Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

[Al_Masetti]

Catholic Moral Theology is difficult to apply in many cases, as we are seeing in this discussion about the atomic bomb.

This is quite relevant to the topic of Moral Theology. One of my priest-friends said there is a difference between English common law and Napoleonic law… something about having to prove versus having to negotiate… in any event, RADICALLY different approaches to “justice”.

Lots of strange twists and turns in different codes of law… remember that the Infinite and All Knowing God had decided to nuke a place and was talked out of it if there was even ONE good person in the city.

And what makes the issue trickier is that every day, we learn more and more information.

FOR EXAMPLE, yesterday’s NY Post (Sunday August 7, 2005) carried an article from the Weekly Standard of August 8, 2005… which was excerpted from a book by Richard Frank, " Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire".

In essence, 1) the Japanese had figured out accurately where the American landings would occur on the Home Islands. 2) we knew from reading their coded messages that they knew and that they were building up their strength in those locations so that our landings would be defeated. 3) The US Navy therefore wanted to blockade and bombard instead of invade. 4) The Japanese still viewed their position as winnable.

And the Soviets were about to invade Japan themselves and would occupy it.

To use the bomb… or not…? And if not, what???

All very “imponderable”… not a nice and clean, newspaper headline, bumber-sticker, set of decision discussion points…

On Book TV, last night, there was a discussion of presidential holiday retreats. At Camp David (then called Shangri-La), Roosevelt and Churchill met for hours and hours, over dinner, over drinks, in a little fishing boat on the lake, and they discussed these very issues for hours and hours.

 

[Philip_P]

JimG:

This is true with respect to Hiroshima. However, what if a U.S. enemy wanted to target the NORAD operations center at Cheyenne Mountain? That is a strictly military target. Yet, it is so well hardened that I doubt that even a 5 megaton weapon could penetrate it. A direct hit with any large size nuclear weapon would surely destroy the surrounding city, even though the target was a military installation. Aside from the fact that we’re the ‘good guys’ here, could someone claim that that was a legitimate military use of a nuclear weapon?

Ok, assuming for a second that the force targeting Cheynne Mountain had just cause to attack the U.S., could they attempt to destroy Cheyenne Mountain with a weapon that would also, by it’s nature, destroy the surrounding city as well?

No, I don’t believe they could by the principles of moral theology I have been trying to apply.

As for Vern’s note:

For technical reasons, a Soviet attack would have come in three waves. Now assuming the first wave is on the way (and the other two waves are already launched), what do we do?

I think the only thing left to do in that point is to make your peace with God. If our cities are already on the point of being destroyed, deterrence has failed, as JimG pointed out. There is no point in retaliating by destroying the cities of the attacker. That could not save our cities, nor would it be a military objective. A counter-strike could be legitimately directed at the opponent’s *military *targets, in order to cripple any follow up military action which might follow the nuclear attack. At that point the U.S. military would be fighting on behalf of any surviving coalition partners though, I suppose, and no longer on behalf of the no-longer existing U.S.

 

[Philip_P]

Wolseley:

With that type of a situation, why wouldn’t the civilians be targeted?

Because it’s a fundamental principle of just war doctrine that civilians may not be targeted. That’s the short answer. You may, in fact, be asking a larger question - why does just war doctrine hold that civilians may not be targeted? A longer answer than this is necessary to address that. For now, though, I would simply say that civilians may not be targeted for the same reason that P.O.Ws may not be tortured or killed, or for the same reason that shooting a solider who’s trying to shoot you is self defense but shooting the same soldier when he’s at home with his family would be murder.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

I’ll take a look at it again when I can. I have a family thing and I also have the petition to take care of. Double effect can’t really be discussed ‘on the fly’ so give me some more time. Ani.

Ok, good luck with the family thing.

 

[oat_soda]

this stuff isn’t rocket science. i still can’t believe how many people here put their country above thier faith. it is sad. and for the most part it is so called “coservative” catholics who love to criticize “liberal” catholics for picking and choosing which morals to follow.

**1750 **The morality of human acts depends on:

• the object chosen;
• the end in view or the intention;
• the circumstances of the action. The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the “sources,” or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.

so even if the intent of the bombing was just, to end the war, the circumstances must also be just. you can’t intentionally take innocent life, no matter what the reason. this argument that they were potential enemy combatants is ridiculous because of its subjectivity. when you invade a country every civilian is a possible enemy combatant.

this is where the just war doctrine comes from. even the idea that we had to invade japan so they would unconditionally surrender is morally wrong because of the circumstances involved -too many people would die -on both sides. it is all common sence.

weather you like it or not, war generally doesn’t solve anything and will always be with us until the end of the world. God allows it for our sanctification.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

oat soda:

this stuff isn’t rocket science. i still can’t believe how many people here put their country above thier faith.

