"Armstrong Illusions" Dept. -Part I of II:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

As it is becoming more and more apparent that this will not be a dialogue -particularly since Dave does not want to actually interact with the lions share of my arguments- then all that I can do is dispatch with his sole attempt to interact with any of my arguments and then go after the sources he uses in trying to claim to "argue" against my publicly manifested position.

Because of the nature of this situation, I will have to handle these things in two parts to be less cumbersome to read so please bear with me on that score. It is after all easy to make a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions and throw up reams of non-sequitur stuff and call it an “argument” but it is not as easy or economical on one’s time to respond to such things. And since my time for these things is significantly less than Dave’s is, please pardon me in advance if I am more critical of my friend than one would suspect…again Dave is the one who wanted to air this stuff publicly rather than first hashing them out in private as I would have preferred to do for various and sundry reasons too numerous to outline at this time.

Though I will deal with them in detail later on in this multipart thread, I will give a brief prelude to them by noting for the reader at this time that the veracity of the citations posited by Doug Long (and uncritically parroted by Dave) will therefore be a primary purpose of the thread following this one. (As well as the actual competence of the people listed to give authoritative positions on the matter.) And while what I note there may not deal with everyone Dave has mentioned -since that would take more time and type than I have the patience for at this point of the monologue{1}- what is noted will more than amply implode the foundation from which he presumes to set forth an “argument.” I have already explained HERE why Dave’s methodology is so fatally flawed from an intrinsic standpoint so I shant reiterate it anew in this thread or in the thread following it except (at most) briefly and in passing. Hopefully Dave will change his mind and make this a dialogue but I am frankly near the point of no return viz. assuaging my doubts that this is possible. He may be able to fool those who react to this issue as a result of either emotionalism or the historical revisionism that passes for "history" in today's school system. However, those of us who know better will not be swayed by his overall lack of anything resembling an original argument.

Now to casual readers, it may appear that he has made an argument with the interaction with my thread on double effect. But that would be an erroneous premise for reasons I will soon make apparent. In scanning his various threads, the very things he says make it clear that my assertions that this is no actual dialogue are correct. For example, in one of his latest assemblages of random out of context citations (where he now fancies himself as someone who actually is familiar with MAGIC), Dave repeats the assertion that Brigader General Carter Clarke was an expert on MAGIC and applies it in the context of him knowing about MAGIC with regards to the Japanese situation. Of course readers of my last post know that I have discredited Colonel Carter Clarke (he was a colonel in 1945) as a credible authority on this subject. But Dave ignores what I wrote and again posits Clarke as a viable authority, which only shows that he is not assimilating my arguments. He did this in the first response he made as well with the citing of Ralph Raico and Patrick J. Buchanan as credible sources. To explain why the latter two examples are yet more proof of him not listening to my arguments, pardon me this brief explanation please.

In my original posting, I absolutely destroyed the credibility of the “46,000 deaths as a worst-case scenario” argument. Dave then quotes Raico making it and Buchanan as concurring with it and somehow expects this to be a viable response to my arguments from the first thread. It does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that you cannot reassert the argument previously debunked by an adversary as if it is still a viable one. But by citing Raico and Buchanan in doing this, that is precisely what Dave has done. This is at best the accepting of a questionable premise which would mean that the argument is fallacious even if it was valid. I will deal with these factors later on in this thread but want to note them briefly at the outset since they present no small problem with his entire methodology of attempted "argument."

When you take it down to brass tacks, Dave does not make his own arguments on the subjects I raised. Instead, he makes a laundry list of people who agree with him irrespective of their actual agendas or the arguments they advance to arrive at their conclusions and opinions. This is nothing more than the fallacious form of appealing to authority which I pointed out in my last posting. And since Dave has not to my knowledge interacted with that criticism, it stands to reason that he does not dispute it. Indeed, it is indisputable as anyone even vaguely familiar with how to construct and present a viable argument is well aware. But enough on that and let us deal with the mirage of argument that he presents trying to oppose my thread on double effect.

I cannot deal with that thread without noting first of all that his statement that I have appealed to double effect with scarcely any necessary additional supporting argumentation is…well...let us be honest about it: a profound prevarication. I have after all posted nine threads on this subject of which only one of them was on double effect. Frankly, I should not have even had to post the latter but I relented and did so nonetheless in the interest of leaving no lace untied on the matter.

In response, Dave takes the non-normative (and objective) standards of the double effect principles and makes of them in response a normative (and subjective) argument against the first premise. He says that the act cannot be morally good or indifferent (the premise of point one) for this reason:

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki...involved the killing of over 200,000 civilian noncombatants. Such an act is condemned in traditional just war criteria which forbids deliberate targeting of such non-military populations."

I have (of course) already explained that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians but Dave continues to assert the opposite view without a counter-argument; ergo, he fails to disprove my argument in support of the applicable criteria. Something he has not proven does not by dint of repetition become truth. I will for the sake of charity not note the sorts of people to whom this methodology was a way of advancing very evil agendas -preferring instead to simply exhort my friend Dave to not tacitly consent to such an approach and actually make an argument of his own instead. I spent the first thread I wrote on the bombings explaining in detail why these cities were legitimate military targets. My friend Dave has merely said they were not and then resorted to positing contrary opinions of others on the matter rather than constructing a counter-argument of his own on the matter. If we were in a courtroom, I could right now be filing with the judge a motion for dismissal for lack of evidence on his part: that is how seriously weak the argument he advanced actually is in the realm of actual arguments and supporting evidences for them. But that is not all.

You see gentle reader, Dave further betrays his lack of knowledge of this principle when stating that:

[T]he target areas (the centers of both cities) and the knowledge that the effect of the bombs spread outwardly from ground zero to cover a known area of a particular estimated size, and the obvious fact that cities contain citizens and population (read: people, persons, human beings; read, "including many elderly men, women, and children"), make it quite implausible (I think, virtually impossible) to maintain that those who ordered such a strike were targeting only military installations and not also people.

Again, double effect requires four principles at once to be concurrent and one of them is recognition of a proposed action where a good effect is sought with the conscious recognition of a corresponding bad effect from the action taking place. In other words, the targeting of the military installations (and the bomb was targeting military installations as I explained in earlier threads) was in and of itself sufficient to meet the required good (or at least indifferent) part of the equation and thus neutralize the bad effect part. That is how the principle works Dave and I would appreciate it if you would reflect on these matters before attempting more “cut and paste” style responding. I have given you several advanced lessons in both history as well as military calculations if you will which go into explaining the proportionality aspect of this subject. If you continue to ignore them then I see no reason to continue trying to dialogue with you on this subject.

Dave then tries to argue that firebombing a city where there is a deliberate targeting of everything in sight (and thus civilians) is no different than an atomic blast which targets military installations and (as a derivative effect) happens to also kill civilians. This is a distinction with a difference but it rises above standard garden-variety boilerplate apologetics arguments. That is one key reason I wanted to discuss this privately with Dave because it will be exceedingly difficult for him to save face after this one. After all, we have only just begun and it will not be prettier from here on out by any stretch.

The distinction between the two approaches as noted above is chiefly in methodology viz. the active human cooperation involved. In the act of detonation, the atomic bombs exploded of their own volition as well as the effects of that cause acting in like fashion. By stark contrast, the fire bombings involved a variety of elements not exploding of their own volition but through human direct cooperation in the process. Here is what went into the gumbo of a firebombing campaign:

The ordinances loaded aboard a B-29 for an incendiary rain contained one of three combustibles: the bombers in the leading formations generally contained napalm, or jellied gasoline bombs, which ignited small fires. A second wave of bombers usually dropped clusters of oil containers, which splayed their contents over the napalm fires in showers, and the mixture ran through the streets in fiery streams. Magnesium thermite bombs, mixed with the oil and the napalm, set fires of fierce intensity [From World War II: Time Life Books Chronology of the Second World War pg. 408 (c. 1989)]

There is a difference between dropping an atomic bomb -where there is very little if any human cooperation in the direction and intensity of the effects upon explosion- and a firebombing campaign. In the case of the latter, there is a lot of direct involvement manifested in that there is a process of bombing in three waves various fuels and combustibles to create the effect. If Dave cannot recognize the differences here in these two distinctly different approaches, then what is the point of having this discussion??? A bomb intended for a military target which takes out derivative structures and personnel is significantly different than an indiscriminate bombing campaign where combustibles are dumped from one wave of bombers followed by burning fuels to heighten the blaze from a second wave of bombers and then by magnesium thermite bombs from a third wave to ratchet up the intensity of the blaze and its corresponding destructive effects. One of these circumstances fits the parameters for double effect and the other quite evidently does not. This is why to mix them as you have is to mix apples and oranges as I have already explained Dave. (And to which you have not responded to thus far with an actual counter-argument I again remind you.)

As far as how the atomic bombs were detonated, they were detonated about half a mile above the city with the deliberate intention of limiting fallout: which in case you did not know it Dave, is increased the closer to the ground that the bomb is detonated. So this action itself further demonstrates an interest in trying to limit derivative effects which also is an important point to consider from within the matrix of double effect principles. For if we were simply out to get everyone, a more efficient approach would have been to explode it at ground level for maximal effect. But one of the principles guiding the double effect is seeking to avoid as much as possible the bad effect resulting from the good or morally neutral action.

In light of the various scenarios for deaths and other casualties generated by the other military options I outlined in my original posting -as well as numerous subsequent postings elsewhere on this weblog to which you have been thus far generally ignoring Dave{2}- the above timing of the blast as well as the intention of limiting overall deaths and casualties (which must accompany any approach under the rubric of double effect) was easily met with the atomic bombings. However, I cannot see how a firebombing campaign achieves any of these aims since the very approach taken is intended to be indiscriminate and utilizes a three-step bombing wave approach that strives to insure maximum destruction. (Not to mention General Curtis Le May picked a circular bombing pattern to prevent civilian retreat from the effects of the firebombing campaign on Tokyo.) That is adequate to dispatch with your attempt to posit a kind of “moral equivalence” between the dropping of the atomic bombs as we did with the earlier indiscriminate firebombing campaigns.

