Fr Miscamble defending atomic bomb

[Canvas]

What if the civilians were working in factories producing chemical and biological weapons?

Now, war production factories (they don’t need to be making WMDs) are legitimate targets. Anyone working there is part of the war effort of that country.
Unfortunately, in WWII, both German and Japanese production facilities had forced or slave labor, POWs, deportees etc working in munitions factories (one famous example—Oskar Schindler ran a munitions plant. He managed to use it to protect the lives of over 1,000 Jews that were officially being used as slave labor) and other legitimate targets for Allied bombing.

Oskar Schindler - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Norseman82]

I read somewhere that one of the reasons that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen is that they were not bombed previously, and as such that would give scientists the chance to study the effects of the atomic bomb.

How about this.

Your enemy is in your country and is happily killing and torturing your citizens. Your best bet to win the war and end the carnage visited upon your citizens is to bomb the factory where the enemies weapons are being made.

It is right next to the orphanage.

What do you do?

Your enemy shows no signs of stopping and will gladly and happily torture and kill all your fellow citizens.

A land invasion will result in the loss of even more lives. If you bomb the weapons factory you end the war quickly. However there is a risk of the orphanage being hit.

What do you do?

Interesting question that has been posed in morality classes for decades.

I do recall in one of my courses somewhere (I’m going from pure memory here) that during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong and/or North Vietnamese would put their anti-aircraft weapons on rice paddies. We could take those weapons out and save the lives of our pilots, but if we were to hit them it would result in massive flooding of civilian areas. The U.S. military decided against it because they felt it violated the principle of “proportionality” in the Rules of Armed Combat.

 

[Canvas]

I do recall in one of my courses somewhere (I’m going from pure memory here) that during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong and/or North Vietnamese would put their anti-aircraft weapons on rice paddies. We could take those weapons out and save the lives of our pilots, but if we were to hit them it would result in massive flooding of civilian areas. The U.S. military decided against it because they felt it violated the principle of “proportionality” in the Rules of Armed Combat.

That is strange because the US dropped more tons of bombs on SE Asia (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) than in all of WWII. More tons of bombs were dropped on just Laos between the mid 1960s and 1973 than on all of Europe in WWII.

 

[Norseman82]

What if the civilians were working in factories producing chemical and biological weapons?

Both of the cities bombed had military facilities and war production facilities.

Now, war production factories (they don’t need to be making WMDs) are legitimate targets. Anyone working there is part of the war effort of that country.

Just an interesting historical note: the last bombing mission of WW2 against Japan was not the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, but rather the conventional bombing of the oil production facilities in Akita on August 14, 1945. There was a documentary on this on YouTube - maybe it was combined with an account of the events of the attempted coup against Emperor Hirohito that same day in order to prevent him from surrendering to the U.S.

 

[phil19034]

TheBomb.Com:

I wasn’t aware there was official Church teaching on nuclear weaponry.

Any action that deliberately kills innocent people, even to accomplish a good end (like ending a war) is still intrinsically evil. You cannot bomb civilians even if it will shorten a war or prevent some other tragedy.

No one said it wasn’t. But war typically isn’t morally black & white - esp when the enemy is committing war crimes.

War is often morally gray (if not black).

This is why I’ve said that Truman picked what he believed to be the lesser of two evils. I think the only morally neutral decision would have cost more lives and it is understandable why he chose the lesser of two evils.

Doesn’t make his choice the moral one, but it could be argued that it was the best choice available out of terrible options.

 

[phil19034]

I’d probably have gone with Operation Downfall, but without actually invading. Instead, we act like we’re going to invade, then nuke the troops on the beach and hang back. Keep indicating invasions, only to use nukes instead.

I don’t think that would have worked. The Japanese generals still didn’t want to surrender after the 2nd bomb.

It took the Emperor seeing the destruction of two cities and hundreds of thousands of people to surrender, even when his generals still didn’t want to. Plus, both of those cities had lots of military factories.

So I just don’t think the bombing of the beach would (even twice) would have done the trick. I think they would have kept fighting.

 

[yankeesouth]

So I just don’t think the bombing of the beach would (even twice) would have done the trick. I think they would have kept fighting.

Also considering Japanese strategy on the various islands the Marines had to take I don’t think the invasion of Japan itself would have been different. There would have been no troops on the beach to bomb. Allied troops would have been ‘allowed’ to land and going by the casualties on those small island campaigns it would have been a bloodbath on both sides.

 

[mythbuster1]

By that stage in the war, we could build an atomic bomb every three weeks, and Operation Downfall wasn’t scheduled to begin until November.

 

[Wozza]

If I was Truman then I would say:

‘Yes, it’s immoral. Yes, it’s wrong. Yes, we would be killing innocent women and children. But it needs to be done and the buck stops here. I will pray for forgiveness but I will accept the consequences as the good Lord sees fit’.

