Should the U.S. Have Dropped the A-Bomb?

[Xyzzzy]

Today in history we stumbled upon an interesting conversation: Should the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan?

Being a 9th grade class the arguments were generally overly opinionated, and horribly supported.

Personally I believe that the dropping of the atomic bomb was justified. While preparing to attack Japan directly we learned that invading another country is nearly impossible, and when it comes to an island, it is 10x as worse. When invading the tiny islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, we lost over 12,000+ and 6,800 men were lost respectively. Now scale these islands up to that of a world super power, and try to imagine the amount of men we would have to send to their death to invade and (hopefully) conquer Japan.
Another reason that I believe the bombings were justified is the sheer will of Japan. With things going on such as the fire bombings of six of Japan's industrial cities where the bombing of just Tokyo alone killed over 60,000 people, and destroyed over 250,000 buildings; America's allies preparing to attack Japan as well, they still did not even flinch in the face of the world.
What would it have taken to make this country surrender if we did not drop the bomb? The amount of power, and men is simply too incredible even to ponder.

I'd like to see what everyone else has to say about this topic, because even to today the topic is still greatly debated.

[Reise]

Now scale these islands up to that of a world super power, and try to imagine the amount of men we would have to send to their death to invade and (hopefully) conquer Japan.

lol Don't kid yourself, Japan doesn't have much of a military.

[agent420]

yes, we should have dropped the bomb! but we never should have said sorry!

[Pilot]

You're right. The atomic bomb was developed as a weapon, and weapons are used in war. The atomic bomb prevented millions of casualties from happening, both Japanese and American (possibly Russian too). There was no other solution to a nation hardened and ready to fight to the last woman and child.

[iGod]

The war was won, the bombing was uncalledfor and unjustified, imo.

[Draquish]

The war was won, the bombing was uncalledfor and unjustified, imo.

Talk about uncalled for.

[Xyzzzy]

Now scale these islands up to that of a world super power, and try to imagine the amount of men we would have to send to their death to invade and (hopefully) conquer Japan.

lol Don't kid yourself, Japan doesn't have much of a military.

Then explain how they managed to cause such sever damage to our naval forces, how they slaughtered us even when we invaded small unimportant islands. Even if their military was not that great, they were undeniably a force to be reckoned with.

The war was won, the bombing was uncalledfor and unjustified, imo.

That is not true. Most people don't realize it, but we were fighting to totally separate wars. One with Germany and the Axis forces, which was officially won on May 7th, 1945.
At this point we still had to fight against Japan on our Western front in the Pacific.

@Draquish
LOL propaganda as justification?

[Reise]

Imagine how many more people would've died if we went and took Japan with troops though. The bombs made Japan surrender outright, if they had dragged it on more people probably would've died in the fighting, and Japanese troops would've kept killing themselves to escape capture.

They slaughtered us? I think you need to look up some numbers lol.

[Crumpets]

Code: Select all

<3 OMD btw. Best band ever.

[Xyzzzy]

Imagine how many more people would've died if we went and took Japan with troops though. The bombs made Japan surrender outright, if they had dragged it on more people probably would've died in the fighting, and Japanese troops would've kept killing themselves to escape capture.

They slaughtered us? I think you need to look up some numbers lol.

We suffered more causalities fighting Japan than any other war IIRC. I'll try and find my source.
Think of it comparatively though:
Iwo Jima:

Four miles long, shaped like a pork chop, covering eight square miles

Okinawa:

463 square miles

Thats nothing compared to other battles.

[Stallowned]

Shoulda dropped more. Woulda never been cursed with Anime

[iGod]

The war was won, the bombing was uncalledfor and unjustified, imo.

That is not true. Most people don't realize it, but we were fighting to totally separate wars. One with Germany and the Axis forces, which was officially won on May 7th, 1945.
At this point we still had to fight against Japan on our Western front in the Pacific.

@Draquish
LOL propaganda as justification?

I believe it was too brutal, the bombs were overkill, thats all.

[Reise]

Somebody posted a casualty graph here once that showed the stats pretty clearly. Japanese military losses over two million, and the US, through Europe AND the Pacific losing somewhere around 300-500 thousand total.

[WhiteF]

No One Should Dropped Any Bomb at all

[Xyzzzy]

But in the end, they still dealt us a devastating blow. It seems that once the death toll gets past a certain point no one cares anymore. It just becomes another statistic when a soldier is lost.

We are kind of straying away from the topic here though, and I believe this may be a moot point in the overall original idea.

No One Should Dropped Any Bomb at all

I'm open to other ideas, let's here a reason why not.

[SCArchon]

If the bombs were over kill... why didn't they surrender after the first bomb?
no.. it takes a second bomb for them to surrender. Doesn't seem that much like over kill to me.

btw, not for-nuclear attack or anti-nuclear attack.

and here's a joseph stalin (not a commie XD) quote i picked up while reading a novel

"One death is a tragedy, a million's a statistic."

if any of you remember Cecelia Zhang, those of you who lived in Toronto, everyone was sad about it.

but not that much attention was paid to the Rwanda crisis, was it?

[Barotix]

[Reise]

and here's a joseph stalin (not a commie XD) quote i picked up while reading a novel

"One death is a tragedy, a million's a statistic."

lol Figures Stalin would say something like that.

[Draquish]

@Draquish
LOL propaganda as justification?

I meant to imply that the Japanese attacked the US, and in my opinion, they would've had no problem in using atomic bombs during the attack if they had a hold of some back then.