Dave then notes that [i]f indeed only the military targets were in mind, then why drop these horrific weapons on the center of the city? Was that the way to take out the most military targets?

Finally, a decent question. If I recall correctly (and I may be mistaken on this one), the original target was partially over water which would have also mitigated the effects of the blast if they had hit the target. As it was, they missed it by over a thousand feet and ground zero was on land instead.

I have read that the bulk of these targets were on the outer peripheries of the city, not in the center.

Where did you read that Dave, after all, anyone can say something. The proof is in the pudding and just because you read something somewhere does not make it so. The renowned and original thinker Arthur Jones once said that ninety-five percent of what is published on all subjects is hogwash. I have often said the same thing over the years and have found through experience that it is true. It would help if Dave remembers that the next time he wants to play “Google scholar” but lest I digress, let us look at this logically:

I remind Dave (yet again) that the primary military production unit of Hiroshima was warships which generally are things like carriers, battleships, destroyers, etc. There were three waterways through Hiroshima and the bombing was aimed at the nexus of two of them in the center of the city. Simply from the standpoint of odds alone, there is far greater likelihood of destroying shipyards, military ships, dry docks, etc. by aiming at the main waterways in an industrial city since it is on the edges of these that ships are actually built and launched.

Again readers, I have not merely made assertions as to Hiroshima being a military target (as Dave has in saying it was not) but I have actually set forth arguments and stated evidences that anyone can verify. And while I could draw out this post with yet further reinforcements of my assertions, I will remember my readers and their patience and stick to one for now: Wikipedia. This is generally a source I do not like for various and sundry reasons but I will use it as a lawyer uses a “hostile witness” in court to point out some facts on this matter that seem to elude my good (but misinformed) friend Dave:

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable industrial and military significance. Some military camps were located nearby such as the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a major supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was chosen as a target because it had not suffered damage from previous bombing raids, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. The city was mobilized for "all-out" war, with thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices, military factories and building demolition and with women and children training to resist any invading force. [Wikipedia: Entry on Hiroshima]

I will return to these points later on when delving into my copy of American Caesar and pointing out where Doug Long is deceptive in quoting the source. But before doing that, let us deal with the subject of conscription since it also changes the landscape of this issue and is a detriment to Dave’s argument:

The opposite of voluntary enrollment is conscription, carried out by the nation-state. The resulting military force lacks the moral characteristics of a volunteer army; it is essentially a machine requiring severe discipline, its cohesion being maintained by the threat of punishment. Its great problems, desertion and slackness among the troops, can be kept within bounds only by strong organization and leadership…

[Most often], conscription is part of a program of universal military service accepted by the public and carried out in cooperation with it. [Encyclopedia Brittanica Fifteenth Edition: Excerpt from War, the Theory and Conduct of Macropaedia Volume XXIX, pg. 705 (c. 1985)]

Obviously, where you have conscription taking place of giant chunks of the population, that changes the dynamic of a key point of the argument altogether. Again, this is not secret knowledge but to listen to Dave’s arguments, he evinces no familiarity whatsoever with this factor of the overall equation. But I will pick this subject up in the thread where I go over the various third hand quotes from Doug Long.

Having noted all of that, let us now interact with Dave’s attempted syllogistic argumentation with regards to point one of the double effect principle.

1) Deliberately killing civilians in wartime is wrong.

Without question.

2) The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did that (to the tune of 200,000 + casualties).

Again, you have not proven this but merely asserted it over and over again. Appealing in true emotions-to-the-expense-of-sound-thinking fashion is not how you construct a viable argument. Your syllogism therefore breaks down at this point and does not require me to interact with it further. I will do so nonetheless of course since there are more flaws in your slaw here which may not be so apparent at first glance.

3) It cannot plausibly be maintained that this was a non-intended effect of a moral good (taking out military installations) because of the nature of the weapon, where it was targeted, and immediate historical precedent.

Yes it can be plausibly argued that this was not intended if in the process of doing so it is recognized that the bad effect will take place concurrent with the moral good of destroying military targets. Indeed I have already done this in more than one place by pointing out and detailing arguments that point to the proportionality standard which unquestionably is more than amply met in this circumstance. The argument for the nature of the weapon is a subjective one and thus does not pass muster for attempting to interact with the non-normative nature of the elements that go into the matrix of double effect methodology. (Nice try Dave but we need to deal with objective reality here.)

As far as where it was targeted, I already dispatched with this canard further up –the fact that I even have to do so points to Dave’s obvious ignorance of the geography of Hiroshima as well as the substance of my original arguments for why it was a legitimate military target and the correlative ramifications thereof. And finally the immediate historical precedent argument also falls flat since Dave does not actually argue for this point but again merely assumes it. So point three likewise fails to sustain itself in all four parameters which Dave framed it in.

4) Therefore, it was an evil act, since contrary to Catholic just war criteria, and inability of justification by this criterion of double effect.

Since points two and three fail to sustain themselves, Dave’s conclusion in point four likewise fails to materialize. I will note in brief that Dave seems to have a confusion about these matters since (i) double effect is not required to be sustained by just war criteria since the act in conforming to its intrinsic principles already meets that standard and (ii) a seeming unawareness of what a proper appeal to just war theory actually is. On the latter, I will now briefly touch on so that readers do not think I am merely asserting something without proof (as my good friend Dave seems wont to do with this subject matter):

[I]n medieval times, the term “just war” applied to the authority for levying the war, rather than to the substance of the cause or the complaint. If levied on the authority of an independent prince, the war was considered just, since there was no higher authority to judge the cause, and battle settled the issue. [Encyclopedia Brittanica Fifteenth Edition: Excerpt from War, the Theory and Conduct of Macropaedia Volume XXIX, pg. 643 (c. 1985)]

Dave by trying to apply it to the substance of the cause or the complaint rather than to the authority for levying the war thus misappropriates the principle in no small detail. And lest he object to me quoting a non-Catholic source above on the matter, I will now quote from my copy of the Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary on the subject of war:

War. War is waged justly if it be initiated by public authority for a sufficiently grave and just reason. Soldiers enlisted before the outbreak of war can take its justness for granted unless the contrary is apparent; after the outbreak, those who join the army must first be morally certain of its justness. In a just war all means are licit which necessary and suitable for carrying the war to a successful end, provided that they are not contrary to natural or international law; e.g. the killing of any man under arms or of spies but not of non-combatants, the laying of ambushes, the destruction, but not the poisoning, of wells, are lawful acts of war. For a war to be just the motive must be the vindication of a certain right, of proportionate importance, which has been certainly violated, or a just intervention to defend the rights of others, and then only when other means of redress have failed. [Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary Tenth Edition: Donald Attwater - General Editor pg. 553 (c. 1941)]

The above definition in all of its parameters has more than amply been met with the first eight posts of the nine I have posted on this subject since August 17th.{3} The reader can notice that Dave’s appropriation of the principle has been seriously flawed all along. So point four fails both by virtue of the two previous points it builds on failing to sustain themselves but also by virtue of its own argumentation. That brings us to point five of Dave’s syllogism which is the following one:

5) Conclusion: the bombings violate double effect by being morally bad and not at all indifferent.

Obviously, as three of the four points in his syllogism fail to withstand scrutiny, this conclusion is thus an invalid one. But enough on point one of the double effect matrix of argumentation.

Though I see no real reason to continue this thread, I will anyway since there are more misunderstandings of this principle enunciated by Dave in his statements on points two through four. The other notes will be in firebrick fontage:

The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect, he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.

As argued, I think it is impossible and ludicrous to maintain that 200,000 deaths as a result of a bomb of known proportions and effects were not willed, but merely permitted.

This gets back to the subject of numbers and my questions to Dave in the previous posting that he has thus far not deigned to give answers for.{4}

How can one drop such a weapon and claim to not know that such a result in human cost would happen?

It is not a matter of knowing Dave, it is a matter of not permitting the action but not positively willing it. The doctor who does not will the abortion of an unborn child when operating on its mother for cancer of the uterus but who knows that an abortion spontaneously will likely take place as a result is not held as blameworthy. That is the principle in play here. It is an objective one not a subjective one as you try to make of it.{5}

As I stated previously, one can't simply play word games and act as if the magic words "military target" wrap up all the difficulties of this cynical, downright malicious (from the standpoint of the victims) reasoning.

Notice that Dave is now trying for cheap shots rather than actually interact with my arguments and also interact with double effect principles in a non-normative fashion. I am not playing word games Dave, I am applying these principles in their proper (non-normative) fashion and I have spilt a lot of type explaining such factors as legitimate military targets. It is you who are acting emotional here and making assertions without actually sustaining them as if that constitutes a viable argument when it does not.

The second sentence is also quite applicable and damaging to the proponents' position, thought not fatal in and of itself, due to the nature of probabilistic or contingent or theoretical calculations of what would happen in the future.

Thank you for that much of an acknowledgment.

As many high military figures felt at the time (Eisenhower, MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey, Carter Clarke: who was in charge of the radio intelligence summations that Shawn emphasized in his "case"; also former President Hoover, etc.), surrender could have been achieved by the end of 1945 without recourse to such horrible measures. There was certainly enough opinion and evidence along these lines for us to have at least more seriously considered such an option, in accord with this principle.

Once again, Dave is dealing with “feelings” as if that is a valid way to argue. I will deal with most of the figures noted above in a later posting but first, notice that Dave repeats the claim that "Carter Clarke...was in charge of the radio intelligence summations that Shawn emphasized in his 'case'” In previous postings, I dispatched with this assertion both briefly{6} and also in subsequent detail with another history lesson for my confused friend.{7} Nonetheless, Dave once again does not bother listening before he repeats already disproven sources and continues to claim that they are viable ones when they are not.

Or else, I suppose Shawn and other proponents could simply argue that all these military experts were ignorant, misguided, acting on emotions alone (as if the pro-bombing crowd did not have a large amount of emotions clouding their reasoning, too), or (as Shawn has now asserted) that they only reported their supposed feelings anachronistically, and after the fact (due to the Cold War, the second-guessing of hindsight, etc.). Shawn feels himself able (as a non-military and non-academic person), 60 years after the fact, to better make such judgments than folks like Eisenhower and MacArthur. Is that not exceptionally presumptuous?

