Against Hiroshima/Nagasaki debate help?

**Sophia** · 02-18-2010, 05:50 AM

=_= I asked this before and all people did was give me arguments for the OPPOSITE (Conservative) side and tell me to switch. I understand you people have opinions but I can't help that I'm ASSIGNED a certain side that doesn't agree with you. If you can't look at the liberal POV to help me expand my points then don't bother answering, please.

"Ok so I'm researching what questions they will ask. We argue the bombing was wrong, they will argue that it was right.
Can I get some help/expansion on these arguments? And are there any other arguments I should know about that they'll use against us?
1) The Japanese didn't accept the unconditional surrender, so we needed to bomb them.
-> I'm going to argue that the military didn't accept unconditional surrender but that this doesn't reflect what the civilians thought about it. + The civilians were being controlled by the military. So there was no reason to bomb the civilians

2) If we didn't thoroughly defeat Japan, we might have another situation like Germany after WWI. If Japan gets too bitter they'll rise up and start a WW3
-> I don't know how to argue against this one

3) It saved more lives than it took
-> I would argue that it took innocent Japanese civilian lives, PLUS radiation sickness resulted in genetic disorders for the future generations. The US would have lost 40,000 lives invading Kyushu, but at least soldiers in the US army b/c they join knowing that there was a chance they would die whereas Japanese civilians probably weren't ready to die / or get radiation sickness."

**Lordpercywooster XXV** · 02-18-2010, 06:06 AM

where did you get the figure of 40 000 from the estimate was 100 000 for the beach head and million men for the island. more japanese would have died in the end the atomic bomb saved lives

the japanese war cabinet cam to te decision After after FIRST one was dropped the usa may only have one so they will not surrender, they still refused to surrender after the second one, it was the emperor who decided to end the war

the civilians provided the war goods that allowed the army to function

**Magick** · 02-18-2010, 06:06 AM

Let me give you something to look into. If you want to argue against the bombing, try looking at the stories of the firebombings that led up to it. It's not a widely known fact, but prior to bombing the two cities, the US took part in a series of raids that have collectively been called the "Tokyo Firebombing."

They're named after a single attack that happened in March 1945. In this raid 300 US bombers attacked Tokyo's civilian center and burned an area about the size of Manhattan to the ground. (This is an estimate, just so you know.) No one really knows how many people died at the time, and estimates range from 60,000 to as much as 500,000 civilians. This one attack paved the way for several others, many of which targeted small villages in the mountains. There are stories of whole cities being wiped off the map. During this time, the Japanese tried to surrender numerous times; only to be turned away.

You should be able to argue quite easily, using these raids, that the US had entered into genocide against the Japanese Civilians, and that by the time the bombings came they (meaning the US) didn't care about the casualities they were causing, or whether or not the war ended, but instead the bombs were dropped as part of a live test.

02-18-2010, 06:06 AM

im just going to argue against your points so you can hope to improve them.

1. The fact that we bombed civilians inst relevant to this topic, I would counter your argument by saying that the ultimatum offered in the surrender cleary implicated the possibility of massive life loss, japanese life loss in general.

2. If they use this argument i suggest that you argue the presumption element of that statement, how was anyone to know and/or predict the effects of the bomb and if it would even prevent an invasion or future conflict, plus there was no evidence to lead Truman to believe that Japan would end up like another Germany, thats the whole reason we wanted an unconditional surrender.

3. I actually wrote a paper on this and this point is hard to argue against, the bombs actually took .67 % of Japans total population, the invasion estimates stated Japan would have lost almost 13% of its population, thats tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. Plus as a military general it is considered Prudant to value the lives of your army over the enemy. PLUS (this is where they will hit you hard if you use this argument) a lot of enlisted men were DRAFTED and there against choice.

Use my arguments to your advantage to learn how the opposition might respond, good luck

**Meg** · 02-18-2010, 06:07 AM

Argument for not dropping bomb. It set a bad precedent and makes it more likely some country will drop a bomb on a city someday or a nuclear war will break out. It is a dark shadow over our attempt to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons today.

#2 We had already defeated Japan and could have successfully invaded and occupied it without the bomb. You can not argue that we should have accepted an agreement that left the government in power because we know now that the military was in control and would not have accepted the change in their society.

Weakness of #3: Japan still occupied large portions of China, Manchuria, Korean etc with many millions of civilians, so they must also be taken into account. Is estimated that 9 million civilians died in China due to the invasion and occupation and every day the occupation continued more died.

**Pluto C. Rat** · 02-18-2010, 06:07 AM

For #2:

Preemptive war has never been accepted conventionally. Such an argument assumes preemption, which is not a mainstream rationale for undertaking war or escalating war.

**RBLibertarian** · 02-18-2010, 06:07 AM

Hi, first off, the bombings were so incredibly wrong it is not even funny. They were innocent Women, Girls, Boys and Men. I am glad you are arguing on the right side.

I unfortunately don't have enough time, to explain the whole sick thing.

Here is a virtually unknown fact you probably won't here anywhere else. The US had a blockade against Japan. The blockade was a huge success. Japan was about to collapse on it's self. The US did not drop the bombs to stop the war. They did it to intimidate the Soviet government. They were basically saying "Hey look Russia we don't care if we kill innocent Women, Girls, Boys and Men, so we aren't afraid to do it to you". I am sorry I did not explain this better. But as you do your research just remember all those innocent Women, Girls, Boys and Men that were killed.