As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[jonbhorton]

**Tell me this, would it have been more moral to simply strangle an infant if that would have ended the war immediately? Would you offer your hands to do it? That is the kind of moral argument you are presenting: the murder of a few outweighs the death of many.
**

Well, considering your example is completely inapplicable to the situation, how about:

"before you are arranged 10 infants of equal potential to be damned or saved all things considered. Now, if you abstain from the decision, the natural progression shall be the long and suffering deaths of all 10. However, you can choose 8 to live (or two to die- of which, 1 will be instantly evaporated and suffer nothing, and the other will die an unfortunately longer death), or, you can choose all 10 to die in various stages of horrifying manners. As of right now, the only course of foreseeable action is 10 dead babies. Abstaining from a vote assures this, as does the explicit choice to have such thing happen. You can save 8. Who dies? 2 … or shall there be none left? "

And you stand against the Church’s clear moral teaching on the matter. Just be sure you understand that.

I am not clear on what the Church’s teaching intends to express, for the emotional reactions of Popes is all that I’ve seen in specifics. Reverberation in the same, for the only other dumb enough concept for the public to possibly grasp would sound like a cheering of the bombing. People still think the Church hates gays despite such clear teaching otherwise. Why would they get a nuanced response on such an emotionally charged and hard to grasp event?

I can understand a general condemnation as it stands now, and for an example of a particular event. In that, I must also understand that the US was pushed to the bombing as a last ditch to obtain peace and an end to the war. All things considered, the choice, as forced by the Japanese, came down to “which babies do we save so all 10 don’t get it?”

It always has been, and always will be a grey area as far as H/N go. But given today’s technology, I cannot see use of the nuclear bomb except by terrorists or rogue nations. The US, in regard to the nuke, seems to me like the woman who shoots a man doing bad things and is so horrified at the level they were pushed to keep evil from continuing, that they become unable to justify handling a gun again. Were it not for Russia’s own capabilities, and the distrust of the subsequent Cold War era, I can see why nuclear proliferation occurred instead of the world realizing what the paradigm shift meant in a moral and human capacity.

I see no reason to be emotionally charged over a historical event, unless we run the risk of it happening again. H/N, Holocaust, etc. I get it: don’t do that again. What I don’t get is: X was bad because it was bad, but no explanation or real digging into the facts of each step leading there.

That the drive for war, particularly with the Japanese, was so strong is condemnable. The level of brutality and utter destruction which resulted, is condemnable. But when I look at a situation, I look at who started the mess. Ultimately, they created the situation which resulted in such a loss of life. They had a culture which was undefeated for 2000 years until Guadalcanal per this interview with a veteran of the Pacific theater: youtube.com/watch?v=3a7BiZRIdGw&feature=related

It’s all interesting, but it gets pertinent at ~4:19.

As I said, I can understand a general condemnation of future occurrence. I can understand a specified condemnation with no “reasons” for that would open up all manner of interpretation and appear as approval of the use. That doesn’t really say if the US was truly guilty, or just made an example of to put the brakes on this from the Church’s perspective, for this was not something which required much thought in the intended regard. How this might become inflamed and emotionally defended when similar threats emerge, I can also understand.

It’s a very progressive method of contingency planning. It can easily be misapplied, or misunderstood. It can easily engender a positive effect which may not necessitate a clarification. Sometimes certain things just slip by and morph. I just simply see no specific and contextual condemnation present, though a hefty example of what not to let humanity become.

 

[Ghosty]

Tactics ultimately depend on choice making, as by-the-book tactics only work against an untrained enemy, of which, Japan was not counted. So, creative thinking, maneuvering, etc. Those seemingly cold choices, mere academia and a Friday night in the basement playing Axis and Allies on a grand scale, for the true tactician, consider the men acting out those tactical orders to reach the tactical objective with as many alive still as possible.

Tactics seek ends, and ends don’t justify tactics. That is Catholic Morality 101. It doesn’t matter if the end is peace or annihilation, if the tactic is evil then the whole activity is evil. Targeting non-combatants is evil, therefore the action of killing non-combatants to bring peace is evil.

