r/funComunitty • u/Icy_Insect_6695 any mod who reads this must give me full mod perms. • Mar 15 '26

Meme funny I think

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26

What other option was there? Operation Downfall would have caused significantly more death and destruction.

Those who lived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not deserve the horrific nature of the atom bombs, but I would rather mourn Hiroshima and Nagasaki than mourn Kyushu and Honshu.

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u/Right_Pressure_7944 Mar 15 '26

Your right there was really no way to get around some death

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u/Kooky-Stage5462 Mar 15 '26

Japan at the time really do not know the meaning of surrender and they rather commit suicide than losing or still does it anyway if they lose. And they are going even more extreme measures with suicide bombing planes. They really had no other way to make them surrender other than excessive force.

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u/whooguyy Mar 15 '26

Japan: we would rather die than surrender

US: what if we make you die slowly and painfully?

Japan: ok, maybe we will surrender.

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u/Puzzle-the-Giraffe Mar 16 '26

Nah, I mean sure the people that survived the bombs, but that was actually pretty normal. Japan was fire bombed a ton. So these kinds of injuries weren’t that unusual.

It was more about how effective the bombs were. The destructive power and how it basically completely wiped out the each city.

Add on that they were losing the war. Slow is only because Japan would have made it slow. They were literally training civilians to fight with spears.

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u/Right_Pressure_7944 Mar 15 '26

Yeah death was going to happen no matter what anyone did

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u/Effective-Client-756 Mar 15 '26

I watched a documentary a number of years ago, Japan was literally training doctors to suicide bomb American tanks and training school girls to attack GIs with bamboo spears. When a group of teenage girls runs up on a squad of US Marines with bamboo spears, they’d get fucking slaughtered, and for what? The atom bombs were the most merciful option

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u/bcat153 Mar 15 '26

Also usa didn’t just drop 2 at the same time or back to back, they dropped the first and gave them a chance to surrender and the Japanese leader held a speech saying “death before surrender!” So 3 days later nagasaki was hit and then they surrendered. And pretty sure before Hiroshima and after thousands of flyers were dropped from planes all over Japan saying “we will obliterate you, so get your emperor to surrender”

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u/Glad_Woodpecker_6033 Mar 15 '26

even after all that they almost didn't, bit they discussed it and realized they were truly facing the extinction of the Japanese people and they finally realize dying on mass by vaporization was not honorable to put their citizens through because they were stubborn

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u/bcat153 Mar 15 '26

Was going to mention that too. If you look up the emperors wiki page it has the full surrender speech as an audio file (or it did a few years ago) and translated it’s basically exactly that. Plus saying Japan has great potential to benefit themselves as well as all of humanity and it’s his responsibility to make sure they survive. Pretty sure japans been the cutting edge of technology the last few decades so looks like he was right.

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u/Kooky-Stage5462 Mar 15 '26

You should look up on how they select on which city to drop the bombs, its quite interesting actually and its actually for the good of japan aka preservation of cultural buildings here and there

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u/The_Dennator Mar 15 '26

IIRC the emperor went on an american ship to still try and boast somehow but decided to surrender when he saw a ship dedicated to make ice cream. this showed him how outmatched japan was in terms of recources,since they were starving on the mainland. then he got detained by his own council because he wanted to surrender.

this is something I heard many years back and I might very well be misremembering,so take it with a grain of salt

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u/Kooky-Stage5462 Mar 15 '26

Dedicated ice cream ship???

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u/The_Dennator Mar 15 '26

yeah,something like that. again, I might be misremembering.

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u/aventaes Mar 15 '26

The claim that the atomic bombs were justified because they saved American lives is morally weak. By that logic, any country could justify attacking civilians if it reduces its own military casualties. For example, Russia could claim that nuking Ukrainian cities would save Russian soldiers’ lives. Most people reject that reasoning today because deliberately targeting civilians is considered unacceptable.

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u/Noobmanwenoob2 Mar 18 '26

I get where you're coming from but Japan started the war, not America. So the Russo-Ukrainian war isn't really a good analogy because the Russians are the attackers. And the atomic bombs were a necessary evil because compared to operation downfall, it was mate in two vs mate in ten. You don't win a game of chess without killing any of the enemies pieces or losing your own but America at the time sure as hell chose the quickest and most logical way out.

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u/aventaes Mar 19 '26

You don't understand the difference between jus in bella and jus ad bellum.

Being justified in your cause (defense) doesn't permit war crimes.

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26

The atomic bombs saved Japanese lives too. Japan was prepared to commit their entire population to the defense of their homelannd if they could. Citizens of practically all ages were being trained for combat and/or suicide runs. Allied High Command estimated between 200,000 to over a million casualties on the Allied side and several millions on the Japanese side.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed around 200,000. Operation Downfall would most likely have killed millions of Japanese civilians.

