Posted on 08/06/2015 11:03:58 AM PDT by Biggirl
I believe that the vast majority of American servicemen did not commit murder in WWII.
My argument is only against the targeting of entire cities together with their populations. That is, the indiscriminate killing of civilians. That is murder, and most American fighting men emphatically did not do this.
You do know that millions of leaflets were dropped all over Japan urging the civilian population to evacuate the cities as they were to be targeted for destruction. You also know that the Japanese government had reclassified nearly all civilians as combatants when the defensive plan Ketsu-go was adopted in April of 1945. You know that, right?
Six of the seven five-star generals and admirals of that time believed that there was no reason to use the atomic bombs, that the Japanese were already defeated, knew it, and were likely to surrender before any American invasion could be launched.
For morality, I consult God's law.
For military strategy, I consult military leadership.
In this case, they pretty much agree in their conclusions.
Could be.
At any rate, I hope my earlier post didn’t come across as glib; I certainly didn’t mean it that way.
You are simply obfuscating the facts. As my last post stated, nearly all Japanese citizens were considered combatants by their own government. Furthermore, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets.
What you are actually arguing is that WWII could not be fought by the US at all, since all air raids more or less indiscriminately hit both combatants and civilians whether the bombs were chemical or atomic.
No; please inform me of anything in my post that was not factual.
"As my last post stated, nearly all Japanese citizens were considered combatants by their own government."
The fact that they are considered combatants by their own government is immaterial. ISIS could say eerybodyin the world is a combatant. That doesn't make it so. The farmer farms. The mother mothers. The toddler toddles. They are not to be targeted."Furthermore, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets."
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained military targets. Focusing in on military targets, and smashing to smithereens is not morally objectionable. I nearboy innocent bystanders get killed, that is very sad but it is also not morally objectionable, if they were not simply being sluaghtred indiscriminately. There's always collaterl damage, and that's heartbreaking but it's not murder.
Intentionally targeting civilians in order to put pressure on their government, is murder.
"What you are actually arguing is that WWII could not be fought by the US at all.
Not so. I think the solid majority of U.S. and allied military actions in WWII were justifiable."... since all air raids more or less indiscriminately hit both combatants and civilians whether the bombs were chemical or atomic."
Even in WWII, when the precision targeting technology just wasn't there, ordinary incendiary bombs could be reasonably directed toward enemy troops or assets. You can see this in the early period of the War in Europe, when the US Army Air Corps did daytime bombings focusing on Nazi military assets. This was in contrast to the RAF, which did nighttime carpet bombings of whole cities, city block by city block.
Even if they predictably caused a whole lot of collateral civilian damage, the USAAC was justified in using incendiary bombs targeted "as exactly as they could" ---these bombings, though devastating, were not targeting the civilian per se.
Secondly, even an advance warning to citizens in those cities wouldn't make an indiscriminate bombing campaign acceptable by any objective moral measure. If that were the case, then an al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. like the 9/11 terrorist attacks would somehow be "acceptable" because Osama bin Laden had already warned America that he intended to have his minions carry our these attacks on the U.S. because of our military presence in the Arabian Peninsula.
Thirdly, any "leaflets dropped all over Japan" would be completely out of character for the U.S. at the time. I recall no such stories about this measure being taken in advance of other bombing campaigns in Germany (Dresden) or Japan (Tokyo) that were aimed specifically at civilian populations.
And lastly, the classification of civilians as combatants by a government in a case of defending a nation hardly renders those civilians a legitimate military target. The U.S. has more guns than people these days, and we have a Bill of Rights written into our constitution that is aimed at protecting our right to keep and bear arms. Does that make every American a legitimate military target for a foreign adversary?
Remember that Germany and Japan declared war on the US, not the other way around. If the leaders of a nation declare war on another, they bear the responsibility for what may happen both to their military personnel and civilian populace.
Also remember that Germany and Japan were no angels when it came to treatment of the civilian population of their war machines. The civilian populations of China (Nanjing, for example) and Korea can attest to the brutality of Japanese forces against the civilian population. In Europe, German troops slaughtered millions of Russian civilians, and systematically exterminated millions of a targeted ethnic group simply on the basis of race hatred and some warped view of Aryan superiority. That the Allies had to target some civilian population centers to defeat a nation whose leaders were capable of such atrocities was regrettable but probably necessary to bring the conflict to a conclusion in our favor as swiftly as possible, which is, or should be, the goal when fighting a war.
Obfuscation can include omission as well as commission. You present only one side of the story. Such as the statements of generals, several of which played no direct role in the Pacific War. One of those who did, MacArthur, objected not so much to the bomb per se as to the refusal to ensure the survival of Hirohito.
Perhaps you should have quoted General Marshall:
“There is one point that was missed, and that, frankly, we missed in making our plans. That was the effect the bomb would have in so shocking the Japanese that they could surrender without losing face. ...we didn’t realize its value to give the Japanese such a shock that they could surrender without complete loss of face.” (David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume Two: The Atomic Energy Years, 1945-1950, pg. 198).
“Incinerating civilians with a deliberately indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction, was murder.”
There are no innocents or civilians in war. When you send your nation’s army out to war you are guilty. You are supporting by your own actions their waging war against some other people.
War is the killing of every person and destroying everything until the enemy either ceases to exist or unconditionally surrenders.
War is not a “police action” subject to arrests and courts.
War is the absence of law.
This is what should have happened.
"This was a position that YOUR post makes ironic since the atomic bomb spared his life. You could have posted such a comment only if you believe Hirohito had culpability in his country's war crimes."
Ironic it is; but not an obfuscation. Of course I believe Hirohito had culpability in his country's war crimes. In agreement with all the norms of Christian moral law, I believe it is possible to justify executing the guilty, not the innocent.
