The moral differences between the holocaust and bombing Japan

I think that most societies are about equally sick.



So you were able to understand me.

What I equated was the genocide carried out.

There was nothing remotely resembling genocide carried out at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. An air-raid on an enemy city in time of war does not rise to the level of 'genocide' no matter how many people are killed in the raid. Get your vocabulary straight. Again, as others have already pointed out to you, if you choose to call it an 'atrocity', that's one thing. (I would disagree, but that's neither here nor there.) But to keep on referring to it as 'genocide' simply shows a lack of understanding of the word itself.

How many civilians would you have to kill before it becomes a genocide in your opinion?

You're missing the entire point. It's not a matter of numbers.

So your saying we could have dropped 20 A-bombs and Killed 90% of the population if we thought it was necessary to win the war and it still would have not been genocide?

No, then it could be classified as genocide simply because of the obvious intent to wipe out the population. There was no such intent in the dropping of the nuclear bombs. If Japan had surrender after the first bomb fell on Hiroshima, Nagasaki would have escaped being bombed.

But the point you're missing, I think, is that the number of dead has nothing to do with whether a particular act is genocidal or not. If you have a group of, say, a dozen Kwatchlick speakers (I just made that word up) living in your country and you decide you don't like Kwatchlicks, even though these are the very last Kwatchlik speakers left on earth, and you kill each and every one of the 12, you have committed an act of genocide. That same day you may have bombed an enemy city and caused the deaths of a couple of thousand people; The bombing was not genocide because it was an act of war, not intended to wipe out a specific group. of people.

Andy is correct in my view, RL.

You may consider the bombing to be an atrocity, but it was not even close to genocide.

How many innocent people would we have to kill in order for us to acknowledge the act as genocide?

FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS, ARE YOU LISTENING TO US AT ALL??? "hOW MANY" has nothing to do with it, idiot!!!

Make up your mind genius, in the quote below you seem to think you have committed genocide when you killed all of them. From what I understand you do not have to kill them all, all you have to do is kill enough of them to change their culture in a way that suit your desire.
Committing acts with intent to destroy, in whole "or in part", a nation is genocide according to legal terms.

Can you get this through your thick skull? The number of people has nothing to do with it. "All"can mean six billion or it can mean six people. It's the intent and method that makes it 'genocide'.

Look,RL -- if you have only six Jews living in your entire country and you decide to systematically kill all six of them because they are Jewsyou are committing genocide. If, on the other hand, you are at war with Israel and drop the big one on Jerulasem or Tel Aviv and kill 600,000+ Jews, that's not necessarily genocide at all.

It was just a plain old war crime, Merry, something that the US is well versed in.

What safeguards have we put in to prevent these events from happening again in the future?

Thanks for taking the time to reply.




Walter already quoted point 13 of the Potsdam Declaration:

"We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces"


http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html

6. There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.
7. Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.
10. [...] The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people.


The Potsdam Declaration makes no mention of the Emperor, but anyone greatly concerned with the survival of the imperial institution could easily see the terms of this declaration as a great threat to it.

It seems the response to the declaration, the famous "mokusatsu" has generated quite conflicting interpretations as to the degree to which the offer was being rejected. Apparently it is a quite common feature in Japanese negotiation etiquette.

Quoting more from the Zuberi article:

On August 9 the Japanese War Council was discussing the terms of surrender they should pursue when it received the news of the Nagasaki bombing, which didn't change the situation much. At the end of the meeting: "Nine voted for acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration with a proviso regarding kokutai, four wanted the three additional conditions to be fulfilled, and three were undecided"

Note: the three additional conditions were: (a) voluntary withdrawal of Japanese forces overseas under their own commanders; (b) no Allied occupation of
Japan; and (c) those responsible for the war to be tried by the Japanese themselves.

After meeting with the Emperor, on August 10, "Togo proposed acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration "with the understanding that it did not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.""

The American response:

"Stimson and Leahy said the emperor's help would be needed in obtaining surrender of scattered Japanese troops. It was of vital importance for Stimson to get Japan under American control "before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it." Byrnes, however, still feared a backlash. The demand for unconditional surrender was made before the two bombs were dropped and before the Soviet Union was a belligerent. "If any conditions are to be accepted", he insisted, "I want the United States and not Japan to state the conditions."

Stalin's armies were racing across Manchuria; there was no time to lose. Truman asked Byrnes to draft a reply to the Japanese surrender offer. The carefully drafted reply contained the sentence: "From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms." This assurance implied the retention of the emperor."





I disagree. As I said, the Potsdam Declaration could be seen as a great threat to the existence of the emperor. Now at least he is explicitly mentioned, and stating that his authority will be "subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers" logically implies that it will continue to exist - subordinate as it may be.
His prerogatives may be affected, depending on the outcome of the surrender and the peace talks, but it's not as if it would be the first time Japan had a sacred ruling emperor with limited effective power. At least he remains, and Japan could save face, which the emperor apparently managed to do. From his declaration to the Japanese people:

"Continuation of the war would have caused not only the downfall of Japan "but also the destruction of all human civilisation." According to "the dictates of time and fate", therefore, he had "resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable." Thus, Hirohito, "in his divine benevolence" was saving all human civilisation from destruction. "As a result of the bombs", observes one commentator, "the Japanese had been transformed from aggressors to saviors, a magnificent feat of public relations." Hirohito's decision is called seidan or sacred decision."




