How the Hiroshima bombing is taught around the world

Fog of War, the documentary that inspired this page, is amazing. If you have an interest in history, and how powerful people make decisions, I recommend watching it. It's rare to see someone who once held an office of significant power be so frank in what they did wrong.

Wow thanks for that link. It is really begging for a visualization with the US city comparisons.

Dan Carlin has a wonderful analysis on this topic in his podcast.

>makes it much harder to justify.

Makes what harder to justify?

If Japan had surrendered would they have dropped another one?

The OP in Reddit is the author of this article. He came up with the idea, asked for it and added some context around it. I don't think that is spam.

Also alarming is how the writer has taken the opinion of about a handful of Canadians (I did a search on the reddit page that this writer posed the question and located about 9 self-proclaimed Canadians) and generalized it into an entire Nation's ( of 35 million + people) feedback / experience.

From the WP Post by the writer

>>> Canada: "Most Canadians are unaware of the crucial role Canada played in the development of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (A uranium refinery in Ontario supplied the Manhattan Project.)

Well, this guy from the WP posted the AskReddit thread and then made an article about it... by copying and pasting quotes from reddit users verbatim.

I wish they had at least edited the responses.

I'm all for parables that shed light on complicated situations, but isn't that one kind of sweeping everything that made it a difficult decision under the rug? When it comes to the decision of whether to drop the bomb there is like horrendous death any which way you go, but with killing a songbird as opposed to waiting it is more one sided.

>Ieyasu sees the bird and says, if you do not sing for me, then I will wait until you do sing. He then sits and waits (forever).

The world had spent several years waiting for the Axis powers to be start being peaceful. Suggesting that everyone should have just sat and waited for them to stop waging war goes well beyond ignoring reality.

Another Chinese proverb: 三人行必有我师焉. Basically, we can all learn from each other.

Relevant because this article gives perspectives from around the world, all of which are interesting.

Ultimately, though, I feel this is an event in history that relies upon the mutual feelings of Japan and the United States.

>There were many ways the allies could have ended World War II in the Pacific theater.

There weren't really all that many ways it would end given that the Soviet Union operated independently and was in a position to invade much earlier.

Is the war of 1812 not commonly taught? We learned about it and how the First Lady saved some important paintings from the White House. We didn't spend much time on it relative to bigger wars, but I understood it to be a standard part of American History.

I'd just like to add another data point. As an American, I don't recall ever being taught anything in school about the atrocities Japan committed on the Chinese, etc. Perhaps I was just a poor student :) but it obviously was not a main focus. It wasn't until I met my wife who is Chinese that I learned about this and she could not believe I didn't know about it. Of course it's a big part of the history education there and why many Chinese still hold strong grudges towards Japanese.

We are supposed to have overcome this line of thinking. This is basically "an eye for an eye".

>One of the failures of teaching a balanced history is to ignore what was going on in Asia in the run up to the war.

No. That's one of the failures of POORLY teaching history. Don't confuse a "balanced history" with "half of history".

You're effectively saying that committing atrocities is justified if it's against someone who also commits them.

It never is.

This is absolutely true, but I have trouble seeing the relevancy of stating that in how it relates to the fact that two non-military, civilian-dense cities were bombed. Normally killing hundreds of thousands of civilians for political gains is considered terrorism, easily a warcrime, despite the fact their government may be driving its population to horrible atrocities all over Asia, or not doing enough to prevent them. In fact I don't think the US really covers this enough, it's usually brought as merely the end of a bloody war, when you can find many generals who opposed, arguable claims that the bombs were the first political move in the cold war as a gesture of power towards the Soviet Union and as a way to have Japan surrender to the US rather than the allies, and therefore under US terms which would cement US-Japanese relations (which are solid to this day), as a test, and within a context where Japan may have offered to surrender under similar conditions as the US ultimately demanded, many months earlier. To be fair, there is no academic consensus on any of these points, but many are credible and sensible claims for which evidence does exist, and my experience of the standard reading in US culture makes little mention of this. It's mostly seen as a necessary evil that saved many lives by ending the war abruptly, which isn't incorrect, but far from the comprehensive truth or the only credible historical narrative.

But as for Japan's whitewashing, yes, in and of itself, viewed separately from the nuclear debate, you're absolutely right. It's quite astonishing they haven't gotten this right yet, and with what power a wrongful national narrative can continue to exist in the age of internet, globalisation and relatively little Japanese censorship. You'd think the latest generation would be acutely aware of its history. And it's not as if they haven't changed. They've done more than enough to consider themselves among the most civilised countries since then, of course there is a sense of shame but we're approaching an age where nobody during that time was alive, and where even the generation after it is on their way out. Internally Japan is long overdue in recognising these parts of its history in full, and I think purely internally few Japanese really would have an issue with that, as painful as it would be, just like I'm completely comfortable as a Dutch person to acknowledge my country's colonial and slave history. But these things are particularly externally, politically sensitive, in terms of Japan's international relations with the various powerhouses in Asia (China and Korea, and populous emerging economies like say Indonesia). Similar to say, if I were a Dutch politician I may be more concerned how our standing in the world changes when recognising the full extent of our colonial history (e.g. apologising for certain political executions the Netherlands committed are still controversial) Just like say Turkey and the Armenian genocide. Although even here as an outsider I think it would warm Japan's relations immensely if it were to reach out in sympathy and make at the very least symbolic gestures like small reparations.

And?

what is YOUR point?

Exactly but you will get downvoted to the oblivion because there's too many japanese,anime lovers that would hit you in the face if you would defend the bombing.

But these are retarded westerners who have no clue. They deserved every shrapnel from the bomb and still have not paid the full price to all of the victims.

HELL THESE japanese denied the free health-care to non-japanese victims. 20 000 koreans died in the bombings. But nobody cares.

Japanese people were and still are a terrible nation. I hope they sink to the oblivion.