Originally posted by TacDavey
That seems to suggest that nuking civilians was the only way to win the war. That there was quite literally no other option available to us. I don't think that's true. And even if the destruction of those facilities WAS the absolute only way to win the war, we should be targeting the facilities, not the entire city.If we learned that a bunch of terrorists were hiding out in a city in Iraq, would you fully support the decision to level the entire city full of civilians to get them?
No, there were other options. Japan knew it was losing, it didn't have the resources and it spread itself too thin. Japan would have called in its troops and war-machines; preparing itself to repeal a US land invasion.
-The US would have had to obliterate Japan's remaining naval power first.
-Then US troops would have landed and had to fight their way inward. Fighting both soldiers and civilians(men, women and children of age, commanded by the Emperor) armed with whatever they could get their hands on (bamboo spears was what they were mostly trained with).
-All the while making conventional bomb-drops on prime targets/fortifications.
This would have cost many more civilian lives and US military deaths. Or the US could have asked Japan to surrender on Japan's terms.
Your scenario is comparing apples to oranges in regards to Japan and warfare in WWII.
Originally posted by Robtard
No, there were other options. Japan knew it was losing, it didn't have the resources and it spread itself too thin. Japan would have called in its troops and war-machines; preparing itself to repeal a US land invasion.-The US would have had to obliterate Japan's remaining naval power first.
-Then US troops would have landed and had to fight their way inward. Fighting both soldiers and civilians(men, women and children of age, commanded by the Emperor) armed with whatever they could get their hands on (bamboo spears was what they were mostly trained with).
-All the while making conventional bomb-drops on prime targets/fortifications.
This would have cost many more civilian lives and US military deaths. Or the US could have asked Japan to surrender on Japan's terms.
Your scenario is comparing apples to oranges in regards to Japan and warfare in WWII.
Wait, killing only civilians that attack you is MORE deaths than just killing every single civilian in the city? That doesn't seem quite right. Even if we accept your timeline of events as what would happen, this would still produce less civilian deaths than the alternative. Not to mention the fact that fighting civilians allows for us to take them captive or let them flee. Nuking them does not.
And yes, would could have asked for Japan to surrender.
I recall seeing a documentary on the History Channel that suggests that the straw that really broke the camel's back was neither the Atomic Bombs nor the USSR entering the war but rather a conventional (and relatively small scale) bombing raid that inadvertently thwarted the Officer's Coup. If it hadn't happened the Emperor's recording would have never reached the public and the military would have totally taken over (instead of just mostly being in charge as they were 😛 )
Originally posted by TacDavey
Wait, killing only civilians that attack you is MORE deaths than just killing every single civilian in the city? That doesn't seem quite right. Even if we accept your timeline of events as what would happen, this would still produce less civilian deaths than the alternative. Not to mention the fact that fighting civilians allows for us to take them captive or let them flee. Nuking them does not.And yes, would could have asked for Japan to surrender.
Which part of a massive and lengthy land invasion would have resulted in more death can't you grasp? War isn't perfect where children and anti-war people just happen to not get blown up or shot in what would have been a massive combat zone. Until the second nuke, Japan had a 'death first' mentally.
It would have been under Japan's terms. Which would have resulted in Japan keeping its emperor, not having to disarm and likely several other stipulations. Would have been closer to a separate peace with the US than Japan surrendering.
Originally posted by TacDavey
Wait, killing only civilians that attack you is MORE deaths than just killing every single civilian in the city?
Japan's population is much larger than the city of Hiroshima.
And no, it wouldn't just be civilians that attack you. If you standard for a war you'd be okay with is no peaceful people being harmed at all you have no choice to be let the Japanese destroy mainland China.
Originally posted by TacDavey
I didn't understand the computer analogy at all.And I still disagree with the idea that "without an alternative, I'm right."
That's just a flawed way of thinking. The simple fact that I can't produce another option has absolutely [B]NO
bearing on whether your option is right or wrong. It's right or wrong regardless of what I can think of and what I can't. [/B]
Originally posted by TacDavey
That seems to suggest that nuking civilians was the only way to win the war. That there was quite literally no other option available to us. I don't think that's true. And even if the destruction of those facilities WAS the absolute only way to win the war, we should be targeting the facilities, not the entire city.If we learned that a bunch of terrorists were hiding out in a city in Iraq, would you fully support the decision to level the entire city full of civilians to get them?
