With The Barbenheimer Craze Slowing Down, Let's Settle This Once And For All...

Do You Believe The Use Of The Atomic Bomb On Japan Was Justified?


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cookie

my wish like everyone else is to be seen
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Given that Oppenheimer and Barbie were the Little Boy/Fat Man of the cinema industry of the 2020's, i.e. waking it up, I like to think that the bombs were justified as they inspired one half of that.
 

CaffeineBoost

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The tragedy of Hiroshima could never be justified. The war was nearing a prompt end, Japan was clearly already losing, everything would've been fine for America. The fact that Harry S. Truman decided to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima anyway and instantly eviscerate 80k people instantly and leave so many more people with an even worse fate of dying slowly and painfully of either acute radiation poisoning, or one of the many illnesses that exposure to a nuclear blast like that could give should make America ashamed and we should always remember it as a grim reminder of the consequences of nuclear war.

Fat man however is just commitment to the bit, so you kinda have to respect it.
 
The tragedy of Hiroshima could never be justified. The war was nearing a prompt end, Japan was clearly already losing, everything would've been fine for America. The fact that Harry S. Truman decided to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima anyway and instantly eviscerate 80k people instantly and leave so many more people with an even worse fate of dying slowly and painfully of either acute radiation poisoning, or one of the many illnesses that exposure to a nuclear blast like that could give should make America ashamed and we should always remember it as a grim reminder of the consequences of nuclear war.

Fat man however is just commitment to the bit, so you kinda have to respect it.
douglass and harry.jpg


"Come on, Harry...commit to the bit"
 
The tragedy of Hiroshima could never be justified. The war was nearing a prompt end, Japan was clearly already losing, everything would've been fine for America. The fact that Harry S. Truman decided to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima anyway and instantly eviscerate 80k people instantly and leave so many more people with an even worse fate of dying slowly and painfully of either acute radiation poisoning, or one of the many illnesses that exposure to a nuclear blast like that could give should make America ashamed and we should always remember it as a grim reminder of the consequences of nuclear war.

Fat man however is just commitment to the bit, so you kinda have to respect it.
I disagree. It is true that Japan had no way to win the war and that they were basically defeated by the time we dropped the bombs, but history shows that we have no clear understanding when they would agreed to surrender unconditionally. Japan was desperate for negotiations even after the Soviets invaded Manchuria. There is still a belief by many that total war was on the table for Japan had the allies gotten to a point of invasion, largely driven by beliefs held by War Minister Korechika Anami. Japan would have lost the invasion, yes, but at the cost of at least 500,000 lives, both allied and Japanese.

Additionally, the mentality among the Japanese was so strong at the time that even after the first bomb was dropped, Anami went on to speculate that the US only had one, implying he and the other two hawkish ministers were likely fine with continuing the war until they literally had no other choice. I believe the emperor's involvement in ordering they accept the surrender terms to be the most convincing argument here. Two bombs had been dropped and a superpower had just announced that they'll invade your occupied land, yet that was seemingly not enough to warrant an agreement to surrender immediately.

Based on Truman's diary, I do believe he wanted to drop the bombs just to see what would happen. I don't believe he felt it necessary for Japan to surrender, but I do believe they were instrumental to Japan's surrender even if it came from the emperor and not his actual council. What the dropping of the bombs did allow for, though, is for people to forget how brutal imperialist Japan was. One countries war crimes single handedly washed away the others. I don't know about you but I don't remember learning about how many Chinese and Russian citizens died at the hands of Imperialist Japan, and growing up it was always my understanding that we went too far, but the image below is what ultimately led me to change my mind.

 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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I was in Hiroshima earlier this year and the 2 main things I learned were 1) the word "unconditionally" surrender was to some extent lost in translation, so really it probably could/should have been avoided if folks had just waited a bit longer or had better translators, and 2) Japanese people including even those in Hiroshima by and large do not blame the US but rather Imperial Japan.

Also, the aiming point was the T-bridge in the upper left, so the bomb was definitely not justified, more like just slightly right-aligned.

1693254429036.png
 

BP

Upper Decky Lip Mints
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I was in Hiroshima earlier this year
Yea well I was in Pearl Harbor earlier this year.

I also read a book about the Japanese perspective on the war. The there was a lot of evidence pointing towards the Japanese blaming their government as well. Book is called "1941 Japan" By Eri Hotta.
 
to answer ignores the bigger tragedy of all the firebombing (much more deadly) which I also happen to believe Bughouse deserves for that incredibly nerdy joke
The fire bombings were indeed very effective and largely why I believe Truman dropped it partially as an experiment to see how destructive the bomb was. But given we were fire bombing Japan for quite some time it does beg the question of how long they'd continue to fight under the same conditions.
 
The tragedy of Hiroshima could never be justified. The war was nearing a prompt end, Japan was clearly already losing, everything would've been fine for America. The fact that Harry S. Truman decided to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima anyway and instantly eviscerate 80k people instantly and leave so many more people with an even worse fate of dying slowly and painfully of either acute radiation poisoning, or one of the many illnesses that exposure to a nuclear blast like that could give should make America ashamed and we should always remember it as a grim reminder of the consequences of nuclear war.

Fat man however is just commitment to the bit, so you kinda have to respect it.
Nah Murica just had to show how awesome we are to Japan
 
Yeah its bad n all but I bet the mushroom cloud looked rlly fucking cool and we good some good memes out of it ….. Im torn … :mad:
 
I dont think you quite grasp the true horror of the atomic bomb. nothing compares to it, whether in deadliness or cruelty. if your city is nuked, the best thing you can hope for is to be in the center of the blast, as it is a far less painful death then having all the moisture in your body sucked out of you while surrounded by dead loved ones, knowing there is no one who can save you. there is not a single person who has ever lived that deserves such a fate. the atrocities commited by japan arent even remotely comparable to this. hiroshima and nagasaki were arguably the worse events to ever happen. what could possibly justify the unimaginably cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?
 
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