I have lots of Japanese family and friends, and none of them understand the horrors of WW2. As far as they were taught, America just randomly dropped nukes on them. They're mad because they think of Japan as a victim, not a monster that needed to be stopped. They raped and pillaged everyone who wasn't Japanese.
At least Germany teaches their kids about their atrocities in hopes that they never repeat it.
Japan was definitely a monster that needed to be stopped. But to say that made it okay to drop two nukes instantly killing thousands of civilians is not okay in any case.
Well. The war took 20.000 lives daily. The bombs took about 140k if i recall right.
If the war lasted 7 more days it would even out. The bombs ended it instantly.
The Japanese doctrine was to fight to the very last man, woman and child.
The Japanese are like everyone else. Only more. They had some powerful cultural settings to be able to do what they did.
Mostly agreed. Historians and philosophers can argue ad nauseum about if the bombs were the only way to end the war, but we literally can't know. Some argue that everyone will listen to the emperor while others argue that they would fight to a long, drawn-out death, citing the coup that happened even after the Japanese saw the immense power of the bombs.
My comments just give insight into the ferocity with which they attack the movie. Japan doesn't teach their population about all of the war, the invasion of China and the Philippines, the rape of Nanjing...any of it. They are only taught that they were one day minding their own business when Americans destroyed two cities. It makes sense they don't want to consume this media.
this isn't specifically a Japanese thing though, most American kids are taught that dropping both bombs was the only way to win the war, when this is still the subject of a lot of debate. for that matter, they probably aren't taught about how eugenics were effectively exported from America to Germany. I'm from the UK and I had to wait until I was reading history for fun to learn about most of the UK's colonial crimes. the way history is taught in schools is just a bit shit
Wholeheartedly agree, history books are basically propaganda. Like, I it get if you don't want to get into the gory details of war, but if that's the case, why talk about murdering civilians at all.
Americans learn everything about the middle-eastern conflict from Sept. 11th, 2001 and on. They don't know anything of what happened before then, or why these evil bastards were so mad, etc.
From what I understand this is not the main point of contention among historians. That Imperialist Japan, like all Axis powers, was a cancer that demanded amputation was not the justification for the deployment of nukes. Rather, the debatable justification was their leadership's inability to surrender unconditionally.
Interesting post. I was unaware of this "random attack" teaching. Is this present day curriculum? Japan isn't closed off to Western internet and media. It can't be that close of a secret, I mean they're watching Oppenheimer right now. Not like China where they lose you in a prison colony if you talk about certain historical facts and the internet and media are fully censored.
I'm reminded of the Japanese guy who remained encamped on some spit of jungle in the Pacific Islands until something bananas like 1975 or something, and he had been out there with two others still holding their position, and had shot like 15 locals. Even when NGOs brought them newspapers, they assumed it was an American trick because they were taught and still believed that Japan would never surrender and would die fighting door to door to the last. It must have seemed paradoxical to them. They had to bring back the guy's commanding officer fom a retirement home or something and fly him to the island to get the guys to come out. As far as I understand, that sort of rhetoric is viewed in Japan how anti semitic rhetoric is viewed by most Germans.
Personally I think those two bombs saved a lot of lives by destroying Japan's will to continue prosecuting the war, and two showed restraint that the world has continued to this day. As I understand, some in America argued for more targets, like as many as 50(?) cities? If that had happened, Japan wasn't going to be any more beaten than if they lost the will to fight and surrendered unconditionally after just two bombs, and I wonder what might have happened if that tradition of restraint didn't exist all these years. You know, if it had been fifty, sometime by now some despot would have been saying "what's the big deal, not like we did fifty."
Mines is mostly anecdotal - I grew up in Hawaii and became friends with a lot of Japanese nationals + my wife's family constantly has get-togethers in Japan or America. Thankfully there's several testimonies on Reddit and YouTube that I sadly can't reference because I'm on mobile.
I want to clarify as well, I'm not saying the Japanese are bad, I'm saying why Oppenheimer would spark outrage for Japan's general public. Some comments in this post could benefit from cultural context. It's not as simple as "haha people who got beat up don't want to watch the replay". It's tragic, and I get it.
