Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Was America Evil to Drop Atomic Bombs on Japan?
The Intellectual Takeout ^ | May 1, 2024 | Kurt Mahlburg

Posted on 05/04/2024 7:00:50 PM PDT by DoodleBob

During a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tucker Carlson made a bold claim about the August 1945 decision by the United States to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a move that effectively put an end World War II. He said:

My ‘side’ has spent the last 80 years defending the dropping of nuclear bombs on civilians… like, are you joking? If you find yourself arguing that it’s a good thing to drop nuclear weapons on people, then you are evil.

I like Tucker Carlson and find myself in agreement with him on many topics. I am especially heartened by his recent rediscovery of faith and a robustly Christian worldview. But on the nuclear bombing of Japan, I believe he vastly overstates his case.

It’s not surprising that Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson spoke on this issue. Atomic warfare has recently been a subject of burgeoning cultural interest, first with last year’s award-winning biopic Oppenheimer and more recently with the release of Amazon Prime’s TV series adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game Fallout.

In fact, Westerners have been bombarded with apocalyptic messaging more generally for years—whether on COVID-19, or the so-called “race reckoning,” or climate alarmism.

It would not be surprising if our existential fears for the future are blurring our vision of the past.

With that said, is it true—not only that America was evil to bomb Japan in 1945—but that those who defend that decision are evil themselves?

Reaching this conclusion requires a rewrite of the historical context surrounding World War II: a wishful-thinking reprise of events that assumes diplomacy with Japan was a viable path to end the war. It was not.

In the months leading up to Enola Gay’s fateful flight over Hiroshima, Japan was in retreat all across the Pacific and still had no appetite for surrender. The capital, Tokyo, was already in ruins thanks to a U.S. firebombing raid. Okinawa had been overrun by American troops, and a mainland invasion was now within reach. Astoundingly, even after Little Boy fell on Hiroshima on August 6th and flattened the city, the Japanese leadership refused to countenance surrender.

It was only after Fat Boy annihilated Nagasaki three days later that, resisting a palace coup by hardliners still hoping to fight on, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers.

It was Japan’s deeply embedded cultural ideology—its honor culture–that necessitated such dire action by the U.S. As Mike Coté has explained at Rational Policy:

This intense honor culture was a part of Japanese society going back centuries. It was prominently represented in the samurai way of the warrior—bushido—and was a key aspect of the Japanese desire to fight to the death. Capture was seen as a moral stain on the honor not only of the individual who was captured, but to his entire family tree: past, present, and future. Combine this with the insidious propaganda of the Imperial Japanese government—claims that American troops would massacre and defile civilians, celebrations of kamikaze pilots as heroic sacrifices, and exhortations of suicidal mass resistance to any invading force—and you had a potent brew militating against surrender.

The United States had other options, of course, but they would have been far deadlier. Yielding the entire Pacific region to a bloodthirsty and cruel Japanese regime could hardly pass as compassionate.

Likewise, Operation Downfall, a proposed mainland invasion of Japan, would have required 1.7 million American servicemen fighting up to 2.3 million Japanese troops—and possibly to the death, if Japanese resistance elsewhere was anything to go on.

As President Truman and his war cabinet weighed the decision of atomic warfare, also hanging in the balance were 100,000 prisoners of war whom the Japanese planned to execute the moment a ground invasion began. And with warfare continuing on multiple battlefronts across the Pacific theater, daily deaths on each side of the conflict were reaching into the tens of thousands.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused well over 200,000 casualties with over 100,000 more injured.

The U.S. bombing of Japan was horrific. I have visited ground zero at Hiroshima and pondered long on the horror of that day.

It is true that American imperialism has a mixed legacy. And as the United States slides into spreading moral chaos at home, the nation’s involvement in conflicts abroad appears increasingly dubious. No doubt this consideration was central in Tucker’s rigid remarks.

Still, it is wrong to read today’s headlines into last century’s dilemmas. The decision of the United States to drop atomic bombs on Japan was eminently defensible, and we would be foolish to forget this.


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: atomicbombs; japan; macarthurthoughtso; no; tuckercarlson; tuckerthtraitor; ww2; yes
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 261-271 next last

1 posted on 05/04/2024 7:00:50 PM PDT by DoodleBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Nope.

Next question.