Yes, one damned soul IS worse. Given the nearly depleted state of the US military by that point: the shells of once vibrant men, now stuck on auto-pilot and fully embracing of their assignment and task, had much more potential to be damned than whatever number of Japanese Catholics existed in the immediate vicinities of every target city. The Pacific campaign was not at all like Europe where it seems a church was never far. The turnover rate of men through that war machine probably left many without access to Sacraments, or even the Chaplain.

You have completely missed my point, and in missing it you’ve ironically highlighted it. I’m not speaking about the souls of the Japanese, I’m speaking about the souls of the Americans who made the evil decision to target civilians. The innocents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were simply innocents who died, not unlike the people who die every day in much worse circumstances; the people who consciously chose to murder them had to bear that evil on their souls. I’m much less concerned about the souls of the Japanese, who knew nothing better, than those Americans who did.

I would. The radio is a weapon. You may or may not see it that way, but if you don’t I can tell you why- you don’t understand what a weapon is in tactical context. A radio is a weapon, because it relays the guidance of weapon systems. It’s an abstract button, lanyard, fuse, etc. It is the medium of the mind which guides the blade. Its user is a combatant. Weapons do not have to be a mere bomb or gun.

Honestly, it seems like you’re babbling here. Yes, a radio can be a weapon, and in certain circumstances one should shoot someone with a radio. In certain circumstances one should even blow up entire radio towers with all the workers still inside, and possibly accidentally destroy the house of the pregnant woman who lives next-door, burning her alive. That would be a legitimate military target with foreseen but unintended collateral damage.

Some people swear up and down its against the laws of land warfare to shoot a .50 cal at a person because it’s supposed to only be used on equipment and represents an unfair advantage.

Some do, I don’t. If you want to discuss this with me then discuss it with me, not some bogeyman liberal.

That which enables an army or nation to prosecute a war, is up for destruction. That is where the definition of non-combatant becomes very hazy in my mind.

If it’s hazy then perhaps you should look up some Catholic writings on the matter; they’re rather abundant and have been linked to in this thread. These writings even predate WWII, the American Civil War, the Hundred Year War, and the fall of the Roman Empire.

What’s ridiculous about the actual Geneva Convention rules is that mere experience dictates they were written by men who didn’t understand actual capability, nor consequence of certain rules. The inability to use hollow-point ammunition, for example. The military does use hollow-point, as all militaries who employ match-grade ammunition do. For the military such ammunition gets repackaged as “open-tip match”. It suddenly becomes OK because it had a name change? The entire workaround reason is because the original rule was meant to prevent killing and merely wound so as to affect charging forces to be compelled to care for wounded.

I haven’t mentioned the Geneva Conventions. This seems to be misdirected.

The fact that such condemnations came out before absolutely needed classified documents were made public, doesn’t help me to see a valid specific condemnation of the US doing what they did in a manner which is explained. I see a general condemnation of a repeat act.

It wasn’t a new condemnation, it was a re-statement of a millenia-held moral standard. New wars don’t require new moral boundaries; rather new wars should be judged by immovable moral boundaries. The de-classified documents, in this case, only served to further legitimate the condemnation of the attacks because the documents showed that non-combatants were intentionally and directly targeted, something that has always and everywhere been condemned by the Church.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty]

Well, considering your example is completely inapplicable to the situation, how about:

"before you are arranged 10 infants of equal potential to be damned or saved all things considered. Now, if you abstain from the decision, the natural progression shall be the long and suffering deaths of all 10. However, you can choose 8 to live (or two to die- of which, 1 will be instantly evaporated and suffer nothing, and the other will die an unfortunately longer death), or, you can choose all 10 to die in various stages of horrifying manners. As of right now, the only course of foreseeable action is 10 dead babies. Abstaining from a vote assures this, as does the explicit choice to have such thing happen. You can save 8. Who dies? 2 … or shall there be none left? "

My example wasn’t meant to be applicable to the ending of WWII, it was meant to draw a clean line to the kind of moral system you advocate. You believe that murdering a few is justified to prevent the death of many; I simply boiled that moral weight down to its purest form.

