Yuck. He's even more annoying than usual, too. Also, he should not do facial hair.
Also, I don't care if it's more "traditionally left" or "right," I'm more inclined to respect someone who says the mass killing of civilians is bad, than that it's justified. I'm open to an argument, but if I just have to pick a side, I'm on the anti-mass civilian murder side. Guess I'm a leftist, because shitbag neocon Ben Shapiro said so.
Also, as with all war, it was all political. Would not dropping the bombs have cost some lives? Yeah. But Japan already wanted to surrender, they just didn't want to be completely enslaved by the victors, and wanted better terms. The US didn't drop the bombs to save the lives of the soldiers that would have died by not dropping them, either. I can guarantee you that was barely even a consideration. It was geopolitical, and also just scientific...they wanted to test the bombs in wartime. They wanted to oppress the defeated Japan. They wanted more economic and geopolitical benefit.
Anyone saved by the bombs was a fringe benefit...not that that makes saving their lives any less valuable, but it's worth keeping in mind. No, the intentional mass killing of civilians was an intention move to bully and oppress the losing side. Tucker was a bit off the handle at times in that interview, but he's right...that's evil.
There were more arguments at play, though. Can't recall all of them, but by forcing an immediate surrender (took two nuclear bombs, the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets and months of fire raids) they could save many months of warfare, even when the inevitable defeat was already on the horizon. Also, the Pacific campaign saw gruesome American losses in manpower. They were dealing with an enemy that was using kamikaze airplanes. With the nukes, there was no need to actually invade the Japanese mainland with a million-strong force.
And the nukes were the cherry on top of recent air raids with napalm that took even more lives.
Yep. There's actually a long historical debate, and anyone who thinks that "well it's wrong" is the end of the discussion is historically ignorant at best, and a knee-jerk nazi retard at worst.
Ben is right here. "just asking questions" doesn't mean you actually understand the history of it, or have read books about it.
The bombing was not a moral good by any means, but neither were the fire bombing campaigns we carried out. War is always about the lesser of two evils when it comes to bombs, and in this case I at least believe (because this isn't a black and white absolute) the first bomb was justified to avoid causing millions more needless deaths. The second one is a bit trickier, but it's been a long time since I've read up on the exact time line of how the japan government reacted, so I can't be more specific about why right now. The Japanese tended to fight back to the death, because of propaganda they'd all be raped and tortured (like they did to others), or they killed themselves (including children, look up bonzai cliff, etc).
Imagine what the fight on the home islands would have looked like. Everyone with a gun killing everyone else, the fire bombings (which are horrific BTW, and we did plenty of those) would have continued.
Was dropping a nuke morally good? No, not really. But I think it was less morally bad than the other option, which says a lot about how bad the other option was.
My understanding of Tucker's argument isn't that dropping the bombs was the primary evil, but dropping it on civilians. I understanding manufacturering and whatnot takes place in cities, but it is quite the stretch to justify dropping a nuke in the middle of large civilian populations. Sure, legitimate military targets were hit, but the collateral damage was far too high.
In short, the choice of targets was morally worse than many other options.
Just occurred to me that maybe another part of the reason for a civilian-heavy target was that air defenses would be much lighter. Given how there was only one bomb per run, you'd really want to minimize any risk to the bomber during such an operation.
You have to consider historical context, and what actually happened.
Firstly, bombing cities was an accepted practice. People spoke against it, even people in power, but it continued. Some of this is public vs private opinions, some is inertia, some is that it was a valid military tactic due to accuracy (or lack thereof) of airborne and ground based weaponry.
Secondly, people in houses were helping manufacture war material. This is a much weaker argument (to me), but still relevant to their views and opinions.
Thirdly, Japan was going to fight until the bitter end. The thought was to shock them into giving up.
So morally worse is relative. If the bombs dropped elsewhere wouldn't have worked, we'd have had nuked people... And then still killed a million more Americans plus whoever many Japanese, etc. Ultimately, it's not a black and white point.
The absolute wanted to test the bomb on a live city. That’s why they didn’t fire bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki like they did Tokyo. It also acted as a way to threaten the Soviets/rest of the world.
You are absolutely right that they wanted an unconditional surrender. I believe it was during Tehran Conference that the west agreed to not sign a peace with Nazi German once we beat them back to the French/German border.
The Second World War was all about enshrining the establishment. Just look up the "Four Policemen".
We were already using mass firebombs, the nuke was actually merciful in comparison to winning with the tactics we had been using. You're approaching it from the perspective of "what if we just didn't finish the war". If you consider having to win the fight as an unavoidable requirement, which it was, using the nukes to force capitulation was better than continuing to grind them for months with bombing campaigns and an invasion.
Yuck. He's even more annoying than usual, too. Also, he should not do facial hair.
