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In Reply to: Re: Actually, by 'natives' I was referring to.... posted by Dmitry on May 25, 2001 at 13:09:36:
"""The argument of the nature: "We did it then, so we should now" is rarely considered a strong one. Each case stands on its own merit, and in my mind it was arguably justifiable in 45, but not in 65. That's how *I" feel, so sue me."""
Weak arguement? Perhaps. How about a question - why did the US stray from using A-bombs ever again? I don't see an answer.Why? I really don't understand your issue here. A-bomb, just like any other weapon, is hopefully the thing of the last resort. Forget for a moment about the political implications, that are not necessarily something we should be considering - much like we would have a happier place here if we didn't have to worry about the PC crap in every aspect of our lives.
Political considerations always get in a way of getting the job done, and the military is there simply to get that darn job done, and to get out of the way quickly and with low losses.
The use of A-bomb is not different from the use of any other form of deadly force. In every case one should make the judgement call and try to avoid it as much as possible - like a cop facing a tough situation. Would you then keep pressing the cop with questions of why he did't pull the gun this time? Hardly. You would simply thank God that he was able to avoid it THIS time.
Most situations in life are not black and white, and the very same people would often make a different decisions if put in the very same situation again. This is why I called that decision "arguably correct". And I perfectly understand the logic on the other side, the need to conduct ourselves above any reproach, and all the moral dilemas involved. The decision to drop the bomb was not something that I see as a trivial step, but it is a one I can understand and live with.
When asking "why not in Korea?" - those things are completely unrelated. Perhaps at some other time we could delve into the Korean war and discuss whether or not the bomb should have been used there, but now it is simply obfuscating the issue of the bomb in 45.
I always say that it is the agressor that carries the burden of responsibility for human life losses. The responsibility of the government fighting the agressor lies first and foremost with its own people. It is the lives of those people that are its number one priority. How far is that government prepared to go in order to save the lives of its citizens? That IS the question and the moral dilema.
I am not even sorry that I can't provide you with all the answers, for the simpe reason that they don't really exist...
Civilized people always struggle with many questions, that is normal.
***Still. How about it's the most horrid invention in history and the implications weren't even concieved by the people who gave an OK to drop them?As I said, it is normal for people to revisit their decisions and to even change their minds. That in itself does not necessarily make the original decision wrong. It simply demonstrates the progress in human thinking.
The whole idea of a good manager (and a commander...) is to be able to make quick decisions with insufficient information on hand. It is common to assign the degree of rightness to various decisions. Taken from that perspective the August of 45 decision is perhaps a 85% right one. Of course your analysis may be totally different, simply because, as I said, there are no black and whites in many issues.
""As I said in my post, civilized people can argue over these things and probably never completely agree on anything. That is normal.""
Civilized people dropped 2 A-bombs on "uncivilized" Japan. Why haven't they used any biological or chemical weapons in WWII? Geneva convention? Code of honor? European lives are worthier than Asian?Different weapons come with different degrees of stench attached, and that stench largely depends on the moral, personal and historical aspects. But in the nutshell, using an A-bomb is quick and decisive, while the rest are like cancer. When we administer a capital punishment, we do it in a quick fashion, we do not infect the guy with AIDS. Things are not called "mercy killings" for no reason...
""However, fundamentally I don't see any difference beetween then A-bomb, high explosives, machine guns and flame throwers.""
Fundamentally? How is that not different fundamentally? I have some posters prepared here... the mushroom, etc.Well, save your posters for now. I don't know if you caught the "killer bullet" stories here, but the bottom line is that pretty much all law enforcement today is armed with what used to be called "killer bullets". Turns out - those former "killer bullets" are better for everyone, except the perps, so the decision was not a difficult one. Simply a definition change.
And as far as "uncivilized" Japanese - please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that, not even implied, so that was not a clean blow. What I said was that the Americans, being civilized people, struggled with the decision.
Follow Ups:
Thank you for your time but these aren't the answers I was looking for(many of us can be demagogues if we feel like it, myself including, and you - for sure!). No sense in arguing about it. I can pick out any of the paragraphs in your post and deconstruct the hell out of them like Derrida, and my knowledge of history isn't too shabby, but this isn't what it was about at all. I recently came across some interviews with the Pearl Harbor survivors; one of them said that three things that put him through the war were Love, Friendship and Truth. Precisely one of the reasons I stopped arguing with my father a long time ago was because of the emotional charge involved . Which doesn't mean that this wise turtle isn't a fun guy to talk to at times.
