I take it then, that your position is that the people on United Airlines Flight 93 who fought back against the terrorists were morally wrong because other passengers were killed.
I take it then, that your position is that the people on United Airlines Flight 93 who fought back against the terrorists were morally wrong because other passengers were killed.That's a straw-man debating point and you should know it. 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.
Let's get back on point, shall we? It's really quite simple. The United States dropped two atomic weapons and killed tens of thousands of civilians. Our Joint Chiefs chair and the majority of his subordinates opposed the dropping of the A bombs. So did future President Eisenhower. The latter's words seem most applicable here:
"Japan was already defeated and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary ... I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."
Yes, I like Ike, and not just because of the interstate highway system.
I for one totally agree with the parallel you draw between the passengers of Flight 82 and the dropping of the bombs on Japan.
The passengers discovered the intent of the highjackers...to drive the plane into a national landmark...possibly killing thousands.
They instinctively and quickly and rightly discerned that A) The situation had been created by the murderous aggressors B) The danger to the innocent was not their fault C) The risk to the few innocents on the plane paled in comparison to the lives that were potentially at risk D) That it was their duty to risk their own lives, and the lives of those few innocents, in the hopes of saving many.
I say your analogy works, and works well.
Besides, the Japenese people themselves were hardly without guilt themselves for the war.
Later.
EV