I have lots of Japanese family and friends, and none of them understand the horrors of WW2. As far as they were taught, America just randomly dropped nukes on them. They’re mad because they think of Japan as a victim, not a monster that needed to be stopped. They raped and pillaged everyone who wasn’t Japanese.
At least Germany teaches their kids about their atrocities in hopes that they never repeat it.
Japan was definitely a monster that needed to be stopped. But to say that made it okay to drop two nukes instantly killing thousands of civilians is not okay in any case.
Well. The war took 20.000 lives daily. The bombs took about 140k if i recall right.
If the war lasted 7 more days it would even out. The bombs ended it instantly.
The Japanese doctrine was to fight to the very last man, woman and child.
The Japanese are like everyone else. Only more. They had some powerful cultural settings to be able to do what they did.
That to me seems like the same logic being used by the israelis to justify killing the Palestinians. Its never justified to go after the civilian population and non combatants.
I think there’s a difference between killing Japanese military and Japanese civilians. With that logic the american civilians deserved dying on 9/11
But to say that made it okay to drop two nukes instantly killing thousands of civilians is not okay in any case.
My understanding was they were actually attacking manufacturing for the war, it’s just that an atom bomb is not that discriminatory, and that all the military-only targets had already been bombed out of existence by that point.
Not saying it was right, just explaining it wasn’t as black-and-white as you express.
Thats and interesting point, but it does make me think, why drop the nukes when they can just bomb the manufacturing hubs without incurring as much civilian death
No, the targeting committee was very clear that the targets were selected mainly based on spectacle and effect.
They purposely kept a few cities in a “pristine” (or as close as possible) by disallowing other bombings so when the nukes were finished the before and after would look more dramatic.
The fact that they could just ignore these cities before dropping the nukes shows that the targets were of little to no military value
