Tight Poker

[miamipuck]

And here I thought we were the only sane ones!

Dude you realize there is a straight jacket with your name on it for even thinking that.............

[qingdaoman]

Now, ya' see, even BigDil & I were able to end up on civil terms...

...and BigDil, thanks for the very honest statement that the use of the bomb has nothing to do with ethics or morality, but rather with political expediency.

It is just curious to me...I've asked over and over and over and over again, how people would react if others did the same thing to them. Yet this is the one question I do not believe I've recieved an answer to once. TONS of people ready to explain why it is okay if we do it to them, but not one who's been willing to address the opposite side of that question.

In fact, pretty much every time I have this debate, I get this same result. People have no problem whatsoever explaining or justifying their actions; but they have a basic adversion to addressing the question of how they'd react if they were treated in exactly the same manner by someone else.

If you would argue that having a foreign country use WMDs against US civillians during a period of war in order to save their soldier's lives is a legitimate strategy, and that someone who does so should not be condemned for such an attack, then while I would disagree with you personally, I'd agree that your arguments regarding the use of atomic weapons against Japan are consistent.

Its just that I almost never, ever find someone willing to say that. They'll give tons of reasons why it was okay for us to do it...but if someone else does it to us, that is an act of unforgiveable barbarism, they are a terrorist who kills poor innocent children and who deserves the worst punishment possible.

So someone, come on, please...give this beleaguered bulldog a break. Answer the damn question. And I'll happily leave y'all in peace

[qingdaoman]

And here I thought we were the only sane ones!

I suspect that if I was sane, the madness of the world would quickly drive me insane. Insanity is a much easier state to maintain

[bram]

considering the huge loses to the Allies when trying to take over small islands from the Japanese and the complete lack of a sign that the Japanese were willing to surrender I think there is an argument for the dropping of the Nuclear bombs in 1945.

Curious that your response ignore my point:

Question -- If the U.S. had launched a massive invasion, attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the soldiers had been directed to slaughter every man, woman, boy, girl, or baby who they saw, regardless of whether or not they resisted...would you have justified such an attack using the argument you stated above?

If not, how does using a bomb to accomplish EXACTLY the same thing become justifiable? Because we're slaughtering them from a distance, instead of first-hand, it becomes acceptable? Only difference I can see is that using the bomb is more cowardly.

find a better way of defeating an enemy while not harming yourself, not cowardly just regretably the right thing to do in the given circumstance, war is far from perfect

[qingdaoman]

bram,

Thank you, but that again begs the question.

What I see, over and over, is that if Americans make an attack that "saves American lives" while killing foreign civillians, it is justified as ok.

But when another country makes an attack that kills American civillians, while saving foreign soldiers from being killed, it is almost always characterized as cowardly and immoral.

The U.S. today is definitely in a state of war; yet if the people who are engaged in fighting the U.S. were to launch an attack that had massive civillian casualties, but served the purpose of preventing deaths of enemy soldiers, I feel very confident in stating that Americans would condemn it as a cowardly and immoral attack.

The Japanese launched a pre-emptive attack against the U.S. in the form of Pearl Harbor. Given the fact that the U.S. was inevitably going to end up entering the war in the South Pacific, it was a militarily sound strategy. It inflicted maximum damage on the primary military threat facing Japan, before that threat had a chance to inflict significant damage on Japan.

Yet to this day, Americans portray that attack as a cowardly attack.

Japanese soldiers risked their lives (and many died) in an attack on a target that was almost purely military, with the goal of disabling a military force that could otherwise inflict huge damage on their own soldiers...but it is condemned as cowardly.

American military avoided any personal risk to their lives by dropping atomic bombs on targets that were primarily civillian, with the goal of demoralizing the enemy and preventing loss of further American lives...and that is justified as an acceptable strategy.

My problem is not with the concept of dropping the bomb itself. It is with the hypocrisy of arguments that basically assume that its okay if we do it, but not if others do it. Simply state that you agree that others can do exactly the same things to the US (for example, deliberately target civillian populations with WMDs), and I'll happily stop this merry little dance.

But if you say that its wrong for others to do it, but ok for America to do it...then I say there is a fundamental hypocrisy in your beliefs.

[bram]

Qingdao,

I see a deeper level in that I see Japan's ideology during WW2 as evil, and the Allied ideology as good. Why was Japan acting the way it did in WW2?

During WW2 Japan and Germany were doing the invading of other countries while the Allies were doing the defending.

[mervhage]

Q,

Dropping bombs are wrong, period. Don't care where they're coming from.

Imagine how nice this world would be w/o these horrible weapons. We've endured 6 decades of hell, as I stated earlier. My 'cousins' in Iraq have been continuously bombed for 15 years after being double crossed by America. The list goes on and on.

[tightpoker]

Would they have surrendered finally, without another bomb? Or even without the first? It is a moot argument, one that cannot be proven one way or another. Based on what I've read, I tend to believe that they would have surrendered, but that is not a "fact" I can prove.

