[krageon]

Japan was an extremely bad actor. They had death camps just like the Germans did at that time. One can imagine that the German victims wished someone dropped a few nukes so Germany would back off a bit quicker. In the end it wasn't exactly pretty, but saying it was just for terror and fear seems like it takes a complicated situation and makes it one-dimensional. We've all been alive long enough to know real life is generally not that simple.

[eeZah7Ux]

Please don't.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki hosted mostly old retired people and children, and women in a smaller percentage. It hosted no military equipment of any significance, nor strategic locations, nor any significant factory.

A large number of people were [ex] fishermen and quite poor.

These people had very little power or ability to either support or resist the militaristic elite. They were well in the bottom 20% of literacy, wealth, fitness for war, political influence and specialized skills. Therefore they were mostly innocent.

They were wiped away as a show of force and aggressiveness to intimidate other countries including USSR.

> They had death camps just like the Germans did at that time

The Nazi did it, not "the Germans".

And it still does not justify targeting a large number of retirees and children that are contributing nothing to the war effort.

> takes a complicated situation and makes it one-dimensional

...

[krageon]

> Please don't.

Please don't what? I was offering a different view to the same issues, along with a plea to view complicated situations in the same way that the people subject to them at the time did: As complicated situations. Reducing it to this one-dimensional "everyone was innocent" reasoning is demeaning to the people making those hard decisions. They have to sleep too, and that's hard enough when the situations in question are viewed as they are, let alone when they are oversimplified by people who were only alive after the fact.

> It hosted no military equipment of any significance

Given that there were a number of "work camps" within spitting distance of those targets, it seems a little disingenuous to claim that there wasn't anything there. And even if that was the case, someone pulled the trigger in the way they did - it behooves us to think about the why of that decision in manner that doesn't reduce them to imperialist caricatures of what they were. That way, we'll never really understand why their decisions were made in the way they were. If we don't understand them, it will be harder to choose to avoid their reasoning ourselves.

Even if we eventually arrive at the conclusion that this was entirely the wrong decision, we owe it to every victim (both the people dying and the people doing the killing) to understand the situation properly so what they went through teaches us the right things.

[eeZah7Ux]

> Please don't what?

Please don't try to sneak in a justification for genocide and paint it as a necessary evil.

> I was offering a different view

Your "different view" came with the unwritten implication that the actions of a terrible government justify genocide:

>>> Japan was an extremely bad actor. They had death camps just like the Germans did at that time. One can imagine that the German victims wished someone dropped a few nukes so Germany would back off a bit quicker.

This sentence does not mention a specific military strategy.

You are clearly implying that a being an "extremely bad actor" is enough to justify retaliation against unarmed civilians.

> we owe it to every victim ... to understand the situation properly

...

[krageon]

I'm not sure what to tell you, except to try to emphasise to you that understanding what other people think (or arguing for the things they might think as a rhetorical device) doesn't "imply" that that is what is right. I don't presume to tell other people that they are flat wrong and they need to think something else and I would appreciate it if you could extend me the same courtesy.

[thombat]

> Hiroshima and Nagasaki hosted mostly old retired people and children, and women in a smaller percentage. It hosted no military equipment of any significance, nor strategic locations, nor any significant factory.

Wikipedia may well be wrong, but it does list some significant military items:

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At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of industrial and military significance. A number of military units were located nearby, the most important of which was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's Second General Army, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan, and was located in Hiroshima Castle. ... Also present in Hiroshima were the headquarters of the 59th Army, the 5th Division and the 224th Division, a recently formed mobile unit. ... In total, an estimated 40,000 Japanese military personnel were stationed in the city.

Some 70,000–80,000 people, around 30% of the population of Hiroshima at the time, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm, and another 70,000 were injured. It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Japanese military personnel were killed

The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest seaports in southern Japan, and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The four largest companies in the city were Mitsubishi Shipyards, Electrical Shipyards, Arms Plant, and Steel and Arms Works, which employed about 90% of the city's labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city's industry."

Of 7,500 Japanese employees who worked inside the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, including "mobilized" students and regular workers, 6,200 were killed. Some 17,000–22,000 others who worked in other war plants and factories in the city died as well. Casualty estimates for immediate deaths vary widely, ranging from 22,000 to 75,000. At least 35,000–40,000 people were killed and 60,000 others injured. In the days and months following the explosion, more people died from their injuries. Because of the presence of undocumented foreign workers, and a number of military personnel in transit, there are great discrepancies in the estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945; a range of 39,000 to 80,000 can be found in various studies.

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Of course none of that is grounds for jubilation: many, probably most, of those killed or maimed were victims to some degree. But that was also true of strategic bombing of all kinds by all sides throughout that war and those since. The uniqueness of the atomic bomb lay in the scale and ease of unleashing horrors, not in introducing horror to war.