The Harry Truman dilemma

[pro_universal]

There weren’t too many “civilians” in thise cities since both were heavily involved in industry. Second, I find it sketchy that someone many, many years after the fact all of the sudden decided it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Being involved in industry does not make you a combatant in Catholic teaching.

Only arms bearing does.

The idea that industrial employees and farmers is part of Clausewictz’s total war theory; it is decidedly un-Catholic.

 

[estesbob]

Having no viable alternative is not a justification for killing civilians in the just war tradition.

That’s your only argument that it was immoral. It is forbidden by Catholic teaching, and I’ve just posted to you an article that details the ways in which the Church has condemned the bombing.

You can present as many “facts”, as you like, but the fact is, the Catholic moral tradition condemns these bombings.

Except you havent been able to show us any contmeporaneous teaching that condemnd it. So how was a catholic in 1945 to form their conscience on this given the teaching you "claim: condmens them was issued 30 years later?

 

[corvidae]

Ok
I would just like to say, stop with the ad hominums. Do not attack pro simply because he left the church. It does not make his argument less valid.

As far as the Church condemning it thirty years later, The Church apologized for the inquisition hundreds of years later. Does that make it less wrong. The Church has condemned it, it is a controversial issue, the law of double effect could be used, so was it a legitimate use of the law of double effect.

That has been weighing on the Church’s mind, could these weapons be used morally. And now the answer is, no. The weapons did target civilian populations, and these people, while helping the war effort, were non-combatants.

Also to say they would have fought man woman and child against us had we invaded is false. The germans did fight with children against us, the japanese may well have had we invaded, but we did not invade, they were not combatants. We know the plan of the military was to have everyone fight, but that does not mean we can indiscriminately kill because they would have been combatants if we had invaded. Had the Japanese invaded the US, most would fight against them, does that mean that the japanese could morally bomb indescriminately?

A lone Raven

 

[Al_Masetti]

Being involved in industry does not make you a combatant in Catholic teaching.

Only arms bearing does.

The idea that industrial employees and farmers is part of Clausewictz’s total war theory; it is decidedly un-Catholic.

Can’t blow up a gun factory? Or a railroad yard? Or a munitions loading pier? Or an ammunition ship? How about the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

 

[estesbob]

Can’t blow up a gun factory? Or a railroad yard? Or a munitions loading pier? Or an ammunition ship? How about the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

only if you say “Mother May I” and make sure that no civilians are within 50 miles of your target.

 

[pro_universal]

Can’t blow up a gun factory? Or a railroad yard? Or a munitions loading pier? Or an ammunition ship? How about the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

You’re citing examples of arms.

A whole city isn’t a weapon of war.

It’s actually qutie easy to draw the distinction…you just listed direct attacks on weapons themselves. But the fact that attacks on those weapons are legitimate in a war doesn’t mean that any attack on any place is legitimate.

A railyard with weapons in it, for example, would be a fair target. A railyard that ferries civilians to office buildings for work would not be such a target.

 

[wabrams]

You’re citing examples of arms.

A whole city isn’t a weapon of war.

It’s actually qutie easy to draw the distinction…you just listed direct attacks on weapons themselves. But the fact that attacks on those weapons are legitimate in a war doesn’t mean that any attack on any place is legitimate.

A railyard with weapons in it, for example, would be a fair target. A railyard that ferries civilians to office buildings for work would not be such a target.

And guess who works in all of those places Al Masetti used in his example? Civilians. So is it now immoral?

 

[corvidae]

Ok, guys,
I am going to reword something I have already said. If the same things had been done in a different way would it be morally permissable. If you had shot every one of the people at point blank range would it be permissable. If we hearded them into gas chambers would it be permissable. Is it the weapon itself, and the fact that they were instantaneously vaporized what makes it permissable.