In answer to your question, though, I would not act. The ten would die in their various ways, just as all people die in their various ways. I will die, you will die. I will die of cancer, you will die of a gangrenous leg infection due to untreated diabetes. Both of us will die painfully, and I bet neither of us would choose to kill an innocent in our place.

Dying is what we do, there is no preventing it. Whether we die from bombs, starvation, Lou Gerhig’s Disease, or from a peaceful heart-attack in our sleep we will all die, and we have no choice in the matter. We do have a choice about murdering others, however, and that choice will affect our relationship with God. This is why I’m not worried so much about those who died, or were burned, or burned alive until they died. My concern in this discussion is about the souls of those who ordered the attacks, and it’s for them and those who (God forbid) may follow in their footsteps that I present the argument that I do.

I am not clear on what the Church’s teaching intends to express, for the emotional reactions of Popes is all that I’ve seen in specifics.

You’ve been presented with pre-WWIII documents on the subject, especially the Catholic Encyclopedia. You can also do a general search of “Just War” and find many links to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. War is a topic that was old long before the Church came along, and the Church has produced many definitive works on the subject.

I see no reason to be emotionally charged over a historical event, unless we run the risk of it happening again. H/N, Holocaust, etc. I get it: don’t do that again. What I don’t get is: X was bad because it was bad, but no explanation or real digging into the facts of each step leading there.

It’s not a matter of simply preventing the exact same event from happening again. We must understand these events in order to form our consciences for the tests that will come. These tests won’t be the same, it won’t be a matter of “not being like dad”; we must learn from the mistakes of yesterday, our own and others, so that new mistakes can be avoided. The sad thing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that they weren’t new mistakes at all, they were simply a new way to do the same old “expedient” thing that had been done countless times in the past. Read the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s a very progressive method of contingency planning. It can easily be misapplied, or misunderstood. It can easily engender a positive effect which may not necessitate a clarification. Sometimes certain things just slip by and morph. I just simply see no specific and contextual condemnation present, though a hefty example of what not to let humanity become.

Not sure what you mean here, but I guess that you mean that there is no clear condemnation of the bombings. You’re right only insofar as the moral principle wasn’t written to condemn the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but rather to condemn any targeting of non-combatants. They were targeted, therefore the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were condemned contextually, if not specifically. Just as the Church doesn’t condemn every murder and every rape, it need not condemn the specific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so long as the general principle applies.

Peace and God bless!

 

[blaskoman]

WAR CRIME

of course since the United States won the war how could it have been prosecuted? -wasnt gonna happen

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Ghosty,

Nice posts.

Let me address one of the items you addressed:

It’s not a matter of simply preventing the exact same event from happening again. We must understand these events in order to form our consciences for the tests that will come. These tests won’t be the same, it won’t be a matter of “not being like dad”; we must learn from the mistakes of yesterday, our own and others, so that new mistakes can be avoided. The sad thing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that they weren’t new mistakes at all, they were simply a new way to do the same old “expedient” thing that had been done countless times in the past. Read the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia and you’ll see what I mean.

I am not really sure anyone has learned much from the H/N experience. Look how we have employed technology to increase the explosive ‘yield’ to many times the base-line ‘yield’ of the Hiroshima bomb. We have developed chemical and biological weapons that will knowingly be spread by air currents - endangering all life forms, not just non-combatants and the military of the country using such weapons - air currents are not that predictable. I read the item on “War” and am not really sure how I would apply it to what is going on in Iran, in their efforts to go nuclear, and in Iraq and other countries whose main export wants to be terrorism against non-combatants.

While we and NATO forces helped Libya (maybe because they have oil?) we are not threatening to do the same with Syria - even in the fact of apparent genocide by Syria against its own people (no oil, big arms customer of Russia that cast a veto in the Security Council [don’t know why China bothered] and they have a sophisticated ground-to-air defensive missile system along with a sophisticated air force that would all prove expensive in blood and treasure for those coming in to stop the blood-shed.) Now, these conflicts would probably not represent a nuclear response - but, all would involve in some way the killing of civilians. Where these civilians actually ‘targeted’ - that may be something that has an application here.

