Atomic bomb droping on Japan.

[wes]

what is your opinion on the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. I view this as one of the many crimes by the different imperialist powers during the second large inter-imperialist war. The communist party USA, Social democrats, and Schachtmanites all supported the bombing the CP even calling it " the one two punch".

[Die Neue Zeit]

A cheap and unsuccessful attempt to scare Uncle Joe.

[Red Menace]

anything that intentionally kills citizens is attrocious. and part of why we did it was to flex our muscles at Stalin and the Soviet Union. pathetic

[dez]

I think it openede precedents for an athomic war.
And there is no higher violence, nor less intolerable action, regardless of the objective.

[razboz]

Mostly strikes me as an act of balant chauvinism to show off their newly minted gear. To be fair though it killed less poepl then the bombing of Tokyo or Cologne. I see these are being bigger warcrimes.

And i dont think it "opened new precedents" because atomic weapons could have been used and indeed WERE wihtout any precedent.

[dez]

Yes, the firebombs in japan killed way more people and in a far more cruel way than the a-bombs. They are bigger warcrimes.



From a historical perspective, the succesfull usage of new weaponry or war tactics always result in the spread of it. After US bombed hiroshima and nagazaki, USSR rushed it's atomic programme, and the whole world got into a nuke-rush.
In a high scale war, as a morale breaking resource, nations will use nukes if pressed to. It did opened new precedents.

[DISTURBEDrbl911]

I too would view the droping of the atomic bombs on Japan as a war crime, but I would also view the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden as war crimes as well. In some aspects I agree with some the reasoning behind it though. Well firstly, the a-bombs were just the final thread, the firebombings had already torn the moral and support of the Japanese people. Secondly, an all-out invasion of Japan would have cost many lifes as well. It would have resulted in the death of 10's of thousands of American soldiers as well as countless Japanese soldiers and civilians. While the dropping of the bombs did wind up having more negative results than "positive" I can see where Truman and his administration was coming from and why they did drop the bombs.

[Spike]

They were war crimes. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa documents that they did not impel the Japanese to surrender. In fact the August 1945 Soviet military campaigns in Manchuria, Korea, and Sakhalin had a far bigger impact than the bombs. Japan had depended on Soviet neutrality in order to carry out its imperialist designs.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 12:25 am
what is your opinion on the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. I view this as one of the many crimes by the different imperialist powers during the second large inter-imperialist war. The communist party USA, Social democrats, and Schachtmanites all supported the bombing the CP even calling it " the one two punch".
Neither the social-democrats (by which I figure you mean the Socialist Party-Social-Democratic Federation) nor the Shachtmanites supported the atomic bombing of Japan. You might be thinking of their support for U.S. imperialism in Vietnam.

Miles

[apathy maybe]

There have been a few threads about this in the past.

Japan's role in WW2
(2005) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=44032 Emperor of Japan, Bad as Hitler, Stalin and Mao?
(2007) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=60853 Japan and war crimes
(2004) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=24507 Allies vs Axis (has a bit on the bomb)
The nuclear bombing of Japan
A very old thread (2001) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=1654 did Japan surrender before or after?
A quite old thread (2002) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=5083 the effects of the bombing and surrender
(2006) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=55608 Did Japan try to surrender before the a-bombs?
The first bombs in general
A reasonably old thread (2003) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=5425 many of the scientists who worked on the bomb were 'socialists'. Also I found out that Vinny Rafarino was in fact Comrade RAF. Boy has he changed.


Personally I think the whole war was almost one war crime after another. Committed by both sides. The bombing of civilians was started (by accident I think) by the Brits (or maybe it was the Germans ...), and the allies were always the most successful at it. It culminated in the dropping of two bombs on Japan.

There are three reasons I think (ripped off from one of those threads above).
1) To make Japan surrender faster so that the USSR wouldn't be able to occupy it ('cause the USSR had just smashed the Japanese army).
2) The second bomb was dropped to test the difference between the plutonium and uranium type bombs. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fission...bly_methods.svg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fission_bomb_assembly_methods.svg) .)
3) To show off to the USSR.

Further information can be found at Wikipedia, Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki) and Surrender_of_Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan).

[quirk]

Being the only country to have used atomic weapons in war shows the absolute hypocracy of the US ruling class today when they state that other countries should not have atomic weapons because of the threat they would pose to humanity.

[Vanguard1917]

The sick claim that the bombings were somehow part of a humanitarian campaign to save lives is one of the most widely accepted myths of the 20th century.

This very good article (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/633/) shows that the bombings were part of a race war in the pacific. The US had invested much money in making the bombs and, as far as the Truman administration was concerned, the bombs were going to be used. Japan was chosen as the target - rather than Germany - because the Japanese were considered an inferior race by the Anglo-American ruling elite.

[Spike]

I recommend reading this. It examines the role of the USSR impelling Japan to surrender:
Most crucially, the prospect of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was more imminent, estimated to occur a few months prior to the estimated U.S. invasion of Japan proper in late fall. Without serious preparation to hold back the decisive Soviet assaults on Japan's holdings on the continent, the mainland battle against the United States was doomed to be pointless by the time of the Soviet military operations. The Soviet entry into the war meant to the Japanese army the end of the war.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals....2/koshiro.html (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.2/koshiro.html)

[Tommy-K]

It was a sick, barbaric and pointless war crime that served no purpose other than for the US to try and prove their enormous, chauvanist, "we have the biggest balls" power bullshit. Unfortunately for them, it only served to show how cowardly they are that in order to show the world how enormously powerful they are they have to kill innocent people with weapons of mass destruction, which interestingly they have always claimed to be opposed to. It's blatant hipocrasy from a disgusting nation bent on imperialism.

