Imperial Japan certainly didn't have any compunction about regularly terror bombing Chinese and other Asian cities full of civilians during the war, so when Japanese war apologists start crying about how terrible it was that they got bombed it's very much a case of me playing the world's tiniest violin.
No, it's not good that Japanese civilians died in the bombing campaigns against Japan in 1945 but bombing and bombardment of cities in WWII was accepted as a legitimate tactic by both the Axis and the Allies. We can certainly look back on it and say how horrible it was, but at the end of the day we are applying modern morality and rules of war to a past conflict.
Personally, I see the focus on the atomic bombings (as opposed to the two night firebombing raids on Tokyo that killed more people than both atomic bombs combined) to be a sort of post-war Clean Wehrmacht style revisionism carried out by the Americans and Japanese when the Yanks realized they very much did want to remilitarize Japan to oppose the USSR and PRC. By making Japan out to be the victim of some unique horror of war, there is an implied equivalence that cancels out all the horrors of war Japan inflicted on everyone else.
No, it's not good that Japanese civilians died in the bombing campaigns against Japan in 1945 but bombing and bombardment of cities in WWII was accepted as a legitimate tactic by both the Axis and the Allies. We can certainly look back on it and say how horrible it was, but at the end of the day we are applying modern morality and rules of war to a past conflict.
Sure, terrorist style bombing of cities to force capitulation was seen as a valid method of waging warfare, but terrorist style bombing of the cities of an already beaten enemy for no purpose other than destruction of innocent people was kind of unprecedented even then. Generally you stop dropping bombs when the enemy is beaten, rather than dropping all your fancy new, more destructive than ever before kind of bomb as a victory lap
The enemy is beaten when it surrenders. The Japanese did not surrender until after the bombs were dropped. Even then, the Imperial military staged a coup against their own God-Emperor to stop him from broadcasting his surrender speech. They stormed the Imperial Palace and ransacked the place - the recording was smuggled out in a pile of laundry. We are taking about a country run by people with that level of deathwish, you cannot just assume that they were beaten.
Setting all of that aside, there were still hundreds of thousands of Imperial Japanese soldiers in China and Korea at the time of surrender. Those soldiers were oppressing, murdering, raping and stealing up until the very end. Just because the Japanese military ceased to be a threat to the US Fleet does not mean that they ceased to be a threat to millions of people.
There are soldiers in China that we need to stop, obviously the solution is to vaporize a bunch of innocent civilians in Japan, great idea.
The solution is to continue to fight against the aggressor occupier fascist state using all means available until they surrender. A naval invasion of Japan was projected to cause up to 500,000 casualties. A naval blockade until starvation might have caused millions of civilian deaths if you take Leningrad as an example of how a starvation blockade would go.
It is tragic and horrific when a civilian is killed in war, but civilian deaths in war are unavoidable. The guilty party are the Japanese militarists who were refusing to surrender and holding out for some deathride bloodbath (of their own civilians).
I really think you ought to watch that video before continuing to support the US in its completely unnecessary and indefensible slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
As a Chinese person who's lived in Japan for many years and read about the topic pretty extensively in three languages, I don't think that I need my opinions to be validated by an Englishman.
He makes a very extensively researched and rigorously sourced case that the dropping of the nuclear bombs served no practical purpose regarding the war and that, furthermore, those responsible knew it served no such purpose.
Your position is identical to the modern, western narrative which was cooked up as a retroactive justification for an obviously unjustifiable act.
I am not watching a 2 hour long video. If you would like to summarize his most salient points then I am happy to respond to those points. If me not watching this video is a deal breaker for you then we do not have to continue this conversation.
Your position is identical to the modern, western narrative which was cooked up as a retroactive justification for an obviously unjustifiable act.
I would be interested in these western sources which use the saving of Chinese and Korean lives as an explicit justification for the atomic bombings.
Also, your position is also the position of the Nanjing-denying Japanese far right so... Idk where that leaves us if we apply your reasoning.
