Not a new revelation, but the article pulls from good sources and it’s nice to see this myth repudiated in a mainstream outlet.

  • Dagwood222
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    29 days ago

    Imperial Japan was as bad as Nazi Germany.

    They were holding literally millions of people in slavery and had used biological warfare.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

    The Japanese high command knew that they’d lost the war after Midway, but kept fighting for ‘reasons.’

    Every day the war kept going, innocent people in the Japanese Empire were being raped and killed. If any of them had been given a chance to vote on the matter, they certainly would have okayed the bombing.

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      29 days ago

      Oh you want to get I to a wikipedia battle?

      Okay, while Japan and Germany were holding people in slavery and used for experimentation, the allies were doing the exact same thing.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_prisoner-of-war_camps_in_Canada

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchinson_Internment_Camp

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

      The US High Command knew they had won the war and were eager to drop atomic bombs on cities to show the Soviet Union they had a working bomb and to study the real world effects of a nuclear bomb being dropped on a city. It was as much science as terrorism.

      • Dagwood222
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        29 days ago

        So, you admit that the Japanese were enslaving and raping millions, and that stopped after the bombs fell.

        Seems we agree on the most basic point.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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          28 days ago

          Curious, are you claiming that except the tens of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki the bombs also vaporised every single Japanese war criminal in every point of China, Korea etc?
          Or are you less literal, just again with no further arguments other than “it did because it did” backpedaling to the original claim OP is challenging?

          • Dagwood222
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            28 days ago

            Here’s a little thought experiment.

            Pretend you are a Korean/Vietnamese/Chinese et al victim of the Japanese invasion.

            You’ve had your home destroyed; your family members killed and maimed; seen thousands of women raped. The atrocities are ongoing, and every day you live in fear that you or someone you love will be the next one to die.

            Harry Truman comes to you and asks how long should he wait for the Japanese to surrender.

            How many months would you give the Japanese to make up their minds? Remember that the rapes and murders aren’t going to stop while they decide.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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              28 days ago

              So you are just backpedaling and trying the other path. You got enough reading and listening posted by other people but you are still trying? How about you answer with actual argument instead of cracker concern trolling and emotional blackmail? But to entertain you for a second, i would told Truman to fuck off and accept their original surrender proposition. I would also stab him, maybe it would save millions of people, mostly in Korea.
              Finally, your moral asspull attempt is made even further invalid by the fact that Japan surrendered nearly a month after bombs that’s a month of further “killing my loved ones” in which America did not dropped even more atom bombs? Why if those were what forced japan to “immediately” stop killing?

              • Dagwood222
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                28 days ago

                I would also stab him, maybe it would save millions of people,

                So, it’s okay for you to kill in the name of protecting lives, but other people shouldn’t?

                That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                  28 days ago

                  The US wouldn’t kill in the name of protecting Asian lives because the US didn’t care about Asian lives. They literally had Japanese American children in concentration camps at the time. Half a decade later they’d commit to a massive genocidal war in Korea, and before that they’d do plenty of mass killings of peaceful protestors in Korea.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      29 days ago

      Thing is that Japan was already trying to surrender, and the US was well aware of the fact before the decision to drop the bombs was made. The only purpose of this crime against humanity was to show USSR what level of depravity the US regime was capable of.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20220404122536/https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/15427-magic-diplomatic-summary-war-department-office

      There’s a whole book written on the subject by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa called Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. The fact that Japanese regime committed atrocities in no way justifies the atrocities committed by the US regime. Of course, I realize the concept that two wrongs don’t make a right might be too complex of an idea for the liberal mind to comprehend.

      • Dagwood222
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        29 days ago

        So, they were thinking about maybe starting the process.

        Meanwhile, the war crimes were ongoing.

        Let’s do a little thought experiment.

        Pretend you’re a Burmese, Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese citizen. You’ve seen your friends and family killed; had your home town devastated; watched thousands of women raped. Not only had you already seen it, but it was an ongoing thing. How many months would you have given the Japanese High Command to mull the situation?

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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          28 days ago

          Incredible that you’d use countries that US promptly invaded after the war and killed countless civilians in, where people are still dealing with effects of chemicals like agent orange and unexploded ordinance, to make a case that US dropped nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians as a humanitarian action. 🤡

          • Dagwood222
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            28 days ago

            Pretend you’re a Burmese, Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese citizen. You’ve seen your friends and family killed; had your home town devastated; watched thousands of women raped. Not only had you already seen it, but it was an ongoing thing. How many months would you have given the Japanese High Command to mull the situation?

            Funny how you can’t actually answer the question.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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              28 days ago

              I did answer your “question”. The US never gave a shit about the lives of people in any of these countries, and the racists running the US regime see them as subhuman. US did not drop the bombs to help these people. What part of that are you still struggling to understand?

              • Dagwood222
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                28 days ago

                I must have missed the answer.

                Just give me a number. How many months would you, a Burmese victim of the invasion, let the Japanese go on killing and raping?

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                  28 days ago

                  What part of US did not care about how many civilians would die are you having trouble understanding. Go read up on what US proceeded to do to the civilians in Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other countries in Asia right after the war. Ask yourself what Burmese victim of the invasion, let the US go on killing and raping?

                  • Dagwood222
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                    28 days ago

                    Sounds like you’re saying that the Japanese raping and killing was justified because of the American killings that occured later.

                    Because I’m still not seeing an actual number.

                    I’ll posit my thought experiment one more time.

                    It’s August 1945. You’re a Burmese who escaped and made it to Washington. Harry S. Truman confides in you that he has a terrible weapon that will wipe out an entire city in an instant. He offers you the option. Drop the bomb and end the war instantly, or let the raping and killing go on while the Japanese dither about surrender. You can’t see into the future. How many months do you tell Harry to let the atrocities go on.

                    I just want to see one number.