I will deal with all of this in the next thread where the readers can observe that these personages are not as credible on this subject as Dave is making them out to be (for reasons I will outline in that thread).

If we grant that President Truman acted in good faith, with good motives (as I freely do), then we must also grant that those opposed to the decision at the time were equally in good faith, with roughly equal the information needed to make the decision one way or the other.

No, I do not have to grant the second premise because it is false. This will be demonstrated in a later thread when I interact with Doug Long’s quotes. That is right interact with the work of someone else appropriated by Dave (who did not bother doing his own research) whereas by contrast I did do my own research and Dave summarily ignores virtually all of it.

This was not a unanimous consensus at the time, however one wishes to slant or spin it.

I did not claim that it was. But once again, I will deal with all of this in the previously mentioned followup posting.

In other words, many thought that we could achieve the good end without the bad effect of what the bomb in fact caused. it was a viable option; therefore it should have been seriously considered and (I say) chosen as the more moral option of the two.

Of course Dave provides no arguments of his own to sustain this position of his, he merely posits the opinions of others on the matter. Thus, he once again falls into argumentation fallacy mode and I need not say anything more about this point than that. Moving onto the third of the four points, we have this one:

The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words, the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise, the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.

This criteria applies, because the good end desired (the surrender and thus the end of the wanton slaughters of the Japanese army and suicides even of Japanese civilians) was promptly achieved. So far so good.

Thank you.

The good effect was also produced by the action; yet it was also produced by the bad effect of the action (the mass killings convinced the Japanese of the futility of continuing). Thus, this would seem to suggest that Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not meet the criterion expressed in the second sentence above.

Dave is missing the crucial point here in that the principle presumes that the bad had to flow out from the good does not have to be in sequence of time. Furthermore, he ignores the various arguments I have posted which heavily factor into the issues of proportionality as well as the worse scenarios from the other options being considered at the time.{8} Those are also of no small importance in discussing this matter.

And thus we arrive at the crux of the matter: the previous state of affairs being true; therefore a good end was achieved by a bad means, and this (as Shawn tells us) is "never allowed."

Once again, Dave is confusing this issue by presuming that since the damage took place before the good end (surrender of the Japanese) that this proves a bad means achieved the good end. In other words, he is assuming that these things have to be in sequence of time when indeed they do not have to be for double effect to remain in effect.

Therefore, the bombings are unjustifiable once again, on this separate and distinct ground.

I have already disproved this notion so we need not say more about it.

If, to speak theoretically, somehow we had had the technology then to wipe out 200,000 Japanese soldiers, and very few civilians as nonintended "collateral damage," then the act would have been quite acceptable by these standards. But since the dead were some 95% civilians, the rationale doesn't wash (as that is the very opposite ration of what should be for this to be a moral act). It was, therefore, an evil act. And one must not commit eveil, even for the achievement of a great good. Such is not Christian ethical thought. Period.

The readers are asked to notice that again Dave states his personal opinion as if that is somehow a constituent factor in making non-normative assessments. Furthermore, he goes back to the numbers game again and fails to recognize that double effect does not depend on factors such as “few”, “many”, or “all” to be viable. What is the issue here is the objective assessments themselves and a bomb is not unjust or just based on the number of people it can kill. Instead, it is either unjust or just by virtue of whether its use conforms to objective moral principles. And double effect is an objective moral principle. That is not to say that we can or cannot differ on how it applies but subjective arguments (as Dave is using) cannot trump objective ones (as I am using). If Dave wants to trump me on this subject, he has to approach these things from a non-normative standpoint. Otherwise, he fails to make his case with equal viability as I have done.

The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect. In forming this decision many factors must be weighed and compared, with care and prudence proportionate to the importance of the case. Thus, an effect that benefits or harms society generally has more weight than one that affects only an individual; an effect sure to occur deserves greater consideration than one that is only probable; an effect of a moral nature has greater importance than one that deals only with material things.

If the pro-bomb calculations of the potential future dead in a non-bomb scenario are anywhere near correct, this criteria would seem to be met also.

Thank you.

However, as in the previous example, it cannot be reasonably argued that the bombings were a morally good or neutral acts themselves.

I have already disproved this notion so we need not say more about it.

Since the principle itself (and Shawn's own commentary on it) rules out using a bad, evil, immoral act for the purposes of producing good effects, this is a moot point, no matter how good the effects may be. A good effect indeed was produced (the surrender), but the means to achieve it were evil. Therefore, they are not justifiable.

I have already disproved the second premise he makes in the last sentence so we need not say more about it.

Of these four conditions the first two are general rules of morality. A person is never allowed to perform a morally bad action. Nor may one ever positively will an evil effect of an action, even though the act would otherwise be lawful...The third and fourth conditions enumerated above pertain specifically to the principle of the double effect.

The bombings fail the criteria of the second sentence above, and the second (the evil effect if civilian deaths was in fact willed, and it is absurd to rationalize otherwise, as if it were not a certainty beforehand; so evil effects were willed by means of inherently evil acts).

Again, notice that Dave fails to recognize this principle of argumentation for what it is. Again, it is not a matter of knowing whether or not there will be civilian deaths Dave, it is a matter of permitting the action but not positively willing it. The doctor who does not will the abortion of an unborn child when operating on its mother for cancer of the uterus but who knows that an abortion spontaneously will likely take place as a result is not held as blameworthy. That is the principle in play here. It is an objective one not a subjective one as you try to make of it.{9}

The bombings (in terms of good effects alone) can pass muster for Principles III and IV, but since the crucial premise ("such an act must be good and not evil in the first place") is absent, and since good effects alone were not all that was accomplished, it ultimately fails there too. Shawn and proponents obviously emphasize almost entirely Principles III and IV, because these are most plausibly met by the result of surrender and the saving of so many thousands of lives. But they neglect (as is quite evident in his present argument) the presuppositional, preliminary ethical considerations of Principles I and II, which bring down the effort, and make III and IV null and void, as instances of use of a bad means to achieve a good end (violation of a bedrock principle of Christian ethics and morality).

I have already proven that Dave is wrong on his assessments of my arguments on double effect (which I remind the readers were given thumbs up by a trained Catholic philosopher) with regards to the first two points so his concurrence on the last two means that the arguments remain intact, stable, and valid.

I freely grant the good intentions and good faith of those who disagree with me on this.

As do I Dave. You have shown a remarkable unfamiliarity for the complexities of this subject matter but I do not for an instant believe you are of poor intentions or poor faith. Good people with good intentions can be spectacularly wrong at times after all. In your case, that is what we are seeing here as my arguments more than adequately demonstrate.

But I cannot agree with their moral logic.

Since you do not properly understand the moral principle of double effect, I can understand why you do not agree with my logic here. Logic is objective not subjective and you have been arguing from a largely subjective weltanschauung. This has been well established and is not even debatable: heck, your very arguments speak for themselves in this respect.

In my opinion, it violates traditional just war criteria, the specific principle of double effect, and also the standards of the larger natural law, whereby it is instinctively known by virtually everyone that deliberate killing of women and children (in wartime as well as outside of it) is inherently wrong.

I have shown that Dave's premises on all three of these points is in error. He is right about the part viz. deliberate killing of women and children but he is wrong to assert that it applies in this instance without actually positing an argument for the assertion first. That is not to say that the latter would vindicate his view mind you but at the very least it would present a viable alternative viewpoint for consideration.

It's been argued that one might obliterate the civilian / soldier distinction in a militaristic society like wartime Japan, with its suicides and maniacal tendencies, etc.

To a certain extent this is true.

But how could a three-month-old baby be part of that, or a senile old woman, or a mentally ill man, etc.?

No one says that they would be Dave. Indeed, even by military conscription requirements in Japan at the time of the war (which I will go over later), these parties would be excluded. This is like saying, “even if we could obliterate the cancer in a woman’s womb with its obvious deadly implications, how could the death of an unborn child be part of that process”??? And it is in providing an answer to that kind of question which is why theologians have long propounded the double effect principle for explaining situations with varying effects (some good, some bad) and seeking to provide a barometer for regulating such situations.

Even if we were to grant that (which would take some doing), there would still be many exceptions to the rule. The bombings, therefore, would still have to be judged as immoral, since they involved the killing (and I am not averse to using the word "murder" after having established the ethical reasoning chain above) of many "innocents" in terms of the war.

Since I have already broken his "ethical reasoning chain”, I do find the use of the word “murder” to be highly inappropriate for this discussion.

This is a far different scenario from a smart bomb taking out a munitions factory (the intent), with part of the shell skidding off to a house a mile away and burning it and its inhabitants (not the intent at all). That is tragic but justifiable.

That is retrojection since such weapons were not available in 1945; ergo, we need not interact with it.

Dropping a nuclear bomb into the center of a heavily-populated city is not.

Of course Dave ends his statements with that sentence because it gives a veneer of legitimacy to his arguments. And I must at least acknowledge that Dave did mount a effort at interacting with one of my threads so for that I thank him. However, he errs in thinking that he can argue this thread without taking into account the seven threads I posted which preceded it and which set forth many of the key points which this complex issue requires if it is to be properly comprehended.

Dave apparently thought that he could blithely dismiss my other threads (and my last one as well) and that somehow seeking to disprove this one would make my entire structure fall like a house of cards. If that is the case, then he at least deserves credit for trying some strategery in his overall approach of “cut and paste citation” prooftexting coupled with highly subjective argumenation. But as I noted in the post you have just read, his arguments on double effect fail since he does not grasp the concept properly nor how to argue it in a viable manner. Nor for that matter does he properly represent either the nature of the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the principle of just war. That is all I will say on the above stuff except to remind the readers that in the next thread, I will be showing why the third hand citations on which he built his original attempt at “argumentation” collapse like a cheap tent in a big wind when subjected to moderate scrutiny.

To move onto part II of this thread, click HERE...