That is harsh and uncalled for.
oat soda:

it is sad.

Likewise. False accusations and false pity does not help your case.
oat soda:

so even if the intent of the bombing was just, to end the war, the circumstances must also be just.

All you have done is quote something and then draw your own conclusion. Your conclusion has no logical connection to what you have quoted. Circumstances do affect the morality of a decision but not in the way you have claimed. Circumstantial intention can reduce or increase the goodness of an object. But it cannot change that goodness into an evil.

That is the principle of double effect. Ignoring double effect and making your own claims does not strengthen your case.
oat soda:

weather you like it or not, war generally doesn’t solve anything and will always be with us until the end of the world. God allows it for our sanctification.

A very bald, unsubstantiated claim which I will be happy to entertain were you to offer some support for it in the forum of argumentation. There are probably millions of Jews at least who would disagree with you that an Allied victory in WWII didn’t solve anything. What would you do with them? Hang them out to dry? Turn a blind (but sanctimonious) eye?

We are not only called to Christian charity. We are called to Christian justice.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Al Masetti:

remember that the Infinite and All Knowing God had decided to nuke a place and was talked out of it if there was even ONE good person in the city.

So what did He do? He evacuated the good people from the city and then nuked it for morbid. Lot’s wife turned back and then promptly turned into a pillar of salt.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Wolseley:

Of course the civilians were targeted.

Well, let’s see…

Wolseley:

Nagasaki’s primary value as a military target consisted of the fact that 90% of the city’s labor force worked in a huge complex of manufacturing plants owned by the Mitsubishi company, making torpedoes for the Japanese Navy and small arms for the Japanese Army; all the plants in the city were operating at full production on August 9th when the second bomb exploded. (William Craig, The Fall of Japan. New York: Galahad Books, 1967, pg 88.)

These ‘civilians’ are beginning to look more like military than Aunty Keiko at home in her apron making noodle soup for the kids.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

Well, let’s see…

These ‘civilians’ are beginning to look more like military than Aunty Keiko at home in her apron making noodle soup for the kids.

Careful there, once you remove distinction between combatants and non-combatants, you run into dangerous moral territory. After all, even Aunty Keiko making her noodles may be construed as “supporting” the war effort once this line is crossed. Did she feed her solider husband when he was home on leave? Did she feed any workers from the munitions factory? Or perhaps she is a symbol for whom the soldiers are fighting. “Remember Aunty Keiko with the noodles, for whom you risk your lives!” Where do you draw the line, and on what basis?

I think the line between combatants and non-combatants must be scrupulously upheld and defended if we’re going to insist that there can ever be such thing as a “just” war or just conduct during war.

 

[wabrams]

Steve O'Brien:

I again urge everyone to read the Church’s condemnation of total war in sections 79-80 of the Vatican II document entitled Gaudium et spes:

rc.net/rcchurch/vatican2/gaudium.ets

Keep and spread the Faith.

Not really that relevant to THIS discussion, since we nuked Japan over 20 years before Vatican II.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Philip P:

I think the only thing left to do in that point is to make your peace with God.

What about your neighbours who don’t believe in God? Where is their freedom of choice? You see, something we have not discussed, is that we do not make these decisions to nuke targets as individuals. We make them as members of communities comprised of individuals who have diverse beliefs and choices. Freedom is the First Covenant. That is a primary component of what defines us as human beings.

By retaliating, we put forces into play which may allow our neighbours (in the countryside) to avoid being annexed and either put to the sword or enslaved. By not retaliating, we take away their chances to survive. How respectful of other people’s freedom is that?

Wolseley:

If our cities are already on the point of being destroyed, deterrence has failed, as JimG pointed out. There is no point in retaliating by destroying the cities of the attacker. That could not save our cities, nor would it be a military objective.

And if military personnel, materiels, and manufacturing facilities are embedded in the cities?

Wolseley:

A counter-strike could be legitimately directed at the opponent’s *military *targets

The most critical military targets – the missiles – are already in the air. If interception fails, will we have time to go to plan B? Everything is in the timing. We no longer have the luxury of days or even weeks. We are now talking minutes. Interception would have no teeth unless we were using Plan B at the same time. Why intercept and just sit there waiting for the next wave of missiles to go to air? This isn’t the shooting gallery at the county fair. Every enemy missile in the air could get through.

