Actually, a single bombing raid on Tokyo killed more civilians than either Nagasaki or Hiroshima did. What’s your point?
I’ll be the first to admit that war is hell (I’m a Nam vet, and no, I didn’t kill any babies or women. In fact, I didn’t kill anyone). But if you’re going to wage war, you had better be prepared to do whats necessary to win. The Islamic insurgents understand this and thats why they are killing babies and women deliberately, not just incidentally as collateral damage. If the Western world is not willing to do whatever needs to be done to defeat them (as we did in Japan), the west WILL lose, and that includes the mealy mouthed liberals who think they can talk their way out of everything as they thought they could do before WWII. And we all should know what the results of that policy was. If you don’t, I suggest reading some history and trying to understand why and how things happen.
It takes two parties to make peace but only one to make war.
[quote=“Shin-Gua”]Actually, a single bombing raid on Tokyo killed more civilians than either Nagasaki or Hiroshima did. What’s your point?
I’ll be the first to admit that war is hell (I’m a Nam vet, and no, I didn’t kill any babies or women. In fact, I didn’t kill anyone). But if you’re going to wage war, you had better be prepared to do whats necessary to win. The Islamic insurgents understand this and thats why they are killing babies and women deliberately, not just incidentally as collateral damage. If the Western world is not willing to do whatever needs to be done to defeat them (as we did in Japan), the west WILL lose, and that includes the mealy mouthed liberals who think they can talk their way out of everything as they thought they could do before WWII. And we all should know what the results of that policy was. If you don’t, I suggest reading some history and trying to understand why and how things happen.
It takes two parties to make peace but only one to make war.[/quote]
Is that a yes or a no to my question?
(Question: if the other side is too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate is it legitimate to use weapons of mass destruction on its civilian non-combatant population?)
That’s an interesting question, spook. But, let’s look at it in the context of what we knew and believed at the time the decision was made to use the bombs:
[quote][url=Nuclear Combat - August 1945]A plan for the invasion of Japan had been drawn up; Operation Olympic was scheduled for November 1945. Estimates of Allied casualties ranged from 250,000 to a million with much greater losses to the Japanese. To repel invaders, Japan had a veteran army of some two million ready, an army that had already shown its ferocity and fanaticism in combat. Some 8,000 military aircraft were available that could be used for devastating Kamikaze (suicide) attacks on U.S. ships. The [Japanese] draft had been extended to include men from age 15 to 60 and women from 17 to 45, adding millions of civilians ready to defend their homeland to the death, with sharpened sticks if necessary.
Experience throughout the Pacific war had shown that Japanese combat casualties had run from five to 20 times those suffered by the Allies, particularly in the battles of the Philippines and Okinawa. * Whatever the predicted Allied losses, the potential Japanese military and civilian casualties would have been staggering. Whether Japan would have surrendered prior to invasion without the use of the atomic bombs is a question that can never be answered. Using the history and projections available to him, President Truman made the grave decision to use the atomic bomb in an effort to end the war quickly, thus avoiding a costly invasion.[/url][/quote]
Maybe your question should be more properly phrased as follows:
If the other side is too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate (to your own military forces and to his military forces and to his combattant and non-combattant civilian population) is it legitimate to use weapons of mass destruction on its civilian non-combatant population?
I prefer to see the question rephrased as follows:
If a dangerous aggressor against your and other nations is too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate (to your own military forces and to his military forces and to his civilian population) is it legitimate to use weapons of mass destruction on its civilian non-combatant population?
The Peace Museum in Hiroshima paints an interesting picture about this issue. The main claim for dropping the bombs, from what I gathered, was that the US weren’t keen to negotiate with the Russians over how territory would be divided up at the wars end. With this in mind they decided to end the war as abruptly as possible. If the war dragged on the Russians would gain increasing international power. This was not desired. Each bomb site was chosen from a list of possibles, and places like Kyoto were under consideration. Age and memory prevent me from expanding further, but somewhere in my mind I recall that the Hiroshima sight was not the first choice of the military, but for some reason there was a change of targets.
For what it is worth, I believe that Toda said the bombs were ‘evil.’ That was his message to the Japanese, who at that time still believed he was a divine power. His real reason for pulling out of the war is perhaps lost forever.
