Lest we forget - Hiroshima & Nagasaki

[Copernicus]

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There is no moral equivalency and the instigators bear total responsibility for their actions, knowing full well the consequences.

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By that logic everything is justified in retaliation. <font color="red"> no, not everything. measured responses, taking into account the ability to win a war with different strategies, is justified when you are in a morally superior position. </font> Knowing the likely consequences of your bad actions does not mean that there's no more blame left for other people's bad actions that happen as a result. For example, if I throw rocks at an extremely violent man, knowing full well that he'll probably kill my kids in retaliation, that doesn't mean that it isn't wrong for him to kill my kids. I don't see how WW2-style strategic bombing is different from this situation in any way other than scale. <font color="red"> because his response of killing your kids is neither related to nor commensurate with the attack on him. If you killed his kids instead of just throwing rocks at him, it would be much closer to the strategic bombing analogy</font>

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There is no such thing as a "sanitary" war any longer where armies square off with shields and swords, or even rifles and bayonets.

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Isn't that a separate issue? Maybe it is sometimes justifiable to drop fire women and children in wooden houses (seriously), but if it's wrong then we have a responsibility to avoid wrong actions, regardless of what has come before. <font color="red">finish your thought..."regardless of what has come before, but in consideration that what might come after will be worse". </font>


Finally, I don't think that "collateral damage" is an accurate description of the WW2 fire-bombings and nuclear attacks. We didn't target some factories and accidentally blow up some residences. We targeted tens of thousands of civilians at a time, and accomplished exactly what we set out to do.

[/ QUOTE ] <font color="red">perhaps CD isn't the appropriate term. I just used it as a shorthand for "strategic bombing of targets that may include a civilian population due to the inability to prosecute a war without inflicting severe damage to infrastructure and/or morale". Words dont change the fact that it was deemed necessary by good, moral men who would have much preferred a sanitary war.</font>

[mosdef]

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In a world where the people can't see shades of gray, there is only black.

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Well, as I alluded to in an earlier response to JK, I don't object to seeing shades of gray so much as I object to declaring that only your shade of gray is the right one and using violence to making everyone else adheres to your shade and your shade only. Do you see the difference?

[Copernicus]

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In a world where the people can't see shades of gray, there is only black.

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Well, as I alluded to in an earlier response to JK, I don't object to seeing shades of gray so much as I object to declaring that only your shade of gray is the right one and using violence to making everyone else adheres to your shade and your shade only. Do you see the difference?

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the only difference is that, as JK said, you are unable or unwilling to use your judgement to differentiate between moral and immoral, and in doing so reduce everything to equivalence.

[rubberloon]

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During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S. attack that deliberately took the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in the Strategic Bombing Survey conducted at President Harry Truman’s request, when the bomb hit Hiroshima on April 6, 1945, “nearly all the school children ... were at work in the open,” to be exploded, irradiated or incinerated in the perfect firestorm that the planners back at the University of California-run Los Alamos lab had envisioned for the bomb’s maximum psychological impact.

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Robert Scheer article

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Robert Scheer is mistaken on three points (1) the bombs were dropped 6 August 1945 (Hiroshima) and 9 August 1945 (Nagasaki)not April 1945, (2) the Japanese school year like the English one has a holiday from late July to early September (3) Harry Truman was Vice President 6 April 1945. Typical liberals, as usual, can't even get their facts right. I regard all liberals as wannabe nazi or islamic collaborators - whom neither nazis or islamics want.

Paul Fussel(l?) was delighted to hear of the bomb(s) because he wasn't going to die landing in Japan. The Japanese intended to inflict the maximum losses on the US when they landed, and by all accounts would have succeeded -they'd guessed the landing beaches and were thoroughly ready. Until Hiroshima and Nagasaki they intended to fight on - in the vain hope the Yanks would cry uncle.

[mosdef]

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In a world where the people can't see shades of gray, there is only black.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, as I alluded to in an earlier response to JK, I don't object to seeing shades of gray so much as I object to declaring that only your shade of gray is the right one and using violence to making everyone else adheres to your shade and your shade only. Do you see the difference?

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the only difference is that, as JK said, you are unable or unwilling to use your judgement to differentiate between moral and immoral, and in doing so reduce everything to equivalence.

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Not so - I just don't think that my individual view of morality is sufficient cause for me to justifiably attack someone else. Is it because I don't want them to act differently? No - it's because I don't believe that I can authorize myself to act based on my moral opinion without granting authority someone else to act based on their moral opinion. This does not mean I consider their moral code to be equally valid. Rather, it only means I don't have the hubris to think that my moral code is the one that all others should be FORCED to live by.

[bobman0330]

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There is no moral equivalency and the instigators bear total responsibility for their actions, knowing full well the consequences.

