Atomic bombing of Japan (Split from "To my Republican friends")

[RandFan]

Who are the good "conservative" presidents? Who are the "good" presidents? Define "good"? Moral?

FDR? See Japanese internment.
Truman? See Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." --Baron Acton

To suppose that there are "good" or "great" presidents is to be blind to something. You just need to pick your confirmation bias and rationalize or ignore the bad.

[Cicero]

Who are the "good" presidents? Define "good"? Moral?


Truman? See Nagasaki and Hiroshima.



Huh? Truman's determination to carry out FDR's plan to use the atomic weapons on Japan was the man's finest hour. What was immoral about this decision? It would have been immoral to not use everything in the arsenal that would stop the further loss of American lives and that would cause the Japanese to unconditionally surrender, even if Hirohito was allowed to remain in the imperial palace.

[RandFan]

Huh? Truman's determination to carry out FDR's plan to use the atomic weapons on Japan was the man's finest hour. What was immoral about this decision? It would have been immoral to not use everything in the arsenal that would stop the further loss of American lives and that would cause the Japanese to unconditionally surrender, even if Hirohito was allowed to remain in the imperial palace.I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.

[applecorped]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.


What would you have done if you were Truman?

[Undesired Walrus]

What would you have done if you were Truman?

I don't think Randfan is saying that he wouldn't have done it (That said, I should probably let him speak for himself). Just because the dropping of the bomb is the only thing you can do, it doesn't stop it being immoral.

[chipmunk stew]

What would you have done if you were Truman?
Send Hirohito footage of the test detonations. If that didn't slow them down, orchestrate a live demonstration that doesn't kill a cityful of civilians. Tell them that the imperial palace is next.

Make some attempt to ratchet up the pressure before decimating two cities.

You ask the question as though Truman had no choice.

[mhaze]

I don't think Randfan is saying that he wouldn't have done it (That said, I should probably let him speak for himself). Just because the dropping of the bomb is the only thing you can do, it doesn't stop it being immoral.You don't exactly get an unconditional surrender by sending your enemy video of your secret weapon. You would have got some sort of partial withdrawal in the Pacific, Japan would have kept the oil fields and kept China.

Remaining a sovereign nation, Japan would then have had the bomb by 1947.

[WildCat]

Send Hirohito footage of the test detonations. If that didn't slow them down, orchestrate a live demonstration that doesn't kill a cityful of civilians. Tell them that the imperial palace is next.

Make some attempt to ratchet up the pressure before decimating two cities.

You ask the question as though Truman had no choice.
There were only 2 bombs in existence. Not likely film of the test would do much, since the one on Hiroshima didn't convince them.

eta: we did tell them Tokyo (what was left of it) was next, but that was a bluff since no more bombs existed.

[WildCat]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.
Look at the invasion of Okinawa and the numbers of civilians killed there (which amounted to 1/3 of the population) using only conventional weapons.

Scale that up to Japan proper and compare/contrast.

I don't see how someone could argue there would have been less civilians killed in a conventional invasion than the 2 atomic bombs killed. Not to mention American casualties finishing a war Japan started.

[dudalb]

That the first bomb on Hiroshima did not convince the leadership is a fact overlooked by a lot of people.
And even after the second bomb, a coup by elements of the military to overthrow the government after it agreed to accept the Potsdam declaration damn near suceeded.

[dudalb]

Send Hirohito footage of the test detonations. If that didn't slow them down, orchestrate a live demonstration that doesn't kill a cityful of civilians. Tell them that the imperial palace is next.

Make some attempt to ratchet up the pressure before decimating two cities.

You ask the question as though Truman had no choice.

Nice sounding but totally unrealistic.

[dudalb]

we did tell them Tokyo (what was left of it) was next, but that was a bluff since no more bombs existed.

And the Descison had been made if the First Two bombs did not convince the Japanese Government, more would not and the future bombs would be reserved for use in support of the invasion of Japan.

[mhaze]

And the Descison had been made if the First Two bombs did not convince the Japanese Government, more would not and the future bombs would be reserved for use in support of the invasion of Japan.Thus the reality engendered by pacivist vision leads to...

Paratroopers into the blast zone!

Wheeee!!!

[Rob Lister]

[QUOTE=RandFan;4184067]I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

That was happening anyway. We firebombed them continuously. I believe our justification was that the urban population centers was where they moved their war industry.

[Cicero]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.

I suppose we could have pelted Japan and Germany with platitudes, but that would have only resulted in Pat Buchanan's father being Gauleiter of Washington D.C.

But why single out Truman? I guess my problem with the Truman reference is that you could have made the same objection about the 8th Air Force bombing of Germany, or the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, or German bombing of Coventry,London, etc, rather than condemn the dropping of the atomic bombs as the pinnacle of immorality in war. Civilian deaths during military actions in WWII was a common occurrence.

[mhaze]

Coventry....What would modern pacifists think of Churchill's decision not to give away crypto machines codes broken, thus allowing Coventry to be destroyed?

[lionking]

Coventry....What would modern pacifists think of Churchill's decision not to give away crypto machines codes broken, thus allowing Coventry to be destroyed?

A tragic, but correct decision, in the same way the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was.

[RandFan]

I have condemned the fire bombing of Dresden specifically and carpet bombing of Europe generally. Targeting civilians is immoral. Period. End of story.

Was 9/11 immoral? Is the killing of Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers moral? What can't be justified?

There is a famous moral dilemma that goes, if we had to choose a single 6 year old child, take that child into the center of town and torture and kill that child to save the human race, would that be moral?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Make no mistake, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the death of 200,000 civilians. Those who died instantly were the lucky ones and I say that without any degree of exaggeration.

Are the lives of a million Americans soldiers worth the lives of those citizens? Did Truman have a high degree of confidence that the bombing was the only way to spare all of those lives? I'm not at all convinced that it is so.

I sleep better at night with the belief that the intentional killing of civilians is immoral. Oddly enough that is the current position of the United States.

[roger]

Targeting civilians is immoral. Period. End of story.Why?

[Nogbad]

As I recall, the US military were not convinced of the necessity for the use of the bombs in Japan at all and spoke against the idea. It was a political decision to go ahead with the bombing.

It has been mooted (not unreasonably) that the use of the bombs was as much as a signal to Stalin as it was to obtain the final surrender of Japan (surrender negotiations had already been sounded out). Stalin's troops were ready to attack Northern Japanese islands (indeed took a couple) and there was concern that there should not be a significant footprint of Soviet troops on the main Japanese territories. There was in short a hurry to finish the war before Stalin spread his influence further. An argument in favour of this view is that we did not insist on a completely unconditional surrender. Originally we wanted the Emperor to abdicate but an accommodation was reached that allowed some Japanese face to be saved. This was almost certainly as important a factor in bringing the war to a close as the bombs.

Was containing Stalin through the sacrifice of innocent Japanese civilians acceptable?

One of the reasons so many churches were built by kings in medieval times was that it was considered almost impossible for a ruler to enter heaven because real politik required so many immoral decisions. The bequeathed churches prayed for the king's soul. I don't believe Truman gave the order because frying one of the few Christian communities in Japan filled him with a sense of irony. He made a decision which he thought made political sense. Stalin was indeed impressed and had his own bomb and nuclear programme surprisingly quickly.

[RandFan]

Why? Why is anything immoral? Why is killing immoral? When is killing justified? I don't mean to patronize but I think you can work it out. What do you think?

[Rob Lister]

Are the lives of a million Americans soldiers worth the lives of those citizens?

Yes. Especially considering that roughly 900,000 of those American soldiers were draftees and didn't particularly want to be there anyway. I'd say roughly all 1 million were citizens too.

[Safe-Keeper]

Targeting civilians is immoral. Period. End of story. Why?Are you saying it isn't? If so, do you hold the stance that killing civilians is OK, but only during war-time? If so, wouldn't it be correct to say that the only thing immoral about 9/11 was that Usama didn't declare war in advance, sending Bush a letter in which he stated that a state of war existed between Al-Q'aida and the USA and that American cities would within hours come under attack? I ask because I hear a lot of people saying that for various strange reasons, the intentional killing of civilians in wartime is perfectly okay, if not something that should be encouraged. Oddly, these same people react negatively when this kind of logic leads to the death of their own civilians. The above question stumps a lot of people, strangely.

My view on the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, though, are one of my very few exceptions to the rule. As has been stated, battles such as the one for Iwo Jima proved to the Americans how determined the Japanese were to fight to the bitter end. When the Soviets entered Berlin, they were met not only with ordinary soldiers, but also with children and elderly citizens who had been drafted by a madman as a last-ditch effort to save a kingdom that only ever existed as a feasible reality within said madman's head. The American leadership strongly suspected that their troops would face similar resistance if Japan was to be invaded conventionally.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared hundreds of thousands, if not over a million lives. It can be defended.

[Cicero]

As I recall, the US military were not convinced of the necessity for the use of the bombs in Japan at all and spoke against the idea. It was a political decision to go ahead with the bombing.


You recall incorrectly. That is all revisionist ********. At no time did Truman consider anything other than ending the war with Japan as quickly as possible in order to save American lives. The decision to use the weapons on Japan was actually FDR's long before the Soviets had made any moves into coming into the war against Japan.

The only reason why MacArthur was saginst dropping the bombs was because he figured it would hurt U.S. Army appropriations after the war if a single aircraft could determine the outcome of the war in the Pacific.

[RandFan]

Yes. Especially considering that roughly 900,000 of those American soldiers were draftees and didn't particularly want to be there anyway. I'd say roughly all 1 million were citizens too.Not sure what being a citizens has to do with anything. Not sure what being a draftee has to do with anything. Of course there is no absolute certainty that 1 million would have died.

But that is beside the point. If you think that killing 200,000 civilians to be moral then fine. Please don't complain about 9/11 or suicide bombers, if you want to be consistent that it is.

And let's not rule out torture and we should forget the Geneva Convention. It's rather dishonest to pretend that we are going to bring some level of civility to our warefare and then purposely kill civilians.

Let's just be consistent.

"War is hell" -Sherman

[lionking]

RandFan, I'd really like to know how you see the bombing of Hiroshima during war being analogous to 9/11.

[Cicero]

I
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Make no mistake, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the death of 200,000 civilians. Those who died instantly were the lucky ones and I say that without any degree of exaggeration.


Approximately 90,000 died at Hiroshima and 70,000 at Nagasaki. That means that the March 10, 1945 conventional fire bombing of Tokyo that killed approximately 100,000 should be the quintessential damning example of American immorality. But without the caveat that the U.S. is the only country to use atomic weapons in anger, the death toll from Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not be used by the revisionist to make America the evil incarnate of the nations fighting in WWII.

To say that there were deaths attributed to radiation poisoning after the H & N bombings is no different from saying many Tokyo residents succumbed to their burn wounds days or months later after the bombing. Dead is dead.

I doubt the victims of the bombings in any of the three cities saw the fine distinction between dying from a nuclear blast or a firestorm.

[Cainkane1]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.
Like the japanese did in nanking

[Undesired Walrus]

Wasn't Lemay's utter desecration of Japan a month or so the nuclear bombing immoral? Even McNamara said both of them were behaving as war criminals.

[Nogbad]

You recall incorrectly. That is all revisionist ********. At no time did Truman consider anything other than ending the war with Japan as quickly as possible in order to save American lives. The decision to use the weapons on Japan was actually FDR's long before the Soviets had made any moves into coming into the war against Japan.

The only reason why MacArthur was saginst dropping the bombs was because he figured it would hurt U.S. Army appropriations after the war if a single aircraft could determine the outcome of the war in the Pacific.

I am not sure I buy that. It suggests MacArthur was a scoundrel and Truman wasn't looking past his nose. I think both judgements too harsh.

The huge Soviet Army in Manchuria was part of the move agreed at Potsdam to finish Japan. The Russians invaded Sakhalin (which they have never relinquished) and intended to invade Hokkaido. In securing Manchuria and the North of Korea, Stalin set the political scene in the region for decades to come. Is it unreasonable to think that Truman might have wanted Japan to be secured into the hands of the West as quickly as possible? The situation in Eastern Europe was already apparent by August 45.

Also, is it really revisionist to say that Truman was looking at the bigger picture? Is it more morally acceptable to kill tens of thousands of civilians to save soldiers lives than say preventing an entire country falling into the hands of a fairly ruthless dictator with a track record of wholesale slaughter? These arguments are not some trendy new fad - I read them in text books at school in the late 60s early 70s. Obviously, not having to fight was a great thing for the US troops but is it so unreasonable to suggest that world leaders were frying bigger fish?

[Zep]

Indiscriminate killing of those not being direct combatants, especially en masse, is immoral. In wartime, that does not change, just the justification.

There were a number of factors decided the use of atomic weapons, all listed above, which made the decision highly complex and subjective. I'm sure historians will also note that Operations Olympic and Coronet, the invasions of the Japanese home islands, were budgeted (if that's the right term) to cost the lives of about 1 million fighting US troops to achieve success. That is, the bloodbaths of island-hopping up to that point, like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Iwo Jima were just little spats by way of prelude to the main event.

Of course, there was no guarantee that the bombs would even go off successfully anyway (the one on Nagasaki actually went wrong - it exploded on impact with the ground, not at 2000 feet in the air). There were those on Project Manhattan who argued that dropping them on Japan might give the Japanese a free leg-up to the technology which they could retaliate with...successfully.

Another factor for the area commanders was that they were not in on the secret. They were only aware of some super weapon...which was widely tipped to be some new explosive, possibly new technology captured in Germany months before. This at a time when napalm was first being used (to firebomb Japanese cities). Their scope of thinking did not extend beyond relatively conventional weapons of the day - atomic explosives were Buck Rogers stuff, and besides was ultra top secret.

[bobdroege7]

Immoral as compared to the principle of self-determination, even of a nation that provoked the war in the first place?

Gracious winners we were.

And all that nogbad said.

[RandFan]

RandFan, I'd really like to know how you see the bombing of Hiroshima during war being analogous to 9/11.Fair enough, you asked first but humor me, why do you think they are different?

[geni]

You don't exactly get an unconditional surrender by sending your enemy video of your secret weapon. You would have got some sort of partial withdrawal in the Pacific, Japan would have kept the oil fields and kept China.

Stalin might disagree on the china bit. Japan was a mess. Waiting a couple of months would probably have resulted in much the same effect.


Remaining a sovereign nation, Japan would then have had the bomb by 1947.

Doubtful. Their infrastucture was a mess they would have had a massive drain on their hands simply trying to hold china.

[WildCat]

Thus the reality engendered by pacivist vision leads to...

Paratroopers into the blast zone!

Wheeee!!!
A few years ago I did a job for a WWII veteran who was stationed in Hiroshima within a few weeks of the bomb going off there. His was a black unit btw, I wonder if they sent any white troops there so soon?

[WildCat]

Why is anything immoral? Why is killing immoral? When is killing justified? I don't mean to patronize but I think you can work it out. What do you think?
So what would you have done after Pearl Harbor? Cede the Pacific to the East Asia C-Prosperity Sphere and wait and see what happens in Europe and congratulate the winner?

Because there simply wasn't a way to fight that war without civilian casualties.

[Rob Lister]

Not sure what being a citizens has to do with anything.
You used the term 'citizen'...
Are the lives of a million Americans soldiers worth the lives of those citizens?
...first so you tell me what it has to do with it.

Not sure what being a draftee has to do with anything. Of course there is no absolute certainty that 1 million would have died.

That was the projected estimate. It might well have been more.

But that is beside the point. If you think that killing 200,000 civilians to be moral then fine. Please don't complain about 9/11 or suicide bombers, if you want to be consistent that it is.

I never said it was moral; war never is. I do think it more moral than the alternative.


And let's not rule out torture and we should forget the Geneva Convention. It's rather dishonest to pretend that we are going to bring some level of civility to our warefare and then purposely kill civilians.

Should we ever again get into another real war (as opposed to the latest couple of trivial spats), the first book thrown out the window will be the Geneva Convention.

[Safe-Keeper]

Should we ever again get into another real war (as opposed to the latest couple of trivial spats), the first book thrown out the window will be the Geneva Convention.Conventions. If you're going to diss one of the most important rule sets of our time, you should at the very least read its label.

[lionking]

Fair enough, you asked first but humor me, why do you think they are different?

One was part of a declared war between two combatant states. Key words "declared" "war" "states".

I am sure you will respond that all acts of aggression which result in civilian deaths are equivalent. I don't agree and I'm certain that most governments do not agree. Motive is all important. The motive for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to end the war. The motive for 9/11 was terrorise the USA.

[Jeff Corey]

I'm puzzled about the innocent civilians bit. I think it is a consequence of living in a country which perpetrates the Rape of Nanking (earlier mentioned) You live in a country whose leaders commit atrocities and provoke retaliation, you get dead.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

When it comes down to the bullets and beans level of a war, there are no morals; There is only survival.

The best thing to do with that war is to end it before you kill everyone. The nation of Japan at the end of WWII was training every man woman and child that could walk and follow directions to kill American and Allied soldiers coming ashore. The were teaching Yamato Damashii (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato-damashii) and Bushido (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido), indoctrinating everyone to fight to their last drop of blood.

To that end, they were training civilians in Sōjutsu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Djutsu), using lances and spears made of fire-hardened and sharpened bamboo, and teaching the children how to activate Japanese hand grenades, which had the time-delay feature removed making them instant-detonating, without the activation being seen. (The Japanese grenades of the time had to have the safety removed, then the top struck to initiate.)

The attempted military coup that almost prevented Japan's surrender was intent on making that horrific scenario happen. It was their intention to bleed the US and Allies forces dry, even if it caused the the entire population of Japan to die in the process.

So: Was it moral to drop two atomic devices on Japan? No. Would it have been moral not to drop two atomic devices on Japan? Again, no.

The condition of ending a war is when one side or the other doesn't have the will to continue. One way of doing this is simply to kill them all. Another is to convince them that they cannot survive to accomplish their goals in a continued conflict.

Fat Man and Little Boy served to make a very convincing argument.

Those weapons convinced most of the Japanese military-industrial complex that the Allies could reduce the nation of Japan to a radioactive windswept lump of rock sticking out of the water without ever stepping foot on the land, which broke most of their wills to continue.

There are no morals in war. There is only the decision either to get it over with or to let it drag on.

As such, you do what you have to do.

Then, afterward, you build hospitals and orphanages, set up shelters for the refugees, create fresh water and sewage facilities, and then you do your best to live with the things you've done.

[BazBear]

(the one on Nagasaki actually went wrong - it exploded on impact with the ground, not at 2000 feet in the air).
It went wrong, but IIRC not as you suggest. Bock's Car (the B-29 that made the attack) had a fuel transfer problem, and cloud cover over the target forced several unsuccessful bomb runs. This left the aircraft dangerously low on fuel (forcing them to divert to Okinawa rather than Tinian or Iwo Jima as a result), and the weaponeer in charge of the device made the decision (against specific orders) to make a radar bombing run. This resulted in ground zero being about 2 miles northwest of the planned aim point, with the bomb exploding at approximately 1500 feet. This almost certainly reduced the loss of life, as the actual ground zero was over a valley in an industrial section of the city.

[geni]

Should we ever again get into another real war (as opposed to the latest couple of trivial spats), the first book thrown out the window will be the Geneva Convention.

Nah the various convetions on conventional weapons would go well before that. Actualy in a large scale conflict the Geneva Conventions would probably hold up pretty well since that is what they were designed for. A lot of the stuff in there is stuff it is in your interests to do in any case.

[Corsair 115]

Civilian deaths during military actions in WWII was a common occurrence.Not just WWII, but pretty much throughout history. There's a reason for this: civilians are the foundation which support the military. This is especially true in a conflict between industrialized nation-states, which is exactly what WWII was.

If there are no civilians working in the factories producing the guns, bullets, planes, bombs, ships, and other material of war, let alone producing all the provisions a military uses and supplying the new military personnel to replace the losses, militaries would have ceased to exist in short order.

This makes civilians a target, or at the very least, where civilians are likely to be a target. Not particularly pleasant, but then, neither is war.

I have condemned the fire bombing of Dresden...What happened at Dresden was a fluke. Had it not been for the creation of a firestorm, the casualties would have been vastly lower. The raid itself was carried out by the RAF in the same way that of hundreds of other previous raids; nothing special was done. Dresden also held a number of targets of military significance.

Bomber Command could not create firestorms at will. Had they been able to, they would have destroyed another half-dozen or so German cities shortly after wrecking Hamburg in 1943, and quite possibly have ended the war.

...and carpet bombing of Europe generally. You're going to have do define what you mean by carpet bombing, because the term, as I would view it, is not necessarily applicable to the Strategic Bomber Offensive. There's a long history behind why the RAF and USAAF chose to use their bombers the way they did, involving technological and operational limitations. There were many mistakes and omissions made during the bombing campaign, certainly, but there was always a purpose behind what was done. Killing civilians just for the sake of killing civilians was not really one of them.

Interestingly, towards the end of the war, Bomber Command was able to bomb more accurately by night than the USAAF was by day. Had Arthur Harris not been such an ideologue firmly wedded to the pre-war theories of air power, the RAF could have done quite a bit more to prosecute the air war more effectively and perhaps ended the war sooner. It would have helped too had certain targets not been left off the targetting lists of both the RAF and USAAF (the German electrical supply being the most notable).

As it was, the attacks upon the German transportation network and oil production facilities proved to be among the decisive elements which defeated the Nazi regime. The RAF bombing by night provided more indirect support for the war effort as compared to the USAAF's effort by day, but those indirect effects were considerable and should not be underestimated.

[RandFan]

So what would you have done after Pearl Harbor? Cede the Pacific to the East Asia C-Prosperity Sphere and wait and see what happens in Europe and congratulate the winner?

Because there simply wasn't a way to fight that war without civilian casualties.Oh I understand. It's the intentional targeting of civilians that I object to. And BTW, that is the stance of the US and most if not all modern Western Nations at this time.

I think if we argue that civilian life is forefeit during time of war then I'm not sure how we can hold any moral high ground against the Nazis or Japanese for their war crimes. Of what value is the Geneva Convention if their is no moral high ground?

[RandFan]

You used the term 'citizen'...

...first so you tell me what it has to do with it. Sorry, I meant civilian.

I never said it was moral; war never is. I do think it more moral than the alternative.So America's stated objective to put American's in harms way to avoid civilian casualties is...? Immoral?

Should we ever again get into another real war (as opposed to the latest couple of trivial spats), the first book thrown out the window will be the Geneva Convention.Do you have a basis for making this statement?

[lionking]

RandFan, I "humored" you at post #39.

[RandFan]

One was part of a declared war between two combatant states. Key words "declared" "war" "states".

I am sure you will respond that all acts of aggression which result in civilian deaths are equivalent. I don't agree and I'm certain that most governments do not agree. Motive is all important. The motive for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to end the war. The motive for 9/11 was terrorise the USA.Thank you. You did ask first and I appreciate you granting an answer.

Why was the stated motive of the US moral and those of the terrorists not moral? The terrorists have stated goals beyond terrorizing citizens.

The fact is that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of terror. Unspeakable acts of terror. Read the accounts from the survivors some time (http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/hiroshima/resources.htm). I think we often look at that event in a detached way and don't realize the horror caused by that. Do you agree with Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness that atrocity is not only permissible in time of war but necessary to success?

