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FiveLinden
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So the end justifies the means, despite Catholic teaching?
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AlNg
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I don’t think so. The Japanese were ready to surrender and if the US had accepted, there would have been far fewer casualties.
And nuclear weapons killed innocent children and other civilians who had nothing to do with the fighting. It is flat out wrong to choose to kill children for any purpose including to end a war.
Reader please see:
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AlNg
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The argument is that it is much better to kill thousands of innocent Japanese children than to cause harm to American soldiers.
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FiveLinden
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So yes, the end justifies the means?
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FiveLinden
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It might surprise you to know that those of us outside the US have only the vaguest idea of what you are talking about.
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GKMotley
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Depends on who you are asking.
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GKMotley
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Premature post. Back in moment
The Japanese were not ready to surrender. The authority to surrender was in the hands of the Saiko Senso Shido Kaigi, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, which was split evenly between factions headed by Togo, the Foreign Minister and Anami, the Minister of the Army. The Togo faction’s plan was to attempt to try to negotiate on a basis of retention of the essence of the kokutai, the national polity. The Anami faction held out for more conditions. The US would not accept anything other than a total surrender per the Potsdam Declaration. The essence of the Anami position was that by raising the butcher’s bill, the price in blood that the Allies would incur by the planned invasion of the Home Islands, through the use of the Ketsu-go plan for a total defense of the Islands, better conditions could be obtained…
The casualty rates for the war, by the middle of 1945 were averaging between 125K and upwards of 300K deaths monthly, depending on whether one took into account the Japanese or only the Allied losses. These figures, of which the rate would have increased, with the opening of Operation OLYMPIC, and increased again with CORONET,and increased again, throughout the Pacific Theater continued as long as the war did. At such a rate, even not considering those losses which DOWNFALL or ZIPPER would bring, the deaths would exceed those of the bombs. The use of the bombs was the fastest end to the war, with the fewest deaths, consistent with the war aim of restructuring Japanese society to extirpate the militaristic ruling factors that had directed it for most of the century. As with Germany, we aimed at restructuring both societies.
The morning is early and I have a full day. But I also have over 20 years of concentrated study on the end game in the Pacific and around 12-14 years experience in correcting historical mis-assertions on line. Comes from extended reading, off line. Best single book is Frank’s DOWNFALL THE END OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE. A long list of other readings can be supplied. Indeed, there’s short list somewhere far above.
The Japanese were not ready to surrender. The authority to surrender was in the hands of the Saiko Senso Shido Kaigi, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, which was split evenly between factions headed by Togo, the Foreign Minister and Anami, the Minister of the Army. The Togo faction’s plan was to attempt to try to negotiate on a basis of retention of the essence of the kokutai, the national polity. The Anami faction held out for more conditions. The US would not accept anything other than a total surrender per the Potsdam Declaration. The essence of the Anami position was that by raising the butcher’s bill, the price in blood that the Allies would incur by the planned invasion of the Home Islands, through the use of the Ketsu-go plan for a total defense of the Islands, better conditions could be obtained…
The casualty rates for the war, by the middle of 1945 were averaging between 125K and upwards of 300K deaths monthly, depending on whether one took into account the Japanese or only the Allied losses. These figures, of which the rate would have increased, with the opening of Operation OLYMPIC, and increased again with CORONET,and increased again, throughout the Pacific Theater continued as long as the war did. At such a rate, even not considering those losses which DOWNFALL or ZIPPER would bring, the deaths would exceed those of the bombs. The use of the bombs was the fastest end to the war, with the fewest deaths, consistent with the war aim of restructuring Japanese society to extirpate the militaristic ruling factors that had directed it for most of the century. As with Germany, we aimed at restructuring both societies.
The morning is early and I have a full day. But I also have over 20 years of concentrated study on the end game in the Pacific and around 12-14 years experience in correcting historical mis-assertions on line. Comes from extended reading, off line. Best single book is Frank’s DOWNFALL THE END OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE. A long list of other readings can be supplied. Indeed, there’s short list somewhere far above.
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GKMotley
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No, the position is that it is better to kill fewer people, of all sorts, over the entire theater of the Pacific, than to kill more of them. That is the moral position of proportionality. But I don’t argue the moral position. I relate the historical one.
