Atomic Bomb In WWII

[bobzills]

Yet Ike was not apparently opposed to the use of nuclear weapons as a matter of principle, since it was under his presidency that the U.S. had a policy of “massive retaliation,” with respect to the USSR.

Yes, I do not agree with the principle of massive retaliation. However, it my still be of interest to note that even though he was not opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, he thoght that the use of the Atomic Bomb against Japan was not necessary.

 

[GKC]

As president of the United States of America, I am sure that he had a basis for his opinion in 1963, that the use of the A Bomb against Japan was not necessary.

But it had nothng to do with the circumstances in 1945, when he had no particular knowledge of the Pacific theater, as he said. And it is unlikely that the circumstances he related as to the Stimson conversation could have occurred in that fashion.

Truman had a basis for his opinion in 1945, too. And he was in the middle of the events.

GKC

 

[GKC]

You are a pacifist then?

I ask only because some folks on this thread seem to take the approach that war is necessarily a nasty thing and so we shouldn’t ask too many moral questions about the means used to win it. It is this position that I will fight while there is breath in my body.

Edwin

I tend to agree. Where we disagree is on what a moral decision is.

GKC

 

[bobzills]

But it had nothng to do with the circumstances in 1945, when he had no particular knowledge of the Pacific theater, as he said. And it is unlikely that the circumstances he related as to the Stimson conversation could have occurred in that fashion.

Truman had a basis for his opinion in 1945, too. And he was in the middle of the events.

GKC

But Eisenhower came later, and gave the interview after having been president for eight years. I am talking here about whether or not the bomb was necessary to end the war. Eisenhower says it was not. You say that Harry Truman used the bomb to end the war. Which I say is immoral. But did Harry Truman ever declare that the use of the bomb was necssary?
Other people have said that the use of the atomic bomb was not necessary to end the war. For example:
Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, “MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed.” He continues, “When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.
According to Lewis Strauss: “It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…”.
quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 145, 325.

 

[Wolseley]

As president of the United States of America, I am sure that he had a basis for his opinion in 1963, that the use of the A Bomb against Japan was not necessary.

The thing about opinions is, they’re just like septic tanks: everybody’s got one, and they all stink.

 

[bobzills]

The thing about opinions is, they’re just like septic tanks: everybody’s got one, and they all stink.

I would disagree that in the case of the opinion of the President of the United States, President Dwight David Eisenhower, that his opinion stinks. In fact, I think the opposite is true, namely that his opinion has a lot of merit. In fact, when you look at the notable people that have a similar opinion on this issue, then it is all the more stronger reason to beleive that it was not necessary to drop the A-Bomb. And of course, it was immoral also, as has been determined by the theologians at CAF and others.
According to Brigadier General Carter Clarke: “…when we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.”
Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359

 

[Wolseley]

I can counter with numerous quotes from Gen. Curtis LeMay, Gen. Thomas Power, John Foster Dulles, Kenneth Walz, and Bob McNamara with approximately the opposite opinion.

Isn’t this fun?

 

[GKC]

But Eisenhower came later, and gave the interview after having been president for eight years. I am talking here about whether or not the bomb was necessary to end the war. Eisenhower says it was not. You say that Harry Truman used the bomb to end the war. Which I say is immoral. But did Harry Truman ever declare that the use of the bomb was necssary?
Other people have said that the use of the atomic bomb was not necessary to end the war. For example:
Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, “MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed.” He continues, “When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.
According to Lewis Strauss: “It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…”.
quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 145, 325.

Truman’s declaration that the use of the bomb was necessary, to reduce casualties and shorten the war, is revealed in the fact that he ordered it used. He also stated his belief, post war, in a couple of places, none of which are at hand. I’ll check over the library.

MacArthur, as stated was in favor of a land invasion, with himself on the white horse, which is the very point that was at issue; the increased number of casualties such a route would inflict.

Strauss’s opinion, though he was later in charge of the AEC, is of no particular interest. Though I have a faint memory that he as on record as in favor of it, in some context; I may be wrong.

Some individuals were in favor of trying Hirohito as a war criminal, though not necessarily abolishing the role of the Emperor. The Potsdam statement was ambiguous

GKC

 

[bobzills]

Truman’s declaration that the use of the bomb was necessary, to reduce casualties and shorten the war, is revealed in the fact that he ordered it used.

All this says it that it was more convenient for American combatants to use the A-Bomb and kill the children and other non-combatants to end the war. President Eisenhower says that it was not necessary to use it to end the war.

 

[bobzills]

I can counter with numerous quotes from Gen. Curtis LeMay, Gen. Thomas Power, John Foster Dulles, Kenneth Walz, and Bob McNamara with approximately the opposite opinion.

Isn’t this fun?

No it is not. It is no fun if you or if a loved one of yours was affected by one of these horrific and hideous weapons.

 

[Wolseley]

No it is not. It is no fun if you or if a loved one of yours was affected by one of these horrific and hideous weapons.

My father was permanantly disfigured and disabled for the remainder of his life due to wounds incurred by a Japanese Zero in 1944, and my uncle carried German shrapnel in his body for the remainder of his due to a mortar attack in Italy in 1943.

