Hiroshima

[tjm190]

By your logic, having a day care center in the Pentagon (which there is) renders it free from enemy attack, correct?

Or the Japanese having their headquarters for army homeland defense accross from a school ( which it was) rendered it immune from attack, right?

My logic is only that you shouldn’t use excessive force. For example, shooting a bank robber in NYC is fine. Hitting him with an artillery round is not. Similarly, hitting the pentagon with a conventional bomb is fine as an act of war. Hitting the pentagon with an atomic weapon is not.

I’m not claiming the possibility of collateral damage makes an action unacceptable in pursuit of a target. However, you must use a weapon of appropriate scale. A conventional bomb targets a factory or government building- a nuclear one targets a city.

 

[tjm190]

Indeed.

The issue was not, “given what they will say they know in the 2000s, will we have to invade,” the issue was whether at the time, they believed an invasion was required. If they had not, they would not have obtained Russian Pacific involvement at the Yalta conference, which seemed necessary at the time, but by 8/45 was looking like a needless headache.

The atom bombs probably headed off a Japan War in the late 1900s analogous to Korea and Vietnam, with a human toll far greater than the bombs, as well as the communization of millions more people. But hey, such isn’t valid to professional moral philosophers.

Or Catholic morality- murdering one to save a trillion is still murdering one, and therefore mortally sinful, by the Catholic Standard.

I, being an evil heretic, may or may not take issue with this. If you wish to call yourself a Catholic faithful to Rome, then you may not.

 

[tafan]

Never, until modern times, would the indescrimant killing of non-combatants have been seen as morally acceptable. The use of strategic bombing of cities in WWII was wrong. We had a just cause in WWII, but we did not always use just means in exucuting the war. For any Catholic, the Church’s teaching is quite clear:

"2314 "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."109 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. "

You can go back and find comments by generals of the war where they use the term terror and admit that many of the bombings were to terrorize the population into not wanting to fight any longer.

I have a great deal of respect for many of the Generals and leaders of WWII. They were great men. But their consciences had been malformed on this issue based on the history of the previous century. But we must call a spade a spade and admit it was wrong so it does not happen again. These were very smart military minds, they could have figured out how to win without bombing civilians.

FInally, it is not an issue of using nuclear weapons as opposed to conventional bombs. It is an issue of the intended target. A military target, even accepting a certain level of collateral damages, would have been ok. But the intent when bombing the cities was primarily the cities themselves and the military/industrial aspects were actually secondary.

 

[Brendan]

Or Catholic morality- murdering one to save a trillion is still murdering one, and therefore mortally sinful, by the Catholic Standard.t.

But it’s only murder when

1. The ‘one’ is a non combatant
2. The ‘one’ is your actual target

 

[Brendan]

I’m not claiming the possibility of collateral damage makes an action unacceptable in pursuit of a target. However, you must use a weapon of appropriate scale. A conventional bomb targets a factory or government building- a nuclear one targets a city.

Except that you needed hundreds, if not thousands of bombs to be sure that the target was, in actuallity, destroyed.

The Norden was good, but it was not smart munitions.

 

[tjm190]

But it’s only murder when

1. The ‘one’ is a non combatant
2. The ‘one’ is your actual target

Alrightie, so I’ve thrown out the whole 155 mm shell to kill a bank robber- it seems to fit your standard for moral, does it not?

After all, you’re intended targets aren’t the dozens of other innocent people you’re going to kill, but the bank robbers. They’re just collateral damage.

Similarly, if we believe there are terrorists in London, I guess we could just nuke it. After all, our intended targets are the terrorists.

You continunally ignore the fact that you have to use proportional force.

Using a howitzer to kill one person whilst hundreds of others is not acceptable- nor is using a nuke to wipe out a few government buildings whilst killing over 100,000 others.

Again, I’m NOT saying that you can’t bomb a city because a few bombs are going to go off target, just as you can raid a building full of terrorists even though there might be civilians caught in the crossfire.