[quote=“BobbyTheRookie”]The Peace Museum in Hiroshima paints an interesting picture about this issue. The main claim for dropping the bombs, from what I gathered, was that the US weren’t keen to negotiate with the Russians over how territory would be divided up at the wars end. With this in mind they decided to end the war as abruptly as possible. If the war dragged on the Russians would gain increasing international power. This was not desired. Each bomb site was chosen from a list of possibles, and places like Kyoto were under consideration. Age and memory prevent me from expanding further, but somewhere in my mind I recall that the Hiroshima sight was not the first choice of the military, but for some reason there was a change of targets.
For what it is worth, I believe that Toda said the bombs were ‘evil.’ That was his message to the Japanese, who at that time still believed he was a divine power. His real reason for pulling out of the war is perhaps lost forever.[/quote]
Interesting post. You bring up a problem that we should keep in mind when discussing the A-bombings. The Soviets managed to take a few Japanese islands in the far north before the Japanese surrendered. If no A-bombs were dropped and the conventional war had dragged on, I think it is pretty much a certainty that the Soviets would have taken more and kept it. This may sound like a lame attempt to justify the use of those bombs, but I think it highly likely that if the US had not used them, the Japanese would still be arguing with Moscow over possession of Hokkaido rather than just the Kurile Islands.
Are you saying that if the other side is too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate that it’s legitimate to use weapons of mass destruction on its civilian non-combatant population?
i dunno about da odder poster but I would. Its the civilians that are backing/supporting da troops wid logistical supplies, war sucks and is hell as someone pointed out, Japan started the war (not gonna start debating whether it was justified due to trade negotiations breakin down) but nevrtheless Americans were dying and they wanted it stopped. U can twist da facts all U want afterwards, who knowz, maybe the emperor would’ve changed his mind later and surrendered without the nukez and maybe he wouldn’t but tried a second go westwards.
Honestly, If I was alive in 1945 (I wasn’t, but my parents were), I would have a hard time in the present day judging them for this act as a “war crime”. Its the victors who write the laws and the losers who R judged by em.
You were the girl that changed my world
You were the girl for me
You lit the fuse, I stand accused
You were the first for me
But you turned me out, baby
You dropped a bomb on me, baby
You dropped a bomb on me (But you turned me on, baby)
You dropped a bomb on me, baby
You dropped a bomb on me
I wonder if they had a similar argument when they invented iron-tipped spears. Or gunpowder. Alfred Nobel started his prize out of the shame he felt for inventing dynamite.
A weapon is a weapon is a weapon. The atom bomb is no more moral or immoral than the club or knife. More died from conventional bombing of one night in Tokyo, than died from the A-bombs.
So for those of us who are too muddle-headed and/or wimpy to figure this out on our own, would the following sum up when using weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations is justified?:
If the other side is the aggressor
They’re too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate
Then it’s legitimate to use any weapon including weapons of mass destruction on the enemy’s civilian non-combatant support base in order to demoralize the enemy into giving up.
The war in Europe was already done, people were tired, kamakizee planes were scaring the shit out of the US Navy, and intelligence at the time (later proved accurate) showed many new types of suicide weapons being developed. These included manned torpedoes, two man suicide submarine, an anti ship suicide torpedo that would be dropped from a bomber, suicide coastal patrol vessels, fishing boats with explosives and the like.
Add to that the fanatical fighting that had taken place during the island hopping campaign, along with the huge losses from Iwo Jima, Peliliu, Saipan, Okinawa and the like, the US rightly assumed at the time that a mainland invasion would have a huge body count on both sides…Defending the homeland. The choice to use a weapon of mass destruction was a correct one, and drove home the simple fact that the homeland couldn’t be defended in a conventional (for them) way any longer.
Incendiary bombing raids killed far more people, but it took a weapon of not only mass destruction, but huge psychological fear to get the job done.
Horror is what finally broke the back of the Japanese government, marines moving overland city by city could have prolonged the agony on both sides for years…
The right weapon, the right time, and the right place.
[quote=“MJB”]The war in Europe was already done, people were tired, kamakizee planes were scaring the shit out of the US Navy, and intelligence at the time (later proved accurate) showed many new types of suicide weapons being developed. These included manned torpedoes, two man suicide submarine, an anti ship suicide torpedo that would be dropped from a bomber, suicide coastal patrol vessels, fishing boats with explosives and the like.