Let’s remember that even those enemy bombs which explode (for whatever reasons) at some distance from their targets, result in the shutting down of our civilian communications because of electromagnetic field distortions. This means no hydro, no heat, hospitals are compromised, traffic lights go down, and so on. Imagine the chaos of people trying to escape cities while at the same time the technology to help them escape the cities is non-functional. And imagine the casualties from such a near-miss.

There is a time to retreat. There is a time to advance. Retreat and live to win another day. Advance and win today.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

What about your neighbours who don’t believe in God? Where is their freedom of choice? You see, something we have not discussed, is that we do not make these decisions to nuke targets as individuals. We make them as members of communities comprised of individuals who have diverse beliefs and choices. Freedom is the First Covenant. That is a primary component of what defines us as human beings.

By retaliating, we put forces into play which may allow our neighbours (in the countryside) to avoid being annexed and either put to the sword or enslaved. By not retaliating, we take away their chances to survive. How respectful of other people’s freedom is that?

And if military personnel, materiels, and manufacturing facilities are embedded in the cities?

The most critical military targets – the missiles – are already in the air. If interception fails, will we have time to go to plan B? Everything is in the timing. We no longer have the luxury of days or even weeks. We are now talking minutes. Interception would have no teeth unless we were using Plan B at the same time. Why intercept and just sit there waiting for the next wave of missiles to go to air? This isn’t the shooting gallery at the county fair. Every enemy missile in the air could get through.

Let’s remember that even those enemy bombs which explode (for whatever reasons) at some distance from their targets, result in the shutting down of our civilian communications because of electromagnetic field distortions. This means no hydro, no heat, hospitals are compromised, traffic lights go down, and so on. Imagine the chaos of people trying to escape cities while at the same time the technology to help them escape the cities is non-functional. And imagine the casualties from such a near-miss.

There is a time to retreat. There is a time to advance. Retreat and live to win another day. Advance and win today.

I don’t understand your response. I understood the three-wave attack already in the air to mean that complete destruction of the U.S. was already a given. I guess my neighbors who didn’t believe in God would be finding out pretty quick whether or not they were right. If everyone’s been vaporized, I’m not sure I understand what’s left to defend. And I don’t see how vaporizing the Russians in turn helps anyone.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Philip P:

Careful there, once you remove distinction between combatants and non-combatants, you run into dangerous moral territory. After all, even Aunty Keiko making her noodles may be construed as “supporting” the war effort once this line is crossed. Did she feed her solider husband when he was home on leave? Did she feed any workers from the munitions factory? Or perhaps she is a symbol for whom the soldiers are fighting. “Remember Aunty Keiko with the noodles, for whom you risk your lives!” Where do you draw the line, and on what basis?

I think the line between combatants and non-combatants must be scrupulously upheld and defended if we’re going to insist that there can ever be such thing as a “just” war or just conduct during war.

I used the metaphor of Aunty Keiko to draw attention to the unconscious assumptions about what a civilian is.

If Aunty Ani is manufacturing weapons and delivery systems for those weapons, then Aunty Ani is not a civilian. She is part of the war effort. People have choices. Even if the choice is between being beheaded and putting on a soldering apron and burning pieces of metal together to build a ship. Hard choice but a choice nonetheless. What exactly do people die for? What exactly will people surrender (by choice) their lives for? In the case of the Axis it was to expand into territory occupied by other people and it was also for an honour distorted and exploited by whacko military honchos.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

I used the metaphor of Aunty Keiko to draw attention to the unconscious assumptions about what a civilian is.

If Aunty Ani is manufacturing weapons and delivery systems for those weapons, then Aunty Ani is not a civilian. She is part of the war effort. People have choices. Even if the choice is between being beheaded and putting on a soldering apron and burning pieces of metal together to build a ship. Hard choice but a choice nonetheless. What exactly do people die for? What exactly will people surrender (by choice) their lives for? In the case of the Axis it was to expand into territory occupied by other people and it was also for an honour distorted and exploited by whacko military honchos.

