Years ago I asked my buddy what was his take on dropping the bomb. He answered that when the bombs dropped, his dad was in Florida training for the invasion of Japan.
There's no snappy reply to that particular argument.
We in the modern day have the benefit of being able to pull examples from more than just WW2. Before WW2, the predictions of air power theorists were that strategic bombing would end wars before the powers could properly start mobilizing (look up Giulio Douhet, this was seriously argued). Japan in WW2 is the closest any example of strategic bombing has ever come to compelling a surrender, out of a dozen or so attempts. Its exceptionality is itself a suggestion that maybe bombing's role in Japanese surrender is perhaps inflated.
It's not like the numbers would have been lower...
My sense of it is that there was a strong feeling of the need to punish the Japanese, quite apart from any military necessity. I think that, combined with the need to demonstrate the power of the new weapons lead to a reluctance to seriously engage with the Japanese diplomatically. I take as evidence of that the fact that a key sticking point in the surrender decision was the status of the Emperor, who ultimately wasn't removed by the US anyway. The allies could have made their terms much clearer much earlier, and they could have engaged with the Japanese attempts to seek peace much more. And of course there was the ongoing worry that the Soviet Union might gain too much if things weren't sorted out quickly.
From Truman's diaries at the time:
> Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time.
Blame those, who started the war, instead of those, who ended it.
Defenders can use anything, including weapons of mass destruction, to defend themselves. Attacking to with intent to kill even one person is crime.
Not according to the Geneva convention. Targeting civilians is a war crime, regardless of who does it.
In many wars, both sides claim to only defend themselves, often both sides even claim to have been attacked first. Just look at the last few wars fought by the US for example. Under such a simplistic moral compass as you gave, they'd both feel justified to do anything.
> Attacking to with intent to kill even one person is crime.
Dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian center is attacking with intent to kill.
It is just not so simple.
However, this should not alter your moral compass. Those, who defend themselves, have moral rights to wipe the attackers or invaders.
War is ugly, strategic bombing never worked, proponents knew that (they saidnsouch in their own contemporary reports and statements, going as far as knowing strategic bombing of civilians was in deed a war crime). Nuclear bombs are a contiuation of of strategic bombing, and as strategic bombing goes, they were an unnecessary war crime.
Imperial Japan committed numerous war crimes, whether or not they agreed that they were war crimes at the time. By the same token anything that was done to them should not be judged by what their own standard was.
Acknowledgement that it was a warcrime.
> by which standard that Imperial Japan recognized and adhered to?
Admonishment to get some damn perspective. What was done to Japan must be evaluated in the context of what Japan would have been doing to American soldiers and POWs had America been forced to invaded Japan proper. That war was non-stop war crimes from Japan. Particularly perfidy, false surrender, which would have gotten huge numbers of Japanese civilians killed in any case. Truman made the right call, for America and for Japan.
Why can't we admit that the Allies committed their own war crimes and move on?
If American war crimes are worth mentioning, then so are Japanese war crimes. Wanting to discuss one without the other isn't reasonable. What you are asking for is the erasure of context, and to that I say No.
Hiroshima still was a war crime.