Agreed that it's an impossible argument, given history didn't go down that route. I think the unfortunate part is that so much of Japanese history is shielded (and dare I say distorted) from the current generation that we'll probably never know. My opinion is that much of the modernization of Japan post-McArthur changed the power balance from the Emperor to the state and military. I tend to see the Emperor as a figurehead for the people, as opposed to a Commander-in-Chief.

Would you argue that it would be okay for another nation to use a WMD against us, if it resulted in a surrender that saved lives?

Depending on the context, yes, I think it would be ok for other nations to strike us. For example, the US decides that it's had enough of those Canucks one day and decides we could use their resources. The Canadians in a show of bravado, annihilate our invading armies and demand the US surrender to the Canadian mounties. The US says "Good luck!" while calmly stating that there are 500 million guns in the US and 300 million residents.

If this happened and Canada said "Eh? No way we're invading that by ground" and tossed a nuke at us, I wouldn't like it of course, but I certainly would understand why Canada did it. It would be suicide for any country to try and invade the US by ground. Personally though, I'd be in an uproar for the President to stop being a warmonger and tell the Canadians to direct all free uranium samples his way for being stupid.

For example, if you had three family members killed by the lynching mob because the sherrif didn't give up the man, you would still say that the sherriff did the right thing (even though you grieved for your family). Or if a military enemy of the U.S. used a WMD against American civillians in order to save the lives of some of their soldiers, you would argue that it was a justifiable tactic (even though you obviously don't like it).

Oh yeah, easily. I would never blame the sheriff for the actions of the mob. The link of causation is simply not there for me. The sheriff was doing his civic duty and abiding by his moral principles. As for a military enemy using WMDs, again, if we are the aggressor and refused to back down in a corner, I would fully expect the enemy to shoot us in the balls vs the possibility of getting hit in the balls in an ensuing fight.

[tightpoker]

My problem is not with the concept of dropping the bomb itself. It is with the hypocrisy of arguments that basically assume that its okay if we do it, but not if others do it. Simply state that you agree that others can do exactly the same things to the US (for example, deliberately target civillian populations with WMDs), and I'll happily stop this merry little dance.

I think a lot of the current strife in this thread has to do with the representation of actions outside of their context. Like, saying "If you are ok with dropping bombs on Japanese civillians is ok, then you should be ok with enemies dropping bombs on American civillians" takes a lot of other environmental factors out of the equation.

In the case with bombing Japan, we have to be in the context of the defender pushing back the aggressor into the corner, forcing the aggressor to disarm and surrender.

In the case with enemies bombing us, you are not putting it into the same context as the US being the aggressor against a (justified) defender. It's more in the context of "If someone decides to invade the US, should they be able to use nukes so the invading force isn't hurt?".

That's totally different comparisons of the situation. It's like saying "Should you ever shoot a child?". The answer is yes or no depending on the context. The natural context is to say "No", because there's very little situations where you would. But, there does exist outlier possibilities where it would be acceptable to shoot a child.

I don't think most of us here are that different in our opinions on human ethics. We are all human after all. Most here wouldn't ever advocate killing women and civillians with nuclear armaments, for both the enemy and ourselves. If there were compelling (and most assuredly difficult) reasons for doing so, I'm sure the case would be made and even agreed upon.

There are evils and there are necessary evils.

The whole story needs to be told in order to have a proper discourse here.

[tightpoker]

If it is immoral to give a soldier an order (in 1945) to deliberately slaughter unarmed children/babies with a gun/knife in order to intimidate a populace (as most people I believe would argue it is), why is it not immoral to give a soldier an order to deliberately slaughter unarmed children/babies with a bomb to accomplish the same goal?

The American military has a common phrase among all of it's services, which is that "No man gets left behind". This is not just a saying about helping a wounded man off a battlefield or rescuing POWs from a camp, but it's more a spiritual oath to do all that is within's one power to protect and shield your fellow comrade-in-arms. I see this manifestation of principle in the bombing of Japan.

If you went to a platoon of soliders and told them that if they ransacked and burned an entire city to the ground, women, children and all in order to save the lives of 250,000 to 1,000,000 fellow soliders - would they do it? How about if it was going to save the lives of Japanese civillians in the millions by killing these few? To me it's beyond a moral issue and goes very deep. There are many things that weigh on the decision here. I believe in strange way, that an immoral act may be the right thing to do all things considered. Am I right or sure of this? Not at all. Luckily, I am not a military commander that would ever have to deal with ethical choices on this magnitude.

I do give this, from Robert McNamara, from the movie "Fog of War":

McNAMARA: Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50 to 90% of the people in 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional in the minds of some people to the objectives we were trying to achieve. I don’t fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.-Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history. Kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize, is that the human race prior to that time and today has not really grappled with what I’ll call “the rules of war”. Was there a rule then that said you shouldn’t bomb, shouldn’t kill, shouldn’t burn to death 100,000 civilians in a night? LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He’d, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

[alexzello]

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think?