Nagasaki, Hiroshima: your Catholic alternatives to dropping the atomic bombs

[pnewton]

mlchance:

Everything is merely counterfactuals - historical musings that can be demonstrated neither satisfactory nor unsatisfactory.

I agree totally, especially since the decision to fell on the shoulders of one man, and I just don’t see the evidence to judge him one way or another.

A parallel is a thread bomb I have been working on to destroy all these repetitive arguements that have gone full circle more often that the earth has made it around the sun in since the begining of the solar system. The only reason I do not use it is because it would also vaporize the clubhouse, cave and B&B that are in close proximity.

 

[BibleReader]

The problem in the hypothetical, of course, is this: Yes, it is okay for Bush to kill 1 million American non-combatants to eliminate the substantial risk of the death of 20 million non-combatants. However, how can it be morally correct to kill 1 million American non-combatants, to save 19 million American non-combatants, but morally incorrect to kill, say, 200,000 Japanese “non-combatants,” actively engaged in the enterprise of building ships and rifles and such to support the murder efforts of their men stationed in Asia across the water, after clear warnings to their government?

 

[Philip_P]

Ani,

Thanks for starting this thread.

It seems, from peoples posts here and what I gathered from discussion at the other, earlier thread, that had we not dropped the bomb, we could have avoided the invasion by means to accepting a less than unconditional surrender. What would that mean, precisely? What conditions would have been in the surrender? Why did we insist upon an unconditional one?

 

[vern_humphrey]

One of the things I note here is the assumption that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were unique, different from anything else that happened in the war.

They were not – many cities were bombed (Berlin, London, Dresden, Coventry, Tokyo.) Nor were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings most costly in terms of human lives – several bombing raids claimed more lives than the atomic bombs.

Nor was bombing the only “indiscrimiate” weapon used in that war – blockades and seiges were common.

What is it that is SPECIAL about the atomic bombs that leads us to condemn THESE bombings, but overlook all the other “indiscriminate” acts of war?

 

[BayCityRickL]

Ani Ibi:

1. Given the information and resources that you, as Truman, have, what is your opinion about ending the Pacific War? Is it a moral good to end the War.** Of course, what nut would think otherwise?** If it is a moral good, then on what terms would you end the War:

Japanese conditional surrender that’s what we accepted in the end - the condition being the preservation of the monarchy of the emperer
If you feel that the War should be ended, given reasons ** oh geez, I can’t think of any ]**, a time line, and a critical path to that objective.

**As we pass the 60th anniversay of the bombings, the subject has been relived on various TV documentaries. One mentioned that the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. issued a statement of the war after its conclusion praising the conduct of the U.S.

I can’t personnally cite that statement and I’d like to see it myself. But, the logical consequence would be that the time and critical path would be the invasion of Japan not only by the U.S. but by the U.S.S.R. as well, as that was not excluded in the assumptions in this thread. Like Europe, Japan would have been occupied and divided by the Allied powers, and there would have been many more war crime trials.

The participation of the U.S.S.R. with ruthless invasions on two fronts would have quickly devasted the 3 million Japanese troops and secondaries (women and children).

Certainly the scenario would have involved many fight to the death battles and the resulting bloodbath resembling genocide more than it already seems.**

1. In your critical path, set out in detail the means by which you intend to end the War. ** as above, invasion by US/USSR and other allied troops }**
2. In setting out the means by which you intend to end the War, set out the cost/benefit in terms of human lives and of infrastructure for your means.
   **
   means, as above; the c/b would be get the crazies before they regroup and get us; infrastructure - whatever it takes.]**

And in all cases, please refer to Catholic teaching.
**
Catechism allows a defensive war; defeating the enemy is a justified means; the battle would not be clean and sanitary, in terms of avoiding non-combatants.]
**
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

I just shut off my engine. Where’s my prize?

