BG Paul W Tibbets, USAF, Ret: "That's their tough luck for being there."

The UK Guardian ^ | Tuesday August 6, 2002 | Studs Terkel

[Publius6961]

``The United States government has no right to force Pax Americana on the rest of us, or to unilaterally determine the fate of the world,'' Akiba said.

Dear Mr. Akiba,

As one of the losers, you are fortunate to be allowed to express an opinion.
Particularly since Imperial Japan was intent on unilaterally determining the fate of asia, and ultimately ????

And brutality has many faces; the ones Japan used in the rape of Manchuria and Nanking were infinitely more personally sadistic, brutal and inhumane.

Perhaps you should dwell on that, and practice some real humility.

[rightwing2]

Actually, the Russians occupied a lot more than that. At the end of the war, they occupied the southern half of Sakhalin Island and ALL of the Kurile Islands which had belonged to Japan. The Americans had troops on the border between China and Russia to prevent Russia from occupying China and Japan?? What the heck are you talking about? In point of fact Russia did get the areas of Communist China which were occupied by Japan. They occupied all of Manchuria and Port Arthur to boot. They then put this territory to good use as a sanctuary for Mao's Red Army where it was equipped with the tanks, artillery and other weapons captured from the 41 Japanese divisions which had been occupying the north of China. After Mao tookover in 1949, Stalin ceded the territory back to China.

In any case, what you ignore is that had we accepted the surrender of the Japanese government which had overthrown Tojo and was elected on a platform of peace in the spring of 1945, the Russians would never have been able to attack Japan, occupy northern China or northern Korea. As a result, Mao's Red Army would not have had a sanctuary nor would they have had sufficient arms to beat the Nationalists and takeover mainland China. Accordingly, Mao and his Communist guerillas would have never won the Chinese civil war and China would have never been Communist and would be a strong democratic ally under the Nationalists to this very day!!

In fact, China would have been a powerful ally against the Soviets during the Cold War which accordingly might have ended sooner. The benefits to achieving an earlier end to the war and saving hundreds of thousands of lives would have been considerable not merely to the US, but to the 1.3 billion Chinese who would be living free today. I just have to laugh when I am the one called the historical revisionist when all of the facts are on my side at least on this issue. Mao simply could not have won without Russian occupation of Manchuria. Had the Russians not occupied it, it would have been the Christian led Nationalists, not the Communists that accepted the surrender of 41 Japanese divisions with their tanks, artillery and aircraft.

Mao's Red Army would have been crushed or forced to flee to western China at best. Of course, had China not been Communist, than the demise of the USSR would have truly meant the death of Communism. Oh, did I mention that there would have been no Korea or Vietnam. I'm sure we all know brave men and family members who died in those no win wars. Do you even know how blessed we would have been had we accepted Japan's surrender well in advance of the Soviet DOW on Japan on August 8th? Sometimes good acts do not go unrewarded and bad acts are not without severe consequences as was undoubtedly the case here for our great and good country and for the cause of freedom.

[pettifogger]

. . . but to restrain ourselves from going after our mortal enemies because the cowards hide themselves amongst the innocent would assure our defeat.

Well said. And well worth repeating.

[Publius6961]

I think Rightwing2 is spot-on with this elegant, succinct belief: the killing of innocents is always morally wrong.

On a personal level, I agree. Have at it.
On a cultural level in a free society, as long ago as the Greek city-states, it is a collective decision.

Doesn't matter the place, the time, the circumstances.
It certainly does.

It's wrong and we should not be a party to such barbarism.
On a personal level you are right again; you may curl up and die any time you wish.

When we embrace the madness, we become mad ourselves.
That is arguable.
What is not is that when we ignore it we become dead.
Again, a personal choice you may feel free to make.

Spare me the "love your brutal enemy or 'I'll kill you'"

[AmericanInTokyo]

Is it too late to send Tibbets on another mission?

