American war-criminal?

nurizeko

nurizeko

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Half scottish half Germanic, i got blood from austria, germany, scotland england, im a mongrol.
Durring world war 2 the American president, Truman (trueman?) in response to the apparent casualty figures to be expected from the mainland invasion of japan, turned to the manhattan project and authorised the use of atomic weaponry for the first and currently only time against humanity, against two cities of human beings.

The topic of discussion and debate is this:

Should Truman be identified as a war criminal?.

It is ussually accepted that the victors write the history books, but is it fair that the allies get away with their war criminals not identified as such, would it help closure on the whole affair of world war two to see those in charge of the nuclear attacks on Japan identified as the genocidal scum i personally think they are?.

The fact that nobody was punished after the war, even after their natural death for their crimes, speaks of the hypocracy, and leaves the world still with a measure of sour feelings between nations because of it.

It also teaches prospective mass murderers that using the nuclear option under the right curcumstances will get you off scot-free.

Should those in charge/gave permission for the the atomic bombings of japan be charged as war criminals?, would this help get closure on the war?, would Americans be able to swallow their self pride and sense of importance and rightousness and accept that, a choice of war and the time or not, their leaders authorised a crime on humanity?.

Are nuclear weapons use not considored a sin against common goodness and a crime against humanity by the international community?.

I personally think it would be a gesture of immense enlightenment and good will to have someone in charge of the atomic attacks recognised for the war criminals they are but, my opinion is just one in a sea of 6 billion, so, debate and engage in this issue.

Please dont bring in the usual american counter arguments or arrogant dismissal of it on the grounds america was the good guys and stuff and so on so on, a war crime is a war crime, so if you want to oppose my idea, find better arguments to counter.

Ready?. Set?. GO!. :wave:
 
nurizeko said:
Should Truman be identified as a war criminal?.
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Yes. But not only for the atomic bombings. The conventional bombing of cities was as much a war crime.
 
bossel said:
Yes. But not only for the atomic bombings. The conventional bombing of cities was as much a war crime.
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I agree 100% percent.
 
Generally speaking, and this is not nationalistic, but those who win the war are the ones who get to skirt of trials of war crimes, (except for Japan, who got off scott free in exchange for biological warfare data), had the opposite happened, had the axis powers won the war, surely Truman would have been tried for war crimes, not the least of which using atomic weapons against a country which by all purposes was already defeated and in talks of a conditional surrender. The reason I say conditional, was because and only, Japan sought to keep it's custom of an emperor in tact.

Ignoring the warnings that an unconditional surrender (no guarantees for the throne) would not be accepted by the Japanese, the Potsdam Declaration offered the Japanese an unconditional surrender. President Truman ignored all the Japanese diplomatic intercepts expressing Japan’s willingness to accept a conditional surrender. He also ignored the fact that Japan was suffering from the embargo and conventional bombing and was already virtually defeated.
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Excerpt, from a quite interesting book, I think, Lying for Empire.

I don't think firebombing (as bossel mentioned), ----it was in fact much much more devestating than the two atomic weapons, and atomic weapons really count per say as a war crime--- using them against all avenues of diplomacy, arguably moreso... and last, it's nothing at all like human experiments commited by biological warfare divisions in Japan... you have to put it in perspective.
 
I fully agree with bossel!! Bombing cities is a crime, they are full of innocent people. This was in Germany as well as in Japan.
One of my Japanese friends told me that Tokyo, where her family lived ( and she still lives) was badly bombed, she showed us some parts when we were in Japan.
Many innocent Japanese civilians died through these incendiary bombs.
And when you look at picture from Hamburg and Dresden when they were bombed, it really was a sad site.

I really hate all wars! The worst wins in even the best men during wars.
 
