Pope condemns possession of nuclear weapons

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Nothing said he would be. Nor that he would not. The decision, as with all other aspects of the approach to the surrender and after, was structured as we wanted it. We decided to keep both the individual and the Emperor, while rendering the position merely one of honor, in the restructured national polity.
 
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No he didn’t. He repeated what the Potsdam Declaration had said. I’ve told you that before.
 
One might speculate on the outcome had Truman not authorized the use of the atomic bombs. The war might have dragged on for months resulting in hundreds of thousands of additional casualties on both sides. If it then came to light that Truman had had this new weapon at his disposal and did not use it to end the war, I suspect that he would be even more heavily vilified than he is for authorizing it, especially by those who would have lost sons in the planned invasion.
 
I want to give a quick thank you for sharing your amazing amount of knowledge in this area. What one book would you recommend for a basic introduction of the Pacific War for someone just starting on learning about it? Thanks!
 
Hooray… another absolutely common sense Catholic proclamation from the gift of a Pope
 
And one would not be alone in that. It is part of many of the books dealing with the issue, from the non-revisionist view.
 
Thank you very much. I started on learning about it roughly 65 years ago, reading my dad’s collection on the subject. And transitioning to buying my own books, immediately thereafter. Starting with the European Theater, but rapidly moving to a focus on the Pacific. And it still goes on.

So. One book to cover the area, battles, campaigns, personalities and some history? I’ll try.

And…it’s almost a tie, from my readings and library. Winner, Ronald Spector/EAGLE AGAINST THE SUN. Well written, well organized, balanced, logical progression, start to finish. Some pics. Some maps (never enough maps). Go with it. It’s still in print, I think. And I like the way it ends.

Runner-up. John Costello/ THE PACIFIC WAR. With an additional 155 pages, more background, more detail, writing seems more wandering (to me) than Spector.

Both date from the 1980s. If there is a better one volume account of the Pacific Theater, from 41-45, I would be happy to hear of it.
 
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vz71 said:
How exactly can the mere act of possessing something be immoral?
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Well, do you possess any child pornography?

On a more serious note, I find it instructive to review the reason that YHWH destroyed most of the human race in ancient times. He specifically cited man’s preoccupation with violence. In Genesis 8:21, where YHWH promised that He would not repeat that act of human elimination, He once again cited mankind’s endless obsession with violence.

In my opinion, nuclear weapons are mankind’s ultimate construction of violence, and I believe that our Creator finds them offensive. But this time He keeps His promise and does not exterminate humanity. Instead He allows mankind’s propensity towards violence to reach its natural conclusion, and that end is in a global nuclear war which will be a disaster greater than the Flood.

See! The disaster spreads
from nation to nation.
A mighty tempest rises
from the far ends of the world.
Those slaughtered by YHWH that day will be scattered across the world from end to end. No dirge will be raised for them; no one will gather them or bury them. They will stay lying on the surface like dung.
Jeremiah 25:32-33
 
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Sir, if our Creator finds mankind’s deployment of ICBMs with nuclear weapons offensive, then these things are immoral. Furthermore, you might consider that these devices are, at best, retaliatory in nature and that retaliation has been prohibited by His law for us. Our Teacher’s instructions are to “return good for evil.”

Our father, Francis, is quite right to have condemned the very possession of nuclear weapons.
 
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undead_rat said:
Furthermore, you might consider that these devices are, at best, retaliatory in nature and that retaliation has been prohibited by His law for us.
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This refers to the usage.
It has nothing to do with actual possession.
Still left wondering what exactly is the moral issue. What sin is actually being committed owning a nuclear weapon?
 
Thanks! Just bought Eagle Against the Sun on Kindle! Happy dance…
 
vz71 said:
How exactly can the mere act of possessing something be immoral?
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Do you think possessing pornography is moral? Child pornography?

Same cased for WMD’s … the world should eradicate WMD’s. We’ve spend decades drawing down nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately, the leaders of the world military and economic powers are now stoking the flames of an arms race… with the US President leading the charge.
 
Depending on the yield, or damage it can cause, nuclear weapons will destroy far more than the target. The point needs to be repeated: the US military, at least, realized in the 1950s that a single weapon that when detonated has an explosive force of millions of tons of TNT will destroy the target and everything for miles around and leave behind radioactive fallout in the rain and wind, and leave the area radioactive for a long time. That is a bad thing. Detonate more than one, as in a World War III scenario, and the planet itself is threatened. No one wins. There is no land to occupy. The living will envy the dead.
 
Theo520 said:
To be candid, I find that approach a post facto rationalization. Bombing cities was already the standard practice in the European theater and I don’t think the rationalization applies there. At most you can say the Axis powers started it (the tactic)
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I’m not trying to rationalise anything. All I was trying to do was to nail down @otjm’s position on the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As far as I can make out, his position is that apart from around 10,000 prisoners/forced labourers (almost all of them Korean) who were killed unintentionally, everyone killed in the bombings was a legitimate target on account of being Japanese and therefore combatants. I think his position is that every Japanese citizen, including women, children, old men, and disabled people, is to be deemed a combatant and hence a legitimate military target. The original point was that @AlNg said that civilians were killed in the bombings. @otjm’s rebuttal was a clear “No”, elaborating that those killed were combatants. I felt that that point required clarification and I think we got it.
 
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IIRC, 12 American prisoners were killed by the two bombs. And 8 other POWs , from 3 (?) other countries. Koreans I know were also killed, don’t recall the total. Could well be 10K.
 
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