USA - WW2 War crimes never addressed and held accountable!

reply to post by Logarock

Would it have been better to drop 5000 coventional bombs on Hiroshima rather than one large bomb?

5000, try the rest.

www.bookmice.net...

From the June 4, 1945 issue of Newsweek, a report on the firebombing:

"Six weeks ago Tokyo had a population of nearly 7,000,000. Last week the Japs cried that Tokyo no longer existed as a city. Using new techniques and new bombs, the largest fleets of B-29s ever to take the air and turned most of the Japanese capital into ashes in two great strikes on May 24 and 26....For 105 minutes the Superfortresses filed over and dropped 700,000 incendiary bombs. ... Two nights later a force of more than 500 B-29s struck the Marunouchi district, the business heart of the Japanese Empire. ... On a target area of approximately 9 square miles the B-29s dropped 4,000 tons in one hour. The wind did the rest."

From the June 11, 1945 issue of Newsweek, another summary of results:

"On the morning of May 28, more than 450 B-29s, escorted by about 150 P-51s from Iwo Jima, roared in on he familiar trail over Tokyo Bay. Reconnaissance photos showed that 51.3 square miles of Tokyo had been burned out. ... the B-29's smothered Yokohama with 3,200 tons of incendiaries."

700,000 not a pathetic 5000 to murder civilians.

reply to post by Logarock


armies have made war on civilians since Greek times, and the Romans excelled at it, civilian casualties are nothing new in war, see, people still ignore history, and still repeat it, the film 'Troy' shows how war was conducted against civilians, has not changed much since, probably never will.

reply to post by Havick007


WAR

When you win a war, the entity which is suppose to hold you accountable for your crimes, have lost. A loser can't hold you accountable unless the loser becomes the winner.

Reverse the angles, if Japan won the war even after the two bombs dropped, US would have been held accountable for the bombs, but non from the Japanese side would have been held accountable for the "sneaky attack".

Originally posted by Havick007
Hello ATS,

Yes so first of all i will admit and understand this is a touchy subject for both people of the US and Japan. However, to get straight to the point. Although Japan was the first to break the rules of engagment with the sneaky and blatant attack on Pearl harbour, along with all the fighting and trench battles of WW2 that followed. Does this justify the means that stopped the war with Japan?


The means i speak of is the Atomic weapons used on the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

Now fair enough there were some military casualties in these missions but what needs to be addressed are all the civilian casualties. How could the US governement at the time justify such a radical use of force against a majority civilian population??

As long as you practice selective morality Havick007 and remain in a bubble you will never get it, but for the benefit of the rest of us, the justification is pretty straight forward.

In a series of diplomatic signals between the Japanese embassy in Berlin with General Touransouke Kawashima, Kawashima requested shipments of Uranium from Germany from 7 July 1943 onwards. Another discussion of this in diplomatic signals occured 24 August 1943. A final signal was dated 18 November 1943. In these successive signals the Germans demanded to know why Japan needed uranium and Kawashima was forced to confess that Japan had a project to develop an Atomic Bomb.

These signals were decrypted by the Allies. These ULTRA decrypts have been declassified and have been available to read for decades now.

The Manhattan project was created to counter Germany's nuclear weapons project and you may be certain that had either Japan or germany been able to do so they would have used their nukes first.

There is evidence that Japan succeeded in creating a working nuclear reactor at Kyoto during WW2. A.H Compton's investigation report for the Manhattan Project notes that Japan made far more progress in the field of developing nuclear energy than Germany did. (source: Wilcox, Robert K. Japan's Secret War: Japan's Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb, Morrow Publishing, NY 1985)

There is a historical controversy based on shreds of evidence, interviews with participants in Japan's nuclear project such as Prof Bunsuku Arakatsu, David Snells' interview with Capt Wakabayashi, wartime chemist Dr Kazuo Kuroda and chemical engineer Otogoro Natsume who escaped Soviet occupation in northern Korea in 1946. These sources all claim that Japan successfully test blasted a nuclear weapon in the closing days of WW2 on an island in this general area: (see Map)

JAPANESE PHYSICIST, 83, SAYS JAPAN TRIED TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB—Associated Press, dateline Tokyo, 20 July 1995.