If you search this forum you may very well find a number of threads where I defend the bombing. I'm not a knee-jerk liberal who by default condemns America for all that it does. However, I've come to the realization that one cannot have consistent morals by condemning one act of terror while condoning another.

Declaring war is not license to commit any atrocity in the hopes of ending that war. Right now in Africa children are being recruited to be soldiers and to rape and kill civilians (http://www.child-soldiers.org/home). There is always rationalization to commit atrocity. The Nazis had their justifications. The forced marches carried out by the Japanese were not without some rationalization.

[RandFan]

RandFan, I "humored" you at post #39.:) Patience. All good things come to those who wait. I was busy answering you.

[RandFan]

There are no morals in war. There is only the decision either to get it over with or to let it drag on.

As such, you do what you have to do.Given that there is always war I hope that we don't succumb to this kind of thinking. Humans are very ingenious and we can't help but find greater and greater attrocity.

In Africa a new and popular tactic is to take children and force those children to kill their parents. You then press the children into military service and teach them how to rape and pilage. It's a very succesful method. BTW: Raping and pilaging and killing of civilians are age old tactics that modern societies have ostensibly given up. Do you think we should go back to that?

[geni]

Bomber Command could not create firestorms at will.

Their tactics however were optimised to create them and they did manage a few. Certianly firestorms were the objective.

[RandFan]

Had it not been for the creation of a firestorm, the casualties would have been vastly lower.Why were incendiary devices used (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Incendiary-device)? You can't declare it a fluke if it is intentional.

Dresden also held a number of targets of military significance.No (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II).

Bomber Command could not create firestorms at will. False (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm).

One tactic used by the Royal Air Force (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWraf.htm) and the United States Army Air Force (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWusaaf.htm) was the creation of firestorms (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWfirestorm.htm). This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWincendiary.htm), filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.


You're going to have do define what you mean by carpet bombing, because the term, as I would view it, is not necessarily applicable to the Strategic Bomber Offensive.Let's just stick with large scale bombing of civilians centers.

[Zep]

It went wrong, but IIRC not as you suggest. Bock's Car (the B-29 that made the attack) had a fuel transfer problem, and cloud cover over the target forced several unsuccessful bomb runs. This left the aircraft dangerously low on fuel (forcing them to divert to Okinawa rather than Tinian or Iwo Jima as a result), and the weaponeer in charge of the device made the decision (against specific orders) to make a radar bombing run. This resulted in ground zero being about 2 miles northwest of the planned aim point, with the bomb exploding at approximately 1500 feet. This almost certainly reduced the loss of life, as the actual ground zero was over a valley in an industrial section of the city.All true, but there's a bit more detail to add.

The height radar developed and used as part of the ignition sequence on the bomb itself was an ongoing problem for the project - perhaps more than any other component. The last test drop Paul Tibbet's crew did of a dummy bomb (over Rota, across from Tinian) was pinpoint accurate, but the height radar failed and it struck the target without indicating ignition.

The Hiroshima bomb worked perfectly, and exploded at almost the exact assigned height.

You are quite correct about Bock's Car and Nagasaki. They should have diverted due to weather (to Kokura), but decided on a radar run. I have one source at least says that at the last minute, the bombardier got a slim cloud break and dropped visually. Alas, as you say, it was well off target. Further, the timing of the drop-to-ignition, plus the blast damage evaluation, showed the weapon almost certainly exploded at or near ground level. The theories for this vary: It was a very different type of weapon design to Little Boy, the last-minute changes and hurried drop, the repeated failures of the height radar device, the different terrain on which it was dropped, and even radio interference from Japanese radars, have all been cited.

Who knows! I'd still not like to be anywhere near the friggin' thing at all.

[WildCat]

Oh I understand. It's the intentional targeting of civilians that I object to.
And you have yet to support that the target was cvilian, as oppopsed to all the military targets in Hiroshima and Nagasaski.

And BTW, that is the stance of the US and most if not all modern Western Nations at this time.
Sure it is. But it's also a fact that civilians get killed when bombing military targets. Especially in WWII, when the accuracy of bombing was measured in miles.

I think if we argue that civilian life is forefeit during time of war then I'm not sure how we can hold any moral high ground against the Nazis or Japanese for their war crimes. Of what value is the Geneva Convention if their is no moral high ground?
We hold the moral high ground because we didn't intentionally target civilians. The Japanese didn't accidentally rape thousands of Korean and Chinese women and capture them as sex slaves for their army. The Nazis didn't accidentally kill 6 million civilians in the gas chambers, nor with machine guns in the trenches they built as mass graves.

What you are doing is the same thing as applying moral equivalence to a guy who runs over a child who darts in front of his car and the BTK killer.

Intent is everything.

[RandFan]

And you have yet to support that the target was cvilian, as oppopsed to all the military targets in Hiroshima and Nagasaski.

Sure it is. But it's also a fact that civilians get killed when bombing military targets. Especially in WWII, when the accuracy of bombing was measured in miles.

We hold the moral high ground because we didn't intentionally target civilians. The Japanese didn't accidentally rape thousands of Korean and Chinese women and capture them as sex slaves for their army. The Nazis didn't accidentally kill 6 million civilians in the gas chambers, nor with machine guns in the trenches they built as mass graves.

What you are doing is the same thing as applying moral equivalence to a guy who runs over a child who darts in front of his car and the BTK killer.

Intent is everything. The targets had little to do with military significance.

The Target Committee stated that "It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released. In this respect Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed. The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value."

[Safe-Keeper]

There are no morals in war. There is only the decision either to get it over with or to let it drag on.

As such, you do what you have to do.All I can say is I'm glad you're not in charge of the American "winning hearts and mind" campaign down in Iraq. The candy thrown from the Humvees would probably be laced with cyanide.

[WildCat]

The targets had little to do with military significance.
Sure it did, as your quote even makes clear (why we didn't bomb the palace). Hiroshima was a port city with a lot of military targets and it hadn't yet been bombed, so the effects would be clearer there. Just because it had other psycological effects doesn't make it evil.

You've yet to comment on the act that the invasion of Okinawa (Japanese home island) killed 1/3 of the civilian population there - over 100,000 people. It strains credulity to act as if an invasion of Japan proper wouldn't have killed millions of civilians without a single nuke being dropped. Is this really your preferred action? You can't act as if choices are made in a vacuum, with no alternatives to consider.

[WildCat]

All I can say is I'm glad you're not in charge of the American "winning hearts and mind" campaign down in Iraq. The candy thrown from the Humvees would probably be laced with cyanide.
What a spectacular non sequitur!

How would cyanide-laced candy end the war sooner?

[RandFan]

Sure it did, as your quote even makes clear (why we didn't bomb the palace). Hiroshima was a port city with a lot of military targets and it hadn't yet been bombed, so the effects would be clearer there. Just because it had other psycological effects doesn't make it evil.

You've yet to comment on the act that the invasion of Okinawa (Japanese home island) killed 1/3 of the civilian population there - over 100,000 people. It strains credulity to act as if an invasion of Japan proper wouldn't have killed millions of civilians without a single nuke being dropped. Is this really your preferred action? You can't act as if choices are made in a vacuum, with no alternatives to consider. I don't understand the "you've yet" rhetoric. If you have a question ask me. If I've missed something I appologize but I wouldn't intentionally ignore I promise.

There was no clear military significance. A pretext at best. Bombing the palace wouldn't cause the most civilian deaths or the most devestation. There is no proof that an invasion would have killed millions of civilians or that we would have really have had to.

[fuelair]

A tragic, but correct decision, in the same way the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was.
But I still would have happily sat on a jury to release as "not guilty" any person who had family/friends killed in the bombing and killed Churchill for it.

[RandFan]

WC, I didn't come to this view as simply an ideological default. I did a lot of soul searching and research. I'll confess I don't remember everything but here is a source (http://www.dannen.com/decision/index.html) of much of what I did look at.

I'm not telling you this for rhetorical purposes or to convince you of anything other than my opinion isn't simply ideological or visceral.

[Cicero]

I think if we argue that civilian life is forefeit during time of war then I'm not sure how we can hold any moral high ground against the Nazis or Japanese for their war crimes. Of what value is the Geneva Convention if their is no moral high ground?

One of the argument made by the counsels for the defendants at Nurnberg was that the trial was just the victors justice over the vanquished. That didn't fly. But then again, neither did the defense that they were just following orders.

In order to hold the moral high ground you have to defeat the immoral holding all the ground. You expected the Allies to prevail in WWII by abiding my Marcus of Queensbury rules while the Axis eschewed all rules. It is easy to pontificate on the principals of morality when planning military strategy in a chat forum.

Not all WWII combatants were as fortunate as the Mormons. Of the 50 million WWII dead, only 600 of the more than 12,000 German Mormons died. Does the fact that those 600 died during a 1943 raid on Hamburg feed your moral superiority on the evils of areal bombing of cities?

[RandFan]

One of the argument made by the counsels for the defendants at Nurnberg was that the trial was just the victors justice over the vanquished. That didn't fly. But then again, neither did the defense that they were just following orders.

In order to hold the moral high ground you have to defeat the immoral holding all the ground. You expected the Allies to prevail in WWII by abiding my Marcus of Queensbury rules while the Axis eschewed all rules. It is easy to pontificate on the principals of morality when planning military strategy in a chat forum.

Not all WWII combatants were as fortunate as the Mormons. Of the 50 million WWII dead, only 600 of the more than 12,000 German Mormons died. Does the fact that those 600 died during a 1943 raid on Hamburg feed your moral superiority on the evils of areal bombing of cities?I'm not sure what Mormons have to do with anything. I didn't know any facts or figures before and those facts and figures don't play into any current thought processes of mine. Further I don't see Mormons as anything other than humans. I've no conscious affinity for Mormons over non-Mormons and I rather doubt that any subconscious feelings play a part. I can't say that difinitively however.

As for the rest, if America had lost there would have been legitimate war crimes tribunals held for Allies.

I don't accept that Nuremberg was "just" victors justice. The Nazis did commit war crimes. That doesn't excuse our attrocities however. Nazi Tu Quoque argument isn't a valid argument to justify what we did wrong.

[WildCat]

I don't understand the "you've yet" rhetoric. If you have a question ask me. If I've missed something I appologize but I wouldn't intentionally ignore I promise.
If minimizing civilian casualties is your criteria, you need to propose a way the war could have ended with fewer of them. Can you do that?

There was no clear military significance.
Oh, but there was:

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hata_Shunroku)'s 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing a pristine environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

A pretext at best. Bombing the palace wouldn't cause the most civilian deaths or the most devestation.
Are you really going to claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the highest concentration of civilians (which you claim were the REAL targets) in Japan? :boggled:

There is no proof that an invasion would have killed millions of civilians or that we would have really have had to.
Of course there's no "proof". Such things are impossible to prove. What we do know is it was very likely an invasion of Japan would have produced millions of civilian casualties, after all we had the Okinawa experience as a small-scale example.

[Cicero]

I'm not sure what Mormons have to do with anything. I didn't know any facts or figures before and those facts and figures don't play into any current thought processes of mine. Further I don't see Mormons as anything other than humans. I've no conscious affinity for Mormons over non-Mormons and I rather doubt that any subconscious feelings play a part. I can't say that difinitively however.

As for the rest, if America had lost there would have been legitimate war crimes tribunals held for Allies.

I don't accept that Nuremberg was "just" victors justice. The Nazis did commit war crimes. That doesn't excuse our attrocities however. Nazi Tu Quoque argument isn't a valid argument to justify what we did wrong.


The Allies emerged victorious over the Axis. No need for "Tu Quoque" arguments. The war was not fought in a chat room.

Had the Axis won, you think that the German and Japanese "war crimes" trials of the Allies would reflect the actual trials of Axis war criminals in Nuremberg and Tokyo?

The Allies did not try any German or Japanese naval personel for submarine sinking of vessels carrying civilians. Do you think the Axis would have done the same?

The Allies did not try any German or Japanese commanders for bombing raids that resulted in civilian casualties. Do you think the Axis would have done the same?

Could the Axis try the Allies for crimes against humanity? I'm sure they would. The fact that their wholesale aggression started WWII would never be a mitigating factor in their charges against the Allies. Does your moral relativism compass make no distinction between the German state mandated extermination of a people and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan?

But perhaps you should specify just what atrocities the Allies committed and what would be the proper punishment for said atrocities.

[RandFan]

If minimizing civilian casualties is your criteria, you need to propose a way the war could have ended with fewer of them. Can you do that?I was a firm believer that given the Bushido philosophy and the fact that every success came at such a high cost in both American and Japanese lives that to win against Japan would have ultimately taken an unprecedented number of American and Japanese lives. I no longer believe that. I will have to go back over what I've read to make the argument. I don't think it reasonable to assume that the Japanese weren't finally coming to the realization that suicide was not in their best interest. There were overtures toward surrender and the Americans had reason to believe that the Japanese would capitulate even without the bomb. More importantly, the link I gave you lays out a number of convincing scenarios to showcase the bomb to push the Japanese into surrender.

Are you really going to claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the highest concentration of civilians (which you claim were the REAL targets) in Japan? No, I'm claiming that the loss of civilian life was a very important component of the decision criteria.

[RandFan]

The Allies emerged victorious over the Axis. No need for "Tu Quoque" arguments. The war was not fought in a chat room.You missed my point. The Nazis DID engage in Tu Quoque argument in the courtroom and you are repeating it in this chat room.

Had the Axis won, you think that the German and Japanese "war crimes" trials of the Allies would reflect the actual trials of Axis war criminals in Nuremberg and Tokyo?

The Allies did not try any German or Japanese naval personel for submarine sinking of vessels carrying civilians. Do you think the Axis would have done the same?

The Allies did not try any German or Japanese commanders for bombing raids that resulted in civilian casualties. Do you think the Axis would have done the same?

Could the Axis try the Allies for crimes against humanity? I'm sure they would. The fact that their wholesale aggression started WWII would never be a mitigating factor in their charges against the Allies. Does your moral relativism compass make no distinction between the German state mandated extermination of a people and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan?

But perhaps you should specify just what atrocities the Allies committed and what would be the proper punishment for said atrocities.I've honestly no idea what your points have to do with anything. That other people were the aggressors is not sufficient justification for atrocity. A legitimate case for war crimes against the allies could have been made. That is the only point that matters.

[ImaginalDisc]

I'm puzzled about the innocent civilians bit. I think it is a consequence of living in a country which perpetrates the Rape of Nanking (earlier mentioned) You live in a country whose leaders commit atrocities and provoke retaliation, you get dead.

Please explain to me what responsibility the children of Hiroshima bore for the atrocities mentioned.

[Cicero]

You missed my point. The Nazis DID engage in Tu Quoque argument in the courtroom and you are repeating it in this chat room.

I've honestly no idea what your points have to do with anything. That other people were the aggressors is not sufficient justification for atrocity. A legitimate case for war crimes against the allies could have been made. That is the only point that matters.

They are not points, but facts. Albert Speer did not enage in any "Tu Quoque" from the docket. Von Ribbentrop didn't either since there were no Allied authorities whose signatures appeared on dishonored treaties with European nations. Since the Allies did not have forced labor camps, or extermination policies, neither Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Streciher, Sauckel, Frank or Frick made any such arguments either.

Not even Goering ventured into this argument during his rambling speeches.

I'm waiting to hear your facts as to these Allied atrocities and what the requisite punishment should have been for those responsible.

[chipmunk stew]

If the US committed a war of aggression, and the enemy dropped two atomic bombs on our cities to force our surrender, who among you would be arguing that our enemy made a morally justifiable decision?

[WildCat]

I was a firm believer that given the Bushido philosophy and the fact that every success came at such a high cost in both American and Japanese lives that to win against Japan would have ultimately taken an unprecedented number of American and Japanese lives. I no longer believe that. I will have to go back over what I've read to make the argument.
Please do. I'm really curious to see what sea change event happened between June and August that sapped the Japanese will to fight to the bitter end.

I don't think it reasonable to assume that the Japanese weren't finally coming to the realization that suicide was not in their best interest.
And this reason is based in what? Gut feelings? Speculation? Psychic insight?

There were overtures toward surrender and the Americans had reason to believe that the Japanese would capitulate even without the bomb.
What overtures? What evidence gave the Allies reason to believe this?

More importantly, the link I gave you lays out a number of convincing scenarios to showcase the bomb to push the Japanese into surrender.
What link? You quoted something, but did not source it.

No, I'm claiming that the loss of civilian life was a very important component of the decision criteria.
And yet you have provided no evidence.

[tomwaits]

People in this thread keep referring to "civilians" in Japan. But we are talking about total war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war) here. When a country is pouring all of its people and resources into the war effort, can they really be considered civilians? Any targeting of the war industry in Japan would have necessarily included non-soldiers. I don't see how this could have been avoided.

[WildCat]

If the US committed a war of aggression, and the enemy dropped two atomic bombs on our cities to force our surrender, who among you would be arguing that our enemy made a morally justifiable decision?
Why don't you flesh that out more CS. Maybe you can figure out a way to make it seem you're actually arguing something relevant to the topic at hand.

[Cicero]

If the US committed a war of aggression, and the enemy dropped two atomic bombs on our cities to force our surrender, who among you would be arguing that our enemy made a morally justifiable decision?

Me. You fight to win. All the revisionist history hand-wringing over the decision to use the atom bombs is best suited for a Lifetime Channel flick.

[RandFan]

I'm waiting to hear your facts as to these Allied atrocities... Waiting? Why waiting?

...and what the requisite punishment should have been for those responsible.What would my opinion about punishment prove?

[Cicero]

People in this thread keep referring to "civilians" in Japan. But we are talking about total war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war) here. When a country is pouring all of its people and resources into the war effort, can they really be considered civilians? Any targeting of the war industry in Japan would have necessarily included non-soldiers. I don't see how this could have been avoided.

It couldn't be. But it gives the revisionists an imaginary peg to hang their condemnation of America emerging from WWII as a super power.

[IchabodPlain]

There is no "moral" method to conduct a war; unless you want to devolve into colonial gentleman's rules warfare (even then, I assure you, it was not moral what took place in and around those battlefields). As was stated earlier: was dropping the bombs moral? No. Was not dropping the bombs moral? No.

Morals and ethics appeal to the best in humans; war does the opposite.

--

That said, I think dropping the bombs was the correct course of action, if looking at the cost v. benefits. Taking the island invasions as any kind of guide, more civilians would have died if a full-scale invasion had taken place. Also, if killing civilians was the motivation there were larger, more populated targets to choose from.

[Cicero]

Waiting? Why waiting?

What would my opinion about punishment prove?

Well, it it's not forthcoming, I'll move along.

Your opinion that dropping atomic weapons on Japan doesn't prove Truman acted immorally so why be shy about expressing your opinion on what would have been a suitable punishment for Truman?

[RandFan]

Please do. I'm really curious to see what sea change event happened between June and August that sapped the Japanese will to fight to the bitter end.I'm not talking about the Japanese will to fight. I'm talking about a change in the leaders desire to find an alternate to annihilation.

What link? You quoted something, but did not source it.Actually I did.

...here is a source (http://www.dannen.com/decision/index.html) of much of what I did look at....

And yet you have provided no evidence. This really isn't needed with me WildCat. I've known you a long time and I've never been one to simply assert something without any basis. It's been awhile since I've gotten into this and there is a plethora of source material to go through. Could you have some patience with me?

[RandFan]

Well, it it's not forthcoming, I'll move along.

Your opinion that dropping atomic weapons on Japan doesn't prove Truman acted immorally so why be shy about expressing your opinion on what would have been a suitable punishment for Truman? I don't have an opinion but honestly, what purpose would that serve?

[chipmunk stew]

Why don't you flesh that out more CS. Maybe you can figure out a way to make it seem you're actually arguing something relevant to the topic at hand.
Is that an "I would" or a "not me"?

[nota]

Please do. I'm really curious to see what sea change event happened between June and August that sapped the Japanese will to fight to the bitter end.

well do to the sub war they were out of fuel and food
and as russia entered the war they lost their manchu holdings quickly
with huge manpower and materal losses in august


And this reason is based in what? Gut feelings? Speculation? Psychic insight?

no cables and direct talks with russia before the attack they had peace feelers asking for and end to the war on their terms [terms not acceptable to the west]


What overtures? What evidence gave the Allies reason to believe this?

look it up there are jap proposals that were rejected to end the war




some think the russian actions and the lack of fuel food and manpower in the home islands had more to do with the end of the war then the bombs did

[Nogbad]

Me. You fight to win.

Just so and none would agree more than than the Germans, the Japanese or indeed the Red Army as it tore through Germany.

I think there is little doubt that had the Axis Powers prevailed they would have tried the Allies over bombing campaigns and in the case of the Red Army, rape and whatnot too. That these acts (and some were obviously crimes) paled against the Axis crimes is understood - but they would not have considered such matters if they had won.

With regards history, it is always subject to revision as documents and evidence comes to light. However, an a priori political bias can be a distorting lens through which to view history this is true but the lens distorts both ways. If it is my political sensibilities that react to a historical piece I treat them with suspicion. If it is my historical sensibilities that jar then I tend to treat the piece with suspicion.

[Corsair 115]

Their tactics however were optimised to create them and they did manage a few. Certianly firestorms were the objective.No, destroying the maximum amount of property with the least amount of effort was the goal. Fire is an excellent tool for destroying a large amount of property in a small amount of time.


Why were incendiary devices used (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Incendiary-device)? To start fires, of course, in order to destroy property. See above.

The bombloads typically carried by the RAF consisted of a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs. This was after considerable analysis of what worked and what didn't in terms of causing the maximum amount of damage.


You can't declare it a fluke if it is intentional. Firestorms could not be created intentionally. There were exceedingly rare events which could not be predicted. Thus, firestorms are a fluke.


No (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II). Quoting from Reap The Whirlwind, by Spencer Dumore and William Carter, p. 345:

Pre-war Dresden could hardly have been described as a major industrial centre. But the war had changed the city's industrial face. By early 1945, Dresden had two companies engaged in aircraft and engine repairs plus twenty-four engineering and armaments firms. Products included small arms and ammunition, machine tools, electric gauges and measuring instruments, radio receivers and transmitters for U-Boats, gear wheels and differentials for vehicles, firefighting equipment, grinding wheels, small steam turbines for minesweepers, cameras and lenses for U-Boat periscopes, anti-aircraft and artillery weapons, tank landing and assault craft, chemicals, and explosives. The city had long been an important railway centre with many repair shops and yards. Through Dresden passed the lines that connected Berlin with Prague and Vienna and that linked eastern and southern Germany. The city was also a freshwater port, the Elbe being a much-used artery for freight traffic.




False (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm). If Bomber Command could create firestorms at will, then why did it not do so immediately to other German cities after Hamburg in July of 1943? Consider the German reaction to Hamburg; quoting from The Crucible of War 1939-45 by Breton Greenhous, Stephen J. Harris, William C. Johnston, and William G.P. Rawling, pp. 697-698:

Such was the scale of suffering and the length of the casualty lists on this single night that it was known immediately as Die Katastrophe, and the psychological impact on all of Germany was enormous. Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Chef der Oberkommando der Wehmarcht, told his wife to 'leave Berlin as soon as possible' since Hamburg-like raids could be expected there once 'the nights are long enough. I am afraid of vast conflagrations consuming whole districts, streams of burning oil flowing into basements and shelters, phosphorous, and the like.'

