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GKC
Guest
As I stated, I’m uninterested in your view of it. I have my own.
That you are not in a position to know the history is accepted.
But shock and awe, avant les mots., it was.
GKC
- Status
That you are not in a position to know the history is accepted.
But shock and awe, avant les mots., it was.
GKC
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Ghosty
Guest
jonbhorton: War is indeed hell, but that doesn’t eliminate the requirement of moral discernment during war time. The Catechism makes this very clear:
Also, from the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, which pre-dates WWII:
This is the teaching of the Church, and you stand against it in your support for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Your appeals to the Old Testament are meaningless because you are not the interpreter of Scripture; that is the job of the Magisterium. Since you claim to follow the Church, and are not a sola scriptura Protestant, you don’t have the license to interpret Scripture in a manner contrary to the authority of the Church. The Church has interpreted those Old Testament events, and the interpretation does not support your contentions: Israel was the instrument of God’s Divine Punishment, and was not taking natural rights of war. The actions of Israel are not templates for Just War, but rather demonstrations of God using humans to enact His Divine Will. Since God did not give any such commands during WWII, nothing that Israel did in enacting God’s Divine Punishment can be used to justify the actions of any actors in WWII, just as God punishing unrepentant sinners by casting them into the Lake of Fire doesn’t give us the justification of doing the same.
As for your argument that all the evils of the war fall on Japan, this simply isn’t true according to Catholic moral teaching, as can be seen from the Catechism citation above. All parties are still bound to uphold moral law, whether they are the aggressor or the defender.
Peace and God bless!
Bolding is mine.
Also, from the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, which pre-dates WWII:
Note that it says non-combatants, not merely civilians, and even says those capable of bearing arms but are not in fact bearing arms, can’t be targeted. This means that factory workers making munitions for the war can’t be targeted, but they could be collateral damage in an attack on the factory itself. The fact is that non-combatants were directly targeted for destruction as a means to an end, namely the demoralization of the Japanese government; they were not accidental collateral damage, and since their destruction was directly intended it was morally evil.
This is the teaching of the Church, and you stand against it in your support for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Your appeals to the Old Testament are meaningless because you are not the interpreter of Scripture; that is the job of the Magisterium. Since you claim to follow the Church, and are not a sola scriptura Protestant, you don’t have the license to interpret Scripture in a manner contrary to the authority of the Church. The Church has interpreted those Old Testament events, and the interpretation does not support your contentions: Israel was the instrument of God’s Divine Punishment, and was not taking natural rights of war. The actions of Israel are not templates for Just War, but rather demonstrations of God using humans to enact His Divine Will. Since God did not give any such commands during WWII, nothing that Israel did in enacting God’s Divine Punishment can be used to justify the actions of any actors in WWII, just as God punishing unrepentant sinners by casting them into the Lake of Fire doesn’t give us the justification of doing the same.
As for your argument that all the evils of the war fall on Japan, this simply isn’t true according to Catholic moral teaching, as can be seen from the Catechism citation above. All parties are still bound to uphold moral law, whether they are the aggressor or the defender.
Peace and God bless!
J
jonbhorton
Guest
The key is the definition of “indiscriminate” in the manner it is used. As a literal reading does not mesh with H/N in light of the actual facts regarding the bombings, I stand firm in my position.
I am not interpreting scripture, I am identifying concepts which are present and applying them to the refutation of said concepts.
There is a fine line on which to understand the statements from the CCC, and many people get hung up on it.
If anything, H/N were grey areas. That any person or organization seeks to condemn it outright by continuing an assertion based on incomplete evidence, is unfortunate.
As GKC has stated, and I have as well in my own words, this is not a topic which will be fully understood in either this thread or likely ever.
That being said, while I stand by the notion that H/N were the right thing to do, technology today practically makes the use of nuclear devices illegitimate in the context they were used in Japan. That people are viewing this time period through rose colored lenses is their failing, not mine. That people can’t understand how their own visceral reaction to the reality of what happened is exactly their problem with not understanding how this all fits together, not mine.
Essentially, what we have in H/N is the same argument which leads people to yelling that the death penalty must be abolished in light of Catholic commentary on it. That being said, I still stand by the death penalty, and trust that its use is sound.
When you understand what the world faced with a hold-out enemy in a war where the instigator of it all, Germany, had already surrendered, you will understand why I support the bombing.
