Thanks Steve, indeed it is true, i don't support the article. My aim was to post it and go from there. I think with this sort of topic though it will invariably stir up a Hornet's nest. Will keep that in mind in future.


Agree there.

I placed my lot in post 26 and keep to it. I am just glad I did not get bound up in such utterance. No disrespect to you Pete I just feel the question should not be put to us. We must remember that some are quite a patriotic lot and will defend any post to the last if it may mark or serve to place a stain on the use of such power, but you are due your right to say it. For me though the true right goes to the generation of that era, on both sides. :yep:

Well put, LJ. I've stayed out of the debate myself, though I might be closer to the issue than many of the more active posters, i.e., both my parents were on opposite sides in WW2, simply by accident of birth. No one consulted my mother about Pearl Harbor, no one asked my father's opinion about Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

They weren't born to be enemies, they were along for the ride, like most people in every war. My parents were lucky, in a manner of speaking: my mother survived the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and my father survived being a POW of the Japanese (something he never spoke about).

In more recent years I've done considerable research on the Spanish Civil War, which for Spaniards is as touchy a subject as the American version is for some of us. In general, those who argue loudly for one side or another weren't there. Those who were there would rather not talk about it.

Among the conclusions I've reached thus far:

1) Every war is a descent into the abyss for all parties. St. Augustine made a good case for the Just War, but in actual practice even "good guys" take part in ghastly, inhuman deeds, then hope that their honorable motives and moral calculus (killing x no. of enemy resulted in x no. of lives saved, etc.) will help them sleep at night. It doesn't always work.

2) All wars could have been prevented or ended sooner, if only people had been wiser. But they weren't. Or more to the point, their leaders weren't. And how often do decent people rise up and overthrow their psychopathic leaders in wartime? If you manage to pull it off, then you can judge those who didn't.

3) The term "we", when used to refer to one side in a war, is over-identification with a government that really doesn't care about you at all, except insofar as you are useful to it. Commoners do not take part in the key decisions, though we might be forced to carry out those decisions; we (esp. the descendants of civilians) are not collectively culpable. But rarely are the ones most responsible ever called to account unless they're on the losing side.

As for the atomic bombings of Japan, I cannot view them as moral actions. Suppose you were to view all people as if they were members of your own family? Suppose you were to view every human life as uniquely precious and sacred? Then taking part in any war, by any means, for any reason, would be deeply traumatic. You might survive it, but you would be damaged, possibly for the rest of your life.

Were there other paths to victory without a-bombs? Of course, and those were also beyond the scope of morality:

1) Total blockade and continued conventional bombardment of Japan from air & sea, possibly for months; minimal Allied losses, but mass starvation, disease, and violent death for Japanese civilians.

2) Invasion of the home islands, as described in earlier posts. Also horrific results, but with higher Allied losses, to no obvious benefit.

In any event, the people who knew of the A-bomb at the time didn't take a poll -- they didn't ask the American people, not that their opinions would have mattered anyway. They certainly didn't ask us.