I'm going to LA tomorrow, and on Tuesday my buddy and I are driving from LA to Miami. That should be more fun than any discussions in this here Asylum, imho.
See ya.
Hi Victor,
your last sentence is wonderful, few realise how difficult that decison was for Truman. As to nuclear strategy, and therefore,policy...i would like to make an observation. In war, traditionally, there are goals. You conquer a country to make it yours, that sort of thing. With nuclear weapons, you don't have traditional military objectives; you destroy. People have reacted to these weapons quite differently than they have other weapons Man has devised. Which is understandable, because the level of destruction
is so very much greater, that the notion of war is replaced with an awareness of annihilation. In mock drills simulating WW3, during the Cold War, people broke under the stress, one man from the State dept who was unexpectedly thrown into such a simulation died from a heart attack.
Regardless of the conditions of the simulation, people involved in these simulations typically followed the same pattern of decision. They chose a minimalist path, often not retialiating at all; seeking a
resolution that did not involve killing millions. Oppie was right, 'We have become Shiva' Fortunately, most of us instinctively recoil in horror.
Certainly one of the 20th Century's "contributions" to warfare is the concept of the militarized state -- wherein the entire productive capacity of the society is conscripted into the service of military objectives, either in weapons production or in actual fighting. That was certainly the case for all of the WW2 combatants; and it would not be hard to make the case that those allied with the US, the only combatant immune from attack and therefore able to continue to produce these weapons, were guaranteed to win the war so long as they were able to continue attacking their adversaries' means of weapons production.This is so because in 20th century warfare, weapons became as important as soldiers, if not more so. In modern war, it is the weapon that gives the soldier his destructive power. Compare the destructive power of a squad of 19th century soldiers armed with muskets or rifles with that of an equal number of 20th century soldiers driving tanks or flying airplanes. Or compare the destructive power of a WW2 regiment, with the destructive power of about the same number of men as the crew of a 21st century ballistic missile submarine. The latter group controls more explosive power than that total of what was used in WW2. The point is, under these circumstances, in 20th century war, winning required destroying these large weapons -- and the means of producing them.
And that requires bombing "civilian" targets and, indeed, doing everything possible to disrupt the organization of this militarized society, so that weapons production can be reduced or eliminated.
So this talk of the "immorality" of targeting "civilian" populations in WW2 strikes me a peurile. There was no such thing as a "civilian" population under these circumstances.
Likewise for the race-based argument that the US only used bombs on Asians because they were viewed as inferior. While that could have been the case hypothetically, the facts don't support it. The Bombs were used as soon as they were ready; by the time they were ready, the war in Europe was almost over. Germany was being overrun by Allied troops; and its army was virtually prostrate. By contrast, the conquest of Okinawa was extraordinarily costly in US and Japanese lives. It was viewed as a preview of what would be required to take the home islands. The home islands of Japan were in far greater shape than was Germany.
Firebombing caused more loss of life than the nukes. Tokyo was firebombed; so was Dresden.
Yes, nukes leave a nasty residue, about which we knew very little at the time. But Japan today, including the two cities nuked, is hardly a radioactive wasteland that glows in the dark. Non-nuclear war also leaves other nasty residues in the form of unexploded ordinance and mines. The point is not to minimize the significance of nuclear weapons use, but to point out that the differences between nukes and non-nukes do not have as much of a moral dimension as folks would argue.
I recall in the 1970s something called the neutron bomb was developed. It was a nuclear bomb that maximized neutron radiation and minimized blast effects. It's attractiveness was that it would kill people but not destroy property, produce lots of radioactive fallout or much lingering radiation after use.
It was denouced by those who always denounce such things as "immoral."
Go figure.
This was the date when a single German bomber crew accidently dropped their bombs on a suburb of London. The RAF responded on the following night with a few modified Wellington bombers bombing Berlin- under orders from Churchill himself. This single decision to bomb Berlin was the most brilliant strategic decision ever taken in the course of the Battle of Britain, and changed the nature of warfare.Up until then, concentrating their efforts on the south of England (in preparation for Sea Lion)meant that the RAF could only provide fighter support from the safe northern airfields, with very little loiter time to engage the Luftwaffe. The RAF was losing badly.
But with the bombing of Berlin, and Hitler's mistaken belief that the Battle of Britain was going badly, he decided to concentrate on the upcoming Barbarossa and ordered a campaign of terror against London- The Blitz, with the first mass air raid on London on Sept 7.