All RCs should follow the teaching of the RCC on the matter.(Gaudium et Spes, for one example). I’m familiar with the linked article, both from reading it, itself, and from reading similar assertions elsewhere. It is primarily the moral argument which any RC should affirm and which I do not discuss. The author’s statement as to the anticipated casualties during DOWNFALL is absurd.
All RCs should follow the teaching of the RCC on the matter.(Gaudium et Spes, for one example). I’m familiar with the linked article, both from reading it, itself, and from reading similar assertions elsewhere. It is primarily the moral argument which any RC should affirm and which I do not discuss. The author’s statement as to the anticipated casualties during DOWNFALL is absurd.
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MPat
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Yes, you keep repeating that. But if we look at what arguments you can use, we see that they don’t go much further than the word “unicorns”…
Yes, it is the “best” alternative, if you throw out others after calling them “unicorns” and pretending that this is sufficient. Keep it up and it will eventually become the “worst” alternative as well.
It can also be made to look better by counting all “costs” for other alternatives, but trying to avoid counting some “costs” (like loss of life after Communist victory in Chinese Civil War) for this single option.
That might be the reasoning of some. In other cases the willingness to avoid thinking that the “thinker” is a war criminal might be a factor. Some might be thinking “My country right or wrong.”. Some might want victory more than sainthood. Some might have embraced utilitarianism for real.
People are different. And even they themselves aren’t certain to know what motivates them.
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GKMotley
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It was the best alternative at the time, given the war as it existed.
Being an optimist, I again suggest Frank/DOWNFALL and/or Kort (ed) THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO HIROSHIMA AND THE BOMB. And a long list, as already suggested, of other titles, It is one of those subjects about which historical knowledge is useful. History is full of things like that.
Being an optimist, I again suggest Frank/DOWNFALL and/or Kort (ed) THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO HIROSHIMA AND THE BOMB. And a long list, as already suggested, of other titles, It is one of those subjects about which historical knowledge is useful. History is full of things like that.
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MPat
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Yes, I guess hoping that no one will notice that you once more gave no argument to support your position might count as a sign of being an optimist…
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GKMotley
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Of course I have.
Try Frank. Try Kort. You will see them again, there. And elsewhere.
Try Frank. Try Kort. You will see them again, there. And elsewhere.
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AlNg
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Not true:
“Adm. William Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir I Was There that “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.… in being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.””
“The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing … I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon,” Eisenhower said in 1963.
General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: “My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.”
Christian Century condemned the bombings. An editorial August 29, 1945, said:
“The atomic bomb was used at a time when Japan’s navy was sunk, her air force virtually destroyed, her homeland surrounded, her supplies cut off, and our forces poised for the final stroke … Our leaders seem not to have weighed the moral considerations involved. No sooner was the bomb ready than it was rushed to the front and dropped on two helpless cities … The atomic bomb can fairly be said to have struck Christianity itself … The churches of America must dissociate themselves and their faith from this inhuman and reckless act of the American Government.”
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MonteRCMS
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Admiral Leahy had no idea. He stated that he believed that the atomic bomb would not even work.
http://www.doug-long.com/leahy.htm
The U.S. Navy suffered THOUSANDS of dead in the invasions of the islands coming to Japan.
The Imperial Army of Japan had hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians mobilized to oppose the American landings on Japan.
We also learned they had hundreds of kamikaze airplanes prepared and ready for takeoff.
http://www.doug-long.com/leahy.htm
The U.S. Navy suffered THOUSANDS of dead in the invasions of the islands coming to Japan.
The Imperial Army of Japan had hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians mobilized to oppose the American landings on Japan.
We also learned they had hundreds of kamikaze airplanes prepared and ready for takeoff.
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GKMotley
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Eisenhower’s oft cited assertion , which occurred in two of his memoirs (it’s in CRUSADE IN EUROPE and MANDATE FOR CHANGE, which is what is quoted here, is not supported by any independent evidence. He further said, in the 1948, but not the 1963 account, that “My views were merely personal and immediate reactions, they were not based on any analysis of the subject”.
