The point is: are all the thousands of articles written by respectable people expressing misgivings automatically ill conceived or ill considered? I think not.
We can agree finally on something. I also, think not.
However, a key phrase in your statement is, "written by respectable people." My point is that I do not consider your writings on this subject to be respectable.
The link you provided in your last post was an essay by a countryman of yours who I would characterize as very respectable, and I thank you for providing it. This RCAF officer laments the bombing of Japan (and Europe as well), and questions its morality. But he does so in a sensitive and balanced way, taking into account the context of the times more than half a century ago. He does not judge the actors on stage at the time, he does not condemn them. Indeed, he says, "The devastation of her cities may well been a necessary factor in the Japanese government's decision to sue for peace." Compare that to your statements, such as "We chose to bomb them indiscriminately," or, "There is no reasonable debate as whether of not the killing of millions of innocent civilians had any actual impact on ending the war." The difference, "Solon," is that you are judging; you are condemning.
Why you choose to do this all these many years later, you have never explained. As you say, "thousands of articles [have been] written by respectable people expressing misgivings." And many books, also. What do you believe you are adding to this extensive literature on the subject? Your primary source has been the Strategic Bombing Report, written 57 years ago. Why do believe it is important to selectively quote from this report now? What point are you making that has not been made before? What, precisely, is your motivation?
I have no desire to write about this subject. My posts are motivated solely by the need to correct, and to challenge, the more egregiously unfounded accusations that you make. For example: "The bombing hastened the official surrender by some 4 or 5 weeks." I cannot allow such a preposterous and presumptuous assertion to stand unchallenged. No "respectable person" would have the audacity to make such a declarative statement. You say that "None of us need to defend our lack of omniscience!" You, "Solon," do need to defend your claim that you possess omniscience, because only that would allow you to tell us exactly what the Japanese war government would have done, and when.
As to the "numbers game" of deaths ... I hope you, as the poseur of grand and glorious humanitarianism, appreciate the irony of that discussion. You, the lamenter of "barbecued babies," rooting and cheering for as high a civilian death toll as you could find! You, wishing that perhaps the Britannica is wrong, and that three or four times as many died! (When the WTC death toll became revised sharply down from the original 10,000 estimate, perhaps we Americans should have been saddened rather than gladdened).
Choose if you will to continue your crusade of pinning blame and shame on your neighbors ... do it with a healthy dosage of personal insults ... and rest assured that I will be around to constructively and helpfully refute the worst of your excesses and mischaracterizations. |
