The Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[das_nut]

And let's examine the logic that justifies dropping the a-bombs a bit further. If it's okay to commit extreme war crimes to end a war quickly and avoid additional casualties, then surely we would have to accept horrendous war crimes committed by the enemy as well? Of course, only if they are sufficiently extreme and likely to shock their enemy into surrendering. So conventional war that leads to many deaths, as well as smaller war crimes, would still both be morally reprehensible, whereas extreme war crimes would be morally justified. So for example in the Vietnam war the US acted unethically by not nuking Hanoi and the north back to the stone ages right away. In fact, any nation that has the Bomb should be using it in a conflict if it seems likely they can shock the enemy into surrendering quickly.

Was it a war crime by the knowledge of that day? We were planning to use nukes on X-day - and march our troops through the epicenter. Which seems to indicate that we didn't really see nukes as being the less dangerous option.

 

[Second Summer]

Was it a war crime by the knowledge of that day? We were planning to use nukes on X-day - and march our troops through the epicenter. Which seems to indicate that we didn't really see nukes as being the less dangerous option.

I don't know what they knew at the time, but this is also a question of what they ought to have known before they decided to nuke two whole cities using hundreds of thousands of Japanese as guinea pigs.

 

[das_nut]

I don't know what they knew at the time, but this is also a question of what they ought to have known before they decided to nuke two whole cities using hundreds of thousands of Japanese as guinea pigs.

If you're claiming that, then isn't the US military of the WWII era guilty of all sorts of war crimes? I doubt there was much thorough testing of any new weapons for how safe they were to civilians, be it nuclear bombs, a new explosive, or a new bomb design.

 

[Second Summer]

* IIRC, the 3rd core intended for Japan was later known as the "demon core" due to being involved in two criticality accidents before being purposely detonated in an atomic test blast.
** US was gearing up for continued nuking of Japan until the Imperial surrender. Several more cores would have been available and (presumably used) until either the surrender or the 1946 invasion. IIRC, plans involved the US nuking the battlefield and then sending US troops through the results. Considering Okinawa and previous battles, even with what we know today about the dangers of fallout, this could have been the safer route for troops. Of course, what '46 wartime Japan would have looked like is open for debate - Japan was in pretty sorry shape midway through '45.

I came across this video by British historian Dr. Mark Felton. It discusses the plans for dropping a third atomic bomb on Japan, and also the Japanese coup d'etat which took place to prevent the surrender - this was fortunately quashed.

I still think there should have been a greater effort to avoid using these weapons on the battlefield. Surely the US government must had some idea about the destructive force of the bombs, which after all is why they developed them. That said, clearly many in the Japanese cabinet and the generals were prepared to continue the war even after two atomic bombs dropped on them, so it's not clear it would have worked, at least not right away. That said, what prevented the Japanese from surrendering earlier was that they didn't know what would be the fate/role of their emperor if they surrendered. So more negotiations may have helped them make the right decision.

 

[Amy SF]

And in the seven years since I posted my original comment, I’ve gotten only one upvote. Just one. *sigh*

 

[thinman]