Discussion on the necessity of the Atomic Bombs(And general Strategic Bombing) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[infowarrior1]

We know that in so far as such a horrific event in history and in addition Strategic Bombing was unnecessarily cruel carnage or grim necessity is hotly disputed in history.

As far as my initial position on this. I believe that the Atomic Bombs may have been necessary to end the war in a shock and awe sort of fashion.

But some disagree.

This is the contrarian position:


If Strategic Bombing outside of the Atomic Bomb failed to achieve its objectives at the cost of many lives of women and children.

Then it shouldn't be considered as a valid option in conflicts of similar desperation. Especially if viable alternatives could be explored.

If you have the time to explore the video I would like your feedback.

 

[dicknixon72]

Few interesting notes:

1) The B-29 itself as a long-range strategic bomber suffered from engineering and propulsion issues throughout its development. Consolidated's B-32 Dominator was developed in parallel in case Boeing couldn't resolve the issues in time. B-32s still served in the Pacific and, interestingly, one was the last allied casualties of the war - losing two crewmen on a photorecon mission a few days AFTER cessation of hostilities.

2) The atomic bombs may not have been dropped by the Americans at all. The Silverplate B-29s modified to carry the outsized atom bombs were also plagued with engineering and performance issues of its own until the very end of development. The RAF's Avro Lancaster, however, was able to carry such large munitions without the level of modifications needed by the B-29s, but US high command insisted an American aircrew flying American aircraft deliver the payloads. The RAF had a special Black Lancaster squadron in place in the event the B-29s just couldn't be made available in time.

3) Most people know, but the incendiary bombing did far more damage in terms of loss and actual human casualties than the atomic bombings.

4) Despite the two bombings, PLUS incendiary raids, PLUS the promise of up to a dozen more atomic strikes, the Japanese still got their way with a conditional surrender...

 

[911]

Quick Sunday afternoon response:
-The double nuclear bombing of Japan was not necessary, they were ready to surrender unconditionally before that point, and this according to leading US military officials.
-Nagasaki was the Christian/Catholic capital of the Far East, this might have played a role in it being chosen as a target by highly influential elements within the FDR administration, the same elements that engineered the assassination of Patton, who was on the verge of pushing the Soviets out of eastern Europe and kicking Stalin's ass.

 

[Slide-Rule]

Here's an excellent clip on this issue:



War is Hell.

The recent wars we've had (Iraq Afghanistan, Gulf War, even back to Vietnam) don't compare to the carnage of WW2, both on the Eastern Front, and in the Pacific and in China.

I remember reading about a first grader getting his grandfather to come in talk about his time in WW2. The talk was going great until the guy spoke about reading love letters from his girlfriend back home... By the light of a pile of Japanese corpses he was burning.

The level of violence of that time, we only had a small taste of it in recent wars, imagine being force-fed it in the news and in casualty reports. (Massacres of POWs, and civilians. Sending the skulls of Japanese soldiers back home as souvenirs. Rape of Nanjing. All the horrible things that the demon of war feeds on.) Look up the numbers from the battles in the Pacific towards the end of the war. At Iwo Jima, over 21,000 Japanese went into that battle. 216 were taken captive.

That was the type of mindset those who chose to drop the atomic bomb were in.

I think that someone like General Sherman from the Civil War would've supported dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. I don't have a problem with it being dropped.
In fact, one could argue that it was GOOD that we dropped it when we did! Everyone had nuclear bomb programs running. Think about it:

America develops the nuclear bomb in 1935, soon the nazis and the soviets realize "it can be done!" And they develop their own nuclear weapons. 1939 rolls around, and no one knows how devastating these new bombs are, and WW2 goes nuclear...

Say the Manhattan Project is delayed and loses it's funding with Japan's surrender, and America develops the nuclear bomb in 1955, the USSR develops their own nuclear weapons around 1959. Again, no one really knows how horrible these new bombs are, and the Cuban Missile Crisis goes hot...

Using the atomic bombs on the trail-end of WW2 could've been a blessing in disguise, and saved countless other lives. Detonating a nuclear bomb in the desert, or in the ocean or in the Siberian wilderness is one thing. Actually seeing the effects of these bombs on cities, and actual people really "woke everyone up."

Looking ahead... I fear our criminally-incompetent leaders today (Bush, Obama, Biden and many others) have doomed millions of people to die in a nuclear inferno in the coming decades. Look at history, look at how America wages war... What happened at places like Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Georgia in the 19th century, and what happened at places like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and many other places in the 20th century, I fear will happen to places like mecca, medina, Riyadh, Karachi, and many other places in the 21st century.