Originally posted by Omega Vision
I recall seeing a documentary on the History Channel that suggests that the straw that really broke the camel's back was neither the Atomic Bombs nor the USSR entering the war but rather a conventional (and relatively small scale) bombing raid that inadvertently thwarted the Officer's Coup. If it hadn't happened the Emperor's recording would have never reached the public and the military would have totally taken over (instead of just mostly being in charge as they were 😛 )
Originally posted by TacDavey
And yes, would could have asked for Japan to surrender.
Should also have added. Japan was asked to surrender; they refused. Then even refused after the first bomb. (as noted above)They did not like the terms, they wanted it on their own terms.
Originally posted by Robtard
Which part of a massive and lengthy land invasion would have resulted in more death can't you grasp? War isn't perfect where children and anti-war people just happen to not get blown up or shot in what would have been a massive combat zone. Until the second nuke, Japan had a 'death first' mentally.It would have been under Japan's terms. Which would have resulted in Japan keeping its emperor, not having to disarm and likely several other stipulations. Would have been closer to a separate peace with the US than Japan surrendering.
Civilians might have died, but they should have died accidentally. You shouldn't ever intentionally target civilians. And if a civilian has chosen to put their life on the line and fight, then that's one thing. Bombing a bunch of people who did not decide to enter the fight and purposely killing tons of innocent people just isn't acceptable.
Like I said, if your plan involves the deaths of a mass amount of innocent people, think of a new one.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Again this is not about right or wrong. The question is "was it necessary". And since you actually know nothing about the military realities, you obviously are unqualified to answer this question. I am not even taking sides on whether it was necessary. My point was that you always jump to conclusions with absolutely no research or thought, and that's true because instead of actually reading about the conditions of war, you just jumped to a meta-debate. But no amount of this logical manipulation will change the fact that you literally do not know what you're talking about and came into the thread uninformed.
And I'm saying that I can make an observation about an action without knowing about an alternative. I don't have to research possible alternatives to our decision to know if it was a good or bad one. I'm not just jumping to conclusions. My stance is that vaporizing a mass of civilians isn't acceptable, regardless of our motivations for doing so. I very much doubt that was the absolute only way to win the war. It was likely just the easiest.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Again, you can do nothing but bring up hypothetical analogies. It seems clear that you have no knowledge of world war II. If there were alternative options, bring a single one up. Prove you know anything about the topic.
Like I said, I don't have to bring up alternatives. To make the claim that nuking Japan was literally the one, single way to win the war is a radical claim. Life is never that simple. In any situation there are tons of ways to approach it.
Originally posted by King Kandy
This proves it, you literally do not know anything about the war. They were asked several times. This is a basic fact that should have been taught to you since middle school.
The "ask Japan to surrender" point was added to a hypothetical in which we destroyed their naval fleet and had them withdrawn into their country.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Japan's population is much larger than the city of Hiroshima.And no, it wouldn't just be civilians that attack you. If you standard for a war you'd be okay with is no peaceful people being harmed at all you have no choice to be let the Japanese destroy mainland China.
If you have to kill a civilian who decides to shoot at you that's one thing. But you shouldn't attack civilians if you don't have to.
If a civilian picks up a weapon and tries to kill you, I would consider a soldier justified in defending himself.
I would not consider a soldier justified in walking into a Japanese school and unloading a clip into a bunch of preschoolers. Which is effectively what we did on a much larger scale.
Fight those who want to fight you and only those who want to fight you.
I don't know how this means we should let the Japanese destroy China...
Originally posted by TacDavey
I would not consider a soldier justified in walking into a Japanese school and unloading a clip into a bunch of preschoolers. Which is effectively what we did on a much larger scale.
Not really.
If you want to use that metaphor:
A soldier unloaded is weapon into a military base that needed to be destroyed, knowing that he would kill the preschoolers, and believing that he was fighting an enemy that would kill the preschoolers before they gave up.
Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't know how this means we should let the Japanese destroy China...
Because you're fighting a war and if you can never take any risk of hurting someone you will lose. There's no two ways about this. Either you fight and deal with the consequences (doing everything you can to reduce them) or you give up.
The nuclear bombs were both horrible. They were much less horrible than dragging the war out even longer while the Japanese committed genocide, kill American troops, and were killed in huge numbers by American troops. Because that's what would have happened. You can say that there's always a better option as much as you like but when every minute of delay is killing people all that matters is that you pick the best solution on the table.