Also, I don't care if it's more "traditionally left" or "right," I'm more inclined to respect someone who says the mass killing of civilians is bad, than that it's justified. I'm open to an argument, but if I just have to pick a side, I'm on the anti-mass civilian murder side. Guess I'm a leftist, because shitbag neocon Ben Shapiro said so.
Also, as with all war, it was all political. Would not dropping the bombs have cost some lives? Yeah. But Japan already wanted to surrender, they just didn't want to be completely enslaved by the victors, and wanted better terms. The US didn't drop the bombs to save the lives of the soldiers that would have died by not dropping them, either. I can guarantee you that was barely even a consideration. It was geopolitical, and also just scientific...they wanted to test the bombs in wartime. They wanted to oppress the defeated Japan. They wanted more economic and geopolitical benefit.
Anyone saved by the bombs was a fringe benefit...not that that makes saving their lives any less valuable, but it's worth keeping in mind. No, the intentional mass killing of civilians was an intention move to bully and oppress the losing side. Tucker was a bit off the handle at times in that interview, but he's right...that's evil.
There were more arguments at play, though. Can't recall all of them, but by forcing an immediate surrender (took two nuclear bombs, the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets and months of fire raids) they could save many months of warfare, even when the inevitable defeat was already on the horizon. Also, the Pacific campaign saw gruesome American losses in manpower. They were dealing with an enemy that was using kamikaze airplanes. With the nukes, there was no need to actually invade the Japanese mainland with a million-strong force.
And the nukes were the cherry on top of recent air raids with napalm that took even more lives.
Yep. There's actually a long historical debate, and anyone who thinks that "well it's wrong" is the end of the discussion is historically ignorant at best, and a knee-jerk nazi retard at worst.
Ben is right here. "just asking questions" doesn't mean you actually understand the history of it, or have read books about it.
The bombing was not a moral good by any means, but neither were the fire bombing campaigns we carried out. War is always about the lesser of two evils when it comes to bombs, and in this case I at least believe (because this isn't a black and white absolute) the first bomb was justified to avoid causing millions more needless deaths. The second one is a bit trickier, but it's been a long time since I've read up on the exact time line of how the japan government reacted, so I can't be more specific about why right now. The Japanese tended to fight back to the death, because of propaganda they'd all be raped and tortured (like they did to others), or they killed themselves (including children, look up bonzai cliff, etc).
Imagine what the fight on the home islands would have looked like. Everyone with a gun killing everyone else, the fire bombings (which are horrific BTW, and we did plenty of those) would have continued.
Was dropping a nuke morally good? No, not really. But I think it was less morally bad than the other option, which says a lot about how bad the other option was.
My understanding of Tucker's argument isn't that dropping the bombs was the primary evil, but dropping it on civilians. I understanding manufacturering and whatnot takes place in cities, but it is quite the stretch to justify dropping a nuke in the middle of large civilian populations. Sure, legitimate military targets were hit, but the collateral damage was far too high.
In short, the choice of targets was morally worse than many other options.
Just occurred to me that maybe another part of the reason for a civilian-heavy target was that air defenses would be much lighter. Given how there was only one bomb per run, you'd really want to minimize any risk to the bomber during such an operation.
You have to consider historical context, and what actually happened.
Firstly, bombing cities was an accepted practice. People spoke against it, even people in power, but it continued. Some of this is public vs private opinions, some is inertia, some is that it was a valid military tactic due to accuracy (or lack thereof) of airborne and ground based weaponry.
Secondly, people in houses were helping manufacture war material. This is a much weaker argument (to me), but still relevant to their views and opinions.
Thirdly, Japan was going to fight until the bitter end. The thought was to shock them into giving up.
So morally worse is relative. If the bombs dropped elsewhere wouldn't have worked, we'd have had nuked people... And then still killed a million more Americans plus whoever many Japanese, etc. Ultimately, it's not a black and white point.
The absolute wanted to test the bomb on a live city. That’s why they didn’t fire bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki like they did Tokyo. It also acted as a way to threaten the Soviets/rest of the world.
You are absolutely right that they wanted an unconditional surrender. I believe it was during Tehran Conference that the west agreed to not sign a peace with Nazi German once we beat them back to the French/German border.
The Second World War was all about enshrining the establishment. Just look up the "Four Policemen".
and to tell the soviets to back the fuck off. "we've got more than one of these things"
Great post.
We were already using mass firebombs, the nuke was actually merciful in comparison to winning with the tactics we had been using. You're approaching it from the perspective of "what if we just didn't finish the war". If you consider having to win the fight as an unavoidable requirement, which it was, using the nukes to force capitulation was better than continuing to grind them for months with bombing campaigns and an invasion.