God bless

 

[oldbrit2009]

First of all I’m not judging the people who made the decision to drop the bombs, so there’s no point in raising the issue of condemnations that came after the fact.

Ghosty, I’m sorry to have to say to you that you ARE judging the military and political leaders who decided to drop the bombs on H/N. You are sitting in judgement and acting as jury. You should examine your own conscience carefully on this matter.

 

[oldbrit2009]

I would like to recommend this link, especially to those posters who feel the need to adopt a judgemental attitude to the bombing of H/N.
It presents a very balance account of all aspects of the decisions made, which led to the use of the bombs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

 

[Ghosty]

Ghosty, I’m sorry to have to say to you that you ARE judging the military and political leaders who decided to drop the bombs on H/N. You are sitting in judgement and acting as jury. You should examine your own conscience carefully on this matter.

I’m judging the morality of the act, not the culpability of the people involved. I have not once said that those people are damned, I’ve simply pointed out the very clear Catholic teaching regarding the morality of targeting non-combatants. It is never wrong to call out a sin as sin.

If you think otherwise then please show me where I’ve crossed the line into judging their moral culpability.

Peace and God bless!

 

[jonbhorton]

I’m judging the morality of the act, not the culpability of the people involved. I have not once said that those people are damned, I’ve simply pointed out the very clear Catholic teaching regarding the morality of targeting non-combatants. It is never wrong to call out a sin as sin.

If you think otherwise then please show me where I’ve crossed the line into judging their moral culpability.

Peace and God bless!

Ghosty,

I’ve actually got to thank you for continuing this discussion as it has forced me to keep thinking, instead of merely latching on to what I’ve thought.

Unfortunately the reality of the way the war was prosecuted and each major campaign was executed, the argument applies to the entirety of the war, of which, the US was not the aggressor.

That a single incident occurred, given the alternative, does not lead me to agreeing with a specific condemnation of the morality of the event, for to do so leads to condemnation of the party which brought about said action which was nothing more than a continuation of the war as it has been prosecuted by all sides as forced to by the Axis.

The Catholic view on war is pretty. It’s easy. It’s also completely blind to the reality of the way wars are fought and the reality of what fighting a war now means.

Gone are the days of battlefields and truly linear warfare where such application has merit. Now, and really since WW2, it has become a totally different beast. The field of honor was exposed for what it is in WW1- a false concept.

Chivalry in the military sense is largely dead. It’s impractical and given the modality of the enemy we face, much like Japan, there are only two options:

Fight with everything you have, or, don’t fight at all.

Technology limits such occurrences, though people still decry the limited occurrences as giant tragedies, i.e. military leaders who surround themselves with family, are killed, and family is killed with them. The reality of our enemy is they don’t wear a uniform 9 times out of 10, and when they do, the uniform is of an ally. Their family, including those 9 and 10 year old boys, ARE combatants- particularly in areas of A-stan.

As this topic stands, I do not disagree that in almost no modern circumstance could I see the use of nuclear weapons as in the case of H/N. It was a very special and rare circumstance and can never be repeated unless a nation TRIES to engender the same conditions. Even more so, the technology today just doesn’t lend itself to such excuse.

Historically, I have never considered H/N as a moral issue, as that is the epitome of war. The bar was raised, the world said “that’s too high, anyone can walk under that!”. So, now everyone merely ducks since the bar was officially lowered back down.

That we’ve spent so much energy on arguing over something outside our control is ridiculous. What’s done is done.

If the world can learn anything from H/N, it’s don’t go to war because: when a non-aggressor nation, who is technologically superior, is backed into a corner it’s really stupid and childish to suddenly yell to mommy about it.

I have a very simple rule I live by: I don’t fight unless I’m prepared to kill or paralyze, for that could be my end in the altercation as well. As such, if I am forced into a fight, I am forced into killing. I will not break a man’s nose, I will put him in a casket. If that occurs, I have done everything I can to stop it but be killed myself, for the other party has forced this end.

Japan forced an end, that’s all there is to it.