Notes:

{1} And yes, this has been a monologue. It cannot be a dialogue until you actually interact with my arguments and engage in non-normative arguments as I have presented with non-normative responses.

{2} Threads on the Atomic Bomb Droppings, Military and Statistical Calculations, the Moral and Ethical Aspects of the Subject Matter in Question, Etc...A Rerum Novarum Recapitulation Thread (circa August 28, 2005)

All threads posted between August 17, 2005 and August 26, 2005 pertaining to this issue are listed at the above link:

Clarifying Some Additional Points on the Atomic Bombing Subject With Dave Armstrong (circa August 28, 2005)

{3} See footnote two for details. The last of the two threads in that note was mostly a clarification of some points and an exhortation to Dave to actually have a dialogue –which I remind you involves listening which he obvious has not been doing–and also to can the “Google scholar” schtick.

{4} The reason I posted a "points to ponder" thread on the subject of normative argumentation back on August 13, 2005 (four days before the original Hiroshima posting) was because I anticipated that this may well happen with those who disagreed on the issue of the bombings. And with the above words, you have played according to my predicted script by trying to make an objective principle of argument into a subjective one by postulating the subjective notion of "too many" into the mix. And with that, your entire thread of argument inexorably unravels.

Your use of "too many civilian casualties" is the downfall since you are then obligated to tell us what "enough" would be in your scenario. Would 50 be "enough"??? What about 1,000??? 10,000??? 40,000??? 70,000??? 100,000??? 400,000??? 1,000,000??? At what point is your subjective criteria of "enough" met and we have moved into the realm of the "too many"??? And furthermore, how can you objectively verify that you have reached the point of "too many" in your statements Dave??? That is a trick question actually because the answer of course is that you cannot. The reason you cannot is because you are arguing from a normative standard which is by its very nature subjective rather than objective. And that is why you have yet to actually enter into the subject of double effect and whether it does or does not apply. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 28, 2005)]

{5} Another way of saying it is this: even if this situation happened a thousand times or a hundred thousand times, the principle I have outlined is viable because it is an objective one. It does not depend for validity on a certain number to be valid and another to be invalid as that is subjective criteria. If it is valid for one, it is valid for one hundred, one thousand, or one hundred thousand, etc. If it is not valid for one, it is not valid for one hundred, one thousand, or one hundred thousand, etc. That is what I mean by objective criteria but note again gentle readers, Dave has been avoiding that like a vampire fleeing from a crucifix.

{6} The same thing happened when Dave reposted an argument I shredded in detail as if reposting the discredited argument meant it was still a viable one. Here is how I responded to that in a previous brief posting:

I would be remiss in not noting that you seem to be posting anything (and from whatever dubious sources) in a disjointed fashion to try and make your case. For one example of many which could be mentioned, you cite Ralph Raico and treat his stuff as "much needed information." Dave, I absolutely destroyed many of the arguments he makes in my posting…particularly his regurgitation of the 46,000 figure:

But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.

I explained in detail and with actual mathematical models of battlefield casualties in the Pacific theatre why that figure was a pipedream. You not only do not interact with my arguments but you place them on the same plain as Raico's drivel. And that brings us to Patrick J. Buchanan who reiterates the same stuff and tries to pass off Raico as a respectable scholar.

I will not go into how shoddy Mr. Buchanan's scholarship is when discussing these issues as I have done this at other times. He is so partisan that he is willing to prooftext sources to present his case. I originally thought that [a certain ideologue] was the culprit when I wrote that thread but discovered later that [the ideologue] got his information from Mr. Buchanan. Now you are citing the same Mr. Buchanan on this matter -not to mention on the subject of just war??? Who will be cited next, Mother Jones??? The World Socialist Workers Party Newspaper??? The Journal of Historical Review??? Any source you can remotely find to give credence to your already held position??? How is that in any sense to be a constructive dialogue.

You should recognize that not all sources are of the same weight and anytime you have third hand quotes (of which many of your quotes happen to be btw) that there can be misrepresentation or quotes could be posited without concern for actual context[...]: all of which mitigates against their viability as evidences...

Remember, people can say anything and I have not merely undermined many of the arguments from many of the sources you cite but have obliterated them. You cannot expect me to take your reposting of them as if they are still viable to be serious…that is not only not authentic dialogue but it is its very antithesis. [I. Shawn McElhinney: Excerpt from Cor ad Cor Loquitur Comments Thread (circa August 27, 2005)]

{7} Here is an argument I made in reasonable detail which Dave evasively passed over as if said evasion constitutes a valid response to what I said:

Carter Clarke was not a Brigader General in 1945 but was instead a colonel. And as he was in the Army and assigned to head up SSA in early 1943, Colonel Clarke would not have overseen the dispatches on the Japanese from at least early 1943 onward. The reason of course should be obvious: he was the founder of the Venona branch of the MAGIC network and the Army had no involvement in the Japanese decoding from that point onward. Colonel Clarke worked on Venona from February 2, 1943 through at least October of 1949...I am uncertain as to if he was involved with Venona past that point. Nonetheless, it is not even deniable that Colonel Carter Clarke was involved in the founding of Venona in early 1943 and that with Venona, Colonel Clarke was involved with Soviet cabels not Japanese ones. For this reason, citing him as MAGIC operative in the position as Doug Long does (in the context of Pacific Theatre codebreaking and information gathering under MAGIC) is very sloppy scholarship (to put it nicely). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 28, 2005)]

The readers can note that Dave quite obviously did not bother reading what I wrote...as what is noted in this footnote as well as footnote six are adequate evidences of.

{8} See footnotes two, four, and five.

{9} See footnote five.

Miscellaneous Musings:

I have been too busy with business and various writing endeavours to post anything much in the past week. Hopefully a fair amount of what I have worked on (and am working on) will be posted during the week sometime including a JYB update which remains to be finished. (The latter should be posted on or before Thursday time and host patience-willing.) In the meantime, I want to comment briefly on a couple of items in the news which I may expand upon in the coming weeks and months so here goes...

---The primary subject in the news is Hurricane Katrina and its decimation of New Orleans -Our hearts and prayers fo out to those who have suffered as a result of this catastrophe. And while there is a fair amount of wheat and chaff to discuss in that subject viz. how various parties have responded to the circumstances that took place down there but right now, it is more important to help out those afflicated. With that in mind, anyone who knows of some worthwhile charities which are targeting that area with their resources, please let me know and I will mention them on this weblog.

---The death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rhenquist was front page news (may his soul rest in peace). Rhenquist was one of the few constructionists on the court and that means it is imperative to hold serve on his position just to not lose ground. For that reason, I want to remind readers of two posts to this weblog of the many I have put up which deal with the subject of supreme court and judge nominations. Here they are by name and time stamp:

On the Supreme Court and the Nomination of Judges (circa September 8, 2004)

On the Upcoming Supreme Court Retirements/Nominations (circa July 08, 2005)

And while much more could be noted than this{1}, that suffices for now on the subject of the upcoming nominations.

Note:

{1} Such as this basic philosophical approach long taken by your humble servant at Rerum Novarum viz. evaluating the judiciary:

I use a simple acid test. To me, the key variable is how they view the proper function of law in a just society. Any candidate that endorses a differentiation between the laws of the individual and the laws of society at large is one who inexorably endorses the plunder of one class of citizens to enrich another class is not a real conservative. And sadly, almost all who run for office under the conservative banner support legal plunder in some form or another. It then becomes a case of ascertaining whether or not their support of legal plunder is based on ignorance of what they are actually supporting or whether they are intentionally in support of it. That is admittedly not easy to determine but a safe norm to follow is to see how much they favour federal involvement or intervention. For the greater they favour those factors, the more they inexorably endorse legal plunder.[...] And no just society can countenance such an abomination and expect to avoid dissolving as a nation at some point or another - either through military conquest or revolution. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 24, 2004)]

Clarifying Some Additional Points on the Atomic Bombing Subject:
(With Dave Armstrong)

Since Dave has expressed the desire to not have a discussion on the material below in the private forum, I post it here to Rerum Novarum since what is noted there pertains directly to his attempt at arguing against the material in five of the eight threads to Rerum Novarum on the subject of the atomic bomb droppings (excluding this one). Briefly, they are accessible HERE. In the interest of fairness, I should note that Dave's thread from above does link to the first five threads duly noted at the latter thread. And while each of the posts in that thread deal with a different facet of the subject in question; at the same time, all of them are built off of what was posted in the first thread of the list. Having noted that briefly, let us move onto the purpose of this posting.

Though much of what is posted here is a duplicate of an email I sent to some parties in question (including Dave) yesterday morning, I have made some changes to the text in spots including the addition of three new footnotes. As Dave apparently wants to have this discussion fully in public view, I post this thread to respond to his manifested wish on the matter. Dave's words will be in dark green font and any sources I cite will be in darkblue font.

Hi Shawn,

Hola Dave!!!

I continue to vigorously disagree (so do many prominent orthodox Catholics such as Pope Paul VI, Fulton Sheen, etc.) that double effect can legitimately be applied in this instance.

Dave my friend, with all due respect, you are not engaging in dialogue on this subject yet. Instead, you are merely making assertions and stating names of people who agree with you. That is a fallacious approach to argumentation of no small import. Indeed, I have discussed the argumentation fallacies involved here not a few times including in two weblog postings -the first of which was posted in August of 2004 and the second in May of 2005.{1} With both postings, I pointed out five principles that needed to be taken into account for valid argumentation if seeking to argue from authority -three of which were as follows:

--On topics which are of a controverted nature (or where there are disagreements among recognized experts), it is fallacious to accept the opinion of an authority.

--In areas where there is disagreement among recognized experts, individuals then have to turn to various sources. However, whatever the sources turned to, the purpose cannot be for conclusions or opinions of said authority.