Add to that the fanatical fighting that had taken place during the island hopping campaign, along with the huge losses from Iwo Jima, Peliliu, Saipan, Okinawa and the like, the US rightly assumed at the time that a mainland invasion would have a huge body count on both sides…Defending the homeland. The choice to use a weapon of mass destruction was a correct one, and drove home the simple fact that the homeland couldn’t be defended in a conventional (for them) way any longer.
Incendiary bombing raids killed far more people, but it took a weapon of not only mass destruction, but huge psychological fear to get the job done.
Horror is what finally broke the back of the Japanese government, marines moving overland city by city could have prolonged the agony on both sides for years…
The right weapon, the right time, and the right place.[/quote]
My Dad was serving with the Army in support of the Army Air Corps, in the Philippines in August of 1945. Along with many others, he was in the process of being reassigned and retrained in preparation to be a part of the great Japanese mainland invasion.
Then the events of August 1945 transpired. In December of 1945 he arrived back home, stateside, a civilian. Nine months later to the day of his return, I was born.
[quote=“spook”]would the following sum up when using weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations is justified?:
If the other side is the aggressor
They’re too powerful or determined to defeat militarily without a very high casualty rate
Then it’s legitimate to use any weapon including weapons of mass destruction on the enemy’s civilian non-combatant support base in order to demoralize the enemy into giving up.[/quote]
Spook, I don’t see anyone stepping up to condone a general principle like this.
Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to see the same principle then used (twisted?) for, say, justification of using dirty nukes against the US if you see the US as the aggressor in Iraq, or something similar.
Or is it that using weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations is just too horrific an idea to condone, sitting comfortably here at our computers in 2005?
But despite the apparent reluctance, time and time again we have posters who approve of the use of these weapons in exactly such a manner in 1945, given the situation then. What this tells me is that perceptions of ethics are relative to the situation – not an abstract one as you (and I) have attempted to distill, but a specific and real situation.
In the abstract, I find myself unable to agree with your abstract principle above. The idea is just too horrific. But if I were sitting at the President’s desk back then, I’m afraid I would have signed the order to drop the bomb. Being one of the victims of Japan’s terrible aggression would likely have blinded me to the plight of Japan’s innocent civilians caught up in the war, and led me to dehumanize them. And even if I remained aware of their innocence, if forced to balance their lives against those of my own soldiers and many Japanese soldiers and civilians as well (as would have been lost in an invasion), I believe I would have chosen to drop the bomb. And I’m sure I’d have had trouble living with the images afterward. What a horrible decision to have been confronted with… But I would have chosen a military target, if possible.
I believe your argument sufficient to show that it was the right weapon, but that it was the right place, I’m not convinced. I wonder why it wouldn’t be better to try to drop the bombs near military targets. According to the tests, they knew that the blast range was quite large.
But Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a military target, and if the US is attacked it will go for the balls. While going for the balls is a more sure way to win a fight, it’s also a more sure way to get called a poor sportsman.
I’m not absolutely against the US in this matter, but I’m with Albert Einstein who wrote,
[quote=“Letters from Einstein published, July 2005”]
I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan but I could not do anything at all to prevent that fateful decision," Einstein wrote in German to [Japanese friend] Shinohara in a letter dated June 23, 1953. [/quote]
I recall that there was a petition among the project scientists at the time to drop one bomb somewhere off the coast, IIRC within sight of Tokyo, to encourage the Japanese to surrender. It’s easy to argue that this may not have been enough to convince them of course.
OTOH, was it really necessary to drop the second bomb just three days later? That’s an awful lot of pride they expected the Japanese to swallow in such a short time…
Thank you, sir. I still fail to see why the right target wasn’t a primary, high-profile Japanese military installation. A civilian target, at most, should have been a target of last resort.
We pride ourselves on being a nation of principles, not a nation of pure self-interest and expediency. To earn the right to call ourselves that, we have to be able take unflinching looks at ourselves and who we really are and what we really stand for.
Some people interpret such a high-minded remark as a cover for self-defeatism – perpetually looking for ways to criticize ourselves and our actions and little more. I’m honestly trying to navigate the narrow way between mindless self-criticism and mindless self-aggrandizement.