The Hiroshima Rorschach Test

WAll Street Journal ^ | August 6, 2009 | WARREN KOZAK

[libstripper]

On this day 64 years ago, an American B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. We know that as many as 80,000 Japanese died instantly. We know the city was pulverized, and we know that an estimated 100,000 additional people died later from radiation poisoning. We also are aware that the Hiroshima bomb, and the Nagasaki bomb dropped three days later, ushered in the atomic era.

At the time of the event, 85% of the American public favored dropping the atomic bombs, according to a Gallup poll (10% disapproved). Over the years, that attitude has changed. By 2005, Gallup found only 57% of Americans thought the bomb was necessary, while 38% disapproved. Most of those polled were born after the event.

[Huck]

Well, the Church has the luxury of taking such a position. They don’t have to defend themselves. As far as I can tell, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not indiscriminate. They were intentional. The enemy was warned. As for the commandments, Jesus did die for a reason, didn’t He?

[Clemenza]

It should be common sense to conclude that a full scale invasion of a heavily armed, urbanized country would result in the deaths of considerably more civilians than two strategically dropped atomic bombs. Unfortunately, many people are delusional or not quite bright.

The bombs SAVED lives, American AND Japanese.

[BlueLancer]

Little Boy Boogie:

Wake up, Little Boy.
No, it's not for tests or school.
It's a lovely day to laugh and play,
and dance in the dust of Tehran.

Come on, sleepy head,
It's been such a long long while,
That the world's almost forgotten
The brilliance of your smile.

Let's fly on to Mecca,
We'll go skipping cross the dunes.
We'll have such fun, we'll outshine the Sun,
And shout echoes off the Moon.

My bright shining boyo,
You've been sleeping far too long.
Time to climb from your deep deep bed,
And sing your happy song.

Come open your present,
Take a look what you just got:
A brand new cobalt jacket!
Man, I tell you these are hot.

Little Boy, time to go now;
Bring your friend the Fat Man too.
We'll have such fun, we'll outshine the Sun,
And dance in the dust of Tehran.

Original by “NOOdleNogg1n” (FreeRepublic)
17 Sept 01

Adapted by BlueLancer (FreeRepublic)
6 Aug 09

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RESISTOR

Swear allegiance to the flag, whatever flag they offer;
Never hint at what you really feel.
Teach the children quietly for, someday, sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still.

Der Elite Møøsënspåånkængrüppen ØberKømmändø (EMØØK)

[101voodoo]

My take is it was either invade the Islands and lose 500,000 or more troops and STILL kill possibly as many or more civilians, albeit over a longer period of time. save the lives of our boys and wrap the killing up quickly. After all 200,000 dead is 200,000 dead whether it be in 2 days or 2000 days.

Besides the Japanese were warned in advance to get the people OUT of the cities. Even after the Hiroshima bombing they STILL wouldn’t even evacuate Nagasaki.

Given the circumstances surrounding the war. I put the responsibility for the deaths of their people on the Japanese themselves.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This isn't quite fair on my part, because I'm out the door here, for four days, going to a Shape Note Singing gathering (Camp DoReMi at Little Switzerland NC, AnAmericanMother!) and so: folks who believe in that Moral Absolute thingie, defend the relevant points --- and of course, those who don't, don't.

To be quick, Hiroshima certainly had many legitimate military targets, all of which could have been justifiably smashed into smithereens; but the offensive fact is that the atomic bomb was not "targeted" on the military targets, it was intrinsically and intentionally indiscriminate.

Second, it is true that the Japanese military leaders were intentional massive aggressors. However the ordinary people of Hiroshima were noncombatants. In any society, the gardener gardens. The mother mothers. The just man, as Hopkins says, justices.

The point of the prohibition of the targeting of civilians, or the intentionaly indiscriminate destruction of a city as target (city=target bombing) is that even in war this is not permitted.

Utilitarianism and Consequentialism fail as moral theories, because (1)one can never be morally cetain of consequences, (2) no calculus can tot up the consequences which spread globally, and for generations; and (3) you cannot be morally reponsible for consequences generated by the free choices of others.

