Soviets systematically take over Japanese territory. The US has pushed the Japanese back to their home island. On July 27, United States issues an ultimatum: surrender or they would drop a "super weapon". Japan refuses. Hiroshima gets wiped out on August 6. US asks again for surrender. No response. Nagasaki gets bombed on August 9. US demands surrender again(with the implied threat of a third bombing, though it is a bluff). Japan surrenders. Yeah, they really were on the edge of surrendering, weren't they?

Truth is, up until the second bombing the fanatical generals in the military had control over the emperor, and thus the government. They were not going to surrender and were training civilians to use guns, spears, and to do suicide bomber attacks. It was only until the second bombing that the emperor was able to shake off the yoke of the fanatical generals and give a formal surrender. But even when he recorded an official surrender, the generals were still trying to prevent it by stealing the recorded surrender speech.

The atom bombs were not necessary(key word there). The Japanese had already lost. They just couldn't accept it yet. Eventually we or the Soviets would have invaded and forced them to accept a surrender. However, given the circumstances at the time the A-bombs were the best option available.

War is hell.

(edit: spelling and grammar corrections)

Yep, and that is unfortunate because a government should be looking out for it's people, which they clearly were not. They just wanted power for the Japanese empire. But so is the way of war, the citizens are the ones who pay for it...not to mention im sure alot of them supported the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Wow. I'll offer a prize to the first person to post something less relevant to the topic of the thread than this.



Nations change, especially democracies. It's absurd to label one administration's actions as hypocritical based on the actions of a previous administration. Whatever you think of Bush's "war on terror," the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings have no bearing whatsoever on its morality.

Back to the bombings themselves, I'd have to say it's a gray area. Yes, the casualties from the atomic bombs may well have been greater than would have resulted from an invasion. We'll never know, though, how many additional casualties there would have been if the Soviet Union had staked a claim to part or all of Japan.

Fetus.

A thought spared for those Americans who died during the cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor, for American sailors who were trapped on-board their ships and drowned as they went down, for those Americans who were betrayed as the Japanese dishonored a treaty of peace, to those Americans who died brutal deaths on the Japanese main lands a while later as a direct result of retaliation to the cowardly Pearl Harbor attack who's dog tags were removed and who's bodies were desecrated, for the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and wives of American military personnel killed while defending the United States.

A noble, yet unlikely thought that such a brutal weapon would never need to be used again, that anti-nuke regulations are obeyed and mass-murder-in-a-can is never dropped again.

I spare a thought for those who survived the bomb because of its destructive after-effects which nobody was aware of at the time, yet I don't consider them innocent, and I don't think they would spare the same thought if the tables were reversed, they invented the bomb first, and they dropped it on Washington DC or New York City.

It's a horrible weapon, and the US has already put "thought" into never using it again, yet there is no reason for us to regret using it as we lost a lot of people at the hands of the Japanese during that war as the direct result of an attack that was equally cowardly, however unprovoked.

The bastards were in bed with Adolf Hitler. Remember what atrocities Hitler committed when you're thinking of the poor Japanese casualties. Regardless of the bomb, the US had the moral high ground, and Japan did not. Sad to say, the only way to save your country is to defeat the enemy's and if the bomb saved even one innocent American soldier's life it was well worth it. We didn't start the fight, but thankfully we were the ones that finished it, or this would be quite a different world, and you would not be posting here today. Hell, there likely wouldn't even be regulations against weapons of mass destruction had the US lost WW2, and freedom as you know it would not exist.

The check's in the mail.