The RAF operating from the north now had the advantage, and Luftwaffe fighter escorts had restricted loiter time, the tables were turned. On Sept 15, two raids by the Luftwaffe were met by everything the RAF could put up in the air- to convince the Germans that the RAF had plenty of reserves. The ploy worked- Sea Lion was cancelled 2 days later.
So, this "mistake" by a German crew changed the course of the war. Civilian poulations were now legitimate targets- not through a concept of "militarised populations", but like most things in history- by accident,expedience and exploitation.
Dresden.
"The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing."- Winston Churchill to the British Chiefs of Staff.
The attack on Dresden by 9 Mosquitos and 796 Lancasters of the RAF on the night of the 13 Feb 45 was followed the next day by a raid by 311 B-17's of the USAF.
For the first time, the Allies admit the use the same terrorist tactics against the German population, as the German armies themselves used against other populations. This deliberate use of terror was leaked to the press in an off- the record comment to an Associated Press reporter during a SHAEF briefing, leading to the "moral" debate about bombing civilians in general.
I do not agree with the specious concept of militarised populations. It's often about frustration and retribution- pure and simple.
The carpet bombing of Hanoi had nothing to do with arms production by the North Vietnamese, just as the bombing of major German cities so late in WW2 had nothing to do with arms production.
"So this talk of the "immorality" of targeting "civilian" populations in WW2 strikes me a peurile."
It's not puerile. Committing an atrocity on others in response to an atrocity committed upon one's own is.
from what I read in a recent Conde Naste article on the rebuilding of Dresden, this bombing came about because of the German's destruction of Coventry Cathedral. I guess W.C. was pretty pissed off and as you state, he just wanted to get even.Chris
Well, I was really suggesting that Winston Churchill was desperately trying to get the Luftwaffe to shift their attacks north. The deceptively vengeful attack on London did the trick.Coventry was bombed in November 1940 with the loss of some 380 lives, but at least 12 munitions factories were destroyed. Dresden was destroyed as part of Operation Thunderclap, with attacks on Berlin, Magdeburg (Feb 3 1945), Chemnitz, Magdeburg (Feb 6) and Magdeburg again (Feb 9). These attacks had more to do with destroying infrastructure and preventing relief than destroying military capability.
Churchill was not the architect of Thunderclap. *"Eventually, even Churchill, who had been a wholehearted supporter of THUNDERCLAP, went so far as to comment to the British Chiefs of Staff that 'the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing."
Air Chief Marshal (Sir Arthur T) Harris said he did not regard "the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier".
"From Irving, D., The Destruction of Dresden (London, 1963). McKee. A., Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox (London, 1982). Messenger, C, 'Bomber' Hands and the Strategic Bombing Offensive, 1939-1945 (London, 1984).
Regards,
john
Hi,
i think the key to the effectiveness of nukes as a deterrent lies in the short length of time between 'cause' and 'effect'. If you know that after you push a button; it's a matter of minutes before they return the favor....that is disincentive.
The fact we are currently discussing limited nuclear exchanges (which i find to be improbable) blurs what has been the reality of the nuclear age. The destruction would dwarf anything that has gone before; might even make the country uninhabitable for an unknown period of time. I find it overwhelming, immoral.
I agree with you about the morality of limited nuclear exchanges.But the point has been made that perhaps there is some virtue in having an alternate response to a small scale missile launch other than massive retaliation.
When we are talking about how we survived the second half of the 20th century, what I have not heard from anyone is much analysis of the ways in which the post-Stalin USSR differed from the classic megalomanical late 20th century dictatorship, e.g. Hitler, Mao, Fidel, Saddam. It may be that MAD worked because the USSR after Stalin's death was, fundamentally, a bureaucratic totalitarian state, not some dictatorship by a wildass like Hitler. The difference is that bureaucracies are fundamentally cautious and self-presevatory. Megalomanics are not. I have zero confidence that a Hitler or a Saddam would respond to MAD in the same way that the Soviet politburo did. In fact, based on the actions of those two lunatics, I have every reason to believe that they would not. I recall that supposedly the word was passed to Saddam that if he went "biological" or nuclear, he should include the possiblity of a nuclear response from the US in his calculations. But I don't recall there being any signifcant evidence that Saddam had operational biological or nuclear weapons that he refrained from using.
And I have absolutely no idea how the US would respond to "nuclear blackmail" if its existence were made public.
Have a nice Memorial Day weekend. It is a good time to remember that our ability to discuss matters like this freely arises, in part, from the willingness of those before us to commit their lives to the freedom of future generations.
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