; For consideration of the assertions, see HIROSHIMA: THE MYTHS OF REVISIONISM/ed. Robert J. Maddox, chap. 1, by the editor… As Eisenhower said even earlier (12 July 45), in a letter to his wife, he knew nothing of the particular circumstances in Japan at that time. And no reason he should; it was not his theater…The persons making the decision were those with both the responsibility and the information best suited to make the decision. Eisenhower had neither, as he had said in his letter. As far as is known, he had no access to Pacific Theater Magic or Ultra, either traffic or summary, which was where the direct revelation of what the Japanese situation was, was found. Nor should he have. He was the ETO commander.
Leahy was an opponent of the bomb, primarily for moral reasons (he was a RC), during its development, and famously predicted that the thing would never work, citing his expertise on explosives, in his naval career. He stopped doing that after Trinity. He never claimed that he had conveyed his moral convictions to anyone in the decision making chain, prior to the use of the bombs, and his assertion, along with Eisenhower’s more detailed1963 statement, were not made public until after the war, and in Ike’s case, after Stimson, to whom he claimed he had raised his early objections, was conveniently deceased. His milder statement, in 1948, was not supported by Stimson’s papers, in which he detailed conversations relating to the bomb, including at Potsdam, where Eisenhower said he conversation took place.
MacArthur’s postwar statements fall under the same problem. He was not informed of the bomb until shortly before it was dropped. He insisted that an invasion was still required (adding another dimension to the blood-letting) and should proceed. With him in charge of the greatest such undertaking in history.
In short, these opinions do not reflect a stated opposition to the use of the bombs,prior to their use nor were they made in any fashion that would have effected their use. The decisions were made by those above them in the chain… See Maddox, op cit. chap 1. And also Frank/DOWNFALL, pp. 332-334, and notes.
I do hope you didn’t think these revelations were new to those who study the history of the bombs.
; For consideration of the assertions, see HIROSHIMA: THE MYTHS OF REVISIONISM/ed. Robert J. Maddox, chap. 1, by the editor… As Eisenhower said even earlier (12 July 45), in a letter to his wife, he knew nothing of the particular circumstances in Japan at that time. And no reason he should; it was not his theater…The persons making the decision were those with both the responsibility and the information best suited to make the decision. Eisenhower had neither, as he had said in his letter. As far as is known, he had no access to Pacific Theater Magic or Ultra, either traffic or summary, which was where the direct revelation of what the Japanese situation was, was found. Nor should he have. He was the ETO commander.
Leahy was an opponent of the bomb, primarily for moral reasons (he was a RC), during its development, and famously predicted that the thing would never work, citing his expertise on explosives, in his naval career. He stopped doing that after Trinity. He never claimed that he had conveyed his moral convictions to anyone in the decision making chain, prior to the use of the bombs, and his assertion, along with Eisenhower’s more detailed1963 statement, were not made public until after the war, and in Ike’s case, after Stimson, to whom he claimed he had raised his early objections, was conveniently deceased. His milder statement, in 1948, was not supported by Stimson’s papers, in which he detailed conversations relating to the bomb, including at Potsdam, where Eisenhower said he conversation took place.
MacArthur’s postwar statements fall under the same problem. He was not informed of the bomb until shortly before it was dropped. He insisted that an invasion was still required (adding another dimension to the blood-letting) and should proceed. With him in charge of the greatest such undertaking in history.
In short, these opinions do not reflect a stated opposition to the use of the bombs,prior to their use nor were they made in any fashion that would have effected their use. The decisions were made by those above them in the chain… See Maddox, op cit. chap 1. And also Frank/DOWNFALL, pp. 332-334, and notes.
I do hope you didn’t think these revelations were new to those who study the history of the bombs.
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GKMotley
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Under the Ketsu-go plan, millions of available bodies for the gyokusai, and the latest estimate of the kamikaze function aircraft is 12,000. Plus suicide boats.
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MonteRCMS
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The scientists who designed and built the atomic bomb were shocked and appalled that it was used against Japan … THEY HAD WANTED IT USED AGAINST GERMANY!!!
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MonteRCMS
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I saw some photographs of hundreds of the suicide boats in a dry dock. The Japanese were ready for us.
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MonteRCMS
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The United States designed and later built a giant bomber to be used against Germany. It had ten engines and could stay aloft for nearly 48 hours with a crew of 20.
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