fears of continuing hereditary cancers and genetic deformities.
It has been argued that the US didn?t know the full power of what they were unleashing on Japan, but this is not true.
At a trial atomic explosion in New Mexico, seeing the amount of destruction wrought by a lump of plutonium the size of an orange, the leader of the research team, Robert Oppenheimer, said; ?Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.?
Through extensive testing and development, the US had full knowledge of the destructive power of the bomb.
The Western alliance has made sure that the popular interpretation of the bombings was that they ?saved lives?, by bringing the war against Japan to a swift end. Officially, the alternative would have been to invade Japan with millions of US troops.
Sure, they would have saved the lives of a few GIs, but at what price? The lives of 200,000 Japanese.
The US was concerned only with gaining a victory for themselves, and asserting their place in the post-war world. In particular they were determined to prevent Stalin?s Soviet Union gaining a foothold in Japan. They had to end the war before the USSR?s troops reached Japan and in a way which emphasised their dreadful power.
But did the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima really end the war? By early 1945, it was clear that Japan was nearing the end of its resources. Its airforce and navy were virtually destroyed, and in April the government was replaced by a cabinet keen to make peace.
The ruling class was split, but by June even the Emperor was convinced that continuing the war was not a good idea. The US was fully aware of these developments. They had cracked and intercepted coded messages, which were ?real evidence of a Japanese desire to get out of the war?.
A week before the decision to drop the bomb was made, telegrams revealed the decision of the Japanese Imperial Conference to try to stop the fighting. So why continue with the offensive?
The US was concerned with ending the war, but they also wanted retribution from Japan after their ?unwarranted? attack on Pearl Harbour.
Since 1944, US planes had been bombing Japanese civilians. At the same time the American government and army officials hypocritically condemned the practice by Japan and other countries of ?ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centres of population?which has?sickened the hearts of every civilised man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.?
Shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbour, General George C. Marshall, US chief of staff, instructed his aides to develop contingency plans for ?general incendiary attacks to burn up the wood and paper structures of the densely populated Japanese cities.?
The US bombing of Japanese cities reached a height when, on the night of March 9-10, 1945, 334 aircraft attacked Tokyo at low altitude with incendiary bombs. They destroyed 16 square miles of the city; made more than a million people homeless; 80,000 ? 100,000 civilians died ? ?scorched and boiled and baked to death?; and the heat was so intense that in some places canals boiled, metal melted, and buildings and human beings burst spontaneously into flames.
By the time Japan surrendered, 66 cities had been bombed.
Even when it was clear that Japan was going to surrender, five days after Nagasaki was bombed, General Henry H. Arnold, one of the major planners of the US bombing strategy, wanted ?to hit Tokyo with a final 1,000-plane air raid.?
The anger directed against Japan by the US government, army and other officials was immense. The President?s son, Elliot Roosevelt, told a friend that the US should bomb Japan ?until we have destroyed about half the Japanese civilian population?, and the Chairman of the US War Manpower Commission, Paul V. McNutt said that he favoured ?the extermination of the Japanese in toto.?
Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an extension of this racist hatred, and a more intense continuation of the extreme firebombing of Japanese cities.
The US saw its opportunity to become the world?s most powerful imperialist nation and to limit the power of its hated rival, the Soviet Union.
Throughout the war, US officials had always assumed that the bomb was a legitimate combat weapon, and it was not even suggested that it should not be used. As Churchill later wrote: ?the decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb to compel the surrender of Japan was never even an issue.? >>
Historical accounts have shown us that part of the reasoning behind the dropping of the bomb was not necessarily to save lives; rather, we did not want to accept a hand from the Soviets, who were, in this instance, about to attack Japan from another front. This, by most accounts (though not all) would have put the war at an end very soon. Japan was on the verge of collapse when we dropped the bombs. To attempt to justify the murder of hundreds of thousands of citizens by the actions their military had previously committed is to do no better than many are doing in "blaming" America currently.
Back to the subject at hand. Blaming America and saying that we had it coming are two entirely different issues. We had it coming, as have many other nations; whether we will ever get it, or whether we deserve it, are to me, separate issues. It has been clear for some time that something bad was going to happen on American soil; unfortunately, it was difficult to predict exactly what and what the extent would be. In my opinion, to say that we didn't know is to admit how oblivious we can be; it is akin to saying that carbombings in Ireland and suicide bombers in Israel are unexpected, every time.
Rob