Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

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I have no problem with Truman’s decision. If we didn’t kill a several thousand w/ an A-bomb we would have killed hundreds of thousands hand-to-hand after we invaded. The predicted number of American causulties to assault mainland Japan were sickening. My uncle was a Marine and slated to be apart of the 3rd wave; all were told it was basically a suicide mission, all the way up to wave 5 or 6. So yeah, I’m glad we nuked them.
 
it makes me sick to read some of these posts.how can you be ignorant of what the church teaches about the intentional killing of innocent life -it is always WRONG.

too bad so many so called “conservative” catholics on this forum tend to be american first and catholic second. last time i checked, there is a seperation of church and state. politics by an overtly protestant masonic country at that time can hardly be expected to follow catholic morality. just because it was in the president’s best interest at the time this doesn’t make it right.

just to make this crystal clear, unless you disagree with the catechism as a sure norm on morality and doctrine, you must as a catholic acknowledge that the nuclear bombs dropped on japan was a horrible sin
**Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."**109 A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.
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this is directly addressing what we did in japan. case closed.

hey vern, you really do sound like you’re from the deep ozarks. let’s hope you stay there.
 
oat soda:
it makes me sick to read some of these posts.how can you be ignorant of what the church teaches about the intentional killing of innocent life -it is always WRONG.
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You need to open your eyes for a moment to WW2 history. Most of these cities we bombed contained factories that supported the Japanese war effort. At that point they weren’t innoncent civilians., but manufacturers of instruments of war.
 
oat soda:
it makes me sick to read some of these posts.how can you be ignorant of what the church teaches about the intentional killing of innocent life -it is always WRONG.

too bad so many so called “conservative” catholics on this forum tend to be american first and catholic second. last time i checked, there is a seperation of church and state. politics by an overtly protestant masonic country at that time can hardly be expected to follow catholic morality. just because it was in the president’s best interest at the time this doesn’t make it right.

just to make this crystal clear, unless you disagree with the catechism as a sure norm on morality and doctrine, you must as a catholic acknowledge that the nuclear bombs dropped on japan was a horrible sin this is directly addressing what we did in japan. case closed.
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:yup: :clapping:
 
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wabrams:
You need to open your eyes for a moment to WW2 history. Most of these cities we bombed contained factories that supported the Japanese war effort. At that point they weren’t innoncent civilians., but manufacturers of instruments of war.
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It’s acceptable to say that attacks on cities is immoral. Singling out the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki without condemning the bombing of Berlin, or London, or Dresden, or Coventry with equal vigor is hypocracy.

Now we must condemn men like former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern as war criminals, not as heros.
 
vern humphrey:
It’s acceptable to say that attacks on cities is immoral. Singling out the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki without condemning the bombing of Berlin, or London, or Dresden, or Coventry with equal vigor is hypocracy.
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the topic of this thread, and you’re the one who jumped in there early to justify it.
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FightingFat:
So, basically you guys think that America was right to drop the bomb?
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vern humphrey:
Considering the numbers of both Japanese and Americans who would have died in the event of an invasion, and adding the civilians who would have died of hunger and cold in the winter of '45-'46, absolutely.
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Pete2:
‘Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.’ The Church has a long tradition of condemning acts of war that bring ‘widespread, unspeakable suffering and destruction.’ - Catholic Church
vern humphrey:
Who says this forum isn’t educational? http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

So have you been educated to understand that these bombings are not justified? Or do you continue to evade the truth by changing the topic and squirming around like a snake?
 
Truman was Right ! all this moaning and gnashing of teeth over the decision.By ivorytower liberals who cry over every dead foreigner.While having little sympathy for dead Americans is so pityful.
Japan killed 10,000,000 chinese while never even declaring war on China.In Nanking alone the japanese murdered 350,000 chinese.Yes murdered, the city had surrendered.The Japs marched into the city and slaughtered 350 thousand civillians. Than we have that Railroad in Burma where thousands of ANSAC prisoners of war were worked to death . Or the Bataan death march. Or how about the Order that the Japanese army had issued. Saying that the moment the US started Invading Japan al allied prisoners of war were to be executed.
I have no pity for the Japanese who died in either city.
 
It’s extremely upsetting and depressing to see Catholics employing sophistry in a vain attempt to defend the war crimes that the U.S. government committed against the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

These Catholics refuse to ackowledge that their rejection of the teaching of the Magisterium on nuclear warfare is as much a repudiation of Christ as is the rejection of the Church’s teaching on the killing of the unborn. Please remember this: when the Magisterium condemns the intentional killing of civilians in war, it is speaking to us in the name of Jesus, who told the Apostles: “Whoever hears you hears me” (Lk 10:16; 1986 NAB).

The use of nuclear weapons to perpetrate the mass murder of non-combatants is simply post-conception abortion. In fact, these confused Catholics, by preferring their private judgment on moral issues to the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church, have become Protestants.

Christ, speaking through the Magisterium, teaches us as follows:

"‘Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.’ A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons–especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons–to commit such crimes" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 2314).

It’s utterly irrelevant to claim that the mass murders committed by the U.S. military in Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved American lives. It’s a fundamental principle of morality that the end, no matter how noble, can never justify a mortal sin. The murder of non-combatants is a mortal sin.

