They had ALREADY surrendered before the bombing.
And no, even if you could prove that, it still wouldn't justify it
Discussion
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, and no doubt they would not have surrendered on August 15, if not for the threat of more atomic bombs being dropped on their populations.
A more humane way to end the war IMO was to drop an atomic bomb on a military position or naval port which would have little civilian casualties, and then tell the Japanese that Tokyo would be destroyed next if they did not surrender that perhaps would have ended the war.
But it is very easy in 2023 to talk about what leaders in 1945 should have done. In August 1945 countries had just had more than a half decade of destroying each others cities and civilian populations already, and Truman was not going to risk the deaths of 100s of thousands of his troops to invade Japan. The Emperor would likely fought to the last man if not for the atomic bomb, based on historians judgement of the man.
Twats today love to rewrite history.
Fuck em
Hindsight is 2020. This isn't rewriting history but learning from it so we don't commit the same crimes and avoid the evils of the past.
We needed to respond, but we also needed to have avoided evil acts, and attacking innocents is one of the worst crimes. If we instead attacked a military compound, the blood of the innocents would be on the hands of the Japanese military because they put them in harm's way.
It’s rewriting history.
What’s done is done.
Is it helpful to study history? Certainly.
But to go back and say “should never have done this.” Without the context of the day is revisionist nonsense.
"Study history, but don't ever pass judgement over a moral decision!"
We study history so we can make observations and learn from it, especially moral lessons.
Rewriting history would be denying facts. That's literally the opposite of what I'm doing.
This is one of the cases where being an expert actually matters.
Have you studied WWII extensively? Do you have all of the context?
Are you 100% positive the Japanese would have surrendered if we had used the bomb elsewhere?
100%. Not 98 or 99 but 100%.
citation needed
No creation needed. The plain fact is that two cities with all their innocents were attacked. Evil is not resolved by more evil. A military base or the emperor's palace should have been the target, not innocents. Even the emperor's palace would be really iffy.
The issue is not whether we needed to respond militarily (whether surrender was given) but the manner and method of our response. That doesn't need a citation.