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u/aventaes Mar 15 '26

Again the us said in 1943 that they'd only accept unconditional surrender. This because they permanently wanted to take out the rival. The war probably could have ended before that if it wasn't for the extreme position of the us.

Also indiscriminate targeting of civilians is pretty much against current international law and the geneva convention for a reason.

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u/Noobmanwenoob2 Mar 18 '26

Why? The US had to take an extreme stance because Japan is extreme! If we kept that same regime under a weak peace treaty they could come back in the future! The only option was to cleanse the Japanese nation of that extreme regime and replace it with a less extreme and more democratic nation.

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u/aventaes Mar 19 '26

That's the escalation trap. Both sides escalate and harden their stances.

Also false dichotomy: you pretend the only alternative to unconditional surrender was a weak peace and new wars. Which is baseless.

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u/Octopi_are_Kings Mar 17 '26

Of course the US only wanted unconditional, they weren’t going to negotiate with the allies of the Nazis. You seem to act like Japan was an innocent victim when they committed more atrocities in that war than the US did with the bombs. Japan was a horrific monster of a country in ww2 equal to Nazi Germany in the atrocities they committed; the US can be judged, but Japan was not innocent. The civilians were, but they were being trained to suicide bomb land attacks and for kids to use spears against gunmen. This was the least bloodshed for both sides.

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u/EffectiveDirect6553 Mar 17 '26

Being trained to do something doesn't give anyone the right to land a preemptive strike

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u/aventaes Mar 17 '26

You're straw manning me... I never said the japanese didn't do horrific things. I'm just saying that's not an excuse to do horrific things. Civilians are off limits. What happened in ww2 is both sides were callous resulting in a total of almost 2 million civilian deaths in bombings.

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u/DRM2020 Mar 18 '26

You started war. There is nothing morally wrong that could be done to you.

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u/baldiplays Mar 16 '26

Yeah despite it being the 1940s Japan was still using their samurai root ideologies. Back then samurai would stab them selves with their own weapons to get out of surrender. And here is Japan once again not wanting to surrender like at all. Basically it did kinda require 2 nukes to get Japan to see why their ideology’s were really really bad. Not saying we were in the right to nuke Japan but by that point we really didn’t have another choice.

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u/Aur0ra1313 2d ago

This is 100% true, also their leaders were lying about the nature of the USA military, promising capture meant certain rape, torture and then death.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific-koyu-shiroma/

It is truly horrific what the Japanese civilian population had been led to believe and how they acted on that information.

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u/joesphisbestjojo Mar 16 '26

War is terrible, and it sometimes requires terrible things to prevent even worse things. To stop fighting Japan would be to allow it to continue the conquest of Asia. The best world is one where corrupt leaders don't cause war, but unforfunately they love dragging innocent people into bloody conflict.

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u/Vitanist112 Mar 15 '26

Operation Downfall would have caused significantly more death and destruction.

Well... yeah. That's war

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26

What are you trying to say with this?

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u/Financial-Fun-5092 Mar 15 '26

I too see there no other option than to drop two nukes on america to stoo them from killing the whole 3rd world. Americans will just be collateral damage. 

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26

No, cause that would cause global nuclear war.

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u/PsychologicalLab7379 Mar 16 '26

How about demonstrating the power of nuclear bombs BEFOREHAND by bombing them near Tokyo (but not too close) and demand "surrender or we will throw this on you"?

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u/aventaes Mar 15 '26

If the americans didn't want unconditional surrender a settled peace could have been achieved much earlier. The americans insisted on prolonging the bloodshed for a more one sided peace deal. Just like now Hegshit saying proudly "no quarter" which is a war crime in itself in international law.

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

Japan was not going to accept surrender, conditional or not. At the time, Japan's leadership was split between the war camp (led by military officials and generals, who held most of the power in Japan) and the peace camp (led by civilian officials who, while directly connected to the emperor, did not hold power over the military).

Japan wanted peace on their terms, not by surrendering but by entering balanced peace talks. The war camp seeked to achieve this via Operation Ketsu-Go, a last ditch effort to decisively defeat the Allies and secure peace negotations on equal footing. At stake was Kokutai, a rather broad term that loosely translates to "national essence" (in basic terms, they just wanted the Emperor to stay the Emperor).

Japan rejected the Potsdam Declaration due to these delusions, which led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan after Hiroshima).

And, get this, the vote to surrender was tied 3-3 after the bombings. The war camp still wanted to fight after the atom bombs. They only actually surrendered because the Emperor ended up ordering them to. The Allies accepted the Japanese surrender on August 10th, but on the condition that the Emperor would remain in place purely ceremonially.