Japan’s World War II atomic research team had no ethical qualms about its goal—building an atomic bomb and unleashing it on America, a team leader said Wednesday. “We had no doubts about using it if we could. No one ever contemplated how terrible it would be,” physicist Tatsusaburo Suzuki, 83, said Wednesday. “We were just doing our best to put it together.”

Suzuki was a leading researcher in Japan’s wartime effort to construct an atomic bomb. He spoke Wednesday in a rare and candid explanation of Japan’s World War II atomic bomb research.

Scientists in Japan developed theories of how to build a bomb, he said, but never came close to actually making one because they lacked money and materials.

So desperate were they for parts that military officials discussed scrapping a battleship and using the steel for the atomic experiments, Suzuki said.

“I was confident at the time we could have built a bomb if we had better equipment,” he said.

The projects was supported by Japan’s imperial household, and the emperor’s brothers were among the leaders who inspected and encouraged their work, he said.

Suzuki was part of a team of 50 scientists culled from Japan’s army and top universities to work on developing the bomb. They made about 11 pounds of enriched uranium, he said—far short of what would have been needed to produce an atomic weapon.

Americans found evidence of the project after the war and dumped the research equipment into Tokyo Bay. But few Japanese have provided detailed descriptions of the program, and the Japanese army destroyed all records of the project.

He said none of the scientists working with him on the Japanese atomic bomb ever mentioned any ethical concerns about their project.

His attitude changed, he said, when he visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after they were devastated in August 1945 in the world’s only atomic attacks.

He was not clear about his reasons for calling a news conference now, almost 50 years after the end of the war, to describe in detail the effort to build an atomic bomb.

Japanese officials had discussed targets including US air bases that were being used to bomb Japanese cities.

Originally posted by Pervius

Originally posted by Havick007
Hello ATS,

Yes so first of all i will admit and understand this is a touchy subject for both people of the US and Japan. However, to get straight to the point. Although Japan was the first to break the rules of engagment with the sneaky and blatant attack on Pearl harbour.......

A long long time ago Japan had a Civil War and their Samurai fought vicious battles killing each other. After they were done they executed all foreigners and closed Japan off to the outside world.

The US Navy rolled in and told them to open up to Trade or the US Navy would bomb Japan into the sea.

THAT'S what forced the Japanese to modernize from a rural society and they grew and Traded with the United States. They started to spread around the Pacific using OUR same tactic to get other people to Trade with them.

Then WE stopped trading with them and cut Japan off. They couldn't get Crude Oil from us anymore.

So THEY used OUR same tactic and said either WE open up to Trade or THEY would bomb us into the sea.
We refused to trade with them and evacuated all military dependents from Guam leaving only a skeleton crew there. We thought they would only take Guam. Well they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Did Japan have a right to bomb Pearl Harbor? You Betcha.

But it was a heckuva political action to get America out of Isolationism and into fighting a global war wasn't it?

One day the Samurai will get us back for what we did to them. They will never, ever, ever, ever forgive us for what we did...and continue to do to them.

Gosh Pervius, ever heard of a little place called Nanking or the Rape of Nanking in 1937?



The league of Nations demanded Japan cease attrocities against defencless civilians at nanking and Japan gave the outside world the fingers. With several members of the royal family present they enjoyed bayonetting, raping and beheading 380,000 defenceless men women and children.

That led to the oil embargo against Japan in July 1941

Ultimately 16 million Chinese lost their lives during WW2. Maybe you should explain to the Chinese why Japan were in your opinion the victims of WW2?

Originally posted by lewman
the saddest thing of all is that the japanese had agreed in principal to surrender before the bombs where dropped. this act in itself was one of the most evil act of all time.

No they did not agree.

Unconditional surrender was demanded and they conveyed through Moscow that they would only surrender subject to four conditions.