If I were to post exactly the same message on DailyKos or Democratic Underground, I daresay I would get a whole lot of opposition to the first part

("Abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes")

but using curiously similar arguments: (1) there are no moral absolutes, (2) the ultimate consequences of millions of unwanted childbirths far outweigh the problem of killing innocent human beings, (3) fetuses are not innocent human beings; and (4)to hell with the Catholic Church.

If the intentional killing of tens of thousands of civilians does not count as murder, it is hard to maintain with a straight face that the commandment aganst murder actually prohibits anything at all, if you've got a "good enough reason."

In four days, I shall return to revisit the discussion. Carry on! BTW, here's something from Prison Fellowship/Breakpoint -- a source respectd by many Evangelicals, as well as by me --- which makes some points worth thinking about.

[Smokin' Joe]

The cities we bombed were also major industrial sites for the Japanese military.

And the casualty rates, as fearsome as they were, paled in comparison to the casualties inflicted by more conventional incindiary bombing already done. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets for the A-bomb because they were of military importance and were as yet relatively untouched by that bombing campaign, so they would yield more valid bomb damage assessments as well.

It was the 'shock and awe' of the damage being done by a single bomb on each city which was the game changer.

[CodeToad]

It is easy for those today to think differently than those in 1945. In 1945 the world knew what war meant and it was the killing of their family, friends, and countrymen. It took day and night to manufacture the goods required to win a war.

Today, they think we could have just dropped a JDAM or used a laser to stop the war. Very few people even know when WWII was or what weapons were in use at the time. Ignorance is not bliss, it is devastating.

[Smokin' Joe]

What people often fail to realize (or at least admit) is there were very few (innocents) in Nazi Germany or Japan. They accepted and in most cases ideologically and materially supported the regimes that sought to commit genocide on many of the peoples of the world.

Keep in mind that those citizens were as programmed as someone who only gets their information from the MSM, without internet access, nor opposition.

Many of the citizens had been raised from childhood to believe what they were doing was a moral right, the destiny of their people, a way to right historical wrongs, and eliminate their longstanding enemies.

To speak out against what was being done would guarantee a 'knock on the door' in the wee hours and was unthinkable.

If that sounds familliar, so be it.

I think we were absolutely justified in dropping the A-bomb, and can figure that though the effects were horrific, anything less would not have been as effective and would have cost many more lives--on both sides.

[AnAmericanMother]

In the case of an ordinary city and an ordinary government, you would have a point, but as I noted above the Japanese government had turned so-called "civilians" into combatants. They were issuing bamboo spears to women and little children, calling on everyone to fight to the death, and we already had proof of this -- the civilian population of Okinawa died almost to the last man, including the women, the elderly, and little children.

Of course our own prisoners of war were at risk also, not just "civilians", and numbers of them were killed, in some cases because the Japanese deliberately placed them in harm's way. Not to mention the Japanese using them for medical 'experiments', torture, starvation, beheadings, and so forth.

I think you were dealing with an inhuman and evil foe that was willing to die to the last man, woman and child. Unfortunately the civilians acquiesced in this situation and not only worked in the war factories but had demonstrated that they were not truly civilians but also combatants. The gardeners, mothers and any just men who had managed to survive were diverted from their vocations to become soldiers.

Faced with that sort of situation, it becomes a question of do you kill many, or do you kill them all? I'm not sure that 'just war' theory can be considered without taking into account the complete abandonment of all human norms by the Japanese.

Have fun at the shape-note singing!

[traderrob6]

Is that an excuse?

[JasonC]

The US after the war agreed to leave the emperor in order to secure the willing cooperation of the defeated, during the occupation.

The Japanese had been insisting on that as a condition of surrender for a year. The US continually said no, the surrender must be unconditional.

It is not transparently obvious that there was anything in the slightest bit necessary about this sequence. One might argue that it was, that some total break of will was necessary for the surrender to be "real". But it is sheer speculation. On its face, the Japanese said "we'll surrender if you leave our king", the US said "surrender without that assurance or we'll kill you all", and then said "and oh by the way you can keep your king" after they surrendered.

Yes a conventional invasion would have been worse. But it is not remotely clear that was the only alternative. The road not taken was to negotiate a peace in slightly better faith, instead of in implacable self righteousness.

[AnAmericanMother]

You know, people have really lost historical perspective.