 

[BayCityRickL]

In the preceding post, I do not mean to imply that I wouldn’t have approved the use of atomic weapons. but, remember the assumption of the thread that they didn’t exist to begin with. Stalin had agreed to declare war on Japan at the times the a-bombs were dropped, so that was a fair assumption in answering the questions in this thread.

As Harry Truman, I can expand on the reasons for ending the war. I note that a lot of Americans were killed or seriously injured in the war, and many suffered from malaria and other diseases. Many Americans were tortured and died in prisoner of war camps.

But, as president, the main reason for wanting to end the war was to stop the interference of importing Honda motorcycles, Toyota and Nissan cars, Nikon cameras, and Sony consumer electronics such as color tv’s and vcr’s which were to become in such high demand due to the prosperity that the war brought domestically to the U.S. This consumer demand was also fueled by the baby boom which occurred after the conclusion of WWII.

I [BCRL] was born in 1949 and I grew up in the age of television, where the history of WWII has been played over and over. Recall, too, that many wartime documents have only lately been declassified, and so there is much more information available now than has been available for decades.

The attack on Pearl Harbor has been shown now to have almost certainly been provoked by Pres. Roosevelt, to draw the U.S. into the war. Certainly, Pearl Harbor military installations were not put on readiness for attack as they should have been.

Roosevelt and Churchill had met in 1942, I seem to recall, to set a strategy for winning the wars in Europe and in the Pacific. The plan was to end the war in Europe and then to finish the war in the Pacific. So, the latter war was somewhat prolonged by the limitation of military resources. Certainly many Americans who had “won” the war in Europe were dismayed about being sent to the Pacific to continue the fighting there.

Doubters should watch the History Channel more or get some tapes from www.historychannel.com.

It turns out that the U.S. had broken the Japanese communications codes early in the war, and so that was a tremenous advantage to know what the enemy was doing. The U.S. had to actually act “dumb” to some extent, to conceal the intelligence that they had. Had the U.S. the amount of resources that would be needed, they could have stepped up the war in the Pacific earlier. Recall that Gen. MacArthur even abandoned the Phillipines for some time, as the U.S. could not maintain its military forces stretched so thin in that area for a long while.

Recall, too, that even with the attack on Japan with two a-bombs, surrender was not immediate, but came after a lot of internal oppposition of the plan of the Emperor Hirohito to surrender. He saw that Russia was going to enter the war, and he wanted to spare much further insult to the Japanese people.

The Japanese have never apologized to the U.S. for attacking Pearl Harbor or for the attrocities in China referred to as the rape of Nanking (or something like that).

 

[vern_humphrey]

BayCityRickL:

Doubters should watch the History Channel more or get some tapes from www.historychannel.com.

The same History Channel that claims the Shroud of Turin is “the most sacred relic of the Catholic Church” and that once a year we "take it out and worship it?"http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

One of these days I’m going to spend a solid week watching the History Channel and make a list of all the egregious errors and false claims they make.

 

[Writer]

amateurthomist:

As a follow up: What should we have done? I don’t know. But invasion would have been a morally legitimate option. Accepting conditional surrender or negotiating a truce would also have been morally legitimate though not strategically ideal. It is never morally permissible to use nuclear weapons unless such weapons are tactical weapons aimed exclusively at military targets with precautions taken to minimize civilian casualties.

Under this argument, then, any regime which chooses to hide or conceal its war infrastructure within areas if civilian population should be automaticaly off limits? Isn’t this rewarding your opponent for making the immoral decision to hide arms or arm-manufacturing facilities behind women and children? If we consistenty attack these facilies wherever they are located, aren’t we removing the temptation of the opponent to even place them there in the first place? So, your argument would appear to not only reward he opponent’s immoral decision, but it also would encourage this policy be implemented wherever possible. It would seem likely that this is heading towards greater bloodshed in the long run and would seem a strategy doomed to failure at the outset. As one of the pilots of the Enola Gay said on the news the other night, “We dropped a weapon of war to end war.”