 

[N°6]

English football fans clap their team kneeling to BLM whilst wearing the rainbow flag globohomo imperialism arm bands but they sing songs about the RAF and USAF firebombing German civilians.

 

[Mr.S]

My grandfather was in the thick of it all flying heavy bombers in WW2, all his friends were KIA - and it got so bad he said he didn’t talk to people outside his flight crew because they’d get killed too, his airplane was blown up, and he was in the Nazi prison camp system for half of WW2, he was even in Dresden they day they bombed it to oblivion. He never talked about the War until he was old, but that was just in time for me to hear the truth. Having heard about the war from him - a scientist and a pilot, I’m willing to disregard all other opinions except his, especially the “Monday morning quarterbacks” that are modern historians who read about it in a book. Below is the truth as I remember from him:

1. Strategic bombing was successful. Every week they’d level an oil refinery, ball bearing factory, Bf-109 plant, etc. and the next week it would be running again. There’s no dispute they destroyed their targets. What is disputed is their effectiveness if the target was rebuilt a week later. At the end of the day warfare is a competition of resource allocation, which is why the U-Boots were so effective. Ask yourself- what costs more resources? Rebuilding an entire oil refinery or a load of bombs and some shot down planes being mass produced in efficient American factories away from the action? The Germans spent much resources countering the devastation of bombing that otherwise would have been put into productive uses. By the end of the war German airplanes were using bronze bushings in a last ditch effort because there were no ball bearings at all thanks to strategic bombing.

2. Strategic bombing was nevertheless highly costly in lives. 83% of my grandfather’s unit was killed, missing, or captured. At times the entire Luftwaffe would come to meet them in air combat- every plane that ran and every flak gun was completely focused on fending off the onslaught. Sometimes there would be thousands of fighter aircraft in the sky. My grandfather was ultimately shot down by this effort.

3. The Germans were honorable adversaries (unless you were Russian). My grandfather was treated decently in his POW camps. It was clear there was a war going on but the guards had respect for the downed pilots and did not force officers to labor. Prisoners played board games, build clocks and radios, had plays, and ate food similar to what the Germans ate. Things got bad at the end of the War but my grandfather always told me how happy he was to be shot down over Germany and not Japan.

4. Fighting Germany was not the same as fighting Japan. The Germans behaved rationally in combat and gave up when it was clear they wouldn’t win. The Japanese would fight with every man, woman, and child until nobody was left standing if they thought there was even a hope of winning. Japanese fought dirty, and in a way that Westerners would consider “honor-less” (they thought the same about us). They tortured their prisoners to death and had zero respect to anyone who surrendered. Even getting them to surrender after two atomic bombs was truly masterful negotiation which is hard to appreciate when you assume they are rational.

5. The atomic bomb was necessary and addressed points 1-4. Remember who started WW2 against America - it was Japan, and it was unprovoked- so much so that even the Germans were surprised by it. The US was under no obligation to give any quarter. It’s not the responsibility of America to minimize enemy deaths, it’s the responsibility of America to minimize American deaths. America did both in fact, and everyone should be thankful the US didn’t mass produce atom bombs and exterminate the Japanese people (who have turned out to be civilized allies). The threat of nuclear retaliation has prevented countless direct conflicts between superpowers since WW2 and could very well have saved billions of lives.

 

[DeWoken]

This is one of those topics that is still sensitive, even 75 years later. It's a difficult topic. It's been a while since I studied this subject so I may have some large blind spots. I'll watch the linked video when I get a chance.

Whatever you want to say about "the Japanese are different..." you still have to recognize that they were already beaten at the time of the nuclear attack. What would have been the downside enacting a naval blockade and then negotiating with Imperial Japan? "A less-full victory"? Tracing how history played out into our present day it seems that following a more Christian approach would have been to our benefit.

To what extent were propagandists responsible for amping up racism over the decades and during the conflict? For what purpose?

People who claim Imperial Japan started the war often neglect to mention the lead up to tensions happening over many decades preceding the war. There was an unfair treaty that wouldn't allow Japan to float a navy on par with European powers. There was America blocking IJ from getting their much needed petrol in the Pacific. There were many events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor; I don't think it's any more clear-cut to say that Japan started the war than it is to say Germany started their war.

Did American command have foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack? (They did, if I'm not mistaken).

Was the American public not dragged into WW2 on both fronts? By (((whom)))?