This is applying post facto knowledge to a decision when assessing it ethically. Even if the Japanese had planned to surrender following the Soviet invasion (there is no evidence that any such decision was made before the atomic bombings) such decision was not communicated to any of the Allied powers. Even if an intention to surrender had been teased at, a surrender is not a surrender until the surrendering side accepte terms and lays down arms.
Even if we accept for sake of argument that the US decision makers thought the bombs had zero military value and were purely for show, how do you think it would have gone down if the US had went to Stalin with this information? Stalin, the man who had been pushing for intensified Allied air raids against Germany and a second front since 1941, would have just been like "oh don't worry about using your new city destroying wonder weapon, I'll just let Soviet soldiers continue to fight and die in a war you could probably end easily"?
It always comes down to this. Chinese lives don't matter, Korean lives don't matter, Soviet lives don't matter. As long as the precious Fascist civilians get to starve to death instead of being bombed, or conscripted into a kamikaze mission, or shot for dissenting instead, it's aaaaaalllll worth it!
I think you should probably take the L on this one. It's very widely known that Japan was on the brink of surrender to the Soviets before they were nuked and any justification of nuking a civilian population center is pretty fucked up.
Sorry. I forgot that as a Ch*k it is my place to bite my tongue and just accept my people being butchered and raped on a daily basis while the Japanese fascists debate surrender at a leisurely pace. I shouldnt hope for Japanese morale to be destroyed in a way irrefutable to all but the most insane Japanese militarists (the ones who tried to coup their own God-Emperor to prevent surrender) because that would be downright uppity of me.
Just come right out and say it. Chinese lives don't matter. Maybe after that you can go lecture the Palestinians about how firing rockets at Tel Aviv is bad and wrong because precious Israeli civilians might get hurt.
Sorry. I forgot that as a Ch*k it is my place to bite my tongue and just accept my people being butchered and raped on a daily basis while the Japanese fascists debate surrender at a leisurely pace.
Holy fuck dude this is way over the line I get that this is an issue that is personal to you but justifying nuclear annihilation of civilians and then getting defensive and racist jacketing an admin is totally unreasonable. I think you need to step back and chill out.
I normally really like you but this is not the hill you wanna die on I guarantee it.
theres a big difference between Palestine and the US. one is a people facing a genocide engaging in resistance (resistance that is far less violent than the terror isntreal engages in), and one is a great power that used the most powerful weapon ever created to attack two densely populated civilian centers, while the government of Japan was drafting terms of surrender. the horrific crimes of the imperial japanese military does not justify the mass murder of civilians. israeli settlers arent civilians, they are engaging in settler terrorism
This is applying post facto knowledge to a decision when assessing it ethically.
to some extent, sure, but top US military officers believed that Japan was on the verge of surrender and I doubt they kept this to themselves
It always comes down to this. Chinese lives don’t matter, Korean lives don’t matter, Soviet lives don’t matter. As long as the precious Fascist civilians get to starve to death instead of being bombed, or conscripted into a kamikaze mission, or shot for dissenting instead, it’s aaaaaalllll worth it!
they weren't "Fascist civilians", they were civilians in a fascist country; this was intentional mass murder of civilians, not just accidental casualties caused by attacks on military targets
I am Chinese. Both my grandfathers fought in the War to Resist Japanese Aggression and one went on to fight Americans in the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea. Both are now interred in a cemetery for Martyrs of the Revolution.
But sure, I have American brain worms despite not being an American and never living there. I obviously wouldn't have any reason other than American nationalism to take a dim view of Imperial Japan, right?
And I'm an Algerian, but I don't support Nazi Germany invading Fr*nce, because just like with the U.S. and Japan they didn't do it for us colonized people, in fact they killed us too. The nuking wasn't to make Japan surrender, but just to flex the U.S. power on the soviets and who ever else challenges it, your grandfathers benefited nothing from the U.S. nuking Imperial Japan. The U.S. didn't nuke Japan for your grandfathers.
Continue to lecture someone from another country about how they should feel about their own country and history is the real American brain worms my friend.
