Posted on 11/01/2007 11:58:06 AM PDT by pabianice
The mouth of the Lord can order such things, just as He could order the slaying of Isaac. Woe to the mere man who thinks he can do so, for such is delusion. I give you post #40, above.
I have several autographed photos of Tibbets, including that famous one of him waving out the window of the Enola Gay on the morning before the flight. This guy’s face belongs stamped on a U.S. coin, at the very least.
OK, you’re President Truman.
Choose one:
1) End the war by causing 150,000 civilian casualties and destroy two cities. The four year war has already caused 400,000 American deaths, and over 1,000,000 wounded.The Okinawa campaign has just ended with a frightful number of Americans killed, presaging the difficult bloody fight that will be needed to take Japan. The Navy daily suffers kamikaze attacks, in some cases, wiping out hundreds of Americans in a split second.
2) Invade Japan by land causing up to 9 million civilian and military deaths, destroying many cities, and having 250,000 Americans KIA and another 1,000,000 wounded in a fight to the death.
Choose quickly. Americans are dying daily.
You can pontificate about moral choices until the cows come home. But in reality, Truman made the only correct choice open to him.
And in doing so, he saved countless American and Japanese lives.
We can second guess decisions made 62 years ago, but we dare not disregard the context of the times.
We can take responsibility for Hiroshima, but the Japanese themselves are wholly responsible for Nagasaki. They could have surrendered then, but chose not to. Indeed their military officials plotted to the last second to prevent Hirohito from making his radio broadcast to the Japanese people announcing surrender, even after Nagasaki occurred..
Still losing 75,000-90,000 lives in Hiroshima and saving 9- 10 million is a dirty business but it had to be done to end the fanaticism of an empire that would have sacrificed its own people in a death duel that it knew it could never win.
President Truman made the right decision. As a result not only did the people on both sides live, but they went on to have innumerable children and grandchildren, who would have been cutoff had more people died in Japan in 1945-1946.
And before this War on Islamic Terror is over, similar choices will have to be made.
It's true that Washington and Lee would have considered such destruction barbaric according to the thinking of their times. Sherman might have considered it a necessary act. The thinking at the time of WWII was that in an era of industrial war civilian populations of workers were part of the ability of the enemy to continue to fight and thus were strategic targets. That said, it's my understanding that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted because they had been untouched by previous conventional bombing, not because of their military significance. I believe that this was done to show the Japanese the horrifying cost of continued resistance.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the United States sins, the destruction ended the war and given the thinking of the times were not barbaric acts.
Here's why:
a) You can't predict what would have been the result. That kind of moral calculus is impossible, and of course the troubled conscience is strongly motivated to continually inflate the estimates of what wouild have happened if #2 had been chosen.
A highly competent writer friend of mine, Mary Meehan --- much more competent in the investigative area than I am --- analyzed Truman's diaries and public statements on this subject. At first, he said the atomic bombing saved "n" lives. As time went on, and the body count from Hiroshima and Nagasaki went higher and higher, his estimates of how many lives it saved went to "2n," "3n," "25n" and so forth. A decent man doing what an appalled conscience needs to do, short of confession and repentance.
b) Saying that we can do any evil, even great evil in the eyes of humanity and God Himself, that greater good may come of it, is a line of moral reasoning that will be used to justify any sin. It's how Eve justified the first one.
Not to invoke the Argumentum ad Hitlerum, or even the Argumentum ad Saddam Husseinium, let's objectively note that it undercuts any possibility of arguing against any grave evil from infant craniotomy on up, if the doer thereof convinces himself that it was necessary to avoid a greater evil.
This boils down to "Thou shalt not commit murder --- unless thou art really, really tempted."
It makes you an enemy of God. Not a good bargain.
On the "Judeo" part (since you cite the O.T.) le me say that one reason I can respect the present-day Israeli military, is that as far as I can see they have conducted themselves, under unrelenting pressure, in a manner that befits a soldier's honor. Very forceful, decisive and efficient in wiping out military targets; conscientious about sparing noncombatant life and values.
The point I made about God's direct orders stands. Collateral deaths aside --- that's a separate question ---He forbids the direct and deliberate killing of the innocent, by which we mean not "ontologically perfect," but in context, people who are either noncombatants, or combatants who have been disarmed, captured, or damaged to the point where they can no longer aggress.
As I said, I am not a pacifist. I do believe in fighting to defend our people and our Judeo-Christian Civilization--- what's left of it. The ongoing breaking down the objective moral order, whether under the banner of Unconditional War or Women's Right to You Know What, has purchased us the death of our Civilization by our own hand.
I understand your argument, but it is based on error.
