nermal

It's not an anger issue. We weren't right to bomb Nag. and Hir. because we were rightously indignant. We were right to bomb those cities because Japan chose a course which cost many American lives, and it was the obligation of those in charge to minimize those losses. Their priority was American lives, and not the lives of the enemy. Rightly so.

As to our starting a war, that's a good question and difficult to answer. Not because of moral ambiguity, because of complexity. I would say that if we started a war, and enemy civilian lives were not prioritized as highly as American Servicemen, then we must have started the war for the wrong reasons, and nothing we do in the war is morally justified. Therefore, actions like Hir. and Nag. would not be justified.

If however, the question of who "started" the war is one of semantics--Say we "declared" it against an enemy who was, in effect, at war with us, then we would be morally justified in prioritizing American lives over enemy civilians. Afghanistan would be a good example of this.

It's always wrong to kill enemy civilians just to increase the war dead. That's why it was wrong to firebomb Dresden. It's not wrong, however, to kill enemy civilians if it will affect the outcome of a war and minimize losses on your side [i]assuming your side is morally in the right[i].

Ed

enigma555

Ah yes. I suppose the footage of women and children training in hand to hand combat was all faked.

Along with the reports from the Japanese war department about plans to repel an invasion.

Woulda coulda shoulda doesn't change the facts.

enigma555

There is no point in pointing at atomic bombs which had never been used against human targets and saying how awful they were.

The war was awful. Tens of thousands of people were dying many times over.

Carpet bombing killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians on both sides.

The bomb was a weapon with relatively unknown effects, but it was believed that it would stop the war. It did.

We cannot now, with almost 60 years of hindsight, look back on the people who dropped them, point fingers, and say how awful and morally bankrupt they were.

And re: your attempt to change the subject: The inquisition was not put in place to stop a brutal war begun by a brutal empire which had been going on for years. The inquisition was the calculated murder of defenseless innocents based only on the whims of the church. There is quite a big difference, I'd say...

American Agnostic

The problem with the arguement that the bombings prevented a bloody and drawn out invasion of the Japanesse mainland is that it sets up a false bipolar situation. Either we use the nuke or their is a long and bloody invasion but there were other options. The Japanesse government was starting to waver and the man sticking point on their surrender was that they wanted a gaurentee that that they could keep the emperor and the US stuck to its demand for unconditional surrender. We ended up letting them keep the emperor in the end anyway. Peace was negotiable!
I think that the first bombing was unethical and the second bombing certainly was because we didn't give their government enough time for the first bombing to sink in. The report from Hiroshima were just starting to come in for crying out loud! The intentional targeting of civillians is always a war crime. Whether you're using knives, swords, guns, conventional bombs, inciniary bombs or nuclear weapons the ethical implication are the same. World War 2 saw both side intentionally take aim at civillians using various "justifications" but no matter the "justifcations" given it's unethical.

nermal

As was reasonable and right. When you are attacked by a society based on warrior fanatacism, you don't come to an understanding with them. You defeat them, and insist they change their social construct so they do not invade you again. We did this to the Germans too.


No we didn't. Sure, he stuck around, but he was no longer an emperor.

It saved American lives. Period. That made it moral.

No it isn't. Not when targeting the civilian population of an invading nation will stop a war and minimize the casualties to your own people.
If there is a crime to be answered for in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, let the Japanese government answer for it.

Ed

Rousseau_CHN

Because people are not natural enemies, governments are.

I read a story about how trade is done in India and Pakistan. Indians sell cows to Pakistanis and Pakistanis sell pigs to Indians. And they do just fine.

The objective of war is to remove "offensive" state, not people.

(Those innocent Japanese are no less a victim of the Militaristic government.)

Misso

His title is still emperor though, so what makes him "no longer an emperor"?

Is that the only criterium? Something is moral when american lives are saved? Scary if you really think this.

Lol, so it was Japan's fault that the US dropped two nuclear bombs? Sounds like what the IRA did: tell the British authorities they were going to bomb a cafe and then blame the British for any victims of that bombing.
"I'm going to kill you, and if you don't run away, it's not my fault that you'll be dead"



On the subject of whether Japan was about to surrender or not:
(from http://free.freespeech.org/americans...aNagasaki.html)
This strongly suggests that Japan was indeed about to surrender, even without an invasion.

Vorkosigan

The Japanesse government was starting to waver and the man sticking point on their surrender was that they wanted a gaurentee that that they could keep the emperor and the US stuck to its demand for unconditional surrender. We ended up letting them keep the emperor in the end anyway. Peace was negotiable!

Incorrect. The Japanese government was using unconditional surrender as an excuse to continue the war. They knew perfectly well that peace terms were negotiable.

There were many other options. We could have let the war go on, with the thousands dying every day in Southeast Asia, China, the Pacific Islands and Japan. Most of these "dilemmas" are false because they focus on US behavior without focusing on Japan's as well. They are also borderline racist, for they give the US perfect agency (the US can make whatever decision it pleases), while denying the Japanese the same (the Japanese are helpless prisoners of their emperor worship).

I think that the first bombing was unethical and the second bombing certainly was because we didn't give their government enough time for the first bombing to sink in. The report from Hiroshima were just starting to come in for crying out loud!

Incorrect on all counts. The government knew by the following day that it was an atomic weapon (it rushed the head of their A-bomb program down there to see). Hirohito, who was a trained scientist, knew perfectly well what that was -- he had signed off on Japan's own nuke program -- and he ordered the Supreme War Council to meet the following day. That meeting would have ended the war, but a military member would not come, so the meeting was held two days later, instead, the morning of Nagasaki. Nagasaki was a tragedy.

It was all moot anyway. Even with two cities A-bombed and the Russians storming across the frontier, the government refused to surrender. Hirohito had to give the order himself.

the "justifcations" given it's unethical.

Perhaps, but it would have been more unethical to have let the killing go on. The tragedy of war is that one only has the choice between various degrees of evil.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

But could American leaders have known this in August 1945?
The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan’s messages were being intercepted.
It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered.

Jesus H. Christ! Doesn't anybody read any history around here? The Soviets and the Americans were communicating throughout this period, and the Soviets had told the US that they were not interested in this initiative. The Americans knew it was doomed.

Additionally, it is precisely because we were reading the diplomatic codes that we knew that it was not a "peace" mission that the Japanese were interested in, but a cease-fire under which the Soviets would get some limited territorial gains and fishing rights, and the Japanese would keep everything that they had gained over the war.

If the Japanese were really interested in peace, all they had to do was communicate with the Americans for clarification of terms, and suspend offensive operations. Incredibly, the peace-loving Japanese were pursuing offensives in China in May of 1945.

Please see any standard work on this issue. Weintraub's day-by-day account of the end of the war, The Last Great Victory is a good start.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

The Bombing Germany thread in this forum also has a discussion of this, in much more detail.

Vorkosigan