--Appeals to any presumable "authoritative" source should take into account (to the extent this is possible) the trackrecord of accuracy of the source being utilized. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 14, 2005)]

It cannot be denied that the subject we are discussing is one where there are disagreements from recognized experts on the matter...we can surely agree on that as it is a well established fact beyond debate. For that reason, it does not suffice to merely posit the opinions of experts whomever they are. You have thus far done this a lot and have not interacted with my actual arguments or the threads from our mutual friends Dr. Art Sippo, Greg Mockeridge,{2}, and also the points noted by my very good friend Tim Tull.{3} It is not a matter of merely disagreeing with us my friend, there must be posited viable arguments by you in return.

On the above score, even your citing thirdhand a presumed quote from a MAGIC operative falls into this since (i) they were quotes after the fact and (ii) in the midst of the Cold War arms race. There was a lot of second guessing at that point on various issues which is why I do not place much value (if any) in statements made long after the fact. What would carry more weight is if you had quotes from the person contemporary to the time...that is the only way to insure that the person being quoted was not in second-guess mode. There is also the question of whether their actual position was accurately rendered by the source you cited but that is another subject altogether.{4} Furthermore, that is not all that should be noted here.

It also bears noting that many of those who posit that such and such a party opposed the bomb droppings are quite selective with their citing of sources. That is not to say that it is a one-sided issue in that respect --or even that you would resort to such things of course-- but prooftexting is quite common for those who react to issues emotionally rather than engage them logically. The atomic bomb issue is one where reason and logic often take a back seat to solipsistic emotionalism and that needs to be recalled at all times. And while as a rule, you do (to your great credit) approach subjects with reason and logic, thus far on the issue in question, I believe your emotions are playing a larger factor than you would probably admit to.

I would be remiss at this point in not noting that this is a very gruesome subject matter to discuss as we are doing. But just as judges are supposed to leave their private opinions at the door when they enter the courtroom, we should act in like fashion in seeking to dialogue on these kinds of delicate issues to insure that we do proper justice to all sides involved. And one of those factors is considering the foundational presuppositions from which the lions share of the atom bombing critics (if not all of them) were operating from: that Japan was on the verge of surrender. That assessment (as the MAGIC cables themselves well confirmed) was a patently false one. If you needed any proof of this resolve -as well as the falsity of the "ready to surrender" claim, all you need to do is look at the events as they happened chronologically and do so from a logical frame of reference.

To start with, consider that the bomb on Hiroshima did not result in an immediate surrender by the Japanese. If they were really so interested in surrendering so readily (as the critics of the bomb droppings to a man almost uniformily asserted) then it only would have taken one bomb and they would have responded with acceptance of the terms of surrender on August 7th. But instead, after Hiroshima's bomb drop on August 6th, they had not surrendered. Two days later, the USSR declared war and even at that point, they still had not surrendered. President Truman then had the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki on the 9th and even then, there was no immediate surrender. Indeed, in case you did not know it, the Japanese government was deadlocked on whether or not to surrender after Nagasaki was bombed. The one who broke the tie was the Emperor Hirohito himself on August 10th. (And even then, an end to hostilities was not called by the Japanese government --in the person of Emperor Hirohito-- for five additional days after that.)

The hard cold truth of the matter is this Dave: the Japanese were not only not ready to surrender but they were intent on fighting to the last man...even going so far as to train the populace in using weapons to help repel a presumed invasion of the islands. These are things that you need to account for that as well as the evidences I presented in my original posting to really see the picture in full. We cannot anachronistically retroject on these issues my friend...it is very easy to do since atomic bombs by their very nature are horrendous things. But that is not the way to have a viable dialogue on these matters.

Dialogue must involve some form of interaction and exchange of viewpoints. Thus far this has been a monologue of sorts between you and I.{5} I say this because posting names of people who disagree with me and Greg -and not considering the sitz im leben in the process- along with posting pictures to try and draw on the emotions of readers is not achieving that. In your other use of sources, you are heavily positing conclusions of others but conclusions and opinions are not what should be our concern here. It is the arguments advanced by said parties that is the issue.

I have put forth a theory{6} on this matter and it deserves interaction. Thus far, you have not done that in a fashion befitting a viable counter-theory. This is an area where we can disagree certainly but what sets those on this list apart from persons such as [certain-parties-who-shall-remain-nameless] is the willingness to enter into the arguments of the other. You have not put together cogent arguments yet but instead have merely quoted persons and opinions. I am afraid that will not do my friend...not by a long shot.

I think it is rather ludicrous, when you are talking 100,000 + deaths. See my analogy to the Detroit area being hit as a "military target" . .

But Dave, you admitted a week ago that you were not well acquainted with many facets of the discussion{7}...heck yesterday you even admitted to this in your posting viz. the nuances of double effect methodology. I cannot believe you assimilated it all in a couple of days my friend...not by a long shot. And furthermore, your very arguments themselves betray this as I will now briefly document using your own words from your posting on the matter:

In particular, the justification of "double effect" cannot, I think, be reasonably, plausibly maintained with regard to these bombings. There were simply too many civilian casualties. The scale of death and destruction does not allow it. It is -- with all due respect to my friends, who offer some very harsh criticisms of opponents themselves-- hopelessly naive and muddleheaded and a denial of concrete reality to suggest that these were only peripheral, and non-intentional, while military targets were primary intentions. [Dave Armstrong: Cor ad Cor Loquitur posting circa August 25, 2005)]

I explained how the principle applied in my August 26th posting on the matter...you did not have that thread to work with on the 25th so I have to extend to you some leeway of course.

I wrote the post outlining the double effect principle back on August 17th in a private email in about ten minutes. For that reason -and because of the complexity of the subject involved- I felt that it was necessary to submit it to a trained Catholic philosopher to analyze my arguments since I am not a trained Catholic philosopher by any stretch. For that I picked the very esteemed Dr. Philip Blosser (aka "Chris' dad").

The verdict from Dr. Philip Blosser (the trained philosopher) was that the arguments I used were sound ones. I noticed that in your posting (written before my double effect thread was posted), you were trying to disqualify the double effect principle on the subjective principle of quantity. You repeated this in your Detroit arguments of which you sought to recall me to in your comments boxes. Rather than bring this up publicly (for the time being) I remind you of your words above and will explain why this methodology will not wash. But first, the foundation of your arguments against double effect can be boiled down to this one sentence from your above paragraph:

There were simply too many civilian casualties.

The reason I posted a "points to ponder" thread on the subject of normative argumentation back on August 13, 2005 (four days before the original Hiroshima posting) was because I anticipated that this may well happen with those who disagreed on the issue of the bombings . And with the above words, you have played according to my predicted script by trying to make an objective principle of argument into a subjective one by postulating the subjective notion of "too many" into the mix. And with that, your entire thread of argument inexorably unravels.

Your use of "too many civilian casualties" is the downfall since you are then obligated to tell us what "enough" would be in your scenario. Would 50 be "enough"??? What about 1,000??? 10,000??? 40,000??? 70,000??? 100,000??? 400,000??? 1,000,000??? At what point is your subjective criteria of "enough" met and we have moved into the realm of the "too many"??? And furthermore, how can you objectively verify that you have reached the point of "too many" in your statements Dave??? That is a trick question actually because the answer of course is that you cannot. The reason you cannot is because you are arguing from a normative standard which is by its very nature subjective rather than objective. And that is why you have yet to actually enter into the subject of double effect and whether it does or does not apply.

I have argued that double effect applies to this subject and I have made my arguments in a non-normative fashion. You have disagreed and have done so on a normative fashion. Double effect argumentation however is not a subjective principle of argumentation which is to say that it is not normative. So in trying to argue against it with normative arguments, you are involving yourself in the logical fallacy of context-switching my friend.

For double effect is a universal principle and as a result it is both (i) non-normative as well as (ii) objective in its import. That is not to say that you cannot argue against it in the context whereby I have appropriated it of course. However, to do so you must strive to do so from a non-normative context if your arguments are to be viable theories with which we can comprehend and interact with.

Anyway, I hope this note has amply clarified some points that needed to be touched on. If it reads rather hard in spots, I apologize but I will not sugarcoat things as I see them. I look forward to a dialogue with you on these matters my friend with the confident hope that we can do so amicably. But one part of an authentic dialogue is frankness and it is with that in mind that I hope you approach what I have outlined in this thread.

Notes:

{1} The reason for the second posting was because [the person in question] was falling into this trap and it seemed proper to revisit the subject in a briefer form than I had previously enunciated it in for that reason.

{2} The A-Bomb Drops on Japan: Is There Room In the Catholic Conscience to Support Truman's Decision? (Greg Mockeridge: From his weblog circa August 19, 2005)

{3} Tim was author of the most recent Rerum Novarum Guest Editorial and his knowledge of WWII is as extensive (if not more so) than the war archives themselves. For that reason, I will accept any corrections of fact that he has either for my posting or Art's should he send any. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 18, 2005)]

{4} There is also the issue of context in that we only have one source verifying the position of Brigader General Carter Clarke as being involved with MAGIC. We do not know from this whether or not he was in that position at the time of the bomb droppings or not. This is highly improbable for reasons I will not outline in brief. The reader is asked to notice that rather than merely posting names, I am actually making arguments and stating facts: the antithesis of my good friend Dave's approach to discussing this subject matter thus far.

To start with, at one point, all the intelligence cabels from MAGIC were under the same umbrella of control if you will but that changed in the early 1940's. The signal date of sorts was February 2, 1943: the date when there was a division made within the MAGIC cooperative of sorts by President Franklin Roosevelt. The divisions were along military service lines. Starting on February 2, 1943, the Navy was placed solely in charge of the Japanese intelligence cabels (their decoding, etc.) while the Army was given a new assignment altogether. Then-Colonel Carter Clark was the founder of Venona or the Russian chryptological branch of MAGIC charged with working on Soviet decoding. The agency under which that decoding was to take place was renamed the Signal Security Agency (SSA). This is not insignificant when you consider that Dave is quoting a third hand source from Brigader General Carter Clarke on Hiroshima fourteen years after the fact. For those who missed the problem with this source being cited, I will reiterate it at this time.