My father in law was involved in the surrender negotiations - he was a Signal Corps officer. I can tell you from his first hand knowledge that your theory is completely off base.

Given the information available at the time -- not after the fact interviews of Japanese military or 20/20 hindsight -- there was not an alternative, reasonable or otherwise. The Americans were working from limited data, and the material that was developed from breaking the Japanese codes contradicted much of what the Japanese negotiators were saying at the time. After all, we were trying to negotiate with an actively hostile power.

(you realize I suppose that a Japanese fleet carrying weaponized biological agents - plague, anthrax, etc. - was actually en route to the west coast of the U.S. at the time of the surrender?)

[Poe White Trash]

I’ve read that the special torpedo that was made by the Japanese for use at Pear Harbor (shallow water was a problem) was developed in Nagasaki.

Poetic justice?

[JasonC]

No, I haven't lost historical perspective. I've studied the issue with care.

Anecdotal appeals to authority are hopeless.

At the time, plenty of people saw that the unconditional surrender demand was unreasonable and prolonging the war. It has been issued in order to keep the wartime allies united, especially to prevent any last minute splits in dealing with Germany. Its application to Japan was required mostly by stubbornness and a desire of the pols involved to appear powerful and consistent to their own populace. Not exactly mortal considerations when in the balance with millions of lives.

It is ludicruous to pretend Japan was still any threat to the allied powers. It was necessary to finish the war, certainly. That is all.

The key issue was the political opposition to surrender within Japan. In case everyone forgot, the military staged a coup against the surrender even after the bombings - it didn't make *them* willing to surrender. It did make the emperor willing.

The Japanese had the delusional hope at the time that the Russians might remain neutral and help them negotiate a peace on terms better than unconditional surrender. That prop was knocked away when the Russians invaded Manchuria, in the same week as the bombings. Loss of that hope, from Russia's entry, plus an offer to keep the emperor but otherwise surrender unconditionally, might have been accepted.

Or it might not have been. But not to even offer it, even by back channels?

It is much harder to justify that. In fact it is impossible, in my opinion. Justice during war includes the requirement of a good faith willingness to parley in order to end it, if all the political aims of the war can be achieved without further killing.

[McGruff]

estimates of over 1 million United States casualties were expected had we invaded Japan

My father could have been one of them. Of course if he was I wouldn't be typing this right now.

[Poe White Trash]

You might find this interesting:

http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/710.pdf

Not about strategic bombing per se, just the Nagasaki/Hiroshima atomic bombings. From a Japanese Catholic perspective.

[LucyT]

Thanks for your excellent essay, and thank you for your service to our great Country.

[nina0113]

Those of us whose fathers and grandfathers were preparing for the invasion of Japan have our lives as proof it was right.

My dad was 16 when the war ended...if it had dragged on another year he'd have gone, and I might not be here. They started it, we finished it.

[Poe White Trash]

>>> The Japanese had been insisting on that as a condition of surrender for a year. The US continually said no, the surrender must be unconditional. <<<

The Japanese gov’t was also insisting that we allow them to keep their imperial possessions in Korea, China and elsewhere. They also wanted NO Allied military occupation of Japan and, I seem to remember, no war crimes trials of any kind. Fat chance.

Luckily, our leadership in Washington had enough sense at the time to say “No.” No doubt they had memories of what happened with “undefeated” Germany after WWI firmly in mind. Not to mention diplomatic considerations with its Allies.

That Roosevelt and Truman had good REASONS for holding out for “unconditional surrender” seems obvious to me.

[AnAmericanMother]

And you even admit the existence of the die-hard military faction. They were willing to kidnap the emperor to enforce their demands - and almost succeeded but he had already left the radio station where the surrender announcement was recorded.

Sorry, my father in law was not only personally present and a witness to the events - your "anecdotal witness" - he was also a teacher (and high school principal) and a devoted student of history. His conclusions were drawn not only from his personal experience but from years of study and reflection. Because my undergraduate degree was in military history, we spent many hours discussing these issues and reading books together before his untimely death.

The supposed 'many' who saw an easy way out were conspicuous by their silence at the time. The cold (and cold-hearted) analysis from the safe haven of the freedoms that were bought with American blood is what is hopeless here. They did not have the knowledge we do -- they did not have the more refined weapons we do -- they did not have the time that we do.