Why Did America Use Nuclear Weapons To End World War 2?

@galasTAray Said

Complete s***. America is responsible for 1.2 million deaths in Iraq alone and another couple hundred thousand deaths in Afghanistan. They were not Bin Laden's "troops," and that just makes America that much more pathetic.

@galasTAray Said
Japan does not use the incident as a pretext to invade countries around the world and justify the killings of people and the destruction of governments, organizations, and progressive procedures all in the name of something as f***ing pathetic as the imperialistic tools that are "liberty" and "freedom?"

@galasTAray Said

Whether or not this nation or that nation considered civilians to be "fair game" (Interesting how you use a hunting term to define humans) is besides the point.

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The fact remains that in both WW2 and in 2001, one side acted on another side in a manner that completely disregards civilian life.

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Russia could have nuked the UK and I'd tell you that the same thing if you compared Russia's nuking to 2001.

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I'm merely stating the similarity between both events.

@galasTAray Said

If there's any difference you want to pick out between these two events and really try and make some half-assed point with it, why not take the fact that the nuking of Japan was not a few times worse, but hundreds if not thousands of times worse, yet Japan does not use the incident as a pretext to invade countries around the world and justify the killings of people and the destruction of governments, organizations, and progressive procedures all in the name of something as f***ing pathetic as the imperialistic tools that are "liberty" and "freedom?"

@crazylikeafox Said

"Start a war"? They were already IN a war. A massive and bloody war, to be exact. That's the biggest problem with your analogy. 9/11 started a war, and the nuking of Japan ended 1.

You are right about 1 thing though. Japan never used liberty and freedom to justify imperialism. They used pan-Asianism and, ironically, anti-imperialism to justify it.

@galasTAray Said

That reason was to send a message and make an impact in the context by doing as much damage as possible. Both incidents had the same reasons therefore they are similar.

@Eaglebauer Said

No.

The intended result of an action and the reason behind an action are two different things. Basic philosophy.

If I'm hitting a nail with a hammer and my neighbor is hitting a nail with a hammer, we both have the same intended result which is to drive the nail in. The reason for my hitting the nail comes before the action though, not after it. I might be hanging a picture while my neighbor might be building a table.

In the case of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the WTC, the intended result that was shared was to maximize damage and intimidate, which several people on the thread including myself have already admitted, but the driving reason to do those things was very different.

EDIT:

I realized that my analogy wasn't quite correct.

Provocation is more a designer of reason than expected result I suppose is the point I'm trying to make. Here's a better analogy...

I punch someone in the face.

That person is holding a gun and threatening one of my children and I'm trying to disarm him.

Another man in another city punches someone in the face. He's committing a strongarm robbery and trying to steal that person's wallet.

We both want to inflict harm and cause injury, but our reasons are two different things.

@crazylikeafox Said

"Start a war"? They were already IN a war. A massive and bloody war, to be exact. That's the biggest problem with your analogy. 9/11 started a war, and the nuking of Japan ended 1.

You are right about 1 thing though. Japan never used liberty and freedom to justify imperialism. They used pan-Asianism and, ironically, anti-imperialism to justify it.

@MAW Said

Japan had actually surrendered before the bombs were dropped, they dropped them because they would not give up their emperor for the allies to hang.
The dropped the bomb and spared the emperors life so go figure.

@crazylikeafox Said

Not really. Japan offered a fancy ceasefire, the US expected total surrender (mostly because they didn't want a repeat mistake of Versailles). You know, kind of like what Italy and Germany had to do. The Emperor was spared afterwards because MacArthur thought forcing him to abdicate would be too much for the people to tolerate.

This whole debate also forgets 1 very important event, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan around the same time the bombs were dropped. Do not underestimate the scariness of the bear.

@MainerMikeBrown Said

Some say the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Japan because their would've been just as many deaths if we hadn't, as the Japanese military would've never surrendered until all was lost for them anyway.

However, others say we used nukes to scare the Soviets.

Why do you think we dropped nukes on Japan? My opinion is that it was a little bit of both.

@townie_guy Said

Yeah people should be grateful the nuke wasn't tested on Americans. I know people are saying human life was lost but would you really sacrifice your own country to save another.