It would be, by my understanding, completely licit to drop a bomb on the Pentagon during war. It would NOT be licit to drop the moon on the Pentagon.

 

[sidbrown]

And yet the same thing can be said for those killed in the fire raids over England and Germany and Japan.
London Blitz 1940-41 - 43,000 killed
Bombing of Hamburg July 1943 - 55,000 killed
Bombing of Tokyo March 1945 - 100,000 killed.

The above are but three examples of the long and exhaustive list of targets on both sides that involved the deaths of civilians, and none of the numbers above include the huge numbers of injured, burned, maimed people who survived and suffered from physical and mental scars for the reat of their lives.

Why is there such sympathy for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no one speaks of the “Rape of Nanking” where more than twice as many Chinese civilians and POW’s were brutalized by the Japanese.

To single out the use of the Atomic Bombs is like taking a single verse out of the bible. It removes it from it’s context and makes it seem different than it actually was.

Rolltide and I have written posts above that try to give some context to the times and mentalities in play when the decision had to be made.

The use of the A-Bomb WAS necessary as a way to shock the Japanese into surrender. The alternative was to; a) stand off and try to starve and Bomb Japan into surrender and as one can easily see the death and suffering from conventional bombing could be just as bad as from nuclear bombing. b) Invade Japan with the consequent loss of life on both sides likely running between a half million to upwards of a million. Again not counting the maimed, burned and otherwise traumatized.

The US did not start the war by using the A-Bomb. The war was already started and the loss of life on both sides, both civilian and military was frightful. The goal of using the A- Bomb was to STOP the war…period. It achieved that Goal, quicker and with less loss of life and destruction of property, on both sides, than any of the alternatives.

Peace
James

Of course bombing of civilian targets is gravely wrong.

 

[sidbrown]

Yes- but by your logic, I could drop a bomb that would kill everyone on Earth, so long as it destroyed one legitimate target.

Right.
They say Oh a few soldiers died, so that justifies killing hundreds of thousands of people by the A-Bomb.

 

[sidbrown]

The responses on this thread just go to show how deep the indoctrination of the necessity of the a-bombings goes. Almost everyone listed the alternative as being an invasion of the Japanese homeland, yet no one has mentioned that Japan was actively trying to surrender for months before the atomic bombing. An invasion would not have been necessary at all,…

Yes.
I agree,.

 

[Adeodatus]

Since it is impossible to target a strategic atomic munition, everybody knew going in that the weapon would devastate the civilian population. If they just wanted to hit the 5th Army HQ, they could have done that by conventional bombing.

It is gravely immoral to commit mass murder on a civilian population simply to force a surrender or demoralize the enemy. True, if we did not drop the bombs then maybe lots more American soldiers and marines (including my grandpa) would have died. But that doesn’t justify massacring the civilians. The same holds true for the fire bombing of Tokyo and all other “slaughter bombing” operations carried out in any theatre of the war.

I might also point out that Nagasaki was a center of Japanese Catholicism.

 

[Ghosty]

That was not the only condition.

They also wanted their government to remain intact, and immune from prosecution. That was unacceptable to the Allies, and rightly so. Their offer was pretty much to go back to pre-war boundries and pretend like nothing ever happened. Heck, they even wanted us to give them Okinawa back.

That would be like German surrendering, but leaving the Nazi party in charge and no Nurenburg trials.

“Unacceptable to the allies” does not a moral argument make. What you are essentially saying is that killing innocents, whether by bombing or by massive invasion, is ok in order to remove a militarily crippled government from power. That kind of argument does not stand up to Catholic moral teaching on just war. The allies (specifically the U.S. and U.K., as they were the ones pushing for unconditional surrender) didn’t like the Imperial government (rightly so) and wanted to punish them (again, rightly so), but there are times when the punishment of crimes causes more evil than it resolves.

