SerS - The Serious Squad Thread

I believe the psychological impact was the point. You see, the "Powers that be" already had the bomb for awhile before the war ended, and were greatly contemplating whether to use it or not. Even the scientists of the Manhattan project pondered for several months on whether to tell officials the bomb had been completed due to their knowledge of its destructive nature. However, the decision of using the bomb was made because the entire world had been going through economical hardships, so the sooner the war ended the better. Thus factoring in the psychological pressure as "justification" for the bomb, as it basically ended the war.

I'm feeling like nobody read my post. ;_;

At one point, some of the scientists who were responsible for the creation of the bomb tried to create a petition against using the bomb. This was ignored by President Truman and he ended using the bomb. Twice actually.

I would like to point out that had America not used "the bomb" that the war with Japan would have gone on for at least another year, maybe more and in the process hundreds of thousands of Americans and Japanese would die maybe even millions. The events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives, as hard as that is to actually say, as opposed to losing only 240,000 or so Japanese civilians, it would have been 800,000+ Japanese and probably 100,000+ Americans, these numbers can vary quite wildly depending on how the Americans decided to fight the oncoming battles. This is not including the number of people who died from the subsequent lack of fresh water and food, nor does it include those who got cancer and leukemia.

I'm saying that this was a "no win" situation, you either drop a weapon which "could" set the atmosphere on fire and crack the earth's crust as well as killing hundreds of thousands, or you don't and slog it out in a war which will cost millions of lives, more money, and supplies than it is really worth at this point because surrender is against the Japanese military ethics.

Well I disgree but respect your opinion.
Who knows what which direction the war would have gone without the drop.
The mentioning that the bomb caused less vitiom than an invasion is a little bit excessive, no one can say for sure how many americans/japanese were died.
I also mention that, according to Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Japan did not surrender because of the A-bomb, in the first place the surrendered because Russia joint the war. And you also have to think about the following fact(like RaiArashi already mentioned it)

Even after this japan was not willing to surrender.The A-bomb simply put more pressure to Japan, but this could also have been achieved by demonstrating the power on an uninhabitated area. There are serveral other way that could have been gone (like peace negotiations or changing the capitulation conditions). So I agree with the statment of Martin Sherwin, that especially the drop at nagasaki was †žat best pointless,at the worst genocide“
But whats done is done, we can not change the happenings.

So to come to the point that Tegumi already mentioned.

It was definitly not right to drop the bomb, there were other way that could have been gone. But I already said that we can´t change it now.

There is only one thing I would like to mention at last, that even after serveral years have past now the american goverment was not able to apologize of what they did to Japan. We Germans learned form our failures and apologized for everything we have done in World War II.
Even in 1991 Bush senior said †žthe drops saved million lives“, that was simply ridiculous in my opinion, it was definitly not right.

I still refuse to believe that the firebombings killed as many people, on a per city basis, as a nuclear bomb would, if you include the ones who died from leukemia and cancer.

I'm not sure why the Russians would have joined in on the fight against Japan, professional completism maybe? Doesn't sound like a wise choice to me. Then again Stalin might as well have eaten babies for breakfast, such is his reputation.

A single island, not even a major one could cost both sides upwards of 80,000 people total. How many, do you think, would die if we had fought that war with conventional means? Conventional being tanks, planes bombs, infantry, battleships, etc.

Russia just wanted to compete with Ameriaca, it might even have been because of the Russo-Japanese war that happened just before WW1.

The dropping of the bomb was wrong ethically and pointless in a military standpoint. It was wrong since Americans prided themselves as a great nation that hated civilian casualties, but in dropping this bomb there were a lot of collateral damage. Through a militarastic viewpoint it was pointless because the Japanese had already recorded a message admitting their defeat. The Emperor was actually being held captive to make sure the surrender message would not be sent to America, but this coup was actually winding down and was about to crumble...

Looking at it as a positive outcome as mnx said: The fact that the cold war didn't evolve into a real one. I don't think without a real life example, the two nations would not see the devastation it could cause and might have launched their nukes. Especially the Cuban Missle crisis. It was a hair away from both countries clicking their buttons to launch and devastate the world.

If you included the ones died from cancer and leukemia than even a conventional war would have caused less victims. the university of hiroshima and the nagasaki say that there were around 110.000 victims in hiroshima and 130.000 victims in nagasaki till 1950(including the ones died from cancer and leukemia). So an overall of 240.000 victims till 1950 and it is not sure how much more people died in the following years.
A conventional war would have caused less. And furthermore most of the victim were civilians. The fact that America still says that the usage of the A-Bomb saved the lives of million American is ridiculous and only used to warrant the usage.

And btw I never said they should have fought the war in the conventional way, I said that before dropping the bomb the could have used way like peace negotiation, demonstrating the power on an uninhabitated area or simply waited cause japan was willing to surrender, espacially in the case of nagasaki.

Whether or not you say the atomic bombs killed more people, the fire bombings of Tokyo destroyed a much larger area of land. The Tokyo fire bombings destroyed about 41 square kilometers of Tokyo, while Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, destroyed about 1.6 kilometers and the resulting fire destroyed about 11.4 square kilometers.
One of the reasons why the fire bombings were so effective is because they employed two different types of bombs. They used "blockbuster" type bombs to destroy building and cause havoc, while incendiaries were then dropped to create massive fires. These fires were so intense that they turned into fire storms - a fire with such a high intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system.

Hmm I'm thinking we've got this topic pretty much covered. I move for a new topic....though today I'm kind a failure and don't have a replacement topic planned. I'll leave that in the hands of you competent people this day.

Yeah I think we can change topics now or does someone still feels the need to discuss it ???

Topic change would be a good idea.

I think we can move on now, any suggetions for a topic ???

it's time for a new topic,huh?
then,how about the same sex marriage?
your opinion?
are you a pro or a con?

I don't mind it. Actually, as long as it has equal rights and obligations as a normal marriage, it is something that is socially and morally fine.

same here...actually I thinks this is not one of the topics I am interessed in. So I will pass for now and wait for the next one to start.

But anyway go a head an discuss.

I have no problem with people who have a wish to get a same-sex marriage. There beliefs should be respected. <- This is a hard topic to make a long response to. :/

I'm a pro. Other people have no reason to stick their neck in someone private life. If two men love each other, what right do I have to tell them they can't get marry? Also, If you don't like it, too bad for you. It's not like their affecting you in any way. I believe marriage is a right that shouldn't be tie to religion. The man and a woman thing is pretty stupid in today's world.

Thank God our government was smart enough to approve it.

I don't care personally but with our government you get privileges for being married. So as long as they take that away so all you get in marriage is same name and ability to say your married. If they allowed same sex marriages i wouldn't mind marrying a friend to save some money. Also take away the special privileges for married people and others would have no reason to say same sex marriage is wrong. Of course this is just from my random knowledge I don't know much about this subject.