That’s a deeply problematic definition of a civilian. If I am reading your position correctly, only explicit resistance qualifies one for civilian status. By that standard, though, nearly anything is justified if one believes one’s cause to be just. Torturing or killing prisoners. Rape. Murder. Genocide. As long as someone is not explicitly part of the resistance, they are fair game. You are coming dangerously close to a position that war is an ethics-free zone in which anything goes.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

I used the metaphor of Aunty Keiko to draw attention to the unconscious assumptions about what a civilian is.

If Aunty Ani is manufacturing weapons and delivery systems for those weapons, then Aunty Ani is not a civilian. She is part of the war effort.

If a spy breaks into Aunty Ani’s house in the middle of the night and sticks a knife in her, is that murder or simply a legitimate act of self-defense during war time?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Philip P:

I don’t understand your response. I understood the three-wave attack already in the air to mean that complete destruction of the U.S. was already a given.

The cities.

Wolseley:

If everyone’s been vaporized

Everyone is not vapourized.

Wolseley:

I’m not sure I understand what’s left to defend.

While I doubt if there will be many Starbucks left standing, there might be two or three cornfields, maybe a pond up near Uncle Mikey’s cabin. Maybe even Uncle Mikey himself. The radiation is a short term or long term hazard depending on where the corn-field, the pond, and Uncle Mikey are located.

Wolseley:

And I don’t see how vaporizing the Russians in turn helps anyone.

It evens out the playing field, doesn’t it? Takes out the manufacturing facilities, materiels, and personnel who would drive the military. Scorched earth. An invading army depends on its supply lines. That is what the big worry was during the invasion of Iraq. That is what put Napoleon’s ambitions in Russia in the deep freeze. No supplies = no army.

What’s the point of nuking us in the first place if they can’t occupy us? Could be that they just want to eliminate a competitor. If we retaliate, then they have not only eliminated a competitor but eliminated their own ability to compete in anything more than rubbing two sticks together to make fire and bringing down big game for food and clothing. Pyrrhic victory. (I never could spell Pyrrhic)

Much of this nuclear strike strategy has become deterrant. Countries with nuclear strike strategy have done all the scenarious, crunched all the numbers. They know they would lose far more than they gained by being the first to push the button.

The most pressing question today is: Do the countries currently developing nuclear strike capacity fit into the category of those who know they would lose far more than they would gain? Do they care? Are their leaders rational? or whackos?

So far we have been discussing 100 megaton bombs.

No one has responded to my scenario of multiple, portable, mini-nukes transported by suicide bombers (reference kamikaze) into pre-specified geographically separated targets and detonated on a timer, thus causing a firestorm. The nuclear version of the London suicide bombings. This is a far more likely scenario than 100 megaton bombings.

 

[vern_humphrey]

JimG:

Well, at that point, deterrence would have failed.

But I asked the question in a vacuum to illustrate a case–admittedly unlikely–where even a very large yield weapon might be targeted specifically to a military target (and be very accurate) and yet destroy a city.

But there is no vacuum – a single missile would never happen if deterrence failed. The cities would be gone anyway.

JimG:

A three-wave first strike, such as you have outlined, while morally abhorrent in itself, inevitably puts the defender in an untenable moral position of being forced into an immediate massive retaliatory strike against cities.

Untennable doesn’t mean “if we ignore it, it will go away.”

JimG:

In some ways it gives the attacker the moral ‘high ground:’ Those three waves could all go against military targets. The retaliatory strike has fewer military targets left: they are already in the air or ready to launch.

Think about that – an unjust attacker has the “moral high ground.” That’s a contradiction in terms.

Which should tell us we’re operating on false premises.

There is no case where the victim is morally obliged to submit, as long as they have the means to defend themselves.

JimG:

I would have hoped for a purely defensive option, but that is not available.

And all the hope in the world won’t change that.

(Once, watching a Minuteman launch, I discussed with a friend that if an enemy could place one covert operative at each isolated silo, every missile could be brought down with a high powered rifle shot. --although a heat seeking shoulder fired all missile would be even more effective.)

Now all the Soviets had to do was put a covert operative at each silo.

 

[Philip_P]

Ani Ibi:

It evens out the playing field, doesn’t it?

What playing field? There’s nothing left to play on or with. If there’s a nuclear war (of the kind contemplated in a USSR-US conflict), it’s game over for everyone.

What’s the point of nuking us in the first place if they can’t occupy us? Could be that they just want to eliminate a competitor. If we retaliate, then they have not only eliminated a competitor but eliminated their own ability to compete in anything more than rubbing two sticks together to make fire and bringing down big game for food and clothing. Pyrrhic victory. (I never could spell Pyrrhic)

That’s why nuclear war is not a rational possibilty. It takes courage to think through the contingencies of it, but an idiot to actually bring it about.