[Grimm-.-]

No One Should Dropped Any Bomb at all

Thankyou^^.

Damir stall... Anime rulez XD

[Xyzzzy]

and here's a joseph stalin (not a commie XD) quote i picked up while reading a novel

"One death is a tragedy, a million's a statistic."

lol Figures Stalin would say something like that.

lol but at the same time its a very harsh truth

[Ryoko]

Its funny. Back in the day we fire bombed whole cities with incendiaries. Before hand bombed roughly to break up some structures for good kindling, then hit it with the firebomb.

Then we dropped two atomic bombs wiping out two hole cities.

Now the world pisses and moans if 5 Farking civilians in a tactical building get killed when taking it out. Then theres a trial over it and shit. La la la.

Not to mention pissing and moaning over 1000 lost troops with days of media coverage and protests when we hit that mark.

Like we didnt lose 200K+ in wars before.

QQ

[[SD]Kratos]

sadly, they had to drop it. else the war would have kept going for more years and would have made more victims.

[Reise]

Anyway I doubt Japan would've surrendered unless we used such force. They had shown numerous times that they were more than willing to sacrifice themselves for their country. If we didn't have a way to show them we could wipe them from existence they probably would've fought to the last woman and child, and we probably wouldn't have a Japan like we do today.

[WhiteF]

[quote=\"Xyzzzy\"]But in the end, they still dealt us a devastating blow. It seems that once the death toll gets past a certain point no one cares anymore. It just becomes another statistic when a soldier is lost.

We are kind of straying away from the topic here though, and I believe this may be a moot point in the overall original idea.

[quote=\"WhiteF\"]No One Should Dropped Any Bomb at all[/quote]
I\'m open to other ideas, let\'s here a reason why not.[/quote]
because it is stupid and waste of life think about civilians they never asked after a atomic-bomb and a A-Bomb is not same thing like a common bomb. The best is no bomb at all

[XemnasXD]

What most ppl overlook is that the Japanese military was all but defeated by the time we dropped the bomb. You guys keeping mentioning how we would've lost so many more troops if we invaded but thats not they truth, we probably wouldn't have lost that many at all. It was the Japanese Gov't which was still resilient to surrender as most of the military were wiped out, deserted, or had become PoW. The bomb was dropped as an experiment nothing more, the Military wanted to see its new toy in action and show the world what the US was capable of.

Even after taking all that into consideration was it really necessary to drop 2 bomb when one would've easily sufficed, keep in mind these bombs were not dropped on area of major gov't activity or military areas or even strategic points they were cites full of civilians who had nothing to do with the war. It would be like exactly like someone dropping a bomb on Detroit because of the war in Iraq, it would be seen as an act of terrorism today and it should've been seen as an act of terrorism then.

[Grimm-.-]

What most ppl overlook is that the Japanese military was all but defeated by the time we dropped the bomb. You guys keeping mentioning how we would've lost so many more troops if we invaded but thats not they truth, we probably wouldn't have lost that many at all. It was the Japanese Gov't which was still resilient to surrender as most of the military were wiped out, deserted, or had become PoW. The bomb was dropped as an experiment nothing more, the Military wanted to see its new toy in action and show the world what the US was capable of.

Even after taking all that into consideration was it really necessary to drop 2 bomb when one would've easily sufficed, keep in mind these bombs were not dropped on area of major gov't activity or military areas or even strategic points they were cites full of civilians who had nothing to do with the war. It would be like exactly like someone dropping a bomb on Detroit because of the war in Iraq, it would be seen as an act of terrorism today and it should've been seen as an act of terrorism then.

Ugh... now that is just...

[Stallowned]

What most ppl overlook is that the Japanese military was all but defeated by the time we dropped the bomb. You guys keeping mentioning how we would've lost so many more troops if we invaded but thats not they truth, we probably wouldn't have lost that many at all. It was the Japanese Gov't which was still resilient to surrender as most of the military were wiped out, deserted, or had become PoW. The bomb was dropped as an experiment nothing more, the Military wanted to see its new toy in action and show the world what the US was capable of.

Even after taking all that into consideration was it really necessary to drop 2 bomb when one would've easily sufficed, keep in mind these bombs were not dropped on area of major gov't activity or military areas or even strategic points they were cites full of civilians who had nothing to do with the war. It would be like exactly like someone dropping a bomb on Detroit because of the war in Iraq, it would be seen as an act of terrorism today and it should've been seen as an act of terrorism then.

GOt damn you just dumb son.

[Xyzzzy]

I knew that Xemnas's view would come up eventually. I don't really have a counter statement prepared though. I don't particularly know much about past what you learn in America. Of course that is always going to be that we had great justification for it.

[Nuklear]

What most ppl overlook is that the Japanese military was all but defeated by the time we dropped the bomb. You guys keeping mentioning how we would've lost so many more troops if we invaded but thats not they truth, we probably wouldn't have lost that many at all. It was the Japanese Gov't which was still resilient to surrender as most of the military were wiped out, deserted, or had become PoW. The bomb was dropped as an experiment nothing more, the Military wanted to see its new toy in action and show the world what the US was capable of.

Even after taking all that into consideration was it really necessary to drop 2 bomb when one would've easily sufficed, keep in mind these bombs were not dropped on area of major gov't activity or military areas or even strategic points they were cites full of civilians who had nothing to do with the war. It would be like exactly like someone dropping a bomb on Detroit because of the war in Iraq, it would be seen as an act of terrorism today and it should've been seen as an act of terrorism then.

lol, now I don't have to type anything. <3