Nevertheless, what MacArthur said was realistic: if we had stipulated beforehand that we would spare Hirohito and his family, Japan would probably have surrendered without the atomic bombings. I do not know this for a fact, but I'll take MacArthur's word for it.
In this case, stipulating beforehand that we would spare the Japanese royal family would probably have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. At least, that's what MacArthur thought. I would have no objection to keeping Hirohito alive, if it secured their surrender.
"On the one had, you want to use MacArthur's comments to bolster your argument, yet you dodge the implications of his position."
These ARE the implications of his position. What's ironic is that we killed 250,000 people to avoid stipulating conditions, e.g. sparing Hirohito's life. But after the hundreds of thousands of noncombatants were crushed, burnt, irradiated, smashed, terminated, aborted, snuffed --- then MacArthur spared Hirohito anyway.
Senseless.
Peter posted the following on the WWII+70 years thread the other day. Regarding the idea that Japan was almost ready to give in, the steady B-29 bombings (much more destructive than the A-bombs) did not seem to be swaying their military. Even the Japs realized the A-bombs were a saving grace.
http://www.mconway.net/page1/page15/files/Shock%20of%20Atomic%20Bomb.pdf
After the war Suzuki recalled: “The atomic bomb provided an additional reason for surrender as well as an extremely favorable opportunity to commence peace talks. I believed such an opportunity could not be afforded by B-29 bombings alone.”
The hitherto vacillating and sphinx-like Suzuki had finally made up his mind. It is important to note that Suzuki did so before he was informed of the Soviet entry into the war early on the following day. Sakomizu also felt that “the army will admit that now that the atomic bomb has come into existence, it precludes war between a nation that possesses the atomic bomb and one that does not.” However, the army was not to be so easily swayed.
You do realize the Japanese still had two million troops under arms in the homeland, right? How many hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians would have died slow, agonizing deaths from starvation, disease, and continued conventional bombing in the best case scenario of the slow strangulation of a blockade?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3321275/posts
On the fourth post of the WWII+70 years it has numerous eye-witness accounts of the Hiroshima bomb from citizens. One man saw the parachutes coming down (scientific instruments) and thought they were canisters of pamphlets. He remembered them from days earlier and how they had shimmered in the sunlight as they fell to earth. “The Americans have brought us some more beautiful things.”
The warning pamphlets are a fairly new idea though - just within the last few weeks of the war. They would be dropped over a bunch of cities (say 20), and then 6-10 of those cities would be hit. The rest being options in case of weather I suppose, or to keep the enemy guessing. But by this time japan was sending up few to no fighters, and AAA fire was not a huge factor anymore either.
That's the classic Islamic position: Dar al-Harb vs Dar al-Islam. It is not a philosophy of war --- justifiably considered --- but rather, a philosophy of murder.
"When you send your nation’s army out to war you are guilty."
That's what Muhammad Atta said about the people at the World Trade Center on 9/11. It's not true. The civilinas of Hiroshima-Nagasaki had the power neither to start a war nor to stop one. That's what "military dictatorship" is all about: forcing things regardless of the consent of the people.
"War is the killing of every person and destroying everything until the enemy either ceases to exist or unconditionally surrenders."
No, that's what unconditional was is. Wars need not be unconditional; to the best of my knowledge, most wars aren't. They end up with some kind of conditional surrender.
What war really is, in essence, is destroying the aggressor's ability and will to aggress. It's destroying their capability to project military power, until they are willing to agree to terms for a cessation of hostilities.
"War is not a “police action” subject to arrests and courts."
That's true. But those are not the only two options. Police action is one thing. Unconditional war is another. And a third, is discriminating warfare: acts of overwhelming force directed against the military and their assets, while discriminating between the military and the non-combatants.
"Collateral damage" is not what I'm objecting to. Collateral deaths are heartbreaking, but just acts of war which result in unavoidable collateral deaths, are not murder.
I'm not going beyond what it says in U.S. law and, for that matter, the U.S. Army Field Manual.
My son is a U.S. Marine. He's honorably committed to be a fighting man. I would be proud if he got a chance to crush ISIS. Yes, crush them and let the vultures pick their bones. In short it's "War Yes, Murder No."
But if he committed crimes against unarmed non-combatants, I would pray only that God would bring him to stark repentance and shield him from deserved hellfire.
"War is the absence of law."
Murder is defiance against God.
My mother was a Japanese citizen during WWII. She was in junior high school. She told us that up until the day the Emperor surrendered she and school children, regardless of age, were drilling with sharpened bamboo sticks to attack and kill American paratroopers.
She feels the atomic bomb was justified and saved millions of lives, Japanese and American.
She also is General MacArthur’s number one admirer. General MacArthur had staff officers who studied Japan and through their knowledge respected Japanese culture. That is why Kyoto did not receive the fate that was accorded to Dresden.
MacArthur was also instrumental in moving them to a form of governing that was westernized, including giving the vote to women.
My mother said that he kept sending the politicians and statesmen writing their new constitution back until they got it right.
Heroes and generals all put their pants on one leg at a time, they are mere men after all. But some stand taller. General MacArthur and Truman, in my book, stand tall.
“Unconditional war “
War is war. There are no adjectives to define it. War is Hell. period. If you don’t like war then don’t wage war. War is the absence of law, absence of God, too, if you’d like. To claim war is murder, well, it is. You don’t go and arrest everyone and bring them to trial like it is a police action.
You can’t redefine war anymore than the liberals try to redefine marriage.
“But if he committed crimes against unarmed non-combatants,”
There are no non-combatants in war. Everyone is equally responsible for the war. Everyone contributes to the soldier trying to kill their enemy, from those that feed them to those that produce the bullets. Killing them stops the soldier. So, the soldier and non-soldier alike is a combatant, just by different means.
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