neither. It wasn't genocide because it was not done with the object to wipe out a race or culture. It wasn't necessary because the end of the war could have been acheived without dropping the bombs...but it would have taken a lot longer and I am not sure any fewer lives would have ended up being lost in the long run...just more of the lives lost would have been Allied service men along with Japanese people. If they hadn't dropped the bombs they would have continued bombing those cities anyway and most likely the end result of lost lives, etc would have been just about the same just over several months instead of all at one time. What it was was expedient. It was the quickest way to acheive a goal and to make a statement of *don't even think about messing with us again*...

Necessary.

Was the bombing of Pearl Harbor was necessary? I really think that there should have been retaliation for the Pearl Harbor bombing...but I also think that it was taken WAY too far and to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary.

We must understand that every Japanese (not just a few fanatics) was a potential suicide bomber for the divine Emperor. Parents sent out four-year-old girls with grenades under their kimonos. There were kamikaze boats, subs, oxcarts... the Banzai charge was made when they knew the battle was lost and every life could have been saved by surrendering but they all made a mass attack against overwhelming odds just in the hopes of killing a few. Only the two bombs--and their mistaken belief that we had a lot more and would use one of them per week, as Truman lied--made them surrender. And since the Nazis had shared their nuclear technology with Japan, we couldn't just blockade them into their home islands and wonder when they'd smuggle one into one of our port cities. Inasmuch as MacArthur expected one million American deaths and our kill ratio in the Pacific was seventeen to one, it would have been more of a genocide if we had NOT used the atom bomb. Besides which the greatest single incident in Japanese history and the best thing that ever happened to the Japanese people was the date they surrendered unconditionally to the United States and started their climb out of ignorance, illness and imperial exploitation to having the second largest economy in the world.

Truman did not give the matter full consideration. Apparently, the U.S army had already come up witha strike plan that would have ended the war, and caused far less casulaties. Also, Japan were not as warlike and determined as they had seemed. They were tiring, and could have been easily defeated. However, I do sympathise with the decision to drop the bombs, as the incentive for revenge after Pearl Harbor would not be hard to resist

Absolutely necessary. Us or them. It saved us the cost of invasion. Don't forget Japan declared war on us!

daisymae19...a statement could have been made by 1 not 2 bombs at an unpopulated place not 2 cities..its was more of a revenge to Pearl Harbour" than neccessary...the US has historically instutionalised terrorism against its enemies in europe and elsewhere ...what about native americans.. what the US did with them ??? north america belongs to them and the US did attrocities against them ...what a shame ... its said for people like of the US " dont let the ego get the better of u " japs women n kids were as precious humans as anyone in the world...had the US and allies lost the war ... Truman and Chirchil were fit cases and would have been brought to justice for war crimes...interestingly Obama said the same for Bush jr. !!! i wish its done...

The bombing of Pearl Harbor was not necessary either but it happened

The estimates Truman had recieved from the army said that Invading Japan with ground forces would see an estimated million plus lives lost. The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, were estimated at just under 100,000 lost. Which would you choose? 100,000 enemy or 1,000,000 enemy and allies? It's very easy to look back at the past and say, this or that were the wrong choice, but much more difficult, when in the moment.

I dont think the bombing of Pearl Harbor was necessary either.

T O MATT 89...there is no comparison between PEARL HARBOUR and HIROSHIMA...come on !!! u people should accept Hiroshima was a GRAND US BLUNDER in the HISTORY OF MANKIND...WHAT YOU SOW SO SHALL YOU REAP...

Think of the positives of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: it showed the world the horrific power of a nuclear device and becausae of this were the first and last nuclear devices to be used on an enemy. If they hadn't been dropped then, do we honestly believe they still would've never been used again, just built for the possibility of a threat? The Americans informed the Japanese that they had a "super-weapon" and must surrender immediately. It's a good thing this little game of chicken occured then when there were only a handful of nukes in US possession and not a few thousand in US and USSR possession.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima are totally necessary. Look at our plan before then: We just took Iwo Jima and Okinawa away from the Japs and we lost A LOT of young men. So, projections for loss of life were ridiculously high for the Americans, and same for the Japs. So, Truman decided that the bomb is a better solution than constant groundfighting where everyone loses because more life would have been lost that way. The bombs just get a negative thought to them because they destroyed so quickly. What I don't get though, is why we just didn't napalm Japan to death o.O We destroyed Tokyo that way...

The bombings were an act of warfare and whether or not they were "necessary" is debatable. Most scholars of the period admit that the direct result of the bombings was the surrender of Japan. By ending the war lives WERE saved. As we have no idea of knowing how long the war would have continued if the bombings didn't occur, we have no way of knowing how many lives were saved. I think it was a good decision, although I sorrow for those who died and suffered.