I don't pretend to know the complexities of the French occupation and the Algerian struggle for independence, that's why I'm not going to tell you how you should feel or think about it.
We let's have a look at the relevant part of Hirohito's surrender speech to see whether or not the bombs had any impact on his decision to surrender:
Show
Clear as fucking day right from the man himself.
Even if I do have American brain worms (maybe granddad pick some up from a dead yank in Korea), what you're espousing is just Japanese right wing brain worms. Don't take it from me, take it from a Japanese media scholar:
First of all, the narrative of August journalism can be classified into three categories.
The first is the "narrative of suffering" intended to pass down wartime experiences as "victims" of the atomic bombings, air raids, evacuations, repatriations and other grueling ordeals, and the "sacrifices" soldiers had to make, represented by kamikaze attacks and suicidal battles.
...
In such a context, Japan's invasion, atrocities, colonial rule and other forms of "aggression" are completely receded into the background. Instead, its self-image as victims of militarism is brought to the fore.
This view on war and history was formed due to peculiarities of how post-war Japan was handled during the Cold War.
Japan could return to the international community without facing squarely its war responsibility and pursue its economic growth after the emperor was exonerated at the behest of the United States and Western powers waived their right to claim compensation.
It's so frustrating that even Japanese people can acknowledge that this is their version of the Clean Wehrmacht myth specifically designed by Americans to rehabilitate them in a Cold War confrontation with the USSR but you try to tell this to a leftist and it's like talking to a fucking brick wall.
understand me, I'm not telling you "oooh the poor Japanese got nuked this makes all of their crimes okay", I am telling you that the U.S. nuking Japan brought no good and you yourself have made this point yourself, the forgiving imperial Japan thing wouldn't be as popular if the U.S. didn't nuke it, sure the Clean Wehrmacht exist, but there was still a theater of Nazis getting punished, meanwhile the U.S. granted Unit 731 immunity and Hiro Hito died in 1989.
No, look at the passage I cited from the Emperor's surrender address. Tell me exactly what it says.
sure the Clean Wehrmacht exist, but there was still a theater of Nazis getting punished, meanwhile the U.S. granted Unit 731 immunity and Hiro Hito died in 1989.
There was the theatre of the Tokyo War Crimes trials too. Are you seriously this ignorant about the topic and trying to lecture me? The German denazification process was scarcely better than the Japanese process. Von Braun et al was their Unit 731. A bunch of high ranking Nazis got to die of old age too. America can eat shit for letting both the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese off the hook with a slap but Germany didn't get nuked and it was rehabilitated just like Japan. It's almost as if the US was going to rehabilitate both fascist powers anyway, nukes or not.
Nothing you've said justifies the killings of Japanese grandmothers and schoolchildren, which the US was happy to do, to scare the USSR. These were civilian, not military targets.
Imperial Japan certainly didn't have any compunction about regularly terror bombing Chinese and other Asian cities full of civilians during the war, so when Japanese war apologists start crying about how terrible it was that they got bombed it's very much a case of me playing the world's tiniest violin.
No, it's not good that Japanese civilians died in the bombing campaigns against Japan in 1945 but bombing and bombardment of cities in WWII was accepted as a legitimate tactic by both the Axis and the Allies. We can certainly look back on it and say how horrible it was, but at the end of the day we are applying modern morality and rules of war to a past conflict.
Personally, I see the focus on the atomic bombings (as opposed to the two night firebombing raids on Tokyo that killed more people than both atomic bombs combined) to be a sort of post-war Clean Wehrmacht style revisionism carried out by the Americans and Japanese when the Yanks realized they very much did want to remilitarize Japan to oppose the USSR and PRC. By making Japan out to be the victim of some unique horror of war, there is an implied equivalence that cancels out all the horrors of war Japan inflicted on everyone else.