When you actually understand the history and all things considered in it as possible, you will understand the support I have for the bombing. Here is a good start: fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap4.htm
Notice the Japanese slogan from the summer of '45:
"The sooner the Americans come, the better…One hundred million die proudly.
- Japanese slogan in the summer of 1945. "
As I see it, the retroactive application of incomplete knowledge affecting an incomplete understanding is injurious to the tactical reality of war as it existed then, is again, unfortunate.
The particular section of the Catechism you cite is based on the entirety of the papal encyclical Gaudium et Spes. As such, it must be read in context. Part of that context is that it is partially a reaction to an event of which Pope Paul VI would have not had sufficient knowledge in 1965.
Further contextualizing this, and I wonder if it is on purpose or not, is that it was released on the 24th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, 7 Dec 1965. In that, we must be forced to recognize the entire chain of events leading to the bombing, of which the dissenters here continually refuse to do. Again, their failing, not mine.
When people are willing to negotiate the practically impossible task of following the facts, and moral/ethical imperatives for each negative fact, we’ll get somewhere.
Until then, via my rose colored glasses, "target in sight, prepare bomb-bay doors; bombardier, prepare for drop … ". And the rest, as they say, is history.
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GKC
Guest
The Japanese frequently, and increasingly, as the war situation worsened for them, made reference to the sacrifice of the “100 million” in one context or another. This was a poetic phrase, intended to reflect total commitment and sacrifice, to the last Japanese, though the population of the country was only around 72 million.
But Anami (I think it was he) did, at the end, in blocking any surrender movement, refer to what a sacrifice of 20 million, in resisting the anticipated invasion, would achieve: peace on Japan’s terms.
The phrase* gyokusai* was often used in describing what would take place, “the breaking of the jewels/shattered jade”. That is, the sacrifice of the people, to ensure the survival of the Kokutai, the often referenced national polity.
A full ketsu-go defense against an American invasion would perhaps not have taken 20 Japanese million lives, but 10%, not unlikely. The armed forces in Japan numbered around 2.5 million, with more in the occupied territories and islands. Thus the exhortation was for the willing sacrifice, in the defense of Yamato, of masses of civilians in addition to the military.
I have not repeated the butchers bill that would have been paid, for each month the war in the PTO continued, without the bombs or without the invasion. Since I’ve done it so often and typing is wearisome.
GKC
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jonbhorton
Guest
Thanks again for fleshing out some things in light of the hyperbole of the Japanese.
I suppose this thread can be reduced to a mere scene from Dr. Strangelove:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeqVGP-GPM
“Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room.”
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GKC
Guest
You’re very welcome. Gyokusai was most often used to describe the so-called “banzai” charges. It derived from a saying that it was better for an honorable man to die as a shattered jewel, than live as an intact tile.
For various reasons, I am moved to suggest that, if you can find Charles Sweeney’s WAR’S END, you might read chap. 17 with some interest. Sweeney, the RC A/C on the Nagasaki mission, pilot of BOCKS CAR, tells of his trip to speak with a RC chaplain, in a sister group of the 509th on Tinian, immediately prior to the 2nd atomic mission.
GKC
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Ghosty
Guest
jonbhorton: I don’t see how the term “indiscriminate” lets anyone off the hook in this case. All it means is that there is no discrimination between military and civilian targets, not that so long as civilians are discriminately targeted that it’s ok. Civilians were directly targeted, along with military assets, and therefore there was no discrimination between civilian and military casualties.
As for Gaudium et Spes, it was simply a restatement of the traditional Catholic moral teaching, albeit in the context of modern nuclear warfare. Go back and read the Catholic Encyclopedia article from the turn of the century and you will see that the teaching is the same there as it is in the modern Catechism.
You keep going back to the notion that the world faced a grave threat, and therefore the bombings were justified. The Catholic Church couldn’t be more clear that nothing justifies evil actions, and this includes targeting non-combatants. Where in the teaching of the Church do you get the idea that targeting non-combatants is warranted so long as the situation is grave enough? Until you can answer that your position has no basis in Catholic teaching, and actually stands condemned by it.
