this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Around the world, the Barbenheimer meme has helped launch two Hollywood films into the stratosphere. In Japan, the meme isn't going over as well.

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[–] ElBarto@lzrprt.sbs 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No one should have to die that way ever, but all Japan had to do was not bomb an American target, America wasn't involved at the time.

[–] ArcticAmphibian@lemmus.org 49 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The Japanese families living in Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the surrounding countryside were NOT the ones who decided to go to war.

It's easy to adopt an 'us-versus-them' mentality where you blame an entire people for the actions of their unjust leader, but it's more mature to be both glad the war is over and sad so many had to perish to end it.

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[–] shanghaibebop 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

US embargoed Japanese oil and rubber and the imperial war machine would’ve grounded to a halt without Philippines (US territory) rubber and Dutch Oil.

Not justifying it, but strategically, war with the US was inevitable for imperial Japan.

[–] Madison_rogue@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The point still stands. The Japanese didn't have to bomb Hawaii, yet they still made that choice. Regardless of complications around trade, embargoes, and peaceful alliances (all of which are peaceful tools nations states use to fulfill their best interests), the Japanese were the aggressors in the Pacific.

I'm not trying to sound callous in regards to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because unfortunately the reason the U.S. used those bombs was to avoid a land invasion at the cost of thousands of more lives of their soldiers, not Japanese. I hate to say that dropping nuclear bombs on an enemy was due to estimates of casualties in either scenario. Math determined that dropping the bombs saved more lives than invasion through conventional means.

IN any other timeline, the bombing of Tokyo alone by the U.S. would be considered a war crime. Even more so the nuclear genocide in Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Only the fact that The Allies were victorious kept the U.S. from facing war crimes.

[–] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Math determined that dropping the bombs saved more lives than invasion through conventional means.

I'd be hesitant to trust the math too far, especially since it's based on many assumptions as to how the war would have played out despite one side being severely outgunned.

Call me an anti-military cynic, but I'm sure a bit of it was also the idea that they now had a nuke, and wanted to see what kind of damage it could do. Perhaps the numbers there were better than if it had been dropped on any other viable target (especially a European one): that math, at least, I can believe.