First of all, Carter Clarke was not a Brigader General in 1945 but was instead a colonel. And as he was in the Army and assigned to head up SSA in early 1943, Colonel Clarke would not have overseen the dispatches on the Japanese from at least early 1943 onward. The reason of course should be obvious: he was the founder of the Venona branch of the MAGIC network and the Army had no involvement in the Japanese decoding from that point onward. Colonel Clarke worked on Venona from February 2, 1943 through at least October of 1949...I am uncertain as to if he was involved with Venona past that point. Nonetheless, it is not even deniable that Colonel Carter Clarke was involved in the founding of Venona in early 1943 and that with Venona, Colonel Clarke was involved with Soviet cabels not Japanese ones. For this reason, citing him as MAGIC operative in the position as Doug Long does (in the context of Pacific Theatre codebreaking and information gathering under MAGIC) is very sloppy scholarship (to put it nicely).

So contrary to your assertions that I was "wrong" in what I said about MacArthur and MAGIC, the above material amply vindicates my position. I wanted to keep this private Dave but since you want it made public, there you go.

{5} Greg is involved too but he and I are discussing this from different angles in some respect. For that reason, I refer here only to the attempted dialogue between you and I since there are two different discussions going on with you on this subject: one with me and one with Greg.

{6} [W]hen one is dealing with a theory, they are dealing with both abstract notions as well as coordinating dynamic principles of action. One of the author's intellectual mentors once defined a theory as "a set of non contradictory abstract ideas (or as philosophers like to call them 'principles') which purports to be either a correct description of reality or a guideline for successful action."...

Having established a working meaning of the term theory, it is worth noting also that the word thesis according to the Merriam Webster Thesaurus is related to the word theory. (Both of them having a foundation in the term assumption.) A good way of looking at this in the current context is to view a thesis as "an abstract principle or proposition to be advanced and maintained by argument" and a theory as incorporating a thesis -or a series of theses -with a guideline for successful action. The reason for this is because a theory by its nature must involve either (i) a correct description of reality or (ii) a guideline for successful action. For this reason, any viable theory involves several principles if you will which work together.

Or another way of looking at it would be to consider that a theory is being conceived of a series of non contradictory coordinative theses or points of presupposition. When viewed in this light, a theory clearly is only as strong as the theses which support it. [Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa January 14, 2004)]

{7} Obviously, you and Greg have studied this particular matter in far more depth than I have. So I eagerly look forward to considering your arguments carefully when I return. [Dave Armstrong: Email to this list circa August 12, 2005 (as reiterated in your Cor ad Cor Loquitur posting circa August 25, 2005)]

Are we to believe that you have assimilated all of our arguments in the span of three days my friend??? Trust me, neither Greg nor myself are unfamiliar with the arguments advanced by people who hold to your general viewpoint. And speaking for Greg, we would appreciate if you give our greater in-depth study on these matters more due than you have done thus far.

Threads on the Atomic Bomb Droppings, Military and Statistical Calculations, the Moral and Ethical Aspects of the Subject Matter in Question, Etc...
(A Rerum Novarum Recapitulation Thread)

To precede the next post I will add to this weblog, the following is a list of some of the threads on this weblog from newest to oldest dealing with the subjects in question. My reasons for this posting will soon become apparent{1} but first, let us revisit the eight threads posted on these subjects since August 17, 2005:

On Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontifications (circa August 17, 2005)

Some Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (From Dr. Art Sippo circa August 18, 2005)

More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (From Tim Tull circa August 19, 2005)

More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (From Tim Tull on Dr. Sippo's Email circa August 21, 2005)

Points to Ponder --On the Atomic Bombs and Their Usage (By Dr. Art Sippo circa August 22, 2005)

And Yet More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (circa August 25, 2005)

And More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (circa August 26, 2005)

And Yet Still More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread (circa August 26, 2005)

Expanding Futher on the Subject of Double Effect Viz. the Atomic Bombings (circa August 26, 2005)


Note:

{1} See this link for details.

Expanding Further on the Subject of Double Effect Viz. the Atomic Bombings:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

I received an email back on the seventeenth of August to the thread I posted earlier that day on the atomic bombings and the problems common to ivory tower revisionists in discussing the subject. The emailer's words will be in green font. My comments will remain in regular font while any quotes are posted in darkblue font.

Well I read it, interesting laying out of the facts. However, I really don't see you outlining why dropping the bomb was a neutral act or how the principle of double effect applies here. (I'm not disagreeing with you per se, but I could see this as a valid criticism from the legalistic [Commentator].)

The first principle was to point out that The Commentator's assertions of 46,000 casualties was a misuse of statistics and that the actual estimates when all factors had been taken into consideration -only some of which I used in that note- pointed to the approach for lessening lives being that of dropping the bombs as we did.

The dropping of the bombs by my estimates saved 430,000 Japanese lives as well as preventing about a million plus military casualties. (That excludes civilian deaths and casualties mind you.) The dropping of the bombs also spared by my estimates between 65,000 and 350,000 American lives (if not more) and between 184,000-and 650,000 Japanese war casualties in a best case scenario. I also ran scenarios where the deaths amongst Japanese would be 414,000-460,000 and the casualties between 1,153,000 and 1,700,000. In light of these factors, I think you can see why The Commentator's assertions are not only ludicrous but a downright pipe dream.

From the standpoint of limiting death and injury, the dropping of the bombs was a slam dunk. That was the first point noted in that posting. The second was the assertion by The Commentator's that evil was being done for a good result. That is where the double effect principle comes into play.

The principle of double effect applies because the targets chosen were military ones and therefore the deaths of civilians were a derivative effect of destroying military targets rather than a primary focus. The situation is similar to one where a pregnant woman has cancer surgery despite knowledge that such surgery will result in an abortion: if the abortion is not willed then there is no sin should it happen. That is the same principle that is at work here.

Duble effect also comes into play in the area of self-defense (i.e. you accidentally kill someone when defending yourself from attack) and numerous other moral and ethical subjects. It furthermore comes into play with the whole interfaith gathering subject not to resurrect that subject at the present time. I remind you of the four criteria for double effect from my web posting -the latter of which is linked to the Hiroshima thread (in footnote eleven) for a reason. Nonetheless, let us unpack the criteria step by step so that it is easier to see how this moral/ethical principle applies to the subject in question:

---The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.

The bombing could be viewed either as a moral good (in light of how the bombs flattened two military targets and spared many deaths and casualties on both sides which would have occurred as a result of a land invasion) or as morally indifferent (in light of the fact that the bombs destructive range was known but in light of the known dispositions of the enemy -coupled with a desire to preserve lives on both sides- the two combine to essentially create a moral wash of sorts). I happen to favour the latter myself but I am open to persuasion of the former. Either way, the first critieria is met with the bombings.

---The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect, he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.

President Truman (as the agent involved here acting in the US's stead) made it clear in his diary that though he anticipated civilian casualties that he chose these targets for their military significance: the latter being the reason he did not choose Tokyo or Kyoto which were heavily civilian populated and had no military significance.{1} In this sense, the bad effect can be said to be not positively willed but instead permitted or indirectly voluntary in a derivative sense.

Furthermore, a limiting of the lives which the bombs achieved could not have been realized by a land invasion alone; ergo that was not an option to avoid the bad effect. For other reasons I will not mention (but which an email on the matter from my friend Tim Tull the WWII maestro that I will post in a few days will make clear by implication){2} the blockade idea of "bringing the war machine to a halt" would not work either despite The Commentator's fantasies on the matter. If The Commentator is interested in saving lives, a blockade as they mentioned may have taken two years to reach a surrender and we have no way to estimate how many millions would have died in that time from starvation.{3}

---The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words, the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise, the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.

I think we can definitely say that the good effect of limiting overall deaths and achieving a quick end to the war were a direct flow from the action itself and as immediate as the bad effect -albeit not necessarily in order of time. In other words, the surrender and quick end of the war and the sparing of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives was produced directly from the actions themselves (with the civilian deaths being a derivative thereof). For that reason, it is not using a bad means to a good end as The Commentator asserted.

---The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect. In forming this decision many factors must be weighed and compared, with care and prudence proportionate to the importance of the case. Thus, an effect that benefits or harms society generally has more weight than one that affects only an individual; an effect sure to occur deserves greater consideration than one that is only probable; an effect of a moral nature has greater importance than one that deals only with material things.

This factor in light of what I noted already is easily met.

And as all four criteria for double effect are met with the actions we took with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the principle of double effect can be said to legitimately apply here.


Note:

{1} Whether or not a later bombing of Kyoto or Tokyo in this fashion would have similarly been unjustified is debatable. Certainly though, it would have been with the first two bombs being dropped since those were heavily-populated cities with no military (and only psychological) significance.

{2} The email from Tim I mentioned in that response was posted back on the nineteenth of August.

{3} For further clarification on the matter, I refer the readers to the email posted earlier this morning the text of which I have forwarded to Tim for verification of the contents thereof. (It looks very accurate to me but if Tim sees problems with it, I will clarify them in a short update to that thread.)

And Yet Still More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread:

Actually, this is an argument against the critic whose stuff I responded to HERE. Here is the text which the emailer refers to from that posting (the words of the interlocuter will be in italics in reposting the thread):

We could simply have blockaded them, in which the responsibility for civilian deaths would fall solely on the shoulders of the Japanese leaders, or simply accepted a conditional surrender.

No, a blockade which resulted in millions of starvation deaths would have placed the responsibility for civilian death on our shoulders.

That Hiroshima built carriers was irrelevant.

No, that situation made Hiroshima a legitimate military target; ergo the assertion of irrelevance does not stick.

Under the US air and naval blockade they were not capable of doing such.

So goes the revisionist myth. As I noted in an email to another critic who raised the blockade idea:

The blockade proposal (made by the commentator) and the land invasion proposal would have been very costly in that respect -certainly far more than the option we did choose. With the blockade, there would have been immeasurable numbers of deaths by starvation. Why is death by starvation more acceptable than death by atomic bomb???