The key point here is that an invasion would not have been necessary to end the conflict, or even to get Japan to withdraw to its home islands. It would be necessary only in order to put some Japanese leaders on trial. So the question then becomes “is it moral to use atomic bombs/total-war invasion on civilians in order to depose their leaders and bring them to trial”, rather than “is it moral to use atomic bombs/total-war invasion on civilians in order to end an otherwise interminable conflict”. One can also legitimately point out that it is immoral to use our own soldiers lives in an invasion in order to bring a handful of enemy leaders to trial. These are much starker moral issues than the typical “it was a-bombs or full invasion to end the war”.

Would leaving the Japanese fascists in power have been repugnant? Certainly, but much less so than indiscriminate killing of civilians simply to remove those vile men from power and hang them. We killed several hundred thousand civilians in order to kill several hundred fascists; killing the fascists was a noble and worthy goal, but not at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, or even at the cost of tens of thousands of American soldiers’ lives.

Our war against Imperial Japan (and, of course, Nazi Germany) was utterly just, and pushing savage Imperialists back to their home islands and crippling their industry and military power was not only 100% justified, but a moral imperitive. Killing civilians in order to preserve the right to put some of them on trial after having accomplished these goals, however, is reprehensible.

Peace and God bless!

 

[sidbrown]

It is gravely immoral to commit mass murder on a civilian population simply to force a surrender or demoralize the enemy.

Yes.
That is what I believe also.
Isn’t this the Catholic teaching on how wars are supposed to be fought?

 

[Redratfish]

History Records that about 100 thousand people died in hiroshima when the A BOMB
was drop. Is the decision to do it fully justifiable? claiming that thousands of lives were save
and it ended the horrible pacific war. Are a large majority of the people killed truly innocent ?
If they are is it still justifiable but unfortunate? Is this just a case of self defense?

Not another one of these things. The facts are simple.

Hiroshima has military production lines, that were being used.

ALL civillians in Japan were given military training to fight the Americans. There was no such thing as a civillian.

Had we not dropped the bomb, not only would we have had to kill almost all Japanese, and lost many more troops. Aruging that it was immoral is ****.

 

[Redratfish]

Alrightie, so I’ve thrown out the whole 155 mm shell to kill a bank robber- it seems to fit your standard for moral, does it not?

After all, you’re intended targets aren’t the dozens of other innocent people you’re going to kill, but the bank robbers. They’re just collateral damage.

Similarly, if we believe there are terrorists in London, I guess we could just nuke it. After all, our intended targets are the terrorists.

You continunally ignore the fact that you have to use proportional force.

Using a howitzer to kill one person whilst hundreds of others is not acceptable- nor is using a nuke to wipe out a few government buildings whilst killing over 100,000 others.

Again, I’m NOT saying that you can’t bomb a city because a few bombs are going to go off target, just as you can raid a building full of terrorists even though there might be civilians caught in the crossfire.

It would be, by my understanding, completely licit to drop a bomb on the Pentagon during war. It would NOT be licit to drop the moon on the Pentagon.

They weren’t civillians. They were trained to kill, read a book why don’t you, the Japanese were taught to blow themselves up, and never surrender. Including civillans. These were not civillians by today’s standard, they were combatants.

 

[Orleans_Attny]

History Records that about 100 thousand people died in hiroshima when the A BOMB
was drop. Is the decision to do it fully justifiable? claiming that thousands of lives were save
and it ended the horrible pacific war. Are a large majority of the people killed truly innocent ?
If they are is it still justifiable but unfortunate? Is this just a case of self defense?

I’m a military attorney, and even amongst us we debate this issue. Under the laws of armed conflict, it is permissible to kill an innocent noncombatant - but it’s generally not legal to specifically target an innocent noncombatant.

For example: We target a power plant (a lawful military target), but in doing so we kill the night cleaning crew and plant operators. Assuming the four elements of International Humanitan Law (law of war) are satisfied (Humanity, military necessity, distinction, and proportionality), there is no law of war violation, and I would submit there is no violation of Catholic teaching on Just War.

