Poll: You are President Harry S. Truman, do you drop the atomic bombs on Japan?

You're going to get a bunch of yes's because you're asking a bunch of Americans.percech

It was the only way to end the war without absurd casualties to Americans. That's really all that matters during war.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

[QUOTE="Krelian-co"]

basically you are ASSUMING they would have put kids to fight so instead you go and kill them preventevely. that makes it OK!

Under no circunstance is ok to use nuclear weapons in a war, you may use any excuse you like, but hey better them than you no? not to mention the permanent effects on the area, but hey is not your country so its ok no?

btw there were more than a "few" kids, i doubt the 200 000 + deads in the bombings with only 20 k being soldiers were "just a few"

Nayef_shroof

Awesome, so you think that the children in Japan would have grown up and taken up the US cause against their own government

That's quite an interesting viewpoint

You do realize that millions upon millions of civilians and soldiers would have died due to a land invasion, right?

No/No.

Why drop bomb to kill civilians to end the war ?

I would drop the bomb on Hiroshima. But dropping the bomb on Nagasaki was just unnecessary.

[QUOTE="percech"]You're going to get a bunch of yes's because you're asking a bunch of Americans.Overlord93

I'm afraid he's right just look at the results of the poll.

It was the only way to end the war without absurd casualties to Americans. That's really all that matters during war.

airshocker

No/No.

Why drop bomb to kill civilians to end the war ?

Zensword

OK here we go again.

American still believe the BS that the atomic bombing was necessary to end the war and to "save millions' of lives".

I quote Eisenhower again:

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

I wonder if the same could be said today.BranKetra

Maybe not so much in smaller conflicts, but in a World War setting I tend to think the end justifies the means. Of course I'm talking from an Allied perspective.

Ignorant Americans, please stop the BS of "The bomb saved lives". I'm really sick to hear this stupid statement again and again.Zensword

[QUOTE="BranKetra"]I wonder if the same could be said today.airshocker

Maybe not so much in smaller conflicts, but in a World War setting I tend to think the end justifies the means. Of course I'm talking from an Allied perspective.

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

Yes/Yes

The massive casualties caused by the bombs were meant to break the will of the people. Dropping the bombs on less populated cities wouldn't have had as much of an effect.

Ignorant Americans, please stop the BS of "The bomb saved lives". I'm really sick to hear this stupid statement again and again.

Zensword

Because calling us ignorant is a sure-fire way of getting us to see your point. :roll:

There's a difference between answering a poll and being President on the U.S. during a World War being faced with this difficult decesion.

For this reason, I can't say I would not. It's easy to say no and all that...65 years after it has happened.

Ignorant Americans, please stop the BS of "The bomb saved lives". I'm really sick to hear this stupid statement again and again.

~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY

(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.

Zensword

The idea that you think we were only trying to beat Japan shows that more research is needed from you

Americans who voted Yes/Yes need to learn WWII history.

That's why I called them ignorant Sorry not offense but the truth need to be told :D

Zensword

So, nobody has any comments of what the Generals Eisenhower, Learly and Mac Arthur said about the dropping ? :D

Let's face it: the bombing was unecessary according to these men. The US decided to drop the bomb just to intimidate Japan and Soviet Union.

Imagine if we were not first in the nuclear arms race. Russia and Germany were right behind us. Which country would have been the first to get nuked if it were not Japan? I'm not saying it is better that any country was the first to get nuked. I am just making us think how differently history may have played out if we were not the first to do it. Rather than blame a country's leader, maybe we should blame the scientist that made it all possible. Sorry Einstein.

[QUOTE="Zensword"]

Americans who voted Yes/Yes need to learn WWII history.

That's why I called them ignorant Sorry not offense but the truth need to be told :D

DroidPhysX

OK lets pretend we didn't drop the nuke and Japan surrenders peacefully. Then we get to the cold war and Russia decides to test out its Nuke on the US since nobody has any clue what kind of destruction it can cause. So Russia nukes the US, US retaliates and Nukes Russia and now we have far more deaths than we did with the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings.

Just a hypothetical situation, but I believe something worse would have happened if we didn't show the world how powerful nukes were or at least revealed that we had nukes to begin with so Russia wouldn't launch their own at us.