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 04:58 pm
Yes, the firebombs in japan killed way more people and in a far more cruel way than the a-bombs. They are bigger warcrimes.
But don't forget, the a-bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have had long-term effects due to the radiation, such as children being born with deformities to this day, so in a way, they could have affected more people than the Tokyo firebombs.

[chimx]

Generally the bombings were considered unnecessary in hindsight. There are two common interpretations regarding America's motivations though.

1) American government intelligence decoded Japanese communications saying that Japan *would* surrender if the Soviets entered the war in the Pacific theatre. This is one of the reasons FDR worked so hard with Stalin to get him onto the US's side with Japan during the Yalta conference. Stalin eventually agreed to enter it 3 months after the end of WWII's European theatre.

In the mean time, FDR died and Truman became president. Truman was pretty divorced from all the pre-Cold War diplomacy and took a much harder stance on Communism than FDR. This is evidenced by the evolution of talks between Stalin and Truman during the Potsdam conference.

The US knew that Japan would surrender soon after the USSR entered the war, but bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki anyway. This was meant as a show of force against the Soviets more so than against Japanese militarists. In a sense, the bombing was one of the actions that kick started the Cold War.

2) The United States didn't *know* for sure that Japan would surrender. Intelligence suspected it, but they obviously couldn't confirm it. One problem was that American intelligence totally over estimated the strength of the Japanese military. They were concerned that for victory to realistically be achieved, a invasion of mainland Japan would be necessary. Obviously this would have resulted in a massive loss of American life. As an alternative to this, Truman decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bare in mind that this wasn't the first case of "total war" in WWII. It had become a common practice.

In retrospect, the American military acknowledged that a mainland invasion probably wouldn't have been required and they could have stuck to their "island hopping" strategy. Hindsight is 20/20.

What is interesting is that while many Europeans and Americans (and Japanese) deplore the bombings, many of the countries that had to feel pain of Japanese imperialism were quite pleased with America's bombings. You would be hard pressed to find people in China or Korea in the 1940s that felt bad for Japan getting nuked given their experiences with Japanese oppression.

--

My opinion is that the bombings were a bit of both of 1 & 2. America was largely concerned about the possibility of risking American lives, but given Cold War developments after Potsdam, America was also eager to flex its might in the face of Soviet expansion.

[RNK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:35 pm
Mostly strikes me as an act of balant chauvinism to show off their newly minted gear. To be fair though it killed less poepl then the bombing of Tokyo or Cologne. I see these are being bigger warcrimes.

And i dont think it "opened new precedents" because atomic weapons could have been used and indeed WERE wihtout any precedent.
The point isn't in the death toll. It IS the precedence it set. When chemical weapons were first used, they weren't as effective as conventional weapons. But over time, it was improved.

Today, the nuclear arsenals of various countries are capable of eliminating more lives in a matter of seconds than all the deaths in WW2.

[chimx]

yeah, but it wasn't much of a precedent because soon after the US and USSR got down on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But yes, nukes are bigger today. From Popular Science:

http://grabass.yardapes.net/unicorns/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/bombs.gif

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The bombs were dropped on Japan not to defeat Japan (it was already defeated), but to put the USSR on notice that the U.S. had them, and would use them (especially at the end of the war as it was, when the USSR and communist partisans had great influence and prestige as the main defeaters of the fascists).

This piece on the situation isn't too bad (http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=439)

[chimx]

It was already defeated, I agree with you. But a) it had not surrendered yet, and b) US intelligence greatly over-estimated the capabilities of the Japanese military.

Can you prove that the US knew it was essentially already defeated? That is the crux of the debate between the two groups I mentioned above.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Why would a communist want to pick a side between two camps of bourgeois historians that share a flawed starting point?

[chimx]

Why would a communist opt for enucleation when facts come into sight? No doubt a naive emotional attachment to a political ideology!

If a capitalist told you that 2+2 equaled 4, would you denounce him as a bourgeois mathematician too? Try looking at facts, not whether someone is a cheerleader for your cause.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I'm not surprised that you don't see the difference between bourgeois historian's distortions, and objective fact (2+2).

[chimx]

omg... you can't just say they are distortions by claiming they are bourgeois! provide e-v-i-d-e-n-c-e. Are you really so naive to fall into such an obvious logical fallacy?

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 23, 2007 01:35 am
I'm not surprised that you don't see the difference between bourgeois historian's distortions, and objective fact (2+2).
Most of the scholarly history stuff is not really "distorted". People like intelligitmate use bourgeois scholarship to defend Stalin all the time.

His point is that some people are too invested on Communist ideology, rather than looking at marxism as a theoretical tool to further advance our liberation. People invested too much on any ideology, regardless if it is Communism or Fascism, would become detached from reality.

[Comrade_Scott]

it was murder, and pointless murder at that. the japs were already going to surrender cause the soviets were gonna get involved but us just had to look bigger so they acted stupidly, not for the first time, not for the last time.

[forever socialist]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are some of the great unpunished and ignored war crimes of the 20th century. America had no justification for the bombings and it was clearly an attempt to show-off the bomb to the Soviets, whilst costing thousands of innocent lives.

[Spartacist]

It was a war crime, unlike the bombing of Dresden which was done to fascists and therefore legitimate.

The sad story of the A-bomb is that so many radicals, progressives and communists helped to develop it. Those men have blood on their hands.

[Wiesty]

The bombings were major war crimes, not the most extreme in my opinion, but I believe someone should have payed for what happened. On the other hand, you could almost look at it as a wakeup call. We dropped a nuclear bomb when it was a new thing, and we knew then what it caused, and thus we have had no more nuclear warfare. Now imagine a modern day nuclear bomb being dropped by a country that dared to experiment with lives, we'd have a lot more shit brewing. Either way we can be glad nuclear warfare has stopped.