Misso

Actually, the author of that, Howard Zinn is apparently "one of the most famous historians in the country". Why would Weintraub be right where Zinn is wrong?

nermal

Howard Zinn is something of an "apologetic" historian--it's of a recent trend. If America did it, it's wrong. If someone injured America, there must be some way America can be blamed for it.

I've read historians of Zinn's ilk try to make the case that America, and not Japan, was responsible for Pearl Harbor.

Ed

nermal

He was less an emperor after the surrender than the Queen of England is a Queen today. MacArthur kept him around to ease the culture shock the Japanese were about to experience, but he had no power and was quite literally a PR man for MacArthur.
Are you trying to take a statement about a specific and make it general, just for effect? No, surely you are above that.
In this case, it's not the only criterium, but it is certainly the one with the greatest priority. Japan started the war. They were killing American servicemen who had no choice but to fight them. It was the responsibility of the war department to place first priority on the lives of Americans.

Yes, it was. Remember (I've said this three times now) Japan started the war. The responsibilities of the war department were a consequence of Japan's beligerence.
Japan also could have surrendered after all the ships in their harbor were sank, or after the Tokyo firebombing. If they had conditions, they could have made an official offer, and attempted to negotiate. It was not the responsibility of the war department to "figure out" what a Japanese surrender offer might look like, and try to negotiate from their end. Japan had the choices, from the day the planes flew over Hawaii, to the day the atomic bombs began to fall.
The prioritization of American GI lives over Japanese civilian lives flowed naturally and inevitably from Japan's acts, and the responsibility is their's.

Your analogy using the IRA isn't flawed. It does not even rise up to the standard of flawed. It is irrelevent. It is non-sequiter.

Ed

themistocles

Don't forget, after the second atom bomb, Major Keni Hatanaka's attempt to find and hide Emperor Hirohito's surrender message. The military was willing to subvert their beloved emperor to continue the war.

And consider how fiercely the Japanese had fought at Okinawa. It's astounding anyone would second guess the dropping of those bombs. Again, I reiterate, the only possible reason one would argue against the events, with the mountains of evidence at hand, is for the continuation of violence. I seriously doubt anyone holds such a view and so it is apparent that some people choose not to acknowledge the evidence and reality of the situation.

Vorkosigan

Does Zinn record that the Soviets were in communication with the US and that we knew that they were not interested in this? Does he give you the details of the Japanese "peace offer" as it evolved over time? I'll bet the answers to those questions are "no" and "no." If he did those things, you could immediately see that his position is nonsense.

Why would Weintraub be right while Zinn is wrong? Because Weintraub knows more about this than Zinn does.

Vorkosigan

American Agnostic

So how many foreign civillians is one American life worth? 1? 10? 100? 1,000!? The best you can hope for is to justify it as a necessary evil but intentionally killing civillians is NEVER moral!

nermal

It's not an equation. Don't try to change the subject. You are guilty of the fallacy of the excluded middle. Intentionally killing civilians is moral when it is the best of the choices another power has FORCED you to make! Not only is it moral, it is immoral to fail to make the difficult decision and allow the aggressor to continue sacrificing your people for his ends.
If Japan had not attacked the US, not a single Japanese civilian life would have been lost in the war. The point is, the obligations of the war department were to Americans. The obligations of the Japanese government were to Japanese.
When a foriegn power forces a government, whose obligations are to their own people, to choose between paths of violence, the deaths of civilians on both sides are on the heads of the aggressors. The moral imperative of the attacked government is to minimize losses to their own people however practicable.
The point must not be lost that the American GI fighting the Japanese was a civilian forced into a military uniform by Japanese aggression. If Japan had not attacked, the overwhelming majority of them would have been farming, driving trucks, building cars, or bringing the war in Europe to a much speedier end, saving even more lives on both sides there.
Read this again: Japan could have, at any time, made the choices which would cost zero lives from that time forward. They refused to make that choice foolishly, and paid the price. The consequences are on the heads of those in the Japanese government.

Ed

Nowhere357

Ed, that was a good, clear post, and makes it possble to understand this "controversy" better.

I do not claim the bombs should not have been dropped. I do not claim America did the wrong thing. I have read dozens of books on this incredible period in world history, including many first person accounts. I have no doubt that I would have dropped those bombs myself. War is fucking hell, period.

Here is how I see the two views:
"Peacenik" view: Killing people is wrong. But we have the right to defend ourselves, our families, our homes, our countries, our world. Sometimes offense is the best defense. If we must kill, so be it, and we will still sleep well at night. But there is no doubt - we chose the lesser of two evils. Killing people is immoral. Failing to protect our families is worse.

"Warhawk" view: Killing people is wrong, unless it is justified.

Can you see my point? Really, it's just semantics.

IMO the peacenik way of defining the words is superior, because the morality of an action is based ON the action, and not on OPINION of the action.

It was immoral to drop those bombs. It may have been far more immoral, NOT to drop them. Our actions were justified, but killing people is still wrong. Killing people is not moral.

This just occured to be - maybe immoral and not moral mean different things? I've been using the words interchangably, perhaps that's a mistake?

Peace

Nowhere357

I can, but I'm not, and I won't, 'cause they weren't. I never said they were.

I did not attempt to change the subject. Here, you seem to contradict yourself. You say we "cannot" look back at wwII and judge them, then you proceed to judge the inquisitioners.

I wonder if this kind of conclusion jumping, misrepresentation, invalid assumptions, and self contradictions are similar to the thinking process that led to the decision to commit the act of mass human destruction. Probably not.

nermal

If you think about it a while, I think you will see that you are confusing "wrong" and "immoral" with "horrible."

If you are forced to choose between two evils, and you choose what you reasonably think the lesser, your choice is moral, even if horrible. I don't see morality as handed down or god given, therefore I must see it as limited to the reality in which it is applied. Bill Snedden and Albert Cipriani have had an excellent discussion of this in, of all places, EoG:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=1
You'll have to follow it a bit, as the topic kind of wanders into a discussion of morality among other things.
It's relevant.

Peace to you as well
Ed