Does that count?

 

[GKC]

All this says it that it was more convenient for American combatants to use the A-Bomb and kill the children and other non-combatants to end the war. President Eisenhower says that it was not necessary to use it to end the war.

I’m only back for a minute. But you still seem oblivious to the fact that precisely the same classes of people were killed, more thoroughly, by the fire bombings, than were killed by the atomic bombs. I’ll repeat this later.

GKC

 

[beeliner]

[Truman] also stated his belief, post war, in a couple of places, none of which are at hand. I’ll check over the library.

I quoted several such statements in post 313 of this thread.

 

[sodak]

No it is not. It is no fun if you or if a loved one of yours was affected by one of these horrific and hideous weapons.

You really need to get off your high horse.

My Dad was on Omaha beach on D-Day. My mom and all of her family were in the Dutch underground during the war, one of her brothers was caught and sent to a concentration camp. They could have told you stories that would make you hide in your room for a long time. War is a terrible thing. Nobody would argue that. There are many people affected by it, and MANY “hideous weapons”.

There was a recent study put out that showed that there were far fewer deaths from fallout in Japan than were previously thought.

Since we are second guessing our wartime leaders so much, let me cut and paste from an earlier post that no one bothered to answer. Try this:

A 5 year old boy comes running at you with explosives wrapped around him, you know someone in the crowd behind him has the detonator. You have 30 men behind you whose lives are in your hands. What do you do?

A 15 year old boy does the same thing. What do you do?

A 20 year old man does the same thing. What do you do?

You have about 3 seconds in each scenario to shoot or not. You have no way of anticipating what is coming next. You’ve never heard of a Church teaching on the subject. You haven’t slept more than 4 hours in the last 4 days. You’re 19 years old.

Welcome to combat.

These are the scenarios that our soldiers face every day. They don’t sit at home typing in a computer, googling references to morality that a bunch of people can’t agree on for several days. And they have seconds to decide.

So don’t get all sanctimonious on me about decisions that have to be made in a short amount of time, under pressure that you have to experience to believe, and with far less information then they would like to have. They do the best they can with what they have available to them. And it is my belief that the vast majority of them have NOTHING to apologize for when they stand in front of God on judgement day.

And that goes for President Truman also, in my opinion.

 

[First_of_9]

You really need to get off your high horse.

My Dad was on Omaha beach on D-Day. My mom and all of her family were in the Dutch underground during the war, one of her brothers was caught and sent to a concentration camp. They could have told you stories that would make you hide in your room for a long time. War is a terrible thing. Nobody would argue that. There are many people affected by it, and MANY “hideous weapons”.

There was a recent study put out that showed that there were far fewer deaths from fallout in Japan than were previously thought.

Since we are second guessing our wartime leaders so much, let me cut and paste from an earlier post that no one bothered to answer. Try this:

A 5 year old boy comes running at you with explosives wrapped around him, you know someone in the crowd behind him has the detonator. You have 30 men behind you whose lives are in your hands. What do you do?

A 15 year old boy does the same thing. What do you do?

A 20 year old man does the same thing. What do you do?

You have about 3 seconds in each scenario to shoot or not. You have no way of anticipating what is coming next. You’ve never heard of a Church teaching on the subject. You haven’t slept more than 4 hours in the last 4 days. You’re 19 years old.

Welcome to combat.

These are the scenarios that our soldiers face every day. They don’t sit at home typing in a computer, googling references to morality that a bunch of people can’t agree on for several days. And they have seconds to decide.

So don’t get all sanctimonious on me about decisions that have to be made in a short amount of time, under pressure that you have to experience to believe, and with far less information then they would like to have. They do the best they can with what they have available to them. And it is my belief that the vast majority of them have NOTHING to apologize for when they stand in front of God on judgement day.

And that goes for President Truman also, in my opinion.

 

[bobzills]

My father was permanantly disfigured and disabled for the remainder of his life due to wounds incurred by a Japanese Zero in 1944, and my uncle carried German shrapnel in his body for the remainder of his due to a mortar attack in Italy in 1943.

Does that count?

Of course it counts in life for your country and for your Church and for your people for a soldier to make these enormous sacrifices out of love for his country. I don;t want to minimise in any way the heroism and courage of a soldier in battle. If it seems like I did, I sincerely apologise for that.
I thought that i was talking here about a just war concept and the morality of using the A-Bomb. Now I am giving my opinion that there is a difference to be observed in war between combatants and non-hostile, civilian, non-combatants and that the A-Bomb does not do that. As the CCC states:
"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons – especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes "(CCC 2314).
The attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attempts to pressure Japan into surrender. The means used was to attack civilian non-combatants.
For example, suppose that if I kill the 3 year old relative of the emperor, it would then end the war, and it would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. Would this be allowed according to Catholic theology? You are killing one child in order to save the lives of one hundred thousand soldiers? My reading of Catholic theology is that this would not be moral or ethical.
“the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 57).

 

[bobzills]

I quoted several such statements in post 313 of this thread.