The industrial damage, too, seemed spectacular. Production at several chemical works, engineering firms, and shipyards was halted altogether; 'the entire tram and Underground system was brought to a standstill'; all the large gas works were put out of action; electrical supplies were interrupted; and some 250,000 of the city's 450,000 flats and apartments had been 'completely destoryed.' Indeed, Albert Speer informed the Führer that raids of similar intensity on six other cities 'would bring Germany's armaments production to a total halt.' Josef Kammhuber was profoundly disturbed by the thought that his crews would have to stand by 'helplessly' and 'watch the great cities of their country go up in flames one after the other' if the results of this raid could be replicated elsewhere.

But they could not. As Harris himself later admitted, 'even with all the luck in the world, we could not have hoped to destroy in a brief space of time, six more great cities.' The product of rare and peculiar circumstances, firestorms could not be created at will, night after night; and, in fact, there may have been only two more before the end of the war in Europe, one at Kassel in October 1943, and the other at Dresden in February in 1945. So, after Hamburg in July of 1943, there were perhaps only two more times in the rest of the war in Europe when firestorms were created. Given this, it is quite clear Bomber Command could not create them whenever and wherever it wished. Because if it could have, it would have done so, and possibly ended the war sooner.


Let's just stick with large scale bombing of civilians centers.First, we should separate the RAF campaign from the USAAF campaign, as they were quite different in scope, tactics, and strategy.

Second, it should be noted those civilian centers were from where the German military got its armaments and logistical support. Without that support, the German military collapses and the war ends.

Third, these civilian centers were not undefended targets. They were, in fact, often well-defended, with radar networks, fighters (both day and night), and flak batteries. (Indeed, an enormous number of guns were used for anti-aircraft defence. According to Albert Speer, bewteen 1942 and 1944, 19,713 88mm and 128mm dual-purpose anti-aircraft/anti-tank artillery pieces were produced. Of that total, only 3,172 (16%) were allocated to the army; the remainder went to air defence. That's 16,541 guns Allied tanks and soldiers did not have to face on the battlefronts.) The fact that these centres were well-defended illustrates that the strategic importance of these centres to their military efforts was clearly understood.

Fourth, the air war was also costly to the aircrews. Casualty rates were considerable. Operationally, the benchmark for success was a 5% or lower loss rate on a mission. That may not sound like much, but consider: a 100-aircraft force, suffering a constant 5% loss rate per operation, will, after just ten missions, have 63 aircraft remaining. That's a 37% loss in overall strength after just ten missions. In terms of crew survivability, it wasn't any better. At an average 5% operational loss rate, a crew stood just a 22% chance of finishing 30 missions. Not very encouraging if one is a member of an aircrew. The chances of surviving being shot down were also low: overall, the crew of a Lancaster stood just a 10.9% of surviving if their aircraft was shot down (things were a little better in a Halifax: the crew stood a 29% chance of surviving).

[RandFan]

No, destroying the maximum amount of property with the least amount of effort was the goal. Fire is an excellent tool for destroying a large amount of property in a small amount of time.Ok.

Firestorms could not be created intentionally. There were exceedingly rare events which could not be predicted. Thus, firestorms are a fluke. I'm not buying it but it's not really critical for my point. The Allies used incendiary devices to destroy civilian property. I see nothing to be gained from a pissing match. There is plenty of information to establish that the Allies targeted civilians and used incendiary devises to burn and destroy civilian property.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I've only skimmed this thread, so I apologize if this has been covered.

If the bombing of Hiroshima was morally justified, why did Truman lie to the American people saying,
The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.

?

[JoeTheJuggler]

The targets had little to do with military significance.

Yes.

In fact, I've heard part of the rationale for picking Hiroshima was that it was of such low military significance, that it was relatively unscathed at the time, making it possible to get a more accurate assessment of the damage done by the bomb.

[Earthborn]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.I think the problem with these discussions is that people assume their present moral beliefs some absolute morality that is true for all time and therefore apply the morality of one set of circumstances to a completely different set of circumstances. Morality is relative to the beliefs, the knowledge and the circumstances people find themselves in. What appears to be a moral decision in one moment in time can appear immoral in another.

Instead of breaking our heads over whether a particular action in the past was moral or immoral according to some non-existent absolute morality, perhaps we should say "We thought it was a good idea at the time." and leave it at that. Past actions require no moral justification.

[RandFan]

"We thought it was a good idea at the time." and leave it at that. Past actions require no moral justification. I've no problem judging behavior by the light of the times. My children where all taught that Columbus was a "bad" person in elementary school. I took the time to explain that the behavior was bad by our standards but it was not necessarily by those standards. I did tell them that they were free to make up their minds about Columbus. Something their politically correct teachers don't allow (yes, we've debated this. feel free to ignore the cheap shot).

That said, I don't agree with your idea that we should just ignore past atrocities simply as mistakes. You might excuse the great warriors of the past like the Khans and Hannibal but we are talking about the 21st century here. You know, the one after the first Hague Convention and the one that saw the Geneva Protocol. Ignorance and tradition doesn't really wash.

The Holocaust (at the risk of Godwinning the thread) wasn't a good idea and it wasn't simply a mistake. Stalin's purges were not a good idea nor was it a good idea by the standards of the time. The 20th century was a step forward for humankind and the premise that innocent civilians were fit for destruction was inarguably anachronistic for civilized societies.

[mhaze]

I'm puzzled about the innocent civilians bit. I think it is a consequence of living in a country which perpetrates the Rape of Nanking (earlier mentioned) You live in a country whose leaders commit atrocities and provoke retaliation, you get dead.

It was of course not just Nanking.

Btw, Japan only last year paid $4B to China as payment for just one area of atrocities- chemical warfare experimentation against civilians.

Odd that so much misunderstanding exists on "Japan and the Bomb". Understandable from the point of view of modern anti-American propaganda.

Randfan, if you have not seen it, I suggest Mel Gibson's movie, We Were Soldiers. Story of a photographer that really did not want to pick up a gun.

[WildCat]

I'm not talking about the Japanese will to fight. I'm talking about a change in the leaders desire to find an alternate to annihilation.

Actually I did.



This really isn't needed with me WildCat. I've known you a long time and I've never been one to simply assert something without any basis. It's been awhile since I've gotten into this and there is a plethora of source material to go through. Could you have some patience with me?
Sorry RF, missed the link as it was in a different post than the quote. I'll read it and get back.

Is that an "I would" or a "not me"?
It's a "maybe, maybe not because it all depends on the actual circumstances". Which is why I wanted a more detailed version of your hypothetical scenario.

[Malerin]

I can't agree. Intentionally killing civilians is immoral. Intentionally forcing a child to endure horrific pain and suffering and/or dying is not justifiable in my opinion. See my sig.

One can always justify atrocity. The trick is to find a way not to justify it.

What about army medics (those without weapons)? If a soldier has a clear shot at a medic, is it immoral for him to pull the trigger?

[RandFan]

What about army medics (those without weapons)? If a soldier has a clear shot at a medic, is it immoral for him to pull the trigger?I won't argue with whatever you decide. What do you think?

I know when it's definitely day and I know when it is definitely night. I don't know the moment one becomes the other. I can find extremes and I can look up the regulations but that hardly resolves all of the dilemmas.

[WildCat]

I've only skimmed this thread, so I apologize if this has been covered.

If the bombing of Hiroshima was morally justified, why did Truman lie to the American people saying,


?
"insofar as possible". It's not like Japanese military bases were located in some secluded mountain valley away from civilians.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki had military targets, and as far as Japan goes relatively small populations, 300,000 or less.

RandFan - I've looked through you links and can find nothing supporting the claim Japan was ready to surrender without the atomic bomb drops, only Leo Szilard's opinion. And Szilard wasn't in any position to know this so I don't know what you're basing your opinion on.

[Malerin]

I won't argue with whatever you decide. What do you think?

I honestly don't know. I can see both sides. An unarmed medic is not a threat to anyone. However, the medic, through his actions, allows the enemy to regain some of his strength. If a medic is a legitimate target, then so is the civilian armaments worker. If a medic isn't a legitmate target, what do you do when the enemy starts killing YOUR medics, and starts to gain a battlefield advantage?

[mhaze]

People in this thread keep referring to "civilians" in Japan. But we are talking about total war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war) here. When a country is pouring all of its people and resources into the war effort, can they really be considered civilians? Any targeting of the war industry in Japan would have necessarily included non-soldiers. I don't see how this could have been avoided.Oh, there are three ways to avoid the immoral and horrific civilian deaths that an enemy will suffer until you force his surrender.

1. Surrender, yourself.

2. Fight him on your own soil. Ask the Russians how your population does with this strategy.

3. Act slowly and indecisively until the enemy has also the bomb.

[Corsair 115]

I'm not buying it but it's not really critical for my point. Then please provide evidence as to why you think the RAF had the ability to create firestorms whenever and wherever they wanted, and then explain why they did not use this ability to win the war sooner. Albert Speer himself, a man who was in a position to know, said that another six cities hit in rapid succession the way Hamburg was hit would have halted Germany's armaments production. Clearly, if you eliminate entirely the ability of the enemy to produce armaments, you are going to win the war in short order. Armies don't fight well without arms.

The Allies used incendiary devices to destroy civilian property... There is plenty of information to establish that the Allies targeted civilians and used incendiary devises to burn and destroy civilian property.Again, one must separate the RAF from the USAAF. Two different approaches to conducting the aerial war. One focused on general area attacks at night and the other precision bombing by day. Each approach had its advantages and disadvantages.

One must also consider that within any city there are not just civilian homes, but such things as factories, shops, railway stations, power plants, port facilities, engineering firms, and much more, all of which underpin and support the German war effort to various degrees. Bombing by night, as the RAF did, was not as accurate as by day (at least, not until late in the war), and as a result the best you could aim for at night was a city, not a specific factory within a city (and even then, plenty of bombs would be falling hundreds of yards, if not more, away from the aiming point). Prior to the war, the RAF expected nighttime bombing would not be all that difficult. The reality was entirely different.

There are direct and indirect effects on the German war economy from the bombing offensive. Direct effects, such as knocking out a munitions factory, railway yard, or oil refinery are straightforward enough. Indirect effects, which is what Bomber Command primarily achieved, are less obvious, but nonetheless should be considered.

One significant indirect effect I've already mentioned—the distribution of German artillery production. Allied tank crews and soldiers faced some 16,000 fewer anti-tank guns than they would have otherwise faced. This is not an inconsequential number. The flak arm of the German military had some 900,000 men in it in 1943; in April of 1945 it still consisted of 656,000 personnel. Even if we allow one-half of those to be unfit for infantry duty, that still leaves 328,000 men. That's a conservative estimate of about twenty-five divisions the Allies did not have to face on the eastern or western fronts.

Another indirect effect of aerial bombing was the number of workers tasked to repairing bomb damage and organizing the dispersal of vital industries: between 500,000 to 800,000. That's a lot of manpower which is not being used in the direct production of war material. The threat posed by Bomber Command at night caused an increasing proportion of the Luftwaffe to consist of night fighters—over 20% of its fighter force in December of 1944. Many of these aircraft and their crews could have been put to good use in other roles on other fronts.

The goal of area attacks was the general dislocation of the German economy and undermining the morale of the population (though the potential morale effects were always greatly overestimated). Rendering workers homeless, blocking streets and rail lines with debris, wrecking shops, factories, and other buildings, the general disruption to everyday work, commerce, and living, all have a negative, indirect effect on the war economy.

It should be noted that Bomber Command didn't just exlusively hit German cities, it performed other operations as well. In July and August of 1944, for example, it was responsible for nearly three-quarters of the missions against V-1 sites. It also contributed to the Transportation and Oil Plans (indeed, RAF attacks against oil refineries tended to be more effective than the USAAF due to the larger bombs and bombloads RAF bombers could carry). "Gardening," or the mining of German waterways, resulted in the sinking of 717 ships and hindering the training of U-boat crews in the Baltic.

Also, the RAF didn't start the war set on area bombing. They started the war bombing by day, trying to hit specific targets. But the losses involved, combined with technological and operational limitations, drove them to take up area bombing at night, which then underwent its own long developmental process.

[Corsair 115]

I've If the bombing of Hiroshima was morally justified, why did Truman lie to the American people saying, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."Technically, there were no more civilians in Japan. If I recall correctly, the Japanese government had by that time passed a decree which essentially drafted all citizens into the military. Millions of Japanese were being given training as militia to be used in repelling an invasion, some with nothing more than bamboo spears with which they were expected to storm the invasion beaches in massive, human wave assaults. Japan had also stockpiled some 5,000 aircraft which it was reserving for use in mass kamikaze assaults against any invasion fleet.

They had also decided that, in the event of an Allied invasion, all Allied prisoners of war then held in Japan would be immediately executed.

In fact, I've heard part of the rationale for picking Hiroshima was that it was of such low military significance, that it was relatively unscathed at the time, making it possible to get a more accurate assessment of the damage done by the bomb.By that time Hiroshima held the army headquarters in charge of defending all of southern Japan, and plenty of soldiers along with it. It was also a supply and logistics base.


It should be noted that the U.S. initially tried to bomb Japan in the same manner as had been done over Germany. But the results were ineffective due to operational issues: the B-29s were operating at the limits of their effective combat range, and crews encountered strong jetstream winds at bombing altitudes which made accurate bombing almost impossible. Efforts were also hindered by the fact that Japanese industry was much more dispersed than had been the case in Germany.

Given this, and the impatience for results, the switch to nighttime area raids was made. If you cannot hit a specific factory, and if those factories which do exist are scattered in small facilities across the city, your only choice is to flatten the entire city if you wish to cripple the enemy's war production.

[geni]

In order to hold the moral high ground you have to defeat the immoral holding all the ground. You expected the Allies to prevail in WWII by abiding my Marcus of Queensbury rules while the Axis eschewed all rules.

The western allies very much followed the then rules of war.

[RandFan]

Then please provide evidence as to why you think the RAF had the ability to create firestorms whenever and wherever they wanted, and then explain why they did not use this ability to win the war sooner. Albert Speer himself, a man who was in a position to know, said that another six cities hit in rapid succession the way Hamburg was hit would have halted Germany's armaments production. Clearly, if you eliminate entirely the ability of the enemy to produce armaments, you are going to win the war in short order. Armies don't fight well without arms. I'm not buying the bit that they didn't want to cause as much terror and as much fire damage as possible. They dropped incendiary devices for a reason. Incendiary devices are not the best means to take out factories. If you are focused on some pedantic point fine. It's NOT critical to my argument. I don't know how to get that through your head.

Again, one must separate the RAF from the USAAF. Two different approaches to conducting the aerial war.

{snip} None of which obviates my argument.

[Cicero]

The western allies very much followed the then rules of war.

The tighter the vice, the faster the Geneva Convention rules dripped away. While the the Allied upper echelon conducted the war n accordance with the GC, situations on the ground dictated how individual pockets of combatants would react. I have no problem with this because it is the immutable behavior present in all wars.

[JoeTheJuggler]

"insofar as possible". It's not like Japanese military bases were located in some secluded mountain valley away from civilians.
The lie I referred to was calling Hiroshima "a military base". Hiroshima was not a military base. In fact, Hiroshima was a city of no particular military significance.

However, I would go further to say that it was also a lie to claim they were attempting to avoid civilian casualties "insofar as possible" too.

So my question is still unanswered: if dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was morally justified, why did Truman lie to the American people about it?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Technically, there were no more civilians in Japan.

Yeah. . .right. (Can you really rely on the government's decree in a moral argument to slaughter people who were by any reasonable standard civilians.) Then it's still a lie to say they were attempting to avoid civilian casualties. If there were no civilians, then there was no attempt to avoid killing them.

And again, the city of Hirohsima virtually destroyed (69% of the buildings destroyed) by the atomic bomb dropped on it was not a military base. What Truman said was a lie.

If this was all morally justified, why lie?

[Cicero]

Yeah. . .right. (Can you really rely on the government's decree in a moral argument to slaughter people who were by any reasonable standard civilians.) Then it's still a lie to say they were attempting to avoid civilian casualties. If there were no civilians, then there was no attempt to avoid killing them.

And again, the city of Hirohsima virtually destroyed (69% of the buildings destroyed) by the atomic bomb dropped on it was not a military base. What Truman said was a lie.

If this was all morally justified, why lie?

Do you know of any city that was a giant military base in Japan in 1945? Since 1920, the entire population of Japan was successfully indoctrinated to become a military tool of the Emperor. If the goal was to kill as many "civilians" as possible, then Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Kyoto, Fukuoka or Kawasaki would have been targeted before Hiroshima.

Now Truman was "lying" about the necessity to use the atomic weapons as well as why the targets were selected?

1) Both cities were selected partly because they were pretty much untouched by air strikes up to this point in the war.

2) Hiroshima was an embarkation port for the Japanese Army as well as an industrial center.

3) Hiroshima was also the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd Army.

[WildCat]

The lie I referred to was calling Hiroshima "a military base". Hiroshima was not a military base. In fact, Hiroshima was a city of no particular military significance.
Except that it was a military base. Claiming it wasn't doesn't make it so.

However, I would go further to say that it was also a lie to claim they were attempting to avoid civilian casualties "insofar as possible" too.
Well them, all you need to do to support this claim is name a Japanese military base (and you seem to think it had to have some "particular military significance", whatever that is) that could have been bombed where there were significantly less civilians. When will you be doing this?

So my question is still unanswered: if dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was morally justified, why did Truman lie to the American people about it?
You've yet to establish this was a lie.

[roger]

Why is anything immoral? Why is killing immoral? When is killing justified? I don't mean to patronize but I think you can work it out. What do you think?
In as much as you've gone on two more pages about this, I'd suggest the answer is "no".

I don't think killing civilians is automatically immoral, though even if I did I could still ask why you think so, can't I? No need to get huffy. I'm curious as to what you think - I already know what I think.

Killing civilians often has little to no utility; I have a problem with it in that scenerio. OTOH, I see no difference between a "civilian" and some schmuck that was drafted and thrown into a war he had no desire to fight, for a cause he does not believe in.

If a country bent on world domination attacks me, I have no problem stopping them by whatever means necessary.

You appear to disagree, but had not, up to the point of my question, said why. There are multiple reasons I can think that you might think that, but I don't know. Furthermore, I'm always open to having my reasoning changed. So, why not answer the question, instead of snipe?

[RandFan]

In as much as you've gone on two more pages about this, I'd suggest the answer is "no".

I don't think killing civilians is automatically immoral, though even if I did I could still ask why you think so, can't I? No need to get huffy. I'm curious as to what you think - I already know what I think.

Killing civilians often has little to no utility; I have a problem with it in that scenerio. OTOH, I see no difference between a "civilian" and some schmuck that was drafted and thrown into a war he had no desire to fight, for a cause he does not believe in.

If a country bent on world domination attacks me, I have no problem stopping them by whatever means necessary.

You appear to disagree, but had not, up to the point of my question, said why. There are multiple reasons I can think that you might think that, but I don't know. Furthermore, I'm always open to having my reasoning changed. So, why not answer the question, instead of snipe?I apologize for appearing huffy. It wasn't my intent.

I posited the moral dilemma about torturing and killing a child to save a city. There are extremes that I could imagine where decisions get difficult. I'd like to think I live in a world where intentionally killing innocent civilians is considered immoral. Unless you can demonstrate that the killing was absolutely necessary then I would find it difficult to justify.

[roger]

I apologize for appearing huffy. It wasn't my intent.

I posited the moral dilemma about torturing and killing a child to save a city. There are extremes that I could imagine where decisions get difficult. I'd like to think I live in a world where intentionally killing innocent civilians is considered immoral. Unless you can demonstrate that the killing was absolutely necessary then I would find it difficult to justify.okay, I sincerely apologize for taking offense where none was intended.

[JohnG]

You expected the Allies to prevail in WWII by abiding my Marcus of Queensbury rules while the Axis eschewed all rules.


That's Marquess (or Marquis) of Queensbury rules, not Marcus.

Hey, they don't call me a pedantic bore for nothing.

This is one of the more interesting, thought provoking threads I've read here in a long time. I love it when long cherished, preconceived notions I've held on an emotional subject are challenged.

Is anyone on this thread actually from Japan? I'd be fascinated to hear your opinion.

[RandFan]

okay, I sincerely apologize for taking offense where none was intended.No problem. It's admittedly a difficult subject and I think it wrong to quickly assume the worst of anyone who was trying to win the war. Sherman was right, war is hell. I'm damn glad that I do not have to bear the responsibility that Truman, Eisenhower and others had to bear to bring about a successful resolution to a conflict that we did not start. I am cognizant of that.

[Nogbad]

Do you know of any city that was a giant military base in Japan in 1945? Since 1920, the entire population of Japan was successfully indoctrinated to become a military tool of the Emperor. If the goal was to kill as many "civilians" as possible, then Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Kyoto, Fukuoka or Kawasaki would have been targeted before Hiroshima.

Now Truman was "lying" about the necessity to use the atomic weapons as well as why the targets were selected?

1) Both cities were selected partly because they were pretty much untouched by air strikes up to this point in the war.

2) Hiroshima was an embarkation port for the Japanese Army as well as an industrial center.

3) Hiroshima was also the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd Army.

If Hiroshima had been a significant target it would have been bombed already. The harbour was out of use due to mining of the inland sea and although it was the 2nd Army HQ there were few troops there. The HQ was in part manned by 60 odd schoolgirls who worked in the communications cell. Most died in the blast but the report of the attack to the Japanese High command was sent by one of these girls who was in a bunker at the time of the blast and survived (although I have no idea what the radiation did to her).

The purpose of the attack was to demonstrate the weapon rather than take out a key military installation (they were few and far between by August 45).

[Safe-Keeper]

You expected the Allies to prevail in WWII by abiding my Marcus of Queensbury rules while the Axis eschewed all rules.Once in WWII a flight group of British (or was it American, can't remember) planes came across a German u-boat out on open sea. The u-boat was flying a white flag or a red cross flag, again I can't remember, and was loaded to the brink of survivors from a ship she'd sunk. She was further hindered by lifeboats she had in tow.

The fighters attacked her. Her crew had to throw the shipwrecked survivors overboard and dive or the sub would've been sunk. There were probably more drownings than I really want to know.

Excuse me, what was that you were saying about high ground?

[Corsair 115]

I'm not buying the bit that they didn't want to cause as much terror and as much fire damage as possible. The attempt to break enemy morale by area bombing was one of the stated goals. This goes back to pre-war theory that civilians were incapable of bearing pressure the same way that military personnel are. So, the theory went, you blast the enemies' cities a little, wreck some of their homes and business and disrupt their lives, and their morale will plummet, and soon the population will be rioting in the streets demanding an end to the war.

Of course, this theory was completely incorrect, but Harris was a firm believer in it. In fact, Harris didn't believe in the concept of precision bombing at all. He derided attacks on what he called "panacea" targets and thought the only way to truly eliminate the enemy economy was by general area attacks. Harris was unshakable in his views, even when presented evidence which contradicted it. This is why, by 1945, he really should have been replaced by a more forward-thinking commander. But he wasn't.

