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[Arcvasti]

Honestly, if the point was psychological, the Amero's could have nuked a purely military area, or even an empty field of some kind. Didn't HAVE to nuke a city.

Might not have had the same emotional effect, but if it went "field" and then "military base" along with wording to the effect "We'll keep ramping up until you surrender," I doubt it'd have taken much more...

They had very few bombs at the time...

The Japanese didn't know that.

Note: I am not in any way endorsing the morality of the actions of the Americans. I am a pacifist, although, as MSH said earlier, I'm not sure how that philosophy would stand up under fire.

From what I remember, the main reason the nuclear strikes even worked in the first place was because the Japanese didn't think a single plane could do that much damage. If they'd had the knowledge of the capabilities of nuclear weapons before they were used on a major target, they could have taken preventive measures and negated the American ace in the hole. Tactically, it made sense. Morally, it was reprehensible.

EDIT: Wait, what does this have to do with abusive policing? I suppose I'll have to say something about that if I want to avoid participating in a derail:

Who watches the watchers? In [Some/Most/Whatever parts of]America[And elsewhere], the answer is "No one. Or at least, no one with power enough to do anything about police misconduct or enough morality to use that power.".

[Fniff]

The whole war was a horrible affair.

[MDFification]

Honestly, if the point was psychological, the Amero's could have nuked a purely military area, or even an empty field of some kind. Didn't HAVE to nuke a city.

Might not have had the same emotional effect, but if it went "field" and then "military base" along with wording to the effect "We'll keep ramping up until you surrender," I doubt it'd have taken much more...

They had very few bombs at the time...

The Japanese didn't know that.

The willingness to use the bomb on civilian populations was the main reason Japan surrendered. They already knew America had them beaten; they just hoped they could get off with a conditional surrender marginally more favorable to Japan by making it harder to take the country. When the Americans showed they were willing to effectively commit genocide, they decided the strategy of guerrilla warfare was going to cost Japan too much.

So echoing Arcvasti, morally reprehensible, but it had the desired effect.

[Vector]

.

[TamerVirus]

Because of latent hatred of Japan?

[Rolan7]

Because we started talking about how "evil" American foreign policy is, and it's a hot issue.

[smjjames]

And then it went to using the nuke vs a very bloody invasion of Japan. Either one would have been an atrocity, so it's the lesser of the evils.

[Il Palazzo]

The Abusive Global Policing Thread: Beyond Japan

[Leafsnail]

They were already in surrender negotiations, an invasion wasn't really on the cards.  Obviously they wanted to secure better conditions in the peace deal but I don't think it's acceptable to kill 80,000 civilians just for that.

[Bohandas]

I still think you all just oppose it because it was a victory of technology over the human spirit.

[Rolan7]

They oppose it because about 220,000 people died *directly* to the bombs, and it ruined a lot more lives than that.
It probably avoided an even more deadly invasion...  But that's a complicated hypothetical.

[Il Palazzo]

It probably avoided an even more deadly invasion...  But that's a complicated hypothetical.

Not to mention, the argument of the lesser evil assumes the two possibilities being the only ones available. It completely skips over there being the third option of accepting a conditional surrender. But that must have been such a horrific prospect that thousands of lives absolutely had to be sacrificed to avert it.

I do actually find the mentality in that reasoning very similar to the mentality running throughout the ongoing abusive policing issues in the US. It's always about escalating, subduing, dehumanising. The police assumes the other side being a threat, and goes full-ballistic on them, no holds barred.

[Bohandas]

Rememberma few pages back when I said that we haven't had a justified war "in over half a century" well WW2 is the reason why that figure isn't about a century higher. Unlike Saddam's regime of petty thugs and graduated schoolyard bullies, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were both extremely unambiguously evil and a legitimate threat to the entire world.

[nenjin]

A lot of things are different now. But the difference is between being ultimately a dictator of a single country...or a dictator of half a continent.

[Bohandas]

...why is 9/11 considered such a big deal... No one talks about Hurricane Katrina anymore and that destroyed half of New Orleans...

Those weren't attacks by other people, though. It's hard to direct hate at the wind or ocean.

This is a great example of why George W. Bush was a worse leader than Caligula.