Welcome to Gaia! ::

So, I have a question for you guys.
Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

I understand on one hand that it saved lives and stopped a war cold in it's tracks. Although I've been reading up on it and the suffering the Atomic Bombs caused as well as A-Bomb disease that people still could be suffering from to this day and for generations to come.

For me this is a hard question to answer because we don't know the outcome if the war were to continue vrs it ending with the Americans dropping the Atomic Bombs.

Possibly not the full extent but they did a lot of research into making the bomb as effective as they could. They took the Halifax Harbour incident and learned that if a bomb was dropped above the ground that it created 2 shockwaves. One that went towards the ground and then the one that went outwards. Which is a lot more devestaing, I forget exactly what happens because I watched it on discovery a while ago.
They also saw what radiation did to people, as a scientist saved the lives of fellow scientists and threw himself onto plutonium as it was reacting. Of course he died of his injuries. I think it happened in Los Amos in Mexico.

So they knew to some extent what it did to people and research the most effective dropping height to kill and create the most damage.

I hate humans and there stive to be the best, most powerful and to wage wars.

I hate to say it, but I agree with Sav to a point here. They did target cities with strategical value. There was no way to know the aftereffects would last *to this day* even if they realised there were some truly horrible side-effects. There is probably no way that would have ended the war as swiftly as the bombs did and overall, even if it was a horrific thing, it was a decisive end instead of a drawn out and bloody battle.

Though the citizens of Japan had nowhere to go, even if they had warnings. Two major cities can't just evacuate even for a bomb threat. I hate to be cold and cruel, and if I didn't have a total blank objective stare on the matter and had some personal ties in it instead I would say otherwise, but it was probably the best thing to do at the time.

I agree with them... for 2 or 3 reasons.

1. if we had not of bombed them then we would have lost to Hitler and Germany and lets see what is worst a couple thousand people distorted or a couple hundred million killed for no reason hmmmm.
2. they bombed places with factories and not as much a population. they could have easly destroyed tokyo but they attacked the 2. and it would have been one had Japan surrendered after A-bomb 1.
3. it allowed us to finish off Germany and to fully pull America as THE world power. that and D Day. ^_^ so yeah they were justified.

Germany surrendered fully to the allied forces a good 2 to 3 months before the first bombing in Japan (Victory in Europe [V-E Day] was declared on May 8, the bombing in Hiroshima was on August 6).

Also, it didn't "fully pull America as THE world power", it established the USA and USSR as the world powers. Had there been no question of superiority there would have been no Cold War and subsequent arms and space races. I further question your third point as I fail to see how simply establishing superiority justifies that kind of slaughter.

Speaking of the Cold War. I would like to suggest that the use of the bombs in Japan actually worked to scare the US and Russia. I doubt that they could have truly comprehended the horror of such weapons and, had they not have been used then, would have been more likely to use them during the Cold War. Perhaps on a large scale.

@Inmate — Why the hell would a foreign power allow an apparently militant leader to remain in power? That's ridiculous. What if Germany had asked that Hitler been allowed to remain in power? Or Italy asked for Mussolini?

Furthermore, 3-4 days is apparently enough time to make a decision of surrender. They managed to do it in one after the bombing of Nagasaki.

July 26 Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Chiang Kai-shek released the Potsdam Declaration. The final clause of which clearly states that the consequences of non-compliance would be utter destruction.

July 27 Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki says to the press, "I consider the Joint Proclamation a rehash of the Declaration at the Cairo Conference. As for the Government, it does not attach any important value to it at all. The only thing to do is just kill it with silence (mokusatsu). We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war."

August 6 Bombing of Hiroshima.

August 9 Bombing of Nagasaki and Russian invasion of Manchuria.

August 10 Japanese surrender.

It seems that all they need is one day to respond. They responded to the Potsdam Declaration in one day and to Nagasaki/Manchuria in one day. Furthermore, allowing more time would have been a bad move strategically. It would have weakened the appearance of the allied resolve. In what struggle would you allow the enemy to recover fully from an attack before launching another?

Also, why would the USA start negotiations? Japan knew it was in a bad position and was trying to negotiate with pretty much everyone except the USA. Hell, they had tried to solicit help from the Swiss.

Yes. Yes I ******** would surrender after that. It would have stopped a second bombing, no?

sigh no they were beaten a good month tops but they had not surrendered. and we had been "Island Hopping" to get to japan. and they had been fighting to the death. For ISLANDS THEY DID NOT EVEN HAVE PEOPLE ON. You Ever here of the Kamikazes they were Japaneses suicide bombers. and they were using them before we were even in range of to bomb them. think of what would have happened if we tried to invade japan THEIR HOME ISLAND. And Truman did send them an "Ultimatum" and they said no. so we bombed Hiroshima and they still did not surrender. so we bombed Nagasaki. and the reason we needed to end it quick with them was to beat Russia to Germany. cause had they have arrived without The rest of the Allied powers being there then we would have been screwed cause Russia or sould i say the USSR would of had GERMAN FACTORIES. and you see how good they worked against us right so yeah. and even to say my HISTORY TEACHER AND HE IS BIG INTO WORLD STUFF AND ALL AND MOSTLY HISTORY EVEN BELIEVES IT WAS JUSTIFIED. i say it is u have ur option so there. but yeah it was.

and to the other girl. it sure would have been enough time if they saw a huge explosion, to say hmmm i think we should surrender. so yeah

seemingly it was enough to one SCARE RUSSIA, ENGLAND, and FRANCE. TWO their production rate was the only one that rivaled that of the USA and it WAS the best in Europe