They dropped incendiary devices for a reason. Incendiary devices are not the best means to take out factories.What substantive difference does the mechanism of destruction make? You can take down a building by landing high explosive bombs on it, or you can take it down by setting it on fire. Either method will wreck the building, and a wrecked building is not of much use until repaired or replaced.

If you are focused on some pedantic point fine. It's NOT critical to my argument. I don't know how to get that through your head.You appear to be insisting that there is some sort of clear and unequivocal separation between soldier and civilian. In a war of attrition between industrialized nation-states, such a clear separation does not exist.

In an industrialized nation-state, civilians are absolutely crucial to the continued existence of the military. Without them there can be no military. This makes civilians and the civilian infrastructure a target. Not as direct a target as, say, a warship or airfield or munitions factory, but a target nonetheless, albeit an indirect one. No civilians, no economy; no economy, no war production; no war production, no military. War over.

Also, cities were not helpless targets. They were defended, often heavily defended, just as any other target of military significance was defended.

You also seem to be neglecting the legitimate technological and operational reasons for selecting the methods of attack at night. If the best you can generally do at night is aim for the built up areas of a city and not a specific factory within it, then you hit the target you can find. If your best chance of inflicting meaningful damage over a large an area as possible (and thereby hopefully damaging some direct war production therein) you use the best tool available to do that.

If you are to preclude this method of operation, then what is your alternative? Randomly dropping only high explosive bombs over a city? How is that any kinder than dropping incendiaries? You're still facing the same issues of aiming the bombs whether they are incendiary, high explosive, or a combination of both (and in any event, accuracy was nowhere near the capabilities which exist today; the benchmark for Bomber Command was the percentage of bombs falling within three miles of the aiming point). Do you scrap nighttime bombing altogether and allow the German war economy to operate completely unhindered? Are the indirect effects I listed in a prior post of no consequence?

It seems to me you are insisting upon black-and-white answers to a situation which was shades of grey.


If Hiroshima had been a significant target it would have been bombed already. It, and several other cities, were left off the targetting lists in order to assess the capabilities of the new weapon in the works. No one knew just what the atomic bomb was capable of in a real operation until it was done. For all anyone knew it could be a dud and be of little use. There is a big difference between a test of a weapon and the use of it in actual combat conditions (look no futher than the issues with U.S. torpedoes at the start of the war for an example of that).

The purpose of the attack was to demonstrate the weapon rather than take out a key military installation (they were few and far between by August 45).It was both. Demonstrate the destructive capability of the bomb and simultaneously knock out a major enemy centre. They are one in the same (provided the bomb worked as expected).

In any case, it all could have been avoided had the Japanese leadership had the good sense to realize they were defeated and surrender. They had clearly lost the war by mid-1945; perhaps the blame should really be put upon the hardliners in the Japanese government who insisted upon fighting to the death rather than surrender.

[Cicero]

That's Marquess (or Marquis) of Queensbury rules, not Marcus.

Hey, they don't call me a pedantic bore for nothing.

This is one of the more interesting, thought provoking threads I've read here in a long time. I love it when long cherished, preconceived notions I've held on an emotional subject are challenged.

Is anyone on this thread actually from Japan? I'd be fascinated to hear your opinion.

Yes, Marquis.

Since the Japanese still do not accept blame for what they did in Manchuria, Pearl Harbor, Philippines, Burma, China, etc before and during WWII, one would not need to be clairvoyant to predict the Japanese opinion on the atomic bomb drops. They felt then, and feel now, it was a reprehensible act. Surprise!!!

[Corsair 115]

Once in WWII a flight group of British (or was it American, can't remember) planes came across a German u-boat out on open sea. The u-boat was flying a white flag or a red cross flag, again I can't remember, and was loaded to the brink of survivors from a ship she'd sunk. She was further hindered by lifeboats she had in tow.

The fighters attacked her. Her crew had to throw the shipwrecked survivors overboard and dive or the sub would've been sunk.And how would the fighters have known the that people on the deck were from a ship the U-boat had sunk? They have no way of knowing that. For all they knew, those could have been crew from another U-boat or German warship that had to be abandoned.

There is also the hard calculus of war: if you let that U-boat go now, it will be back on patrol later and possibly sinking more of your own merchant ships or warships. What do you say then to the relatives of the crew of a merchant ship or destroyer sunk by a U-boat that you could have destroyed a few weeks or months earlier but didn't?

There are no easy or pleasant choices.

[Cicero]

If Hiroshima had been a significant target it would have been bombed already. The harbour was out of use due to mining of the inland sea and although it was the 2nd Army HQ there were few troops there. The HQ was in part manned by 60 odd schoolgirls who worked in the communications cell. Most died in the blast but the report of the attack to the Japanese High command was sent by one of these girls who was in a bunker at the time of the blast and survived (although I have no idea what the radiation did to her).

The purpose of the attack was to demonstrate the weapon rather than take out a key military installation (they were few and far between by August 45).

So you have no problem with the choice of Hiroshima as a target? The fact that school girls were still in the area was the fault of the Japanese authorities. Were the 43,000 Japanese troops stationed there OK to target? It seems that the American egg heads did arrive at the best targets for the bombs to destroy the will of the Japanese to fight on without inflicting the most possible loss of life on the Japanese.

The Japanese could have evacuated the city since the U.S. dropped 5 million leaflets five days before the bombing warning civilians of the impending attack on 35 possible targets and were broadcasting from Saipan a similar message to the Japanese people every 15 minutes.

[Cicero]

Once in WWII a flight group of British (or was it American, can't remember) planes came across a German u-boat out on open sea. The u-boat was flying a white flag or a red cross flag, again I can't remember, and was loaded to the brink of survivors from a ship she'd sunk. She was further hindered by lifeboats she had in tow.

The fighters attacked her. Her crew had to throw the shipwrecked survivors overboard and dive or the sub would've been sunk. There were probably more drownings than I really want to know.

Excuse me, what was that you were saying about high ground?

Vidkun Quisling thought he was taking the high ground. The Norwegian people disagreed.

[WildCat]

Once in WWII a flight group of British (or was it American, can't remember) planes came across a German u-boat out on open sea. The u-boat was flying a white flag or a red cross flag, again I can't remember, and was loaded to the brink of survivors from a ship she'd sunk. She was further hindered by lifeboats she had in tow.

The fighters attacked her. Her crew had to throw the shipwrecked survivors overboard and dive or the sub would've been sunk. There were probably more drownings than I really want to know.

Excuse me, what was that you were saying about high ground?
Do you have a source for that? I'm not necessarily doubting something like that happened, but in general U-Boats didn't take survivors, as there was simply no room for them. And they weren't the only ones, there's a video on youtube showing American sailors on a sub shooting Japanese survivors as they swam.

[RandFan]

You appear to be insisting that there is some sort of clear and unequivocal separation between soldier and civilian.Yes. America has put a lot of American lives in harms way for that purpose. We minimize collateral damage as much as we can. Intentionally killing a civilian is considered immoral. Thankfully.


It seems to me you are insisting upon black-and-white answers to a situation which was shades of grey. No. And you would know that if you bothered to read my posts.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Yes. America has put a lot of American lives in harms way for that purpose. We minimize collateral damage as much as we can. Intentionally killing a civilian is considered immoral. Thankfully.


A different time and a different war.

WWII was nation against nation. The current wars are not.

When the enemy is an entire nation, you do what you think will break them, including killing a cities full of nuns and children, because it's better to kill a bunch to end the war than to just let it drag on and kill a whole lot more.

In the current wars, it's all of us against a few of them. We take care to avoid killing civilians because there is no advantage to us in doing so because the vast majority of the people of that place are not the enemy. In fact, Those Other People get big mileage out of a short round that lands in the wrong place or a bad hit that blows up a wedding party.

While it's true that it's considered immoral to kill a civilian in a war, in the current war, the primary we try not to do it is because it's stupid.

[mhaze]

Do you have a source for that? I'm not necessarily doubting something like that happened, but in general U-Boats didn't take survivors, as there was simply no room for them. And they weren't the only ones, there's a video on youtube showing American sailors on a sub shooting Japanese survivors as they swam.

If those pilots knew this story (http://www.anglesey.info/HMS%20_Tara.htm)....

[RandFan]

When the enemy is an entire nation, you do what you think will break them, including killing a cities full of nuns and children, because it's better to kill a bunch to end the war than to just let it drag on and kill a whole lot more.So you buy the raping and pillaging meme. How about turning the children into soldiers? That's effective. Why have war crimes at all? Why a geneva convention? Wasn't everything the Japanese and Nazis did moral using your logic? Forced marching? Killing and torturning prisoners?

I don't buy it.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

So you buy the raping and pillaging meme. How about turning the children into soldiers? That's effective. Why have war crimes at all? Why a geneva convention? Wasn't everything the Japanese and Nazis did moral using your logic? Forced marching? Killing and torturning prisoners?

I don't buy it.


If I thought it would shorten the war, I'd rape and pillage, but it doesn't. It tends to piss off the other side and puts the fight back into them.

Children into soldiers? How about everyone into soldiers?

At the end of the war, Japan was training everyone to kill invading Allied soldiers with bamboo spears, even if it cost them their own lives, and Germany armed those too old and too young to fight with whatever they had and sent them into the outskirts of the towns. Ten and twelve year old boys and their grandfathers stood with large-bore wooden-bullet firing training rifles and old Panzersfausts against trained, blooded, and well equipped men.

This is what happens when you can't break the will of the nation.

To avoid killing a town full of old men and kids, you have to kill old men and kids in towns and cities all across the country, one bite of the s**t sandwich at a time until you're done.

...and I hope you realize that, by, "old men and kids," I mean pretty much everydamnbody.

As for prisoners, they're essentially out of the war.

Forget the fact that, as a prisoner, I'm obligated to try to escape. If I get away, where am I going to go? 72 hours after I disappear, everything I might know is history, so at that point, I'm obsolete, so I'm kind of glad that folks got the idea for the Geneva Convention, which mostly governs how we treat folks who are not combatants, either because they never were, or because they aren't anymore.

About the Geneva Convention: I don't even remember if the US is a signatory, but the Allies in WWII were a lot better about keeping to it than the Axis forces.

War is an awful, bloody (I mean technically bloody - not British bloody) abandonment of sanity. I don't condone killing civilians because I don't condone war, but if you're in a nation-vs.-nation war, do your best... do your worst... and get the damn thing over with. Then, bury the dead, treat the wounded, feed the starving, hang the war criminals, and move on.

[Sunstealer]

The fire bombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than a single atomic bomb strike. Why the hang up with the nukes?

What's more moral, killing 1 child with a nuke or killing 10 by conventional means? By bringing the war to a quick close the US acted with greater morals than dragging it out thereby ensuring that a far, far greater number would have been killed on both sides.

I get the feeling that Randfan would be posting saying that the US should have been morally obliged to have dropped the bomb if 2 million people had died in the 6 months that it would have taken the US to win by conventional means. War is a nasty, nasty business, get over it.

[mhaze]

....In the current wars, it's all of us against a few of them. We take care to avoid killing civilians because there is no advantage to us in doing so because the vast majority of the people of that place are not the enemy. In fact, Those Other People get big mileage out of a short round that lands in the wrong place or a bad hit that blows up a wedding party.

While it's true that it's considered immoral to kill a civilian in a war, in the current war, the primary we try not to do it is because it's stupid.Good points.

As we look back on nearly 50 years of mutually assured destruction reality, in which all citizens are sacrificial, and consider the "morality" of technologically engendered alternatives of pinpoint accuracy, we have the following flow:

Information ---> weapon use ---> Information
Where enemy is -- -> smartbomb ---> dead enemy commander
As subverted by the enemy:
Disinformation ---> smartbomb ---> dead at wedding party
The information war.

[WildCat]

If those pilots knew this story (http://www.anglesey.info/HMS%20_Tara.htm)....
Ah, those early days of WWI when countries actually still believed in chivalry and honor and the glorious war... by 1918 such things were a distant memory.

[drkitten]

Coventry....What would modern pacifists think of Churchill's decision not to give away crypto machines codes broken, thus allowing Coventry to be destroyed?

Well-educated pacifists would consider it to be a crying shame had it actually ever happened.

The ENIGMA decrypts are, at this point, publically available to historians.

The Coventry airstrike does not appear in any of them. Check the archives if you like; they're available through the Imperial War Museum.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Except that it was a military base. Claiming it wasn't doesn't make it so.

Hiroshima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima) was and is a city in Japan, not a military base. Claiming it is a military base doesn't make it so.

Saying that the entire Japanese society was militaristic doesn't make the bombing of a city the same as bombing a military base.

Saying that there were military installations in the city is not the same as saying that what the U.S. bombed on that day was a military base.

Again, if there were no moral problems, why did Truman lie to the American people?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Ah, those early days of WWI when countries actually still believed in chivalry and honor and the glorious war... by 1918 such things were a distant memory.


The fly-boys believed in chivalry and honor and the glorious war. The ground-pounders all knew different.

No-Man's Land actually has a stark beauty when seen from 1,000 feet which it significantly lacks when you're hip-deep in a cold, muddy trench.

[Cicero]

For some inexplicable reason, the usually redoubtable "WWII History" magazine published amateur scribe Sam McGowan's staggeringly revisionist account of the decision by Truman to use the atom bombs.


***.."In the end, it was Hirohito, not Harry Truman, who made the decision that ended the war and avoided the invasion that could have cost thousands of lives."..***

The same Hirohito who gave his official okey dokey to invade Manchuria, Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, bomb Pearl Harbor, create Unit 731, use Kamikazes, rape and pillage Nanking, etc, etc. The Americans didn't end Japanese nationalism/militarism/aggression, it was their own Emperor? What a stronze!

[Cicero]

Hiroshima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima) was and is a city in Japan, not a military base. Claiming it is a military base doesn't make it so.

Saying that the entire Japanese society was militaristic doesn't make the bombing of a city the same as bombing a military base.

Saying that there were military installations in the city is not the same as saying that what the U.S. bombed on that day was a military base.

Again, if there were no moral problems, why did Truman lie to the American people?

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to your preferred A-Bomb targets in Japan?

[drkitten]

Hiroshima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima) was and is a city in Japan, not a military base. Claiming it is a military base doesn't make it so.

Saying that the entire Japanese society was militaristic doesn't make the bombing of a city the same as bombing a military base.

Saying that there were military installations in the city is not the same as saying that what the U.S. bombed on that day was a military base.

Actually,....

Under the rules of war current in WWII -- and are still current today --- military installations render the surrounding civilian areas legitimate targets. A fortified city, or a city containing a military base, is a valid target, and while the attacker is supposed to take reasonable precautions against unwarranted civilian casualties, "reasonable precautions" doesn't mean "don't attack."

Hiroshima contained an army depot (see Wikipedia), divisional HQ, and army HQ, all of which are legitimate targets and ANY of which would have legitimated the raid. One bomb was dropped, as accurately as possible --- and it neutralized all three of the military targets.

[mhaze]

Well-educated pacifists would consider it to be a crying shame had it actually ever happened.

The ENIGMA decrypts are, at this point, publically available to historians.

The Coventry airstrike does not appear in any of them. Check the archives if you like; they're available through the Imperial War Museum.

As good a reference as any is here:

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=107

You are somewhat correct. Certainly, there is discussion as to the exact meaning of certain code words in the intercepts. There are clear differences in peoples' memory of the events.

Although this matter was later used vindictively in a political sense against Churchill, that wasn't my intent.

[mhaze]

For some inexplicable reason, the usually redoubtable "WWII History" magazine published amateur scribe Sam McGowan's staggeringly revisionist account of the decision by Truman to use the atom bombs.


***.."In the end, it was Hirohito, not Harry Truman, who made the decision that ended the war and avoided the invasion that could have cost thousands of lives."..***

Thousands of lives? That writer is on what planet exactly? But we need all flavors of insanity to liven things up.

Randfan by the way, has correctly applied morality in an absolutist sense, such as the Quakers may have. I don't view his opinions as crazy, but they just don't result in winning, which was and is necessary. Well, for some of us.

[WildCat]

Hi




The fly-boys believed in chivalry and honor and the glorious war. The ground-pounders all knew different.

No-Man's Land actually has a stark beauty when seen from 1,000 feet which it significantly lacks when you're hip-deep in a cold, muddy trench.
Trench warfare actually didn't evolve until later in the war. WWI actually began with a series of rapid manouvers and long-ranging troop movements. It didn't evolve into mostly trench warfare until 1916 or so.

One last thing before I stop with this derail, I just stumbled upon actual color photographs of WWI! http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/html/gallica.html

I never knew any even existed! And I see from this pic (http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/assets/images/db_images/db_sap01_ca000500_p4.jpg) that the French army was integrated long before the American army was.

/derail

[Giz]

Trench warfare actually didn't evolve until later in the war. WWI actually began with a series of rapid manouvers and long-ranging troop movements. It didn't evolve into mostly trench warfare until 1916 or so.

One last thing before I stop with this derail, I just stumbled upon actual color photographs of WWI! http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/html/gallica.html

I never knew any even existed! And I see from this pic (http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/assets/images/db_images/db_sap01_ca000500_p4.jpg) that the French army was integrated long before the American army was.

/derail

Pedant:

I think that once the last attampts to outflank the enemy in the race to the sea had failed at the 1st battle of Ypres, that things settled down into positional/trench warfare.

Of course, the scale of the defenses increased over time, the German bunkers on the Somme or the Hindenburg line they constructed behind it wasn't built overnight.

[drkitten]

Trench warfare actually didn't evolve until later in the war.

Depends, I guess, on what you mean by "evolve" and "later." WWII broke out in early August 1914. Trench warfare was established by First Ypres in November, 1914. See First Ypres 1914 by David Lomas and Ed Dovey; p.47 has a nice photo of some Tommies at First Ypres huddled in their trench.

[CriticalThanking]

One last thing before I stop with this derail, I just stumbled upon actual color photographs of WWI! http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/html/gallica.html

I never knew any even existed! And I see from this pic (http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/assets/images/db_images/db_sap01_ca000500_p4.jpg) that the French army was integrated long before the American army was.

/derail
There was a PBS special within the last few years on WWII based solely upon color film/photography. Fascinating!

CT

[Nogbad]

So you have no problem with the choice of Hiroshima as a target? The fact that school girls were still in the area was the fault of the Japanese authorities. Were the 43,000 Japanese troops stationed there OK to target? It seems that the American egg heads did arrive at the best targets for the bombs to destroy the will of the Japanese to fight on without inflicting the most possible loss of life on the Japanese.

The Japanese could have evacuated the city since the U.S. dropped 5 million leaflets five days before the bombing warning civilians of the impending attack on 35 possible targets and were broadcasting from Saipan a similar message to the Japanese people every 15 minutes.

I am of the view that the bombs were dropped for wider political considerations than that they were simply military targets so in that respect the choices are relatively academic.

Were the troop barracks the primary target? I may be wrong but I thought they largely survived and that injured civilians made their way to the barracks after the blast. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong on this matter.

It is certainly true that leaflets and warnings were given but with so many cities a target where would they go? Hiroshima is largely considered to have decanted about a third of its population by the time of the bombing so they were paying some heed - whether they had the capability to accommodate so many refugees elsewhere is another question.

A lot was happening by August 45. The war in Europe over, one of the biggest winners was Stalin. The Cold War was just beginning and there was a lot to play for.

[drkitten]

I am of the view that the bombs were dropped for wider political considerations than that they were simply military targets so in that respect the choices are relatively academic.

If all you're saying is that Japan was, in August 1945, a target-rich environment and the Allies could (legally, ethically, and morally) bombed just about anywhere they wanted, then I think we're in agreement.

If you're suggesting that there were other targets available and therefore Hiroshima was a poor strategic choice, I would probably disagree and ask what other target(s) you would have suggested.

If you're suggesting that there were other targets available and therefore Hiroshima was an illegal or immoral choice,.... I disagree completely.

[Nogbad]

If all you're saying is that Japan was, in August 1945, a target-rich environment and the Allies could (legally, ethically, and morally) bombed just about anywhere they wanted, then I think we're in agreement.

If you're suggesting that there were other targets available and therefore Hiroshima was a poor strategic choice, I would probably disagree and ask what other target(s) you would have suggested.

If you're suggesting that there were other targets available and therefore Hiroshima was an illegal or immoral choice,.... I disagree completely.

There were other targets but they were no more moral, immoral or strategic than the ones chosen. Was the decision to bomb the right one, both in terms of the war and the broader political issues developing? Hindsight would suggest no but Truman did not have the luxury of hindsight.

.

[drkitten]

Was the decision to bomb the right one, both in terms of the war and the broader political issues developing? Hindsight would suggest no.

I've seen no convincing post-hoc analyses that suggest that dropping the bomb was the wrong decision. Estimates for casualties incurred from the US invasion of Honshu suggested one million or more US casualties, 10 million Japanese, and these numbers have (as far as I know) held up as well as any others that have been suggested. Certainly the fact of the attempted coup against the Emperor supports the idea that an influential segment of the Japanese population would have resisted the US invasion to tremendous mutual loss.

Comparing 150,000 Japanese bomb casualties to 10,000,000 Japanese invasion casualties makes the bombings appear almost surgical in precision -- less than 2% of the expected casualties.

Certainly the existence of the bomb heightened tensions in the immediate postwar years, but it also restricted Soviet military adventurism at least until they got a bomb of their own. The alternative? Keeping the US bomb a secret and not being able to use it as a deterrent? Waiting until the USSR had invented a bomb of their own and then wheeling out ours? None of those seem like they would be much better situations than the one we had.

[Giz]

A good article on it (from the pages of the Guardian):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/06/comment.secondworldwar

And one (from another end of the political spectrum, National Review Online):

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200508050714.asp


It appears that the revisionist "It wasn't necessary" school were popular from 1960-90's but that more recently declassified US documents and new works (or newly translated works) by Japanese historians have exploded their claims.

[Nogbad]

I've seen no convincing post-hoc analyses that suggest that dropping the bomb was the wrong decision. Estimates for casualties incurred from the US invasion of Honshu suggested one million or more US casualties, 10 million Japanese, and these numbers have (as far as I know) held up as well as any others that have been suggested. Certainly the fact of the attempted coup against the Emperor supports the idea that an influential segment of the Japanese population would have resisted the US invasion to tremendous mutual loss.

Comparing 150,000 Japanese bomb casualties to 10,000,000 Japanese invasion casualties makes the bombings appear almost surgical in precision -- less than 2% of the expected casualties.

Certainly the existence of the bomb heightened tensions in the immediate postwar years, but it also restricted Soviet military adventurism at least until they got a bomb of their own. The alternative? Keeping the US bomb a secret and not being able to use it as a deterrent? Waiting until the USSR had invented a bomb of their own and then wheeling out ours? None of those seem like they would be much better situations than the one we had.

The Japanese military are on record as saying the Russian entry into the war against Japan and the 1.5 million troops and 3,000 tanks that poured into Manchuria and swept away the large but outnumbered Japanese army the day after the bomb fell was a bigger factor in their capitulation than Hiroshima itself - although clearly the two must be considered together.

