this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 86 points 1 week ago (18 children)

Just a few days ago, it hit me on some new level that we fucking NUCLEAR BOMBED a country. TWICE.

We are literally the only country that has done that. And it's just sort-of this fun footnote of history. "Fine, maybe that was a whoopsie, but blah blah blah something about land invasion blah blah blah. Our baaaaad!"

[–] Iambus@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago
[–] Denjin@feddit.uk 50 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (15 children)

In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.

The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).

In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children's throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.

The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers' lives.

Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

*edit: all you 4edgy5me America Bad commenters really need to do some reading about Japanese atrocities during the Pacific War here are some suggestions:

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

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

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_campaign

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 23 points 1 week ago (10 children)
[–] Denjin@feddit.uk 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's literally the trolley problem writ large. Do you kill a few hundred thousand civilians to prevent the deaths of probably several million.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But thats dishonest. It assumes that:

  1. The nuking of Japan was the reason they surrendered

  2. The nukes were gauranteed to make then surrender.

Like would it still have been justified if Japan hadnt surrendered? Then youve committed an atrocity for no reason.

Or what about if it was a different atrocity? Would tourturing a few hundred thousand Japanese to death be justified for the same reason?

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[–] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I used to think along the lines of this too until I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial where they tell you about all the ways the US min-maxed the bomb to kill as many people as possible and did it truly as an experiment.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Well, idk much about history and politics and war, so I'm just gonna trust 'Muricans claiming they need to bomb other countries to bring peace to the world

[–] NeilBru@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (14 children)

What part of @Denjin@feddit.uk's statement do you disagree with?

In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.

The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).

In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children's throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.

The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers' lives.

Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

The Allies had just fought the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater.

Have you ever even read any of the history of the proposed plan for the invasion of mainland Japan and the casualty estimates? How about the reasoning for opposing the Imperial Japanese Government?

Or Is this your opportunity to virtue signal to people on the internet by implying Americans are murderous pigs and the jApAnEsE dId NoThInG wRoNg?

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago

Americans ***ARE ***murderous pigs, and we haven't changed in the decades since.

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[–] Guidy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What a lazy and shitty comment.

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 week ago

As someone from the country that's been conquered by japan: absolutely yes.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

more like least path of resistance to peace.

[–] NeilBru@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

In context, against the Imperial Japanese Government, unfortunately, yes.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago

Yes, when you grow up deep inside the imperial bubble.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

When the US nuked Japan, almost everyone in my homeland (China) knows what's coming next. It maked the end of a terrible age of war, and era of subjugation by inperialists. The japaneese invaders are soon gonna be gone. It was a huge relief.

Then when the news of japan's surrender hits the news, there was celebrations throughout China. And I'm sure those in Korea and various Southeast Asian countries would also be celebrating that.

It would've taken months and possibly years for the US to do a non-nuclear attack of japan, and that would've allowed them to continue doing massacres across Asia. Civillians shouldn't have to die for the crime of their government, but there were not many options, and this was the lesser evil.

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[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them

We nuked them twice after carrying out a campaign of what we cozily referred to as "moral bombing", where we targeted civilian populations to kill the families of soldiers.

We ARE absolute monsters.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The only fair way to solve this is going to be for someone to nuke us for nuking Japan, then someone needs to nuke whomever nukes us, etc...until everyone gets nuked. Then we can get along.

[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean Japan and the US have a pretty solid relationship now, it's just internet weirdos who can't get along, which is probably why a lot of us are on the internet in the first place.

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[–] ZMoney@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I wonder when, if ever, this narrative will finally be laid to rest. Perhaps, as long as the US military exists as a globe-spanning hegemon, we will always have to hear some version of this story.

No contemporary historian or political scientist takes this view for granted. It is one of many, and I encourage you to read about more than the wikipedia articles about Japanese atrocities. All militaries commit attocities. This is not the point.

The argument you offer is that the United States had a moral imperative to invade and occupy the Japanese home islands. What is the justification for this? Why would this have been necessary? Everyone who has seriously studied the history knows that the Soviet Union was preparing to invade Japan and its leadership was preparing to surrender in one form or another. The bombs were dropped because the US wanted to ensure that they were the negotiating party and occupying power.

The justification to avoid further violence is extremely cynical. Nowhere in the rules of war does it say that the only way to end a conflict is to utterly annihilate your oppnent. That rule was invented by expansionist empires. You can go back to the history of Rome's wars with Greece to see this type of logic (or lack thereof) play out. It is a message. It says that we are not your equal and we will not broker any deals on equal footing. We are your hegemon and we will dictate the terms. And then we'll blame you for any atrocities we commit, and everyone will know that we did what we did in the name of peace and justice.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The Japanese attacked and brought the USA into the second world war, I mean you seem to forget that.

[–] ZMoney@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

And so therefore it had to carry out a land invasion? Can you explain why this necessarily follows?

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[–] ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

Those Palestinian children were going to be used to populate the schools and hospitals so they can't be bombed. Better starve them.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah and as we do, we fucked up their transition to a democratic state but in the process created a very unique nation

https://youtu.be/YzRWPGSaKDk

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much the first stages of the Cold War pivot as the USSR declared war on Japan and took Manchuria and Korea from Japanese occupation.

Imperial Japan had hoped the USSR would arbitrate peace with the Allies as they had not fought or invaded, but the Soviets chose to declare war, sealing their fate.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

France nuclear bombed Algeria lots of times and nobody makes such a big deal of it.

[–] grissino@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe because instead of dropping them on cities they dropped them in the Sahara desert?

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We are literally the only country

Yeah that's why I hate the nationalist "we" that you're using here. I didn't have shit to do with nuking japan. Zero respect for those terrorists.

[–] zululove@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

It’s called bigger gun diplomacy

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