Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
Japan would have never in a million years won had the US invaded. It would have been a prolonged, devastating, war, that would had leveled Japan to ashes. You could debate, the events of Hirosima and Nagasaki, saved Japan to a degree. The outcome of a ground war, and prolonged bombing by the US would have left nothing. The Americans/Allies were that powerful.
Don't forget, Japan had signed an Tripartite pact with Germany and Italy. We aren't talking about a country that was exactly 'innocent' here. They were focused on domination, the allied forces were focused on freedom and liberty. Like it or not, Japan were the bad guys. Some of the most horrific war crimes were committed by the Japanese against China.
Not for one moment I do not think the horrors of what happened were good. But the alternative was horribly worse. I love Japanese people, Japanese culture, the honor of their people. But the era of Japanese imperialism was dark and evil. And they needed to be stopped.
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It's also absurd to think that the people that made the decision to drop the bomb had much comprehension of what they were doing, secrecy of the Manhattan Project was such that Truman never had an idea the bomb existed until a few weeks before he had to decide to drop them, outside of a small group of scientists the bomb was seen as literally just a really big bomb. There was no comprehension of the radiation effects or, really, the size of it, they were being advised by generals who themselves hadn't seen the bomb who were describing it as s city buster but still basically presenting it as a conventional weapon.
To call it terrorism is asinine, it was horrific but there was no course of action in 1945 that didn't involve several hundred thousand to possibly millions of Japanese dieing, Okinawa was a clear signpost to what an invasion of the mainland would look like, mass suicides by the civilian population as well as the soldier.
You can make a reasonable case that the atomic bombs were actually the most humane ending for Japan if you just go by body count