And I read this article yesterday morning from his blog but immediately decided not to post it. The reason why is because I think that prior to writing this, he must have had dinner with Mark Shea. Because it sounds very Shea-influenced.
There is a lot of validity in the arguments that he attempts to put forward, but I feel that the argument is fundamentally flawed from the onset of the piece.
First of all, let us look at the title of the article:
Commemorating a Major U.S. War Crime
I have looked through a large number of papal encyclicals and through a few books on moral theology. I think I can state fairly conclusively that "war crime" is not a theological term. "Moral liceity" is a theological term.
So what?
One can use moral theology to determine if an act is morally licit or not. One should use moral theology in building the international conventions that comprise the body of agreements that collectively are known as the "law of armed conflict." However, "war crime" is a legal term that refers to a violation of the law of armed conflict. A violation of the LOAC can only be based upon the LOAC that was in existence at the time the act was committed.
Mr. Akin did not attempt to advance his assertion that the bombing of Nagasaki was a "war crime" in a legitimate fashion: he attempted to use theological means to prove a legal assertion. That is fundamentally flawed.
So we have to answer the question about if this was a war crime using the legal constructs that were available at that time. Hague IV (Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907) covers this:
CHAPTER I
Means of Injuring the Enemy,
Sieges, and bombardmentsArt. 22.
The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.
Art. 23.
In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -
To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;
To declare that no quarter will be given;
To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;
To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention;
To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.
Art. 24.
Ruses of war and the employment of measures necessary for obtaining information about the enemy and the country are considered permissible.
Art. 25.
The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
Art. 26.
The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.
Art. 27.
In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand.
Art. 28.
The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited.
It would be perfectly legitimate to discuss whether all of the above conditions were met. Mr. Akin did not even attempt to do so (nor do I know if he is even qualified to do so)
Now the argument that I think he was attempting to make was if the act was morally licit or not.
In his argument, Akin uses two references from the Catechism of the Catholic Church...paragraphs 2312 and 2314. One thing that we all need to understand is that the Catechism is a compilation of authoritative documents. It, in of itself, does not make any authoritative pronouncements. In other words, to understand fully what the theology is, we need to look back at what the original documents said.
The first citation was CCC 2312:
2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties."108
2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."109 A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.
Footnotes 108 and 109 reference a Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, published in 1965 (paragraph 79.4 and 80.4) (bolded text was the verbiage actually cited in the CCC...the rest provided for necessary context):
79.4: Certainly, war has not been rooted out of human affairs. As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted. State authorities and others who share public responsibility have the duty to conduct such grave matters soberly and to protect the welfare of the people entrusted to their care. But it is one thing to undertake military action for the just defense of the people, and something else again to seek the subjugation of other nations. Nor, by the same token, does the mere fact that war has unhappily begun mean that all is fair between the warring parties.
80. The horror and perversity of war is immensely magnified by the addition of scientific weapons. For acts of war involving these weapons can inflict massive and indiscriminate destruction, thus going far beyond the bounds of legitimate defense. Indeed, if the kind of instruments which can now be found in the armories of the great nations were to be employed to their fullest, an almost total and altogether reciprocal slaughter of each side by the other would follow, not to mention the widespread devastation that would take place in the world and the deadly after effects that would be spawned by the use of weapons of this kind.
All these considerations compel us to undertake an evaluation of war with an entirely new attitude.(1) The men of our time must realize that they will have to give a somber reckoning of their deeds of war for the course of the future will depend greatly on the decisions they make today.
With these truths in mind, this most holy synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes,(2) and issues the following declaration.
Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.
The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions. That such may never truly happen in the future, the bishops of the whole world gathered together, beg all men, especially government officials and military leaders, to give unremitting thought to their gigantic responsibility before God and the entire human race.
You will, of course, note the bolded text in paragraph 80: Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population
Note the word, "indiscriminately."
Also, the phrase the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes refers to pronouncements of Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI...all made well after WWII. Needless to say that Gaudium et Spes was not promulgated until 1965 itself.
Because none of these pronouncements were made at the time (and, as far as I know, the Church had not made any of these types of pronouncements until after the scope of the horrors of WWII came out), one couldn't be held accountable for something that hadn't yet been stated.
But we still have the basics.
As St Paul stated (Rom 12:19) Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
And when war is licitly conducted, St Augustine warns us about immoral conduct in that war: The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power, and such like; and it is generally to punish these things, when force is required to inflict the punishment, that, in obedience to God or some lawful authority, good men undertake wars, when they find themselves in such a position as regards the conduct of human affairs, that right conduct requires them to act, or to make others act in this way. (Contra Faust, XXII.74)
And the other fundamental that it is not morally licit to do evil in order to achieve a perceived "good" end. (which is the fundamental argument against pro-abortion types, by the way)
So, in order to determine whether the act was morally licit, we have to ask the questions:
I am personally not concerned sufficiently with navel-gazing to look at this in order to condemn men who are now dead. God already has judged their actions and they are reaping the consequences (good or bad) of those actions as we speak.
The point is that Mr. Akin did not adequately advance even an argument to moral liciety of the act, as he did not examine the intents of those who undertook those acts.
Thank you for this truly excellent post.
Outstanding summary!
Excellent post!
Excellent post.
The admitted primary purpose was to terrorize the Japanese nation into surrender and so yes, it was intedned to kill civilians on the mass scale. The choice of target was of course deliberated upon, but a discrimination between civilian victims and legitimate targets was not in evidence.
What an excellent, excellent analysis, mark. Thank you.