Sure, terrorist style bombing of cities to force capitulation was seen as a valid method of waging warfare, but terrorist style bombing of the cities of an already beaten enemy for no purpose other than destruction of innocent people was kind of unprecedented even then. Generally you stop dropping bombs when the enemy is beaten, rather than dropping all your fancy new, more destructive than ever before kind of bomb as a victory lap
The enemy is beaten when it surrenders. The Japanese did not surrender until after the bombs were dropped. Even then, the Imperial military staged a coup against their own God-Emperor to stop him from broadcasting his surrender speech. They stormed the Imperial Palace and ransacked the place - the recording was smuggled out in a pile of laundry. We are taking about a country run by people with that level of deathwish, you cannot just assume that they were beaten.
Setting all of that aside, there were still hundreds of thousands of Imperial Japanese soldiers in China and Korea at the time of surrender. Those soldiers were oppressing, murdering, raping and stealing up until the very end. Just because the Japanese military ceased to be a threat to the US Fleet does not mean that they ceased to be a threat to millions of people.
There are soldiers in China that we need to stop, obviously the solution is to vaporize a bunch of innocent civilians in Japan, great idea.
There's a video about this topic I think you would benefit from watching.
youtube.com/watch?v=RCRTgtpC-Go
The solution is to continue to fight against the aggressor occupier fascist state using all means available until they surrender. A naval invasion of Japan was projected to cause up to 500,000 casualties. A naval blockade until starvation might have caused millions of civilian deaths if you take Leningrad as an example of how a starvation blockade would go.
It is tragic and horrific when a civilian is killed in war, but civilian deaths in war are unavoidable. The guilty party are the Japanese militarists who were refusing to surrender and holding out for some deathride bloodbath (of their own civilians).
I really think you ought to watch that video before continuing to support the US in its completely unnecessary and indefensible slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
As a Chinese person who's lived in Japan for many years and read about the topic pretty extensively in three languages, I don't think that I need my opinions to be validated by an Englishman.
He makes a very extensively researched and rigorously sourced case that the dropping of the nuclear bombs served no practical purpose regarding the war and that, furthermore, those responsible knew it served no such purpose.
Your position is identical to the modern, western narrative which was cooked up as a retroactive justification for an obviously unjustifiable act.
I am not watching a 2 hour long video. If you would like to summarize his most salient points then I am happy to respond to those points. If me not watching this video is a deal breaker for you then we do not have to continue this conversation.
I would be interested in these western sources which use the saving of Chinese and Korean lives as an explicit justification for the atomic bombings.
Also, your position is also the position of the Nanjing-denying Japanese far right so... Idk where that leaves us if we apply your reasoning.
how about a 25-minute video
the Red Army's advance would have led to Japan's surrender, the bombs were a warning to the USSR
This is applying post facto knowledge to a decision when assessing it ethically. Even if the Japanese had planned to surrender following the Soviet invasion (there is no evidence that any such decision was made before the atomic bombings) such decision was not communicated to any of the Allied powers. Even if an intention to surrender had been teased at, a surrender is not a surrender until the surrendering side accepte terms and lays down arms.
Even if we accept for sake of argument that the US decision makers thought the bombs had zero military value and were purely for show, how do you think it would have gone down if the US had went to Stalin with this information? Stalin, the man who had been pushing for intensified Allied air raids against Germany and a second front since 1941, would have just been like "oh don't worry about using your new city destroying wonder weapon, I'll just let Soviet soldiers continue to fight and die in a war you could probably end easily"?
It always comes down to this. Chinese lives don't matter, Korean lives don't matter, Soviet lives don't matter. As long as the precious Fascist civilians get to starve to death instead of being bombed, or conscripted into a kamikaze mission, or shot for dissenting instead, it's aaaaaalllll worth it!
I think you should probably take the L on this one. It's very widely known that Japan was on the brink of surrender to the Soviets before they were nuked and any justification of nuking a civilian population center is pretty fucked up.
Sorry. I forgot that as a Ch*k it is my place to bite my tongue and just accept my people being butchered and raped on a daily basis while the Japanese fascists debate surrender at a leisurely pace. I shouldnt hope for Japanese morale to be destroyed in a way irrefutable to all but the most insane Japanese militarists (the ones who tried to coup their own God-Emperor to prevent surrender) because that would be downright uppity of me.