All that these quotes do is to state that it was convenient to use the A-Bomb because it saved the lives of thousands (or even more) of Americans. It doesn’t say that it was necessary to use it. In fact we have the statements of several notable people that it was not necessary to use the A-Bomb to end the war.
Do we have the right to kill one innocent child in order to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers? My reading of Catholic theology is that it is gravely immoral to do so:
“the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 57).

 

[Al_Masetti]

All that these quotes do is to state that it was convenient to use the A-Bomb because it saved the lives of thousands (or even more) of Americans. It doesn’t say that it was necessary to use it. In fact we have the statements of several notable people that it was not necessary to use the A-Bomb to end the war.
Do we have the right to kill one innocent child in order to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers? My reading of Catholic theology is that it is gravely immoral to do so:
“the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 57).

CONVENIENT!!!

Excuse me.

This has nothing to do with “convenience”.

None of those famous people had any alternate idea of how to end the war. None of them. It is fine for someone to quote someone a half century later when none of those people was involved. Japan was still fighting and killing.

The decision was with President Truman. He expressed the thought that was in everyone’s head. He had to end it.

“To save a few thousand lives”? A paltry few thousand lives? No, try a million lives. Maybe more.

This has nothing to do with the deliberate killing of “one innocent child”. If it was one innocent person, then you should be able to name that one deliberately targeted innocent person.

This is not a deliberate cold blooded killing on a street in peacetime of some person is minding their own business.

Look … war is a terrible thing. The second most terrible thing after Hell itself. Innocent people die.

War is not some kind of game … countries don’t just go to war because the feel like it.

The United States stayed out of World War 2 until it was almost too late to save Europe. And the United States did not engage in military action against Japan until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Would you have turned the other cheek?

What … SPECIFICALLY … would you have done?

Saying what you would NOT have done is non-responsive.

If you, personally, want nothing to do with killing, then you can present yourself to the enemy of your country and tell them you want nothing to do with killing.

The United States allows for and permits conscientious objectors to perform alternative service. Which is somewhat unique. Objectors in Nazi Germany were guillotined … or in some cases were put into the extermination camps.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Of course it counts in life for your country and for your Church and for your people for a soldier to make these enormous sacrifices out of love for his country. I don;t want to minimise in any way the heroism and courage of a soldier in battle. If it seems like I did, I sincerely apologise for that.
I thought that i was talking here about a just war concept and the morality of using the A-Bomb. Now I am giving my opinion that there is a difference to be observed in war between combatants and non-hostile, civilian, non-combatants and that the A-Bomb does not do that. As the CCC states:
"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons – especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes "(CCC 2314).
The attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attempts to pressure Japan into surrender. The means used was to attack civilian non-combatants.
For example, suppose that if I kill the 3 year old relative of the emperor, it would then end the war, and it would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. Would this be allowed according to Catholic theology? You are killing one child in order to save the lives of one hundred thousand soldiers? My reading of Catholic theology is that this would not be moral or ethical.
“the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 57).

It wasn’t about pressure.

Excuse me.

There were millions of soldiers, sailors and airmen killing one another. There were people fighting to the death. There were civilians killing themselves rather than surrendering.

It’s really not fine for Monday morning quarterbacking to take place in this kind of situation. And sitting comfortably back more than 60 years later and saying that many more millions of people should have died by starvation or in house-to-house fighting.

Bobzills, were you there?

Bobzills, if you want to do something meaningful, examine the Venona books to figure out after the fact how the Stalin and the Soviet Union maneuvered and manipulated the Europeans into war. And how Stalin ordered his agents in the United States to sneakily and systematically put the screws to Japan. Take a look at the role of Communism and Socialism in manipulating both the public and government bureaucracy to destabilize the world.

 

[Al_Masetti]

CONVENIENT!!!

Excuse me.

This has nothing to do with “convenience”.

None of those famous people had any alternate idea of how to end the war. None of them. It is fine for someone to quote someone a half century later when none of those people was involved. Japan was still fighting and killing.

The decision was with President Truman. He expressed the thought that was in everyone’s head. He had to end it.

“To save a few thousand lives”? A paltry few thousand lives? No, try a million lives. Maybe more.

This has nothing to do with the deliberate killing of “one innocent child”. If it was one innocent person, then you should be able to name that one deliberately targeted innocent person.

This is not a deliberate cold blooded killing on a street in peacetime of some person is minding their own business.

Look … war is a terrible thing. The second most terrible thing after Hell itself. Innocent people die.

War is not some kind of game … countries don’t just go to war because the feel like it.

The United States stayed out of World War 2 until it was almost too late to save Europe. And the United States did not engage in military action against Japan until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Would you have turned the other cheek?

What … SPECIFICALLY … would you have done?

Saying what you would NOT have done is non-responsive.

If you, personally, want nothing to do with killing, then you can present yourself to the enemy of your country and tell them you want nothing to do with killing.

The United States allows for and permits conscientious objectors to perform alternative service. Which is somewhat unique. Objectors in Nazi Germany were guillotined … or in some cases were put into the extermination camps.