Just War?

[Vince1022]

no, i don’t agree!!

You don’t agree to what?

---

cheap books
fashion dress

 

[sidbrown]

I don’t know of any Catholic teaching that says use of nuclear, chemical, or biological warfare is in accord with just war teaching. Do you?

No. I do not think that their use would be in accord with just war teaching since there is the inevitable consequence that a large and disproportionate number of innocent civilians would be killed.

 

[Vince1022]

No. I do not think that their use would be in accord with just war teaching since there is the inevitable consequence that a large and disproportionate number of innocent civilians would be killed.

I think that’s exactly what I said. So you don’t disagree with my point? Is that right?

 

[sidbrown]

I think that’s exactly what I said. So you don’t disagree with my point? Is that right?

Of course, I agree with you on this. There is no doubt that the use of these WMD is immoral.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Tough questions, but the examples of the WW2 atomic bombs are usually misunderstood. Their effects were not significantly greater a raid by 200 B-29s and they must be understood in the broader context of the air war that already burned out over 60 cities by August, '45.

Bombardiers were not told to “burn out Tokyo” but were given specific military targets. However, the inability of high altitude bombers to hit individual targets with accuracy (because of the jet stream) and Japanese government’s decentralization of its war production facilities into civilian areas required the war planners to resort to low level mass raids using a high explosive and incendiary mix, which, while probably even more inaccurate, were very effective.

Had raids of B-29s visited and revisited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those cities would be footnotes, just two more names in a long list of burned out cities during the sixth month air war against mainland Japan.

But the Bombs (very small by modern standards and, again, aimed at specific military targets) fell, and shortened the war by a couple of months. While its safe to assert that the planned invasions wouldn’t have been needed and catastrophic loss of life averted, it is because the bombing campaign, of which the atomic bombs contributed only a small fraction of the destruction, was so successful. The investigation of the US Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report (Pacific War), based on interviews with senior Japanese government, military and other personnel, concluded that Japan would have surrendered by November, 1945, without the atomic bombs, had the air war been continued by conventional means.

So what is the benefit of the two months? Apart from US and Allied aircrew, Marines, Army and Navy people not killed, and another half dozen Japanese cities not incinerated, it is well to remember that the Chinese suffered somewhere around 200,000 killed per month at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army since the war began for them in '37.

Although one might make a case that the conduct of the US was evil under just war principles, its hard to believe that any of the Allied servicemen and women at the sharp end of the stick in '45 were losing any sleep over it.

 

[sidbrown]

Tough questions, but the examples of the WW2 atomic bombs are usually misunderstood. Their effects were not significantly greater a raid by 200 B-29s and they must be understood in the broader context of the air war that already burned out over 60 cities by August, '45.

Bombardiers were not told to “burn out Tokyo” but were given specific military targets. However, the inability of high altitude bombers to hit individual targets with accuracy (because of the jet stream) and Japanese government’s decentralization of its war production facilities into civilian areas required the war planners to resort to low level mass raids using a high explosive and incendiary mix, which, while probably even more inaccurate, were very effective.

Had raids of B-29s visited and revisited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those cities would be footnotes, just two more names in a long list of burned out cities during the sixth month air war against mainland Japan.

But the Bombs (very small by modern standards and, again, aimed at specific military targets) fell, and shortened the war by a couple of months. While its safe to assert that the planned invasions wouldn’t have been needed and catastrophic loss of life averted, it is because the bombing campaign, of which the atomic bombs contributed only a small fraction of the destruction, was so successful. The investigation of the US Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report (Pacific War), based on interviews with senior Japanese government, military and other personnel, concluded that Japan would have surrendered by November, 1945, without the atomic bombs, had the air war been continued by conventional means.

So what is the benefit of the two months? Apart from US and Allied aircrew, Marines, Army and Navy people not killed, and another half dozen Japanese cities not incinerated, it is well to remember that the Chinese suffered somewhere around 200,000 killed per month at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army since the war began for them in '37.

Although one might make a case that the conduct of the US was evil under just war principles, its hard to believe that any of the Allied servicemen and women at the sharp end of the stick in '45 were losing any sleep over it.

The USA has set a bad precedent for claiming that it is just and moral to use atomic bombs which murder thousands of innocent civilians.

 

[Vince1022]

Tough questions, but the examples of the WW2 atomic bombs are usually misunderstood. Their effects were not significantly greater a raid by 200 B-29s and they must be understood in the broader context of the air war that already burned out over 60 cities by August, '45.