Please remember, too, the frightening words of Mother Teresa:

"The fruit of abortion is nuclear war."

Keep and spread the Faith.
 
oat soda:
it makes me sick to read some of these posts.how can you be ignorant of what the church teaches about the intentional killing of innocent life -it is always WRONG.

.
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I think you are confused about what the Chuch consideres intent.

Is it your premise that if the Japanese 5th Army HQ in Hiroshima was destroyed, but all the civilians somehow survived, that Truman have considerd the bombing to be unsucessful?

I think he would have been relieved that the civilians survived, as it proper.

It therefore cannot be said that Truman intended that the civilians. He knew that civilians would die, but did not Intend for them to die. The Church knows the difference and makes a distinction in Just War.

Civilians were not the direct target, the Japanese 5th Army was.
 
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Pete2:
do you continue to evade the truth by changing the topic and squirming around like a snake?
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Oh what fun! Projective identification! :bounce:
 
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JOHNYJ:
Truman was Right ! all this moaning and gnashing of teeth over the decision.By ivorytower liberals who cry over every dead foreigner.While having little sympathy for dead Americans is so pityful.
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I’m a Catholic. Not a liberal, and America is made up of foreigners isn’t it?
I have sympathy for anyone who has lost their life, or a loved one, especially if it is through a decision made somewhere higher up the food chain.
 
Anyone justifying the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has lost any credibility to argue against abortion or stem cell research.

But let’s put a more interesting spin on this discussion. The Catholic position on the contemporary hot-button issues such as abortion and stem cell research is that these acts are inherently wrong, the disagreement among Catholics comes when we begin talking voting. One voting philosophy, exemplified by CA, is that any candidate who supports an inherently wrong action is disqualified from receiving Catholic votes. A competing philosophy says that while you may not vote for a candidate out of a desire to promote an intrinsically evil act, you may still vote for such a candidate provided it is for other reasons.

In other words, it is a variant of the principle of double effect. Voting itself is a morally good or indifferent act, to be judged by its effects, where it becomes a question of proportionality rather than claiming that voting itself is intrinsically evil.

Let’s apply these competing frameworks to the current thread. Could a Catholic have voted for Truman? We’ll cheat a little and give our hypothetical Catholic voters the knowledge that Truman would drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
Philip P:
Anyone justifying the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has lost any credibility to argue against abortion or stem cell research.
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Nope. Abortion always imposes an absolute harm in that the baby never has a say in outcome. War (dropping atomic bombs, if you will) is sometimes subject to proportionality in that the combatants sometimes have a say in outcome.

You brought up the subject of double effect. Please set out out the criteria and apply them to the historical events set out in this thread. When that is done then we can discuss voting. First things first.
 
Steve O'Brien:
Christ, speaking through the Magisterium, teaches us as follows:

"'Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.’ A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons–especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons–to commit such crimes" (Catechism of the Catholic Church*, section 2314).*
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Steve, notice the key word here. Notice what the Church condems.

There is a qualifier present that determines if a crime against God has occurred.

That is word is ‘indiscriminate’.

Unlike direct abortion, which has been declared intrinsically evil with no qualifiers, the use of nuclear weapons has only been declared to be evil when certain qualifiers are not present.

Is it your premise that Truman insufficently discerned weither the destruction of Hiroshima was a necessity.
 
Ani Ibi:
Nope. Abortion always imposes an absolute harm in that the baby never has a say in outcome. War (dropping atomic bombs, if you will) is sometimes subject to proportionality in that the combatants sometimes have a say in outcome.

You brought up the subject of double effect. Please set out out the criteria and apply them to the historical events set out in this thread. When that is done then we can discuss voting. First things first.

Destroying a city is **always **morally unacceptable. Civilians **never **have a say in the outcome. It’s the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were deliberately destroyed that is relevant here. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the firebombings of Tokyo are also unacceptable under these same criteria.

Now, knowing that Truman had a policy of deliberately destroying cities, could a Catholic have voted for him?
 
Philip P:
Destroying a city is **always **morally unacceptable.
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But that is NOT what the Church says. The Church says only the indiscriminate destruction of a city is immoral.

The Vatican put in a qualifier specifiy the exact circumstances, but you seem to be ignoring that qualifier, why?
 
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Brendan:
But that is NOT what the Church says. The Church says only the indiscriminate destruction of a city is immoral.

The Vatican put in a qualifier specifiy the exact circumstances, but you seem to be ignoring that qualifier, why?
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How in heaven’s name is destroying a city not indiscriminate destruction? You might as well claim that the Church only prohibits the destruction of innocent unborn children. It’s a meaningless qualifier.

Perhaps we should specifiy that only wet water satisfies thirst, only an ordained priest can celebrate mass, only a Catholic pope can be leader of the Church.

In any case, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, by any possible criteria, indiscriminately destroyed. The nuclear bomb’s heat and radiation did not probe the guilt, innocence, civilian, military, class, wealth, race, age, sex, or religion of those it killed. It killed all.

Now, anyone actually going to take up the challenge of appying the competing voting philosophies to Truman?
 
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