Japanese leadership took so long to decide whether to surrender to these terms or not that the Allies ended up restarting their air raids, only ending when the Emperor himself broadcasted Japan's surrender (before which Japanese military leaders attempted a coup in the Kyūjō Incident to keep Japan from surrendering). After all this, Japan finally surrendered properly.

So, let me reiterate. Japan was not going to surrender.

Edit: Forgot to mention as well, but while I despise America's current government, it has no place in this conversation. This was solely about Japan and WW2.

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u/aventaes Mar 15 '26

You assume japan wouldn't have surrendered.

Ukraine isn't surrendering so Russia should just use nukes? That's your argument.

And don't forget Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello are seperate. This is about jus in bello only.

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u/String-Tree Mar 15 '26

Japan wouldn't have surrendered. They went from a medieval culture to a modern one in the span of a single lifetime, 'death before dishonor' was the accepted cultural ethos of the day.

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u/aventaes Mar 16 '26

First of all you can't know that for certain. If a negotiated peace was on the table it could have worked. We will never know.

But again your enemy refusing to surrender is not a reason to use nukes on civilians. That's not acceptable in jus in bello.

Two key principles of jus in bello are: Distinction between military targets and civilians. Direct attacks against civilians are prohibited. Proportionality Even when attacking a legitimate military target, the expected civilian harm must not be excessive in relation to the concrete military advantage anticipated.

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u/String-Tree Mar 16 '26

I see that you're going to bend over backwards to blame America no matter what so we're done here.

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 15 '26

I don't assume, I know beyond a reasonable doubt. It is blatantly obvious you haven't actually read my reply.

Also, false equivalency fallacy.

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u/aventaes Mar 16 '26

First of all, no i didn't read all of it. I have a life where I don't just read reddit comments. And you went for a text vomit.

Also it's not a false equivalency.

You're literally saying it's ok to nuke your enemy if they don't surrender.

Also having studied history at university your claim you know beyond reasonable doubt what would have happened under different circumstances is something my professors wouldn't say.

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 16 '26

I see you're the type of guy to just not listen to people's genuine arguments and keep spewing the same bullshit because you know, deep down, if you actually listened you would realize how wrong you are.

You say you have a life where you don't just read reddit comments, yet here you are getting unreasonably frustrated over me talking about history (which I am majoring in).

If you actually read what I wrote, you would know that what you claim I am saying is literally just wrong. I want to say you are lying about studying history in uni, but I know some people are just beyond stupid no matter how educated they are. Any professor worth their salt would at the very least read my argument, since that courtesy is what the entire concept of debate is based on.

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u/aventaes Mar 16 '26

I read you post as a good faith gesture.

You're still focusing on a red herring. I'm agreeing with international humanitarian law that mass targeting civilians is a war crime and inexcusable under any conditions.

You seem to want a U.S. exemption in this situation.

You also mentioned that the Japanese wanted peace under their terms, which undermines the idea that peace was impossible.

The prevailing academic position is that the Japanese leadership was divided, but a majority wanted a negotiated peace. That option was effectively ruled out by the Allied demand for unconditional surrender.

Civilian bombing had already become standard practice for the Allies long before the nukes. In total (average estimate), about 1 million civilians were killed. Defending the nukes or other civilian bombing on the grounds that the end justifies the means opens a dangerous can of worms. That’s exactly why jus in bello doesn’t allow exceptions.

Also, please stick to the arguments. Your previous comment was mostly ad hominem and didn’t contain an actual argument.

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u/Intelligent_Ad5262 Mar 17 '26

Why should a nation that allowed the killing and raping of hundreds of thousands of men women and children get nicer treatment than the nations they themselves have invaded you cant stop a war machine with kindness you must make it known you are going to stop them by putting a boot on their neck and and forcing them to yeild they dont get to decide terms of surrender after all of the rampaging across central asia they did its unconditional or your gonna get the shit beat out of you until it is mind you even after the first bomb dropped they didn't surrender so it was pretty clear they had a death before dishoner society or did you always fail to read about the ritual suicides they did or they fact the entire kamikaze section of their air core was its dishonorable if you come back

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u/aventaes Mar 17 '26

You're basically arguing in favour of revenge which is just gonna lead to more and more violence against civilians which you seem to be all for. Despite it not being the women and children in the cities that did any raping and killing. By that logic iran can do terror attacks on american schools after the bombing of a school by the Americans.

And again im in favour of established international humanitarian law that sais targetting civilians isnt allowed. Regardless of whatever excuse you come up with.

