Marc2b
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Joined: 8/7/2006
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This thread may have started as a remembrance for those who died in the atomic bombings but no one should be surprised that it evolved (or devolved, depending on your point of view) into a debate about the rightness or wrongness of dropping the bombs. Conversation (and what are message boards if not a slow motion conversation?) naturally meanders and some topics just naturally give way to other topics.
I find it fascinating that Japan seems to have acquired victim status regarding World War Two despite the fact it was a militarily aggressive nation that fired the first shot and engaged in atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, forced labor, torture of prisoners, forcing women to be sex slaves, etc. No, Japan the nation was not an innocent. They brought ruin upon themselves. If there is one lesson nations seem unable to learn (despite repeated historical precedence) it is this – if you don’t want to suffer the carnage of war, Good Idea Number One would have to be: Don’t go around starting wars.
Still, two questions remain: were the atomic bombings militarily justifiable? Were they morally justifiable?
The first question is easy to answer – YES! In modern warfare it is not enough to defeat armies in the field, you must also destroy the means of production which create and supply those armies. That means pounding the living shit out of the enemy’s cities. Also, it is always militarily advantageous when you kill more of the enemy than they kill of you (that’s kind of the whole idea behind war). Nor can the psychological effect be dismissed. The Japanese knew they were defeated but that did not mean they were ready to surrender and if they could be shocked into surrendering (thus avoiding a costly invasion), so much the better. From a military point of view it would have been negligent not to drop the bombs.
The answer to the second question is a bit trickier. If you approach it from a moral absolutist position, then the answer must be no. But moral absolutism is moral cowardice, it absolves people from having to consider other perspectives. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is easy to have high moral principles so long as the consequences don’t affect you. It is easy to sit at your computer (sixty some years after the fact) and type away about how immoral the United States was in dropping the bombs when you weren’t the one sitting in the Oval Office having to make the decision. You’re were not the one who had to weigh the lives of your countrymen versus the lives of the enemy. You’re were not the one that had to decide prolonging the war (for months and possibly years) versus ending it now... and yes, you were not the one who had to decide whether or not the obvious new enemy on the horizon – the Soviet Union – couldn’t do with a demonstration of American power.
I do feel a sickening horror over the effects of the bombs upon their victims. I am not without sympathy for the agonies they suffered. Yet, at the same time, I can perfectly understand the response my grandfather (who had fought in Europe and almost certainly would have be transferred to the Pacific if the war had continued) gave whenever anyone asked him about the morality of dropping the bomb... "God bless America, God Bless Harry Truman, and God bless the fucking A-bomb."
A couple of other matters:
The Holocaust did happen. The evidence, both physical and testimonial is so overwhelming that to discuss whether or not it happened is silly – it would be like discussing whether or not the grass is green. That said, discussing how many people died in the holocaust is a legitimate inquiry. History is arguably the most biased of all disciplines, so it behooves us to try and be as accurate as we can. Still, it seems to me that getting worked up over whether the number was ten million or six million or "only" two million is silly. Even if it was "only" two million, I think that is more than sufficient to warrant checking off the Irredeemably Evil box next to the nazis.
DesertRat said:
quote:
I looked within. It's the lack of empathy, the coldness, that disturbs me. And, yeah, it does say something about the posters. Mixed in with the rational discussion of the facts and significance of the events are expressions of jingoism.
I would like to know on what basis you presume that a rational discussion of historical events equals a lack of empathy?
_____________________________
Do you know what the most awesome thing about being an Atheist is? You're not required to hate anybody!
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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 
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