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)]
Sunday, August 28, 2005
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.
(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.
(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.
Friday, August 26, 2005
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.)
(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.
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.
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.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
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]
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
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)]
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)]
Monday, August 22, 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...
(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)]
(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)]
Sunday, August 21, 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".
[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".
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Friday, August 19, 2005
More Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread:
This is the second installment{1} of feedback from the August 17th Hiroshima thread posted by your blog host. Considering the depth of my friend's knowledge of WWII and its intricacies, this was a very pleasing email to receive. Like the feedback from Dr. Art Sippo earlier, will point out some information that I did not deal with in my original post.{2} Tim's words will be in slate coloured font:
That's a fantastic article. Thank you for pointing out that Hiroshima was a major military logistics and munitions center. The rekindling of this debate points out the real dangerous poison coming from the Zinn-like authors and their Cool Aid drinking followers[.] Going down this path of selective examination of our national history usually roots in Marxist philosophies veiled in objective research. The debates always have in common a very narrow focus that omits the major information. Our whole media industry is based on the strategy. Technically, your article is terrific.
The one thing that's difficult in playing with numbers is their non-transferability in real situations, the real outcome of a homeland invasion may have even been far worse.
Imagine this homeland invasion scenario...our casualties are higher than expected or the campaign is dragging out a couple of years. The Soviets sensing a weakness in our massive transfer of forces to the Pacific (which was in the works), saw an opportunity to quickly gobble up Europe including England. Don't put it past them! Don't forget that Stalin declared war on Japan upon hearing of the first nuke falling. Do you think Stalin wouldn't have done it because he believed in a man's word and a handshake - ha! This would have been his one shot at Western Europe.
As an aside, for Tim's views on the lack of actual tolerance and true diversity of views in institutions of so-called "higher education" (a subject that has some relevance to what he outlines in the above note), I remind you of the the most recent Rerum Novarum guest editorial where he holds court on that subject.
Notes:
{1} The first such response was posted yesterday. Tim dashed off some quick notes to me on that posting which I may include on this weblog in the coming days.
{2} Readers of this humble weblog (particularly longtime ones) know that brevity is the key weakness to my writing style; ergo in striving for economy of prose, some stuff will inexorably have to be left out at times.
This is the second installment{1} of feedback from the August 17th Hiroshima thread posted by your blog host. Considering the depth of my friend's knowledge of WWII and its intricacies, this was a very pleasing email to receive. Like the feedback from Dr. Art Sippo earlier, will point out some information that I did not deal with in my original post.{2} Tim's words will be in slate coloured font:
That's a fantastic article. Thank you for pointing out that Hiroshima was a major military logistics and munitions center. The rekindling of this debate points out the real dangerous poison coming from the Zinn-like authors and their Cool Aid drinking followers[.] Going down this path of selective examination of our national history usually roots in Marxist philosophies veiled in objective research. The debates always have in common a very narrow focus that omits the major information. Our whole media industry is based on the strategy. Technically, your article is terrific.
The one thing that's difficult in playing with numbers is their non-transferability in real situations, the real outcome of a homeland invasion may have even been far worse.
Imagine this homeland invasion scenario...our casualties are higher than expected or the campaign is dragging out a couple of years. The Soviets sensing a weakness in our massive transfer of forces to the Pacific (which was in the works), saw an opportunity to quickly gobble up Europe including England. Don't put it past them! Don't forget that Stalin declared war on Japan upon hearing of the first nuke falling. Do you think Stalin wouldn't have done it because he believed in a man's word and a handshake - ha! This would have been his one shot at Western Europe.
As an aside, for Tim's views on the lack of actual tolerance and true diversity of views in institutions of so-called "higher education" (a subject that has some relevance to what he outlines in the above note), I remind you of the the most recent Rerum Novarum guest editorial where he holds court on that subject.
Notes:
{1} The first such response was posted yesterday. Tim dashed off some quick notes to me on that posting which I may include on this weblog in the coming days.
{2} Readers of this humble weblog (particularly longtime ones) know that brevity is the key weakness to my writing style; ergo in striving for economy of prose, some stuff will inexorably have to be left out at times.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Briefly on Cindy Sheehan:
I have up to now not commented on the Cindy Sheehan story for many reasons. The first is that it was evident to me that she was being used by the brainless solipsistic nitwits of the "bush-is-hitler" contingent. This is disgraceful since whatever differences one has with her views, she is obviously grieving over her son's death and is thus deserving of some space and understanding for that reason.
However, Christopher Hitchens has noted some things on this subject which are downright disturbing. It is not her patently ridiculous and illogical assertions per se which are the problem.{1} However, it is interesting that there is an obvious media double standard at work in her case for whatever reason. Hitchens summarizes the Sheehan subject in the following fashion:
Casey Sheehan joined up as a responsible adult volunteer. Are we so sure that he would have wanted to see his mother acquiring "a knack for P.R." and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal? (a claim that has brought David Duke flying to Ms. Sheehan's side.) This is just as objectionable, on logical as well as moral grounds, as the old pro-war argument that the dead "must not have died in vain." I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them.
I do not often agree with Mr. Hitchens but his assessment in the final paragraph summarizes well my outlook on this whole issue. The double standard I refer to is Ms. Sheehan raising the old "wars being fought for a Jewish cabal" rubric which is straight from the conspiracy theorist's handbook. Maybe I should have co-titled this posting "'Protocols of theUnLearned Elder Sheehan' Dept." Either way though, if a person identified as a conservative made these kinds of assertions, the media would have them for lunch...were they grieving for dead relatives or not. And that is the bottom line really my friends. (And a bottom line that is not even debatable I might add.)
Note:
{1} Grieving people can say some downright odd things. I am always hesitant to go into an analysis of their statements for this reason. Nonetheless, the statement I will note in this posting is merely to (i) again outline an obvious double standard and of course to (ii) note how shamelessly The Evil Party will use anyone they can to advance their agendas...even a grieving mother such as Ms. Sheehan. Those people obviously have no shame and are lower than animal dung in my book.
I have up to now not commented on the Cindy Sheehan story for many reasons. The first is that it was evident to me that she was being used by the brainless solipsistic nitwits of the "bush-is-hitler" contingent. This is disgraceful since whatever differences one has with her views, she is obviously grieving over her son's death and is thus deserving of some space and understanding for that reason.