What do you mean by "in a draw" ? They were actively seeking Soviet intercession to manage better surrender terms for themselves.

"Kido was the central figure in the group of Japanese leaders seeking negotiated peace. Foreign Minister Togo was pressing Ambassador Naotake
Sato in Moscow to request the Soviet government to use its good offices to obtain modification of the Allied terms of surrender. All that was needed was an assurance regarding the retention of the emperor. It was proposed that Prince Konoye be sent as an envoy to Mosocw. The Togo-Sato messages were quickly decoded because the US navy cryptographers had broken the Japanese codes."


From History professor Dennis Wainstock's The Decision to Drpo the Atomic Bomb (1996):

Conclusion (to the introduction)
"By the end of July 1945, if not before, Japan was militarily defeated. Fire raids had ravaged its major cities; its best troops were killed or missing in East Asia and the South Pacific, and many were still fighting in China. Twenty-two million Japanese were homeless, and the US naval and air blockade had cut off imports of fuel, food and raw materials from Japan's conquests in China, Korea, and Manchuria. US submarines roamed Japanese waters sinking tankers and freighters that tried to run the blockade. Japan's Navy had ceased to exist, and Air Force was severely diminished. US battleships and cruisers were shelling port installations and military compounds within gun range of the Japanese shores. At the same time, carrier-based fighters and bombers flew with near-impunity over the islands, bombing targets of opportunity - railway tracks and trains, motorized troop convoys, factories and air fields.
After April 1945, Japan's leaders sought a diplomatic solution to end the war. The problem was America's insistence on unconditional surrender. To a proud people, acceptance of unconditional surrender would not allow the Japanese to "save face" or honor. At the very least, Japan's civil and military leaders agreed, the United States must allow them to retain Emperor Hirohito, but the military wanted additional conditions. All agreed, however, to seek Soviet mediation to persuade the United States to abandon its demand for unconditional surrender and negotiate with Japan an end to the war."


The conclusion is preceded by sections on: The battle of Okinawa; General Curtis LeMay; The Tokyo raid; Primary and secondary bombing targets; Bombing analysis; Economic strangulation; Destruction of Japan's merchant fleet, Navy and Air Force; Disintegration of Japan's economic structure; Public opinion; and Preparation for invasion.

The entire introduction is available online at: http://books.google.ca/books?id=yDTws6tXo9wC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false


So I don't understand how ending the war in this situation could be considered ending it "on a draw".

The article NEW EVIDENCE ON TRUMAN’S DECISION was published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, Vol. 41, No. 7 (August 1985).

It was later reproduced in that book, A HISTORY OF OUR TIME in 1995.

The "new evidence" it refers to is not "he 1970s the work of Martin Sherwin, Barton Bernstein, Gregg Herken, and others", as is pretty clear if you read the article, but specifically the discovery of "Truman's private journal and letters written at the time he gave the bombing order".

"The first batch of this new evidence on the bomb decision surfaced in 1979. It had been misfiled among the family records of Truman's press secretary at the Truman presidential library.
[...]
Four years after the discovery of Truman's Potsdam diary a second batch of new evidence of Truman's contemporary thinking on matters
relating to the use of the bomb turned up among his widow's private papers. These letters, written during that same Potsdam trip, along with
other private correspondence between Bess and Harry Truman had been presumed destroyed years earlier. But they had somehow survived"

The first set of new evidence surfaces in 1979 and the second one in 1983.
The article was published in 1985.

Given the time it takes to submit, review, revise and approve an academic article, no time warp is necessary.



Not at all.
He argues Truman thaught or that even he was sure the Japanese would surrender after hearing about the Soviet declaration of war and advances in Manchuria.
No one in their right mind would argue, much less in a scientific article, that Truman, or anyone for that matter, knew how events would unfold.
And judging from the evidence at hand, from Truman and his advisers, I think it's pretty safe to say that he thaught the Japanese would surrender.

What does it say?

The authors are quoting: J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 1990.)

I can't access that article, nor the subsequent edition to which you are referring to (I couldn't even find it).

There is however a very interesting article by the same professor: Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground, in Diplomatic History, Vol. 29, No. 2 (April 2005).

I haven't finished it yet, but pins the traditional and revisionist versions against each other and considers other elements to venture a "middle ground". I haven't gotten to the point where he lays out this middle ground but it reads very well.

I see so if you do not like the people or what they are doing you go to war with them and you intentionally drop a bomb on them knowing that many innocent people will die, you are no longer a psychopath committing genocide but rather a war hero?

So, now you are saying that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of genocide by psychopaths?