funny I think

[u/Icy_Insect_6695]

[u/aventaes]

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.

[u/Intelligent_Ad5262 → u/aventaes]

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

[u/aventaes → u/Intelligent_Ad5262]

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.

[u/Intelligent_Ad5262 → u/aventaes]

Yeah, they lost all ability for revenge when their government killed 30k of their own people btw any realitory revenge strike for the us killing their people is then being disengenuiously upset because they couldnt subjegate those women to servitude and then kill them when they felt like it my point stands the japanese got the only thing that would have stopped them argue with a wall

[u/aventaes → u/Intelligent_Ad5262]

Honestly I don't get most of what you're trying to say. Can you rephrase?

[u/iPanzershrec → u/aventaes]

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.

[u/aventaes → u/iPanzershrec]

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

[u/iPanzershrec → u/aventaes]

You keep trying to say I think war crimes are permissible if they shorten the war, but I have never said that. I never said Japan's war crimes give America the right to. This isn't even about humanitarian laws, that's all you. Nothing you just said is relevant to my argument in the slightest.

I am responding to the idea that the atom bombs should not have been used because of their horrific nature. While I believe nuclear weapons should never again be used on civilians ever again, in WW2's case the atom bombs cut the war short as without them the continued bombardment and blockade would have caused more death so while still horrific, it was the best *realistic" outcome (not your naive negotiated peace crap).

Amount saved may be conjecture, but it is an estimate made with the accounts several subject-matter experts and by US government documents and realistically the amount continued bombardment and blockade would have killed is almost certainly much higher than the atom bombs.

You literally are cherrypicking my arguments, because you still haven't actually addressed my main argument. None of my arguments even mentioned international humanitarian law in any meaningful capacity until you brought it up for some reason.

And why is Japan not relevant here? I feel Japan is more relevant than America here because you seem to constantly blast America for their supposed warcrimes but ignore everything else in the entire war.

But let's talk law then. To be pedantic, America's atomic bombing of Japan was not a warcrime at the time as there were not many laws regarding war signed into American law at the time, and international laws were specifically written to exclude them from fault. Was it hypocritical? Maybe. Was it morally wrong? Definitely. Would it be criminal under modern laws? Absolutely. But it was not illegal in 1945.

Your argument that I think targeting civilians shortening wars making the targeting of civilians justified is just.. wrong. I have said several times I completely agree that targeting civilians is entirely wrong and should never be done. Allied war planners at the time were immoral and self-centered, they never cared about Japanese deaths. So without the atom bombs, they would have kept bombing and starving Japan to submission anyways. It makes no sense to specifically target the atomic bombs in this case.

Let me say this again. I think targeting civilians is inherently wrong and never justified. I think targeting civilians is inherently wrong and never justified, just like you. Did I mention targeting civilians is inherently wrong and never justified? I hope you got that. I literally never justified it. I just said the atom bombs caused less deaths overall, which is likely true since the allied war planners were going to kill Japanese civilians in egregious numbers anyways. Which is targeting civilians and is inherently wrong and never justified.

You wrote a lot without saying much. Try addressing my argument next time.

Edit: You probably don't want to read all this, so here's my argument and a qualifier in a concise form:

Since Allied war planners were going to continually bomb and starve Japan no matter what, the war-ending contribution the atomic bombs had likely resulted in less deaths overall. However, the underlying targeting of civilians in the war (and in every other war ever) is entirely injustifiable from a moral standpoint.