However, Christopher Hitchens has noted some things on this subject which are downright disturbing. It is not her patently ridiculous and illogical assertions per se which are the problem.{1} However, it is interesting that there is an obvious media double standard at work in her case for whatever reason. Hitchens summarizes the Sheehan subject in the following fashion:
Casey Sheehan joined up as a responsible adult volunteer. Are we so sure that he would have wanted to see his mother acquiring "a knack for P.R." and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal? (a claim that has brought David Duke flying to Ms. Sheehan's side.) This is just as objectionable, on logical as well as moral grounds, as the old pro-war argument that the dead "must not have died in vain." I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them.
I do not often agree with Mr. Hitchens but his assessment in the final paragraph summarizes well my outlook on this whole issue. The double standard I refer to is Ms. Sheehan raising the old "wars being fought for a Jewish cabal" rubric which is straight from the conspiracy theorist's handbook. Maybe I should have co-titled this posting "'Protocols of the
Note:
{1} Grieving people can say some downright odd things. I am always hesitant to go into an analysis of their statements for this reason. Nonetheless, the statement I will note in this posting is merely to (i) again outline an obvious double standard and of course to (ii) note how shamelessly The Evil Party will use anyone they can to advance their agendas...even a grieving mother such as Ms. Sheehan. Those people obviously have no shame and are lower than animal dung in my book.
Some Feedback on the "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontificatons" Thread:
This is one of the pieces of email feedback I received on the previous Hiroshima thread from a good friend of mine (Dr. Art Sippo) who reviewed the threads in detail and has the following things to say about it and the subject covered. For those who are curious as to the mentioning of names (something so rarely done here at Rerum Novarum) I want to make it clear from the outset that Art's name was published specifically at his request to do so. (And this in keeping with this writer's interpretation of the Welborn Protocol.){1} Art's words will be in slate coloured font.
It is well done, Shawn. I think though that the argument needs to be extended a little to other issues. The Japanese had been the aggressors in the Pacific war. Their attack on Pearl Harbor while their ambassador was making overtures of peace was seen as perfidy. Their further conduct during the war was seen in a similarly negative way: Kamikaze suicide attacks, the Rape of Nanking, the campaign in Korea, the Bataan Death March and other atrocities in the Philippines, the fierceness of Island warfare, the mobilization of Okinawa civilians -- including women and children -- to offered physical resistance to US troops, and the inhumane treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians in occupied lands. They even tried and executed American POWs in violation of the Geneva Convention for alleged war crimes. There was also the perception -- correct in every detail -- that if the tables were turned; the Japanese would not have hesitated to use the atomic bomb on us.
It was not known for certain at that time but suspected by American intelligence that the Japanese had used American and British POWs along with Chinese civilians for weapons experiments at secret facilities in China. BIOLOGICAL weapons experiments. This was confirmed after the war. Many POWs were placed near bombs that were exploded and where the shrapnel contained disease organisms. They were then allowed to die untreated of the diseases that resulted.
It was known to American intelligence (though kept secret from the American Public) that the Japanese had released long-range balloons into the Jet Stream carrying explosive payloads to be dropped on the American West Coast. Several of these balloons made it to the US and some did explode causing loss of civilian life and limb.
I know that these arguments may not appeal to the "Ivory Tower" moralist. But they make a cumulative case for considering the Japanese to be a ruthless and dangerous enemy who were not to be trusted and who had used up whatever goodwill America had ever had towards the Japanese people. Placing American troops at risk in attacking the homeland of such an enemy itself represented an unacceptable moral risk. If weapons of mass destruction could be used to destroy the Japanese infrastructure, the war machine would crumble and no more American lives would have needed to be risked in the attempt to subdue an unjust and morally unrestricted aggressor.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro!
For the record, I see nothing inaccurate about the various facts that Dr. Sippo outlines in the above email. I will however remand that subject to my good friend Tim Tull{2} who also sent me a communique on that thread.{3} In the meantime, I have received more than one email from people questioning my appeal to double effect moral/ethical argumentation so I may have to clarify that point in the coming days as well.
Notes:
{1} Though that interpretation was recently reiterated for the benefit of the readers, it will be referenced again at this time:
Any correspondence will be presumed eligible for blogging unless the sender otherwise specifies. This is referred to as the Welborn Protocol and is a policy that will be followed at Rerum Novarum. (Though name and email information will as a rule not be posted without explicit request to do so by the sender.) [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 2, 2005)]
{2} 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.
{3} Tim's email may be posted in the coming days.
This is one of the pieces of email feedback I received on the previous Hiroshima thread from a good friend of mine (Dr. Art Sippo) who reviewed the threads in detail and has the following things to say about it and the subject covered. For those who are curious as to the mentioning of names (something so rarely done here at Rerum Novarum) I want to make it clear from the outset that Art's name was published specifically at his request to do so. (And this in keeping with this writer's interpretation of the Welborn Protocol.){1} Art's words will be in slate coloured font.
It is well done, Shawn. I think though that the argument needs to be extended a little to other issues. The Japanese had been the aggressors in the Pacific war. Their attack on Pearl Harbor while their ambassador was making overtures of peace was seen as perfidy. Their further conduct during the war was seen in a similarly negative way: Kamikaze suicide attacks, the Rape of Nanking, the campaign in Korea, the Bataan Death March and other atrocities in the Philippines, the fierceness of Island warfare, the mobilization of Okinawa civilians -- including women and children -- to offered physical resistance to US troops, and the inhumane treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians in occupied lands. They even tried and executed American POWs in violation of the Geneva Convention for alleged war crimes. There was also the perception -- correct in every detail -- that if the tables were turned; the Japanese would not have hesitated to use the atomic bomb on us.
It was not known for certain at that time but suspected by American intelligence that the Japanese had used American and British POWs along with Chinese civilians for weapons experiments at secret facilities in China. BIOLOGICAL weapons experiments. This was confirmed after the war. Many POWs were placed near bombs that were exploded and where the shrapnel contained disease organisms. They were then allowed to die untreated of the diseases that resulted.
It was known to American intelligence (though kept secret from the American Public) that the Japanese had released long-range balloons into the Jet Stream carrying explosive payloads to be dropped on the American West Coast. Several of these balloons made it to the US and some did explode causing loss of civilian life and limb.
I know that these arguments may not appeal to the "Ivory Tower" moralist. But they make a cumulative case for considering the Japanese to be a ruthless and dangerous enemy who were not to be trusted and who had used up whatever goodwill America had ever had towards the Japanese people. Placing American troops at risk in attacking the homeland of such an enemy itself represented an unacceptable moral risk. If weapons of mass destruction could be used to destroy the Japanese infrastructure, the war machine would crumble and no more American lives would have needed to be risked in the attempt to subdue an unjust and morally unrestricted aggressor.
Art
Omnes semper - ad Jesum, per Mariam, cum Petro!
For the record, I see nothing inaccurate about the various facts that Dr. Sippo outlines in the above email. I will however remand that subject to my good friend Tim Tull{2} who also sent me a communique on that thread.{3} In the meantime, I have received more than one email from people questioning my appeal to double effect moral/ethical argumentation so I may have to clarify that point in the coming days as well.
Notes:
{1} Though that interpretation was recently reiterated for the benefit of the readers, it will be referenced again at this time:
Any correspondence will be presumed eligible for blogging unless the sender otherwise specifies. This is referred to as the Welborn Protocol and is a policy that will be followed at Rerum Novarum. (Though name and email information will as a rule not be posted without explicit request to do so by the sender.) [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 2, 2005)]
{2} 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.
{3} Tim's email may be posted in the coming days.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
On Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Profound Problems With Ivory Tower Revisionist Pontifications:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: This thread was written in response to a private discussion where the work of a prominent Catholic commentator was brought to my attention. The fundamental issue here is one of the commentator in question making very facile arguments and presumptions on a subject with no small amount of complexities to it. And as they are a very influential person in Catholic circles, they have a responsibility for accuracy as well as not presenting their opinions as matters of doctrine or in a fashion that rules out opposing viewpoints.
Due to a desire to keep this focused on issues and not personalities, I will not directly quote the party in question. However, I will accurately represent their statements in a paraphrase format. As they have written similar stuff subsequent to the material I will interact with here, it bears noting that this was written only with their original commentary in mind -though it became apparent to me after it was written that I anticipated some of their subsequent comments and dealt with them in this thread as well. Nonetheless, the words of other contributors in the discussion will be in light blue and shale coloured fonts respectively. -ISM]
In any event, making a moral evaluation of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki viz. Catholic teaching is extremely murky. It's certainly not the slam dunk "unjustifiable from a Catholic perspective" that [certain prominent Catholic commentators] wants to portray it as.
Make a more involved argument, then. With all due respect, I don't think what you provided in that last letter even come[s] close to justifying it or overcoming the weight of the Catholic just war criteria. I think it is a slam dunk.
With all due respect XXXXX, I see this as about as much of a "slam dunk" in this situation as with George Tenet's view of WMD's being in Iraq.
One can never deliberately do evil in order to prevent further evil.
This is true. The question is, was the dropping of the bombs an evil act or simply a neutral act in and of itself during a time of war. During wartime, there are a lot of contingent factors that go into play that do not factor into the equation when there is a time of peace. The rest of this note will involve itself in sketching some of those factors out for consideration by the group. I may blog this later on with some minor adjustments (and refining if needed) but the assertions of this very prominent Catholic commentator (henceforth referred to as "The Commentator") need to be dealt with.
To start with, The Commentator's usage of "46,000 casualties" and the idea that this was a "worst-case scenario" are both blatantly erroneous. I will show you where the figure came from and why (when all contingent factors are taken into consideration) that figures approaching that level are not at all incongruent with probable situations whereas the numbers of The Commentator are. But first XXXXX's main principle needs to be touched on briefly so that is what will be done.
One must always use just means.
It is controvertible if once a war has been decided upon using just war criteria if every subsequent action requires the exact same kind of scrutiny. This after all goes into the subject of application of just war theory which everyone on this thread agrees can have varying applications and from which people of good will can disagree on. Having noted that briefly, let us consider the alternatives to the bombs being dropped to better consider some basic points of fact about the chosen targets themselves.
---Hiroshima was one of four proposed targets along with Nagasaki and two others (Kokura{1} and Niigata).
---Hiroshima was a military complex nerve center of sorts where carriers for the Japanese navy were built along with other munitions.
---Nagasaki was also a military center where they built aircraft and torpedoes.
---The estimates floated about American casualties for a land invasion of Japan were between 200,000 and a million. That does not concern the probable Japanese casualties which were with all probability have been about twice that if not more. If we figure that roughly one third of casualties are deaths, that would mean 65,000-330,000 American deaths and (roughly) an additional 195,000-650,000 American casualties.
If we consider twice that number representing other casualties, that would mean 135,000 to 1 million casualties for the Americans and close to 2 million casualties for the Japanese. The Commentator's "46,000" number amongst the American troops is so pathetically misused that it cannot go without comment because of their status and influence in the Catholic community in general is of no small magnitude. Let us therefore consider what The Commentator did not in their posting that "46,000" figure and how badly misrepresented it was of what would happen in a real life situation.
To start with, I remind you all that there were over 7,000 American battle deaths in Iwo Jima (21,000 Japanese deaths) and 12,000 American battle deaths at Okinawa (Japanese killed or captured was around 100,000: that excludes suicides by Japanese soldiers to avoid capture). The decision to use the bomb (and forego an invasion) was made after Okinawa because of the concern that invading Japan may well involve a whole slew of Okinawas. Prior to that point, several scenarios were run by the Joint War Plans Committee with battle deaths ranging from 21,000-46,000 with casualties of 105,000-170,000. This is where The Commentator probably got their 46,000 figure but they misapplied it as casualties instead of deaths. That is not the only misrepresentation on their part in their recent communique.
I remind you all that those figures were presented in June of 1945 and were based on running various scenarios as well as estimations of Japanese troop levels being at six combat divisions, two depot divisions, 350,000 men total (numbers first proposed in 1944), and other elements. Furthermore, they were offered as an "educated guess": hardly the definitive statement that The Commentator leads their readers to believe that they were.
Also of no small importance, The Commentator does not tell their readers that the figure they posited were death figures not mere casualty figures and were based on various scenarios as well as the aforementioned estimates of troop strengths. I will not explain why failure to do this on their part paints a very deceptive picture both of the actual military situation at the time as well as misrepresenting from a moral and ethical standpoint the use of the two bombs in August of 1945.
It bears noting first of all that the casualty numbers mentioned above were later deleted in subsequent drafts of the scenarios for many reasons. The main reason seems to be that in presenting the numbers to President Truman, it was decided that a better estimate would be to tally the deaths on both sides from the campaigns of Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as account for the deaths from MacArthur's island-hopping campaign thus far. (The casualties for the campaigns will be noted further down on this thread.) Considered along with those figures would be the casualty rates of the only invasion similar in scope to what was being proposed with Japan and what happened there.
In other words, it would be important to take into consideration the Normandy invasion of Europe which was the only invasion in history to in any way approximate what we would be doing in landing on Japan. The Normandy invasion saw 42,000 casualties in the first thirty days from among the US forces. These additional considerations were viewed as more of a reasonable estimate of troop strength and probable deaths and casualties of Americans from an invasion of mainland Japan. And though they too would be woefully undervalued, before I get to pointing that out, there were additional factors taken into account too.{2}
To assist in the calculations, it was also asked of General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz to give estimates for casualties for the first thirty days and then for the first ninety days of the proposed campaign. MacArthur estimated nearly 51,000 casualties the first thirty days and Nimitz estimated 49,000 with the three month totals from both of them being close to what the Joint War Plans Committee estimated for ninety days out. These were estimates for an invasion at Kyushu and then moving onto Tokyo. However, these estimates were based on some faulty presumptions and that cannot be underscored enough.
For the estimates of MacArthur and Nimitz were estimates which (like the numbers The Commentator misquoted) were based on an assessment of six divisions and two depot divisions with a total military personnel of 350,000. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that those who first made these assessments did say as early as 1944 that an additional four divisions could be brought in. However, that was viewed as the limit due to geographical considerations. How wrong those who put together these figures were (figures from which The Commentator got their misquoted statistics) will now be disclosed by what happened after they set out that report to President Truman.
Within two weeks of the paper being presented, it was discovered that there were four additional divisions which the planners did not anticipate. Not only that but the planners did not know how those four divisions actually got to Kyushu or if they were already there and intelligence somehow missed them. Essentially, they had underestimated Japanese troop strength by at least 65,000 right off the bat!!! But it gets worse still.
For there was also an eleventh division being moved in from Honshu. So if we add to the mix 16,000 more troops, the level of manpower was underestimated by those who put out the report in June by at least 81,000 -and that does not count two more divisions which were discovered to be en route to Kyushu. Add them to the mix and we have thirteen divisions and 113,000 more Japanese troops than were accounted for in the June projections The Commentator cited as the so-called "worst case scenario"!!! If you think this is starting to look comparable to DS's repeatedly disingenuous misuse of Iraq civilian casualties statistics{3} you would be right except (unlike with DS) I have no reason to believe that The Commentator did this deliberately.
Now then, all this was happening and we were still two weeks or more before August 2nd. The latter date is significant because Truman did not want anything happening announcement-wise until after August 2nd.{4} It was also discovered in the intelligence a number of smaller mixed divisions which were not accounted for either. So rather than the 350,000 troop level which they estimated in the report that The Commentator cited, there were actually 534,000 troops excluding the twelfth and thirteenth divisions being moved in as well as the mixed divisions which they discovered. So add at least 40,000 to the number given above and troop strength at Kyushu would be at 574,000 or 224,000 higher than the original estimates.
If we count roughly 11,000 more army and air ground troops which were stationed at Ryukyus (the outskirts of Kyushu), that brings the total to 585,000 or roughly 40% more troop strength than the original figures estimated.{5} And with the original invasion date being set in early 1945 at November 1st, you can imagine I am sure that if the Japanese could practically double their troop strength at Kyushu in two months' time, what they would do with two additional months on top of that.
Furthermore, when you consider the additional special forces involved in the equation as well as the seven additional divisions, a doubling of the 46,000 deaths and 170,000 casualties figures (what The Commentator had in mind) would not cut the mustard since special forces have significantly better training than regular military personnel in all parameters. But even if we did assume parity with regular military personnel and assumed only a doubling of numbers, the totals would still be 92,000 dead and 340,000 casualties on the American side. And though that is still a serious underestimation for various reasons, let us use those underestimates as a base number. Furthermore, to round down, let us consider the Japanese ratio of deaths and casualties at roughly one third of casualties being deaths and using actual battlefield ratios from previous battles to get a conservative accurate assessment of what we could expect under different scenarios (all numbers rounded down):
---At Leyte, the casualty was 4.6:1 in favour of the Americans (17,000 vs. 78,000)
---At Luzon, the ratio was 5:1 in favour of the Americans (31,000 vs. 156,000)
---At Iwo Jima, it was 1.25:1 in favour of the Americans. (20,000 vs. 25,000)
---At Okinawa, it was 2.5:1 in favour of the Americans (46,000 vs. 119,000)
If we use the bare minimum ratio of 92,000 deaths and 340,000 casualties I mentioned earlier for the Americans, (which is a shade under 28% death rate among casualties: I am thus underestimating things here by an additional 5%), the death and overall casualty results from an invasion (amongst the Japanese) would have been akin to as follows:
---Leyte scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: over 414,000 deaths and 1,153,000 casualties
---Luzon scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 460,000 deaths and 1,700,000 casualties
---Iwo Jima scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 110,500 deaths and 408,000 casualties
---Okinawa scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 184,000 deaths and 680,000 casualties.
Those ratios reflect only military deaths and casualties mind you not a combination of military and civilian.{6} We can throw out the Iwo Jima scenario right off the bat because basically that was an eight square mile island where the enemy was well entrenched and we had to go in and get them out in a fashion that made us sitting ducks. There is no way that the Japanese invasion would have the enemy that well concealed; ergo the close ratio would not happen.
I would say that a best case scenario would be approximately a 2:1 ratio favouring the Americans. Certainly President Truman was concerned that what happened at Okinawa --a 2.5:1 American advantage in casualties-- may well be replicated in a land invasion. So with that in mind, let us consider things from a 2:1 ratio for the sake of being more conservative with our numbers. If we do that, we would see at least 184,000 Japanese deaths and 680,000 total Japanese casualties. However, for reasons I will now go into, the figure would not possibly be this low since what I just noted is military personnel only and does not consider civilian deaths and other casualties so keep that in mind please.
If you consider that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined killed about 110,000 people (70,000 Hiroshima, 40,000 Nagasaki) and if we double those figures to represent people who died within five years of the bombings from radiation and other maladies, that would be roughly 220,000 people. However, for various reasons, there is no way that an invasion would have less deaths than what happened with the two bombs being dropped.{7}
If we compare the death and casualty figures from the atomic bombings to the projected deaths and casualties from an invasion in light of what I noted in this thread, you should see that the bombings saved approximately 430,000 Japanese lives (and about a million and a half additional Japanese casualties) along with 65,000 to 350,000 American lives (and roughly an additional 650,000 American casualties).
Frankly, I do not see this as the "slam dunk" some of you seem to think it is XXXXX. If anything, statistically, we did the right thing not only for our own safety and troop preservation but in the preservation of Japanese lives overall as well. Having noted those things, I want to touch briefly on additional parts of The Commentator's statement here.
The Commentator actually compares the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities before claiming that they "cannot be squared with Catholic moral principles." This is quite a sweeping and dogmatic statement to say the least!!! And The Commentator claims this because (they assert) "the bombings deliberately targeted non-combatants." Expletives excape me to express with the appropriate colour this kind of "reasoning" so I will stick to the facts instead.
To start with, President Truman decided to use the bomb on specifically military targets and did not intend to target civilians. He even noted this in his diary on July 25, 1945. And while certainly there is no denial that there were civilian deaths and casualties in the bomb being dropped; nonetheless they were a derivative result of destroying the military target not the primary purpose of bombing the military targets themselves. This is the reason Truman did not drop the bombs on Tokyo or Kyoto (the new and old capitals of Japan) which were not military targets but instead were heavily civilian-populated cities.
To have dropped the atomic bombs on Tokyo and Kyoto at that point of the conflict would have been something indefensible in my view as those were not military targets.However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets as a result of the voluminous output of military equipment and munitions that was done in those cities.{8} To neutralize or destroy a military target during wartime{9} with the intention of sparing the lives of your own military personnel can be considered if not a morally good act than at the very least a morally indifferent one in and of itself. (I would argue for it as a morally indifferent one.) From there I think my position in light of everything else noted in this thread is evident. And this raises another important subject to consider.
I have been critical of The Commentator's organization for a long time because of a pattern they have in approaching some of the more complex subjects in an overly simplistic fashion.{10} This is one of those issues and is not one that merely deals with how to approach certain subjects from an evangelical and apologetical standpoint. Instead, this is an issue that involves complex moral and ethical principles such as that of double-effect.{11} And if The Commentator cannot recognize the principle of double effect in moral and ethical subjects being so evidently in play here when you consider all of the prevalent factors, then that does not speak well of a person with their intelligence and abilities. They are not only a very intelligent person but they are in a position of prominence amongst Catholics influence-wise and have been for many years. Therefore, they have a greater responsibility for accuracy on these matters than any of us do --though we should all strive for as great an accuracy ourselves as possible of course.
Now lest what I noted above be misunderstood, I am certainly not saying that The Commentator does not have a right to view the atomic bombs being dropped as a wrong policy to follow. They certainly have that right even if (as I have demonstrated by showing the wider context of the numbers they cite as justification for their position) this kind of argumentation fails to sustain itself in the manner which they framed it. However, that does not mean that one could not posit the argument in a better fashion than they did. Either way though, there was no "slam dunk" on this issue however the mustard is cut. Hopefully what I noted here will be of assistance in helping this be realized by those reading this thread.
The Commentator has also claimed that essentially we are not exonerated from the moral law because of the evil done by our enemies. Of course I did not claim that it did. Nor was the use of the bombs in and of themselves involve a violation of the moral law for reasons I have already discussed. Again, The Commentator is being way too simplistic in their portrayals.
From there, The Commentator argues that the evils of our enemies did not give us justification for evils of our own -noting at that point that "being a Christian" is difficult in peacetime and even more difficult (and necessary) during wartime. I find this kind of assertion problematical because of the presumptions that The Commentator makes in asserting it.
Essentially (according to The Commentator) it would appear that to disagree with them on this matter is to not approach the matter in question as a Christian. That would seem to be their inference. Hopefully they can clarify this point later on to remove any controversion on this matter in light of what I am noting in this very thread.
I am left wondering if in The Commentator's eyes it would have been less evil to deliberately choose the path of greater carnage (as would have been the case with an invasion of mainland Japan) or that of lessor carnage??? As I have explained in this thread, the path chosen was the path of least overall death and destruction. In wartime, there will always be death and destruction. The question is, did the Truman Administration choose the path of least overall death or not??? I would argue (and have) that they did.
I can understand "unintended consequences" and so forth, but when you are deliberately dropping a bomb like these were, you know what is gonna happen, and many thousands of women and children who had nothing directly to do with the Japanese war effort were slaughtered. This is immoral and unjustifiable. Period. I think it is even in natural law, before you even get to Catholic moral theology, developed over 20 centuries.
Again, there is the principle of double effect here XXXXX. It may appear difficult under the context of the subjects in question to do so but the moral-ethical principle of double effect is a foundational one in Catholic moral and ethical considerations.{12} For that reason, we would do well to take it into the matrix of factors we use when evaluating this or any other morally and ethically complex issue. For when we get to the bottom line, simplistic caricatures do not do anyone proper justice -of that I am sure we can all agree. Hopefully what has been provided in this thread can give you and others some valuable food for thought on these issues.
[Update: One of the emails in response to this thread was posted HERE. -ISM 8/18/05 12:00pm]
Notes:
{1} Kokura was the first choice but the Secretary of War vetoed the idea. President Truman chose Hiroshima instead.
{2} As far as the "island-hopping" campaign of General MacArthur, from March 1944-May 1945, almost 14,000 US troops had been killed vs. over 310,000 Japanese troops: a ratio of 22:1!!! However, it would be the heighth of delusional fantasy to imagine that a similar scenario would take place with an invasion of the Japanese mainland: for reasons outlined in the rest of this thread.
{3} A subject that is interesting in its own right but would be best dealt with (if at all) at another time.
{4} President Truman was returning from the Potsdam Conference by ship on that date: a few days earlier, he set that as the earliest date for possibly using the bomb. The intelligence reports from August 2, 1945 were also significant in the decision to use the bombs along with additional factors too numerous to go over in this thread.
{5} Post war figures pointed to 14 divisions. Essentially, at the time that the US intelligence had estimated Japanese troop strength at 600,000 it was actually at 900,000: a 50% underestimation this time. And people complain about the Bush Administration's intelligence blunders as if such blunders are somehow a new thing...
{6} 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.
{7} See footnote six.
{8} I already noted that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military centers of wartime Japan where carriers, aircrafts, torpedoes, and other munitions were built; ergo they can be properly considered military targets.
{9} See footnote eight.
{10} [A few of the readers] probably remember me doing this as far back as 1999 and 2000 in other media forums.
{11} On the Double Effect Principle in Ethical Argumentation (circa December 30, 2004)
{12} See footnote eleven.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: This thread was written in response to a private discussion where the work of a prominent Catholic commentator was brought to my attention. The fundamental issue here is one of the commentator in question making very facile arguments and presumptions on a subject with no small amount of complexities to it. And as they are a very influential person in Catholic circles, they have a responsibility for accuracy as well as not presenting their opinions as matters of doctrine or in a fashion that rules out opposing viewpoints.
Due to a desire to keep this focused on issues and not personalities, I will not directly quote the party in question. However, I will accurately represent their statements in a paraphrase format. As they have written similar stuff subsequent to the material I will interact with here, it bears noting that this was written only with their original commentary in mind -though it became apparent to me after it was written that I anticipated some of their subsequent comments and dealt with them in this thread as well. Nonetheless, the words of other contributors in the discussion will be in light blue and shale coloured fonts respectively. -ISM]
In any event, making a moral evaluation of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki viz. Catholic teaching is extremely murky. It's certainly not the slam dunk "unjustifiable from a Catholic perspective" that [certain prominent Catholic commentators] wants to portray it as.
Make a more involved argument, then. With all due respect, I don't think what you provided in that last letter even come[s] close to justifying it or overcoming the weight of the Catholic just war criteria. I think it is a slam dunk.
With all due respect XXXXX, I see this as about as much of a "slam dunk" in this situation as with George Tenet's view of WMD's being in Iraq.
One can never deliberately do evil in order to prevent further evil.
This is true. The question is, was the dropping of the bombs an evil act or simply a neutral act in and of itself during a time of war. During wartime, there are a lot of contingent factors that go into play that do not factor into the equation when there is a time of peace. The rest of this note will involve itself in sketching some of those factors out for consideration by the group. I may blog this later on with some minor adjustments (and refining if needed) but the assertions of this very prominent Catholic commentator (henceforth referred to as "The Commentator") need to be dealt with.
To start with, The Commentator's usage of "46,000 casualties" and the idea that this was a "worst-case scenario" are both blatantly erroneous. I will show you where the figure came from and why (when all contingent factors are taken into consideration) that figures approaching that level are not at all incongruent with probable situations whereas the numbers of The Commentator are. But first XXXXX's main principle needs to be touched on briefly so that is what will be done.
One must always use just means.
It is controvertible if once a war has been decided upon using just war criteria if every subsequent action requires the exact same kind of scrutiny. This after all goes into the subject of application of just war theory which everyone on this thread agrees can have varying applications and from which people of good will can disagree on. Having noted that briefly, let us consider the alternatives to the bombs being dropped to better consider some basic points of fact about the chosen targets themselves.
---Hiroshima was one of four proposed targets along with Nagasaki and two others (Kokura{1} and Niigata).
---Hiroshima was a military complex nerve center of sorts where carriers for the Japanese navy were built along with other munitions.
---Nagasaki was also a military center where they built aircraft and torpedoes.
---The estimates floated about American casualties for a land invasion of Japan were between 200,000 and a million. That does not concern the probable Japanese casualties which were with all probability have been about twice that if not more. If we figure that roughly one third of casualties are deaths, that would mean 65,000-330,000 American deaths and (roughly) an additional 195,000-650,000 American casualties.
If we consider twice that number representing other casualties, that would mean 135,000 to 1 million casualties for the Americans and close to 2 million casualties for the Japanese. The Commentator's "46,000" number amongst the American troops is so pathetically misused that it cannot go without comment because of their status and influence in the Catholic community in general is of no small magnitude. Let us therefore consider what The Commentator did not in their posting that "46,000" figure and how badly misrepresented it was of what would happen in a real life situation.
To start with, I remind you all that there were over 7,000 American battle deaths in Iwo Jima (21,000 Japanese deaths) and 12,000 American battle deaths at Okinawa (Japanese killed or captured was around 100,000: that excludes suicides by Japanese soldiers to avoid capture). The decision to use the bomb (and forego an invasion) was made after Okinawa because of the concern that invading Japan may well involve a whole slew of Okinawas. Prior to that point, several scenarios were run by the Joint War Plans Committee with battle deaths ranging from 21,000-46,000 with casualties of 105,000-170,000. This is where The Commentator probably got their 46,000 figure but they misapplied it as casualties instead of deaths. That is not the only misrepresentation on their part in their recent communique.
I remind you all that those figures were presented in June of 1945 and were based on running various scenarios as well as estimations of Japanese troop levels being at six combat divisions, two depot divisions, 350,000 men total (numbers first proposed in 1944), and other elements. Furthermore, they were offered as an "educated guess": hardly the definitive statement that The Commentator leads their readers to believe that they were.
Also of no small importance, The Commentator does not tell their readers that the figure they posited were death figures not mere casualty figures and were based on various scenarios as well as the aforementioned estimates of troop strengths. I will not explain why failure to do this on their part paints a very deceptive picture both of the actual military situation at the time as well as misrepresenting from a moral and ethical standpoint the use of the two bombs in August of 1945.
It bears noting first of all that the casualty numbers mentioned above were later deleted in subsequent drafts of the scenarios for many reasons. The main reason seems to be that in presenting the numbers to President Truman, it was decided that a better estimate would be to tally the deaths on both sides from the campaigns of Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as account for the deaths from MacArthur's island-hopping campaign thus far. (The casualties for the campaigns will be noted further down on this thread.) Considered along with those figures would be the casualty rates of the only invasion similar in scope to what was being proposed with Japan and what happened there.
In other words, it would be important to take into consideration the Normandy invasion of Europe which was the only invasion in history to in any way approximate what we would be doing in landing on Japan. The Normandy invasion saw 42,000 casualties in the first thirty days from among the US forces. These additional considerations were viewed as more of a reasonable estimate of troop strength and probable deaths and casualties of Americans from an invasion of mainland Japan. And though they too would be woefully undervalued, before I get to pointing that out, there were additional factors taken into account too.{2}
To assist in the calculations, it was also asked of General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz to give estimates for casualties for the first thirty days and then for the first ninety days of the proposed campaign. MacArthur estimated nearly 51,000 casualties the first thirty days and Nimitz estimated 49,000 with the three month totals from both of them being close to what the Joint War Plans Committee estimated for ninety days out. These were estimates for an invasion at Kyushu and then moving onto Tokyo. However, these estimates were based on some faulty presumptions and that cannot be underscored enough.
For the estimates of MacArthur and Nimitz were estimates which (like the numbers The Commentator misquoted) were based on an assessment of six divisions and two depot divisions with a total military personnel of 350,000. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that those who first made these assessments did say as early as 1944 that an additional four divisions could be brought in. However, that was viewed as the limit due to geographical considerations. How wrong those who put together these figures were (figures from which The Commentator got their misquoted statistics) will now be disclosed by what happened after they set out that report to President Truman.
Within two weeks of the paper being presented, it was discovered that there were four additional divisions which the planners did not anticipate. Not only that but the planners did not know how those four divisions actually got to Kyushu or if they were already there and intelligence somehow missed them. Essentially, they had underestimated Japanese troop strength by at least 65,000 right off the bat!!! But it gets worse still.
For there was also an eleventh division being moved in from Honshu. So if we add to the mix 16,000 more troops, the level of manpower was underestimated by those who put out the report in June by at least 81,000 -and that does not count two more divisions which were discovered to be en route to Kyushu. Add them to the mix and we have thirteen divisions and 113,000 more Japanese troops than were accounted for in the June projections The Commentator cited as the so-called "worst case scenario"!!! If you think this is starting to look comparable to DS's repeatedly disingenuous misuse of Iraq civilian casualties statistics{3} you would be right except (unlike with DS) I have no reason to believe that The Commentator did this deliberately.
Now then, all this was happening and we were still two weeks or more before August 2nd. The latter date is significant because Truman did not want anything happening announcement-wise until after August 2nd.{4} It was also discovered in the intelligence a number of smaller mixed divisions which were not accounted for either. So rather than the 350,000 troop level which they estimated in the report that The Commentator cited, there were actually 534,000 troops excluding the twelfth and thirteenth divisions being moved in as well as the mixed divisions which they discovered. So add at least 40,000 to the number given above and troop strength at Kyushu would be at 574,000 or 224,000 higher than the original estimates.
If we count roughly 11,000 more army and air ground troops which were stationed at Ryukyus (the outskirts of Kyushu), that brings the total to 585,000 or roughly 40% more troop strength than the original figures estimated.{5} And with the original invasion date being set in early 1945 at November 1st, you can imagine I am sure that if the Japanese could practically double their troop strength at Kyushu in two months' time, what they would do with two additional months on top of that.
Furthermore, when you consider the additional special forces involved in the equation as well as the seven additional divisions, a doubling of the 46,000 deaths and 170,000 casualties figures (what The Commentator had in mind) would not cut the mustard since special forces have significantly better training than regular military personnel in all parameters. But even if we did assume parity with regular military personnel and assumed only a doubling of numbers, the totals would still be 92,000 dead and 340,000 casualties on the American side. And though that is still a serious underestimation for various reasons, let us use those underestimates as a base number. Furthermore, to round down, let us consider the Japanese ratio of deaths and casualties at roughly one third of casualties being deaths and using actual battlefield ratios from previous battles to get a conservative accurate assessment of what we could expect under different scenarios (all numbers rounded down):
---At Leyte, the casualty was 4.6:1 in favour of the Americans (17,000 vs. 78,000)
---At Luzon, the ratio was 5:1 in favour of the Americans (31,000 vs. 156,000)
---At Iwo Jima, it was 1.25:1 in favour of the Americans. (20,000 vs. 25,000)
---At Okinawa, it was 2.5:1 in favour of the Americans (46,000 vs. 119,000)
If we use the bare minimum ratio of 92,000 deaths and 340,000 casualties I mentioned earlier for the Americans, (which is a shade under 28% death rate among casualties: I am thus underestimating things here by an additional 5%), the death and overall casualty results from an invasion (amongst the Japanese) would have been akin to as follows:
---Leyte scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: over 414,000 deaths and 1,153,000 casualties
---Luzon scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 460,000 deaths and 1,700,000 casualties
---Iwo Jima scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 110,500 deaths and 408,000 casualties
---Okinawa scenario applied to the proposed mainland invasion: 184,000 deaths and 680,000 casualties.
Those ratios reflect only military deaths and casualties mind you not a combination of military and civilian.{6} We can throw out the Iwo Jima scenario right off the bat because basically that was an eight square mile island where the enemy was well entrenched and we had to go in and get them out in a fashion that made us sitting ducks. There is no way that the Japanese invasion would have the enemy that well concealed; ergo the close ratio would not happen.
I would say that a best case scenario would be approximately a 2:1 ratio favouring the Americans. Certainly President Truman was concerned that what happened at Okinawa --a 2.5:1 American advantage in casualties-- may well be replicated in a land invasion. So with that in mind, let us consider things from a 2:1 ratio for the sake of being more conservative with our numbers. If we do that, we would see at least 184,000 Japanese deaths and 680,000 total Japanese casualties. However, for reasons I will now go into, the figure would not possibly be this low since what I just noted is military personnel only and does not consider civilian deaths and other casualties so keep that in mind please.
If you consider that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined killed about 110,000 people (70,000 Hiroshima, 40,000 Nagasaki) and if we double those figures to represent people who died within five years of the bombings from radiation and other maladies, that would be roughly 220,000 people. However, for various reasons, there is no way that an invasion would have less deaths than what happened with the two bombs being dropped.{7}
If we compare the death and casualty figures from the atomic bombings to the projected deaths and casualties from an invasion in light of what I noted in this thread, you should see that the bombings saved approximately 430,000 Japanese lives (and about a million and a half additional Japanese casualties) along with 65,000 to 350,000 American lives (and roughly an additional 650,000 American casualties).
Frankly, I do not see this as the "slam dunk" some of you seem to think it is XXXXX. If anything, statistically, we did the right thing not only for our own safety and troop preservation but in the preservation of Japanese lives overall as well. Having noted those things, I want to touch briefly on additional parts of The Commentator's statement here.
The Commentator actually compares the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities before claiming that they "cannot be squared with Catholic moral principles." This is quite a sweeping and dogmatic statement to say the least!!! And The Commentator claims this because (they assert) "the bombings deliberately targeted non-combatants." Expletives excape me to express with the appropriate colour this kind of "reasoning" so I will stick to the facts instead.
To start with, President Truman decided to use the bomb on specifically military targets and did not intend to target civilians. He even noted this in his diary on July 25, 1945. And while certainly there is no denial that there were civilian deaths and casualties in the bomb being dropped; nonetheless they were a derivative result of destroying the military target not the primary purpose of bombing the military targets themselves. This is the reason Truman did not drop the bombs on Tokyo or Kyoto (the new and old capitals of Japan) which were not military targets but instead were heavily civilian-populated cities.
To have dropped the atomic bombs on Tokyo and Kyoto at that point of the conflict would have been something indefensible in my view as those were not military targets.However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets as a result of the voluminous output of military equipment and munitions that was done in those cities.{8} To neutralize or destroy a military target during wartime{9} with the intention of sparing the lives of your own military personnel can be considered if not a morally good act than at the very least a morally indifferent one in and of itself. (I would argue for it as a morally indifferent one.) From there I think my position in light of everything else noted in this thread is evident. And this raises another important subject to consider.
I have been critical of The Commentator's organization for a long time because of a pattern they have in approaching some of the more complex subjects in an overly simplistic fashion.{10} This is one of those issues and is not one that merely deals with how to approach certain subjects from an evangelical and apologetical standpoint. Instead, this is an issue that involves complex moral and ethical principles such as that of double-effect.{11} And if The Commentator cannot recognize the principle of double effect in moral and ethical subjects being so evidently in play here when you consider all of the prevalent factors, then that does not speak well of a person with their intelligence and abilities. They are not only a very intelligent person but they are in a position of prominence amongst Catholics influence-wise and have been for many years. Therefore, they have a greater responsibility for accuracy on these matters than any of us do --though we should all strive for as great an accuracy ourselves as possible of course.
Now lest what I noted above be misunderstood, I am certainly not saying that The Commentator does not have a right to view the atomic bombs being dropped as a wrong policy to follow. They certainly have that right even if (as I have demonstrated by showing the wider context of the numbers they cite as justification for their position) this kind of argumentation fails to sustain itself in the manner which they framed it. However, that does not mean that one could not posit the argument in a better fashion than they did. Either way though, there was no "slam dunk" on this issue however the mustard is cut. Hopefully what I noted here will be of assistance in helping this be realized by those reading this thread.
The Commentator has also claimed that essentially we are not exonerated from the moral law because of the evil done by our enemies. Of course I did not claim that it did. Nor was the use of the bombs in and of themselves involve a violation of the moral law for reasons I have already discussed. Again, The Commentator is being way too simplistic in their portrayals.
From there, The Commentator argues that the evils of our enemies did not give us justification for evils of our own -noting at that point that "being a Christian" is difficult in peacetime and even more difficult (and necessary) during wartime. I find this kind of assertion problematical because of the presumptions that The Commentator makes in asserting it.
Essentially (according to The Commentator) it would appear that to disagree with them on this matter is to not approach the matter in question as a Christian. That would seem to be their inference. Hopefully they can clarify this point later on to remove any controversion on this matter in light of what I am noting in this very thread.
I am left wondering if in The Commentator's eyes it would have been less evil to deliberately choose the path of greater carnage (as would have been the case with an invasion of mainland Japan) or that of lessor carnage??? As I have explained in this thread, the path chosen was the path of least overall death and destruction. In wartime, there will always be death and destruction. The question is, did the Truman Administration choose the path of least overall death or not??? I would argue (and have) that they did.
I can understand "unintended consequences" and so forth, but when you are deliberately dropping a bomb like these were, you know what is gonna happen, and many thousands of women and children who had nothing directly to do with the Japanese war effort were slaughtered. This is immoral and unjustifiable. Period. I think it is even in natural law, before you even get to Catholic moral theology, developed over 20 centuries.
Again, there is the principle of double effect here XXXXX. It may appear difficult under the context of the subjects in question to do so but the moral-ethical principle of double effect is a foundational one in Catholic moral and ethical considerations.{12} For that reason, we would do well to take it into the matrix of factors we use when evaluating this or any other morally and ethically complex issue. For when we get to the bottom line, simplistic caricatures do not do anyone proper justice -of that I am sure we can all agree. Hopefully what has been provided in this thread can give you and others some valuable food for thought on these issues.
[Update: One of the emails in response to this thread was posted HERE. -ISM 8/18/05 12:00pm]
Notes:
{1} Kokura was the first choice but the Secretary of War vetoed the idea. President Truman chose Hiroshima instead.
{2} As far as the "island-hopping" campaign of General MacArthur, from March 1944-May 1945, almost 14,000 US troops had been killed vs. over 310,000 Japanese troops: a ratio of 22:1!!! However, it would be the heighth of delusional fantasy to imagine that a similar scenario would take place with an invasion of the Japanese mainland: for reasons outlined in the rest of this thread.
{3} A subject that is interesting in its own right but would be best dealt with (if at all) at another time.
{4} President Truman was returning from the Potsdam Conference by ship on that date: a few days earlier, he set that as the earliest date for possibly using the bomb. The intelligence reports from August 2, 1945 were also significant in the decision to use the bombs along with additional factors too numerous to go over in this thread.
{5} Post war figures pointed to 14 divisions. Essentially, at the time that the US intelligence had estimated Japanese troop strength at 600,000 it was actually at 900,000: a 50% underestimation this time. And people complain about the Bush Administration's intelligence blunders as if such blunders are somehow a new thing...
{6} 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.
{7} See footnote six.
{8} I already noted that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military centers of wartime Japan where carriers, aircrafts, torpedoes, and other munitions were built; ergo they can be properly considered military targets.
{9} See footnote eight.
{10} [A few of the readers] probably remember me doing this as far back as 1999 and 2000 in other media forums.
{11} On the Double Effect Principle in Ethical Argumentation (circa December 30, 2004)
{12} See footnote eleven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)