“Demanding unconditional surrender violates the principles of a Just War.
It is a basic principle of Christian morality that a desirable end cannot justify the commission of an evil act.
The very fact that all the justifications offered for the dropping of the bombs are invalid according to Western Christian morality—i.e., consequentialism—calls the decision into question.
“Conservatives” rail against “relativism” and “moral expediency,” and then offer nothing else to defend the A-bombings.”
If you look at the position of the U.S. and Japan in 1945 there was literally only one option that would not have resulted in the death of millions of civilians and military.
The Japanese ethos during WWII did not consider any Japanese citizens as civilians. Women and children were ordered to fight to the death. Many Japanese women and children committed suicide rather than surrender.
The Japanese also did not consider any of the people they conquered to be civilians. Women were raped and massacred. Children were regularly killed.
In 1945 the U.S had four options regarding Japan.
The worst was to leave the military dictatorship in power and leave the area. This would have resulted in another costly war in a few years.
The second worst was a large scale invasion of Japan. This would have resulted in at the very least .5 million American casualties and most likely many more. It would have resulted in millions of Japanese casualties. It would have resulted in fighting for probable 3 years minimum over mountainous and easy to defend islands against an enemy determined to fight to the death. It would have resulted in a Japan so decimated that it could have never recovered. It would have resulted in generations of Japanese living in abject poverty and squalor in a destroyed and conquered country.
The third option was blockade and conventional bombing. This would have resulted in the destruction of all Japanese cities and the deaths through bombing, disease and starvation of millions of Japanese. The war would probably have been extended for at least two years and would have ended through the eventual invasion of a starving country in ruins.
The fourth was dropping the atomic bomb. It ended the war quickly and caused the fewest casualties. It allowed Japan to prosper in the period after WWII.
Your idea that someone could have waved a magic wand and there would be peace with no casualties is completely unrealistic. There would have been massive civilian casualties no matter what was done. The atomic bomb was the best decision.
The hate America propaganda that attacks America winning WWII is based on lies and ignorance.
Oh and by the way, I can’t even stomach Obama’s America-hating blathering on this because leftists don’t give a flying flip about Christian morals either—except when it ratifies their own smug and arrogant anti-American pretensions. The fool will rail on about the wartime innocents killed and then come back home and cheer on the feeding of peacetime innocents to the slaughterhouse of Planned Parenthood.
I say what I am saying out of love of this country and wanting it to be good and virtuous.
Your arguments were convincing, until you got self-indulgent and accused me of wanting to wave a magic wand to win the war.
My problem is with the facile consequentialism of most “conservatives.”
Considering the state of Total War that existed, I do not consider Truman a criminal.
It is clear that FDR and his Communist-riddled administration wanted WWII from 1933 on.