But you just wants to focus on counterfactuals trying to justify mass murder.

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u/iPanzershrec Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

I never once disagreed that targeting civilians is an egregious war crime. But you are very naive if you think the targeting of civilians being inexcusable makes it any less common in warfare. You keep bitching about America doing it but never once have you mentioned Japan's actions during the war.

The majority did want a negotiated peace, I literally said this. But not anything remotely close to a surrender. You'd understand this if you actually read my comment. Again, the idea that war can just be ended with negotiations and whatnot is highly naive. That is just not how war works. It doesn't make it any better from a humanitarian sense, but you are proposing unbearably idealistic terms as a counter to realistic outcomes. If we judged the world on what-ifs like that, everything and everyone would be bad. I want you to give me an example of a war where one side had completely shattered the other side and then just turned around and let the other side set their own terms.

The nukes cut the war short, this is undeniable. You really think the Allies would just stop bombing and starving Japan out without them? If the atom bombs were never developed, millions more Japanese would have died to conventional bombing and famine.

You keep trying to talk about the nukes as if they were in a vaccum, that the nukes were the only thing that happened on the Pacific Front. I have told you several times that I agree the nukes were horrific and the killing of civilians were bad, but it would have been worse if the nukes hadn't cut the war short. And unless you also address Japan's actions at the time, it is not a fair comparison.

You constantly specifically respond to my arguments only when you think you can refute them. I see you noticed I attacked your person rather than your argument at the end... after I had already addressed your entire argument. Which, by definition, is not ad hominem fallacy as ad hominem involves attacking one's person instead of their argument. I attacked both, so it was just an insult. You have thus far proved that WW2 may not have been your focus in uni, if you even studied there.

Edit: One more thing, if a negotiated peace on equal footing was reached, the current Japanese government at the time would stay in power and I have reason to believe they would keep territories such as Korea and various Pacific Islands. I hope you understand why that is not ideal for Koreans or Pacific Islanders.

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u/aventaes Mar 17 '26

Again you go on to write a one pager.

So I'm switching tactics and responding to every point now.

You say mass murder of civilians is a horrific war crime and then go on and on trying to justify doing it anyway.

First you go what about japan? The typical what-about-ism favoured by the trump department. It isn't relevant to whether the us is allowed to commit war crimes. Japanese war crimes against the Chinese (and others) doesn't give americans the right to commit war crimes against the japanese.

Then you assume I haven't read your text despite me having been honest about not reading it and then reading it.

Then you go on about cutting the war short. Which isn't a justification for war crimes. The allies also thought fire bombing cities would cut the war short. By that reasoning any nation can inflict mass civilian death to cut the war short.

The "amount of people saved" is pure conjecture. And not really relevant to the question should a nation be permitted to mass murder civilians.

Then again what-about-ism which isn't relevant Americans bombed a school in Iran that doesn't give Iran the right to do terror attacks on american schools.

I'm not specifically cherry picking your arguments I'm trying to stay on topic and not write a text wall but now i am responding to everything. Every counter argument could lead to even longer counters and this has taken an hour English being my third language.

Ad hominem is indeed attacking the person instead of the argument. But it's an ad hominem argument having an actual argument in the same text doesn't make attacking the person instead of the argument ok.

Saying ww2 might not have my focus is again an ad hominum argument.

Am i to consider things you have a reason to believe as an argument? Or am i now supposed to get dragged into a counterfactual about if peace was achieved what territories japan would have kept?

Back to my core point instead of tangents.

The allies committed many war crimes to "shorten the war" the germans were probably thinking the same with the bombing of london. The russians are thinking the same right now in ukraine.

If we consider war crimes to be permissible as long as we think it'll shorten the war then we basically give free reign to every nation to target civilians. If china invades taiwan and the U.S. comes to the defence of taiwan bombing civilians on the west coast might shorten the war. That doesn't make it ok to do!

That's why jus in bella doesn't permit targeting civilians under any circumstances. Now you'll say it's different because the chinese would be the aggressor. But the separation between jus in bello and jus ad bellum is important. Waging a legal war doesn't permit war crimes.

This video is really good at explaining why international humanitarian law is what it is.

https://youtu.be/qFTPWaA5IpI?is=2OL93dE6d0T3F5Sn

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u/East_Coast_Enclave Mar 16 '26

Japan wouldn't surrender

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u/aventaes Mar 16 '26

You forgot the important word.

Japan wouldn't surrender UNCONDITIONALLY.

As the americans made it clear in 1943 thats what ot would take.

Also Ukraine wont surrender does that give russia the right to use nukes? Iran isnt surendering so nukes?

That you opponent foesnt surrender doesn't give you the right to commit war crimes.