How would releasing a film containing practical demonstrations of The Bomb, such as Crossroads, not be a more humane and almost as effective method of firing a warning shot at the communists?

America develops the nuclear bomb in 1935

Wasn't the first one Trinity, shortly before the development of Fat Man and Little Boy?

Trinity (nuclear test) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Aboulia]

5. The atomic bomb was necessary and addressed points 1-4. Remember who started WW2 against America - it was Japan, and it was unprovoked- so much so that even the Germans were surprised by it. The US was under no obligation to give any quarter. It’s not the responsibility of America to minimize enemy deaths, it’s the responsibility of America to minimize American deaths. America did both in fact, and everyone should be thankful the US didn’t mass produce atom bombs and exterminate the Japanese people (who have turned out to be civilized allies). The threat of nuclear retaliation has prevented countless direct conflicts between superpowers since WW2 and could very well have saved billions of lives.

Unprovoked? Not at all. The Americans broke the Enigma code the year prior to Pearl Harbour, and thus knew the Japs were coming, which only happened because America cut Japan off from obtaining oil and arrogantly told them to withdraw from China, the Japanese are a very proud people and couldn't take orders from foreign nations lying down. The American establishment knew this and wanted into the war with Germany, they let their own people die. Same thing as 9/11.

It's not surprising to hear establishment history from Grandpa.

Pearl Harbor: facing facts

The Establishment defense of Franklin Roosevelt's policies leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor typically deals with key arguments of revisionists by ignoring them. That was certainly the case with the History Channel's recent documentary 'Tora, Tora, Tora,' and it seems to be reflected in...

www.unz.com

 

[MajorStyles]

I was just reading about this topic...a great book called The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb: Why Hiroshima Was Destroyed (book attached)

"Despite the fact that the Manhattan Project was the most closely guarded secret of World War II, one man, and one many only, was allowed to observe everything and to know everything about the project. He was Lipman Siew, a Lithuanian Jew who had come to the United States as a political refugee at the age of seventeen. He lived in Boston on Lawrence St., and decided to take the name of William L. Laurence. At Harvard, he became a close friend of James B. Conant and was tutored by him. When Laurence went to New York, he was hired by Herbert Bayard Swope, editor of the New York World, who was known as Bernard Baruch's personal publicity agent. Baruch owned the World. In 1930, Laurence accepted an offer from the New York Times to become its science editor. He states in Who's Who that he "was selected by the heads of the atomic bomb project as sole writer and public relations." How one could be a public relations writer for a top secret project was not explained. Laurence was the only civilian present at the historic explosion of the test bomb on July 16, 1945. Less than a month later, he sat in the copilots seat of the B-29 on the fateful Nagasaki bombing run."

So a jewish public relations writer and associate of Bernard Baruch (a well known affiliate of the Rothschild family) actually sat in the co-pilot seat for one of the bombings.

As Brother Nathaniel once said, "it's a secret club and you're not invited to the Bar Mitzvah."

 

[DeWoken]

Nagasaki was the Christian/Catholic capital of the Far East, this might have played a role in it being chosen as a target by highly influential elements within the FDR administration, the same elements that engineered the assassination of Patton, who was on the verge of pushing the Soviets out of eastern Europe and kicking Stalin's ass.

Interesting. Somebody should start a thread about "Christianity in East Asia - Past, Present and Future". There was some good discussion about Christianity's past in China in the Cold War thread.

 

[Max Roscoe]

Not only did incendiary bombing cause more damage to Japan, Japan was already planning to surrender to the Russians, who just handed them massive military defeats and was poised to invade (the nuking was a gross murder of civilians, but had little effect to the Japanese war effort). It was done merely to warn the Russians and take as many worldwide assets as they could from the other allies, as well as just murder a bunch of people they deemed inhuman.

It is wrong and evil to mass murder civilians (the Americans would have be endlessly Nuremburged had they lost), but more importantly, it was a giant mistake to be involved at all.

