as for the argument that torturing Japanese civilians with two atomic bombs
saved millions of lives, that is pure speculation....
First, I don't think I ever used "millions," did I? Others may have. But I just accept that the number was quite large.
Second, given that the Japanese had declared virtually all their citizens to be part of the military, and much of the production of Hiroshima and, I believe also Nagasaki, was war materiel and intended to kill Americans in large numbers, considering them innocent civilians is a bit off the mark, IMO.
Third, I don't think the term speculation is accurate. Certainly it was a guess. But an educated guess. We had by then the experience of invading a number of smaller islands held by the Japanese. We had the experience of the the landing at D-day. We had some knowledge of the fortifications and defenses guarding the main islands of Japan itself. We knew that they had kamakazi pilots and planes at the ready. It is, I think, a safe assumption that Japanese soldiers would fight just as hard defending their homeland and the cities where their wives and children lived as they did defending Iwo Jima and other islands, where large numbers of Americans lost their lives.
We knew, also, the non-nuclear armament we were prepared to unleash on the main islands if we had to invade them, and that we would inflict huge casualties on their armed forces.
Given these facts and factors, our military planners were able to make educated guesses about the number of casualties we and the Japanese would likely suffer if we were to invade the main islands. Certainly nobody knows for sure. But I think nobody can reasonably doubt that there would have been a large number of casualties, both Japanese and American.
And, quite frankly, I am more concerned with the American than the Japanese casualties. That may sound cruel, but after all the Japanese started the war in the Pacific, and they had been involved in military action against China, killing I believe several million Chinese (though I don't have those figures, and it may have been only hundreds of thousands.) They were known to be highly militaristic, highly aggressive, and generally a significant danger to us and their neighbors, by their own choice. So in that situation I do not equate Japanese and American lives one-for-one. I am quite willing that many Japanese would die to save a single American life. I'm not going to put a number on that, I don't believe it's possible to do so, but it's a large number.
So while I wish we hadn't had to drop the bombs, I believe that based on the information our leaders had at the time and the projections of casualties if we had to invade Japan proper, it was the right decision to make.
And as to the term torture, well, for me that's a gross misuse of the term. Now if you applying the term to what the Japanese did to the Chinese, or to Americans on the Bataan Death March, it would be an appropriate term.
But for bombing, no.
Horrible, yes. As all death in war is horrible.
But torture, no. |