I would argue that Soviet expansionism was hardly stalled by the events of Hiroshima. The support of Mao, North Korea, Ho Chi Min and the Iron Curtain across Europe gives little indication that Stalin was on the back foot. They acquired their bomb fairly rapidly so it is difficult to tell if in the longer term the bomb could have been used to any great political effect on the world stage. It became a stand off remarkably quickly.

In effect, I am saying I can see why Truman made the decision he did but am not convinced he obtained all he hoped for from that decision. So was the bombing of Hiroshima essential? I think probably not but we will never know for sure just as we will never know if the estimates of a millions of deaths following an invasion were accurate. In the end we let the Emperor stay - the Russians most certainly would not have. There were complex cultural issues at stake. As Cicero has pointed out, the Japanese sustained heavier losses from the fire storm bombings.

[Nogbad]

A good article on it (from the pages of the Guardian):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/06/comment.secondworldwar

And one (from another end of the political spectrum, National Review Online):

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200508050714.asp


It appears that the revisionist "It wasn't necessary" school were popular from 1960-90's but that more recently declassified US documents and new works (or newly translated works) by Japanese historians have exploded their claims.

Both Oliver and Victor are interventionists. They believe a military element to foreign policy is both necessary and useful. They represent a side of the historical debate on this subject that has always been there. I saw nothing new there. That there has been debate over this subject almost from the outset by people who lived through those times is not in my book revisionism.

Revisionism is revisiting a long held orthodoxy. This can be done legitimately by examining new evidence/overlooked evidence or less legitimately by applying a current political perspective to long standing evidence (this can be done by the left or the right, authoritarian or liberal).

[JoeTheJuggler]

Actually,....

Under the rules of war current in WWII -- and are still current today --- military installations render the surrounding civilian areas legitimate targets. A fortified city, or a city containing a military base, is a valid target, and while the attacker is supposed to take reasonable precautions against unwarranted civilian casualties, "reasonable precautions" doesn't mean "don't attack."

Hiroshima contained an army depot (see Wikipedia), divisional HQ, and army HQ, all of which are legitimate targets and ANY of which would have legitimated the raid. One bomb was dropped, as accurately as possible --- and it neutralized all three of the military targets.

You make a fine point, but fail to address my question.

Hiroshima is a city and not a military base.

Truman said we bombed "Hiroshima, a military base". That's not truthful.

If he had said we dropped a bomb on a city that contained several military installations, he would have told the truth.

Another question: if Hiroshima was of such high military importance, why was it not touched by conventional bombing? By that time, the U.S. had firebombed 67 other Japanese cities.

At the very least, Hiroshima must have ranked pretty low on the priority list of target for Allied bombing.

Again, if it wasn't immoral, why did Truman lie to the American people?

According to Wikipedia:
The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945,[4] roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs.[1] In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.[5][6][7]

I'm not sure you can san the civilian deaths were collateral damage when they comprised the overwhelming majority. So I think Truman was also lying when he said they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties.

[Lithrael]

From what I've read I got the impression that it's Nagasaki that's the bigger moral question. I'm not sure of the accuracy of the accounts I've read but they suggested that there was so much confusion over what had happened at Hiroshima that there wasn't really time for it to affect the Japanese outlook before the second bomb dropped. They didn't have the infrastructure for comprehensible and reliable news to get around, and it wasn't at all clear at first that the reports coming from Hiroshima were true, or how true they were. Many people thought the terrible reports were mostly just American propaganda. Anybody have clearer/better info on that aspect of it?

It still bothers me that there's so little documentation. The museums just have melted objects. There's barely a handful of photographs I've seen. The only images most of us really can associate with nuclear weapons are mushroom clouds and test footage of shacks being blown to crap.

As far as nuclear weapons being any worse or better than other types... I'll have to admit that if a nuclear weapon either killed you or not I wouldn't be as troubled by them. It's the huge number of awful casualties and people doomed to die over the following days and weeks from radiation exposure, that really bother me, because it's suffering that bothers me. Those who died slowly of radiation exposure in Japan had no idea what was happening to them. It chills me to think of that sort of terror. I know it's not rational to be more afraid of death X than death Y, but I can't help it.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

... clip ...

I'm not sure you can san the civilian deaths were collateral damage when they comprised the overwhelming majority. So I think Truman was also lying when he said they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties.


Tōkyō and Kyōtō were also under consideration as the target. Tōkyō was taken off the list because of high population density, and Kyōtō because of the cultural, historical, and religious importance of the city.

So, yeah, the targets were chosen to damage military operations, to make the government of Japan to reconsider their stance on surrender, and to make the people of Japan reconsider their stance on the government, but smaller cities didn't have much by way of military centers, and larger cities were too populous.

It was Hiroshima's bad luck to fall into that whole Goldilocksian, "juuuust right," category.

[Cicero]

You make a fine point, but fail to address my question.

Hiroshima is a city and not a military base.

Truman said we bombed "Hiroshima, a military base". That's not truthful.

If he had said we dropped a bomb on a city that contained several military installations, he would have told the truth.

Another question: if Hiroshima was of such high military importance, why was it not touched by conventional bombing? By that time, the U.S. had firebombed 67 other Japanese cities.

At the very least, Hiroshima must have ranked pretty low on the priority list of target for Allied bombing.

Again, if it wasn't immoral, why did Truman lie to the American people?

According to Wikipedia:


I'm not sure you can san the civilian deaths were collateral damage when they comprised the overwhelming majority. So I think Truman was also lying when he said they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties.

First off the notoriously error ridden Wiki is using revisionist numbers in their death tolls for either city. 90,000 for Hiroshima and 40,000 to 70,000 for Nagasaki are the accepted figures from historical sources. Truman's' complete statement from August 9, 1945:

***.."The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost.

"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.

"We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us."..***

Truman was actually being very explicit and honest with the American people. He didn't mince words. Since there is no such thing as a city that is comprised of one entire giant military base, you are attempting, but failing, to characterize Truman as a "liar" when the fact is Hiroshima was the home of a military army and navy bases.

The reason why cities were selected that were untouched by previous raids is because there would be no confusion that a single bomb caused the destruction.

If he wanted the bombs to kill as many Japanese civilians as possible, then the targets, aside from Tokyo, would have been Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Kyoto, Fukuoka or Kawasaki instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Still waiting for your choice of Japanese targets since you reject the ones selected in 1945.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Also, please don't forget that pretty much the entire nation of Japan stood ready sacrifice itself to keep the invaders off the islands.

By any reasonable definition of, "military base," every city, town, village, and hamlet was a military base, and it took nothing short of an atomic device to substantially change that.

[drkitten]

Hiroshima is a city and not a military base.

Since the bases were actually in the city, Hiroshima was both.


Truman said we bombed "Hiroshima, a military base". That's not truthful.

Not at all.


Another question: if Hiroshima was of such high military importance, why was it not touched by conventional bombing? By that time, the U.S. had firebombed 67 other Japanese cities.

It didn't need to be of high military importance to be worth bombing.

A better way of looking at it is that it was sufficiently important to be worth bombing in its own right, but had not yet been hit by the conventional bombs (in part because they were planning to use the nuke on it from relatively early on). If you look at cities that had not been firebombed (of which there were hundreds), it was at or near the top of the list.


Again, if it wasn't immoral, why did Truman lie to the American people?


He didn't. He said they bombed a military base and they had.


I'm not sure you can san the civilian deaths were collateral damage when they comprised the overwhelming majority.

Sure you can. Collateral damage isn't determined by voting.

So I think Truman was also lying when he said they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties.

And you are again wrong. If he hadn't wanted to minimize civilian casualties, he would have bombed Tokyo or Osaka. You yourself pointed out that it was a minor city, but one that nevertheless had three HQ elements and depots.

[drkitten]

From what I've read I got the impression that it's Nagasaki that's the bigger moral question. I'm not sure of the accuracy of the accounts I've read but they suggested that there was so much confusion over what had happened at Hiroshima that there wasn't really time for it to affect the Japanese outlook before the second bomb dropped. They didn't have the infrastructure for comprehensible and reliable news to get around, and it wasn't at all clear at first that the reports coming from Hiroshima were true, or how true they were. Many people thought the terrible reports were mostly just American propaganda. Anybody have clearer/better info on that aspect of it?

I'm not seeing how this is Truman's problem. If Hirohito (or Hirohito's generals, more likely) doesn't believe the reports on his desk, then he needs better reporters and generals. And part of the "message" that Truman wanted to send is that he could destroy cities at will. Waiting a month for the news to sink in doesn't send that message.

[Lithrael]

I'm not seeing how this is Truman's problem. (...) Waiting a month for the news to sink in doesn't send that message.

On the other hand, three days is a little on the short side. Agreed it's not Truman's 'problem.' It's still bad though.

[WildCat]

The Japanese military are on record as saying the Russian entry into the war against Japan and the 1.5 million troops and 3,000 tanks that poured into Manchuria and swept away the large but outnumbered Japanese army the day after the bomb fell was a bigger factor in their capitulation than Hiroshima itself - although clearly the two must be considered together.
I think Hirohito's "surrender broadcast" lays out the reasons pretty clear:
Despite the best that has been done by everyone -- the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the Acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.
http://www.kyokipress.com/wings/surrender.html

Bold emphasis mine.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Since the bases were actually in the city, Hiroshima was both.

That's not true.

The Gateway Arch is located in St. Louis. St. Louis is not the Gateway Arch. If someone nuked St. Louis and identified it as "a national park" it would be a lie.

Hiroshima is the name of the city. The bomb was dropped on the city. The bomb destroyed most of the city. Truman claimed that we had dropped a bomb on "Hiroshima, a military base." He lied to the American people.

It's certain that the Truman knew his remarks would be taken by the American people to mean that we had only bombed a military base and not a city.

[mhaze]

On the other hand, three days is a little on the short side. Agreed it's not Truman's 'problem.' It's still bad though.No. One or two single engine recon aircraft, the report and photos back to the Emperor same day. Japan is not that big , the two cities bombed are about 200 miles apart. Timing is critical. Three days says "the invasion has started".

[JoeTheJuggler]

It didn't need to be of high military importance to be worth bombing.
OK. I was responding to those who claimed it was of high military importance. Also, Truman's remarks implied that its military importance is why it was targeted.


Sure you can. Collateral damage isn't determined by voting.
You misread my statement. I wasn't talking about voting. I meant that you can't claim that you tried to minimize civilian casualties when the overwhelming majority of the people you killed were civilians. They vastly outnumber military personnel killed.

[JoeTheJuggler]

First off the notoriously error ridden Wiki is using revisionist numbers in their death tolls for either city. 90,000 for Hiroshima and 40,000 to 70,000 for Nagasaki are the accepted figures from historical sources.
The Wiki article cites its source. It says those figures are the number that died by the end of the year. It said about half that (more or less the numbers you cite) died on the day of the bombing.

Truman was actually being very explicit and honest with the American people. He didn't mince words. Since there is no such thing as a city that is comprised of one entire giant military base, you are attempting, but failing, to characterize Truman as a "liar" when the fact is Hiroshima was the home of a military army and navy bases.
That doesn't wash. I don't think the American public knew that Hiroshima was the name of a city and not the name of a military base. So Truman's words have to stand on their own (and not the assumed knowledge that Hiroshima was a city, so when he said it was a military base people would know that he meant a city with military bases in it).

He identified Hiroshima as a military base, and it is a city.


The reason why cities were selected that were untouched by previous raids is because there would be no confusion that a single bomb caused the destruction.
I agree. In fact, I made that point earlier. It was also to get a more accurate assessment of what the bomb was capable of.

[WildCat]

OK. I was responding to those who claimed it was of high military importance. Also, Truman's remarks implied that its military importance is why it was targeted.
It ended the war, I don't know what could possibly be more militarily important than that.


You misread my statement. I wasn't talking about voting. I meant that you can't claim that you tried to minimize civilian casualties when the overwhelming majority of the people you killed were civilians. They vastly outnumber military personnel killed.
And what military base in Japan could have been targeted instead that would have produced fewer civilian casualties?

[drkitten]

I meant that you can't claim that you tried to minimize civilian casualties when the overwhelming majority of the people you killed were civilians. They vastly outnumber military personnel killed.

Certainly you can. If there are three targets-of-interest, and one would kill 500,000 civilians to bomb, one would kill 150,000 to bomb, and one would kill 80,000 to bomb, then killing 80,000 is minimizing civilian casualties.

Remember, first, that this is a war. Simply "not fighting" isn't an option. When you're fighting a war, you more or less have to take aggressive action if only to press your side of the case -- in this case, in order to "persuade" the Japanese into surrender. If you look at the other choices for targets -- Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, &c..... most of them would have resulted in many more than the casualties from the Hiroshima bombings.

Or to continue to press you --- where would you have bombed instead? Bear in mind that it must be a military facility, significant enough to cause substantial damage to Japanese military effectiveness, and somewhere causing fewer civilian casualties than Hiroshima....

I don't think you can name another target.

[Nogbad]

I think Hirohito's "surrender broadcast" lays out the reasons pretty clear:

http://www.kyokipress.com/wings/surrender.html

Bold emphasis mine.

I know this speech and as it stands it is fine. It is a clear and understandable explanation for the surrender to the Japanese people. The closed door discussions I referred to were those undertaken by the senior military staff following the Russian attack which in few days killed nearly as many as Hiroshima and took hundreds of thousands of prisoners. The world had seen the Red Army roll over Eastern Europe.

Despite the bombs there is little doubt the Japanese surrendered to the nicer side of the Allied Forces.

I asked the question above regarding the bases at Hiroshima as I am not clear myself. Were they in the town or outside? Usually substantial army barracks are a mile or two out of towns. Was the bomb dropped on the barracks or the town centre?

Given as many died of poisoning as of the blast where do nuclear weapons sit with regards rules regarding the use of poisons (which were forbidden - even the Germans didn't use them in warfare and they had nerve agents which no one else had)?

[JoeTheJuggler]

It ended the war, I don't know what could possibly be more militarily important than that.

Then there is no such thing as a distinction between civilian and military targets.

This is sort of like the Bush administration's claim that we don't torture simply because we define any interrogation methods we use as "not torture" regardless of international and domestic law.

The fact is, there is a difference between civilian and military targets. If you claim that anything that "ended the war" is a military target, then you're denying the existence of that distinction.

[drkitten]

Then there is no such thing as a distinction between civilian and military targets.

That's patent nonsense.

The Army HQ (and the depot) were, by definition, "military" targets.

Dropping a bomb on them ended the war. Thus, they were "important" military targets.


The fact is, there is a difference between civilian and military targets.

There is. The fact that civilians were inside the blast radius of the bomb dropped on a military target doesn't change that.

If you claim that anything that "ended the war" is a military target, then you're denying the existence of that distinction.

That's not the claim he was making. He was claiming that anything that "ended the war" was an "important" target. Since it happened to be a military target ANYWAY, then everything's well and good.

[Silly Green Monkey]

Colorado Springs has three Air Force bases and the Air Force Academy. Despite all of us civilians living around them, this city is still a military target. How many civilians do you think must be around a base before you insist that it's a city rather than a military target?

[Nogbad]

:( Beginning to feel left out here. Everyone seems to be talking about the army base, 40,000 troops and whatnot in a manner that suggests they know exactly where they were in relation to the bomb blast. Anybody got a map? I have had a quick google (they can't touch you for it) but to no avail.

[drkitten]

Colorado Springs has three Air Force bases and the Air Force Academy.

Including, if I remember correctly, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, essentially the command-and-control center for the entire US air defense.

I.e. the second highest-priority target in the entire USA, after the Pentagon.

Despite all of us civilians living around them, this city is still a military target.

Yup.


How many civilians do you think must be around a base before you insist that it's a city rather than a military target?

More than you have in C-Springs, at least. Probably more than you have in Denver.....

[drkitten]

:( Beginning to feel left out here. Everyone seems to be talking about the army base, 40,000 troops and whatnot in a manner that suggests they know exactly where they were in relation to the bomb blast. Anybody got a map?


Right here (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/japan_city_plans/txu-oclc-6558024.jpg).


Basically, the army HQ was right smack dab in the center of town (and the center of the bombed area). They hit what they wuz aimin' at.

[Nogbad]

Fantastic map!

Without wishing to be picky I would have targeted the blast to the left side of the city, gone for the munitions factories, aircraft factory, railway station, military airfield, munitions store, and the other barracks with the 5th artillery barracks on the outer ring of the main whack - thus sparing the bulk of the civilian side of the city. Was this planned or was it just the limits of the targeting of the day?

Edit: I have thing for maps - legal I think

[Cicero]

Given as many died of poisoning as of the blast where do nuclear weapons sit with regards rules regarding the use of poisons (which were forbidden - even the Germans didn't use them in warfare and they had nerve agents which no one else had)?

Here are some more revelations about Japanese using any chemical and biological agents even though these were supposed to be on the no-no list. Maybe you should ponder this instead of whether the U.S. was intentionally using "poisons" as a weapon as a result of the atomic explosions.

Japanese Unit 732 Bio warfare Lab.

***.."1936 -- Unit 731, a biological-warfare unit disguised as a water-purification unit, is formed. Ishii builds huge compound -- more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers -- outside the city of Harbin, Manchuria. Some 9,000 test subjects eventually die at the compound.

1942 -- Shiro Ishii, a physician and army officer begins field tests of germ warfare on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Tens of thousands die of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases. U.S. soldiers captured in Philippines are sent to Manchuria.

In 1941, the Japanese released an estimated 150 million potentially plague-infected fleas from aircraft over cities in China and Manchuria. After these infectious agents were released, outbreaks of plague occurred in many Chinese villages. In addition, approximately 10,000 illnesses and 1,700 deaths occurred among Japanese troops.
"..***

The fact that the atomic bombs produced radiation fallout was not why they were used on Japan. Their deterrent was in the wholesale destruction of structures, and the inhabitants of a city. The only purpose of bio warfare is to kill a population in an indiscriminate fashion and intentionally produce agonizing deaths without having any control over the spread of such diseases.

But for those who find the use of the two atomic bombs immoral, if indeed not a violation of the GC, the radiation poisoning was no doubt already part of their objections.

[Nogbad]

Here are some more revelations about Japanese using any chemical and biological agents even though these were supposed to be on the no-no list. Maybe you should ponder this instead of whether the U.S. was intentionally using "poisons" as a weapon as a result of the atomic explosions.

Japanese Unit 732 Bio warfare Lab.

***.."1936 -- Unit 731, a biological-warfare unit disguised as a water-purification unit, is formed. Ishii builds huge compound -- more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers -- outside the city of Harbin, Manchuria. Some 9,000 test subjects eventually die at the compound.

1942 -- Shiro Ishii, a physician and army officer begins field tests of germ warfare on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Tens of thousands die of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases. U.S. soldiers captured in Philippines are sent to Manchuria.

In 1941, the Japanese released an estimated 150 million potentially plague-infected fleas from aircraft over cities in China and Manchuria. After these infectious agents were released, outbreaks of plague occurred in many Chinese villages. In addition, approximately 10,000 illnesses and 1,700 deaths occurred among Japanese troops.
"..***

The fact that the atomic bombs produced radiation fallout was not why they were used on Japan. Their deterrent was in the wholesale destruction of structures, and the inhabitants of a city. The only purpose of bio warfare is to kill a population in an indiscriminate fashion and intentionally produce agonizing deaths without having any control over the spread of such diseases.

But for those who find the use of the two atomic bombs immoral, if indeed not a violation of the GC, the radiation poisoning was no doubt already part of their objections.

;) Sorry Cicero I was teasing .... bit childish really.

[Trojan]

Basically, the army HQ was right smack dab in the center of town (and the center of the bombed area). They hit what they wuz aimin' at.

That is an excellent map, never saw one so detailed for Hiroshima.

[WildCat]

That is an excellent map, never saw one so detailed for Hiroshima.
I never saw that one either. I think I'll be the 3rd person in this thread to say thanks to drkitten for that!

[Dragoonster]

So...

US exterminating Hiroshima & Nagasaki=moral
Nazis exterminating Jews=immoral
Allies carpet-bombing Axis cities=moral
Japanese using chem/bio on Chinese cities=immoral
US interning Japanese civilians=moral
German subs destroying civilian ships=immoral

Or is it in "total war" morality and conventions are irrelevant, so we shouldn't criticize the acts of anyone involved?

[WildCat]

So...

US exterminating Hiroshima & Nagasaki=moral
Nazis exterminating Jews=immoral
Allies carpet-bombing Axis cities=moral
Japanese using chem/bio on Chinese cities=immoral
US interning Japanese civilians=moral
German subs destroying civilian ships=immoral

Or is it in "total war" morality and conventions are irrelevant, so we shouldn't criticize the acts of anyone involved?
You've convinced me... fighting a war against a totalitarian regime which has attacked you first is exactly the same as exterminating 6 million people completely under your control.

Oh, wait, that would be freaking insane. :rolleyes:

[Dragoonster]

You've convinced me... fighting a war against a totalitarian regime which has attacked you first is exactly the same as exterminating 6 million people completely under your control.

Oh, wait, that would be freaking insane. :rolleyes:

So you agree with each moral/immoral classification?

[drkitten]

Well, let's look at this legalistically. There are rules for war, you know.

In particular, the Hague conventions were pretty firm about what could and couldn't be done to civilians. From the Hague conventions themselves:


it is especially forbidden: (a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons;

The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.



From Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing From the Air in Case of War, League of Nations, September 30, 1938:


1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;

2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;

II. [...] the use of chemical or bacterial methods in the conduct of war is contrary to international law, as recalled more particularly in the resolution of the General Commission of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of July 23rd 1932, and the resolution of the Council of May 14th, 1938.

The Hiroshima army HQ was both a legitimate military objective and identifiable -- civilians caught in the blast radius are not bombed through "negligence" (which has a specific meaning here that doesn't apply).


Similarly, the 1930 First London Naval Treaty specifies that ...except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety.

So,...
So...
US exterminating Hiroshima & Nagasaki=moral

Yes. It is legal to bomb military targets even when surrounded by civilians.


Nazis exterminating Jews=immoral

Also yes. Jews are/were civilians and cannot be deliberately targeted.


Allies carpet-bombing Axis cities=moral

Only to the extent that the cities were fortified and/or contained military targets. If you have any specific incident in mind, I can check and see what was present in the city at that time.


Japanese using chem/bio on Chinese cities=immoral

Absolutely. Chemical warfare was forbidden under a round dozen treaties, two are cited above.


US interning Japanese civilians=moral

Questionable. International lawyers have been looking at this for a while....


German subs destroying civilian ships=immoral

Absolutely. Violates the London treaty above.



Or is it in "total war" morality and conventions are irrelevant

No. It's that you don't know what the conventions are.

[drkitten]

Without wishing to be picky I would have targeted the blast to the left side of the city, gone for the munitions factories, aircraft factory, railway station, military airfield, munitions store, and the other barracks with the 5th artillery barracks on the outer ring of the main whack - thus sparing the bulk of the civilian side of the city. Was this planned or was it just the limits of the targeting of the day?


I think this was the targeting limitations. For comparison, they missed the whole Big Damn City of Nagasaki, so I think they did quite well with Hiroshima....