As far as how people could inform their conscience during those thirty years, that is what the just war theory is for. This goes against just war theory, and that is what we are arguing. Just war is not the quickest nor the easiest way to win a war, but that is not what the Church was concerned with, it was concerned with morals, and how to morally fight a war.

A lone Raven

 

[Traditional_Ang]

I was 23 once Jimmy Carter was President.

I think the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (plus the invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria by 1.5 million Soviet troops the same week) was the only thing that could shock the Japanese military into surrendering.

Now imagine that Truman had not authoised using the bombs. We would be here debating “was it moral for Truman to allow 5 million US and 20 million Japanese deaths during the invasion (just picking numbers here) when he had the means at hand to end the war right away?”

HST was also no doubt looking past simply defeating the Japanese. The USSR was our ally at the time and our deal with them was that once Hitler was defeated they would help us with Japan. If we invaded, they would have been there too. Korea would be all Communist and there might be a North and South Japan.

Lastly, the use of the bombs caused a change in the Japanese psyche, a rejection of militarism that a conventional loss would not have brought about.

I don’t know if one can say the use of the bombs was moral or not – but it was militarily and politically correct and certainly prevented a great deal of evil.

didymus:

Thank You.

I’ve studied WW II, including the documents that were declassified from 1965-90. I can only say that, if these were what were on Truman’s desk in August, 1945, that he didn’t have an easy choice, and that he was looking at either the terrible number of casualties that would have resulted from dropping the bombs, or a series of events that would have been far worse, with the final result being the destruction of the American Fleet, The slaughter of the American invasion force, along with the POW’s in the custody of Empire of Japan, the slaughter of American citizens from a series of Plague Bombs and a Japanese A-Bomb and the Invasion an brutal Occupation of Japan by the Soviet Union.

Those who’ve studied what happened to Eastern Europe, and esp. Eastern Germany and Polland in 1944 and 1945, will realize how brutal a Soviet Invasion and Occupation could be. As I said previously, I know a few who escaped from Soviet Tyranny, many of whom went through extreme lengths to do so.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I’m sorry, but I’ll take damned if you do and saved the American Fleet, the Invasion Force and the POW’s, along with the lives of the millions of people on both sides and prevented the Brutal Invasion and Occupation of an enemy I believe could never deserve something as horrible as that no matter what the country did.

I’m sorry if this doesn’t ft with the cut and dried vision of morality some here want to see.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[pro_universal]

And guess who works in all of those places Al Masetti used in his example? Civilians. So is it now immoral?

Not if you make an effort to attack the weapons themselves, and in those days, no, they wouldn’t have all been civilians. Especially on the Ho Chi Minh trail or in a weapons manufacturing complex. Security concerns.

 

[pro_universal]

Except you havent been able to show us any contmeporaneous teaching that condemnd it. So how was a catholic in 1945 to form their conscience on this given the teaching you "claim: condmens them was issued 30 years later?

Wait, why does condemnation have to happen contemporaneously for something to be wrong?

Where is that rule in Catholic teaching?

There are plenty of crimes past that the Church has decided were wrong, and rightly so.

 

[mosher]

So why didnt the Church condemn the Bombings at the time??? If the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wong them so was the entire war-after all how can an ends that resulted from a means that meant killing people ever be justified under the proscriptions laid out in the thread???

Because the act of killing is not intrinsically evil.

You guys really don’t have a clear grasp of Catholic ethics. I find it funny that a flag waving rabid conservative as myself is arguing this point with you guys. The point of this matter is that the Church judged it to be wrong after careful scrutiny. The reasons cited are simply that the ends never justify the means. If that basic principle of ethics is not accepted then there is no basis for any objective ethic but rather only whims based on existential moments which have been the focus of the arguments given by those who feel that the use of the Atomic Bomb was just. This, however, does not constitute a basis for any moral judgment at any time. Subjective experience cannot and does not drive moral principles nor moral actions if they are to truly be just that - moral.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

You guys really don’t have a clear grasp of Catholic ethics.