If only we had all the information available to us about the probabilities and the consequences, we could easily answer that question. I doubt even the President of the United States had that much. My personal opinion is that one of the two would have been sufficient, but I wasn't there, so I don't understand what they were up against.

@ LORI K ...In the same context the US attrocities OR so to say wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have prolonged too much . If tomorrow terrorist get their hand on WMDs and attack the US cities to tell hindside 2050 that " war had prolonged too much and we didnt know how long it would have gone on and how many innocent ppl would have died so we did this to the US and war stopped " Would they be justified?

@ LORI K and daisymae19...In the same context the US attrocities OR so to say wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have prolonged too much . If tomorrow terrorist get their hand on WMDs and attack the US cities to tell hindside 2050 that " war had prolonged too much and we didnt know how long it would have gone on and how many innocent ppl would have died so we did this to the US and war stopped " Would they be justified?

The use of the a-bomb during World War II wasn't entirely necessary to win, but in the long run it would have saved many american lives which would have been needed to invade Japan. Was it genocide? Yes and no. More than fifty-thousand japanese lost their lives during those bombings, but more american lives were saved because of it. As well if you look back before then, the japanese had killed even more chinese, koreans, americans, and even their own; japanese. In a way, they brought it upon themselves. And if history took a different route and the japanese leader was ousted by those on his own side before he signed for surrender. Many, many more would have perished on both sides.

WoOZackWoO -- NObama 2008 Nov, 02 2008 at 09:05 PM War is war. - Chill. - If they didn't wanna get destroyed, then they shouldn't have invaded Korea in the late 1800s. - Anyways, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary sacrifices to the greater cause of human life. WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS INSANITY... " CHILL " ??? YOU DO NOT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE IN A RIGHT KIND OF MIND... FOR GREATER CAUSE OF ETHICITY WHAT THE WORLD SHOULD DO TO STOP WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN???? AGAIN WAR IS WAR FOT THEM TOO !!!

GENOCIDE!!

By dropping the two bombs certainly ended the war in the far east and it did save many American an allied lives but be it right or be it wrong it made Japan surrender. I had the misfortune to have to sit and watch a military film that was taken after the bombing of Hiroshima and its too horrific to describe on AB.All I can say is that there is a river in Hiroshima with many bridges and if you had been there you could have walked over the congested river without walking over the bridges.The film made me realise what nuclear war is all about and I pray that the bomb will never be used in warfare again.I do however believe that at the time it was the right thing to do,but I do not think that it was realised at the time what utter devastation and misery it would cause.

It was a war crime. The temptation was strong though to "test" the bombs to "see what they could do," even though it was well known that the Japanese army had run out of steam and had no fuel left.

Lori K: Yes I am English,and its true that you can still see small parts of bomb damage in London,and in fact in many other parts of the United Kingdom.The German Luftwaffe (air force)did their best to smash our cities but they got smashed them selves during the Battle of Britain,but the still carried on bombing our Industrial towns all over the country.Many churches were Blitzed and quite a few of them have been left as a monument to the war.The most famous example is in Coventry where the cathedral was fire bombed.The night of the Blitz Thursday 14th November 1940 saw a massive air attack and there were many casualties.The Atlantic convoys during the war that brought us food,oil,petrol, ammunition and war vehicles helped us to survive until our allies America came into the war after Pearl Harbor.These brave allied seaman gave up their lives crossing back and forth across the Atlantic as many of their cargo ships were sank by German submarines.When the American troops arrived in Britain I think occupied Europe knew that they would soon be liberated by the allies who were all stationed ready for the big invasion at Normandy.

I think people on this forum have accepted that it was an american genocide / state terrorism...thats why no one is coming up with pro US crap...

oh it was necessary, in the long run it saved thousands of American lives, not to mention money and resources.

The question is flawed, to the extent that "necessary" is question-begging (necessary for what?) and that a thing might be both "necessary" for a given outcome AND constitute genocide; it's not either-or. There is no doubt that as the word is used today, not only were the atomic bombings genocide, but so were the conventional fire-bombings of German and Japanese cities by the Allies. The top answerer on this thread claims that "it wasn't genocide because it was not done with the object to wipe out a race or culture." Well, neither were Saddam Hussein's war crimes in Kurdistan, or Radovan Karadzic's war crimes in Bosnia, yet few nowadays dispute their fundamentally genocidal character. At least if Christiane Amanpour can be taken as a representative of public opinion. As to whether it was necessary; necessary for what? To end the war? Absolutely not. The Japanese were on their last legs and were looking for a way to surrender while gaining an assurance that we weren't going to hang their Emperor. (We didn't hang the emperor anyway, of course, but just to make sure they knew we could if we wanted, we killed an extra 120,000 of them.) Necessary to scare Stalin? What did hitting two cities accomplish that a demonstration 15 miles off the coast of Tokyo wouldn't have? To sum up: yes, it was genocide and no, there was no identifiable necessity. But even if it was necessary, it was still genocidal in character, on a par with Hussein, Milosevic and other mass murderers, if not quite on a par with Hitler.