[Cicero]

Well, let's look at this legalistically. There are rules for war, you know.

Similarly, the 1930 First London Naval Treaty specifies that

Absolutely. Violates the London treaty above.



Since the Allies engaged in the same tactic, they did not successfully charge the German commanders with breach of the First London Naval Treaty of 1930, or Second London Naval Treaty of 1936, which the Japanese did not sign.

At Nuremberg, Admirals Dönitz and Raeder both served a 10-year sentence, Reader's reduced from life, relating to waging wars of aggression and crimes against the laws of war.

[Gurdur]

This thread is proof of an infinite universe -- since an infinite universe, one with an infinity of options and events, is the only one where I would end up agreeing wholeheartedly with Cicero; and from the very beginning of this thread I've agreed with Cicero all the way.

[Dragoonster]

No. It's that you don't know what the conventions are.

It's been awhile since I did, yeah. But you're the only person I've seen in this thread arguing solely based on conventions that existed at the time. I'm trying to get a handle on which of many types of arguments people are standing behind.

"H&N bombing was in accordance with the Hague Conventions and Geneva Accord" --treaty-based, using contemporaneous takes on morality
"H&N's 200,000 civilian casualties meant 1million+ civilians were probably saved from a land invasion" --moral pragmatism/utilitarianism
"The US was attacked first by totalitarian regimes so it shouldn't be criticised" --general moral or existential superiority
"It was a total war, parties shouldn't be expected to follow rules of war in such a situation" --extreme circumstance
"It was a total war, all civilians were enemy combatants as they supported the state with manufacturing, economy, etc." --reinterpretation of 'civilian'
"It was a different era/environment/circumstance, we can't properly weigh moral decisions because of this" --modern people are incapable of assigning moral blame

etc. etc., each different arguments. Some of which only apply to the Axis, while the Allies get/got a free pass.

Yours have been consistent. So anyway I'd respond with (admittedly rusty):

Yes. It is legal to bomb military targets even when surrounded by civilians.

Stretches the spirit of the conventions and the interpretations of the guidelines. According to this, if Germany had invented a nuke that could destroy everything in a 3000-mile wide radius, it would've been justified in dropping it on a military training center, or manufacturing center in the middle of the US, even if that killed 100 million civilians and the entire mainland surface. I disagree. The conventions clearly imply that care must be taken when civilians are around a target area--using a weapon that is designed for indiscriminate destruction seems to flout this.

Also yes. Jews are/were civilians and cannot be deliberately targeted.

Those who weren't in Germany or its possessions at the outbreak of war would be protected, but I don't think the conventions delineated how a country treats its own people during war. Only those of enemy states.

Only to the extent that the cities were fortified and/or contained military targets. If you have any specific incident in mind, I can check and see what was present in the city at that time.

Any bomber that dropped his bombs on a timer rather than from observing specific targets under a reticle would be guilty under the conventions. Some runs were okay, some weren't; some individual bombers (or drops) on runs were okay, but as the numbers rose the targeting capacity was less and less important and the run was less and less compliant with the conventions.

Absolutely. Chemical warfare was forbidden under a round dozen treaties, two are cited above.

Agreed.

Questionable. International lawyers have been looking at this for a while....

Again, I don't think the convention covered domestic civilian treatment. The Japanese were citizens, not POWs.

Absolutely. Violates the London treaty above.

Agreed.

[drkitten]

Yours have been consistent. So anyway I'd respond with (admittedly rusty):



Stretches the spirit of the conventions and the interpretations of the guidelines. According to this, if Germany had invented a nuke that could destroy everything in a 3000-mile wide radius, it would've been justified in dropping it on a military training center, or manufacturing center in the middle of the US, even if that killed 100 million civilians and the entire mainland surface. I disagree. The conventions clearly imply that care must be taken when civilians are around a target area--using a weapon that is designed for indiscriminate destruction seems to flout this.

Not at all. This was well-established long before the Second World War; while the magnitude of destruction possible from a SINGLE weapon was greatly enhanced by the invention of the A-bomb, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were even particularly significant attacks in terms of total firepower. The number and explosive potential of (conventional) bombs dropped on Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden -- or Louvain, Belgium, in the First World War -- dwarfed the Little Boy.

The rules were laid down at the end of the 19th century under the guise of artillery tactics. An unfortified city could not be attacked unless it harbored military forces, in which case the attacker was free to shell it into rubble if it saw fit, regardless of the presence of civilians. The conventions required that the civil authorities be informed of any upcoming bombardment in order to allow civilian evacuation -- or alternatively, in order to allow the army to decamp and thereby protect the city. And in the aftermath of the First World War, this particular convention was reaffirmed precisely to make it clear to what extent military necessity legitimated civilian casualties.

Everyone knew what the rules were. If you put an army base in the city, then they can destroy the city to get to the base. No one expected that you'd be able to do it with a single bomb, but they'd had lots of experience with just how much explosive a group of German Pioniere could throw around given a day or so and enough ammo....

While shelling-by-artillery was replaced to some extent by bombing-from-planes, the same principles hold. The US had been leafletting all up and down Japan announcing the imminent bombings (so the necessary notification had been given), and the army had neither decamped nor surrendered the city. If Nimitz had put a squadron of battleships into Hiroshima harbor and shelled the city for two days straight, he could easily have done the same amount of damage --- and with complete legality.

The fact that it was done from a plane by a single bomb doesn't change that.


Any bomber that dropped his bombs on a timer rather than from observing specific targets under a reticle would be guilty under the conventions.

Er, how do you get this? As I said, "negligence" has a specific meaning, and I don't see how "trusting that your navigator has you in the right spot" qualifies.

[Dragoonster]

-snip-

The fact that it was done from a plane by a single bomb doesn't change that.

It changes the intent from discrimination to nondiscrimination (or the context from within a city to the entire city). It broadens rather than narrows the potential for civilian casualties per munition spent.

Take 100 artillery pieces who's rangefinders are attempting to isolate strikes, and there's going to be plenty of collateral damage--but the gunners are making an attempt to hit specific targets, or specific areas (or they were violating the conventions). The nukes made no attempt to do so, unless as you seem to be arguing entire cities were acceptable single targets.

Er, how do you get this? As I said, "negligence" has a specific meaning, and I don't see how "trusting that your navigator has you in the right spot" qualifies.

Some shotgun-strategy runs, and some runs whose target was a general vector (which it unloaded bombs at a constant rate) rather than specific targets fail this:

2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable

Even accounting for imprecision, there were (obviously, I hope we agree) times when bombs were dropped with no "legitimate military objective" in a reticle/bombsight. Which was smart for practical reasons from imprecision, and runs where each bomber would only have one pass, but I don't see the defense according to the Hague Conventions.

If I'm wrong, then why did 2) exist? In what circumstance would you say an air attack failed to abide by it?

[drkitten]

It changes the intent from discrimination to nondiscrimination (or the context from within a city to the entire city). It broadens rather than narrows the potential for civilian casualties per munition spent.

Take 100 artillery pieces who's rangefinders are attempting to isolate strikes, and there's going to be plenty of collateral damage--but the gunners are making an attempt to hit specific targets, or specific areas (or they were violating the conventions).

Er,.... I think you have an unreasonable view of the accuracy that can be expected from artillery strikes using indirect fire. The whole point of the conventions was to hammer out exactly what the gunners would be expected to do.

Which in this in this case was defined more or less as "hit anything you like within the city." Actually, it's a little more specific. The onus was on the defender to mark demilitarized locations of particular cultural or humanitarian importance (such as hospitals, museums, and churches), in which case the gunners were supposed to try not to hit them. Part of the rationale for that is that troops are mobile and could be in any building not clearly marked as a troop-free zone. Civilian housing, for example, is and was completely fair game; in order to clear the field for the waves of infantry or cavalry that might be coming in later, the city could and often was be completely levelled to prevent enemy troops from having cover.

And, of course, gunners "trying to" avoid hitting something is not the same thing as gunners being required to miss, because inaccuracy is part of the fog of war.

An example from the Second World War is instructive here; Arnhem, which held Frost's paratroopers at the base of the bridge. The German commander (Bittrich, IIRC) basically sent in his Panzers as bulldozers to literally knock down the buildings around the British redoubt in order to prevent their escape and/or reinforcement, and to eliminate the cover they were using.


The nukes made no attempt to do so, unless as you seem to be arguing entire cities were acceptable single targets.

That's more or less what the conventions laid down. So, yes, that's exactly what I'm arguing. Practical military necessity dictated that the entire city was an acceptable single target, which was why it was fortified-or-not as a unit and surrendered or not as a unit.



Even accounting for imprecision, there were (obviously, I hope we agree) times when bombs were dropped with no "legitimate military objective" in a reticle/bombsight.

Oh, of course. If there's cloud cover, you've got nothing in your bombsight at all --- which is when you rely on your navigator to tell you that you're in the right spot. That does not, however, mean that there's no legitimate military target underneath you (if you trust your navigator).


If I'm wrong, then why did 2) exist? In what circumstance would you say an air attack failed to abide by it?

Attacking an unfortified, ungarrisoned city, a civilian supply train or truck caravan, or a hospital (as a deliberate target, not as collateral damage) would be obvious examples. In this case, the target is not a legitimate military target.

Shovelling bombs out the hatch without knowing or caring what was below would be another example, but of course, people didn't often do that (bombs were expensive). A more realistic example would be deliberately bombing a lone passenger ship that may or may not be carrying troops (troop ships are legitimate targets, passenger liners are not). But here again, in the context of a harbor full of both civilian and military shipping, anything in the area is fair game.

[Dragoonster]

Thanks for the reasoned response; I'm too ignorant and my memory too faulty at the moment to continue to disagree on the specifics, though I disagree generally and think the bombings were usurping the spirit of the conventions and goal of discrimination.

Would you say that your take on legitimate targets vis a vis the Hague or other conventions/understandings is solely enough to justify the bombings of H&N?

Or does your stance need some other context (the previous ferocity, importance and bloodshed of WWI & II, the evilness of Japan, the difficulty of a land invasion, etc.) to justify it?

[drkitten]

Would you say that your take on legitimate targets vis a vis the Hague or other conventions/understandings is solely enough to justify the bombings of H&N?

Well, legal considerations -- and international law is ultimately just a legal consideration -- only determine what is legal. They don't generally determine what is "moral" (esp. since new case law is usually only made as a result of people doing something that previous generations of lawyers hadn't considered), and of course have little or nothing to do with what is a good idea or not.

But in the context of war -- which is basically an inherently immoral act; it's hard to argue that "thou shall not kill" is ambiguous -- the most imporant consideration is usually military effectiveness. There are no awards given for second place or for best sportsmanship in a war. Given a choice between losing a war morally or winning it immorally, I rather have to plump for the latter.

Was the Hiroshima bombing necessary? Impossible to judge at this point. But it certainly appears to have been effective.

[BazBear]

Morality...in a conflict of this sort... through our 21st century eyes?
The bombs were available, they were dropped, the war quickly ended.

No invasion, no killing of hundreds of thousands or more likely millions needed (if you doubt the high end estimations of what an invasion would have looked like, look at what happened at Iwo Jima or Okinawa).

Moral? Hard to say, certainly more moral IMHO than the alternatives.

[Oliver]

Huh? Truman's determination to carry out FDR's plan to use the atomic weapons on Japan was the man's finest hour. What was immoral about this decision? It would have been immoral to not use everything in the arsenal that would stop the further loss of American lives and that would cause the Japanese to unconditionally surrender, even if Hirohito was allowed to remain in the imperial palace.


BS.

The Japanese did offer a peace agreement. The US-Government
at the time wanted to test that thing on humans:

In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting. *snip*

It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war. *snip*

This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor.

Read the whole Article:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

[tomwaits]

BS.

The Japanese did offer a peace agreement. The US-Government
at the time wanted to test that thing on humans:

You are going to have to provide a better source than that.

[Trojan]

Morality...in a conflict of this sort... through our 21st century eyes?
The bombs were available, they were dropped, the war quickly ended.

No invasion, no killing of hundreds of thousands or more likely millions needed (if you doubt the high end estimations of what an invasion would have looked like, look at what happened at Iwo Jima or Okinawa).

Moral? Hard to say, certainly more moral IMHO than the alternatives.

The best argument against the bombs (as I have always thought) was that the US could have awaited the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that would only further isolated the war hawks in Japan and eliminate the hope for a negotiated peace. That said, the bombs fell, Japan surrendered and the war ended - they were effective and they did what it was thought they would do.

[Oliver]

You are going to have to provide a better source than that.


What about an alternative insider instead? :

In 1945, Bard became one eight members of the Interim Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_Committee) appointed to advise President Harry S. Truman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman) on the use of the atomic bomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bomb).[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-3) Although Bard joined in the committee's unanimous recommendation that the bomb should be used as soon as possible and without warning against a civilian target in Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan),[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-4) he developed second thoughts. In a memorandum dated June 27 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_27), 1945, to Secretary of War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_War) Henry L. Stimson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_L._Stimson),[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-5) Bard argued that Japan should receive two or three days' "preliminary warning" before the bomb was used. "The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling," Bard wrote, adding that he felt "that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender." The memorandum also suggested that Japan be informed of "Russia's position," i.e., the likely entry of the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) into the war, and that "assurances" be given "with regard to the Emperor of Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_Japan) and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender." [7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-6)*snip*[/URL]

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-6)
Source: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-6)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Austin_Bard#cite_note-6)

[tomwaits]

What about an alternative insider instead? :


Well ok, but that has nothing to do with the previous point you were trying to make.

[drkitten]

BS.

The Japanese did offer a peace agreement. The US-Government
at the time wanted to test that thing on humans:

You are aware that the "ihr" is a neo-Nazi Holocaust denial group, dedicated to telling whatever lies it takes to whitewash the Axis and blacken the Allies?

[Oliver]

Well ok, but that has nothing to do with the previous point you were trying to make.


My Point remains. The legend of the "heroic US-Patriots saving the World by
dropping the Bomb"-story, which is popular amongst "Patriots", is BS:

New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says. According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.

"Impressing Russia was more important :boggled: than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project :boggled: to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds. Source (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7706)


Human life didn't matter. Japans efforts to surrender honorably didn't matter. What mattered was showing muscles - which isn't patriotic in
any way.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Nice article you quote there. Let me finish it for you....
Kuznick and Selden's arguments, however, were dismissed as "discredited" by Lawrence Freedman, a war expert from King's College London, UK. He says that Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima was "understandable in the circumstances".

Truman's main aim had been to end the war with Japan, Freedman says, but adds that, with the wisdom of hindsight, the bombing may not have been militarily justified. Some people assumed that the US always had "a malicious and nasty motive", he says, "but it ain't necessarily so."


Funny how leaving out the end of stuff can change the texture....

[Oliver]

Hi

Nice article you quote there. Let me finish it for you....

Funny how leaving out the end of stuff can change the texture....


Indeed, funny how some historians are more relevant than actual quotes
from the very people in-volv-ed :boggled::rolleyes: :
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

[drkitten]

Indeed, funny how some historians are more relevant than actual quotes from the very people in-volv-ed :boggled::rolleyes: :


Translation : "my attempt to cherry-pick out of context quotes from secondary sources failed miserably, so here's my attempt to cherry-pick out of context quotes from primary sources."

Yet another epic fail from Oliver.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

I've been looking for this online, but can't find it... if you really want to see a first-hand picture of what Japanese culture was like at the end of WWII, go find a copy of Keiji Nakazawa's, "Barefoot Gen." ("Hadashi no Gen")

[Doctor Evil]

You are aware that the "ihr" is a neo-Nazi Holocaust denial group, dedicated to telling whatever lies it takes to whitewash the Axis and blacken the Allies?

Oliver???

[tomwaits]

My Point remains. The legend of the "heroic US-Patriots saving the World by
dropping the Bomb"-story, which is popular amongst "Patriots", is BS:

I'm sorry, but I thought this thread was about the morality of dropping the atomic bomb. Many have offered rational discussion on the topic, with some saying yes and some saying no. The "yes" people seem to think it was horrendous, but necessary. I don't think I've seen anyone say what you claimed they said.

Human life didn't matter. Japans efforts to surrender honorably didn't matter. What mattered was showing muscles - which isn't patriotic in
any way.

Besides the issue of whether or not Japan was going to surrender...

Human life didn't matter? Why do you think they were "impressing Russia"? For kicks? Or do you think, JUST MAYBE, that the tensions between the Soviet Union and America/Western Europe were high and they were trying to prevent war between the superpowers after 6 years of devastatingly bloody conflict?

[Darth Rotor]

I'm sorry, but I thought this thread was about the morality of dropping the atomic bomb. Many have offered rational discussion on the topic, with some saying yes and some saying no. The "yes" people seem to think it was horrendous, but necessary. I don't think I've seen anyone say what you claimed they said.

Besides the issue of whether or not Japan was going to surrender...

Human life didn't matter? Why do you think they were "impressing Russia"? For kicks? Or do you think, JUST MAYBE, that the tensions between the Soviet Union and America/Western Europe were high and they were trying to prevent war between the superpowers after 6 years of devastatingly bloody conflict?
War is full of Hobson's choices. Truman's statements are as close to a good moral reason as any, in that killing a bunch now and ending the war now is a greater longer term decision than allowing the war to continue, which at the time of the decision was still a likely chain of events.

The revisionist positoin that Truman knew, or had confidence that Japan was surrendering flies in the face of what Truman had been confronted with for the previous four to six years, both as an American and then as an American VP, then as an American president.

No pretty decisions, but a good enough one to end a bloody war. As to serendipity, that horror was a good data point for people in the future to consider when they were tempted to propose nuclear arms as a credible option.

The death of the Japanese in Hiroshima was not in vain: IMO, it saved untold millions from death due to wreckless use of atomic weapons in the succeeding fifty years. In case anyone needed evidence of what a nuclear attack or war was all about, those two data points were all one needs to realize the long term cost of using such weapons.

DR

[KoihimeNakamura]

I have to say after reading this thread that I am now going to research this topic. Mostly because I was a little unsure as to the specifics: now I find I am very unsure.

[KoihimeNakamura]

I hate to bump this thread, but..

There's this comment on wikipedia's page:

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.[61]

61 leads to a news opinoin piece. I can't find a primary source anywhere. Anyone know of it?

[Dragoonster]

I hate to bump this thread, but..

There's this comment on wikipedia's page:

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.[61]

61 leads to a news opinoin piece. I can't find a primary source anywhere. Anyone know of it?

It's also on Nimitz' wikiquote page, which lists the source(s) as: "Public statement quoted in The New York Times (6 October 1945) and in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1996) by Gar Alperovitz"

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chester_W._Nimitz

There's quite a lot of quotes from various cabinet members or members of the military/Admin of Truman & Roosevelt, and most seem genuine. Some of them did seem to have qualms or an objective view at the time of the decision. But some do seem a bit monday-morning quarterbacking (or moral-morning quarterbacking); where they only gained a proper reflection after the war was over and the decision was history.

Such qualms would agree with my position that the bombings were immoral (both absolutely, and relatively to the alternative), but such quotes should be taken with a grain of salt. Such as this one from Eisenhower, 11 year after:

Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eisenhower

I'm skeptical if this is how he actually felt, and how he actually conveyed his feelings at the time. Or whether over they years he fashioned a convenient "history" or exagerration of his misgivings or how he expressed them. Same for the other quotes of the "how I felt at the time" type.

Maybe related to that is how the US as a whole has viewed H&N over the years. At this point it's viewed by the vast majority as a necessary evil, or even a wise and good decision. Perhaps when these quotes were given that era viewed the bombings as more questionable?

[KoihimeNakamura]

Hm, thanks. I was going to write on this, but I find today my desire to write papers for no reason has sorta drained away.

[Travis]

I think it should be noted that Truman later refused to use nukes in Korea or China showing that he wasn't one to just use the things on a whim. Obviously he saw a great or compelling need to use them against Japan and, considering the alternatives, it probably was the choice that would lead to the fewest fatalities on both sides.

[Cicero]

I think it should be noted that Truman later refused to use nukes in Korea or China showing that he wasn't one to just use the things on a whim. Obviously he saw a great or compelling need to use them against Japan and, considering the alternatives, it probably was the choice that would lead to the fewest fatalities on both sides.

Since the Soviet Union had the A-Bomb by 1949, Truman had no choice but to stick to conventional weapons in Korea by 1950.

But the decision to use the A-Bombs on Japan was a fait accompli as dictated by FDR. Truman merely followed through with the orders of FDR.

[Cicero]

I hate to bump this thread, but..

There's this comment on wikipedia's page:

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.[61]

61 leads to a news opinoin piece. I can't find a primary source anywhere. Anyone know of it?

Not one member of the JCOS, or any member of the Truman Administration, or any five-star commander in the field resigned in protest over the decision to use the A Bombs either before they were used or after they were used.

There has been a concerted effort since the 1960's to confabulate stories about some supposed reistance by American military and political stratagists to using the A-Bombs. So few people knew about their existance before they were used that it only makes these claims even more specious.

[bignickel]

I'm surprised that no one yet has mentioned the million or so civilians that were dying each month in Japanese occupied areas of the South East Asia.

Then again, I'm surprised another of these threads had popped up again, after the one last year in the Social Issue and Current Events sub-forum. (That was the one, incidentally, that convinced while dropped the bomb might have been immoral, it was nothing compared to the much greater immorality of not dropping it.)

The better hypothetical to look at would be this: A terrorist has a remote detonator in his hand, ready to set off an atomic bomb in a area populated by 1 million people. He has grabbed an innocent child, and is using the child as a shield. In order to kill the terrorist, who is about to set off the bomb, you will have to shoot through the child. Is it immoral to shoot through the child to kill the terrorist? Is it much more immoral not to?

[RandFan]

If I thought it would shorten the war, I'd rape and pillage, but it doesn't. It tends to piss off the other side and puts the fight back into them.Not according to history. Raping and pillaging was one of the most succesful strategies which is one reason why it is used to this day.

War is an awful, bloody (I mean technically bloody - not British bloody) abandonment of sanity. I don't condone killing civilians because I don't condone war, but if you're in a nation-vs.-nation war, do your best... do your worst... and get the damn thing over with. Then, bury the dead, treat the wounded, feed the starving, hang the war criminals, and move on.I respect your opinion. I don't agree. Further, I'm glad that there are objective reasons not to agree. We can look at the advancement of warfare and see that morality has advanced in warfare and there is reason to believe that it will continue to do so.

[ddt]

To chip in my 2 cents: I used to have misgivings about the atomic bombs, but I was cured of nearly all of those by reading this IIDB thread (http://www.freeratio.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=131838). There's great info in that thread for someone who, like me, is too lazy to buy and read a good book about it.

Short version: the Japanese High Command/govt. (was there a difference at the time?) lived in cuckoo-lala-land. The various "peace negotiations" were conducted in bad faith, they expected the Soviets to keep the neutrality pact, and they really thought they could stand a chance in case of an invasion of the home islands. And US intelligence knew all this.

To bring the point home that Japan didn't stand a chance, the bomb was perfect. It showed that the US could obliterate Japan with minimal means. From a moral standpoint, I don't see a iota difference between dropping one very powerful bomb on a city or thousand of smaller ones. And with their military industry for a large part being cottage industry, spread out over the cities, in residential areas, their cities were legitimate targets.

