tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6955569682734184307.post4288140559596388717..comments2023-05-13T05:31:29.844-04:00Comments on The Hubster: A dark cloudJimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16952618158664674100noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6955569682734184307.post-86458576388781224332009-08-06T13:30:38.874-04:002009-08-06T13:30:38.874-04:00Thank you both for the thoughtful comments. I have...Thank you both for the thoughtful comments. I have several responses:<br /><br />1. The quandary in Eric's opening paragraph in his first comment is a difficult one to parse. He wrote, "...deliberately and directly targeting non-combatants is never morally permissible, whereas unintentional civilian casualties that occur despite strict measures to avoid them is a tragedy but not necessarily immoral." I would generally agree with that statement (though my inclination is to pick apart whether choosing military action is inherently immoral -- though WWII is perhaps the easiest case to make), but in our particular historical instance the United States knew that it was likely that millions of Japanese civilians would be killed in an invasion, many of those spurred by honor, propaganda and brainwashing to pick up any weapon or implement at hand to attack US soldiers. I’m not sure if American government and military leaders knew how many would be killed by the atomic bombs, but how do we apply Eric’s standard if they were relatively certain that 5 million civilians would die in an invasion, but fewer than a half million using the bombs?<br /><br />2. Eric also writes, “…why didn't we get the emperor to get on a cruiser and watch us blow off a few bombs…” Sadly, even if this had been logistically possible, it may not have done anything. First, Hirohito knew the war was unwinnable for a while, yet he refused to step up and order his military leadership to cease hostilities. Second, the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb did not shock him into acting – as it would have almost anyone – and neither did the Nagasaki bomb. He and other top Japanese officials were still trying to get their empire the best terms for an armistice. Only when the Soviets reneged on their agreement with Japan and attacked the empire’s interests in China – and prepared to attack Japan itself – was Hirohito willing to surrender, as the very survival of the country was in jeopardy. Even then, Japan surrendered only with the understanding that the emperor would remain the titular head of the country. He seems to have been a vain, careless and foolish man.<br /><br />3. Eric’s second comment, that “more Japanese were probably killed by all the firebombing done across the nation than by the atomic bombs,” is true and it is one of the points that James Carroll makes in the column that N.starluna provides a link to. In just the last six months of the war, he tells us, the American firebombing of Japanese cities killed more than one million people. This fact, among others, Carroll writes, “had already made moot the ethical question about using the atomic bomb.” As is the case for my first point, the options we’re talking about and the events that surrounded them were so horrific that it reminds me of a line of dialogue from one of my favorite films, “Apocalypse Now”: “…charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.”<br /><br />4. As Carroll points out, we have the ability to see historical events in the context of decisions, actions and events that came afterwards. The US developed the bomb because we feared that the Germans were developing one; we used it on Japan to end the war – and probably as much to intimidate the Soviets; the Soviet Union developed the bomb and the two countries engaged in an arms race that defined the end of the 20th century and its numerous proxy wars; eventually other countries acquired nuclear capabilities, pointing weapons at each other and destabilizing the world; advances in technologies and breakdowns in governments make it more and more likely that a non-state entity (al-Qaida, for example) can get nuclear material and could use it to kill a large number of people. This seems to me to be the way everything works: once something is created, developed or released (AIDS, the Internet, CO2) it has a life of its own and there is virtually no way to know what direction and form it will take – and no way to get it back under control.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952618158664674100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6955569682734184307.post-47864530773409566542009-08-05T12:13:17.092-04:002009-08-05T12:13:17.092-04:00James Carroll did a thoughtful op-ed about this on...James Carroll did a thoughtful op-ed about this on Monday. <br /><br />I particularly like this part:<br /><br />"To firmly regret atomic use in the past is to invite absolute renunciation of nuclear weapons in the present and future. That there was an untried way to act then means there is an untried way to act now."<br /><br />http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/03/reinterpreting_early_august/N.starlunahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11558893672026000878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6955569682734184307.post-13464099799557563582009-08-04T21:42:40.366-04:002009-08-04T21:42:40.366-04:00Another sad fact - more Japanese were probably kil...Another sad fact - more Japanese were probably killed by all the firebombing done across the nation than by the atomic bombs. I wonder why that's rarely spoken of? Maybe because the a-bombs ushered in the atomic age and all its madness?E. Bradleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11607894116262911826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6955569682734184307.post-37175142640358946632009-08-04T21:41:41.883-04:002009-08-04T21:41:41.883-04:00The morality of the thing is especially difficult ...The morality of the thing is especially difficult to wrangle if it's true that more Japanese civilians would have been killed by an invasion. But deliberately and directly targeting non-combatants is never morally permissible, whereas unintentional civilian casualties that occur despite strict measures to avoid them is a tragedy but not necessarily immoral. <br /><br />Here's a thought - why didn't we get the emperor to get on a cruiser and watch us blow off a few bombs on an uninhabited area and then let it sink in a bit?<br /><br />Or why didn't we give the Japanese some time to digest the FIRST bomb going off instead of blowing another city into oblivion a few days later before the damage could really be surveyed?E. Bradleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11607894116262911826noreply@blogger.com