As for how grave the situation was in WWII, I’m well aware of it. You seem to think that if I just understood as much as you I would come around to your point of view. The fact is that I am well read in this subject, and I’m also Faithful to the teachings of the Church. There are no facts about WWII that make the Catholic teaching incorrect, and as time has marched on and more documents have been made available the Catholic Church has not moved from the teaching it held even before WWII. You can insist all you want that the Church should teach differently, or that the Church would teach differently if it just understood the facts, but the truth is that the Church teaches against your position, and condemns your viewpoint. You are holding on to an argument that is not Catholic, and not morally justified in any Catholic place in Catholic tradition.
Defend your position all you want, just recognize that you are outside the bounds of the Faith in doing so.
Peace and God bless!
As for Gaudium et Spes, it was simply a restatement of the traditional Catholic moral teaching, albeit in the context of modern nuclear warfare. Go back and read the Catholic Encyclopedia article from the turn of the century and you will see that the teaching is the same there as it is in the modern Catechism.
You keep going back to the notion that the world faced a grave threat, and therefore the bombings were justified. The Catholic Church couldn’t be more clear that nothing justifies evil actions, and this includes targeting non-combatants. Where in the teaching of the Church do you get the idea that targeting non-combatants is warranted so long as the situation is grave enough? Until you can answer that your position has no basis in Catholic teaching, and actually stands condemned by it.
As for how grave the situation was in WWII, I’m well aware of it. You seem to think that if I just understood as much as you I would come around to your point of view. The fact is that I am well read in this subject, and I’m also Faithful to the teachings of the Church. There are no facts about WWII that make the Catholic teaching incorrect, and as time has marched on and more documents have been made available the Catholic Church has not moved from the teaching it held even before WWII. You can insist all you want that the Church should teach differently, or that the Church would teach differently if it just understood the facts, but the truth is that the Church teaches against your position, and condemns your viewpoint. You are holding on to an argument that is not Catholic, and not morally justified in any Catholic place in Catholic tradition.
Defend your position all you want, just recognize that you are outside the bounds of the Faith in doing so.
Peace and God bless!
J
jonbhorton
Guest
You provide the same tired arguments of specious interpretation out of the objective historical context, and the imperative that decisive aspects must be known to yay or nay this operation in said context.
I trust the Church to provide a moral argument when it has the information necessary to make said argument; of which, it did not, unless it had privileged status to documents which were classified at the time, or engaged in clandestine operations to retrieve said documents. As I don’t think the Church would have gone to such lengths to merely echo what was global opinion in light of a different moral paradigm, and societal shift to the dissent corner was decidedly misinformed and largely vocal, particularly in the emotional escalation of Vietnam, I must conclude that the Church’s ruling on H/N, while admirable, is insufficient.
In seeking to judge the spiritual implication and morality of any secular-civil action, one must have information as to such actions in the chronological sequence which followed in both specific act and decisions reached to execute. The Church did not have this, nor did the world, nor did the world really want to face its history, and the beneficiaries of this absolutely hard decision now cry foul. Well, that stinks.
The moral argument is cut at the knees in light of Japanese hyperbole, reality, and cultural consideration of dishonor.
That you refuse to see this is not due to you having insufficient knowledge which I esoterically possess in fullness. It would be asinine of me to assume you are not well read on this, though the question remains, “what have you read?”. In that I mean, to be well read on say, the Israel/Arab conflict, what real perspective would be offered if all your sources were printed in Riyadh, Tehran, Gaza, or even Tel-Aviv?
To understand decisions, and the moral thought and need behind each one made in the entire operation, it is an absolute must that you understand how military/government thinks and why they think like that.
What you have read extensively from one or all angles needs to be thought about in each context, and how it interplays with the reality of the other(s).
The resultant deciding factor in the lack of such a process results in this emotional appeal to a situation which is decided in the facts as they are available to reach the moral conclusion to satiate or enrage the emotion.
It’s a sweet argument, but it’s sugar. Certainly, a complex carbohydrate, such as bread, can be reduced to sugar, but sugar in itself is not enough. Challenge your own argument, and look at the sources in light of those challenges. Look at the glaringly obvious fracture in the chronology of needed information being available in light of foundational opinions being taken as a fortress, simply because the foundation is made taller through duplication. The bricks hadn’t even arrived yet = foundation = not a fortress- yet.
