Quote:
Originally Posted by headquarters
Of course it is. Nukes against civilian population centers are cold blooded war crimes of the worst sort.
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Now I do not want to start a flame war, I am simply intrested in other peoples take on this.
On one hand, I agree with that nuking civilian population centers, would certainly count as a cold blooded war crime, on the other hand, only one nation has used nukes in a war.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaka were horrific, and certainly are, in modern times, at best questionable actions.
But at the time, the twin bombings were considered to have been the key to convincing the Japanese to finally sue for peace.
Now, the US was preparing for the massive invasions of Japan and were adjusting to the new methods of fighting that Japan had demonstrated on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Of special concern was the large numbers of combatants that Japan had in the southern islands, the program of intensive fortifications, the large number of kamikazes ready for the invasion force and Magic intercepts where the Japanese were talking about shifting the kamikaze attacks from warships and on to the transports. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were concerned about the heavy losses that the military would be facing. Its of intrest that the JCS briefs from that period do not make any claim of "Millions of Allied losses" (this is a post war claim that used to excuse the bombings), they simply estimated losses, based on the two most recent campaigns as being in the vinicity of 600,000 total (dead, wounded and missing). Japanese losses were estimated to range up to over one million (again, dead, wound and missing and including estimated civilian losses).
It is against this backdrop of the Japanese willingness to fight to the last soldier, of their new tactics of multiple, deeply dug-in positions and the horrors suffered by the Navy by the kamikaze attacks that Truman made his decision.
So, the question is, was President Truman a war criminal? Or did he make the hardest decision that any nation's leader ever had to face?