You could not pick #2 rationally, because you would have already, as Truman did, had the combat experience of Saipan and Okinawa to base your estimates of military and civilian casualties.
To condemn another 250,000 of your own soldiers to death needlessly to argue a moral principle would have made you complicit in the murder of 250,000 innocent men.
The whole question of millions of Japanese dying also would just be icing on the cake.
In 1945, for a President to do any less would have been a grave moral error.
Hand Salute...............two
Sincere request: I'd like to understand you better.
I stated "given the thinking of the times" not to suggest that we are somehow more enlightened now about unconditional war, but that we now have developed better ways of defeating our enemies while minimizing civilian casualties. If and when we face a mortal threat to our civilization as was faced back in WWII, our most terrible weapons will be used in the end as they were used then.
Mrs. Don-O, I have been a born again Christian for over 37 years, since I was a teenager.
I see that you know your Scriptures. But I am troubled by how you apply them.
In war there are few good choices. The best is to end the suffering as soon as possible. That’s why decisive victory is imperative.
War is murder, that is true. But is there righteous anger? Does the Lord use human agency to accomplish His will among men, including the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires? Absolutely.
My view is that the United States was used by God in WW2 to overcome great evil in the world and to ensure freedom would not be erased by the Fascist, Imperial, and Nazi forces.
You rightly point out in your posts that abortion is a horrible evil. I agree, because that is undeniably the shedding of innocent blood.
But I have no compunction at all about having a death penalty for murderers.
Both take a life, but one is innocent and the other is not.
The Empire of Japan was a monstrous evil. By only having 150,000 of their people die in the atomic blasts was a great mercy to them.
I know that sounds harsh, but it is reality, in my opinion. You and I can discuss and agree that we individually would not murder, but as the head of a nation in a horrible war, our decisions would be based on other criteria.
Thank you, though, for your civil replies. I am sure that it will cause many thoughtful reflections on those who read the thread.
Yours respectfully,
exit82
I too thank you for your civil and thoughtful tone, which I wish we would see a whole lot more often on FR. Your type of post is what FR is supposed to be all about: reasoning together about those most important issues of our day.
I too am a Christian, and I must assume that you and I would agree that God surpasses us infinitely in wisdom, and so deserves our obedience above all earthly things. (I don’t match this in practice, but I know what I am called to.)
“(a)In war there are few good choices. (b)The best is to end the suffering as soon as possible.”
I agree with (a). As to (b), I would say “The best is to wage it according to God’s law or -— for those who are not disciples -— according to justice as we know it by natural reason.”
“Ending the suffering” is of course important, but I would not put it at the top. The jihadis, for instance, seem to be putting Europe in a head-lock, and too many EU’s seem to want to avoid suffering simply by conceding them everything as soon as they demand it. One could minimize suffering by preemptive surrender. I do not counsel that. I counsel waging just war. I would not counsel ending the just war until the immediate aggressors are crushed.
“War is murder, that is true.”
I disagree. War is not murder. War is a righteous and honorable thing, and a warrior is a righteous and honorable man, if it is a just war.
“But is there righteous anger?”
Yes.
“Does the Lord use human agency to accomplish His will among men, including the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires?”
Yes.
[I would interject here: “Does the Lord depend on us to disobey His commands, so that His will can be achieved?”]
“My view is that the United States was used by God in WW2 to overcome great evil in the world and to ensure freedom would not be erased by the Fascist, Imperial, and Nazi forces.”
True. We had just cause to enter WWII and, to the best of our ability, to crush the Nazi military and their co-murderers to the ground.
“You rightly point out in your posts that abortion is a horrible evil. I agree, because that is undeniably the shedding of innocent blood...But I have no compunction at all about having a death penalty for murderers”
I agree.
“Both take a life, but one is innocent and the other is not.”
Right. That’s the crucial difference.
“(a)The Empire of Japan was a monstrous evil.(b) By only having 150,000 of their people die in the atomic blasts was a great mercy to them.”
(a) True.
(b) This is not morally in our hands. We have no right to deliberately annihilate civilians; we have the right -— and duty -— to annihilate their war machine.
“[As] a nation in a horrible war, our decisions would be based on other criteria.”
You assert this, but can you defend it? Has God ever said, “All commandments suspended for the duration”? I believe -—within limits -— in the separation of Church and State. I do not believe in the Separation of God from Real Life.
What reason or evidence can you offer that the most fundamental moral violation is better than physical suffering?
Exit82, I am trying to argue seriously without using unfair, grandstanding rhetoric. If I have overstated in any respect,I ask your pardon and I ask you to point it out to me so I can avoid that fault in the future.
Final question: is there any reason why we shouldn’t post both your private message, and my present reply, onto the main thread?
