The Clouds of Hiroshima(doomsdaymachines.net) |
The Clouds of Hiroshima(doomsdaymachines.net) |
Before the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was the burning of Tokyo. Operation Meetinghouse, the early March 1945 raid on Tokyo that involved over 330 B-29s dropping incendiary bombs from low-altitude at night, killed roughly 100,000 people, and may have injured and made homeless an order of magnitude more. As with all statistics on the damage caused by strategic bombing during World War II, there are debatable points and methodologies, but most people accept that the bombing of Tokyo probably had at least as many deaths as the Hiroshima bombing raid, and probably more. It is sometimes listed as the most single deadly air raid of all time as a consequence.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had radiation - many died in the following months from the "atomic bomb disease", now known to be acute radiation sickness, and many died in the following years from cancer, for example. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions_... for details of all the different ways a nuclear explosion can cause death or injury in the initial stage (1-9 weeks), intermediate stage (10-12 weeks), late period (13-20 weeks), and delayed period (20+ weeks). Bear in mind that the effects of radiation weren't well understood at the time.
Furthermore, all the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their children "were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious"[0].
Yes, both of those events are terrible and shouldn't have happened, but which is "worse" probably depends on if you consider more deaths or worse deaths to be "worse"
The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.
They haven't suffered decades of communism and have seen an extremely successful recovery from WWII in a short amount of time.
The reason they sided with the nazis --and two nukes were a harsh price to pay for having picked the wrong side-- is because they knew Russia would come after Japan.
The two nukes stopped Russia's thirst for Japan on the spot.
We'd be living in a very different world if the two nukes didn't happen and it's not clear at all Japan would still be japanese.
P.S: I've got family in Japan and I've been many times and I'll probably be going on vacation there next summer. I love Japan.
Later it became routine.
https://youtu.be/YtCTzbh4mNQ?t=62 (narrator saying - "the mushroom cloud reached 65km altitude" ) Our high school military preparedness classes teacher was a retired "Captain of 2nd rank" (subcolonel equivalent in USSR Navy) who had served at that "Novaja Zemlja" islands nuclear testing range. He was describing that regular nukes they would just watch from 20km. While large hydrogen bombs they were watching from like 200km, and it still was awe-fear-inspiring.
"Nuclear Tourism: When Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s"
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/atomic-tourism-las-vegas/ (cool sight https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o6mAaNEPm8g/X212lrhyZPI/AAAAAAAD4... :)
> It is an impressive sight.
The fascination with this is more than a little disturbing.
Somewhat reassuring to see that many comments here interpret the images as a call to eliminate nuclear weapons. But it's hard to image our current ape man species moving away from mass murder as an international policy implementation.
The propensity of our primate species for self annihilation doesn't pose much hope for extended survival.
Innate murderous tendencies that may have encouraged the caveman's survival will surly be what wipes us out...
You've read the testimonies of those that survived Dresden and Tokyo then?
Again, dead is dead, injured by temperatures that melt flesh is the same regardless of heat source.
Is there any reason to elevate death by atomic weapon above death by carpet bombing HE's and incendiaries?
Depending on how affected you are, you can become literally poisonous to touch. And that's just for people affected by the explosion. Then there are the people that won't be able to go back home because of radiation. That's a different kind of pain. And yes, bombs also can bulldoze cities, but at least you can recover and reconstruct
How about we both don't have nuclear weapons and also don't carpet bomb people?
If we're going to move the goalposts, why don't we just move them to the logical endpoint and proclaim "why don't we just not have wars"
Which, by the way, perhaps it's of interest to compare the frequency and severity of war before and after the invention of atomic weapons
Anyway, I'd be curious to hear your ethical solution to the trolley problem? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem)