The only viable options are total pacifism or war-hating warriors who just want to end it as quickly as possible. semi-pacifism and semi-warriors are both totally stupid.

 

[oldbrit2009]

Ghosty,
In your determination to brand the Allied leaders as war criminals you have developed tunnel vision. You are like a police detective who is so convinced of a suspect’s guilt, any evidence that points to their innocence is pushed aside or ignored.
After having read much on the subject there is no evidence to say that the Allied leaders attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the deliberate intention of killing innocent men women and children. Of course they were painfully aware that innocent human being would be killed, but the intention to attack those cities was not solely to kill innocent human being as you have claimed. To make such a claim is to do a grave injustice to Truman and Churchill. To claim that Truman and Churchill went out of their way to deliberately murder thousands of innocent men women and children is a monstrous slur on the memory, integrity and honour of those men.

 

[Barb3]

Good for you, oldbrit2009 – you EXPRESSED my words to a"t" – I wish I could have said the SAME!!! It’s so easy for people to judge a decision that was made and took place over 75 years ago and ended the terrible war!!! I an’t help wondering what some of these “judges” would have decided at that time with the same circumstances.

 

[GKC]

Good for you, oldbrit2009 – you EXPRESSED my words to a"t" – I wish I could have said the SAME!!! It’s so easy for people to judge a decision that was made and took place over 75 years ago and ended the terrible war!!! I an’t help wondering what some of these “judges” would have decided at that time with the same circumstances.

66+ years ago.

GKC

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Oldbrit2009,



In the scheme of things, the Allies did the right thing.

God bless our departed Allied leaders.

Ghosty,
In your determination to brand the Allied leaders as war criminals you have developed tunnel vision. You are like a police detective who is so convinced of a suspect’s guilt, any evidence that points to their innocence is pushed aside or ignored.
After having read much on the subject there is no evidence to say that the Allied leaders attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the deliberate intention of killing innocent men women and children. Of course they were painfully aware that innocent human being would be killed, but the intention to attack those cities was not solely to kill innocent human being as you have claimed. To make such a claim is to do a grave injustice to Truman and Churchill. To claim that Truman and Churchill went out of their way to deliberately murder thousands of innocent men women and children is a monstrous slur on the memory, integrity and honour of those men.

 

[Barb3]

Whoops, GKC my math was wrong – should have used my adding machine!!!

 

[GKC]

Whoops, GKC my math was wrong – should have used my adding machine!!!

The Nagasaki bomb was dropped 2 days before I was born. It’s easy for me to remember.

GKC

 

[Ghosty]

Ghosty,
In your determination to brand the Allied leaders as war criminals you have developed tunnel vision. You are like a police detective who is so convinced of a suspect’s guilt, any evidence that points to their innocence is pushed aside or ignored.

I haven’t said the Allied leaders were guilty of anything, I’ve merely pointed out that targeting non-combatants for any reason is a moral evil. Whether or not the leaders who ordered the attacks are culpable is a question way above my pay-grade, but there actions were certainly evil according to the Church.

After having read much on the subject there is no evidence to say that the Allied leaders attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the deliberate intention of killing innocent men women and children.

Have you read the documents of the Targeting Committee? I don’t believe you’d be saying this if you had. They explicitly note that the first criteria for targets of the bombs was that they were large urban areas; purely military targets were out of the running.

Of course they were painfully aware that innocent human being would be killed, but the intention to attack those cities was not solely to kill innocent human being as you have claimed. To make such a claim is to do a grave injustice to Truman and Churchill. To claim that Truman and Churchill went out of their way to deliberately murder thousands of innocent men women and children is a monstrous slur on the memory, integrity and honour of those men.

This is slander. I have never said that the attacks were “solely to kill innocent human beings”, nor have I said that anyone went out of their way to do so. In fact, just a few posts above, I said this:

the death of civilians was directly intended as an element of shock to the Japanese government. Though the U.S. attempted to limit the amount of civilian death by dropping leaflets, the fact remains that their deaths were calculated and intended.