I'm surprised no-one has brought up the issue of radiation as a factor in the morality. I'd say that's a question of hindsight: at the time, the effects of radiation were still largely unknown.

The only misgiving I'd have is about the timing. On August 8th, the Soviets would attack - as agreed in Postdam - and they had 1-2 mn. troops amassed at the Manchurian border. Undoubtedly, US intelligence knew about the strength of the Soviet troops and the expected outcome. From my limited knowledge, it seems quite likely that Japan would have surrendered for the Soviet attack alone. So it seems the bombs were as much an end to WW2 as a begin to the Cold War. Wasn't it at that moment more prudent to await the effect of the Soviet attack?

ETA: Nogbad mentioned the surrender declaration, which only cited the A-bombs as reason for surrender. Is there any insight as to how well this reflected the true deliberations in the War Council?

(Derail: I'm quite surprised the Soviets agreed with Japan's surrender to the US alone. With Germany, they insisted that the surrender signed in Reims be repeated in Karlshorst).

As to the timing between the two bombs: was US intelligence aware of the crippled Japanese communication lines?

ETA: another derail:
It's a pity that Hirohito wasn't tried as war criminal. I suspect no-one doubts he was one. Another moral question: how moral would it have been for the US not to keep their word in that respect and put him on the stand nevertheless? Or alternatively, to leave him unharmed but not treat him as head-of-state in foreign affairs?

[Dragoonster]

The better hypothetical to look at would be this: A terrorist has a remote detonator in his hand, ready to set off an atomic bomb in a area populated by 1 million people. He has grabbed an innocent child, and is using the child as a shield. In order to kill the terrorist, who is about to set off the bomb, you will have to shoot through the child. Is it immoral to shoot through the child to kill the terrorist? Is it much more immoral not to?

The hypothetical isn't quite the same.

In order to fit, First--I wouldn't be sure if the atomic bomb existed, or if it would really kill more than one person. H&N circumstance was the estimate of lives lost in a land invasion, which weren't and still aren't entirely agreed on.

Second, and a big difference--I'd have to have a myriad of other opportunites other than the binary choice. H&N circumstances were not binary--either drop the bomb or land invasion. Some of the alternate choices [with analogy to your hypothetical]:

1. Blockade and allow Soviets to push [prevent the terrorist from leaving the room; otherwise inaction]
2. Surrender to Japan [negotiate the survival of both child and million people by committing yourself to demands of the terrorist]
3. Resign and let someone else make the decision [refuse to do anything; inaction]
4. Drop the bombs in another location [shoot the child in a non-lethal spot and hope it kills or damages the terrorist enough that he doesn't detonate the bomb]
5. Etc.

Ignoring my nitpicks for the sake of argument, I don't consider inaction immoral, and do consider killing any innocents to be absolutely immoral. Not shooting the child wouldn't be immoral, as the terrorist will be the one committing the immoral act. I wouldn't have been the one that detonated the bomb. For H&N, it's a bit different because the same agent that would drop the bomb is the one who'd order the alternative. Truman deciding not to drop it would mean he'd have to decide to invade by land.

Anyway my actual answer is the same, I'd shoot the child and I would've probably dropped the bombs, because I'd view it as the best thing to do (not the right thing, which would be inaction). The difference is that utilitarianism is not a defense of immoral acts, and it doesn't make murder magically moral or legal. Doing the least immoral action should never be codified or accepted as a nonconsequential correct action. I would've demanded after the incidents to be prosecuted, for murder of a child and for war crimes. Or any domestic or military law that would call what I did illegal.

Following that line of thought--I agree with ddt that it's a shame Hirohito wasn't prosecuted for war crimes. But I also feel it's a shame Churchill, Truman, and others weren't prosecuted for war crimes (and if no such crime for such acts exists, I'd argue that it should be created post facto ala genocide). Such a statement is laughed at as ridiculous by most people in this thread I assume, whether due to nationalism, or utilitarianism, or lack of applicable law citing the acts as explicitly illegal, etc.

But that's the only way I could live with myself and with the precedent I'd set. Actions have to have consequences, even ones that weigh one immorality as slightly more moral than another immorality.

[Travis]

Alternative actions still have consequences.

1. Blockade and allow Soviets to push [prevent the terrorist from leaving the room; otherwise inaction]

Millions die from starvation in Japan while bloody war with Soviets is waged. Stalin gets angry at the US for inaction and negotiates a separate peace.

2. Surrender to Japan [negotiate the survival of both child and million people by committing yourself to demands of the terrorist]

USSR see's this as breaking of promise and does not wage war. China and Korea remain slave states to Japan.

3. Resign and let someone else make the decision [refuse to do anything; inaction]

New leader will have fewer options with less time. Japan is emotionally bolstered.

4. Drop the bombs in another location [shoot the child in a non-lethal spot and hope it kills or damages the terrorist enough that he doesn't detonate the bomb]

Japan is one of the most densely populated areas on earth so there really is no place to drop it without civilian fatalities unless you drop it somewhere that is completely insignificant potentially unnoticed by Japan itself.

[Dragoonster]

Alternative actions still have consequences.

hypothetical, not immediate and apparent. But I'm more referring to the inadequacy of bignickel's quandry in assuming only two immediate decisions are possible.

Millions die from starvation in Japan while bloody war with Soviets is waged. Stalin gets angry at the US for inaction and negotiates a separate peace.

USSR see's this as breaking of promise and does not wage war. China and Korea remain slave states to Japan.

New leader will have fewer options with less time. Japan is emotionally bolstered.

Japan is one of the most densely populated areas on earth so there really is no place to drop it without civilian fatalities unless you drop it somewhere that is completely insignificant potentially unnoticed by Japan itself.

Yes, all possibilities...that might not happen. Or it's possible that Japan would've surrendered in a month no matter what, etc. The action being discussed though is proactive and certain. Whatever moral actions happens as a result of inaction is placed squarely on the agents who do so. In your counters, the blame would fall on Japan-Soviets, Soviets, new leader-Japan, inapplicable.

I do realize viewing inaction as morally pristine is dubious. But I generally live by it. The better point is that not every action is excusable if weighing two immoral actions; utilitarianism isn't a get-out-of-criticism-or-jail-free card.

If it was, there'd be no absolute (legal) limits on torture, for one example. Ignoring such laws is perhaps the best thing to do in certain circumstances, but it still has to be checked by the ideal, i.e. the law.

The entirety of WWII was abysmal, brutal, and required terrible actions to resolve by all sides. My stance is that those who greenlighted the actions bear some moral responsiblity, even if it was the least immoral thing to do.

[RandFan]

Update: I haven't followed through with my promised research and I appologize about that. My thanks to Wildcat and others who have participated in the thread. I think there have been some very good contributions on both sides of the issue.

I'm not feeling motivated to back up the claims at this time so I'll withdraw them for now though I think I'm right but I concede that some very good points have been made from the opposing side.

I hadn't really intended to start a new thread but I concede that it is my own fault given that I raised the issue. In any event I think it has been a productive discussion.

Thanks.

[IchabodPlain]

Or it's possible that Japan would've surrendered in a month no matter what, etc.

Conversely, it's possible we are all just butterflies dreaming, both of which however, don't seem likely when considering the evidence.


The action being discussed though is proactive and certain. Whatever moral actions happens as a result of inaction is placed squarely on the agents who do so. In your counters, the blame would fall on Japan-Soviets, Soviets, new leader-Japan, inapplicable.

Tell that to the dead; I'm sure they'll care.

I do realize viewing inaction as morally pristine is dubious. But I generally live by it. The better point is that not every action is excusable if weighing two immoral actions; utilitarianism isn't a get-out-of-criticism-or-jail-free card.

No, it's a "Save the most number of lives" card. Travis granted you're hypothetical, and commented that all of the above have consequences that would almost certainly ensure the killing of innocent civilians. People will die one way or the other(s). I would think having a utilitarian moral sense is laudable, considering the circumstance. Can you really avow yourself to inaction when you have committed, not only yourself, but your entire country (moms, dads, brothers, sisters, lovers, etc) to war?


If it was, there'd be no absolute (legal) limits on torture, for one example. Ignoring such laws is perhaps the best thing to do in certain circumstances, but it still has to be checked by the ideal, i.e. the law.

If such hypothetical law(s) exist. In accordance with the laws of the times, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets. Ex post facto suggestions always raise eyebrows.


The entirety of WWII was abysmal, brutal, and required terrible actions to resolve by all sides. My stance is that those who greenlighted the actions bear some moral responsiblity, even if it was the least immoral thing to do.

I think even Truman would agree with that.

[Dragoonster]

Conversely, it's possible we are all just butterflies dreaming, both of which however, don't seem likely when considering the evidence.

Not equally unlikely imo. In any case the point of those possibilities was pointing out a flaw in a strictly binary hypothetical as compared with the decision to bomb H&N.

Tell that to the dead; I'm sure they'll care.

Deal. I'll tell dead innocents of my inaction and you tell dead innocents of your action.

No, it's a "Save the most number of lives" card. Travis granted you're hypothetical, and commented that all of the above have consequences that would almost certainly ensure the killing of innocent civilians. People will die one way or the other(s). I would think having a utilitarian moral sense is laudable, considering the circumstance. Can you really avow yourself to inaction when you have committed, not only yourself, but your entire country (moms, dads, brothers, sisters, lovers, etc) to war?

As I said I would've taken the utilitarian approach, I just don't think the utilitarian approach should be considered moral, or legal.

Also, consider the (more current) hypothetical of the President ordering the torturing death of an innocent (let's say a tight-lipped journalist with info) in order to save 1000 or 1 million lives. Clearly against domestic law, and clearly against international convention. And imo clearly immoral. Should the President be impeached, or the one doing the torturing brought to trial?

If not, does the same apply to illegal wiretapping, search & seizure, and incarceration without due process, etc. etc.?

If such hypothetical law(s) exist. In accordance with the laws of the times, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets. Ex post facto suggestions always raise eyebrows.

That some participants or ancillaries, not to mention internet posters, expressed some regret and moral quandry post facto does suggest H&N and carpet-bombing were not run-of-the-mill acts of warfare, even run-of-the-mill by WWII standards. Compare with official and unofficial reactions both personal and legal to chem agents in Vietnam, or cluster bombs in Cambodia and elsewhere.

I think even Truman would agree with that.

By responsibility I mean prosecution for the acts. Clearly idealistic and clearly a minority opinion on my part, but it's how I feel.

[IchabodPlain]

Not equally unlikely imo. In any case the point of those possibilities was pointing out a flaw in a strictly binary hypothetical as compared with the decision to bomb H&N.

No, you're playing the possibility game instead of looking at facts on the ground.



Deal. I'll tell dead innocents of my inaction and you tell dead innocents of your action.

Deal. Again, can you really choose inaction when you have committed your country to war?


As I said I would've taken the utilitarian approach, I just don't think the utilitarian approach should be considered moral, or legal.

As in Act Utilitarianism: Most good for the most numerous? Really, that is what you are lambasting against? Have fun fighting a war in which your guiding principle is "first, do no harm."


Also, consider the (more current) hypothetical of the President ordering the torturing death of an innocent (let's say a tight-lipped journalist with info) in order to save 1000 or 1 million lives. Clearly against domestic law, and clearly against international convention. And imo clearly immoral. Should the President be impeached, or the one doing the torturing brought to trial?

Similar morally perhaps, but not from a legal standpoint.

That some participants or ancillaries, not to mention internet posters, expressed some regret and moral quandry post facto does suggest H&N and carpet-bombing were not run-of-the-mill acts of warfare, even run-of-the-mill by WWII standards. Compare with official and unofficial reactions both personal and legal to chem agents in Vietnam, or cluster bombs in Cambodia and elsewhere.

The intensity of the bombs may have not been run-of-the-mill, but the act of dropping bombs on a military targets sure is. Especially in large quantities.



By responsibility I mean prosecution for the acts. Clearly idealistic and clearly a minority opinion on my part, but it's how I feel.

Also clearly nonsense. There is no law with which to charge the "accused" in this case. Encouraging ex post facto prosecution..hm...doesn't strike a very moral chord with me.

[Dragoonster]

No, you're playing the possibility game instead of looking at facts on the ground.

In bignickel's scenario it's a fact that 1 million innocent people will die if you don't kill 1 innocent person. In the H&N scenario it's not a fact that >[H&N's civilian population] will die if the bombs aren't dropped. It's a likelihood which is still being weighed. This difference apparently means nothing to you, but it does to me.

Deal. Again, can you really choose inaction when you have committed your country to war?

Inaction for certain specific acts, of course. Every WWII leader and military commander chose inaction at various stages, for various practical or moral reasons.

As in Act Utilitarianism: Most good for the most numerous? Really, that is what you are lambasting against? Have fun fighting a war in which your guiding principle is "first, do no harm."

Do no unnecessary harm to civilians. My take on doing harm to soldiers is different.

Similar morally perhaps, but not from a legal standpoint.

Okay.

ETA: btw, you didn't answer the question. Prosecute them or not?

The intensity of the bombs may have not been run-of-the-mill, but the act of dropping bombs on a military targets sure is. Especially in large quantities.

Gets us back to defining military targets, and how discriminatory any attacks should be. Also doesn't address my point that even those doing these things viewed them as dubious ex post facto.

Also clearly nonsense. There is no law with which to charge the "accused" in this case. Encouraging ex post facto prosecution..hm...doesn't strike a very moral chord with me.

So you find the Nuremberg Principles and the Nuremberg Trial immoral? If so fine, we just disagree but are both somewhat consistent.

[bignickel]

The hypothetical isn't quite the same.

Actually, it is. You've also tried to bypass it by throwing in alternatives, which don't actually fit into the description I gave. There is NO talking him out of it, since he's about to REMOTE detonate the bomb. You have no TIME to stop, short of shooting thru the kid.

So you can either watch one kid die, or 1 million people (which is number of civilians who were dying each month in Japanese occupied South East Asia). I think both are terrible, but one choice is much MUCH more immoral than the other.

The argument that some have used, is that the terrorist is one responsible for the death of the child, since he has used him as a shield to stop you from shooting him (and saving the 1 million people). It is he who has put the child in harm's way, and is thru responsible for the obvious response.

Pretty much the same as the Japanese putting military bases and HQs in their cities, and drafting all citizens of Japan into the fight against the 'invader'.

[Dragoonster]

Actually, it is. You've also tried to bypass it by throwing in alternatives, which don't actually fit into the description I gave. There is NO talking him out of it, since he's about to REMOTE detonate the bomb. You have no TIME to stop, short of shooting thru the kid.

So you can either watch one kid die, or 1 million people (which is number of civilians who were dying each month in Japanese occupied South East Asia). I think both are terrible, but one choice is much MUCH more immoral than the other.

I threw in alternatives to make the hypothetical match H&N's reality, where alternatives did exist. The other way to make the hypothetical match would be to declare absolutely that the only two choices for H&N were dropping the bomb and killing 200,000 civilians , or not dropping the bomb and >200,000 civilians would certainly die. Since I don't think that's certain (nor was it certain prior to dropping the bomb that 200,000 would die), I don't think the hypothetical matches.

I'm not bypassing anything, I'm trying to make the hypothetical match the reality so that the moral choices of dropping the bombs on H&N aren't wrongly reduced. And I did give my answer and reasoning to the hypothetical and the reality solely as stated without nitpicking; I'm not dodging anything.

The argument that some have used, is that the terrorist is one responsible for the death of the child, since he has used him as a shield to stop you from shooting him (and saving the 1 million people). It is he who has put the child in harm's way, and is thru responsible for the obvious response.

Pretty much the same as the Japanese putting military bases and HQs in their cities, and drafting all citizens of Japan into the fight against the 'invader'.

True, but I maintain that it isn't moral to either shoot the child or bomb the Japenese children.

[Cicero]

Update: I haven't followed through with my promised research and I appologize about that. My thanks to Wildcat and others who have participated in the thread. I think there have been some very good contributions on both sides of the issue.

I'm not feeling motivated to back up the claims at this time so I'll withdraw them for now though I think I'm right but I concede that some very good points have been made from the opposing side.

I hadn't really intended to start a new thread but I concede that it is my own fault given that I raised the issue. In any event I think it has been a productive discussion.

Thanks.

I figured that the Truman part of your post from the other thread was worth challenging. The fact that it was the catalyst for its own thread proved it was a subject that others have contemplated as well.

I do take solace in that the majority of posters considered Truman's actions correct whether moral or immoral. From all the revisionist articles and books on this subject, and how it is taught in public schools, I wasn't sure if the truth could still survive from the fusillade of phony anecdotes on the subject.

Even the National Air and Space Museum's display of the Enola Gay B-29 at Dulles International Airport was not immune from the revisionists brigade.

The Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy chimed in with their objections in a letter to NASM:

***.."displaying the Enola Gay as a technological achievement reflects extraordinary callousness toward the victims, indifference to the deep divisions among American citizens about the propriety of these actions, and disregard for the feelings of most of the world's peoples."..***

Who were the notable signatories to this letter?

Noam Chomsky, Robert Jay Lifton, E.L. Doctorow, Daniel Ellsberg,, Jonathan Schell, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Lear, Martin Sheen and, of course, Oliver Stone.

Chomsky's views on WWII are as far out as Howard Zinn's. Vonegut believes the Allies are criminals for bombing Dresden. Ellsberg must have come upon his morality crusade long after the A-Bombs were dropped on Japan as he worked for the Rand Corporation and the Pentagon and long after reaching his epiphany about the immorality of the Vietnam War t that motivated him to steal classified documents to release to the New York Times in 1969.

[gumboot]

This has been a very interesting thread. As always with these sorts of topics, the temptation to apply hindsight is difficult to avoid, and I see a lot of it being applied in this thread. This is particularly important when assessing morality because morality is a judgment of rightness or wrongness, and it is easy to find others in the wrong when measured against your own very different value system.

It can, therefore, be very difficult to know how to approach something like the atomic bombings. I personally prefer to avoid the question of morality altogether.

In my opinion war is always immoral. And therefore any act of war is, by definition, also immoral.

But accepting that wars do happen and are sometimes unavoidable, the only moral way of approaching warfare is to attempt to end it as quickly and cleanly as possible.

So the only real worthwhile measure is to ask whether the atomic bombings helped to end the war more quickly and more cleanly than the other options available. And remember, this has to be applied in the context of the war itself. It does no good to point out, 60 years after the fact, that the Emperor of Japan was considering surrender through the Russians, if the USA were oblivious to this fact at the time.

So. Let's look at the basic accepted facts.

1) The US authorities believed that the Japanese would probably fight "to the death"
2) The US authorities believed the only other viable solution for ending the war was a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland
3) This operation was expected to cause casualties on a horrific scale for both sides of the conflict (in fact the invasion would probably have been more costly than planners estimated because they grossly underestimated Japanese strength in the area of the invasions, and worse yet they thought they had exaggerated enemy strength).
4) Russia were expected to become involved in the conflict and the ensuing occupation further increasing tensions between the allies and spreading the Soviet sphere of influence into the Pacific
5) The US had a powerful weapon, the full capability of which was unknown, that could potentially force an early surrender and prevent an open conflict emerging between Russia and the other allies.

Based on the above, it seems to be that using the bomb was an obvious choice and as a President or a military commander you would have to be a fool to not use it.

So the question becomes, on what?

Well you've got several goals in mind with this weapon:

1) Measure the full destructive power of the weapon - the scientific goal
2) Demonstrate the full destructive power of the weapon - the political goal
3) Hinder Japan's war-fighting capability and in particular their ability to repel an invasion if it were to occur - the military goal

Options 1) and 2) require only a large untouched target. Large targets were no issue - the obvious choice was a city which were already routinely being bombed as legitimate military targets. As for untouched, obviously once you know your target you just don't attack it with conventional weapons, leaving it undamaged prior to the atomic bombing.

So in truth, what really selected the target was 3) - military importance, because that's the only option that can only be fulfilled by limited options - practically any target in Japan could address 1) and 2).

Prime military targets would be any areas that could contribute greatly to Japanese resistance of a US invasion. That meant targets in the south of the country, where the US planned their initial assault. Hiroshima was an obvious choice. Aside from the usual scattering of military sites, right at the centre of the city was the Headquarters for Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army. This was the Command and Control centre for the entire defenses of Southern Japan - in other words it was the command post that would direct the Japanese resistance to the US invasion. As a military target it was probably the most important in the entire country.

Nagasaki, likewise, held crucial military targets and was another southern city - it was a major centre of military manufacturing, containing such vital infrastructure as the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.

Of added benefit, both cities had only moderate civilian populations, and evacuation from the cities of civilians was very high.

The only logical and sensible conclusion to come to is that the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was correct. It fulfilled all of the key objectives:

1) Both cities contained vital military targets, the destruction of which would have substantial negative impact on Japan's ability to resist an invasion
2) Having been selected, both cities were left relatively unscathed by conventional attacks, ensuring a "clean slate" to assess the scope of the new weapon's destructive power and to maximise the psychological impact of the city-destroying bomb.

[Travis]

Other factors on targeting where the physical limitations of the planes and crews. Tibbet had a hand picked squadron with modified planes that had practiced the procedure of dropping the bomb. (I can not imagine what he thought when he was told about the bomb and then told he had to figure out how to use the thing in combat) During their practice it was realized that there were limitations in how they could do it. A big one was range which more or less confined targeting to the southern islands. Another was geography as they needed someplace free of wind eddies that might throw off targeting and impede their "break away" procedure. That more or less meant they had to target someplace not in high mountains. Another was utility. They knew that targeting from 30,000 feet was imprecise at best so they needed someplace that if the bomb was a 1/4-1/2 mile off it would still take out something of military importance. That meant you needed a cluster of targets not just one single one.

With all that done the list of targets was short and then it got shorter when Marshall nixed two targets, Tokyo and Kyoto. Tokyo was out because of the fear that it might lead to a decapitation of government that would leave no one to decide to, and then organize, a surrender. Kyoto was out because it was felt to have too few military targets and would foster great enmity from the Japanese because of its cultural importance.

Bottom line is choosing targets for such a weapon, especially when you had no idea if it would work or how powerful it might be, is very hard.

[politas]

In my opinion war is always immoral. And therefore any act of war is, by definition, also immoral.
So you don't morally distinguish between an attacker and a defender in case of war?

What about in a case of assault? If someone comes at me with a knife, and I grab a stick and knock them unconscious, is my act of defence immoral?

If you treat the two cases differently, why? What makes aggression between nations inherently more immoral than aggression between individuals?

[gumboot]

So you don't morally distinguish between an attacker and a defender in case of war?

I said any act of war was immoral. I didn't say there was no moral distinction between either side of a conflict. If we take WW2, the UK had the moral high ground over Germany. However the British bombing of Berlin was equally as immoral as the German bombing of Berlin.



What about in a case of assault? If someone comes at me with a knife, and I grab a stick and knock them unconscious, is my act of defence immoral?

No.


If you treat the two cases differently, why? What makes aggression between nations inherently more immoral than aggression between individuals?