The answer of course is that the latter is seen as more "politically correct"...the little dirty factoid that those who play revisionist history with the atomic bomb droppings do not care to admit to. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum circa yesterday]

In response to the above comments from the interlocuter, I received this email about twelve hours ago:

Your interlocutor's assertion that the U.S. Air and Naval "blockade" of Japan prohibited it from building aircraft carriers. The Japanese launched the following carriers in 1944: Shinano, Taiyo, Unryu, Amagi, and Katsuragi. The Shinano, converted after Midway from construction as a Yamato-class superbattleship, was the largest aircraft carrier in the world (by tonnage) until the United States commissioned the Forrestal in 1955. Japan was also building the Kasagi, Aso, and Ikoma which were not completed by war's end.

And while I could submit this thread to my buddy Tim Tull (the WWII maestro) for verification of the facts; nonetheless I am no slouch on the subject myself and I see nothing inaccurate in what the emailer says. As far as what I said on the blockade, they made the following comments:

BTW, civilian death estimates from the Allied blockade of Germany at the close of WWI run from 850,000 to 1.5 million. The calculation is disputed because of different estimates on the blockade's effect on the 1918 influenza epidemic in Germany / Austria. (Germany's influenza death rate was over 200% of Great Britain's).

Again, these figures look accurate to me. I will send this thread to Tim for verification but in the meantime, let this stand as yet another argument against the blockade idea as advanced by The Commentator and reiterated by the interlocuter from yesterday's posting.

And More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread:

This is a response to two arguments posited against my original posting on the atomic bombings. I responded in short order to two critics back on August 20th and to differentiate between them, I will use dark yellow and fire coloured fonts for their words. My words will remain in regular font.

What if,in WWII, the allies developed the capability to drop enough troops and equipment into civilian populations such as Hiroshima, bypassing the Japanese military? Further, what if they had the capability of quickly pulling out before the Japanese military could respond? And finally, what if the American soldiers killed the same number of civilians as the bombs? Would such a tactic have been moral?

Lots of what ifs here P. Nonetheless...

What if,in WWII, the allies developed the capability to drop enough troops and equipment into civilian populations such as Hiroshima, bypassing the Japanese military?

They did not have that capability so the question is a normative one. Normative questions are subjective by nature and do not depend on an objective review of the facts but instead on individual "feelings." They are thus quite open to the logical fallacy of solipsism factoring into the equation. For that reason, I would be very careful in advancing such questions if I were you.

Further, what if they had the capability of quickly pulling out before the Japanese military could respond?

Which they did not have...again, you are asking a normative question.

And finally, what if the American soldiers killed the same number of civilians as the bombs? Would such a tactic have been moral?

As I noted in the post above, there would have been significantly more deaths and casualties with a land invasion no matter how you crunched the numbers. Likewise (though I did not mention it) the blockade idea of The Commentator would have resulted in deaths by starvation of at least a million civilians if not more in the two years or more it would have taken to become effective in ending the war. So if your choices are (i) a blockade where a million or more civilians perished from starvation (ii) a land invasion where there would be upwards of two million or more total casualties (and 30-50% or more of those deaths) and three to six months or more of land war with the additional loss of American lives: all of this as a best case scenario or (iii) dropping two atomic bombs on military targets that killed about 220,000 people and ended the war in less than a week, which choice looks the most moral to you???

Remember, we have to look at facts and try to make an objective assessment here. Normative questions as you post cannot be answered by any theory. This was well covered by Dr. Walter E. Williams in a recent posting to my weblog and what he notes bears serious consideration by everyone involved in discussing these kinds of subjects.

Is it moral for the military to bypass a foreign army and specifically target civilians?

I know why you are asking this question and it is to posit that we did this with the bombings. (I got some emails from people trying this tactic so I am not unaware of what this kind of question intends to do.)

As I pointed out in my Hiroshima thread, we did not do this at all but (apparently) some people do not want to discuss things from an objective assessment but prefer to deal with normative questions: the latter of which have a "X should have been done" or "should we not have tried X instead" kind of component to them. As the latter questions are purely subjective in nature, they cannot be interacted with by an attempt to do so objectively since you state them not from empirical evidences but instead from personal opinions.

We should strive to avoid the subjectivist approach to argumentation in this kind of discussion (which puts one in trap of solipsism more often than not) and instead stick to verifiable data rather than resorting to normative questioning.

Gen Douglas MacArthur maintained the position until his death that the bombings weren't necessary.

Is this the same General Douglas MacArthur who wanted to nuke Chinese cities north of the Yalu River in the Korean War??? The reason MacArthur did not view their use as necessary on Japan is not because he was opposed to the weapons themselves.

He did hold the position that they were on the verge of surrender.

And he was very much wrong about that as the MAGIC cables established quite clearly. If I recall correctly, those who were privy to the transmissions were to a man in support of using the bombs. MacArthur however died in 1964 was was not aware of them to my knowledge. So I do not fault MacArthur for not knowing that though since MAGIC was heavily classified at the time and was not partially declassified until 1978 (and fully declassified in 1995).

I do not doubt for an instant that if MacArthur had the same information as Truman, Stimpson, and other officials in the War Department on the situation in Japan that he would have taken a different view...that is, if he favoured a quick and casualty-limited ending rather than a long drawn out battle.

Points to Ponder:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. [President Theodore Roosevelt]

And Yet More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread:

This is another response to my recent weblog posting on Hiroshima and the atomic bomb droppings. Unlike the others posted, this one is on balance more critical and it touches not only on my own material but some of those who gave positive feedback on the original thread. I post these in the interest of providing some balance since not all feedback on that thread was of a positive nature. The words of the critic will be in orange coloured font and an ally (of sorts) will have their words posted in purple coloured font. Any citations I make will be in shale coloured font.

So in other words, [Shawn] completely ignores the fact that we deliberately attacked civilians,

Historical ignorance and revisionism must be bliss. The truth is, we attacked legitimate military targets and there were civilian casualties as a derivative result of this action being taken.

and keeps spouting off the "We'd take more casualties invading than simply nuking them" line.

Apparently this person does not understand the principle of double effect in moral and ethical argumentation. I alluded to it in the posting by adding a footnote linking to a thread whereby I explained this moral/ethical principle and how it applies.

He fails to understand that deliberately attacking civilians is a moral evil, no matter what, as well as that it was not "Invade or nuke."

Again, we did not deliberately attack civilians. If this person is incapable of getting the little facts right, I am left to wonder how they expect to understand more complex moral and ethical principles from which the little facts are built on.

We could simply have blockaded them, in which the responsibility for civilian deaths would fall solely on the shoulders of the Japanese leaders, or simply accepted a conditional surrender.

No, a blockade which resulted in millions of starvation deaths would have placed the responsibility for civilian death on our shoulders.

That Hiroshima built carriers was irrelevant.

No, that situation made Hiroshima a legitimate military target; ergo the assertion of irrelevance does not stick.

Under the US air and naval blockade they were not capable of doing such.

So goes the revisionist myth. As I noted in an email to another critic who raised the blockade idea:

The blockade proposal (made by the commentator) and the land invasion proposal would have been very costly in that respect -certainly far more than the option we did choose. With the blockade, there would have been immeasurable numbers of deaths by starvation. Why is death by starvation more acceptable than death by atomic bomb???

The answer of course is that the latter is seen as more "politically correct"...the little dirty factoid that those who play revisionist history with the atomic bomb droppings do not care to admit to.

Premise 1: To deliberately attack a civilian target in war is objectively sinful.

Since we did not deliberately attack a civilian target in war, the first premise fails to sustain itself and we need not entertain the rest of the argument.

Premise 2: The proposition "The ends justify the means" has been condemned by the Church.

See my previous comments.

Conclusion: There is no just and moral reason to deliberately attack civilians.

See my previous comments

In addition, it may be noted that Pope Pius XII condemned the nuclear bombings

Those who make this assertion never seem to want to provide the proof. Likewise, this person apparently fits the common mould since if they had the proof (and further, if it was convincing proof at that), then they would have cited it chapter and verse in this response. That they did not do this is quite telling to say the least for those with eyes to see..

and the Second Vatican Council condemned the strategic use of nuclear weapons, such as that demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

"Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation." Gaudium et Spes 80.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not aimed indiscriminately. They were instead targeted at military installations. The deaths of civilians (which did happen) was a derivative of this action but not the intention of the action itself. This is where the moral and ethical principle of double effect comes into play. (A topic I have delved into before on my weblog.)

I am starting to remember why I do not post much at message boards anymore.{1} The main reasons for this position involve the tendency of those who want to have a discussion on those mediums often taking the approach of (i) making grandiose assertions, (ii) not bothering to sustain said assertions with source citations in proper context for the examination of others, (iii) repeating the same easily debunkable assertions in their argumentations -assertions I might add which they make without any pretense at demonstration whatsoever. Whatever else someone wants to say about my arguments, I do not do any of the above things and never have.{2}

Lastly, it may be noted that his commentator's idea that Stalin would have made a grab at Western Europe is ridiculous.

This was obviously written by someone who was unfamiliar with the true capabilities of the Soviet military...not to mention unfamiliar with the kind of person who was Josef Stalin.

Stalin did not have the logistical capability to do so, much less the sealift capability to take England.

There was nothing that stood in the way of the Red Army sweeping across Western Europe -particularly if we removed military personnel and equipment and moved it to the Pacific theatre. And what we had there would not have prevented the Soviets from taking continental Western Europe.

Remember, the Soviets had by far the most powerful military force in Europe at the time. And once they swept across Western Europe -which they would have if they had detected any weakness whatsoever in our resolve to defend it- they could have blockaded England and brought the latter to her knees without the kind of scruples about such actions as we in the US would have had with doing the same thing to the Japanese. Stalin after all was not against doing whatever he needed to do to achieve his objections -as my ancestors who died in the Ukrainian terror famine could amply testify to (if they still had voices to speak about it).

Furthermore, even assuming that the Red Army actually obeyed their orders (they may have hated the Germans with a passion, but that hatred did not extend to the rest of the West), they would have faced these nuclear weapons, and the use of nukes against an army in the field is completely moral.

We did not have enough nuclear weapons to use them in Europe at the time. Furthermore, the nukes were not pinpoint in accuracy and would have wiped out a lot of civilians in the European theatre. Unlike in Japan (where they military-civilian line was blurred for not a few reasons), the civilians in the European nations would have been far more innocent than many of the Japanese civilians were.