Imagine if we were not first in the nuclear arms race. Russia and Germany were right behind us. Which country would have been the first to get nuked if it were not Japan? I'm not saying it is better that any country was the first to get nuked. I am just making us think how differently history may have played out if we were not the first to do it. Rather than blame a country's leader, maybe we should blame the scientist that made it all possible. Sorry Einstein.

Qixote

[QUOTE="Qixote"]

Imagine if we were not first in the nuclear arms race. Russia and Germany were right behind us. Which country would have been the first to get nuked if it were not Japan? I'm not saying it is better that any country was the first to get nuked. I am just making us think how differently history may have played out if we were not the first to do it. Rather than blame a country's leader, maybe we should blame the scientist that made it all possible. Sorry Einstein.

BranKetra

[QUOTE="BranKetra"][QUOTE="Qixote"]

Imagine if we were not first in the nuclear arms race. Russia and Germany were right behind us. Which country would have been the first to get nuked if it were not Japan? I'm not saying it is better that any country was the first to get nuked. I am just making us think how differently history may have played out if we were not the first to do it. Rather than blame a country's leader, maybe we should blame the scientist that made it all possible. Sorry Einstein.

Qixote

[QUOTE="Neo-ganon"]

Yes i would. strategically speaking, alot more people would have died (soldiers and civilians) if we continued the war the conventional way. we needed to end the war in one move, and we did

to quote flash gordon: "its a rational transaction"

40,000+ lives lost, or millions

JasonDarksavior

whatever, you get the idea. the casualties on both sides of the war would have been 10, if not 100 times the casualties of hiroshima and nagasaki.

They started it, and we finished it. They were completely out of their minds to think that they could start a completely unprovoked war against the United States and win. They were out of their minds at the start of the war and they were out of their minds at the end of the war. Let's not forget that even as Japan was losing the war in the Pacific, they continued to slaughter millions of Chinese and Korean people without mercy.

Those who say no are asking mercy for the merciless. I don't play that.

the a bomb has let japan play victim

Yes and yes.

I wouldn't have. Dropping the atomic bomb was meant to kill so many civilians that Japan would surrender. I just could never do that.

Yes, if he wouldn't of dropped the bombs a lot of lives would of been lost on both sides.

[QUOTE="Zensword"]

Americans who voted Yes/Yes need to learn WWII history.

That's why I called them ignorant Sorry not offense but the truth need to be told :D

DroidPhysX

It's also easy to say yes...considering you're not affected.

[QUOTE="DroidPhysX"][QUOTE="Zensword"]

Americans who voted Yes/Yes need to learn WWII history.

That's why I called them ignorant Sorry not offense but the truth need to be told :D

nitekids2004

It's also easy to say yes...considering you're not affected.

...well I'm pretty sure japan wasn't stupid back then apparently Truman warned the Japs about the bomb and to surrender, I'm sorry but if japan had any kind of intel they'd know what the bomb was capable of and surrendered. I mean if theey were smart enough to take over most of east asia I'm pretty sure they'd be smart enough to know when they were beat, and even then 2 bombs? as if they would've needed a second taste of complete economic, militaristic and falt out physical destruction. I call BS on the "NO we refuse to surrender" then the "lack" of reply after the 2 bomb was dropped. so if I were in Truman's shoes, the bomb wouldn't have been dropped because there wouldn't have been any reason to. You'll tout me as crazy, but why do you trust a text book so willingly without question? even if its been proven that facts in text books tend to be stretched as the years go on? mayceV

History books would attempt to explain ten a-bomb drops if it needed to; just saying.

Brainwashing at its finest...Stavrogin_

If you're referring to the Japanese brainwashing of its own people, then I'd agree. Leading up to the supposed invasion of Japan, Japanese citizens were told of how barbaric the Americans would be when we invaded. They were told to fight to the last breath and never surrender. Projected casualties would have been much higher. We saw similar occurrences in the battle of Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

Probably wouldn't have dropped the second one

Yes, I have a new weapon and I want to see how bad-ass it is, simple as. Presidents/Kings/Emporers/etc. don't give 2 **** about killing civillians

No i would not drop the bomb.. bombs are cowardly and gun on gun combat is the way to go...if you cant win in close quarter combat then you shouldnt fight period.

No i would not drop the bomb.. bombs are cowardly and gun on gun combat is the way to go...if you cant win in close quarter combat then you shouldnt fight period.

cee1gee

Yes I would do it.