Murdoch Murdoch: The Greatest Generation

 

[infowarrior1]

My grandfather was in the thick of it all flying heavy bombers in WW2, all his friends were KIA - and it got so bad he said he didn’t talk to people outside his flight crew because they’d get killed too, his airplane was blown up, and he was in the Nazi prison camp system for half of WW2, he was even in Dresden they day they bombed it to oblivion. He never talked about the War until he was old, but that was just in time for me to hear the truth. Having heard about the war from him - a scientist and a pilot, I’m willing to disregard all other opinions except his, especially the “Monday morning quarterbacks” that are modern historians who read about it in a book. Below is the truth as I remember from him:

1. Strategic bombing was successful. Every week they’d level an oil refinery, ball bearing factory, Bf-109 plant, etc. and the next week it would be running again. There’s no dispute they destroyed their targets. What is disputed is their effectiveness if the target was rebuilt a week later. At the end of the day warfare is a competition of resource allocation, which is why the U-Boots were so effective. Ask yourself- what costs more resources? Rebuilding an entire oil refinery or a load of bombs and some shot down planes being mass produced in efficient American factories away from the action? The Germans spent much resources countering the devastation of bombing that otherwise would have been put into productive uses. By the end of the war German airplanes were using bronze bushings in a last ditch effort because there were no ball bearings at all thanks to strategic bombing.

2. Strategic bombing was nevertheless highly costly in lives. 83% of my grandfather’s unit was killed, missing, or captured. At times the entire Luftwaffe would come to meet them in air combat- every plane that ran and every flak gun was completely focused on fending off the onslaught. Sometimes there would be thousands of fighter aircraft in the sky. My grandfather was ultimately shot down by this effort.

3. The Germans were honorable adversaries (unless you were Russian). My grandfather was treated decently in his POW camps. It was clear there was a war going on but the guards had respect for the downed pilots and did not force officers to labor. Prisoners played board games, build clocks and radios, had plays, and ate food similar to what the Germans ate. Things got bad at the end of the War but my grandfather always told me how happy he was to be shot down over Germany and not Japan.

4. Fighting Germany was not the same as fighting Japan. The Germans behaved rationally in combat and gave up when it was clear they wouldn’t win. The Japanese would fight with every man, woman, and child until nobody was left standing if they thought there was even a hope of winning. Japanese fought dirty, and in a way that Westerners would consider “honor-less” (they thought the same about us). They tortured their prisoners to death and had zero respect to anyone who surrendered. Even getting them to surrender after two atomic bombs was truly masterful negotiation which is hard to appreciate when you assume they are rational.

5. The atomic bomb was necessary and addressed points 1-4. Remember who started WW2 against America - it was Japan, and it was unprovoked- so much so that even the Germans were surprised by it. The US was under no obligation to give any quarter. It’s not the responsibility of America to minimize enemy deaths, it’s the responsibility of America to minimize American deaths. America did both in fact, and everyone should be thankful the US didn’t mass produce atom bombs and exterminate the Japanese people (who have turned out to be civilized allies). The threat of nuclear retaliation has prevented countless direct conflicts between superpowers since WW2 and could very well have saved billions of lives.

The main objection to strategic bombing is as always civilian targets. But military targets like factories, oil rigs, weapons depot is fair game.

If civilians still die in those scenarios so be it. But better than targeting residential areas like the bombing of dresden.

 

[stugatz]

I'd say that bombing Japan on the one hand was necessary because they proved that they were going to take a very, VERY long time to finally surrender. If they fought as hard as they did during the Battle of Okinawa when it was a COMPLETELY FORGONE CONCLUSION that they'd already lost, how would a straight invasion of Japan have gone? With (presumably) civilians also joining in the fray to stop the military swooping onto it, and probably four times the kamikaze attacks? Maybe we would have just blockaded the island and waited.

However, I didn't know in the post above that they ended up giving the Allies a conditional surrender. My statement above always hinged on this second statement: "The Japanese were part of the dangerous Axis powers, and a conditional surrender wouldn't have been enough for us to trust - we needed them completely at our mercy with absolutely no bargaining power." If we ended up getting a conditional surrender after we dropped two experimental nuclear bombs, well, that's just silly and almost defeats the purpose.

 

[stugatz]

I'll also say something partially unrelated. If I hear one more boomer asshat say a statement along the lines of "well, durrhh, Japan deserved both atomic bombs because tHeY aTtAcCkEdD pUrLl hArBoUrr!!!", I'm going to scream.

They attacked a MILITARY TARGET. A surprise attack that was a war crime, sure, but you don't get to just pretend like it's OK to drop nuclear bombs on a BUNCH OF CIVILIANS because you're butthurt that they successfully hit back at you after you committed brutal economic warfare against them. Did you really think that they'd just sit there?

I say this as someone who has a relative (first cousin three times removed? my great grandmother's cousin) who died in a kamikaze attack back in WWII. As unpleasant as that kind of thing is, the Japanese didn't wake up in the morning wanting to kill some pizzafaced soldier and make his mother miserable when he ends up dead at 19. This isn't some kind of movie where they're the bad guys who just revel in making us suffer.

