Don't get me wrong; the firebombings of Japanese cities were horrible war crimes. But I think there's a unique horror to a nuclear bomb that goes beyond anything conventional weapons can cause. The descriptions in this post start to express the horror but it goes much deeper than even that. People near the center of the explosions were so completely obliterated that the only traces of them left were their shadows, burned onto concrete walls forever.
The frustrating thing is that many Americans are ignorant about the horrific shit their country is responsible for or they think it's justifiable somehow. Some one on reddit dead ass told me the us never did anything wrong.
Sorry hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, you all had to die so I could go to college.
Idk how anyone here feels about Dan Carlins Hardcore history but hearing him describe what happened to people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima immediately made up my mind that there's no possible way of justifying it.
What's funny is that in the episode "Logical Insanity," he actually does lay out the case for justification of the nukes being dropped. The whole episode is about the insane logic (hence the title) that people use to justify ever increasing atrocities during war, such as the firebombing of Tokyo. The logic being that making the war worse for civilians to bear will eventually lead to them demanding the government surrender, leading to more and more indiscriminate bombing when their government inevitably doesn't surrender. This was back during the era where just about every military higher-up was of the opinion that people could be bombed into submission, because "Why would people just let that happen to them?" I guess.
And he also covers it from the Japanese point of view a bit, as well, mentioning that a significant portion of the Japanese civilian population was ready, willing, and able to fight, and die for their Emperor. In fact, in the newest series "Supernova in the East", he mentions that guy that hid in the Philippine jungle for however many years refused to believe that the war was over and Japan still existed. In his mind, if the war was over, Japan couldn't have existed, because they would have forced the Allies to invade and kill them all.
I'm not saying that the bombings were right in any way, but you can't say that there wasn't justification. The justification was not having to invade the Japanese Home Islands, which almost certainly would have been far worse, both in terms of absolute casualties, as well as in terms of purely civilian deaths. And in the end, the two bombs being dropped was probably the only time in history that the logical insanity actually worked itself out and directly led to surrender as a consequence. But I suppose we'll never truly know, and we just have to live with it.
I’m not saying that the bombings were right in any way, but you can’t say that there wasn’t justification. The justification was not having to invade the Japanese Home Islands
This was never a risk. The Japanese knew they couldn't win and there was already discussion about the terms of the war's end. Dropping the nukes was literally just, "Hey soviets, look. We can delete cities. Don't fuck with us" dick waving bullshit
Back in 2008 during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, I pointed out to my great-uncle that according to some definitions of terrorism, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings qualified (keep in mind that I was still a shitlib at the time). Needless to say, he did not appreciate that, lol
I once met a WWII veteran that described the Japanese as "subhuman savages" that "deserved much worse". Racist psychopath brain.
They had to do it or Stalin would have single handedly killed 8 5ths of the Japanese population with a rusty spoon.
I got to listen to a Hiroshima survivor talk about the aftermath when I was in the city a few years ago. I don't remember too many specifics since I was pretty exhausted at the time, just that it sounded absolutely fucking nightmarish.
