Everyone has an opinion on this. Everyone knows what happened. Please, share. I personally believe it was absolutely stupid to use something, when you don't know the repercussions. As far as I know, america used the bombs for two purposes: 1.: Destroy 2.: Experiment I've discussed this many times with my father and it makes me so angry to hear him say: "We had every right to do what we did. Look what they did to Pearl Harbor." I mean...sure, attacking pearl harbor wasn't right but What America did to Japan had effects that SILL haven't worn off completely. I just watched a documentary on it, and get angrier everytime I hear the sentence: "Our actions were justified" How is ruining the lives of not only people but also generations justified? Well, I could say a lot more, but I'd just be going on in circles.
This is why I started a thread on it. I want to see how many people think it was justified and how many people believe it wasn't...
We've got the advantage of hindsight, so it's impossible for us to say what they were thinking and whether they really were just defending themselves, or trying to cause destruction on such a massive scale. With that said, it was a VERY excessive retribution that could have been avoided. Then again, this was WWII, so there's a lot of people with blood on their hands.
I think at the time it was only meant to send a message to the Japanese Empire, which it clearly did. However, I also think the United States had no idea it was going to destroy an entire city, otherwise they wouldn't have used it. Had they known it was going to destroy an entire city, I think they would've merely used that threat rather than actually carrying out the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since they didn't know, the threat and the message were a little clearer than had they not bombed those two cities. Nonetheless, I don't think it was justified, seeing as how millions of people were killed, and I'm more than sure people still can't inhabit those areas today. Also, from what I understand, the Japanese Empire was on the decline before the bombs were dropped, so the United States could've merely prolonged the war a little longer by allowing the Japanese Empire to fizzle out.
Like I said, America used the bombs to see what would happen...Hiroshima was basically an experiment on some level.
I think it's hard to deny, whatever your opinion, that the purpose was to test the bomb in a pupulated area. Oh yeah, and to scare the Soviets.
Pearl Harbor was a military base and should have been at least somewhat prepared in the '"unlikely case of an attack". How anyone can justify an attack on a city is beyond me.
What we did to Hiroshima (and Nagasaki for that matter) is just disgusting. I'm not saying that what Japan did was right, but calling using a nuclear weapon overreacting is an understatement. It should be an eye for an eye, not an eye for an entire body.
Quoted for great justice, and because I cannot word it any better than you did. It seems to me that every military action done throughout the world is to either test what they have, or to one up the other. It's just moronic.
I think we need to make another 10 threads where we discuss historical facts and blame the US for them.
I wasn't blaming the US for anything but the bombing of those two cities and you can't say that wasn't americas fault (When I say america, I don't mean 100% of the nation but the people who could actually influence what happened). I was just stating the obvious when I said it happened and sharing my opinion when I said how I felt about it. I'm sorry if I've upset you with this thread.
People kill people. There's a lot of stuff that happened and is happening and probably will keep happening in the future that you can not possibly justify, I include the atombomb in that. But endless discussions about what is right and wrong are useless when you don't remember what you concluded out of those discussions. And that's exactly what's happening now and that's also what happened with Hiroshima. If there's a perfect solution, I assure you it would have been found already, but at least some people are still trying to find it. When there's war there are inventions and when there are inventions there's a possibility to evolve. So when they discovered the power of the atombomb they also put that to good use.
I dont think it was right to use such a massive bomb twice but i consider it "Part of War" its not like the US would test it on a country at peace with the US