 

[Mr.S]

US strategic bombing in WW2 was primarily attacking industrial targets. My grandfather kept record of everywhere he bombed and most of it was day bombing oil refineries and factories. When they’d do cities, they’d target industrial cities, like Dresden and the purpose was to kill people supporting the war effort. Are you complaining that war was too violent? For the British and Germans, yes it was primarily civilian targets. They were in a position of desperation and civilian bombing was started when Hitler began attacking London instead of finishing off the RAF which would have been the strategically correct thing to do.

Unprovoked? Not at all. The Americans broke the Enigma code the year prior to Pearl Harbour, and thus knew the Japs were coming, which only happened because America cut Japan off from obtaining oil and arrogantly told them to withdraw from China, the Japanese are a very proud people and couldn't take orders from foreign nations lying down. The American establishment knew this and wanted into the war with Germany, they let their own people die. Same thing as 9/11.

It's not surprising to hear establishment history from Grandpa.

Pearl Harbor: facing facts

The Establishment defense of Franklin Roosevelt's policies leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor typically deals with key arguments of revisionists by ignoring them. That was certainly the case with the History Channel's recent documentary 'Tora, Tora, Tora,' and it seems to be reflected in...

www.unz.com

(And @stugatz) It sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s America’s responsibility to supply Japan with oil and let it do whatever it wants in East Asia? An oil embargo is not a military provocation. We can sell oil or not sell oil to whomever we want. And it’s absolute lunacy to accuse the US of ‘economic warfare’ for acting economically and politically in its own interest and in the interest of China and the Philippines. Keep in mind the US WAS obligated to protect its overseas territories from the Japanese. The entire interwar period was basically the Japanese building warships against the Washington Naval Treaty because the Japanese didn’t respect contracts and treaties the way Westerners do. That’s why they had such a good navy in the beginning of WW2. Give a good reason why the US should sell war materiel to growingly hostile nations? Have you seen the videos of what they did to those people in China? Like the one where they’re burying people alive? The Nanjing massacre? The Japanese were doing horrible things and that needed to be put to a stop.

@stugatz you can go ahead and scream. The atomic bombings were completely justified and the only people I see who seem to disagree with that don’t have a significant understanding of the global political climate during that time period.

“Establishment viewpoint” okay, well maybe because back then people weren’t constantly apologizing for doing the reasonable thing. Really not too many people died in the atomic bombings. A small price to pay for peace.

 

[dicknixon72]

@stugatz you can go ahead and scream. The atomic bombings were completely justified and the only people I see who seem to disagree with that don’t have a significant understanding of the global political climate during that time period.

The atomic bombings were justified in the context of We-Spent-Like-A-Billion-1945-Dollars-On-The-Manhattan-Project-So-We-Had-Better-Get-Our-Money's-Worth-Out-Of-It-And-Also-Show-The-World-Whose-Dick-Is-Biggest.

As far as Pearl Harbor goes, its pretty clear at this point in time that we allowed it to happen, both tactically and strategically. The ships lost by us that day like Missouri were among the oldest in the fleet, obsolete Dreadnought-era junk. Our valuable assets - the flattops - were sent away days prior.

 

[BarrontheTigercat]

I read somewhere that, far from being a pacifist, Einstein pushed hard behind the scenes for use of the atomic bomb.

 

[infowarrior1]

US strategic bombing in WW2 was primarily attacking industrial targets. My grandfather kept record of everywhere he bombed and most of it was day bombing oil refineries and factories. When they’d do cities, they’d target industrial cities, like Dresden and the purpose was to kill people supporting the war effort. Are you complaining that war was too violent? For the British and Germans, yes it was primarily civilian targets. They were in a position of desperation and civilian bombing was started when Hitler began attacking London instead of finishing off the RAF which would have been the strategically correct thing to do.

(And @stugatz) It sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s America’s responsibility to supply Japan with oil and let it do whatever it wants in East Asia? An oil embargo is not a military provocation. We can sell oil or not sell oil to whomever we want. And it’s absolute lunacy to accuse the US of ‘economic warfare’ for acting economically and politically in its own interest and in the interest of China and the Philippines. Keep in mind the US WAS obligated to protect its overseas territories from the Japanese. The entire interwar period was basically the Japanese building warships against the Washington Naval Treaty because the Japanese didn’t respect contracts and treaties the way Westerners do. That’s why they had such a good navy in the beginning of WW2. Give a good reason why the US should sell war materiel to growingly hostile nations? Have you seen the videos of what they did to those people in China? Like the one where they’re burying people alive? The Nanjing massacre? The Japanese were doing horrible things and that needed to be put to a stop.