As I said in a comment below, a country's history curriculum seems to always show the country as a winner, or the victim of an atrocity. Every country seems to be guilty of this to some degree, I just like how Germany handles it: "we did dumb shit, we're never doing it again, and here's why."
Crazy, what's next, a nazi movie released in germany?
As a german, I wish someone made some more of these. Because people seem to have forgotten about the horrors of WW2.
More? It feels like nine out of ten war movies focus on WW2. You can't throw a stone at IMDB without hitting three WW2 movies and a series along the way.
I think they mean new, so people will watch right now and maybe think to stop genociding people and giving power to fascists
The bombings has to be seen in the context of the unimaginable horrors orchestrated by the Japanese state that had to be stopped, at almost any cost.
Almost... Another way to see it is they burdened future generations as an expedient measure to save the lives of the people now in the past. Another another way to look at the bomb is preventing another world war.
An interesting historical point is Japan had largely been defeated by the time the bombs were dropped. And they had the option to bomb an uninhabited (or very lightly) part of Japan's territory as a show of force. But, instead they specifically chose to irradiate civilians.
This is of course just my opinion, but no horrors, imaginable or otherwise, that the Japanese could've possibly orchestrated at the time, with the means they had available, would've come close to the devastation caused by the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Look up the Rape of Nanking. Studying that alone made me believe the bombs were warranted. That's not even including Unit 731, and the fact that the Japanese government still will not acknowledge their attrocities.
The bombs were a sad necessity to stop the monstrosities.
It’s fine to believe that — I’ve been wrong before, too.
Of course, thats your prerogative, but then, quite frankly, you don't know enough about Japanese war crimes.
It is also interesting that the movie focuses on the scientists developing the bomb over everything else. There is a removal of the protagonists from seeing the destruction of their work, but that was done on purpose by the military. Even within that, you see a discussion of morality of the bomb by its developers and that the scientists, in almost all cases, have a more nuanced understanding of the destructive power they are developing and the ethics of using such a device.
I think that's always the way. Compartmentalisation. Though I don't blame the film for not showing the horrors taking place in those cities. At the time Oppenheimer wouldn't have access to those images, and so I guess neither do we. On the other hand - unless I miss remember - we do get to see him watching a film reel. So, maybe they could have shoehorned the scenes of destruction. But, personally, I think it's enough to see the effect it has on Oppenheimer. Any more could be classed as prurient voyeurism.
"If you violate the Geneva Convention, your people don't get the protections of it" seems like a pretty reasonable way to justify the bombings tbh
In any case, there are some important considerations to be made here too:
After the horrors of Okinawa, US leadership expected a million casualties to take Japan itself, to the point where the Navy wanted to simply blockade Japan into submission. Given the Japanese civilians were already eating acorns and tree bark, and the military's entire outward appearance was to never surrender, it isn't unreasonable to assume Japan wouldn't have given up.
Of course, the Japanese were refusing to surrender to the US in order to surrender through the USSR in hopes of getting a better deal (protect the emperor, no war crime trials, etc.). Of course, the Soviets invaded Manchuria and dashed all hopes of that, which, according to many people, was the real reason for Japan's surrender.
It is a bit murky, but in response to the bombings and the invasion, there was a meeting on August 9th of the highest ranks of the Japanese government where it was determined that surrender was the only option and plans were drawn up to do so. However, on the 14th, there was an attempted coup by some army officers to continue the war, which failed after several high ranking officials refused to comply, among other things.
All of this taken together is not to say "the bombings were necessary," but rather to show the situation as it developed, and how many different things could have gone wrong and dragged the war on for longer (side note: Japan still held a lot of territory and there were plans to liquidate POWs and the like in the event of surrender)
Was it right to vaporize thousands? In a vacuum, no, certainly not. But in the complex context of a war in which millions had already died and millions more still very well could have, its tough to say.
I do not wish to justify the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, if any good came out of it, I think showing the world the death, devastation and illness an atomic attack on a city can cause likely made world leaders pause before pushing the button. The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind. Would either party have backed down if no one had actually seen what even a relatively small bomb could do to a city?
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