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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yogizuna who wrote (42070)	1/8/2002 4:34:14 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

THey are in a minority I believe (I hope). The position is so repugnant to the average human being from all cultures, that most will not climb into the "bear pit" to "discuss" it. One can understand the terrible craving for revenge at the time. All the familes and lives destroyed; the atrocities from all sides; humankind at her ugliest. But even at the time there were always those who could not stomach torture, murder of prisoners, etc., even though it was widely practiced from all sides. This seemed to be a combination of ignoring advice from leaders, and mixing in a very real and justified fear of Communism expanding her physical and psychological foot holds. By showing what they had they got everything on the table...and so began the Cold War. I always hear apologists talking about the benefits of hindsight, and holding forth that decisions at the time were moral--even if they were not later. These people do not understand philosophy or ethics. The morality of the decision to target innocents as a means to an end stands independent of what people do, or do not know of future intelligence. There is always hindsight to fill in the unknown, but this does not invalidate or remove the personal obligation of moral agency, NOW. If the principle is one of expediency or opportunism, then I think most of the people in America and in the world have been adhering to a higher principle. Those who would place the moral issue of the tasrgeting of noncombatants under the principle of expediency are dangerously mad. But there has to be a higher principle, and for the most part the human race have tried to preach it.

To: Yogizuna who wrote (42070)	1/8/2002 5:10:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

It is extremely frightening how stubbornly some will cling to their sad attempts at justifying the vaporizing, burning and maiming of mostly innocent women and children to justify minimizing military casualties and bring about a faster end to a war.... It really makes me wonder about the sanity of my fellow human beings. There is nothing insane about prefering that the dead from a war be on the enemy side rather then on your side. You might think that such an attitude is not noble or pure or moral in your opinion, but moral or not there is nothing crazy about it. For me the question really comes down to would either an invasion, or months of blockade and heavy bombing have been needed to make Japan surender. If the answer is yes then the atomic bombing was justified in my opinion. We aren't just talking about deaths of American soldiers (an in any case American leaders have a moral duty to try and reduce those deaths) but Japanese soldiers and civilans. Either an invasion or months of continueing the bombing and blockade would probably have caused more death the the atom bombs. If the war would have shortly ended without the atom bombs or an invasion then there is still the question of did Truman (and his advisors, and to a lesser extent FDR who made the preliminary decision that was confrirmed by Truman) know that Japan would shortly surrender? If they did not then the decision they made was justified even if it would be a horrible mistake. Tim

To: Yogizuna who wrote (42070)	1/8/2002 7:44:59 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Just curious -- did you or anybody you loved serve in World War II? Or in any war?

To: Yogizuna who wrote (42070)	1/8/2002 7:49:50 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

My uncle was an English doctor serving at a Quaker hospital in China in the 1930s/40s. He was captured by the Japanese and, even though he was a noncombatant and known to be so, he was imprisoned and tortured for years. My father in law served in WW II. He was a navigator (in bombers). He survived over Germany, but was slated to be in the air war against Japan. If he hadn't survived that action, which was a response to the uncalled for aggression of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, my wife would never have been born. I am, quite frankly, a bit unsympathetic to the deaths some Japanese, citizens of the clearly aggressor nation, suffered which ended my uncle's captivity and torture earlier, and let my father in law survive.