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.
There are loaded assumptions about hypotheticals in there. How do we know the Japanese wouldn't have surrendered if the bombs were dropped on two other targets? What if one was mostly just a show of force that could be seen in the distance from Tokyo?
I use to parrot the same talking points about the nuke -- it's what "the experts" have said since the bombs were dropped -- but as I've thought about it over the years, I don't buy it wholesale. Like all good deceit, there is certainly some truth to the traditional defense of bombing those cities, but it isn't the whole truth.
As for everyone was bombing cities, "everyone is doing it" isn't a good moral arguement. As Jesus said, the wide road most people travel actually leads to hell.
You can read the hundreds of books written on it, I'm not writing a doctoral thesis here for you on it. This has all been covered and you don't have to agree, but coming at it from where you are is very short sighted imo.
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.
There are loaded assumptions about hypotheticals in there. How do we know the Japanese wouldn't have surrendered if the bombs were dropped on two other targets? What if one was mostly just a show of force that could be seen in the distance from Tokyo?
I use to parrot the same talking points about the nuke -- it's what "the experts" have said since the bombs were dropped -- but as I've thought about it over the years, I don't buy it wholesale. Like all good deceit, there is certainly some truth to the traditional defense of bombing those cities, but it isn't the whole truth.
As for everyone was bombing cities, "everyone is doing it" isn't a good moral arguement. As Jesus said, the wide road most people travel actually leads to hell.
You can read the hundreds of books written on it, I'm not writing a doctoral thesis here for you on it. This has all been covered and you don't have to agree, but coming at it from where you are is very short sighted imo.