As far as indiscriminate, war is inherently indiscriminate–even more so in the past. Besides the immediate effect of the bullets and bombs, there are just as damaging and painful reprecussions through families and communities. At its heart, nearly everything about war is indiscriminate. To say otherwise, is to paint it with a rosy brush. That’s why we should avoid war at all costs. If, however, we are attacked, we have the right to demolish our opponent. Fighting with one hand tied around your back is not how wars are won, but just results in greater bloodshed–as in Vietnam.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Writer:

Under this argument, then, any regime which chooses to hide or conceal its war infrastructure within areas if civilian population should be automaticaly off limits? Isn’t this rewarding your opponent for making the immoral decision to hide arms or arm-manufacturing facilities behind women and children? If we consistenty attack these facilies wherever they are located, aren’t we removing the temptation of the opponent to even place them there in the first place? So, your argument would appear to not only reward he opponent’s immoral decision, but it also would encourage this policy be implemented wherever possible. It would seem likely that this is heading towards greater bloodshed in the long run and would seem a strategy doomed to failure at the outset.

You’re absolutely right. If we granted immunity to targets like this, ALL military installations would be inside cities, with anti-aircraft batteries located inside orphanages and hospitals built just to house them.

Writer:

As one of the pilots of the Enola Gay said on the news the other night, “We dropped a weapon of war to end war.”

Which is correct. And it is on that, not on some convoluted idea that somehow this particular mission was different from hundreds of other missions where cities were bombed, that they should be judged.

 

[Philip_P]

Writer:

Under this argument, then, any regime which chooses to hide or conceal its war infrastructure within areas if civilian population should be automaticaly off limits?

No, but this does affect the choice of weapon/technique used to attack the target. It may be appropriate to use a nuke against a military installlation in a deserted area (I’m not sure that it would, as even in this case there are problems of radiation and harm to surrounding environment and living creatures, but I can’t categorically foreclose this). A nuke against a military installation in a city, though, would be immoral.

Think of a hostage situation. The police, if they have a clean shot and, depending on the rules of engagment, may take out the hostage taker. They cannot blow up the building and then congratulate themselves on having ended the hostage situation.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Philip P:

No, but this does affect the choice of weapon/technique used to attack the target. It may be appropriate to use a nuke against a military installlation in a deserted area (I’m not sure that it would, as even in this case there are problems of radiation and harm to surrounding environment and living creatures, but I can’t categorically foreclose this). A nuke against a military installation in a city, though, would be immoral.

Think of a hostage situation. The police, if they have a clean shot and, depending on the rules of engagment, may take out the hostage taker. They cannot blow up the building and then congratulate themselves on having ended the hostage situation.

But it isn’t a hostage situation. It’s a war. And the people in the building are helping those who are firing at us – building barracades, loading their weapons for them and so on.

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

Let’s see now. In 1945 the allies were staging hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the various Pacific Islands for a full-scale D-Day type invastion of the Japanese Home Islands.

The Russians had just finished their invasion of Berlin with the concurrent loss of over one million people. They were now prepared to do the exact same thing to Japan (the Soviet Mongolian troops had open orders to rape and pillage in Berlin, British officers are on record of witnessing these atrocities, and the same Russian policy was to apply in their invasion of Japan).

The loss of tens of thousands of Japanese lives through the massive fire-bombings of major Japanese cities did not cause Japan to surrender.

The Japanese had already proven themselves to be fanatical and suicidal fighters, and had used men, women, and children as combatants in previous battles.

Since there are no atomic bombs, and the Japanese refuse to surrender, and Japanese POWs are to be executed throughout Asia and Japanese human medical experiments to be covered-up, Truman has no choice but to give the go ahead for the invasion of Japan.

My guess: There are several million casualties. But we win the war.

 

[Darrel]

Ok,

If I were Harry without nukes I would.

