Moving this video to rasch187's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by original submitter rasch187.

The general Japanese civilian population at the time was poor, starving and consisted mostly old men, women, and children. All males of 'fighting age' or capacity were either dead, or in the military. The citizenry's weapons of choice that were available to them were... brooms, shovels, and sticks. This doesn't overshadow the threat the emperor, the empire and his military machine posed. However, this doesn't negate the fact that the country was already defeated by the time the A-bombs were dropped. The majority killed by the A-bombs were civilians. Old men. Women. Children. The city of Nagasaki was a historical 'symbolic' international trade port for Japan for hundreds of years. Nagasaki even had a 'foreign quarter' reserved 'gaijin'. At the time the A-bomb was dropped, there was a POW camp in the city. Populated with both American and Australian POWs. Most were killed by the A-bomb. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were symbolic targets. Not only was it to signal a thorough and resounding crush of a defeated foe, it was a symbol to the world stating "don't tread on me".

I am not making a pro/anti A-bomb point here. I am just expressing known historical fact. War in all it's forms is horrible. It is not a game. People die. Innocent people die. It isn't a video game. No one should ever rush to war. Nor should anyone run an empire based on an ideology of military domination such as was seen by both German and Japan.

The US should learn from history and remember it's past. Hubris is what is the greatest threat to US power now. Not 'terrorism'.. yet most are still too blind to realize this.

>> ^honkeytonk73:

The general Japanese civilian population at the time was poor, starving and consisted mostly old men, women, and children. All males of 'fighting age' or capacity were either dead, or in the military. The citizenry's weapons of choice that were available to them were... brooms, shovels, and sticks. This doesn't overshadow the threat the emperor, the empire and his military machine posed. However, this doesn't negate the fact that the country was already defeated by the time the A-bombs were dropped.

It doesn't matter if the civilian population was already defeated, because the Japanese military did not give a shit about the lives or the suffering of civilians, either at home, or abroad. The ferocity of the resistance experienced in the pacific theater, the failed coup to stop emperor from surrendering, holdouts well into 1970s, and the Japanese refusal to accept the Postdam declaration even after the first bomb was dropped highlights the determination of the Imperial Army. The will of the Imperial Army had to be broken.

A direct invasion of the Japanese mainland would have resulted in civilian casualties orders of magnitudes greater than from bombing alone, judging from the Battle of Okinawa. Conventional bombing of Japan produced far more damage and casualties than the two atomic bombs combined, yet had no effect on influencing the Japanese to surrender. The use of atomic weapons was absolutely justified and was not just an international show of force.

The responsibility for the deaths of those killed by the bombings, as well as all civilians in the pacific theater rests squarely on the shoulders of Hirohito and the Japanese military, many of whom, unlike their Nazi counterparts, went unpunished for their crimes.

My history teacher was quick to point out that the Japanese government was in talks with the Soviets, believing that Stalin would intermediate and determine conditions for a surrender to the US. "Unconditional surrender" to an adversary is a frightening prospect and hardly the norm, even for a nation on the brink of military defeat. The atomic bombing coincided with the declaration of war on Japan by the USSR, thus ending the hope of a negotiated end to the war. One can argue (and I understand that many historians do) that Russia's declaration of war was a larger factor in forcing a Japanese government to surrender without any preconditions regarding the ordering of their state, the dispensation of their territory, or the treatment of their soldiers. Is this argument right? I don't know; I wasn't there.

Certainly it is logically incompatible to hold that the Japanese government didn't care about civilian deaths and also that the atomic bomb caused the surrender. The only purpose of strategic bombing is to kill and demoralize large numbers of civilians. Why would a quarter of a million more deaths change the mind of such a callous regime? I'm entirely suspicious of anyone who now claims that targeting civilian population centers is "absolutely justified" in any context, though both sides felt that way at the time. 60 years later, every civilized country has abandoned strategic bombing because it's not only inhumane, but ineffective as well. At best its use in World War 2 is a gray area: we can credit those soldiers who carried it out for their bravery and sacrifice; we can credit their leaders for making the best choice they could with limited information.