Yeah. Right. Say, here is a picture of a little Japanese girl on the main river in the center of the Hiroshima Memorial Park last night, lighting a candle boat and saying Bhuddist prayers for the civilians killed. Maybe we could target her, with Tibbitts at the controls. Why that's great. Just great. Think we could get her, too? /s

We won the war. They lost. Two bombs were dropped. Enough bombs were dropped. Join the 21st century and take off the war paint. Unless you are prepared to be the first one to go into battle and be strapped to one of the bombs to prove your point.

[gilor]

Could you explain exactly how does one wage a moral war?

[rightwing2]

Turning the other cheek is a profoundly personal choice. Institutionalizing it, or attempting to, is terminally offensive and presumptuous.

The only one talking about turning the other cheek is me for being falsely accused of being some liberal historical revisionist, which is about as far from the truth as could be. World War Two was a just war which was not entirely justly fought by the US and Britain. It goes without saying that it was not justly fought by the Germans and Japanese. We could have ended the war quicker and saved hundreds of thousands of lives had we accepted the Japanese conditional surrender in May 1945 instead of accepting the same (conditional) surrender terms in August 1945 after Russia had occupied northern China, northern Korea and northern Japan.

We would have won the Cold War a lot faster as well without a Communist controlled China to worry about that was an indirect result of our foolish policy of our stupid policy of accepting nothing less than Japan's unconditional surrender--a policy perpetrated by a couple of worthless immoral liberal Democrap Presidents--FDR and Truman. Perhaps a conservative Republican President would have had the moral forsight to do the right thing and accept an earlier Japanese surrender.

[Publius6961]

Is it acceptable when enemies of the United States kill civilians and dismiss those casualties as "besides the point"?

Those are your words, and again irrelevant.

It has happened countless times whether you and I or anyone else approves, or labels it by any current feel-goodism, or physical or moral cowardice masquerading under the guise of moral superiority.

[Gumlegs]

Oh, no doubt that the Japanese government wanted to make children attack American troops. My mother (not an in-law) and her peers decided, after years of listening to government lies about Japan "winning the war," that they would not participate in such wrongdoing. I didn't say it didn't happen; I simply said there were Japanese citizens who vehemently opposed the notion.

My apoligies for mistaking your mother for your mother-in-law (or vice-versa). No doubt there were those Japanese who were pretty fed up by 1945. But, as you yourself continued ...

Would they have been arrested, detained, perhaps even killed by their government? Most certainly. Did they choose to make a principled stand against a policy they thought was wrong? Most certainly.

So their own government would have "arrested, detained, perhaps even killed" them? I say their lives, and countless others, were saved by the atomic bombings. I say that on balance, winning the war in the fashion we chose was not an immoral act. Please note that I do not claim it is moral, just not immoral. General Sherman's (real) quote is more apt now than ever, "War is all hell."

[rightwing2]

Could you explain exactly how does one wage a moral war?

In order to wage a moral war, there are two requirements that the war itself be just and that the war be justly fought. In order for the war to be just, it must be fought in self-defense or defense of another. In order for it to be justly fought by a country, that country must never directly target innocent civlians with the weapons of war. Innocent civilians killed by mistake or "Collatoral damage" is acceptable and not immoral, but the deliberate killing or mass killing of innocent civilians is as immoral if done by nuclear or conventional bombing as it would be if you lined them up and shot them one by one with a firing squad. Operation Desert Storm is a great example of a just war, justly fought. The NATO bombing of Kosovo on the other hand is an example of an unjust war, unjustly fought (by the US), but then again it was perpetrated by one of those worthless, immoral liberal Democrap Presidents I've been talking about, wasn't it?

[Publius6961]

Unless, of course, you are saying that some of the Flight 93 passengers were four-square opposed to the fight to regain control of the craft.

Judging from your collection of cliches thus far in this thread, would you not have opposed it?

Anytime anywhere means...

Oh never mind.

[Dog Gone]

Oh spare me the melodramatics.

[gilor]

"but the deliberate killing or mass killing of innocent civilians"

Hmmm......

Wake up! there is no such thing as innocent civilians

They were part of the nation that brought the US's wrath upon themselves.