Hhhmmm… You mean the Principle of Double Effect?

I find it funny that a flag waving rabid conservative as myself is arguing this point with you guys. The point of this matter is that the Church judged it to be wrong after careful scrutiny. The reasons cited are simply that the ends never justify the means.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima had nothing to do with the ends justifying the means. An example of ends justifies the means is the suicide bombing of civilian populations. An example of gratuitous violence is the torture-as-entertainment in which Saddam Hussein’s sons engaged. Hiroshima and Nagasaki resembled neither of these.

This topic has been discussed before. In fact it is discussed every year around the month of August.

**Why Truman Dropped the Bomb **Particularly posts # 205 to # 232.

Principle of Double Effect:

For the act in question to be licit, all Five Tests for Double Effect must be met.

1. The object of the act must not be intrinsically contradictory to one’s fundamental commitment to God and neighbor (including oneself), that is, it must be a good action judged by its moral object (in other words, the action must not be intrinsically evil);
2. The direct intention of the agent must be to achieve the beneficial effects and to avoid the foreseen harmful effects as far as possible, that is, one must only indirectly intend the harm;
3. The foreseen beneficial effects must not be achieved by means of the foreseen harmful effects, when no other means of achieving those effects are available;
4. The foreseen beneficial effects must be equal to or greater than the foreseen harmful effects (the proportionate judgment);
5. The beneficial effects must follow from the action at least as immediately as do the harmful effects.

Object of the Act

There are two categories of intention: proximate intention and indirect (remote or circumstantial) intention. It is the proximate intention which counts.

Please read the thread entitled Why Truman Dropped the Bomb.

 

[mosher]

Hhhmmm… You mean the Principle of Double Effect?

No, I mean the corpus of objective ethics. Principle of Double Effect errors seen above is not the only problem.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima had nothing to do with the ends justifying the means.

As has been cited above by other posters part of the intention in dropping the Atomic Bomb on these targets was to cause substantial collateral damage with such devastating effects that it would “bring Japan to his knees.” This intended evil causes the act itself to be evil but was considered for the greater good. This is in fact a text book case of the error of “the ends justifying the means.”

 

[Al_Masetti]

Wait, why does condemnation have to happen contemporaneously for something to be wrong?

Where is that rule in Catholic teaching?

There are plenty of crimes past that the Church has decided were wrong, and rightly so.

When someone comes along 60 years after the event and has no access to the discussions and thinking that took place prior to the event and then condemns the individuals who were there at the time and who did the discussing and debating, seems unreasonable and, to me, falls into the category of “judge not that you shall not be judged”.

 

[wcknight]

Folks who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it.

This case has everything to do with the ends justifying the means. The ultimate end or goal was to get Japan to surrender, end the war and save Americans from having to lose lives in an attack on the Japanese mainland. The means was killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in a couple of nuclear explosions.

Targeting civilians en mass should never be a consideration. Whether it is done by legitimate governments with ‘justifible ends’ or by terrorists with questionable ends, the deliberate killing of civilans should not be the means to end a conflict or to obtain some concessions.

Exploding a nuclear weapon over a populated area is akin to holding a couple hundred thousand civilians hostage and then purposely executing them. The net effect is the same and just as horrific. 20-20 hind sight is always a luxury, but we now have examples from Truman. The next person who has a similar choice has no such excuse. Mass killing of innocent civilians should never be condoned.

I don’t fault Truman or his staff because they had no precedent to learn from but the next nutcase who decides to do this, deserves a place in history with Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin as a mass murderer.

 

[AnthonyM2]

Folks who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it.

This case has everything to do with the ends justifying the means. The ultimate end or goal was to get Japan to surrender, end the war and save Americans from having to lose lives in an attack on the Japanese mainland. The means was killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in a couple of nuclear explosions.