I just cant believe the atomic bombings and fire-bombings were ignored and the perpitrators let off scot free, perhaps the Un or something could make a decleration forever condeming the lead figures in the atomic and fire bombings as war-criminals, even if the united states disagrees.
Ultimately we dont need America's involvement in this to begin with, aslong as the rest of the world recognises the war-criminals for what they are, eventually America will have no choice but to fall in line and accept it, people and countries are cast out by the international community for denying the halocaust, seems fair America can be marginalised until it stops denying it war-criminals attacks on humanity.
And if that link is true and Japan was willing to surrender aslong as an ancient institution of the imperial line was preserved, then it was even less justifiable to drop the bombs.
Man, if i had the means and voice, i would love nothing more then to start a movement to see the Allied criminals recognised for the criminals they were.
 
A good thread.
Japanese people themselves rarely raise this kind of question. Japanese people see themselves as not in the position to blame, because they lost the war and signed the declaration. and most Americans say the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the right thing to do. It was a "total" war, and people would do anything for victory.
Some Japanese people today say that the Tokyo Trials were pretty much one-sided and retributive in nature. Judges did not question any perjury. A thousand Japanese got executed, many(?) for highly questionable charges. And I guess this leads to all the issues of war criminals in Yasukuni, history textbooks.......etc.
 
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The situation your describing is quite simular to the situation in Germany ,although it probably is even more extrem here a politician of the german liberal party (FDP) ,was openly accused of beeing antisimetic, by the jewish community in Germany, only because he criticiced the way isreal treats the palestinians.It went so far ,that he killed himself.
 
Yeah, anti-semitism seems to be isreals only defence for its questionable actions.

Since when does saying a country behaving poorly towards another people is anti-semitism?.

What a world.
 
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Jep but only the winners decide ,how history will judge the losers and not the other way round ;)
 
moffeltoff said:
Jep but only the winners decide ,how history will judge the losers and not the other way round ;)
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Anyone who re-writes their own history controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
 
If Japan won the war, i'm sure that Truman would have been tried as a war criminal, but unfortunately only the victors decide who the war criminals are in the end.

A note as well, Hiroshima contained many military installations and the western HQ of the japanese forces, so it could be considered a "military target". It still doesn't justify for all the innocent civilians that died in the blast as well though, but I just wanted to point that out.

It's hard for me justify what happened back then, because I was not alive then and can't completely understand how the world was then. Japan and the USA were at complete and total war, definately not the close allies that we are today. Some people who try to criticize and critique things that happened in WWII seem to forget that times and morals have changed since then.
 
Truman at the least got impatient, at the worst, blood-thirsty, Japan was on the verge of collapse, a ring of steel woulda effectively saw Japan surrender (on the grounds the imperial house remained) as far as im concerned the use of the atomic weapons was needless, i know americans will always defend their deeds (and crimes) but using the first atomic weapons against two cities with arguably more civillians then any military target constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity to me.

Truman was quite prapred to keep nuking Japan until it surrendered on his grounds or no longer existed, make no mistake he knew what he was doing and i bet he was hoping for japan to hold out for a while.

If the iranians use a nuke, their leaders will be cast down as the war criminals they are, no mercy, if america uses nukes today, you can bet your sweet ass Bush will never see the outside of a dingy prison in the hague, or even be executed for his crimes.

So why does the first atomic war criminals get off with it?.
 
yukio_michael said:
Anyone who re-writes their own history controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
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Yes but still the way the past will be viewed by future generations is controlled by the strongest ones and not by anyone else ;)
 
nurizeko said:
Truman at the least got impatient, at the worst, blood-thirsty, Japan was on the verge of collapse, a ring of steel woulda effectively saw Japan surrender (on the grounds the imperial house remained) as far as im concerned the use of the atomic weapons was needless, i know americans will always defend their deeds (and crimes) but using the first atomic weapons against two cities with arguably more civillians then any military target constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity to me.
Truman was quite prapred to keep nuking Japan until it surrendered on his grounds or no longer existed, make no mistake he knew what he was doing and i bet he was hoping for japan to hold out for a while.
If the iranians use a nuke, their leaders will be cast down as the war criminals they are, no mercy, if america uses nukes today, you can bet your sweet ass Bush will never see the outside of a dingy prison in the hague, or even be executed for his crimes.
So why does the first atomic war criminals get off with it?.
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Because America is the real live equivalent of big brother ;)
They do what they want they let most people think what they want and everyone ,who opposes them gets wiped out its as easy as that.
 