 

[Canvas]

No one said it wasn’t. But war typically isn’t morally black & white - esp when the enemy is committing war crimes.

War is often morally gray (if not black).

This is why I’ve said that Truman picked what he believed to be the lesser of two evils. I think the only morally neutral decision would have cost more lives and it is understandable why he chose the lesser of two evils.

Doesn’t make his choice the moral one, but it could be argued that it was the best choice available out of terrible options.

There is truth in what you write. To secure the defeats of Germany and Japan (who for every month they stayed in the war, were causing tens of thousands of deaths in occupied areas not including the military forces engaged to defeat them).

It is a situation where most decisions involve some kind of horrible moral evil. A naval blockade of Japan, for example, would have killed far more people than the bombs. Starvation, famine and outbreaks of disease would have been on a horrific scale.

 

[twf]

Yep. There’s no question here. Anyone who says otherwise is in defiance of the magisterium. The Church clearly teaches that the ends do not justify the means. There is no wiggle room here for faithful Catholics. Mass targeting of innocents is ALWAYS gravely evil.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

let’s say that there is an orphanage with 1000 disabled infants in it. If you annihilate the orphanage, you will horrify the enemy so much with your ability to wage war that they will sue for peace.

Point well taken, but I was deliberately trying to find the most outrageous, the least defensible hypothetical scenario, to illustrate something that cannot morally and ethically be done, regardless of how much good would come from it. It would be an act of sheer terror and, depending upon the circumstances of the country being attached, could shock them enough to make them think “if they can do this, and if they are capable of such moral depravity without scruple, what else is this enemy capable of doing to us?”. Hirohito, in his surrender, was able to tell his people that, in effect, these are crazy people who could wipe out the whole world unless we do something to make it stop:

“Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”

It was very important to the Japanese mindset to enable them to “save face” in a manner like this.

 

[Wozza]

Yep. There’s no question here. Anyone who says otherwise is in defiance of the magisterium. The Church clearly teaches that the ends do not justify the means. There is no wiggle room here for faithful Catholics. Mass targeting of innocents is ALWAYS gravely evil.

Why ‘mass targetting’? Is there a limit? Why not just the one innocent in a just war? If you bomb a munitions factory then you will most certainly be killing non combatants.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If I was Truman then I would say:

‘Yes, it’s immoral. Yes, it’s wrong. Yes, we would be killing innocent women and children. But it needs to be done and the buck stops here. I will pray for forgiveness but I will accept the consequences as the good Lord sees fit’.

It is very common among those not adhering to Catholic moral theology to resort to “the end justifies the means” in extreme circumstances. They are either willing to commit the sin, knowing it is a sin (as Truman seemed to be alluding to here), or they imagine “at this point it’s not a sin anymore”, or I have even heard (with regard to divorce and remarriage) that “Christ forgave all sin, past, present, and future, so it is all right for me to live in sin, because He’s already atoned for it and, besides, I’m saved to begin with”.

It is an act of heroic virtue — virtue that Our Lord can call any of us to exercise — to choose great temporal loss or suffering over sin, when those are the only two options. We may never directly commit a sin. That is the essence of Catholic moral theology.

 

[undead_rat]

It is the USA’s revisionist propaganda that the use of the atomic bomb on Japan forced its surrender. President Truman knew that the USSR was mandated to declare war on Japan in August of 1945 and that this act would force Japan to surrender. He rushed to use the atomic bomb on Japan to create the impression that it was the USA’s actions that forced the Japanese surrender. That is the real tragedy of the use of the A-bomb on Japan: it was nothing more than a crass, self-serving political move by the president of the USA.

 

[JimG]

I don’t believe that. But even if it were true, keeping Japan out of the USSR’s hands would have saved the Japanese a great deal of death and misery.

 

[vz71]

It is the USA’s revisionist propaganda…

Sources?

Surely you don’t expect to make such inflammatory statements unchallenged.

 

[mythbuster1]

Those actively engaging in support roles for the war effort are not entitled to the immunity of non-combatants unless specifically identified as such by the Geneva Conventions (i.e. medical personnel).

 

[Wozza]

Those actively engaging in support roles for the war effort are not entitled to the immunity of non-combatants unless specifically identified as such by the Geneva Conventions (i.e. medical personnel).

So some old dear, knitting socks for the troops on the frontline, is ‘not entitled to the immunity of non-combatants’. Or the woman driving her son to the munitions factory. Or the old guy on his way to buy some war bonds.

If only life really were black and white.

 

[Sarcelle]

What is the most moral way of defeating an enemy that will not stop from killing?

An enemy that will rather be obliterated than surrender and is prepared to sacrifice all of its citizens?

If the bomb was not used than a land war and a naval blockade would be the way to go resulting in a larger loss of life.