No one has responded to my scenario of multiple, portable, mini-nukes transported by suicide bombers (reference kamikaze) into pre-specified geographically separated targets and detonated on a timer, thus causing a firestorm. The nuclear version of the London suicide bombings. This is a far more likely scenario than 100 megaton bombings.

That is a different question entirely. [Nuclear] Deterrence can’t work in that case, nor can retaliation. The only thing to do is work to prevent it from happening, and have emergency services in place to care for the survivors if it does happen.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Philip P:

That’s a deeply problematic definition of a civilian. If I am reading your position correctly, only explicit resistance qualifies one for civilian status. By that standard, though, nearly anything is justified if one believes one’s cause to be just. Torturing or killing prisoners. Rape. Murder. Genocide. As long as someone is not explicitly part of the resistance, they are fair game. You are coming dangerously close to a position that war is an ethics-free zone in which anything goes.

This is an extrapolation of what I said and arguing to extremes. What I said is that if people are building weapons in full knowledge that those weapons will be used to kill people during a war currently engaged, then those people are part of the war effort. If they choose freely to build those weapons then they are fair game. If their enemy kills them because their own military forces them to build those weapons – in other words, holds them hostage – then who is responsible for their deaths? The enemy? Or the military?

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

Karl Keating:

If the bombs had not been dropped on Japan, more Americans would have died or more Japanese would have died–or both.

This scenario has been accepted by almost every mainstream historian of WWII. Since more Japanese had died in the fire-bombings of Tokyo and other major Japanese cities than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, than it was historically plausible that a full-scale invasion of Japan, from both the Russians and the Americans, would have resulted in the deaths of millions of Japanese men, women, and children instead of thousands.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki really were military targets.

The fire bombing of Dresden Germany proved that not all targets had military value, punitive actions were also taken.

Every Japanese older than a child was really a combatant. The Japanese literally would have fought to the last man, woman, and (older) child.

Examples of this were had already been witnessed in combat on Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and especially Guadacanal where old men, women, and children had both fought to the death and also committed group suicide.

Members of the Japanese Imperial Army used children armed with strap-on bombs to do banzai charges against U.S. Marines. This was a source of some symptoms Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in Naval psychiatric hospitals after the war by Marines who witnessed these child suicide bombers.

Japanese diplomatic feelers regarding surrender were non-existent or just not plausible.

This is true since unconditional warfare was declared against both the Japanese and Nazi Germany.

The Emperor would have been overthrown in a coup had the war continued.

The Emperor had been a figure head for decades before the war and a military faction was actually in control.

Japanese scientists were working on a bomb of their own.

I’m unfamiliar with this.

The Japanese did not need oil and so could have fought on indefinitely.

This is non-sense since industrial Japan has little natural resources and is dependent on imports.

Allied losses at Iwo Jima and Okinawa had been large.

Not only large, but the Japanese shocked the world with their fanaticism and gave a clear example of what to expect if the Japanese home islands were invaded.

The list goes on. What I find curious is that there is not much in the discussion about Catholic moral principles. You can read most of the posts and have no clue that the writers are Catholics or even Christians. Their arguments could have appeared in secular(ist) journals.

But the attack on Pearl Harbor and the rape of Nanking plus Japan’s blatant imperialist expansion throughout Asia seemed to justify the U.S. response as conforming to the Catholic definition of a Just War.
From the New Advent:
newadvent.org/cathen/15546c.htm

"In conclusion, a war, to be just, must be waged by a sovereign power for the security of a perfect right of its own (or of another justly invoking its protection) against foreign violation in a case where there is no other means available to secure or repair the right; and must be conducted with a moderation which, in the continuance and settlement of the struggle, commits no act intrinsically immoral, nor exceeds in damge done, or in payment and in penalty exacted, the measure of necessity and of proportion to the value of the right involved, the cost of the war, and the guarantee of future security."

All this makes me think that there is material here for an instructive monograph on how Catholics engage in arguments.

It is in my humble opinion, that since Japan lost more people in the firebombings of several major cities, including Tokyo, than in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and still did not capitulate; and Japan was guilty of known serious war crimes against P.O.W.s including medical experiments in occupied China in Medical Camp #13, and that nuclear weaponry was unique and not entirely known of their outcomes, then the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was justified and conformed to the Catholic definition of a Just War.