WW2 Channel (Indy and Co) Episode on Hiroshima and Nagasaki But it's a "war against humanity" special

But I'd argue at the time there was little other ways to wage war against Japan (Germany) in a manner speedy enough to limit the harm they were doing to China (Eastern Europe

I honestly know nothing about what the catholic position on war is, but regardless of that, let's take a look at Germany and Japan of the time.

These countries were genocidal warmongering dictatorships, it is no surprise they weren't treated with kid's gloves.

Even the strategic bombing over Germany was no match to what the nazis did to Poland of the atrocities they committed in the Eastern Front. If any of the axis countries had had access to nukes they wouldn't twice about using them.

The relevant counterfactuals to consider would be if they'd further pursued peace negotiations prior to an invasion/bombing campaign, and there were people involved advocating for it at the time.

TIL bishop something is speaking autoritarily for entirety of Catholic Church.

I was bringing up the historical position of Church leaders in America (one of condemnation) but here are some quotes from the Popes since WW2:

"The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral…"

But since Pope Francis is famously "not based" here's Pius XII:

The atomic bomb, as Pope Pius XII pointed out on 8 February 1948, is "the most terrible weapon that the human mind has ever conceived." On 24 December 1955, in his Christmas radio message to the world, Pope Pius forcefully described "the spectacle that would be presented to the horrified eye" after the use of nuclear weapons: "Entire cities, even the largest and richest in history and art, annihilated; a black blanket of death over the pulverised matter, covering countless victims with limbs burnt, twisted, scattered, while others groan in spasms of agony."

and here's the Catechism:

Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation [cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 80 §3]. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons—especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons—to commit such crimes (CCC 2314).

Are you seriously arguing that the Church has ever been in favor or unclear on a position regarding the use of the atom bombs? !Catholics since I'm talking to three of you now lol

I think the main claim is the view of the atomic bomb as an indiscriminate weapon versus a "directed" strategic bombing campaign on key military industries of an enemy i.e. bombing Dresden to knock its rail lines out of existence versus bombing Hiroshima to knock it out of existence. Of course, when you then consider something like the firebombing of Tokyo the issue turns into one of its total "success" versus one of the actions itself i.e. assuming all bombs that hit Tokyo are always successful in doing the most damage individually you'll get a wiped out Tokyo much the same.

Of course again, this all falls under the very idea of a strategic bombing campaign in the first place, in whether it was successful and to what degree in the first place.

For Hiroshima and Nagasaki while I don't think they've ever been condemned due to the fact that even in popular culture they're viewed, quite frankly, as terror bombings (surrender as you can see what weapons we have at our disposal) I think it's hard to support them without resorting to some sort of lesser of two evils as even the smallest terror weapon no matter how small is condemned by the catechism.

Why?

Counterpoint, nuking the Japs was based

But now seriously, 100k japanese troops died in Okinawa alone, and the reconquest of the Philippines took the lives of 420k japs.

No way a full invasion of Japan would have ended with just 100k casualties for Japan and a few dozen thousands for the US. Even during Operation Overlord the US suffered 120k casualties.

Also, your link doesn't work.

!historychads

The U.S. Sixth Army, which would invade and occupy Kyushu, estimated 124,935 U.S. battle casualties, including 25,000 dead, plus 269,000 non-battle casualties (disease, accident, etc.) for Kyushu alone. The JCS came up with an estimate that a 90-day campaign on Kyushu would cost 156-175,000 battle casualties, with 38,000 killed in action. By late July, the JCS was forecasting 500,000 casualties at the high end and 100,000 at the low end. In late July 1945, the War Department provided an estimate that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead. (Given that the initial Downfall plan called for 1,792,700 troops to go ashore in Japan, this estimate is indeed most sobering, and suggests many more troops than planned would need to be fed into a meat grinder). Other estimates in the U.S. government indicated U.S. deaths at 500,000 to 1 million. Which of these and other estimates would be the most accurate has been hotly debated over the years (and are caught up in the debate about whether the atomic bomb should have been used), and I'm not going to solve it. But it is clear that the cost of invading Japan would have been staggering for both the U.S. and the Japanese.

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-1.html

Taking one generals opinion over others as authoritative source isn't a strong argument. Especially when we know many things in hindsight they didn't.

There are many reasons to assume invasion would have been bloody.

It was naval invasion on a scale larger than D day, without a friendly island 30 miles away riddled with air fields to support it from.

Kyushu has a hilly terrain that aids defenders, doubly in hiding airplanes and like. On this topic, kamikaze attacks are essentially guided bombs in an era of dumb bombs, a normal bomber has a ~15% chance of hitting a ship and kamikaze has more than 90%+ chance. Which is worrying when you have to ferry relatively slow troop transports full of soldiers across an ocean.

D day benefited from effective allied deception, with more troops tied around Calais to defend against phantom invasion than fighting in Normandy. Attempts at same deception failed in Japan, Japanese army leaders knew Kyushu is an obvious target and deployed troops accordingly.

On the other hand, apart from kamikaze tactics Japanese were less well equipped than German army.

Ultimately it falls down to the question of Japanese morale, which was impossible to argue for sure then and is impossible to argue now. The Japanese fought savagely and to the last soldier (and civilian) on multiple occasions, but at the same time there situation would have been more desperate. It is possible invasion would have been less bloody than predicted, but it could also have been way worse. And thank God we never found out.

That's U.S. casualties not japanese. A field general does not want to play up the death toll of his troops it's actively against their interests to do so.

The issue is that many more Japanese would die. They were prepping to send civies with spears against a modern military force. In addition to starvation, exposure, disease, and additional bombing campaigns that would come with a ground invasions.

The idea that a ground invasion would result in less death is asinine

abandoning war without a victory.

Literally was never an option

starving Japan into surrender

Again resulting in a death toll of millions/tens of millions

Paraguay would finally get what's coming to them

why are you frickers making me get a Visa to vacay now?

We'll launch a retaliatory nuke