Should Truman be identified as a war criminal?.

of course not~ ,Japan start this war and refuse surrender in the last minute(It did't want to stop the war).Japan prepare to fight untill they win~ .

atomic bombings help to end the war~ ,without atomic bombings,the ally force would take years to occupy the Japan islands with the cost of millions of people's death.
 
4321go said:
Should Truman be identified as a war criminal?.
of course not~ ,Japan start this war and refuse surrender in the last minute(It did't want to stop the war).Japan prepare to fight untill they win~ .
atomic bombings help to end the war~ ,without atomic bombings,the ally force would take years to occupy the Japan islands with the cost of millions of people's death.
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You could also say ,that Japan just wanted to have a very quick end to the war ,when they attacked peal harbor your argument isn?t relevant to what Truman did he had the knowledge of what he was doing and he also knew ,that Japan was of the brink of collapse so even if America would have had to invade Japan the casualties caused by this would never even just come near to the casualties the two atomic boms caused.
 
nurizeko said:
Truman at the least got impatient, at the worst, blood-thirsty, Japan was on the verge of collapse, a ring of steel woulda effectively saw Japan surrender (on the grounds the imperial house remained)
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From the information that the USA and the world had at the time, it seemed most likely that Japan would not surrender and fight to the last person if they were invaded (which would have most likely caused a substantial amount of more casualties, military and civilian. The estimate was a million US troops dead, and over 10x that amount of Japanese dead). The japanese mobilized around 10-12 divisions into the southern part of Kyushu even during and after the atomic bombs were dropped, which was estimated at around half a million troops.

When the Americans took over Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Gualdalcanal, and other japanese held islands, almost every Japanese soldier (over 99.9%) chose death due to fighting or suicide rather than being taken alive by the americans. Even almost all (around 99.9%) of the japanese civilians living on okinawa commitied suicide (many jumped from cliffs into the ocean), because they were brainwashed by the japanese army into thinking that the americans would kill them anyways if they were to surrender. Suicide or to die by fighting was seen as a heroic thing then, and surrender as an ultimate sin. I can imagine that most of the Japanese, even though they were in tough times, were very upset about surrendering to the USA when it happened. Many commited suicide.

If I can remember correctly, the vote between the generals of the japanese army was split 50/50 in surrendering even AFTER the second atomic bomb was dropped and the devastation was known, and the emperor was the tie-breaker, and wanted to continue fighting. He was just barely slightly convinced later from one of his generals to surrender though, while still against his will. I think the best thing to do would to have not asked for unconditional surrender in the potsdam declatation, and still allow for the power of the emperor. The goal should have been just to get the war over with as soon as possible, while worring about the issue of the emperor at a later time. We will never know for sure if this would have worked though.

nurizeko said:
Truman was quite prapred to keep nuking Japan until it surrendered on his grounds or no longer existed, make no mistake he knew what he was doing and i bet he was hoping for japan to hold out for a while.
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Truman might have been prepared to keep nuking Japan, but in reality, he had no ability to. America only had 2 atomic weapons, and dropped them only a few days apart to give the illusion that America had many of them. Making another single bomb at that time would have taken several months.

No matter how you look at the situation, it was a terrible thing to do to drop atomic bombs on two cities. But you also have to understand that war is a terrible thing, and the first duty of a President in war times is to look out for the safety of his own people. I know it sounds harsh, and it is, but the alternative to not dropping the bombs would have most likely been either equally worse or more worse. Again, we will never know for sure though.


I think one country that should be considered as a war criminal on Japan is Russia. After Japan declared that it had surrendered, Russia invaded the northern kuril islands and killed thousands of japanese that had already thrown down their weapons. Russia still holds these islands today, at least the USA gave back all the Japanese islands they took over (Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Ryukyu islands etc).



I am not trying to defend the actions of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, I am simply trying to show that most alternatives most likely would have been worse.
 
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