@stugatz you can go ahead and scream. The atomic bombings were completely justified and the only people I see who seem to disagree with that don’t have a significant understanding of the global political climate during that time period.

“Establishment viewpoint” okay, well maybe because back then people weren’t constantly apologizing for doing the reasonable thing. Really not too many people died in the atomic bombings. A small price to pay for peace.

The fire bombing is worse in terms of casualties. Atomic bomb had the shock and awe but comparatively little by comparison and ended the war it could be argued.

Perhaps it can be argued the atomic deployment is better in comparison.

 

[Pointy Elbows]

Interesting topic and one I have had evolving thoughts on in life. The fire-bombing of largely civilian targets in both theaters (the two A bombs in Japan and notably Dresden in Germany) are tough moral questions.

In old days, I believed the "justified bombings" line. Now, I believe they were as much demonstrations of strength/resolve as anything else. That's a generous way to say it. Sometimes I think it was just blood-lust.

We were imposing our will on them. "Look here Axis powers - we can and will destroy heritage locations with (at best) secondary military significance. Just to prove we can."

Allied forces fire-bombed Dresden, a beautiful cultural center of the region with nearly no military significance or industry. Accounts I have read describe asphalt streets so hot that they softened and people became trapped in the hot oil. I believe the bombing continued nightly for about a week. The city was loaded with German civilians from more war-torn areas, seeking refuge in the relative peace. It was a pretty unnecessary loss of life, even by WWII standards.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are similar dynamic, different weapon.

Things that make me curious: Nagasaki being the Christian capital of Japan. Special friend of FDRs special friends (who were big pushers to get us into the war) being given access to all of the Manhattan Project. Apparently, 90%+ of Americans were AGAINST entering the war as late as a week before Pearl Harbor. But there were so many hawks around FDR (he was pretty hawkish himself), I would believe these guys would set up Pearl Harbor the way it worked out.

 

[stugatz]

US strategic bombing in WW2 was primarily attacking industrial targets. My grandfather kept record of everywhere he bombed and most of it was day bombing oil refineries and factories. When they’d do cities, they’d target industrial cities, like Dresden and the purpose was to kill people supporting the war effort. Are you complaining that war was too violent? For the British and Germans, yes it was primarily civilian targets. They were in a position of desperation and civilian bombing was started when Hitler began attacking London instead of finishing off the RAF which would have been the strategically correct thing to do.

(And @stugatz) It sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s America’s responsibility to supply Japan with oil and let it do whatever it wants in East Asia? An oil embargo is not a military provocation. We can sell oil or not sell oil to whomever we want. And it’s absolute lunacy to accuse the US of ‘economic warfare’ for acting economically and politically in its own interest and in the interest of China and the Philippines. Keep in mind the US WAS obligated to protect its overseas territories from the Japanese. The entire interwar period was basically the Japanese building warships against the Washington Naval Treaty because the Japanese didn’t respect contracts and treaties the way Westerners do. That’s why they had such a good navy in the beginning of WW2. Give a good reason why the US should sell war materiel to growingly hostile nations? Have you seen the videos of what they did to those people in China? Like the one where they’re burying people alive? The Nanjing massacre? The Japanese were doing horrible things and that needed to be put to a stop.

@stugatz you can go ahead and scream. The atomic bombings were completely justified and the only people I see who seem to disagree with that don’t have a significant understanding of the global political climate during that time period.

“Establishment viewpoint” okay, well maybe because back then people weren’t constantly apologizing for doing the reasonable thing. Really not too many people died in the atomic bombings. A small price to pay for peace.

I am a little too inclined here to counter the boomer lines I always hear, usually something along the lines of "yeah the Japs deserved whatever they got for even laying a finger on our battleships". This usually comes from people who don't know jack squat about anything the Japanese did leading up to Pearl Harbor. I understand here that "counter everything the boomers ever said" isn't really a viable or smart political position.

My knowledge of Japan's actions pre-Pearl Harbor isn't quite as broad as yours - so you've got me there. I know that they were doing a lot of screwed up crap in the Pacific and were probably worse than the Nazis if you really want to get technical (Unit 731 is always a fun read on top of what you already mentioned regarding the Rape of Naking and similar massacres).

I still though feel that, yes, what we were doing was economic warfare and we should have expected some kind of response, especially from a nation like Japan that had gone so insane with expansionist hyper-nationalism.