I think its necessary to do that to the whole middles east

Japan refused to stop and they were willing to die in pursuit of their goals. I believe it was necessary yo...

No. To the contrary imperial Japan was set for mass suicide. The problem revolved around emperor worship. The U.S. casualties expected alone in operation Downfall were estimated "conservatively" at 1,000,000 with estimated combined losses of all participating allied forces to exceed 1,300,000 casualties. The training of Japanese women & children with weapons as primitive as sharpened bamboo spears, for mass wave suicide attacks would have dwarfed the Jewish number of casualties regarding the holocaust in Europe. In retrospect, the two atomic bombs used against Japan may indeed be credited as the biggest life saving devices created by man up until that period. The potential loss of upwards & quite possibly more of 16,000,000 Japanese civilians, plus countless more Japanese military personnel would have matched or exceeded the loses inflicted in the ENTIRE WW2 European conflict!!! Note; the fire bombing of Tokyo claimed more Japanese casualties then the two atomic weapons used against Japan. Though it is impossible to tally the casualties exactly, some sources credit the fire bombing of Tokyo with slightly more than 1,000,000 Japanese casualties. Compare this with the fire bombing of Dresden that only claimed 250,000 German casualties. The fire bombing of Tokyo is considered the single most costly MILITARY operation, regarding human loss of life, in the entire Pacific war.

I am not down playing the US part in the war at all,and we are all grateful that you came to assist us in defeating.Germany and Russia signed a pact before the war that they would not attack each other,but Germany broke that pact when they launched Operation Barbarosa on Sunday 22nd June 1941.They had 178 Divisions in Russia and still they could not beat them and in the end it was Russia who crushed them. The Russians lost 25,000,000 killed in the war and made the biggest sacrifices.The German army was a well oiled killing machine and their soldiers were battle hardened.The battles in Russia took place all year round and Russia beat the Germans at the battle of Kursk which was fought in the summer.The winter months only slowed the fighting down and caused big supply problems. We the allies only faced 74 German divisions in the west,can you imagine what would have happened if we were facing the whole 252 German divisions when we landed at Normandy?It was not America who beat the Germans on their own.It was a combined effort by all the allies including Russia and other eastern European troops,who fought bravely and won the day. And please remember that Russia had been fighting a war with Germany since June 1941 and were the ones that were pushing them back towards Germany long before we the allies invaded France,and their blood sacrifice speaks for itself.

Genocide

It was a good decision by an name. War is hell. The Japanese should have thought about this before they bombed Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States of America. As the old saying goes, "You mess with the bull, you get the horn".

it is NEVER-- I repeat, NEVER-- necessary to bomb something/somewhere!!!

complete and total Genocide, Americas crime against humanity. Nuclear weapons should be destroyed there horribly excessive, and any nation on earth that would employ one should be disbanded. I love America but am ashamed about that bombing. Just one more of a thousand reasons I hate being white.

Necessary? Maybe...probably...yeah, I guess. I certainly would not have wanted to make the decision on that one. But genocide? I don't think so. If I wanted to destroy a race, I would have dropped more than two bombs.

The cost in American lives would have been unbelievable!Many times more than at the two sites. But these questions bring out the pacifists and bleeding Heart liberals so forget a measured response from them.

it was genocide and it was horrible, it was an attack to civilians not to army....how can you say it was necessary? in pearl harbor only the soldiers died and ships sunk but with the nuke hundreds of thousands died with more than two million people suffered after effects...i still cant believe a christian, a human being did that...

Of course! Would you rather have 140 000 people die or 1 000 000 people die?

It was necessary. As a matter of fact, the Japanese were working on an atomic bomb of their own and have said that they would not have hesitated to have used it if they had their's first. How many self rightous idiots here would have been willing to die in a dirty invasion of Japan in order to not have dropped the bomb? Makes you wonder, don't it.

Hmmmmmm. It's a difficult one. I would say that there were far greater horrors in WWII that somwhat dwarf this one, but nevertheless...hmmm It was probably necessary, but I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to be the one pressing the button.