(1) That the Japanese forces in other Asian countries would surrender to their own officers and retain their own arms

(2) That no Allied forces would set foot on Japanese soil

(3) The Japanese government would retain full contol in Japan

(4) Emperor Horohito would retain his throne

Japan still refused to surrender after the bombing of Nagasaki and only capitulated after their nuclear weapons laboratory at Hungnam Korea was captured by soviet paratroops. Only with the invasion of Manchuria and Korea did japan finally accept the futility of it's position. In fact the Japanese surrendered to USA and the British seeking their protection from the Soviets. Not from altruism.

Perhaps we need to look alot deeper in the past and find out the real reason what forced the Japanese to go to war with the West.....I've always been lead to believe it had alot to do with a trade deal between Japan and USA that was broken by the USA in favour of China sending Japan bankrupt (among other things).

History always seems to find a way of repeating itself and I see it happening all over again with our financial institutions worldwide.

I am surprised, or perhaps I missed it, that it has not been mentioned that the Nippon military went to the extent as to attempt to kidnap the Emperor in order to extend the war. If it were not for the shocking horror of the atomic bombs dropped in 1945, the grisly task of invading Japan would have been a long and costly. The world was weary at that point.

An interesting side note, the U.S. military, which is famous for never ordering enough of some things, ordered enough purple hearts for the invasion of Japan, that they were still being given out until a short time ago.

I am glad that we dropped the bomb. Why? Because, more than likely I, as well as many people on ATS today, probably would have never been born due to the losses an invasion would have cost our country.

BTW, if one is going to discuss war crimes, why aren't we discussing how the Treaty of San Fransico allowed Japanese war criminals to go free?

Lesson learned by Japan. Don't wake a sleeping Giant.

reply to post by Tinman67


intentional targeting of innocent civilians

Intentionally targeting civilians was, and still is regarded as a barbaric act, whether you use a "nuke", or a "vest strapped around your chest".

If it is justified once, then it can be justified a million times.

So it would be better (IMO) to not justify the targeting of innocent unarmed civilians. I propose we should rather argue that the past is the past, the past is here and there to learn from.

reply to post by Tinman67


And many countries also allowed numerous and known Nazis to walk free who immigrated to the West.

If the Americans had wanted to convice Japan to surender unconditionally, they only needed to drop the bombs close enough to cities to prove to the Japanese that any further resistance was futile.

They didn't have to drop them cities full of innocent people!

During one instant, without the knowledge or consent of the American people, they unleashed a holocaust of destruction over two cities full of families...old folk...children skipping down the street. Thousands of civilians were killed in an instant. Thousands more died in agony from critical injuries in the hours and days after the blasts. thousands more survived with degrees of disability. For the first time war was not soldier verses soldier, or the destruction of enemy military capability, but the genocide of civilians.

Anyone who formulates and carries out a plan to murder tens of thousands of innocent civilians must be a criminal. Not just a criminal, but actually criminally insane.

They must have done it because they wanted to see what would happen. Maybe they wanted to see if the effects of the uranium bomb were different from the plutonium bomb. Maybe it was also a warning of what they were capable of, if anyone was thinking about disagreeing with them.

reply to post by lurkee


I would be more inclined to believe that the intent of the whole "the US is so evil" line if the argument was put forward that we should not have bombed the Germans back into the stoneage.

The real criminals would be the Japanese themselves. For putting Military installations amongst civilians. But innocent deaths bothered them very little. In fact they were so bad that the Nazis, at one time sent an envoy to basically ask them to "cool it".

Cry your river. But it is what it is.

Hate America; hate America; hate America
GTFOH!
perhaps you are un aware of Japanese atrocities(?)

Crimes:
The Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s is often compared to the military of Nazi Germany during 1933–45 because of the sheer scale of suffering. Much of the controversy regarding Japan's role in World War II revolves around the death rates of prisoners of war and civilians under Japanese occupation. The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that:

It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers—and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%.[24]

According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate among POWs from Asian countries, held by Japan was 27.1%.[25] The death rate of Chinese POWs was much higher because—under a directive ratified on August 5, 1937 by Emperor Hirohito—the constraints of international law on treatment of those prisoners was removed.[26] Only 56 Chinese POWs were released after the surrender of Japan.[27] After March 20, 1943, the Japanese Navy was under orders to execute all prisoners taken at sea.[28]

en.wikipedia.org...