Closer to the topic of the video, Truman's demand for unconditional surrender is unconscionable in my view. The Japanese were eager to talk terms. I don't know if they'd give us all we wanted, but we never even found out. He missed the chance to end the war a few months early and save half a million lives for the sake of pride and bluster. Not cool.

>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

Certainly it is logically incompatible to hold that the Japanese government didn't care about civilian deaths and also that the atomic bomb caused the surrender. The only purpose of strategic bombing is to kill and demoralize large numbers of civilians. Why would a quarter of a million more deaths change the mind of such a callous regime?

I never said the civilian casualties swayed the regime to surrender. Obviously it doesn't play much of a factor since many times that died in conventional bombing campaigns and Japan didn't budge. It was the threat of utter destruction that the atomic bomb promised that finally convinced the Japanese to surrender.

Also, your criticism of Truman's demand for unconditional surrender is wrong. The Potsdam declaration was in fact conditional. And we do know exactly what the Japanese were demanding: That they retain control of Korea and Taiwan, which is about as acceptable as letting the Nazis keep France and Poland.

Also, stop twisting my words. I never said that bombing civilians was "absolutely justified". I said the use of atomic weaponry was absolutely justified. The justification of Total war is not something that I'm arguing, and strategic bombing is not unique to nuclear weapons. As to why similar bombing hasn't been used since WWII, well that's because we haven't been engaged in another total war, and we're held back by the threat of global nuclear holocaust and mutually assured destruction.

The decision to drop the bomb was also partly influenced by the desire to demonstrate to the Soviets that the US had developed a weapon of mass destruction. What they didn't know is that Stalin not only knew about it already but was developing their own version. This late in the war the relations with the Soviets was already shaky and both sides were posturing for a better position after the conflict.

My history is obviously pretty rusty; I had forgotten that Potsdam laid out the terms so appropriately. My mistake.

Drawing a distinction between bombing civilians and dropping the atomic bombs is nonsense though. Atomic weapons, as they existed in 1945 were simply more efficient civilian killing tools. A single firebombing raid on Tokyo leveled the city and killed 100,000 civilians. This about the equivalent of either a-bomb, all it required was more planes. By August, every major Japanese city had been leveled by conventional weapons. There was no threat of "utter destruction" until much larger weapons were developed during the cold war. All we could do was level cities and slaughter civilians, something we'd already been doing for months. I don't buy the shock and awe argument at all. Then again, I wasn't in the room when the generals decided to surrender.

Justifying wholesale slaughter of noncombatants in the name of "Total War" is obviously a controversial topic. Plenty of people feel like killing women and children is fine in some wars. Many others believe that targeting civilian populations is not justified even when it is militarily expedient. The debate is laid out very well in Just and Unjust Wars, by Michael Walzer, though obviously those who insist on seeing these issues in black and white will probably just be annoyed with the premise.

*history

Adding video to channels (History) - requested by SlipperyPete.

AMERICA FUCK YEA ! ! !

>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

Drawing a distinction between bombing civilians and dropping the atomic bombs is nonsense though. Atomic weapons, as they existed in 1945 were simply more efficient civilian killing tools. A single firebombing raid on Tokyo leveled the city and killed 100,000 civilians. This about the equivalent of either a-bomb, all it required was more planes. By August, every major Japanese city had been leveled by conventional weapons. There was no threat of "utter destruction" until much larger weapons were developed during the cold war. All we could do was level cities and slaughter civilians, something we'd already been doing for months. I don't buy the shock and awe argument at all. Then again, I wasn't in the room when the generals decided to surrender.

Yes it was a threat of utter destruction. That was the exact rhetoric that Truman used, and the exact reasoning included by Hirohito for his surrender:

"The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

America had plans laid out for increased production of the atomic bomb and for large scaled bombing of Japanese cities with atomic weaponry should they not surrender. The atomic bombs were not just a more efficient change to, like you said, an already exhaustive firebombing campaign.

And like I said, I'm not trying to justify total war, or the killing of civilians, so there's no need for you to belabor that point. The argument is, given that America was already engaged in a total war, the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely justified.

Also, please use the reply function. It sends a email to the person you replied to which makes communicating easier.