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Ghosty
Guest
jonbhorton: Are you privy to some information that the Church doesn’t have? Do you know some facts that would contradict the absolute prohibition against targeting non-combatants? These aren’t views that the Church has just come up with in the past 60 years due to societal pressure. They are timeless views based on everything the Church has seen in its 2000+ years, and it was the same in 1900 as it was in 1967.
In the end your position boils down to you knowing better than the Church, a position that puts you in the same category as those who oppose the Church’s teaching on contraception or abortion (for all I know you do oppose the Church on these teachings). While you may defend that position with various arguments, none of them are acceptable as Catholic views, which is what this thread was originally asking.
Peace and God bless!
In the end your position boils down to you knowing better than the Church, a position that puts you in the same category as those who oppose the Church’s teaching on contraception or abortion (for all I know you do oppose the Church on these teachings). While you may defend that position with various arguments, none of them are acceptable as Catholic views, which is what this thread was originally asking.
Peace and God bless!
J
jonbhorton
Guest
The straw that broke the camel’s back is not the pain to follow.
For when a new rule is imposed, it’s sometimes hard to swallow
In ignorance, was the thing done, which caused the rules amended
Without a rule, there is no rule, your argument: upended.
In light of this I think it wise, to read what said the Pope
And in intent, he expressed, Peace: it was the hope.
Link from google news archives; newspaper scan.
In other words, you can’t condemn the thing as breaking a rule, when no such ruling had been given prior to the time of the incident ruled on. You can, however, condemn the repeating of that action from there on out using the cause of this effect as the “reason we can’t have nice things”.
Scalping of enemies for example, yeah, we get it- it’s deplorable. In the times those things happened, that was not necessarily a big deal. People seem like they assume violence so clean and like they see on TV or something. That is not violence. That’s a propaganda tool, a desensitization mechanism. Slowly introduced over time, and the subculture extreme: the modern day coliseum spectators who pay to see people killed, are being brought to the mainstream in series like Hostel. The very things decried in this thread happen every day in the world, every day in this country, only via different means. Another life, another pregnant woman, another could-have-been-converted-with-more-time, another malicious action of actual vengeance, another dead Christian, another miracle, another changed man; another group of men hated for doing exactly what seemed right at the time and all things possible to consider had been.
Another war second-guessed without the full picture of historical documents, another action made anathema because of the horror of its necessity, for the necessity is condemned automatically and the cause of the effect.
If the nation is viewed as a person, and the multitude of Japanese dead viewed as the sum of their parts, I cannot help but to still find the USA in the regrettable right. It was te epitome of doing the seemingly unthinkable in the lasted panicked moment to keep from having to kill untold numbers in horrifically close and personal ways, destroy in the process for it would amount to guerrilla tactics, the radiological effects being so drastically unknown: Marshall’s plan has US troops walking through highly contaminated areas- per knowledge gained from unfortunate experience otherwise; a few giant war plants; the almost assured destruction of a country in a brutal manner, who would finally experience the brutality they had unleashed on others by default:
The USA doesn’t have, nor did it have a Prophet Elijah to call down fire from the sky. No divine intervention for the last pleading example of stopping the violence and returning to the fold.
Instead, we called down a different kind of fire, picked from the mind of God Himself, though I cannot say God particularly envisioned the A-Bomb in His plan, or who knows, maybe this known act of free-will was worked somehow. I don’t know. I know that now, we have the luxury of not having to make such a spectacle and have not since been forced into again saying: “Please! Do not make us do this! We need you to understand that we can beat you, and the needless bloodshed is unthinkable. Please, we will still respect you as new partners in a spirit of peace to end this war if you only recognize this. You need not feel national dishonor. You were a wise and capable enemy, as evidenced by the incorrigible power we have unleashed on you. You were chosen as the final enemy for this weapon because you were the only ones we knew would fight to the bitter end. You are a proud warrior culture. We do not want anymore war.”
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Ghosty
Guest
jonbhorton: 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.
That being said, this kind of targeting of non-combatants ***had been condemned ***by the Church long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I again point you to the Catholic Encyclopedia which was printed decades before these bombings, and said in no uncertain terms that targeting non-combatants for any reason was a moral evil. Period. That means it’s evil when done with swords, bullets, bombs, or nukes; it was not the atomic nature of the attacks that stands condemned, but the targeting of the attacks.