But back to the inital question: I’m not sure. The Laws of Armed Conflict were different then, so whilst it may be considered a violation now, it might not have been a violation then.

That said: I think that as a matter of Catholic moral teaching, the atomic strike on Japan was probably immoral. (I would say the same thing about fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, German and Japanese concentration camps and genocide, and unrestricted submarine warfare).

Pax,
OA

 

[JRKH]

Of course bombing of civilian targets is gravely wrong.

I agree. Intentional bombing of civilian targets is wrong - gravely wrong.

But consider this. The Japanese had in place universal conscription. PLUS, every “civilian”, man woman and school aged child was indoctrinated with the Bushido code of the warrier and, at this stage of the war was being trained to fight the invading armies. This training was being filmed and broadcast by the Japanese as a propaganda tool both internally to bolster morale and externally to demonstrate to the the Allies that an invasion of the Home Islands would be a bloody and costly affair as the allies would face not just a determined Japanes Army but an entire Hostile and determined population.
So - Given that every civilian was expected to take part in the fighting, where do you draw the line between Legitimate military target (such as a military base) and a city full of civilians (which is, in effect, being turned into one big military base)

Please note here that I go on record as hating ALL war. There is no such thing as a humane war. But when people ask about the dropping of the A-Bombs as though it was some isolated incident they need to be educated about the huge complexities, the psyches of those involved on both sides, and the historical context that led to the decision to drop the bombs.
As horrible as it was, it still ended the atrocities, the Grave wrongs, more quickly than any other option would have.

Peace
James

 

[Orleans_Attny]

They weren’t civillians. They were trained to kill, read a book why don’t you, the Japanese were taught to blow themselves up, and never surrender. Including civillans. These were not civillians by today’s standard, they were combatants.

As a US military officer who lives in Japan, and a specialist in the Laws of Armed Conflict, let me assure you that you are 100% wrong.

Pax,
OA

PS: I’ve read oodles of books.

 

[JRKH]

I’m a military attorney, and even amongst us we debate this issue. Under the laws of armed conflict, it is permissible to kill an innocent noncombatant - but it’s generally not legal to specifically target an innocent noncombatant.

For example: We target a power plant (a lawful military target), but in doing so we kill the night cleaning crew and plant operators. Assuming the four elements of International Humanitan Law (law of war) are satisfied (Humanity, military necessity, distinction, and proportionality), there is no law of war violation, and I would submit there is no violation of Catholic teaching on Just War.

But back to the inital question: I’m not sure. The Laws of Armed Conflict were different then, so whilst it may be considered a violation now, it might not have been a violation then.

That said: I think that as a matter of Catholic moral teaching, the atomic strike on Japan was probably immoral. (I would say the same thing about fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, German and Japanese concentration camps and genocide, and unrestricted submarine warfare).

Pax,
OA

Nice to see someone here with a solid, I might say perfect, background for adding to the discussion…

Peace
James

 

[Brendan]

“Unacceptable to the allies” does not a moral argument make. What you are essentially saying is that killing innocents, whether by bombing or by massive invasion, is ok in order to remove a militarily crippled government from power.

And what you are saying is that Justice no longer applies if mass murders surround themselves with enough human shields. Is that your impression of Catholic Morality?

And you talk about Japan having a crippled economy and military. Remember that the Allies had recent experience with Germany. Germany had been left with a crippled economy and military, yet came back to cause even more distruction.

The one and only solution for a lasting peace ( the desire of every Catholic), was for Japan’s government to be entirely replaced.

 

[tjm190]

They weren’t civillians. They were trained to kill, read a book why don’t you, the Japanese were taught to blow themselves up, and never surrender. Including civillans. These were not civillians by today’s standard, they were combatants.

First- you have a reputable source that claims the vast majority of the people of Japan had received military training?
Second- Even the infants and the elderly?
Third- if they were truly trained to never surrender, why were they just fine after japan did surrender?