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

Yes/Yes
And let me qualify myself... I studied History and Japanese in college. I've lived and worked in Japan on 3 occasions. I've been to Nagasaki. I love Japan!
It sounds so cold to support the bombing of innocents, but unless you've really studied WW2 and talked to the people involved on all sides, you can't understand what it like.
It was absolutely something that had to be done, and it saved so many lives on both sides.
And after about 10 years, Japan had been rebuilt and become one of the world's biggest economies because the USA stuck around and helped them back.
The fact that America helped the Japanese (when they didn't have to do squat for them) supports the notion that the war was ended out of compassion, not spite.
The ending to the whole saga couldn't have turned out better... from the bitterest of enemies to best friends.

Honestly, I dont know what I would have done. We have the advantage of looking back in time and saying, "I would have done this differently". But a lot of that decision making is based on what we know today as opposed to what we knew then. If I was leading a country during a time of a world war that had seen several hundred million people dead, I'd probably want a way to end the war quickly as well. But, certainly I dont like the idea of dropping a weapon of mass destruction on a city. Most of those people had nothing to do with the war. That's a shame. However, it's odd that people get very self righteous about the nuclear attacks and completely ignore the more massive civilian deaths carried out by conventional bombing and fire bombing. That was far, far worse, but I guess it doesnt have the sensational appeal that captivates the ignorant.

sonicare

No, the war was already on the brink of ending. That was overkill. Spellingiscool

They didn't believe in surrender. Instead the officers would either fall on their sworld or shoot themselves because they were honor based in their old tradition. They would've fought to the last man against the Allies invading their home land. Also, there was a chance that they could've developed some sort of nuclear weapon at some point and used it against us. Truman made a decision to kill some to save way more. The war was not over, just turning to a phase of invasion with systematic destruction of every city as the Japanese turned to using human shields of civilians. Imagine D-Day mixed with Iwo Jima, but now on a much bigger scale and that's what you get if you invade Japan.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="sSubZerOo"]

An invasion was not necessary.. Japan was already crumbling around their ears.. All they had to do is sit out in their big ships at their harbors and continue to blockade them..Many reputablemilitary men from Eisenhaur to the Admiral forseeing the entire Pacific theater, saw the bombings completely unnecessary to a toothless opponent.

Tokugawa77

You're just assuming they would have given up even though there are countless reports saying just the opposite.

You're also assuming the rest of the world would have been fine with waiting the years it would have taken (if ever) for them to surrender while incurring the costs of a blockade that size.

Dropping the bombs were much more favorable than you're making them out to be. People wanted the war to be over, the Japanese had no signs of surrender what-so-ever, an invasion would have meant the death of over a million men (estimated) and the total destruction of Japanese culture, and the Soviet Union was preparing for a massive invasion of Japan from the north that nobody would have stopped.

So you would sacrifice 200,000 lives so that you can save some money? In any case, the atomic bombs were not the sole factor in Japan's surrender- the Soviets invaded Manchuria at around the same time, and the Japanese Kwantuang army suffered such a resounding defeat that military planners held no hope of holding off both Allied and Soviet troops. It is often overlooked that the majority in the Japanese governmnet only sought to inflict enough casualties on the allies to force an armistice in which Japan would not be forced into unconditional surrender. It was only extremists in the army that wanted to fight on to the end at all costs. In any case, any hope for this plan crumbled when the Soviets violated the nuetrality agreement and declared war on Japan, as the Japanese were logical enoughto realize that they counld not fend off both of these enemies. So they surrendurred. The atomic bombs merely were a part of the Japanese realization that theywouldnot be able to bring the allies to the table.

You say that the Japanese would do anything the emperor told them too. This is of course just a stereotype of Japanese culture that we have in Anerica. When the soldiers said that they fight for the emperor, they don't just mean the actual guy, the emperor is merely a figurehead for which the country can rally around and holds no actual political power. Hirohito actually wanted to end the war earlier and was not enthusiastic about war in the first place. That being said, an execution would have still caused outrage, but this would be more caused by the fact that Japanese culture was being attacked and that someoen would have the berve to do that. It is hard to explain to westerners because Asian culture as a whole is so alien to us.

You lost me on that second paragraph. The banzai charges, kamikazes, and women throwing their new-borns off a cliff really tells another story as well as the countless studies, historical documents, and first hand accounts of the native Japanese people during the time of WWII.

You're completely denying the effectiveness of the atomic bombs to stop a land invasion of Japan. A land invasion would have ended with over a million men dead in 1 week, maybe less time, most of them being civilians thrown onto the front-lines with very little training and no real weaponry. Have you ever researched the Japanese defenses? They make Fortress Europe look like a Lego set. I would have done anything to prevent that slaughter from happening. We did.

You said it yourself, the Japanese generals only wanted to cause casualties so they wouldn't have to sign an unconditional surrender, you can't cause casualties if you can't fight back. That's what the bombs did. They couldn't fight back, honor in the fight lost, no reason to keep fighting. Even the extremists in power realized that.

Also it wasn't a little amount of money. It was rationing food, fuel, and other resources back home. It was the stagnation of the worlds progress. We couldn't effectively rebuild until the war was completely over. Millions and millions would have suffered if we would have continued to fight.

Any comparison to modern Asian culture to pre-WWII Asian culture is a pointless comparison. The difference is night and day.

I would've dropped the bombs. With hindsight we can see that they ended the war with the least number of casualties. Also, if they hadn't been dropped USSR and NATO wouldn't have known of their long term effects and might have been more likely to drop atom bombs on each other during the cold war.