[/ QUOTE ]

By that logic everything is justified in retaliation. Knowing the likely consequences of your bad actions does not mean that there's no more blame left for other people's bad actions that happen as a result. For example, if I throw rocks at an extremely violent man, knowing full well that he'll probably kill my kids in retaliation, that doesn't mean that it isn't wrong for him to kill my kids. I don't see how WW2-style strategic bombing is different from this situation in any way other than scale.

[ QUOTE ]
There is no such thing as a "sanitary" war any longer where armies square off with shields and swords, or even rifles and bayonets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that a separate issue? Maybe it is sometimes justifiable to drop fire women and children in wooden houses (seriously), but if it's wrong then we have a responsibility to avoid wrong actions, regardless of what has come before.


Finally, I don't think that "collateral damage" is an accurate description of the WW2 fire-bombings and nuclear attacks. We didn't target some factories and accidentally blow up some residences. We targeted tens of thousands of civilians at a time, and accomplished exactly what we set out to do.

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Honestly, one problem with this whole debate is that there's really no good ethical framework to approach the problem with. And that was even more true at the time these things actually happened.

One factor that's not really appreciated (IMHO) about the firebombings and the atomic bombings is how new these things were. The "decision" to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was never actually made by anyone. The bombs were produced, they were shipped to Pacific airfields, and Truman ordered them used without any serious debate. That doesn't answer the moral question of whether it was a good thing to do, but it's important context for judging the actors.

A big part of the reason there was no discussion was that the ability to do these horrible things to civilians was completely new. Outside of science fiction and the speculation of a few generals, there was almost no appreciation of the havoc that massed conventional bombing (let alone nuclear weapons) could do. The first real experience of serious strategic bombing came with the Blitz in 1940 and the bombings of London, Coventry, and other British cities. The inevitable response, lamentable though it may be, was not "What moral considerations should govern our response?" but "Let's get the bastards!" (It's interesting to note the non-use of chemical weapons by all sides, even though they were well-known. Partially it was deterrence, but, I would argue, it was also due to the fact that everyone involved had had time to digest the horrors of chemical warfare and accept it was a norm that chemical weapons shouldn't be used.)

Even in the present day, neither international law nor people's moral intuition are really equipped to judge the dilemmas of World War II. The fact is that WWII was a total, industrial war. The very nature of such a war is that there are few, if any, people who aren't contributing to the war effort. Why is it OK to drop a bomb on an unwillingly drafted soldier, but not on a guy working in an arms factory? Why is it OK to drop a bomb on a worker in an arms factory, but not on the same worker at home? Is it OK to intentionally kill 10 completely innocent civilians if the alternative is to prolong the fighting in such a way that 100 innocent civilians will be killed (and is it different if it's 100 drafted soldiers who will die)?

I don't mean to suggest any easy answers to this question, because I don't think there are any. But a lot of the rules about warfare developed in a different time. The rationale and the moral force behind the civilian/combatant distinction were much stronger when: a) most civilians had nothing whatsoever to do with the war, and b) the only way a soldier could kill a civilian was by actual invading her country and shooting or bayonetting her. In WWII, it was much more rational to kill civilians, it was possible to do so without invading and controlling the enemy's territory, and, most importantly, the only way to neutralize a civilian by air was to kill or severely injure him.

Again, I'm not trying to say anything goes. A lot of what happened during WWII really troubles me. It's important, though, to be aware of how little people understood these issues at the time and even how little we understand them now.

[andyfox]

It's obvous "April" 6 is an editorial typo, given that the author talked about this week as the anniversary week. The comment about the "children . . . at work in the open," was a quote from the Strategic Bombing Survey, not a mistake Scheer made. While it's not clear exactly what that phrasing means, it could well mean that school age children were at work outside, which would indeed be the case if it was August.

I'm a liberal. I've made quite a few posts on this forum, care to cite a few example of something that would lead you to believe I'm a "nazi or islamic collaborator"? Thanks.

Let's remember that when the war broke out, FDR pleaded with the combatants to not drop bombs from the air on non-combatants. A few years later, General LeMay was trying to kill as many civilians as possible by just such a method. More people died in one night of conventional fire bombing of Tokyo than did in either atomic blast.

[andyfox]

"There's no such thing as right and wrong in war"

So then nothing is out of bounds, everything is acceptable?

[andyfox]

So the Vietnamese would have been justified in dropping a bomb on my children because of war crimes committed by American servicemen in their country?

[andyfox]

"Yeah when America does anything it's the most horrible thing every committed. When others do it, you and other American bashers just look the other way."

Things done by America, by the American government, are done in my name. I'm much more concerned that my government act according to its principles and when it violates them, it aggrieves me much more than when a foreign government does bad things. It has nothing to do with America-bashing or "looking the other way." Nobody who believes using the atomic bombs was wrong believes that the rape of Nanking was a good thing.