In the atomic bombings non-combatants were targeted, therefore the atomic bombings stand condemned by the Church, and such attacks have always been condemned by the Church, and were certainly openly condemned by the Church long prior to WWII.
Once again your arguments hold no weight from a moral Catholic perspective; you can’t deny that non-combatants, civilians, were directly and intentionally targeted (per the documents from the Targeting Committee), and you can’t deny that targeting non-combatants was condemned by the Church prior to WWII.
Peace and God bless!
That being said, this kind of targeting of non-combatants ***had been condemned ***by the Church long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I again point you to the Catholic Encyclopedia which was printed decades before these bombings, and said in no uncertain terms that targeting non-combatants for any reason was a moral evil. Period. That means it’s evil when done with swords, bullets, bombs, or nukes; it was not the atomic nature of the attacks that stands condemned, but the targeting of the attacks.
In the atomic bombings non-combatants were targeted, therefore the atomic bombings stand condemned by the Church, and such attacks have always been condemned by the Church, and were certainly openly condemned by the Church long prior to WWII.
Once again your arguments hold no weight from a moral Catholic perspective; you can’t deny that non-combatants, civilians, were directly and intentionally targeted (per the documents from the Targeting Committee), and you can’t deny that targeting non-combatants was condemned by the Church prior to WWII.
Peace and God bless!
B
Barbra67
Guest
Hi, It is evil & against GOD’s will.
T
tqualey
Guest
Hi, Barbara67,
Thanks for clarifying that position - there are some who may have been a bit ‘fuzzy’ on this… and I am undoubtedly the biggest offender
Would you also like to comment on Japan’s ruthless and murderous invasion of China, the countries of the Far East and the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor. Not only were civilians and non-combatants targeted (as based on the body count and not on the records of a Targeting Committee) but more of these lives were lost than with the dropping of these two atomic bombs.
I mention this only because fatigue has begun to set in - we were s-o-o-o-o-o bad in dropping the bombs - Period! End! Like one day we just woke up and President Truman just decided to bomb Japan for no apparent reason excpet we wanted to test the bomb on real populations. I submit that while the evil of one group does not justify the evil of another, there must be some recognition of proportional response. The fighting of Okinawa demonstrated that Japan was going to fight to the last man, woman and child. Trying to find a lesson that they would understand and phrase this in the manner they would find most acceptable in an effort to court their conditional surrender is not only unrealistic but seems to be delusional thinking. I say delusional because some type of idealized victim nation called Japan is presenting itself for all to offer pity - while condemning the US.
You know, it is not an easy issue - but, maybe it deserves more than 8 words.
God bless
Thanks for clarifying that position - there are some who may have been a bit ‘fuzzy’ on this… and I am undoubtedly the biggest offender
Would you also like to comment on Japan’s ruthless and murderous invasion of China, the countries of the Far East and the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor. Not only were civilians and non-combatants targeted (as based on the body count and not on the records of a Targeting Committee) but more of these lives were lost than with the dropping of these two atomic bombs.
I mention this only because fatigue has begun to set in - we were s-o-o-o-o-o bad in dropping the bombs - Period! End! Like one day we just woke up and President Truman just decided to bomb Japan for no apparent reason excpet we wanted to test the bomb on real populations. I submit that while the evil of one group does not justify the evil of another, there must be some recognition of proportional response. The fighting of Okinawa demonstrated that Japan was going to fight to the last man, woman and child. Trying to find a lesson that they would understand and phrase this in the manner they would find most acceptable in an effort to court their conditional surrender is not only unrealistic but seems to be delusional thinking. I say delusional because some type of idealized victim nation called Japan is presenting itself for all to offer pity - while condemning the US.
You know, it is not an easy issue - but, maybe it deserves more than 8 words.
God bless
J
jonbhorton
Guest
Given the nature of the war, non-combatants were by default targeted in all but the “away from town” fighting by any and all sides. That the US kept the theme of that particular war in the culminating act to say, “ENOUGH!”, and is now blamed, is like the parent being accused of hypocrisy for spanking their child when they hit their brother. Give me a break, that don’t fly from all but the position so blindly fortified it becomes de facto ineffective.
Extenuating circumstance will always be questioned by the generation after, and further after, and pretty soon, we have instances like Catholics saying the Crusades were bad and don’t even understand the history and why they weren’t. Same thing here. The bombing was neither bad nor good: it was necessary. The only alternative option was an extended period of horror instigated and perpetuated by the Japanese, or surrender to evil.