With sincere respect,
Mrs. Don-o
You evidently took a lot of time to reply to my message to you. I give you a lot of credit for defending your position, and I too, am happy that we can disagree without being disagreeable.
I admire that you strive not to separate what God’s commands are from how you conduct your personal life. It would be wonderful if more people chose to do this, who name the name of Christ.
I think where we differ is on the point of how one might act personally may not necessarily be the way one acts when the mantle of leadership is on their shoulders. You will most likely, at this juncture, say that this is hypocrisy, and I can see that. One not always act in leadership as one would act as a person?
When we act as a person we are responsible for ourselves. When we act as a leader, we are responsible for a group, often a very large group.
Such a leader was President Truman. He was a very forthright man, one not known for being devious. I would venture to guess that he, when the Presidency was thrust upon him, felt the weight of every American combat death, as well as the loss of innocent life that occurred daily as a result of collateral damage in military operations around the globe.
Gone were the days of armies gallantly meeting on fields of honor to duke it out mano a mano. This was the age of military operations, targets, and maneuvering amongst civilian populations, many times deliberately so.
In the face of this, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not just pristine islands of non-war activity. There was transport, manufacturing, and the incessant and now, because of imminent invasion, strident efforts being made for last ditch defenses of these cities. The moral code of the Japanese Empire would require each person to give their all in defense of the Emperor, whom they considered a living god.
You can say these are just innocent civilians, but they would have been the cause of American combat deaths during a land invasion of Japan due to the moral code they lived under. As was seen on Saipan and Okinawa, efforts to reason with Japanese soldiers and civilians facing imminent defeat were met with mass suicides.
The Japanese civilian population, in this instance, was to become a weapon of the Japanese Empire and willingly so, so great was their fanaticism. To defeat them would have meant horrendous casualties on both sides.
I would have made the same decision as President Truman, with the means of victory at my disposal. I could stand in front of God and say:
” Lord, I did my best to stop the killing as soon as I could. I made the decision that would shock a fanatical empire into reason, as it was preparing to self annihilate itself. Lord, I balanced the lives of both military and civilian Japanese inhabitants versus the number of lives that would have been lost trying to do this in the conventional way.I personally would have wished there was another way, Lord, but I could not justify the killing and maiming of almost a million of my own people for another people that refused my repeated entreaties to surrender. My people fought long and brave and sacrificed—I could not ask much more of them, when there was a quicker way to avoid much more bloodshed on both sides. I did my duty to my country Lord, as best as I could see how, with the hope of ending the losses on both sides. You know I did not delight in killing, but only in ending the conflict.
If I was wrong, then I ask for Your mercy.”
As a human being, I would make that defense. How the Lord would judge me, I cannot say. But I know that I was true to myself. I would trust God’s wisdom because He knows the heart of a man, and judges that even more so than the actions of a man.
War can be righteous, but blood is shed in every conflict of man, both innocent and guilty. So when I say war is murder, this is what I mean—it always involves killing, which is murder.
In history, the Lord has used both just and unjust peoples and empires to accomplish His purposes, even when it came to judging Israel, the apple of His eye.
Realize also that Japan was quite complicit in the murder of its own people, by demanding of them the ultimate sacrifice in the face of certain defeat.
You cannot reason with such an enemy—they must be dealt a decisive blow that ends their will to continue the fight.
I think we can use the example of how we treated our vanquished enemies, both Germany and Japan, after the war as proof that we were a just people. Never before in history did a world power act to benefit its conquered foes, to provide for them, to feed them, to build them up economically, at great financial cost to itself. Never before has a country acted to free other people or wage war, without the plunder of the defeated and the gain of resources and territory.
War is a messy business, and it always will be. Split second decisions are made on the field of battle with eternal consequences and with subsequent regrets,but they are not always just, pure and according to God’s moral code.
He knows our frame and it is dust.
As to your last question, if you feel it best to post these exchanges, I have no problem with that. Perhaps it will evoke even greater thought and discussion.
Mrs. Don-o. my mother always said to me “To thine own self be true.” You have been so to your beliefs, and I encourage you to always be so. God bless you.
exit82
My Dad’s family is from Primrose Nebraska . 13 men from that town served in WW2 , 5 were my uncles.
Three were in the Pacific. By the grace of God & the A-bomb they all made it back home alive. HAPPINESS IS A MUSHROOM CLOUD!!!!
The Intel.Officer still had personal notes used to give briefings on the number of casualties expected from an invasion & the numbers were over 1 million American casualties & better than 4 TIMES that number of Japanese casualties mostly civilian .
We were literally planning to use everything in the shot locker on any resistance regardless of the casualties to non-combatants ie civilians . The plans called for the use of firebombing & also the use of poison gas to reduce defensive strong points.
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