The U.S. did try to limit the amount of civilian death, but it did not try to avoid it. In fact the destruction of populated urban areas was part of the strategy per the Targeting Committee. For the strategy of the U.S. to work the Japanese government had to believe that the U.S. could and would wipe out civilians and military alike, and could do so with one bomb per city. Non-combatants had to be part of the bombing equation for the “shock and awe” to have effect. Had the Japanese government believed that the U.S. would not kill non-combatants and destroy entire cities with their populations still in them then the strategy would fail. It was calculated and intentional, but the murder of civilians was not the chief goal of the bombings; the death of non-combatants was a means to an end, and that is still morally wrong.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty]

jonbhorton:

Unfortunately the reality of the way the war was prosecuted and each major campaign was executed, the argument applies to the entirety of the war, of which, the US was not the aggressor.

That a single incident occurred, given the alternative, does not lead me to agreeing with a specific condemnation of the morality of the event, for to do so leads to condemnation of the party which brought about said action which was nothing more than a continuation of the war as it has been prosecuted by all sides as forced to by the Axis.

The Axis definitely bears the lion share of the blame for what took place during WWII, but that unfortunately doesn’t let the Allies off the hook for any evils committed by them. The moral choice remains, the Allies didn’t lose free will. The war could have ended without the intentional killing of non-combatants, and though more may have died accidentally as a result of the war moving forward (and even that is simply speculative) it wouldn’t have been the result of targeted killing. In fact, had the Allies pressed ahead with the war and not “gone nuclear” the deaths of the Japanese civilians would have been squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese government; sadly the U.S. decided to take some of that moral burden off of the men who deserved it.

Peace and God bless!

 

[GKC]

I haven’t said the Allied leaders were guilty of anything, I’ve merely pointed out that targeting non-combatants for any reason is a moral evil. Whether or not the leaders who ordered the attacks are culpable is a question way above my pay-grade, but there actions were certainly evil according to the Church.

Have you read the documents of the Targeting Committee? I don’t believe you’d be saying this if you had. They explicitly note that the first criteria for targets of the bombs was that they were large urban areas; purely military targets were out of the running.

This is slander. I have never said that the attacks were “solely to kill innocent human beings”, nor have I said that anyone went out of their way to do so. In fact, just a few posts above, I said this:

The U.S. did try to limit the amount of civilian death, but it did not try to avoid it. In fact the destruction of populated urban areas was part of the strategy per the Targeting Committee. For the strategy of the U.S. to work the Japanese government had to believe that the U.S. could and would wipe out civilians and military alike, and could do so with one bomb per city. Non-combatants had to be part of the bombing equation for the “shock and awe” to have effect. Had the Japanese government believed that the U.S. would not kill non-combatants and destroy entire cities with their populations still in them then the strategy would fail. It was calculated and intentional, but the murder of civilians was not the chief goal of the bombings; the death of non-combatants was a means to an end, and that is still morally wrong.

Peace and God bless!

Your last para is correct, in essence.

GKC

 

[Ghosty]

Your last para is correct, in essence.

GKC

Any tweaks you’d make?

 

[GKC]

jonbhorton:

The Axis definitely bears the lion share of the blame for what took place during WWII, but that unfortunately doesn’t let the Allies off the hook for any evils committed by them. The moral choice remains, the Allies didn’t lose free will. The war could have ended without the intentional killing of non-combatants, and though more may have died accidentally as a result of the war moving forward (and even that is simply speculative) it wouldn’t have been the result of targeted killing. In fact, had the Allies pressed ahead with the war and not “gone nuclear” the deaths of the Japanese civilians would have been squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese government; sadly the U.S. decided to take some of that moral burden off of the men who deserved it.

Peace and God bless!

Japanese civilians were not the only ones whose lives were spared. The monthly death rate in the PTO that summer was 200,000+ a month. The British were scheduled to begin Operation Zipper (Slim/Mountbatten/14th Army), a major push in the southeast Asian land mass, 6 Sep. Which would have been the signal for the Japanese to begin to eliminate the 135,000 POWs in their hands. The end of the war stopped that monthly butcher’s bill of deaths: Allied, Japanese, young, old, military, civilian, citizens of occupied lands.

GKC