I’ll take Bombs Away for 1000, Alex.
G
Ghosty
Guest
All targeting of non-combatants is evil. Period.
Non-combatants being killed as unintended collateral damage is not evil, so long as the damage to non-combatants is mitigated to the extent possible. Civilians dying in bombings is not automatically evil; it’s when they are intentional targets that it becomes unequivocally wrong.
This isn’t just about the U.S. either. The topic of this thread happens to be about a U.S. attack, and therefore the U.S. is the subject, but we could also have discussions about other actions in the war committed by other nations. Japan was particularly atrocious in its activities. I said earlier on this thread that Imperial Japan was almost preternaturally evil, but that isn’t the topic at hand. You can’t commit a grave evil to fight a grave evil, ever.
Peace and God bless!
J
jonbhorton
Guest
Then attack the war and the aggressors, for they forced the situation as necessary.
I am continually gobsmacked that people would rather have millions of people die, innocents included, than the amount that did. Between the two, I’ll take the amount that did.
It’s a tactical decision to affect the winning of a war. It is the epitome of war. It is the reason wars should be avoided at all cost. It is the reality of what sin does to humanity.
I stand firm.
G
Ghosty
Guest
I have. Apparently you haven’t read what I’ve written on this thread about Imperial Japan. They did not make it necessary for the U.S. to take evil actions, however. There is always a moral choice, even if it is not the best military tactic.
Millions die every month in a moral manner; do not fear the one who can take the life, but the one who can kill the soul in Hell. One damned soul is worse than a million innocents dead who have a chance to see their Lord.
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.
And you stand against the Church’s clear moral teaching on the matter. Just be sure you understand that.
Peace and God bless!
S
SwissGuard25
Guest
Listen war is war but to drop a Bomb that we, in full knowledge, knew that it could destroy the Whole Island and at risk put a hole in our Ozone. The aftermath was terrible and outrageous, but then we do it again.
It wasn’t justified
It wasn’t justified
J
jonbhorton
Guest
Of all the arguments I’ve seen in this thread thus far, I have to say that was by far the most confusing given it is factually unsound. Care to clarify the whole island gone/ozone thing, maybe provide a source?
J
jonbhorton
Guest
I have. Apparently you haven’t read what I’ve written on this thread about Imperial Japan. They did not make it necessary for the U.S. to take evil actions, however. There is always a moral choice, even if it is not the best military tactic.
Tactics seek ends. The execution of the war is an ongoing series of moral choices. Respond to the attack on Pearl Harbor, or sit this out and eventually be overrun? Do we truly need to take Tarawa, or can we skip it and cut off their supplies to force a surrender? Are all these dead Marines worth it? Well, we did a massive aerial campaign on Tarawa and didn’t realize their fortifications. Bunch of dead Marines. Lesson learned. Do we X, Y, or Z? Constantly. 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.
** Millions die every month in a moral manner; do not fear the one who can take the life, but the one who can kill the soul in Hell. One damned soul is worse than a million innocents dead who have a chance to see their Lord.**
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.
I don’t understand how you are now making a judgement call on the apparent canonization of the entire US military, and the instant sinfulness of those who died. The objections thus far have been pregnant women and non-combatants; the latter definition really becomes a matter of semantics. Would you shoot a man with a radio and no gun?
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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.
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. Is it my fault that the person happens to be wearing their equipment?<< That, is war. 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. 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.
Only, that’s all completely untrue!
Despite massive, overwhelming majority opinion to the contrary. The expanding ammunition was banned by the Hague convention, and only pertained to international war. Yet, the IRC states customary law now prohibits such use in non-international war. What reasoning could lead to such ignorance? None of it makes sense. The intent of such statements become muddied and certain information which throws needed light is absent in such a case. I feel this to pretty much describe the Church’s condemnation of H/N. When I specifically read the portions which describe such condemnation, I see more condemnation on the repeat use of such things as a standard set from that moment on. 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. I agree in that regard. I can imagine almost no such circumstance as specific and oddly agreeable as the end of WW2 and the Bomb. What statements I have seen I view as having universal application and equally universal condemnation of conditions, etc which led to such a spectacle.
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