[QUOTE="Pirate700"]
[QUOTE="Neon-Tiger"] Yeah, just bomb the crap out of them and screw the consequences, amirite?theone86
In that war, it saved many more lives than it cost. The consequences were more than considered.That's conjecture. Many of the people who supported the bombings in the first place have gone back on if it was necessary or not. The fact is that Japan was already on the brink of surrender. In fact, the Emperor already wanted a surrender but was being overriden politically by military leaders who wanted the war to continue. Either way, it is highly unlikely that even if the Japanese military had wanted to launch another attack like Pearl Harbor they would even have had the ability to do so. Whether an invasion was even necessary in the abscence of a nuclear weapon is a point of contention.
As for if Pearl Harbor justifies it or not, certainly not. Pearl Harbor was an attack on a military facility, unsanctioned albeit. Still, it's not as if the U.S. was in a state of total peace with Japan before Pearl Harbor. There had already been constant scrimmaging over south Pacific territories and the U.S. had intervened in some capacity in Japanese combat zones. Regardless of the state the two powers were in, Pearl Harbor pales in comparison to hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the first bombing 90% of the city was destroyed and between seventy to eighty THOUSAND people were killed INSTANTANEOUSLY. Casualties associated with both the bombings and the ensuing damage are estimated at close to three hundred thousand, from two bombs. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a concentrated attack consisting of two waves and totaling ninety minutes,causing just over two thousand deaths. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were carried out each with only one bombing group and each with only one bomb. They combine to be the single most destructive military action ever undertaken. Others have committed acts of war and murder, but never before or since has such a singular act taken so many lives in such a short amount of time and with so little effort. They also were targeting civilian populations. These people didn't agree to be at war, they were simply living their lives and almost three hundred thousand civilians lost their lives to a war they had almost nothing to do with. In fact, in Hiroshima alone the total number of Americans killed is just about as many as were killed at Pearl Harbor. The last thing to consider is that only three days passed between the two bombings. In that timespan, Japanese leaders had already accelerated their talks of surrender. The second bomb was not dropped because surrender was unlikely, it was dropped to force a surrender quickly.
I won't say good things haven't come out of it, though. Splitting the atom was a major stepping stone for us in the field of scientific development. In addition, mutually assured destruction garuntees that no one will ever use another atomic weapon under all but the most dire of circumstances. I still don't agree with the support, nay, blind support that many U.S. citizens have for the act. We need to be aware of what we did, why we REALLY did it, and how it affected the rest of the world and the Japanese people.
Took the words right out of my mouth, I bow to you, sir. Kudos.
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