Just come right out and say it. Chinese lives don't matter. Maybe after that you can go lecture the Palestinians about how firing rockets at Tel Aviv is bad and wrong because precious Israeli civilians might get hurt.
Holy fuck dude this is way over the line I get that this is an issue that is personal to you but justifying nuclear annihilation of civilians and then getting defensive and racist jacketing an admin is totally unreasonable. I think you need to step back and chill out.
I normally really like you but this is not the hill you wanna die on I guarantee it.
theres a big difference between Palestine and the US. one is a people facing a genocide engaging in resistance (resistance that is far less violent than the terror isntreal engages in), and one is a great power that used the most powerful weapon ever created to attack two densely populated civilian centers, while the government of Japan was drafting terms of surrender. the horrific crimes of the imperial japanese military does not justify the mass murder of civilians. israeli settlers arent civilians, they are engaging in settler terrorism
to some extent, sure, but top US military officers believed that Japan was on the verge of surrender and I doubt they kept this to themselves
they weren't "Fascist civilians", they were civilians in a fascist country; this was intentional mass murder of civilians, not just accidental casualties caused by attacks on military targets
American brainworms
I am Chinese. Both my grandfathers fought in the War to Resist Japanese Aggression and one went on to fight Americans in the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea. Both are now interred in a cemetery for Martyrs of the Revolution.
But sure, I have American brain worms despite not being an American and never living there. I obviously wouldn't have any reason other than American nationalism to take a dim view of Imperial Japan, right?
And I'm an Algerian, but I don't support Nazi Germany invading Fr*nce, because just like with the U.S. and Japan they didn't do it for us colonized people, in fact they killed us too. The nuking wasn't to make Japan surrender, but just to flex the U.S. power on the soviets and who ever else challenges it, your grandfathers benefited nothing from the U.S. nuking Imperial Japan. The U.S. didn't nuke Japan for your grandfathers.
Continue to lecture someone from another country about how they should feel about their own country and history is the real American brain worms my friend.
I don't pretend to know the complexities of the French occupation and the Algerian struggle for independence, that's why I'm not going to tell you how you should feel or think about it.
The American brain worm is believing that America nuking two Japanese cities was somehow the reason Imperial Japan "Surrendered"
We let's have a look at the relevant part of Hirohito's surrender speech to see whether or not the bombs had any impact on his decision to surrender:
Clear as fucking day right from the man himself.
Even if I do have American brain worms (maybe granddad pick some up from a dead yank in Korea), what you're espousing is just Japanese right wing brain worms. Don't take it from me, take it from a Japanese media scholar:
It's so frustrating that even Japanese people can acknowledge that this is their version of the Clean Wehrmacht myth specifically designed by Americans to rehabilitate them in a Cold War confrontation with the USSR but you try to tell this to a leftist and it's like talking to a fucking brick wall.
understand me, I'm not telling you "oooh the poor Japanese got nuked this makes all of their crimes okay", I am telling you that the U.S. nuking Japan brought no good and you yourself have made this point yourself, the forgiving imperial Japan thing wouldn't be as popular if the U.S. didn't nuke it, sure the Clean Wehrmacht exist, but there was still a theater of Nazis getting punished, meanwhile the U.S. granted Unit 731 immunity and Hiro Hito died in 1989.
No, look at the passage I cited from the Emperor's surrender address. Tell me exactly what it says.
There was the theatre of the Tokyo War Crimes trials too. Are you seriously this ignorant about the topic and trying to lecture me? The German denazification process was scarcely better than the Japanese process. Von Braun et al was their Unit 731. A bunch of high ranking Nazis got to die of old age too. America can eat shit for letting both the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese off the hook with a slap but Germany didn't get nuked and it was rehabilitated just like Japan. It's almost as if the US was going to rehabilitate both fascist powers anyway, nukes or not.
Nothing you've said justifies the killings of Japanese grandmothers and schoolchildren, which the US was happy to do, to scare the USSR. These were civilian, not military targets.