Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

Catholic.





It says: You shall (not "thou shalt" unless you are using an inferior translation) not murder/manslaughter.

The term prohibited was not a general word for killing -- just a word for illegal killing.

Of course, given the indiscriminate nature of the A-bombs, their use on those targets may well violate the commandment, but that does not mean that all killing in war is proscribed.

And the A-bombs were used with a good motive: to force acceptance of our terms as painlessly as possible.





The number of bombs was a coincidence of the timing of Japan's surrender. We were about a week from dropping the next one when they surrendered.





I disagree. They are fine weapons.





Not always.

This thread seems to have a life of it's own and will not die.
As to whether, it was a crime or not. No absolutely not it was what was being waged. Full scale war not a chivalrous joust. Should we have dropped the bombs? Looking at it from the prospective of 60 years ago. Absolutely. It saved many more lives than it cost.

You're absoluetly right, au1929. The trouble is that too many people are not looking at the event from the perspective of 60 years ago but, rather, insist on doing some kind of Monday morning quarterbacking, looking at it from today's viewpoint. It's easy to be judgemental after the fact. I'm appalled at the loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, looking at it from the lofty pinnacle of 2005. Then I try to put myself into Harry Truman's shoes in 1945 and ask myself, "So, what would you do?" I'd drop the bombs, I'm pretty certain.

I can do what most on this thread can not do look at it the way it was.

The legal question of whether it was a crime is different from the moral question of whether it was the right thing to do.

Yes, we were right to do it. But it also was a violation of the laws of war, in that the weapon was too indiscriminate for the target.

oralloy, Even legal issues change over time.

oralloy

What legal issue are you raving about. War as far as I know is not illegal. In fact it has been mans favorite pastime thru the ages. Check the bible when they waged war the loser was normally massacred and or taken as slaves. This question of legality and what is allowed [legal] is a new concept. When locked in a do or die war legalities hardly matter all that does is winning.

Of course we can look at things from the perspective of 60 years ago, i'm well read on the subject and not stupid. There was a heck of a lot of people who at the time thought it was appauling. Even the crew of the Enola Gay couldn't believe what they had just done because they couldn't conceive the enormity of what they had just dropped. As I said before people do things through frustration in war that, yes, after the fact, those not involved can snear at, but killing civilians is one of the things that since the second world war has been accepted as justifiable collateral damage and that is wrong. There was no clear target other than a city of people destroyed like a pawn in a game of chess. It was wrong then and it's still wrong. Yes, in war civilians will die, period, but surely we can limit that damage. It should have been a crime then and it still should be today. Even with our fantastic technology we're still killing babies left right and centre in all conflicts, sometimes even more than our supposed aggressors (you know, the one's that threaten OUR interests like OIL).
And I loved the typical catholic response! What god really meant, hee hee, you crack me up every time! I always thought it was suposed to be god who decided who lived and died?!? Surely that's why he's mentioned so many times going into battle these days. Get the fundamentalist christians on your side. It's always been about winning the vote of the public. Like Pearl Harbour. Saturday, majority against joining the war, Monday, all for it! Easy when you bleed a country dry and then leave the back door open! Hey, I put my cat in beside my prize racing pigeons and guess what, the little bastard ate them all. Now I can claim my insurance money!!!! Woo hoo.
Anyway, was it a war crime? I think the best people to ask would be one of todays Japanese youth. Very Americanised so they've seen the benefits of the sudden end of the war, but there may be an element of resentment there. Could go either way. Go on Japan, join in the debate!!! Or we'll nuke ya!

imperialracing wrote


Like hell you can. Think of it in the light of current events. Pearl Harbor was just 4 years ago, Pendants with blue and gold stars hung in windows throughout the US. Bataan death march. Rape of Nanking and all of the Japanese atrocities in China and else where. Thousands upon thousands of casualties at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima,Tarawa and elsewhere. Japanese who would not surrender and fought to the death. The Germans blitzkrieg where they bombed unprotected cities. The fact that it was a no holds barred war of survival. And last but certainly not least there was no restrictions or agreements that would prohibit use of the atom bomb.
Do you think that by reading of events many times written years later can give you a realistic sense of the time.
Were you a serviceman in the Pacific or one who would be sent from the European theater to participate in the invasion of Japan. Which could have been as bloody or in fact more so than any encountered in the Island hopping? Would you be cheering at the dropping of the bombs or crying it is illegal.
The fact remains the bombs brought a swift close to the war without further bloodshed and distruction on both sides.

au is right; it was a different time that cannot be learned through books. It was in the air; something people understood as the "great war." Germany and Japan killed, maimed and raped innocent people without regard to the humanity. The allies had to destroy that war machine in order to bring back the humanity and peace. The only way that could be accomplished without more of our own getting killed was to bomb Germany and Japan mercilessly, because that's all they understood. Berlin and Tokyo were destroyed completely. Japan fought on, and Truman did the right thing to drop the atom bomb in Japan. It stopped the killing - on both sides.

I have read an article about the bombing of the communities of Dresden recently.
That is truely a war crime. It has nothing to do with destroying the Nazi's war machine but damaged the civiliaztion a lot.

I was going the say the atom bomb brought forth the age of all the good things to come, that the outcomes were better than for worse. But now ill say that there is no definite line between the rights and wrong, as many bad and great things did come from the outcome of this(my professional view). Dang, i hate the atom bomb indirectly it softened up the US during the first years of the Post-War era. By the time of the Korean War the US was using WW2 stuff claiming it would drop the bomb against enemies, while when a scenario happened nothing happened.Scratch that, i mean the death toll caused by that event dwindled when compared to the loss of invasion of Japan. I was watching a history channel thing on this and it said ".. were afraid what happened in Korea would happen in Japan, a north Japan and a South Japan."

The V2 rockets also destroyed and killed civilians in the UK.

Ya can't damn one without damning the other, but it wasn't exactly tet for tat. The Germans/Nazis are the ones that took over countries by force, and killed and destroyed many non-military targets.

imperialracing
Demoralizing the enemy is part of the art of war. The idea being that if they are demoralized or frightened enough they will surrender. In the long run it saves lives.

And yes I was around as you say during WW2. My brother and almost all my cousins were in service, and had the war gone on a year or so longer so too would I. No I did not read about in a book or see it on cable. It was in every news media and on the radio every day. And as I had mentioned previously there were many gold stars hanging in the windows with tear stained eyes inside. Sympathy was reserved for them not the enemy.

You make a lot of unwarranted assumptions, imperialracing. What makes you think none of us "were around' at this time? The level of maturity of some of those of us who are participating in this discussion should tell you otherwise. I was six years old when the bombs were dropped, and I'm a kid compared to a few others here. Later in life, I knew a family which had survived the bombing of Dresden. They weren't even Germans but Latvian refugees, stranded in Dresden at the time. They had nothing but praise for the way the Americans had conducted the war. Cicerone Impostor, btw, is Japanese-American. If your comments were aimed at him, he has already responded (see above).

imperialracing

I haven'r learnt about the war from books,too, althought I wasn't born at that time.

My father lost nearly his complete family in the bombed house (the bombs on the house, I lived, did no great damage, besides killing some dozens chickens and making a couple of holes in the roof.)

By pure chance, I became friendly with the son of one of the (British) bomber pilots, made the acquaintance with the complete crew ...

imperialracing wrote.



I don't know what gung-ho attitude you speak of. American soldiers are normally very giving and will help civilians wherever they can, However, you must remember that they are constantly under attack either by gunfire or bombs planted in the roadway. In addition there is no way to tell the difference between the good and bad guys.