It's also relevant, philosophically, that you said this: "Fight those who want to fight you and only those who want to fight you."
This would mean that America should have like the Japanese torture, rape, and kill the Chinese and Koreans up until Peral Harbor, since the Japanese didn't want to fight America. I'm not very comfortable with that kind of moral isolationism.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Would you under no circumstances consider the death of a mass amount of civilians as the best alternative? I mean is there no scenario you can think of?And how much is a mass to you?
Well, you can craft a hypothetical that could call for it. For example, if you don't kill all these civilians the world will blow up.
You can do the same to pretty much anything, but I don't consider examples like these as anywhere close to being logically plausible.
So, no. I don't see any realistic situation in which a mass of civilian deaths is the best option for anything.
I don't have a set number for "mass". I just use it to mean a lot. I would consider a city full to be a mass, for example.
Originally posted by TacDavey
Civilians might have died, but they should have died accidentally. You shouldn't ever intentionally target civilians. And if a civilian has chosen to put their life on the line and fight, then that's one thing. Bombing a bunch of people who did not decide to enter the fight and purposely killing tons of innocent people just isn't acceptable.Like I said, if your plan involves the deaths of a mass amount of innocent people, think of a new one.
It's easy to ignore the the facts and realities (esp of the time) and just take the moral "don't kill civilians" high-ground. Anyone can do that, but in reality, it doesn't work.
As I told you:
-Japan did not want to surrender (unless it was on their terms and it wouldn't have been a surrender). The fact that they didn't surrender after one atom bomb should have made you wise to their mind-set, ie 'death before defeat'
-The other option in defeating Japan would have been a lengthy naval battle followed by a massive ground battle, which thousands more Japanese soldiers, civilians and Allied (mostly US) soldiers would have died in the process of conventional bombings, bullets and tooth and claw style fighting. Instead of two cities being atom bombed, it would have covered many more being destroyed. Close to half a million lives were lost in the battle of Normandy, from D-Day's beach landing onward. Just food for thought as a comparison of another massive land battle.
King Kandy pegged you right, you didn't bother to look up even the basics of Japan in WWII. You've been given the facts by several people, if anything go read up on it yourself and come up with a better scenario the US could have taken.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Not really.If you want to use that metaphor:
A soldier unloaded is weapon into a military base that needed to be destroyed, knowing that he would kill the preschoolers, and believing that he was fighting an enemy that would kill the preschoolers before they gave up.
You presented that like it was an okay option. If someone kidnapped a bunch of preschoolers and loaded them into a military base, you don't destroy the military base.
That's dangerously close to "the ends justify the means".
You said the Japanese would be willing to kill the preschoolers before they gave up. Does that seem wrong to you? The fact that the Japanese were perfectly willing to slaughter children if it helped them reach their goal?
I consider that wrong. Isn't that what the soldier was doing in the example? Slaughtering the preschoolers if it helped him reach his goal? In that sense, the soldier was no better than the Japanese.
Like I said before, if a robber takes a hostage, you don't shoot the hostage to get the robber. Even if it was likely the robber would kill the hostage anyway.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Because you're fighting a war and if you can never take any risk of hurting someone you will lose. There's no two ways about this. Either you fight and deal with the consequences (doing everything you can to reduce them) or you give up.
I never said you don't risk hurting people. That's MUCH different that purposely hurting people. You do whatever you can, however, to avoid killing civilians. Nuking civilians isn't avoiding hurting civilians, and it isn't "taking a risk of hurting someone". It's just flat out hurting someone.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The nuclear bombs were both horrible. They were much less horrible than dragging the war out even longer while the Japanese committed genocide, kill American troops, and were killed in huge numbers by American troops. Because that's what would have happened. You can say that there's always a better option as much as you like but when every minute of delay is killing people all that matters is that you pick the best solution on the table.
The Japanese killing innocent people is wrong. You do what you can to stop them. You don't stop them by killing innocent people, because as we just said, that's wrong.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
It's also relevant, philosophically, that you said this: "Fight those who want to fight you and [B]only those who want to fight you."
This would mean that America should have like the Japanese torture, rape, and kill the Chinese and Koreans up until Peral Harbor, since the Japanese didn't want to fight America. I'm not very comfortable with that kind of moral isolationism. [/B]
That's not completely what I meant. I don't mean "let people do whatever they want unless they want to fight you."
I think we should step in and stop people who are doing evil things. So you fight those who are doing the evil. You don't fight civilians.