The ethics of Hiroshima

[Wokko]

Or you know, America could have accepted the surrender terms offered by Japan months earlier. The A-bombing was a war crime pure and simple. It was militarily unnecessary, it was dropped against a purely civilian population and it was dropped when Japan had no air force, no navy and nothing more than token resistance. It was dropped after Japan had already offered surrender terms a number of times.

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The atomic bomb attack on a civilian population center should be the most despised action of any military in history. In the absence of willful ignorance it is utterly indefensible.

[Mugwump]

[David]

This may not be the thread for this debate, but isn't this stuff about the US being a humane power a bit Dwight D. Eisenhower-era high-school textbook? Do Vietnam, Pinochet, Guantanamo not mean anything? Surely even our modern understanding of the "just war" (WW2) puts paid to that myth.

[Tannin]

Wokko, the "surrender terms" offered by Japan were not surrender terms at all. They were wholly unrealistic and everybody knew it. Meanwhile, the slaughter went on, and on, and on. In China alone, the Japanese killed between 50 and 75 times as many civilians as the entire casualty list (civilian and military combined) from both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs put together. (Somewere between 50 and 75 times as many because the exact Chinese casualty list will remain forever unknown.)

Because of the fanatic and insane Japanese no-surrender-under-any-circumstances policy, the just-completed battle for the small island of Okinawa, 14,000 Allied military deaths aside, had resulted in many more Japanese citizens dying than both atomic bombs put together managed. And Okinawa was just a minor dress rehearsal for the defence of the home islands. If it hadn't been for the shock of the atom bombs, that would have been the greatest bloodbath in history.

[Mugwump]

[David]

Touche. Yes, better to leave that for another thread.

[Wokko]

The Battle of Okinawa had an official civilian death toll of 142,058 as listed by the US. Okinawa was itself an occupied territory, its population was indigenous and suffered from the Japanese occupation.

I don't think the Atomic bombs where necessary at all, the blockade and strategic bombing with B29s was doing the job just fine, and the Russians taking out the million strong Manchurian army was probably the true death knell of Imperial Japan.

I think all bombing of civilians in WW2 by either side was ineffective, militarily questionable, unconscionable, barbaric and against the rules of war (written before Strategic Bombers where invented, but banning naval and artillery bombardment of civilians). Switching to bombing civilians quite likely lost Germany the war, it totally undermines the legitimacy of the allies and is nothing more than a disgusting war crime against non combatants.

I don't believe that any hypothetical lives saved by the atomic bombs justify the wholesale slaughter of civilians and the poisoning of the survivors and slow lingering deaths make it something I could never excuse.

[Mugwump]

^ Interestingly, George Orwell - who actually lived through it - felt that it was probably a necessary step for whole peoples to finally turn against war. There is something in that, I think.

You might not believe that the hypothetical lives saved justified the slaughter of civilians, but you'd need to make an argument for why not, rather than just asserting it. It seems to me the responsible thing to do in those particular circumstances of June 1945.

You have a point, of course, re its military value - however this was not so clear at the time. Since then, there has generally been a sensible attempt to limit bombing of civilians as a military end in itself by civilised powers.

[David]

[Mugwump]

[HAL]

What is in that he or she think ?

[David]

A better analogy might have been Martin Bryant's massacre and the effect it had on local gun laws. There, I think, we can say with little doubt that he saved more lives than he killed in the long run, presuming of course that some other incident hadn't provided a similar trigger (but would Howard have had the courage to push these laws through in the midst of the GST debate? Who knows?).

The point being, of course, that neither the American generals nor Bryant had any intention of committing a philanthropic act (that is, beyond serving the national interest in winning the war) when they performed their respective atrocities. Hiroshima's long-term positive impact in reducing further carnage (I'm talking about through fear of the bomb in ensuing decades) can surely only be noted as an instance of grand historical irony, and never in any way be called upon as defence or vindication of the act.

[Mugwump]

Oh, absolutely. The US Generals (actually Truman, who authorised its use) wanted the war ended with minimum cost in US lives. A perfectly reasonable ambition, given that war's initiation and conduct by the Japanese.

I was not arguing that it was philanthropic in intent, only noting Orwell's point that civilian bombing made the nexus between civilian warmongering and consequences clearer. I did note earlier that i thought it was used responsibly, its gradual use giving the Japanese time to consider surrender after each episode, rather than being used indiscriminately for revenge bombing (NB Hiter's "V"-1 and V2 rockets stood for "vergeltung" : "Revenge"). I stand by that view.

[Tannin]

[pietillidie]