Whether they actually could have beaten us is a very good question.

Yes it is. I for one do not believe the Americans would have had the patience to deal with another war in Europe so soon after the surrender of Germany...particularly since we still had Japan to deal with. By contrast, the Soviets were on an imperialist mission and would not have hesitated if we had shown any weakness in this situation...the kind of weakness that a long protracted land invasion or a blockade attempting to wait the Japanese out with would have involved.{3}

It must be remembered that Nazi and other anti-communist guerillas (such as the Ukranian Insurgent Army) managed to keep fighting until the 1960's in places.

This is true. But again, the Soviets would have used whatever they wanted without scruples against the Nazis and others who were still holding out...such as nuclear bombs without any concern whatsoever for those who would have died as a result.

In response to another contributor commenting on the text I responded to above, someone else had this to say.

CC, that's rather a warping of the facts.

Indeed it was MC. But that is what happens when people try to argue historical events and situations in selective fashion without concern for the sitz im leben.

The conditional surrender they requested pre-Hiroshima was entire preservation of the Japanese hierarchy, no occupation, and no interference with their actions in Korea. They'd basically withdraw from China and the Pacific.

Precisely. And there was no way we could have accepted that.

As for ends and means, the argument is the validity of the means. And let it not be claimed our church has not justified the means via the end before.

Whatever the case with your above statement, it does not apply in this instance. Instead, as I noted to CC, the proper interpretive matrix is the moral and ethical principle of double effect. I am coming to the conclusion that I am going to have to unpack this so it is better understood.

As for Vatican II, please everyone note when the Council happened.

Oh yes...it happened in the 1960's. This was the era of rampant revisionism on the part of not a few parties in the secular world on recent events and circumstances. (The revisionist histories of the atomic bomb droppings happened at this time along with the revisionist histories of Pius XII: two significant examples worth mentioning.)

Historical revisionism is one of the many masks of marxism as I noted earlier this year. This is not to say that CC is a marxist of course but this parallel should be a sobering one for them as I see it.

As for your last posting on the subject MC, you interpreted GS 80 in the correct context.

Notes:

{1} Signum Crucis and Anawim could vouch for the fact that prior to December 31, 2002, I was a frequent contributor to Steve's board for not a few years.

{2} If anything, I probably overdocument which is certainly far more preferable to underdocumenting (or ignoring the latter altogether).

{3} To reiterate footnote six from my August 17th posting:

There were 10,000 military aircraft targeted for Kamikaze missions against the US military along with roughly a quarter million or more soldiers in Hiroshima alone. Also, Hiroshima was not on Kyushu but instead was on Chukoyu one island up. So after an invasion at Kyushu, there would be fighting there and also with a quarter million more troops in Hiroshima which could either have remained there or moved east to Shikoku. Either way, there would have been no avoiding them since (unlike Europe) a blitzkreig tank attack strategy would not work and without such a lightening fast approach, the Japanese troops at Hiroshima would have been able to engage the enemy and also have knowledge of the terrain to their advantage too. But that is not all.

Since moving to Shikoku would have involved two island jumps instead of one as in going to Hiroshima (see this map for a visual guide), it is most probable that they would have gone through Hiroshima where the quarter million additional military troops were already stationed. Furthermore, there was approximately three million civilians who were instructed in taking a "last stand" against the possible invaders. This was not accounted for in the original numbers cited by The Commentator: the idea that the civilians would place themselves in the position of being considered military personnel by trying to kill invading American troops. Stop to consider that for a moment.

Imagine if you will a child with sharp objects (or civilian men and women) trying to use said objects as weapons on invading soldiers. And from there, I am sure you can imagine that such a tactic would not go on too long before the soldiers had to start shooting civilians simply to insure their own safety. After all, you cannot have people stabbing you in the back with sharp objects when you are at battle and at that point, civilians blur the lines between civilian and military personnel. And at that point, the "self-defense" approach would kick in and I guarantee you the deaths and casualties would probably double over any projections from a purely military standpoint.

Remember, with a quarter million troops in Hiroshima being engaged after the massive troop levels at Kyushu -and presuming we actually pushed north from there of course- and three million civilians instructed as noted above- the American forces would be outnumbered significantly. Hence, when I say 650,000 deaths (and one and a half million additional casualties if not more) amongst the Japanese populace, consider everything I noted in this note and you will recognize I am sure that these are not inaccurate estimates. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 17, 2005)]

Anyone who thinks that those 10,000 plus kamakaze planes (which were based solely in Hiroshima: they were not the only planes available for kamakaze missions I might add) would not have been used against the ships of any attempted long-term blockade on the part of the US is in need of a reality transplant.

Anti-War Protestors Target Wounded At Army Hospital

I would like to say that I am surprised by the report at the above thread but sadly, I am not. Readers are advised to interpret the above thread through the twin lenses of Greg's recent "points to ponder" thread as well as my July 3, 2005 "points to ponder" thread on the many masks of modern marxism.

Points to Ponder:

Isn't it ironic that those who incessantly wail about giving peace a chance every time this country takes up arms to protect itself promote policies of appeasement that always lead to bigger and bloodier wars.

The anti war crowd is also violent both in their rhetoric and in their actions.

So much for "Blessed are the peacemakers." [Greg Mockeridge (circa August 17, 2005)]

Musings on the Third Anniversary of Rerum Novarum:
(From the Webmaster)

Yes my friends, today is the third anniversary of this weblog's existence. And while anniversaries have generally been acknowledged in six month increments during that span (excluding last February where nothing was said on it to my knowledge), somehow I have managed to get the date incorrect every time. So for the first time since I have marked an anniversary, I am not off by one day if you will: the result of checking my archives rather than going off of memory this time.

It is customary to involve myself in various kinds of unusual weblog indulgences on birthday anniversaries be they annual or biannual ones. And in light of how many have shown an unfamiliarity with (or have disputed) how to situate the atomic bombing subject within the matrix of double effect argumentation, I thought about posting on that matter today. However, as that can always be discussed later on, I would instead like to request on this occasion a reiteration of what I asked for a couple of days ago. Thank you for your ever increasing patronage the past three years and with God's will and your faithful readership, I shall blog again soon...

Points to Ponder:
(On the Atomic Bombs and Their Usage)

The problem with doing moral calculus in hindsight is that it tends to treat the issues as mere variables in a problem. When you are the guy on the anvil being hammered by all parties and you need to make a decision NOW things are not quite that simple. Morality proceeds as much from character and good habits as it does from the facts of the case. In some cases more than one moral option may present itself so that there is no one "right" or "wrong" answer.

The most despicable people imaginable are those who vilify the man who made a choice in good faith under fire. It is one thing to say that they disagreed with his choice but another thing entirely to say that he was a bad person for choosing what he chose. That is not necessarily so. Sometimes a man can only do his best and hope that later generations will appreciate how hard his decision was.

The atomic bombing of Japan was a terrible event in our history that was thrust upon the US by circumstances. No one knew the extent of the damage the bombs would do. It was expected that an air-burst such as they did in both bombings would minimize fallout and that the primary concern would be the initial flash and the shock wave that followed. No one anticipated that there would be radiation casualties. It was thought that anyone close enough to be radiated would be killed outright by the physical effects of the blast.

Had we known this before hand, would we have used the bombs? I suspect that we would have. We might have modified the target selection or the altitude from which the bombs were dropped or even augmented the bombings with other ordnance. (It was initially planned that the atomic bombings would be accompanied by fire bombings immediately afterwards. Talk about adding insult to injury!) But the bombs would have been used.

If we had known, SHOULD we have used the bombs? That is a good question. I think that we should not have fire-bombed Dresden or Tokyo as we did. There were several other aspects of the demand for "unconditional surrender" that were in my mind morally dubious. A negotiated end to hostility in Germany might have saved many thousands of lives and prevented the Russian occupation that became a tinder point over the next 20 years. If the Japanese could have negotiated a surrender that allowed them to keep their emperor and protected their civilian populace from reprisals but still required occupation and the trial of war criminals, no invasion or bombing may have been necessary.

But this is wool-gathering. Truman made a choice based on the cards he was dealt and he did what he thought was right. In light of the horrors of this terrible war, I can not blame him for trying to end it swiftly and decisively by making the aggressors who started it bear the brunt of the final assault. [Dr. Art Sippo (circa August 20, 2005)]

Tim Tull Comments on Dr. Art Sippo's Email:

[Notificaion: When going through various old drafts at this weblog, I found the following one from August of 2005 on the atomic bombing controversy which I intended to blog but forgot to. Nonetheless, I decided to publish it at this time for the sake of greater completion of that corpus of work and also to incorporate it into the recapitulation threads on these subjects published on August 28, 2005 and January 23, 2006. - ISM 3/21/06 4:00pm]

The email being commented on was blogged a couple of days ago and can be viewed in its entirety HERE.

The Dr. has the critical point that the argument must be extended. When the argument is narrowly focused into a bomb blast and civilian suffering, then liberals are able to tug at heart strings and move people to their side. That is why omission is the greatest weapon of mass distorition the left has in their arsenal. They play this game here, with Abu Ghirab, Guantanomo, the death penalty, homelessness etc.

What's even more dangerous[ly] illustrated in the Dr.'s response is his statement of "inhumane treatment" of prisoners of the Japanese. With the left's obsession of redefining language, one reads that and may be inclined to think of present-day American jailers turning up air conditioners to make prisoners shiver, putting underwear on a prisoners head or making dogs bark at them. These words "inhumane treatment" of prisoners now lump together the above mentioned with Japanese assigning thousands of captured Chinese women to multiple soldiers to rape until they were done with them and killed them. Or Japanese soldiers gloating of bayonetting children in Nanking. Or murdering 98 unarmed American contractors on Wake Island. This list goes into the millions of effected lives across the Pacific and we're left to equate this to an Iraqi terrorist prisoner standing on a box with a hood and harmless wires attached to his fingers in Abu Ghirab as a poster child to American "atrocities".