Should the nuclear bombing of japan in WW2 be considered a war crime?

@swirlie 👏

@JavaJoe @swirlie @tallpowerhouseblonde

From the book, "Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45," by British author Max Hastings (emphasis mine) -


" Japanese sometimes justify such inhumanity by suggesting that it was matched by equally callous Allied bombing of civilians. Japanese moral indignation caused many U.S. aircrew captured in 1944-45 to be treated as "war criminals." For instance, eight B-29 crewman of the 29th Bomb Group were killed in 1945 by suffering unanaesthetised vivisection carried out in front of medical students at a hospital in Fukuoka on Kyushu. Their stomachs, hearts, lungs, and brain segments were removed."

@Byron8by7

Do you know this book to be proven fact?

@swirlie I do not understand why you would ask if the book I cite is "proven fact," but, yes, I do know that it is. It was a New York Times bestseller, and it has 28 pages of notes. The author, Max Hastings, has written over twenty books, including several about World War II. The Wikipedia entry about Hastings has more information.

@Byron8by7

The reason I ask, is because your quote from the book sounds like the work of fiction. Just asking!

@swirlie It had been well documented that the Japanese treated Allied prisoners with barbaric cruelty.

@Byron8by7

I agree. Just as it has been well-documented that the US military has treated civilians with barbaric cruelty. However, the US military calls such incidents "collateral damage". It would stand to reason then, that the Japanese employed that same rationale in that book you have quoted. Makes sense, right?!

@swirlie The context is completely different. I am finished here.

@Byron8by7

You are making it different. Quite frankly, you were finished the moment you quoted that book. Without factual evidence to back up the Author's claim, the quote is irrelevant.

@swirlie It is not merely a "claim." In the notes of the book, an article in The Baltimore Sun newspaper of May 20, 1995 is cited as the source for the following text, which appears in the book right after the passage I quoted:

" Half a century later, one doctor present, Dr. Toshioro Tono, said: "There was no debate among the doctors about whether to do the operations -- that was what made it so strange." "

Hardly irrelevant.

@Byron8by7

Ok, you're right.

@swirlie I urge you to read "Retribution," in particular, the final chapter, "Legacies." There is much more about this than I can cite here.