The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 100000 civilians. These were not military targets. Japan was a military dictarorship at the time, the people had not elected the people in power and had no authority to sway them in any way, and therefore not responsible for any action that regime took.
They were not warned that their homes would be bombed by a weapon that their shelters could not protect them from.
How would you defend this without justifying the attack on WTC on 9/11?
"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."
-Dwight D Eisenhower
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Anonymous2006-12-27 9:20
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
-Chester W. Nimitz
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Anonymous2006-12-27 9:21
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."
-William D. Leahy
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Anonymous2006-12-27 9:22
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
-United States Strategic Bombing Survey
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Anonymous2006-12-27 9:24
"Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#_note-49
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Anonymous2006-12-27 10:35
>>42
Why didn't they surrender unconditionally then? >>43
Why didn't they surrender unconditionally then? >>44
Why didn't they surrender unconditionally then? >>45
Why didn't they surrender unconditionally then? >>46
Why didn't they surrender unconditionally then?
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Anonymous2006-12-27 11:58
>>47
"Many, including General MacArthur, have contended that Japan would have surrendered before the bombings if the U.S. had notified Japan that it would accept a surrender that allowed Emperor Hirohito to keep his position as titular leader of Japan, a condition the U.S. did in fact allow after Japan surrendered. U.S. leadership knew this, through intercepts of encoded Japanese messages, but refused to clarify Washington's willingness to accept this condition. Before the bombings, the position of the Japanese leadership with regards to surrender was divided. Several diplomats favored surrender, while the leaders of the Japanese military voiced a commitment to fighting a "decisive battle" on Kyūshū, hoping that they could negotiate better terms for an armistice afterward. The Japanese government did not decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme War Council was still split, with the hard-liners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials would be conducted, and no occupation of Japan would be allowed. Only the direct intervention of the emperor ended the dispute, and even then a military coup was attempted to prevent the surrender." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#_note-49
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Anonymous2006-12-27 12:36
>>48
So it took 2 uses of nuclear weapons to convince the Japanese leadership to remain "undivided" in agreeing to unconditional surrender. The nuclear weapons had to be used to stop world war 2 which by that point had seen countless atrocities, destruction and over 50 million lives lost prematurely. The Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't deserve to die, but then again neither did the allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy.
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Anonymous2006-12-27 17:08
>>47 Because, as these proffessional investigations show, time was the issue, not the costs of not surrendering.
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Anonymous2006-12-27 18:37
>>50
The cost of a continuation of the war would be too high. It had to be ended as quickly as possible by whatever means necessary.
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Anonymous2006-12-27 19:43
"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?."
-Leo Szilard
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Anonymous2011-08-17 17:29
I'm from the future and I just want to let you guys know that we killed Osama and the president at the time was named Barack Hussein Obama, who was a half-black Muslim.