Bombardiers were not told to “burn out Tokyo” but were given specific military targets. However, the inability of high altitude bombers to hit individual targets with accuracy (because of the jet stream) and Japanese government’s decentralization of its war production facilities into civilian areas required the war planners to resort to low level mass raids using a high explosive and incendiary mix, which, while probably even more inaccurate, were very effective.

Had raids of B-29s visited and revisited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those cities would be footnotes, just two more names in a long list of burned out cities during the sixth month air war against mainland Japan.

But the Bombs (very small by modern standards and, again, aimed at specific military targets) fell, and shortened the war by a couple of months. While its safe to assert that the planned invasions wouldn’t have been needed and catastrophic loss of life averted, it is because the bombing campaign, of which the atomic bombs contributed only a small fraction of the destruction, was so successful. The investigation of the US Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report (Pacific War), based on interviews with senior Japanese government, military and other personnel, concluded that Japan would have surrendered by November, 1945, without the atomic bombs, had the air war been continued by conventional means.

So what is the benefit of the two months? Apart from US and Allied aircrew, Marines, Army and Navy people not killed, and another half dozen Japanese cities not incinerated, it is well to remember that the Chinese suffered somewhere around 200,000 killed per month at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army since the war began for them in '37.

Although one might make a case that the conduct of the US was evil under just war principles, its hard to believe that any of the Allied servicemen and women at the sharp end of the stick in '45 were losing any sleep over it.

Of course this action did not meet Catholic just war criteria.

 

[elvaldoerr]

Just war was founded on the basis of Thomas’s natural law. One of the part’s of natural law justifies killing a killer, or in other words, doing the wrong onto the killer.
Leanspa

 

[FightingFat]

Just war was founded on the basis of Thomas’s natural law. One of the part’s of natural law justifies killing a killer, or in other words, doing the wrong onto the killer.
Leanspa

I think that’s your interpretation, it is about stopping the evil being perpetrated, thus if there is no other alternative to stop a killer from killing, it is legitimate recourse to kill him.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

The USA has set a bad precedent for claiming that it is just and moral to use atomic bombs which murder thousands of innocent civilians.

Your argument is false, misleading, and shows zero understanding of basic history.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Of course this action did not meet Catholic just war criteria.

I’m assuming you mean the entire air war as recounted by the Strategic Bombing Survey.

Possibly, I’ve wondered that myself. But I also haven’t seen any plausible alternatives to ending the Pacific War that did not kill even more people and which might have been acceptable to the other Allies (which would have included the USSR). For example, a surrender on terms that would have left the Imperial government in place would have been unacceptable to the Chinese, who’d already had around 20,000,000 killed.

You had some good Catholic generals, like Wallenstein or von Tilly. How would they have fought the Japanese?

 

[sidbrown]

Your argument is false, misleading, and shows zero understanding of basic history.

If you look up the word precedent in the dicitonary you would see that it is true that the USA set a precedent by using the atomic bomb to murder thousands of innocent people.
“Combatant and noncombatant men and women, old and young, are massacred without discrimination by the atmospheric pressure of the explosion, as well as by the radiating heat which result therefrom. Consequently there is involved a bomb having the most cruel effects humanity has ever known. . . . The bombs in question, used by the Americans, by their cruelty and by their terrorizing effects, surpass by far gas or any other arm, the use of which is prohibited. Japanese protests against U.S. desecration of international principles of war paired the use of the atomic bomb with the earlier firebombing, which massacred old people, women and children, destroying and burning down Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, living quarters, etc. . . . They now use this new bomb, having an uncontrollable and cruel effect much greater than any other arms or projectiles ever used to date. This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization.” See The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Mark Selden, Kyoko Selden; M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
“The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons… The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had 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.” Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman

 

[sidbrown]

I’m assuming you mean the entire air war as recounted by the Strategic Bombing Survey.

Possibly, I’ve wondered that myself. But I also haven’t seen any plausible alternatives to ending the Pacific War that did not kill even more people and which might have been acceptable to the other Allies (which would have included the USSR). For example, a surrender on terms that would have left the Imperial government in place would have been unacceptable to the Chinese, who’d already had around 20,000,000 killed.

You had some good Catholic generals, like Wallenstein or von Tilly. How would they have fought the Japanese?

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.
“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.” Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet