Japan could have surrendered after the first Atomic bomb was dropped but they decided to carry on the fight, and even after the second bomb was dropped there was still a large section of the Japanese Military that still wanted to carry on and tried to stop the surrender broadcast being given.
People talk about the the high casualties that the Japanese suffered, but what about the all the people they slaughtered in China, Java and countless other places. In Manila they slaughtered tens of thousands people as the Americans advanced onto the City.
In China they took Allied prisoners there and tested germ warfare on them and they cut their organs from these men while they were still alive and with with out any thing to kill the pain. Yet we get people bleating that they got a rough deal, personally I can't see it.
Hello LeEnfield,
maybe the original title of this thread got lost, it was:
Can Hiroshima and Nagasaki be justified.
Off course any action can be justified - if e.g. it's Hitlers action towards the Jews (He would justify it with the Jews wanting to destroy Germany) or the British will justify their concentration camp matter during the Boer war - and Lenin and the Bolshewiks can justify their doings towards the oppressive aristocrats and serf-bond system, etc. etc.
So it is about the interpretation or personal interpretation towards "Justification". The law of war beholds an international agreed upon interpretation - and according to this - the bombs constitute a war criminal act.
So you and others are free to justify the nukes by whatever you may find personally appropriate to help with it - but it doesn't outweigh or overrule the international law of war.
Now according to certain views - the nukes were used due to the issue that Japan made no signs towards accepting an "unconditional surrender".
These views are disputed due to clear evidence that Tokyo was willing to accept surrender under the context of the Emperor being left untouched. (Which upon the surrender was granted)
In return it is IMO - absolutly valid to forward - that upon Truman accepting the Tokyo objection - the war could have ended without using those nukes. Therefore my opinion in regards to Truman forwarding an ultimatum in regards to surrender that would include all conditions towards an unconditional surrender - but to garantee the Emperor not being placed before a court.
If after e.g. two weeks the Tokyo reply would not have met the allies demands and expectations - he could have used the A-Bombs as he did anyway - and he would still have constituted a war criminal act.
So, the usage of these A-bombs can be justified by whatever personal opinion or declaration - but it remains a war criminal act. Which the intensional Firestorms or even conventional bombing of cities constitute just as well.
Yes - undoubtetly the Japanese performed all kinds of war criminal acts - so the entire justification reverts back to an eye for eye and tooth for tooth scenario.
Now besides having ended the war (By what ever means) - what did the Allies do about all these Japanese war criminal acts? more or less nothing.
So do I have to understand it as - you got the A-bombs on your country and now we are fair and square?
To make it very clear please allow me to say that ending the war was one thing - punishment for war criminal acts didn't take place since the Allies had committed war criminal acts just as well. And especially the A-bombs prevented - due to the Allies "morality"- from taking a stern action towards Japanese war crimes.
Truman was correct in regards to not being willing to accept any Japanese demands - IMO the implementation of the nukes was therefore a logical decision and would have led to the unconditional surrender - that in turn would have allowed the Allies to punish those responsible - incl. the Emperor who IMHO was the main culprit anyway. It is the Allies themseves who got caught up in their own distorted views towards morality and political missinterpretations towards Japan - that in the end they kept the Emperor untouched and more or less all the Japanese war criminal actions.
Thus allowing for the question of the A-bombs being justifiable to even arrise. If they had punished all of the war criminal acts as they did in Germany - who on earth would ever come up with that A-bomb justification?
Yes - LeEnfield, there are those who call Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and a hundred other German cities - as a war criminal act - which it indeed was - but due to the overall concept of punishing the Nazis - who started off the whole thing anyway - it is at least JUSTIFIABLE not only in regards to having helped to end the war.
Regards
Kruska