[Gunrunner2]

And, by the way, regarding the assertion that it is morally wrong in ALL cases where a civilian is hurt/killed, I offer a no-kidding real-world example why that doesn't wash:

19 January, 1991, flight of 8 F-16's over Baghdad, SAM and AAA all over the place (The HUD video is breathtaking—and you will not see it on CNN):
-Number 1 (lead) is shot down and ejects (becomes POW), and Number 3 is flying his butt off, jinking all over the place to avoid being hit by Iraqi missiles and bullets.
-These Iraqi missiles come close, even pass by close enough you can see them on the HUD video—that means REAL close.
-The bomb load is heavy, and airspeed is bleeding off pretty darned quick (you need airspeed to stay alive, to fly out of there).
-As Number 3 loses airspeed he has to descend to get some more knots to keep flying. . .unless. . .
-Number 3 jettisons his bombs so he may get his airspeed back and keep his maneuverability, thus stay alive.
-The jettisoned bombs fall on the suburbs of Baghdad.

Now, are you saying those civilians hurt/killed by the bombs was the result of an immoral act?

Are you saying that there is no justification for injuring those civilians?

Before you answer, consider this: If Number 3 had not jettisoned his bombs, he most assuredly would have been shot down and the flaming wreckage (bombs and all) would have fallen on the same suburb.

The morality of certain actions are subjective and contextual, and by using the world "ALL' in any discussion of warfare is a serious mistake.

[rond]

Re the killing of innocents is always wrong: "On a personal level, I agree. Have at it. On a cultural level in a free society, as long ago as the Greek city-states, it is a collective decision."

Do you believe this on every touchstone, Publius? If you believe a fetus is a child, and an innocent, are you willing to shrug off abortion as "a collective decision"? When American children are killed in attacks by our enemies, are those deaths tragic, but culturally insignificant?

I have turned this debate 'round and 'round for a few years now, and this discussion on Free Republic certainly helps sharpen the issue for all of us.

[Khurkris]

This is a rare treat. Thanks for posting this interview.

[skeeter]

Beginning in September 1944, the Japanese government began quietly searching for a way to peace beginning with an approach to the Swedish Minister in Tokyo to sound out the Allies on terms of peace. Both this and another overture in March 1945 came to nought.

The civilian government was searching for a way out. And there was a reason why they were doing it quietly - the Imperial Japanese army, which actually held the reigns of power (the navy, having lost all its assets, had ceased being a player in the struggle for internal control), would have assassinated any civilian figure who openly advocated reaching an accord with the allies.

Ironically, the bomb provided a reason for the civilians to sue for peace. Without it the army would never have surrendered. It could be said the bomb saved Japan.

Read John Tolands Rising Sun in the Pacific for an idea of how difficult it was for the civilians to get the surrender notice out, even IN SPITE of the two bombs having been dropped.

[Publius6961]

but the deliberate killing or mass killing of innocent civilians is as immoral if done by nuclear or conventional bombing as it would be if you lined them up and shot them one by one with a firing squad.

The elegant and puerile simplicity of it is breathtaking.
"... as immoral as if you lined them up and shot them one by one...
Put that statement before a first grader, and he would not take long to point out that "one by one" makes is possible to make the easy moral choice.

When your definition of a "moral choice" is the operating imperative, the only alternatives are the difficult moral choice, or to do nothing.

If you can't see the obvious difference...

Have a nice day.

[Publius6961]

If you ever see me on an abortion thread, I would be happy to answer that.
This thread is about moral judgement in war, and I can easily resist the temptation of avoiding discomfort by changing the subject.

[Publius6961]

When American children are killed in attacks by our enemies, are those deaths tragic, but culturally insignificant?

This question is relevant.
My position is that it is both tragic and culturally significant.
I may wish it could not happen, but must accept that it does.

Assuming of course, that those children are not on a school bus specifically targetted by Muslim Mass Murderers.
Then it becomes an entirely different issue.

Let's maintain focus, shall we?