One of the reasons given was the bomb would save more civilian lives by not extending the war. Estimated 30 million.

By that logic any violation of the rules of war is justified, as long as you win afterwards.

Japanese had killed so many civilians from other countries. They did not do any harm to Japan. So what?

Following your logic: "America had killed so many civilians from other countries..."

The United States has done a lot of wrong in the world, and has taken many innocent lives.

It has not done anything near the magnitude of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.

If the United States engaged in _true_, genocide, killed millions, or annexed other countries, then I would fully support a war against it.

I don't believe that the United States has done more wrong than good in its existence purely because of the atrocities of the Axis.

2 wrong does not make 1 right

Yeah, that is pretty much Ethics 101. I think it's time to bring back ethics lessons in schools.

Ethics is a great intellectual exercise.

Ethics does nothing to protect the innocent.

This is the logic terrorist groups use.

This line of argument always seems weird to me. The Imperial Japanese Army was made up of conscripted _civilians_. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; ordinary folk from all walks of life were conscripted into the IJA and given training and sent off to invade other parts of Asia, where they committed various atrocities on a par with the Nazis. Civilians did do that.

As for why, IMO the strong militarism that was part of their culture in that era is probably a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism

Technically speaking every military is made up of civilians … every soldier was once a civilian.

That said, there is a difference between you voluntarily signing up to join the military and you being dragged into it.

To state the obvious, civilians can get dragged into something and manage not to commit atrocities. The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. They weren't drugged, lobotomized, or transformed into robots either. What they did came from within themselves.

> The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities.

Maybe not directly.

100s of thousands of people don't commit atrocities just out of the blue.

Their doctrine was pretty hardcore.

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

Ultimately it is the civilians who provide the resources for their government and military to function.

If your government engaged in widespread offensive wars that leave millions dead, then I think that your civilians become a valid military target.

If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians?

> If your country isn't respecting the other civilians, then why would you expect another country to respect your civilians?

At a time when we have seen the Israel-Palestine conflict ratchet up to the worst levels of violence in decades, maybe we should be hesitant to accept this position. This kind of thinking on both sides there is part of how and why they are where they are.

You might interpret my previous comment as saying "it's okay to kill civilians", which wasn't my point.

To phrase it a little better: if some country is committing atrocities at scale, then I believe any amount of force is justified to bring that to an end.

Yeah, sorry, after rereading your comment, I realized I may have responded to a point you didn't quite make.

History has demonstrated that kind of thinking is going to harden resolve. It's militarily useless and morally repugnant.