Targeting civilians en mass should never be a consideration. Whether it is done by legitimate governments with ‘justifible ends’ or by terrorists with questionable ends, the deliberate killing of civilans should not be the means to end a conflict or to obtain some concessions.

Exploding a nuclear weapon over a populated area is akin to holding a couple hundred thousand civilians hostage and then purposely executing them. The net effect is the same and just as horrific. 20-20 hind sight is always a luxury, but we now have examples from Truman. The next person who has a similar choice has no such excuse. Mass killing of innocent civilians should never be condoned.

I don’t fault Truman or his staff because they had no precedent to learn from but the next nutcase who decides to do this, deserves a place in history with Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin as a mass murderer.

Of course, we would never want to see something like Hiroshima and Nagasaki again. Now that we experienced it, we learned from it and hopefully it will never come to that in future because now we living in a nuclear age when we can destroy ourselves unless we find other means to solving disputes. Which is why we’re fighting a conventional war now instead of nuking Iraq. We learned from the past, as was said, there was no precedent for dropping a nuclear bomb (and those first atomic bombs weren’t nearly as powerful as the ones we have today). That was the only viable way at the time of ending the madness of WWII and preventing other such wars in the future.

 

[pro_universal]

When someone comes along 60 years after the event and has no access to the discussions and thinking that took place prior to the event and then condemns the individuals who were there at the time and who did the discussing and debating, seems unreasonable and, to me, falls into the category of “judge not that you shall not be judged”.

Wait, where’s the condemnation of the individuals?

All I see is condemnation of the act itself. Is there any doubt as to what actually happened when the bombs fell?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

No, I mean the corpus of objective ethics. Principle of Double Effect errors seen above is not the only problem.

As has been cited above by other posters part of the intention in dropping the Atomic Bomb on these targets was to cause substantial collateral damage with such devastating effects that it would “bring Japan to his knees.” This intended evil causes the act itself to be evil but was considered for the greater good. This is in fact a text book case of the error of “the ends justifying the means.”

What Principle of Double Effect errors? You cannot reasonably argue for PDE errors without referring to them. What you are doing currently is tautologizing your unsubstantiated point of view and this is not reasonable.

H & N was – as I have explained in detail – not an example of the ends justifying the means.

The object of the bombing was not to bring Japan to its knees. It was specifically to bring the Japanese military to its knees. If the Japanese military had embedded itself in a remote mountainous region instead of smack dab in the middle of its own civilian population, the “collateral damage” would have been minimal if any.

And therefore “collateral damage” was not a proximate intention of the bombing. It is the proximate intention which counts in determining the moral licitness of the act – not the remote intention. “Collateral damage” was part of the remote intention.

Also, it is mandatory to take into account the absence of guidance systems at the time of H & N. Current military technology can detroy a frog on a lily pad half a continent away without disturbing the fish in the pond. Current military technology can send in a micro robotic bomb into a small house harbouring enemy combatants without disturbing neighbouring houses. This technology was not available at the time of H & N.

But I am repeating myself for no good reason. I have gone into all of this in great detail at the links I have given. I wonder if you have read those explanations. And mine are not the only explanations. Have you read them?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

That was the only viable way at the time of ending the madness of WWII and preventing other such wars in the future.

The bombing prevented approximately 20 million deaths – including civilian deaths – in the subsequent winter from exposure to the cold, starvation, and warfighting.

As I have explained before, even the two bombs did not stop the Japanese military. The Emperor actually – himself in person – surrendered three times. The military refused to surrender and attempted to assassinate the Emperor. Even after the official surrender, the military brutally tortured and murdered their Allied prisoners of war.

Oh and, if we had waited, then the Japanese would have had their own nuclear bombs. They were developing them at the University of Tokyo and in North Korea. They had already sent trial balloons over the American West Coast to set forest fires. But I have already said this.

1. What do folks think the Japanese military would have done with their own nukes?
2. How many hundreds of million of deaths would have been added to the 20 million predicted for the winter following H & N?