The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day

Timmy Age 6: Jul 23, 2011; Lobster says "mrow?"; Ramrod XTreme

Even after the atomic bombings, there were enough members of the Japanese military in favor of fighting on that there was an attempted coup to prevent a surrender.

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# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 02:05

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 17:44

Timmy Age 6: Jul 23, 2011; Lobster says "mrow?"; Ramrod XTreme

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Probably because firebombs were not the most destructive single act of war in human history

Dropping the Atom Bomb was

Plus a lot of people do complain about the fire bombing, its just that firebombs had precedent. The atom bomb was and still is unprecedented.

Actually, not true! The firebombings beat out the atomic bombings.
http://www.wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 02:07

Timmy Age 6: Jul 23, 2011; Lobster says "mrow?"; Ramrod XTreme

Tezzor posted:

I know that's what they told you in middle school but it is factually inaccurate http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

You really, really don't want to be citing the Institute for Historical Review as a source if you want to be taken seriously and not asked a lot of questions about why you're palling around with a bunch of Holocaust deniers.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 07:06

Timmy Age 6: Jul 23, 2011; Lobster says "mrow?"; Ramrod XTreme

klen dool posted:

So it doesn't mean "blockade" then, by your own admission. Unless, we have different definitions of blockade that is.

Giving food to civilians doesn't defeat the purpose of the blockade - its a different way of doing it.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant - you asked why allowing a population to decide to starve itself to death was any different than killing them with bombs. You haven't really addressed that at all except to say "the civilians would have died anyway" which misses the point. I'd say ask anyone if they would rather die right now from a bomb, or face starvation and a bet many would answer the latter.

By the last two years of the war, U.S. submarines and aircraft had shredded the Japanese merchant marine to the point where a lot of patrols came back without any sinkings, because there just weren't many ships left to sink. As an island nation, Japan was utterly dependent on imports (and a case can be made that this was a major trigger for war in its own right - the oil embargo in response to the invasion of China was a big reason tensions became so high leading up to Pearl Harbor). When the U.S. Navy is able to bring subs basically onto the beach and airplanes are raiding coasts with impunity, and they're all targeting merchant shipping whenever it is found, it's a bit hard to argue that there was no blockade.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 12:01

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