Historical poll

[badunnin]

With the hindsight of 60 years, do you believe U.S. president Harry S Truman was right to use atomic weapons against Japan in the Second World War?

Hmmm, my poll question is too long. You get the idea.

[lisas3575]

DH and I were just talking about this last night, and I was saying that I didn't really feel I had an "educated" opinion since I wasn't alive at the time. It seems easy for me, 60 years later, to condemn the actions of people in war without having a true perspective of what was at stake at the time.

I do believe that the men who made that decision did the best they could at the time. I question the use of the bomb on civilian areas, but who will ever know if it would have been effective if we'd made that show of force over an unpopulated area? We watched a documentary on Discovery that talked about the week between the two bombings, with no surrender from Japan, and they felt they had to go ahead with the second bombing to force their hand and save millions more lives from combat. :(

Do I believe it's tragic? Absolutely. Was it "right" or "wrong"? I don't have a concrete opinion.

[blazedog]

Let's put it into perspective first of all. THe fire bombings of Dresden and other European cities actually were more destructive and killed more people.

The battle for the Pacific was fought on a man to man basis -- extremely grueling to land on each island and fight the Japanese soldiers who were battened down -- not to mention what it would be like to attempt to land and occupy Japan itself. THink of the huge casualties on D-Day and the battle against the Germans on the Western front.

The Japanese had an ethos of no surrender -- for better or worse. Yes you can say that they were close to being beaten but there would have been significantly more Allied casualties -- and perhaps Japanese casualties - if the bomb hadn't been dropped. Yes it was an "atomic" bomb but the bombings by both the Allied and Axis killed millions of people.

In my mind, WW II was one of the only good wars fought -- if any war could be called good. It truly was a battle of the democratic west against forces of evil.

So yes of course, it was the correct decision and should be viewed in perspective -- it saved lives.

[Escher]

it saddens me to no end to think that anyone thinks ending the war as fast as possible wasn't the correct choice....

I have the utmost of respect for Tibbetts and crew.

[badunnin]

it saddens me to no end to think that anyone thinks ending the war as fast as possible wasn't the correct choice....

I have the utmost of respect for Tibbetts and crew.

If ending a war as fast as possible is the goal, why haven't we used the bomb since then? Why have concern for civilian lives?

[blazedog]

If ending a war as fast as possible is the goal, why haven't we used the bomb since then? Why have concern for civilian lives?

Because there hasn't been that type of complete global war since then. The entire world was then involved in the conflagration and the stakes were no less than the demise of civilization.

There are a so many reasons why nuclear weapons are not a viable solution today -- in much the same way as going to war in Iraq hardly solves the root problems of evil. For starters, the US was the ONLY country that had nuclear capability and the nuclear capability of a weapon was quite limited as compared to the destructiveness of today's weapons.

However, before questioning the usefulness of a weapon that did in fact save many Allied lives, I would suggest reading some comprehensive histories of the period between the assassination at Sarajevo on through the Spanish Civil Way in which the Fascists perfected the art of civilian air strikes on through the holocaust and an island by island saga of the war in the Pacific Theater.

And since my father was stationed in the Pacific in 1945 all set for the invasion of Japan that would probably have been inevitable, I probably owe my existence to the bomb. :p

Again, put it in perspective and compare it to the numbers killed by air strikes -- especially the Dresden fire bombings.

[Escher]

If ending a war as fast as possible is the goal, why haven't we used the bomb since then? Why have concern for civilian lives?

Not only have we not been engaged with an enemy our equal (or better), but our technology is far more precise than WWII. We have tools at our disposal that simply weren't available back then.

However, if we went toe-to-toe w/ China today, I have no doubt that would turn nuclear. As it stands, we only barely averted catastrophe w/ the Soviets...

So, to answer your question directly, we have a scaleable response, and we have not had to face an enemy challenging enough to merit nuclear response.