2 posted on 05/04/2024 7:04:58 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

This is one of my follow-on 12 questions (to the initial 3) to ascertain if the subject is suffering the true pandemic: Stupid.

A wrong answer to any one of the 12 - including this one - is, well, bad.


3 posted on 05/04/2024 7:06:03 PM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

LeMay had firebombed over 30% of the area of Japanese cities to ash, towns were being shelled from just offshore, and fighters were strafing all targets of opportunity. They would have been ground down completely at some point. If the shock of the bombs was the final straw, so much the better;


4 posted on 05/04/2024 7:07:00 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Dropping the bombs saved over a million lives — most of them Japanese, but plenty of American lives were saved too. It was a humanitarian act. And, no, I don’t accept the idea that Russia was about the beat Japan for us and make our invasion of the home islands unnecessary.


5 posted on 05/04/2024 7:07:34 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (It's not "Quiet Quitting" -- it's "Going Galt".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

The bombings were necessary, not horrific.

I mean tokyo was bombed conventionally prior and more than 100000 people died that way.

We dropped 2 (small, now) nukes and they still were not going to surrender.

There are a lot of Americans living today thanks to not having to invade and get a surrender that way. Same with the Japanese.


6 posted on 05/04/2024 7:08:11 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Yes! It would have been much more humane to fire bomb there cities to ashes. /s


7 posted on 05/04/2024 7:09:25 PM PDT by MCF (If my home can't be my Castle, then it will be my Alamo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Aw, geez, not this Sh** again.


8 posted on 05/04/2024 7:09:41 PM PDT by mfish13 (Elections have Consequences.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Yet another dope who insists on a definition of being morally superior means a nation is obligated to commit suicide or least offer endless human sacrifice.


9 posted on 05/04/2024 7:10:45 PM PDT by jjotto ( Blessed are You LORD, who crushes enemies and subdues the wicked.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

No


10 posted on 05/04/2024 7:11:08 PM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Nah


11 posted on 05/04/2024 7:11:43 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> --- )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

If Nazi Germany successfully developed the bomb before the U.S. they would have used it on the Allies.


12 posted on 05/04/2024 7:12:44 PM PDT by immadashell (Save Innocent Lives: Ban Gun Free Zones)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tijeras_Slim; logi_cal869; Secret Agent Man

Glenn Beck was pretty good when on Fox. Then he lost it on his own.

I was never a fan of Bill O’Reilly. But he never regained his popularity on his own.

Megyn Kelly…she also flaked off Fox.

Is Tucker the next Glenn Beck?


13 posted on 05/04/2024 7:13:35 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s² )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob
In advance of the land invasion of Japan, the War Department placed an order for 500,000 Purple Hearts. That supply has yet to be exhausted.

My father was a 17 YO sailor in training for the invasion. I have my selfish reasons for being in favor of the bombs used to end the war.

14 posted on 05/04/2024 7:14:36 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Rhetorical question…NO


15 posted on 05/04/2024 7:15:10 PM PDT by USAF1985 (Joe McCarthy is a hero...he was absolutely, 100% correct! (Let’s go Brandon!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Gee I don’t know...
was Japan evil for expanding what was a regional European conflict into a general worldwide war?


16 posted on 05/04/2024 7:15:12 PM PDT by redcatcherb412
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

The bomb gave me my wife and children. My late father in law was slated to be among the first to invade the mainland


17 posted on 05/04/2024 7:15:14 PM PDT by 2nd Amendment
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Secret Agent Man

I may be one of them. My Grandfather was a Marine serving in the Pacific with the 6th Marine Division, and almost certainly would have been with the invasion force.


18 posted on 05/04/2024 7:17:45 PM PDT by EvilCapitalist (Pets are no substitute for children)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Many of us seniors remember the Japan of the 30s and 40s. It’s too bad the A-bomb took so long to be developed.


19 posted on 05/04/2024 7:18:14 PM PDT by ryderann
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: smokingfrog

We visited Hiroshima,spending the whole afternoon in Peace Park...the epicenter of the blast...just the two of us. Everyone was Japanese...there were no Caucasian tourists but us.We had positive interactions with a number of loca, as. The only negative comment we heard or saw about the US action was written by a black female congressperson...in a large comment book for “dignitaries Witten many years ago. What a pathetic congressloser.


20 posted on 05/04/2024 7:19:07 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp??)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 261-271 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson