Hiroshima- Moral or not?

Well, considering the fact that it was a WORLD WAR, how many civilians were being killed anyway? War, at that time in History, wasn't precision based as it is today-for us anyway. Nowadays, we have precision guided bombs, and so much more technological advances to help prevent civilian casualities, but back then, war was very different.
I believe that the dire need to end a WORLD WAR justifies (if war can be justified) the action we took. To not have done so could have lengthened the war to who knows how long, and what the outcome would have been.
If you were to imagine the scenario today, in Iraq for example, that we dropped an atomic bomb on that country, then that would be unjustified. Iraq isn't a country that we needed to bring down in an instant, it was just that one country, a small conflict by comparison to a World War.
The world now knows that attempting world domination is futile with nuclear weapons at the disposal of so many countrys. So, in that respect, I believe it is a deterant. BUT, who knows the minds of the crazy leaders in the world? We may destroy ourselves yet............

 

AS someone of Japanese (on my mother's side) ancestry, I probably have a unique perspective into my people's culture. I know for a fact that a war to conquer the home islands would've had made Iraq look like comparing a tiny mite game to the Super Bowl. The Japanese would have fought down to the last man, woman and child and the U.S. casualties would have been horrendous. As my paternal grandfather found out when he fought on Tarawa as a Marine, the Japanese warrior ethos is a powerful motivator. He told me about the bone-chilling cry of Banzai! and that they would pour from their bunkers and trenches with swords and bayonets screaming at the top of their lungs. They would keep coming even as machine guns cut them to ribbons.

My maternal grandfather told me about the horrific sounds of the B-29 bombing raids and what it was like to hide in caves from the bombing, but he told me that he understands why the U.S. had to do what they did. When they dropped those bombs (as horrific as they were), they let the Japanese govt. know that resistance was futile.

So it was horrible that we had to kill that many civilians, but the fact was it was war. We saved likely over 100,000 Americans from having to fight a horrific struggle against every single man, woman and child on the home islands.

 

Another point, is that most of the conflict back then was from the conquest of conquering other nations, to claim land and rule. War was understood to be just that in many cases, a fight for country-literally. With that in mind, civilian casualties took a back seat when it came to defending the US.
The recent US conflicts aren't to protect the US from invasion and total defeat, it's mainly over particular groups of people (terrorists), and the means for them to threaten us.
Targeting these particulars, puts civilians in jeapordy, and with our technology and intelligence, we can minimize civilian casualities.

 

Moral? absolutely not.

Just war theory, brought up by the leader in the field, Michael Walzer, argues that even though a war is likely to be immoral, there still are moral rules within the context of war. One of his arguments of targets in the war, is that the only people that have the right to kill are soldiers, and soldiers are the only ones that have the right to be killed. killing civilians is flat out immoral.
read walzer's book if you are really interested in just war theory, he covers a lot and brings up many historical scenarios.

However, if you want to go down the road of consequentialism and utilitarianism, you can argue that we saved many future lives in the process, pretty much bamaslammer's arguement. Was it necessary? yes, it just might have been. however, that doesnt make it moral.

a similar hypothetical situation is if someone kills ten babies to save a hundred, is it moral? well, killing ten babies is never moral, however, to do it to save a hundred, from a utilitarian standpoint, is right and possibly necessary, but it still doesnt make it moral.

killing those that are not a physical threat to you is always immoral. however, there are cases that some may argue that to do so may be to save others, keep in mind though, that that is only valid if there is a definite, immediate, 100% probability that others will be killed. If nagasaki and hiroshima were done for these reasons, it still wasnt moral, but it was necessary to save the lives of others.

 

Japan was ready to surrender. They asked only that the emporer maintain a symbolic position. Instead of negotiating or accepting, the U.S. dropped two nukes, killing more than 100,000 civilians. Yeah, I'd call that "immoral."

The win in this big-dick contest, however, coupled with the absolute economic devastation in Europe, propelled America to the world-power status we enjoy today. Hence the rationalizations.

 

Let's just get this straight. All these statements about a "just" war is simply a load of horse manure. "War is hell," General Tecumseh Sherman once said and he was right. Like marriage, it's not something to be entered into lightly, which is why even I'm becoming concerned about why we decided to invade Iraq. Now I can understand why we bombed civilian targets during WWII. It was total war, a clash between the complete and entire resources of one nation versus another. In that context, civilians are fair game since civilians work in factories that manufacture war material and produce goods and services that are taxed as well, thus contributing to the war effort. By bombing the centers of manufacturing and saping the civilian population's will to resist, we hastened defeat. In fact, our successful bombing of industrial targets in civilian areas, while horribly costly in terms of civilian casualties, caused the Wehrmarcht and Luftwaffe to run out of gas by 1945, literally.

Now I know many of you would call me on this, saying that I've criticized the PLO for killing innocent civilians. But the rub is that they are involved in a war that is not the total pitting of one nation's entire economic and martial resources against another. Israel is not rationing food, having factory workers work 24 hours a day to build planes, tanks and other military material and spending nearly every dime of the GDP on defense. So in that sense, civilians are not fair game since their contribution is not a total one.

Now as for this theory that the Japanese were going to surrender, that is total b.s. The Japanese would have fought to the death. They had marshalled thousands of airplanes for use in Kamikazee attacks on the home islands. They had distributed explosive packets to be used by women and children in a macabre forerunner of "Palestinian" suicide bombers. It took those horrific bombs to convince the Emperor that resistance is futile. Now as for the bomb establishing us a great power, we already were the great power in the world. The sleeping giant had awoken. The bomb only increased that.

GV76, that is probably one of the few off-the-wall statements I've read from you. You act as if you are disappointed that we are THE world power. What, would you prefer the Soviets have been the dominant power in the world and us simply cower before them? Folks, we can't have a grand, equal community of nations. Nature abhors a vacuum and there will always be a nation that is large and in charge. I'd much prefer that it be us. Anyone who says differently needs to have their head examined.

 

Well if we just go by killing civilians on purpose aren't the Dresden and the Tokyo fire bombings worse? On the other hand the casualties from the two atom bombs added up for forty years plus afterwards for the survivors and their offspring.

I'm not sure why your roommate thinks it's the work of the devil - because some missionaries died? Was it the work of god when priests molest children?

 

i never said that a just war is attainable by people, thats why it is theory, but if you want to talk about morality within the context of war, there are those that argue that there are ways to uphold moral beliefs within a war.

yes, war can be hell, but that doesnt mean that in a war, everything is fair game. There is a reason why people feel obliged to uphold moral constructs in war. There can be morality in war, it is just up to the participants to decide whether to procede by it or not.

 

Moral? Tough question and it's too late to dive into it, but I would have agreed with Truman. Nagasaki is the much tougher question, I believe. WWII meant a lot of things, but one of the biggest that came out of it was a revulsion and awareness of atomic weapons that have so far (since 1945) kept them from being fired on people. Questionable if MAD (not to mention Pakistan/India, etc.) would have worked as well without an example.

 

Acknowledging our past despicable actions (and speaking out against current ones) shouldn't diminish our love for America. Does a mother disown her child when he screws up? No, she tells him he was wrong and helps him move in the right direction.

Knowing that America wrongly killed 100,000 Japanese civilians doesn't diminish my love of my country. I'm not that shallow. It's the dishonesty of the situation that disappoints me. They don't trust us with the truth, and now the lie has been institutionalized and become fact. Would we demand that America relinguish its world-power status if our government admitted they nuked Japan for the wrong reasons? Of course not -- we're not so naive to believe that we reached this summit without spilling innocent blood. We're not always "right." But refusing to admit fallibility is far worse because the same mistakes will be made again and again.

Admitting and rectifying a mistake is the most honorable thing a government can do. Trust, however, is a two-way street.

If we trust a government with something so powerful as war, they have to trust us with knowledge of its application. In the Hiroshima situation, trust has not reciprocated.

 

Completely immoral, and unethical according to the Just War Theory.

I agree with the JWT.

Discrimination in choosing targets is a very big factor in the ethical waging of war.

 

I believe the Rape of Nanking to be immoral. I believe the comfort women and concentration camps from Korea and China to be immoral.

War can be just as immoral with guns and artillery as it can with nuclear weapons. You can't put to blame the actions of the past, but you can pay attention to it and hope that it never happens again.

 

Just wanted to make a couple of points:

1) Walzer's Just War theory has one major flaw. He doesn't give sufficient weight to reality. Does a country have the right equipment and face the necessary circumstances to conduct just war (precision munitions, trained soldiers, standard field engagements vs. guerilla warfare)? Without taking in account these issues, his treatise is more useful for debating "is moral war possible" rather than "is any particular war moral".

2) It is important to distinguish between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first at Hiroshima could be said to be a demonstration. The second at Nagasaki, could only be said to be to an experiment. What purpose did dropping an extra one serve?

3) As for morality, I do believe that Hiroshima saved millions of both American and Japanese lives. I also understand why America wanted nothing less than an unconditional surrender. I believe in war, the greatest sin is to hesitate in employing any means to end the war as soon as possible. All other considerations comes after.

I also believe that civilians always have been, and always will be, fair game during war. We may not incinerate them using firebombs, we may not crush them with tanks, but by destroying their country's infrastructure, by blockading their ports, by destroying their govt, by denying them critical supplies and fuel, we are indirectly killing them anyway. A patient dead in the hospital because they ran out of medical supplies and electricity or a child dead at home due to plague and starvation is just as dead as a soldier who receives a bullet in the head. The question should never be "how can we insure we fight a just war", but rather "how can we avoid war".

 

WTF?

 

It may not have been immoral if the Japanese weren't going to surrender anyway. The fact that surrender was already going to happen makes the bombings immoral.

 

I don't know...but that sounds a lot like hindsight. We didn't know the real intent of the Japanese leaders at that point...we do know we had boys on the way to the mainland when the bombs were dropped. It isn't relevant if they were going to surrender...it's what our perception was of that and that influenced the decision-making process that is at issue.

 

Yes,

It saved many US soldiers lives, and the Japanese surrendered unconditionally.

Hard to judge looking back at it...but there does not seem to be any problems with how the war was handled now.

Dresden was just as bad, and is a different question all together.

DD