[Alupis]

You are encouraged to read deeper about the end of WWII. If anyone sacrificed the people of Hiroshima, it was the Japanese Imperialist Government that refused to surrender despite the obvious obliteration of their conventional forces.

To make it brief, every single landmass occupied by Japanese forces and civilians offered fierce resistance/guerilla warfare to invading/liberating forces. Additionally, as another commenter has noted, the Japanese military had significantly increased their numbers to a staggering 6 million troops towards the end. The death toll projections, based on the above, for a mass land invasion of Japan were many factors greater than the life cost of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - many, many factors greater.

The Japanese government did not just refuse to surrender, but continued to wage war. This meant either a land invasion, or some alternative were necessary to compel the government into surrender.

Dropping the second nuclear bomb accomplished this goal - particularly when accompanied by the (empty) threat of dropping many more until surrender.

It also should be noted both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were central to the Japanese war economy/machine and were not simply civilian population centers. Regardless, the loss of life directly from the bombings and indirectly from the aftermath is still calculated to have been significantly less than the loss of life had a ground invasion been waged.

[pineaux]

We dont know this. It's all speculation. All of it. And it's speculation of a winner. So it's not surprising that it conveniently frames the willing destruction of 100,000 people as the lesser of two evils. Also, many people talk about the bombs. But dont forget: the firebombings killed many more people and were aimed at civilians. General LeMay, who ordered the attack that resulted in the murder of 100,000 innocent people in one single night. Said the following when asked about his motives: “There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.”

If you are willing to see the narrative from another perspective here are some links:

Firebombings of Tokyo: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-o...

Court ruling about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (deemed unlawful acts of war = war crime) https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/53/Shimoda-...

[Alupis]

Some of the highest estimates of death toll caused by both atomic bombs combined are in the low 200,000 range.

The Battle of Okinawa alone had nearly 200,000 military casualties and another 150,000 civilian deaths.[1]

People asserting dropping of the bombs was wrong in any way are divorced from reality. Their position is devoid of all facts.

To be blunt. Dropping of the atomic bombs was not just the right decision, it was the most humane decision.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#:~:text=Th....

[defrost]

You are encouraged to read deeper about the end of WWII.

From an official US atomic historian, a survey of the breadth of opinion on the use of the atomic weapons, from just after until more recently: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-u...

There are many entries there on many aspects of atomic weapons and a wealth of declassified contemporary material.

As you can see you're largely repeating one position of a broad field as if it were gospel and there were no other positions and no evolution of the debate.

Many of your points are those that came into being after the use of the bomb, back fitted proto Cold War era justifications.

There was relatively little thought put into using the weapons at the time other than a sense of urgency to field test two distinct designs resulting from the most expensive weapons development program in histrory that didn't produce anything useful until after the Germans surrended.

Hiroshimo & Nagasaki were to be bombed regardless, they were way down the punch list and followed on from 72 other Japanese cities destroyed via firebombing and conventional high explosives.

They were selected not for their importance (they were much further down the last than mid 70's) but because they were relatively untouched and made for good test sites for "just the atomic bomb damage".

[Alupis]

One does not need to be a military strategy genius to comprehend the numbers. There is no point in arguing further on this topic. Your position is entirely divorced from reality and therefore might as well be entirely made up.

[brabel]

As an observer of this debate, I would say you're the one completely ignoring all arguments from the other side as "divorced from reality". It seems you're the one who is avoiding reality here.

[saithound]

As another observer of this debate, I disagree completely with brabel, and think that your assessment of your opponent's "arguments" is in fact correct: they're dismissing contemporary US estimates which are well-documented, and which we know were not even intended at the time to be shared with civilians as "propaganda" is hilarious, and divorced from reality. It's probably not worth debating the matter with these particular opponents.

[defrost]

My position, as expressed in my only comment in this entire sub thread, is that you should read more on the subject.

There is no "arguing further on this topic", that was my only contribution, and I reiterate it.

Circle back to the original material and the historic commentary on that material, it's not clear whether you have read any of it let alone grasped the breadth of it.

[jncfhnb]

It’s not speculation. It’s basically common sense. How awful and long would a ground invasion of these areas have been? Would it even be possible? How many of your troops are you willing to sacrifice to spare the lives of your enemy’s civilians?

[pineaux]

It is literally speculation, in the literal sense of the word. Speculation, as defined by the Cambridge dictionary: the activity of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain.

The question here is if japan would have surrendered without the Atomic bombs. There is not enough evidence for it being True or False.

Many modern historians claim that japan would have surrendered anyway because its military was in shambles. They hoped for a conditional surrender. The bombs were frightening, but didnt create more damage than the previous firebombings. The fact that the Soviet Union joined the was on the western flank of japan was probably the straw. It blocked all future possibilities of diplomatic conditional surrender by pleading with the Russians. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bomb test sites and at least a hundred thousand innocent people died just to see the end-product of the most expensive weapons program ever. If Germany would have done it, all the people in the chain of command would have probably been hanged for war crimes.

[jncfhnb]

Great. Now answer the question. How many of your own troops are you willing to sacrifice for the chance to avoid bombing Hiroshima?

Because we got to 350k casualties from just the US with the bomb.

[brabel]

Why do you think a ground invasion was necessary? WWI finished without a ground invasion of Germany. Completely occupying enemy's territory was not a common way to end a war. The "normal" way was to end your enemy's capacity to fight, and then negotiate surrender. You can argue that the Japanese would refuse to surrender for a lot longer, but to think the "only way" to end their resistance was to either nuke innocent civillians (and I hope no one here thinks "there are no innocent" people, like they did at the time) or occupy the whole country on the ground seems to be ignoring basically every conflict prior and since then.

[jncfhnb]

What are you talking about? There was absolutely a ground invasion of Germany.

[hnu123]

> You are encouraged to read deeper about the end of WWII.

I have. Beyond the propaganda and all the nonsense. But you don't need to read deeper to understand evil is evil. Nothing justifies acts of genocide like nuking civilians.

> If anyone sacrificed the people of Hiroshima, it was the Japanese Imperialist Government that refused to surrender despite the obvious obliteration of their conventional forces.

The japanese government had been suing for peace for more than a year prior to hiroshima. But even if they didn't, it still doesn't justify nuking civilians. Just because a government doesn't act in a manner you want doesn't justify murdering civilians. That's the logic of terrorists. Killing civilians to hurt the government. If your morality aligns with terrorists, you really should reassess your moral foundations.

> To make it brief...

You just spouted off propaganda that we all are spoonfed via media and school system. I'm surprised you didn't include the nonsense about purple hearts.

> It also should be noted both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were central to the Japanese war economy/machine and were not simply civilian population centers

More terrorist logic. Just because Manhattan is the center of the US economy doesn't justify 9/11.

That you are trying to justify hiroshima and the nuking of civilians just proves my point. Evil and barbaric. There is no justification for genocide. Period.

[thereisnospork]

>Nothing justifies ...

Citation needed. That's just war: don't like being >insert atrocity here'd< then don't lose.