1. Execute a long term carpet bombing campaign while the huge landing force was gathering off the coast. (incindiary bombs on the cities)
2. When the airforce stated that the pre-bombing was complete I would invade with millions of troops.
3. We would have lost a million troops but we would have won the war.
4. I like the nuke option better.

-D

 

[manualman]

Much as I respect Karl Keating, I can’t help bt be dubious of claims he made in the other thread. 46,000 worst case casualties!?! I think we lost more than that on just the relatively tiny islands of Iwo Jima and Okinowa!

While I cannot offer a philosophical refutation to his statements, I DO find it troubling that he appears not to notice that the result of such a policy in the modern world would be that any country operated strictly under catholic principles would be ‘easy pickens’ for any ruthless regional power. Maybe it is my American prejudice, but I’ve learned that my gut reaction is worth paying attention to!

If the Allies had fought WWII entirely according to these principles (never bomb a military target when civilians would certainly be hit as well), I have almost NO doubt that we would have lost - badly.

It may not be proper catholic philosophy, but I just can’t see why in a war with a just cause, it is not best to adopt the strategy that wins with the fewest lives lost. Not just ours, mind you, total lives. As noted in another recent thread, only the timely shipping of huge quantities of food and supplies avoided MASS (as in millions) starvation in Japan in the winter of 1945. Such shipment could not have happened in the midst of continued war.

In the absense of nukes, I guess I would have continued to destroy Japan’s transportation and industrial facilities, kept up diplomatic pressure for surrender and prepared for a dreaded invasion in optimal weather - basically the Allied backup plan if the nukes didn’t work.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Most of the arguments against Truman’s use of the bomb are based on the assumption that war is like peace, but a bit more violent.

The rules that we assume exist simply don’t hold in war. There are no police to correct infractions of law, no courts to punish offenders, no insurance companies to make good losses. In WWII, we were in a struggle to the death with an implacable enemy. The only moral act was to bring the war to a successful conclusion as rapidly as possible. That’s the way to save lives, and that’s the choice Truman took.

 

[Philip_P]

vern humphrey:

The rules that we assume exist simply don’t hold in war.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties.

 

[Darrel]

vern humphrey:

Most of the arguments against Truman’s use of the bomb are based on the assumption that war is like peace, but a bit more violent.

The rules that we assume exist simply don’t hold in war. There are no police to correct infractions of law, no courts to punish offenders, no insurance companies to make good losses. In WWII, we were in a struggle to the death with an implacable enemy. The only moral act was to bring the war to a successful conclusion as rapidly as possible. That’s the way to save lives, and that’s the choice Truman took.

Amen Vern!

We were not dealing with some normal group of people here. They would have all died for the empire (kids included). People seem to assume from a liberal perspective that the people we had this war with were just like them and that we did a realy mean cruel thing.

The truth is that by ending this insane empire we prevented millions and millions of needless deaths across future generations. Imagine the world in 2005 ruled by Germany and Japan. This forum would not exist. Harry did the right Christian thing when he nuked Japan.

-D

 

[vern_humphrey]

Darrel:

Amen Vern!

We were not dealing with some normal group of people here. They would have all died for the empire (kids included). People seem to assume from a liberal perspective that the people we had this war with were just like them and that we did a realy mean cruel thing.

The truth is that by ending this insane empire we prevented millions and million of needless deaths across future generations. Imagine the world in 2005 ruled by Germany and Japan. This forum would not exist.

-D

Clauzwitz long ago pointed out that what seems cruel by peacetime standards is humane in war. Dragging out the war always causes more suffering and death. Decisive blows to end a war save lives.

 

[Philip_P]

Do you deny that your statement in post 35 directly contradicts CCC par. 2312?

 

[Darrel]

Philip P:

Do you deny that your statement in post 35 directly contradicts CCC par. 2312?

I dont deny mine in 37

The Church is right and so was Harry. Does the Church teach to allow yourself to eaten alive by a rabid pitbull? That is what we did war with on two fronts in WW2. One must examine the nature of the enemy and not assume that all people are nice.

-D