Because aggression between nations involves the killing of large numbers of people and widespread destruction of property. Unless you're Neo and Agent Smith, or some other super hero, conflicts between individuals seldom achieve such levels of violence.

[Lithrael]

(...) if you really want to see a first-hand picture of what Japanese culture was like at the end of WWII, go find a copy of Keiji Nakazawa's, "Barefoot Gen." ("Hadashi no Gen")

Yeah, that. That right there is what put the fear of the Bomb in me, big time.

And yes, Cicero, I know other innocent children were suffering horribly by more mundane means at the time and I know the way I feel is not a completely rational thing. But it kept me awake at night for months.

I'm actually grateful it's so very clear that Japanese culture at the time was so clearly overridden by nationalistic insanity, to the point where I can understand that Hiroshima was the best option Truman had. On the other hand I am not in the least convinced that much of anyone in charge actually cared what happened to the victims of the bomb. On the other-other hand I understand that is generally how people dealt with the fact of being stuck in a war against an enemy as awful and committed as Japan was.

[drkitten]

So you don't morally distinguish between an attacker and a defender in case of war?

Who's "the attacker"? Who's "the defender"? To the best of my knowledge, Tojo never saw Pearl Harbor in his life --- and I know that Kaiser Wilhelm died without ever seeing Paris, even after WWI.

The soldiers that you seem so gung-ho about killing, "morally," are just normal folks whom some nutcase has handed a gun and told "go take that city." If it's moral to kill them for the actions of their commanders, it's moral to kill the civilians for the actions of their rulers.

Why does it bother you to kill Nejikawa Reiko, a hypothetical 16-year old girl who lived in Nagasaki, but not her elder brother Taro, who got drafted and handed a bamboo spear? I assure you that he is no more interested in getting nuked than she is....

International law has an answer, but I'm afraid it's not the answer you're looking for....

[Giz]

the British bombing of Berlin was equally as immoral as the German bombing of Berlin.



Those Berliners just couldn't get a break.

[Dragoonster]

This has been a very interesting thread. As always with these sorts of topics, the temptation to apply hindsight is difficult to avoid, and I see a lot of it being applied in this thread. This is particularly important when assessing morality because morality is a judgment of rightness or wrongness, and it is easy to find others in the wrong when measured against your own very different value system.

It can, therefore, be very difficult to know how to approach something like the atomic bombings. I personally prefer to avoid the question of morality altogether.

In my opinion war is always immoral. And therefore any act of war is, by definition, also immoral.

But accepting that wars do happen and are sometimes unavoidable, the only moral way of approaching warfare is to attempt to end it as quickly and cleanly as possible.

So the only real worthwhile measure is to ask whether the atomic bombings helped to end the war more quickly and more cleanly than the other options available. And remember, this has to be applied in the context of the war itself. It does no good to point out, 60 years after the fact, that the Emperor of Japan was considering surrender through the Russians, if the USA were oblivious to this fact at the time.

Good points, but they have to be applied consistently. If the Japanese believed the quickest and cleanest way to win a war in China was to massacre and rape civilians as they took territory, and/or their statisticians predicted a net civilian loss if they didn't, then the only "logical and sensible conclusion" was that they were correct in doing so. It does no good to point out after the fact that they wouldn't be able to win that territory and eventually defeat their enemies, if they thought they could at the time.

To not fit your argument, it would have to be demonstrated that at the time, the Japanese saw no military advantage from raping/killing civilians. I'm not aware one way or the other. But that wasn't a defense at trials after the war, some of which invented new definitions of war crimes. And imo it shouldn't be a defense against today's criticism of Japanese atrocties--but also not a defense for criticism of dubious Allied actions. We have to either be capable of criticisim of both; or incapable of criticism of both. Not capable of one, but incapable of the other*.

*the only way we could is if there was a very clear distinction between the types of actions taken. But both occurred during warfare, both could be argued to be tied to a military/political/psychological objective, both could have been the wisest, most moral, most utilitarian, most X decisions that the leaders thought they had available.

[politas]

Who's "the attacker"? Who's "the defender"? To the best of my knowledge, Tojo never saw Pearl Harbor in his life --- and I know that Kaiser Wilhelm died without ever seeing Paris, even after WWI.I don't see the relevance to my question, but I think it's pretty obvious that the AXIS nations were the attackers in WWII. That's not a matter of opinion, that's established fact. They aggressively attacked neighbouring countries.

The soldiers that you seem so gung-ho about killing, "morally," are just normal folks whom some nutcase has handed a gun and told "go take that city." If it's moral to kill them for the actions of their commanders, it's moral to kill the civilians for the actions of their rulers. Woah, woah, woah! Hold on just a minute, here. I think you need to calm down, take a deep breath, and carefully read what people are saying before you hit that "quote" button. I don't see anybody here being "gung-ho" about killing anyone, and especially not me. I just asked a few questions about one poster's statement.

Why does it bother you to kill Nejikawa Reiko, a hypothetical 16-year old girl who lived in Nagasaki, but not her elder brother Taro, who got drafted and handed a bamboo spear? I assure you that he is no more interested in getting nuked than she is....I'm rather against killing either of them, myself, and I'm very glad I wasn't in the position to have to deal with that situation.

International law has an answer, but I'm afraid it's not the answer you're looking for....I think you have formed an opinion of what I am looking for on very scanty information, and I doubt it is in any way accurate.

[politas]

I said any act of war was immoral. I didn't say there was no moral distinction between either side of a conflict. If we take WW2, the UK had the moral high ground over Germany. However the British bombing of Berlin was equally as immoral as the German bombing of Berlin.
So how does a nation defend itself from another nation committed to a course of aggression, without committing acts of war? Since you agree that defence in response to aggression is morally valid, what other option is there?

Because aggression between nations involves the killing of large numbers of people and widespread destruction of property. Unless you're Neo and Agent Smith, or some other super hero, conflicts between individuals seldom achieve such levels of violence.What you are saying is that morality is dependant on the number of people being affected. Defence against an individual is moral, but defence against a nation is immoral. That makes no sense to me. If a nation is attacking you, you have to defend against the whole nation.

How can you separate the military and leaders of a nation from the people of the nation that support them, or at the very least enable their actions through assent? Every conscripted soldier, every person working to supply food or materiel to the soldiers on the front line must surely share some of the guilt? A country that allows its leaders to use its own population as a shield, and as a weapon of aggression, cannot be permitted to continue.

I don't think we have the right to sit in our safe lives here in the twenty-first century and judge the actions of those who defended themselves against an aggressive force that we cannot even truly comprehend today. They were judged by their contemporaries. Leave it there. Let us judge our contemporaries for their actions today, in today's situations, with today's options, and today's moralities.

[drkitten]

I don't see the relevance to my question, but I think it's pretty obvious that the AXIS nations were the attackers in WWII. That's not a matter of opinion, that's established fact. They aggressively attacked neighbouring countries.

And how do you kill or injure a "nation"?

"Nations" don't become casualties, except metaphorically -- only people do. How do you get from the aggression of a "nation" to a list of the people (who comprise that nation) whom it is acceptable to kill?

You're complaining about killing civilians for acts taken by the "nation," but are okay with killing soldiers for those same acts. Why?

[Cicero]

Who's "the attacker"? Who's "the defender"? To the best of my knowledge, Tojo never saw Pearl Harbor in his life --- and I know that Kaiser Wilhelm died without ever seeing Paris, even after WWI.

International law has an answer, but I'm afraid it's not the answer you're looking for....

International law? Maybe Truman should have issued a subpoena to Hirohito instead of a demand for unconditional surrender.

In your mind, it is necessary for the leader of a country to be present at the location of the attack in order for their country to be considered the initiator of waging aggressive war?

I guess you really need to substitute Hirohito for Tojo, or Chief of the General Staff Paul von Hidenberg for Kaiser Wilhelm for consistency.

BTW: Truman didn't visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the A-Bombs were dropped. I guess that makes him the defender in your theoretical world.

[gumboot]

Good points, but they have to be applied consistently. If the Japanese believed the quickest and cleanest way to win a war in China was to massacre and rape civilians as they took territory, and/or their statisticians predicted a net civilian loss if they didn't, then the only "logical and sensible conclusion" was that they were correct in doing so. It does no good to point out after the fact that they wouldn't be able to win that territory and eventually defeat their enemies, if they thought they could at the time.

You may have a point, and if you could provide some evidence that Japan felt committing atrocities was a cleaner method than the alternative, I'd be interested to take a look at it. However in my experience that's not what the motivation was.

One of the key reasons behind laws of armed conflict is to attempt to make it as clean and swift as possible. So as a general rule, breaking those laws means making things messier.


To not fit your argument, it would have to be demonstrated that at the time, the Japanese saw no military advantage from raping/killing civilians.

Not really. Given that guidelines existed for how to conduct clean warfare, unless a country had specific reasons to assume that breaking those rules would make for cleaner warfare, they should abide by them.

So if there's any evidence that Japan thought their actions in China would make the war cleaner, let's hear it. I don't think that's why it happened at all, so I don't buy it. Atrocity is inherently messy and inherently unnecessary from a military position.


But that wasn't a defense at trials after the war, some of which invented new definitions of war crimes. And imo it shouldn't be a defense against today's criticism of Japanese atrocties--but also not a defense for criticism of dubious Allied actions. We have to either be capable of criticisim of both; or incapable of criticism of both. Not capable of one, but incapable of the other*.

I agree completely. Of course any aggressor is automatically on the back foot because if the best moral position is to end the war as quickly and cleanly as possible, they can achieve this simply by not starting the war in the first place.


But both occurred during warfare, both could be argued to be tied to a military/political/psychological objective, both could have been the wisest, most moral, most utilitarian, most X decisions that the leaders thought they had available.

Hence why I think the laws of war should be used as the basic guideline. They have been established over centuries of warfare for the explicit purpose of minimising the negative impact of wars by separating out the military and civilian elements of a population.

The two events are dramatically distinguished in that one breached the laws of war and one did not.

[gumboot]

So how does a nation defend itself from another nation committed to a course of aggression, without committing acts of war? Since you agree that defence in response to aggression is morally valid, what other option is there?

I think it is possible to maintain a broadly moral position whilst still performing immoral deeds.


What you are saying is that morality is dependant on the number of people being affected. Defence against an individual is moral, but defence against a nation is immoral.

No I'm not. You're still arguing positions of conflict. I am talking specific physical acts. Not all acts of defence against an individual are moral either.


That makes no sense to me. If a nation is attacking you, you have to defend against the whole nation.

I agree. And further you have a right to perform (immoral) acts of war against said whole nation too.


How can you separate the military and leaders of a nation from the people of the nation that support them, or at the very least enable their actions through assent? Every conscripted soldier, every person working to supply food or materiel to the soldiers on the front line must surely share some of the guilt? A country that allows its leaders to use its own population as a shield, and as a weapon of aggression, cannot be permitted to continue.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I don't believe I suggested anything of the sort.


I don't think we have the right to sit in our safe lives here in the twenty-first century and judge the actions of those who defended themselves against an aggressive force that we cannot even truly comprehend today. They were judged by their contemporaries. Leave it there. Let us judge our contemporaries for their actions today, in today's situations, with today's options, and today's moralities.

Of course we have the right to judge them. The entire purpose of the study of history is to judge our past and attempt to learn from their right and wrong actions, to improve our own actions in the present.

You seem to be assuming that the only sort of judgment for given actions that can be made is a moral one. I disagree. As I said, given a premise that all war is immoral, the only useful measure of judgment is whether an act allowed the war to end more swiftly and cleanly, or whether it did not. That requires no arbitrary moral judgment whatsoever.

I laid out my personal judgment against the bombings, and found them to be the correct thing to do. Were I magically transported back into 1945, and given the position of authority, based on that judgment I would have dropped the bombs, knowing at the time that it was simultaneously immoral, yet also the right thing to do.

[politas]

And how do you kill or injure a "nation"? By removing the ability of the people who make up that nation to govern themselves, in whatever means they choose to do so.

"Nations" don't become casualties, except metaphorically -- only people do. How do you get from the aggression of a "nation" to a list of the people (who comprise that nation) whom it is acceptable to kill?I don't know. I've never been in a position where I have had to judge such matters, and am quite glad about that.

You're complaining about killing civilians for acts taken by the "nation," but are okay with killing soldiers for those same acts. Why?I think you must be thinking of someone else. I haven't made any complaints about anyone killing civilians.

[politas]

I think it is possible to maintain a broadly moral position whilst still performing immoral deeds.Ah, fair enough. I can see your viewpoint. I'm not certain I share it, but it seems internally consistent. It does seem to lead to "ends justify the means" thinking, though.

No I'm not. You're still arguing positions of conflict. I am talking specific physical acts. Not all acts of defence against an individual are moral either.How so? Do you mean things such as escalation of conflict? If someone pulls a knife on me, it would be immoral for me to shoot him - that kind of thing?

I agree. And further you have a right to perform (immoral) acts of war against said whole nation too.If you have a moral right to perform those acts, doesn't that mean they are not immoral?

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I don't believe I suggested anything of the sort.I was waffling a bit, sorry. That was more directed at other posters.

Of course we have the right to judge them. The entire purpose of the study of history is to judge our past and attempt to learn from their right and wrong actions, to improve our own actions in the present.Only in so far as the situations are comparable. Weapons technology has advanced to a level of precision that makes these particular questions irrelevant, in my opinion. Modern military forces aren't going to be dropping bombs from planes, with all the inaccuracies inherent in such a proposition. They'll be using precisely targeted missiles.

You seem to be assuming that the only sort of judgment for given actions that can be made is a moral one. I disagree. As I said, given a premise that all war is immoral, the only useful measure of judgment is whether an act allowed the war to end more swiftly and cleanly, or whether it did not. That requires no arbitrary moral judgment whatsoever.Uh, no. I think that the moral question is an irrelevant one. If we are going to learn anything from historical wars, what we should be learning is the effects and after-effects of the choices that can be made, so that moral decisions can be made based on an accurate assessment of the consequences. Whether a past tactic or action was moral or immoral in its historical context is irrelevant.

[gumboot]

Ah, fair enough. I can see your viewpoint. I'm not certain I share it, but it seems internally consistent. It does seem to lead to "ends justify the means" thinking, though.

I guess it could. You could see the "cleanly as possible" aspect as a safeguard against that.


How so? Do you mean things such as escalation of conflict? If someone pulls a knife on me, it would be immoral for me to shoot him - that kind of thing?

Yes, that would be fair to say.


If you have a moral right to perform those acts, doesn't that mean they are not immoral?

I guess most people would probably say yes, but I don't see it that way. I think or morality in terms of absolute limits of behaviour. I think sometimes you have no choice but to exceed those limits, and I think you have a right to do so if necessary, but I don't think that changes the fact that you've done something wrong.


Only in so far as the situations are comparable. Weapons technology has advanced to a level of precision that makes these particular questions irrelevant, in my opinion.

I think I'd agree with that.


Modern military forces aren't going to be dropping bombs from planes, with all the inaccuracies inherent in such a proposition. They'll be using precisely targeted missiles.

I wouldn't agree with this. Modern military forces use bombs extensively. Very accurate bombs, but bombs nonetheless. (This is more an argument of technical precision than anything - what is true of precision missiles is equally true of precision bombs).


Uh, no. I think that the moral question is an irrelevant one. If we are going to learn anything from historical wars, what we should be learning is the effects and after-effects of the choices that can be made, so that moral decisions can be made based on an accurate assessment of the consequences. Whether a past tactic or action was moral or immoral in its historical context is irrelevant.

Then we are in violent agreement. :)

[politas]

I guess most people would probably say yes, but I don't see it that way. I think or morality in terms of absolute limits of behaviour. I think sometimes you have no choice but to exceed those limits, and I think you have a right to do so if necessary, but I don't think that changes the fact that you've done something wrong.I don't think an "absolute limit of behaviour" that you morally have no choice but to exceed is actually an "absolute limit". Not the way I see that particular term, anyway.

In terms of the gun to a knife fight, I think you should reconsider. If an attacker pulls a knife out, I would probably assume that my chances of defeating him if I pull a knife are probably slim, since I have not practised knife-fighting much for a long time. Why should I limit myself to defence methods that give him the opportunity to hurt me? Where do you draw the limit? Can I morally bring a sword to a knife fight? How about a slightly longer knife? Given that I am defending against a hostile opponent, rather than fighting a duel.

If I pulled out a gun and waved it at him (note here this is entirely hypothetical; I don't now and never intend to own a gun), he might even back down from the threat itself and flee. And isn't that a better conclusion for both of us?

I wouldn't agree with this. Modern military forces use bombs extensively. Very accurate bombs, but bombs nonetheless. (This is more an argument of technical precision than anything - what is true of precision missiles is equally true of precision bombs).My point is still relevant, if you ignore my woeful lack of knowledge about precision bombs. I thought that anything that's precisely guided is called a missile.

[moon1969]

Harry Truman will always be a war criminal because of Hiroshima. Sure Japan did bad things during WW2 but they didn"t support Stalin the sameway Truman and FDR did.

[politas]

Harry Truman will always be a war criminal because of Hiroshima. Sure Japan did bad things during WW2 but they didn"t support Stalin the sameway Truman and FDR did.

Congratulations on such a well-reasoned and detailed essay on the topic. You have convinced me completely.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Not according to history. Raping and pillaging was one of the most succesful strategies which is one reason why it is used to this day.


Rape and pillage are used as tools of subjugation, not as a military stratagem.

They used to say, "to the victor go the spoils." The other side's girls and the other side's stuff were those spoils.

Before even that, the custom was to kill all the males, all the non-virgin women and all the babies who couldn't survive without a wet nurse, then marry what was left of the females to men in the army.

Both things happened pretty much after the battle was over and the new regime had taken over.

Even back then, after one city fell, the occupants of the nearby cities looked at the aftermath and let out a collective, "oh, HELL no," and buckled down either to some deadly serious defense or some equally serious getting-the-hell-out-of-Dodge.

Nowadays, rape and pillage are employed by the well-armed and organized against the displaced and poorly defended. It takes time to rape and both hands to pillage. If someone is capable of shooting back at you, it's very dangerous, so organizations that kidnap, rape, and pillage don't much like the idea of taking on anything close to an even fight.

I respect your opinion. I don't agree. Further, I'm glad that there are objective reasons not to agree. We can look at the advancement of warfare and see that morality has advanced in warfare and there is reason to believe that it will continue to do so.

I believe you're right about the advance of morality in warfare... up to a point.

It seems to me that the next several wars will not be so much between nations, but between nations and small, highly mobile, and secretive organizations whose primary goal is to advance a particular philosophy instead of securing their national sovereignty.

As such, while the big wars will be fought with increasing attention to the morals of the situation, the long wars will make up for it because that very violation of common morals is what they intend in order to cause fear and subsequent ill-conceived and poorly executed action by the target population. (Have you looked at, "The Patriot Act," for instance?!?! Sheesh.)

As a formerly young former soldier, I personally look forward to the day when nations will look at the possibility of a war and say to themselves, "what the heck are we thinking! Let's talk about this and find a solution that doesn't entail pushing young soldiers into the meat grinder and whole populations into the cookpot!!"

However, I'm afraid that even if all our national leaders do come to some semblance of reason, there will still be a few... a very tiny few... who will be looking at a mess of happy, industrious people going about their daily routine, and think, "now... if only I could, somehow, kill or cripple all of those guys...."

What was Ambrose Bierce's definition of a cynic? One who views the world through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye?

<<sigh>>

[d1artbob]

What boggles my mind is the thought that democratic national leaders are "war criminals," or "need to come to some semblance of reason." In almost every instance, they followed the basic rules of the life of the nation at war (assuming it was justified, another whole debate): (1) How can we win? (2) How can we survive? (3) What is the least loss of life possible? Killing civilians is not exactly fun. It hurts the conscience of a normal person. Yet, if you weigh the number of civilian deaths against an even greater number of civilian deaths (see Okinawa), military deaths, and general costs of war, you get a rational answer.
The ROOT rational answer is, of course, don't go to war. But, how long has it taken Europe to realize this? Centuries, if you start at either the Protestant Revolution or The Enlightenment. Perhaps experientia docet, but it takes time. War might end when all nations and institutions realize its futility. Even the asymmetrical attempt of the Jihadists will fail. Will it, and other rallying points take four centuries to realize the root answer to the root question: "Shall we go to war?"

[d1artbob]

What boggles...

[Cicero]

Harry Truman will always be a war criminal because of Hiroshima. Sure Japan did bad things during WW2 but they didn"t support Stalin the sameway Truman and FDR did.

Truman did ask the entire country of Japan to stand in the corner for their "bad things," but it is difficult to get them to listen when they are all hoped up on Coke and Hostess Twinkies.

I thought the argument by those who pretend the Japanese were already defeated before the A-bombs were dropped, was that Truman did this dastardly act because he wanted to keep the Soviets out of Japan. So how was Truman supposedly supporting Stalin in 1945?

[Peace]

I find it ironic when people say "Japan would have fought to the last man", or "we would have killed millions from starvation with a blockade". Yet they surrendered after losing 200,000 people.

First we're told they would never give up, then we're told the only way was using the atomic bombs. If that's not justification for dropping the bombs, I don't know what is.

[Corsair 115]

Peace, you have yet to explain the significance of why you criticise the atomic bombs but say nothing about conventional bombing. Conventional raids were every bit as destructive, and sometimes moreso, than the atomic bombings.

Why are the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki more deserving of your concern and pity than are the dead of Tokyo, Hamburg, Leningrad, or London?

[theprestige]

I find it ironic when people say "Japan would have fought to the last man", or "we would have killed millions from starvation with a blockade". Yet they surrendered after losing 200,000 people.

First we're told they would never give up, then we're told the only way was using the atomic bombs. If that's not justification for dropping the bombs, I don't know what is.
Yet they surrendered after losing 200,000 people to two bombs.

It's one thing when you expect your enemy to expend massive human and materiel resources to invade you inch by bloody inch, giving everybody in your country a chance to make them pay a monumental price in horror and death.

It's one thing when you expect your enemy to maintain a costly naval blockade indefinitely, while their coffers drain and their citizens clamor for and end to the whole thing, in the hope that you can wait them out and ultimately wring concessions from a weary foe impatient to move on.

It's another thing altogether when your enemy sorties a single bomber, armed with a single bomb, and destroys one of your cities. And then does it again, a week later.

[Peace]

Peace, you have yet to explain the significance of why you criticise the atomic bombs but say nothing about conventional bombing. Conventional raids were every bit as destructive, and sometimes moreso, than the atomic bombings.

Why are the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki more deserving of your concern and pity than are the dead of Tokyo, Hamburg, Leningrad, or London?

I don't agree with the fire bombing, killing of civilians, or war in general. I do have pity for everyone in the war, I was born and raised in London, and my dad fought in the war.

[Travis]

I don't agree with the fire bombing, killing of civilians, or war in general. I do have pity for everyone in the war, I was born and raised in London, and my dad fought in the war.

Great, you are against war. Guess what? So am I! So Kumbaya let's join hands and outlaw war so we'll never have to deal with it again. Because outlawed things can't happen once they're illegal.:rolleyes:


Incidentally one famous person who hated firebombing, as he thought it was ethically repugnant, was none other than George C. Marshall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_c_marshall).