They were not goingto surrender; hardcore holdoutsfought / hid themselves on islands and refused to believe the war was over as recently as December1974.

World War II did not neatly end with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. At its height the Japanese Empire was more than 20 million square miles of land and sea. Soldiers in isolated regions fought on for years after the surrender some unaware the war had ended, other refusing to believe. Some hide in the jungles alone, others fought in groups and continued to make attacks and conduct guerilla warfare. These men were called Japanese Holdouts, or Stragglers and their stories are some of the most fascinating human interest stories of the 20th Century.

www.wanpela.com...

No comment .. Lost grandparents on my mothers side at hiroshima..

reply to post by 46ACE


Acknowledging that the US was justified in it's attack on military targets does not allow people to justify their hatred and lothing of the United States. How dare the US attack military targets that the enemy placed amongst civilians. How dare we use the weapons at our disposal to end a cruel war. A war that our enemies were willing to lengthen.

The Japanese, to this day, are unwilling to come to terms with the butchery that they committed. All the while crying out that they are the victums.

Originally posted by Tinman67
reply to post by 46ACE

 

Acknowledging that the US was justified in it's attack on military targets does not allow people to justify their hatred and lothing of the United States. How dare the US attack military targets that the enemy placed amongst civilians. How dare we use the weapons at our disposal to end a cruel war. A war that our enemies were willing to lengthen.

The Japanese, to this day, are unwilling to come to terms with the butchery that they committed. All the while crying out that they are the victums.

??
I was sarcastically pointing out the not so subtle. "Hate America" under current to the op.Its patently ridiculous ina time of global war against totalitarian societies...

In total war, there are no civilians.

They're called "enemy enablers."

And the OP is most disingenuous in his premise.

Let me ask the OP two questions.

Is it better to kill 100,000 this week, and the killing stops, or let it continue for another year and see 4,000,000 more total deaths?

Which is most merciful?

Sucks to say this, but the US did what they had to do to win. Had they invaded they would've faced losses in everything: weapons, lives, money, etc. Truman had to make a harsh decision, but it was one that saved many.

The OP is totally disingenous, ignoring the enslavement of Asia, mass executions by Japanese forces of whole cities, not by a mericfully quick explosion but by greusome bayonetting, rape and beheadings.

All those who agree with the OP have remained silent on Japanese attrocities and the need to stop this nation in WW2.

They conveniently ignore the fact Japan was preparing for the use of it's own nuclear weapons.

They conveniently ignore that Japan did not surrender because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They forget that Japan only ran to hide beneath the skirts of USA in fear of the Blitzkreig invasions of Manchuria and Korea, ie self interest.

The OP supporters forget the Japanese government themselves had no compassion for it's own civillians. In Saipan civillians were ordered to commit suicide and kill their own children.

The japanese military regeime of WW2 was an evil abomination and did not know how or when to surrender. had no human decency even towards it's own people. Whilst on the topic it sickens me that some posters themselves seem to have a seriously disturbing lack of moral compass or common sense or both.

reply to post by Havick007



A very good post! The war crimes of the Allies have been long been overlooked due to the ageless law of nature. That law of course being :history is written by the victors". The staggering civilian casualties from the dropping of the atomic bombs was only the massive mushroom cloud shaped cherry on top of it though, before that there were many MANY other horrendous things done by the Allies in the name of victory. The obliteration of Dresden and Nuremberg, the orgy of rape and murder immediately following the fall of Berlin... all simply.... swept under the rug. After all, the Axis were the bad guys. Why do THEY deserve any respect or consideration? *caution: dripping srcasm*

Oh, and on a slightly disconnected note: The American's didn't "win the war". The Russians did. Had Russia fell, the Wehrmacht would have had all the supplies and raw materiel they needed to make the Atlantic Wall impenetrable. Thus, no D-Day, no victory. Those Soviet's managed to first halt (at Stalingrad, and then Kursk), and then turn back the single most skilled, well equipped, well trained, well led, and technologically advanced army of the era. Had it not been for Soviet Russia, monstrous as Stalin was, the war would have turned out quite differently indeed.