Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?

by new hope and happiness 108 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  James Brown

  Bart. I got my info from Glencoe World History copyright 2005

  Page 729 pp3

  "The attack of the Lusitania is often credited with drawing the United States into World

  War 1. However, President Woodrow Wilson -though he had vowed to hold Germany responsible fot its

  submaine attacks-Knew that the American people were not ready to go to war.

  It was almost 2 years before the United States jonined the conflict in Europe."

  The way I see it.

  It always takes some time to prime the pump.

  You have to propogandize the people that takes time.

  Especially back then when informatin travelled slow.
• 

  Simon Morley

  1) Wilson joined WW1 because he was told that he would be left out of post war discussions that would lead to the League of Nations

  2) FDR and some US policy wonks wanted to join the war in '39 - by turing the oil tap off on japan they goaded them (left them no option) to attack Pearl Harbour
• 

  Terry

  In my book, I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon (A Prisoner of Conscience in a Time of War) I address the

  doctrine of the Christian church called THE JUST WAR THEORY invented by St. Augustine.

  For 2,000 years the true teaching of the Church (True because THEY said so) allowed (under specific circumstances) the

  Superior Authorities (of Romans 13: 1,2) to send soldiers off to war.

  __________________________________

  Excerpt: WHAT IS A JUST WAR? (I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon)

  What is the Just War?

  Augustine asked Christian readers to consider one man hitting a boy and another man caressing a boy. The first man appears to be brutish and evil and yet he might be a father lovingly disciplining his son! The second man appears to be a good and affectionate person, but in fact may well be a child molester! Augustine reasons, "We find a man by love made to appear fierce; and the other man by evil made to appear winningly gentle." This opens the door for Christians to perform outward acts that might appear to be forbidden by Scripture and yet by those acts do a greater good.

  Because God judges the soul, the ultimate consideration is not "what the man does … but with what mind and will he does it." The appropriate motive in all cases, Augustine rules, is love. What is done from love of God must be good. A Christian soldier is under compulsion and love without scruple.

  This doctrine was absorbed into the Church and approved as the proper Christian rationale. In his book, The City of God, Augustine elucidates his theory. There Augustine insists there is no "private right" to kill. One can kill only under the authority of God, as communicated by direct or implicit command from God, or by a legitimate ruler who carries out God's intent to restrain evil on earth.

  Augustine further suggests one who obeys such a command "does not himself do the killing." He acts only as an instrument of the one who rightfully commands, without debate.

  Augustine concludes, "The commandment forbidding killing was not broken by those who have waged wars under authorization of God, or those who have imposed the death-penalty on criminals when representing the authority of the State, the most just and most reasonable source of power."

  When there is no command by God, war may be waged only by those with legitimate authority and only for a just cause. The devil was in that particular detail, however! The Church could declare and it would be so.

  As long as the Catholic Church remained both religion and State for Christians, the conscience of Christianity remained in repose. Just as God had allowed a transition from Jew to Gentile, He was allowing a transition from pacifism to participation in Civic Authority which included the military.

  Conscience Arises

  Protestant apostasy created a gaping foundational error which cracked open the consciences of non-Catholic Christian worshippers. All the old worries, scruples and conflicts flew out like bats at dusk from a dark cave. If the Church had no actual God-approved authority to declare Just War—on what basis could the Protestant engage in military action? Now was born a new era of conscience. Protestants fell into an every-man- for-himself, case by case, crisis of conscience. The test was often a life or death decision.

  “The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history. . . there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.” [1]

  “All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble and who would help you if you needed it.” [2]

  Modern Pacifism

  Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in the year of our Lord 1620. Within the short space of thirty-six years they were joined by Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites.

  By 1719 the smaller sects were swarming onto the new continent searching for room to practice their unconventional faiths.

  Among these were Dunkers, Shakers, Christadelphians and Rogerenes.

  Held in common by these otherwise disparate groups was the assertive audacity to self-identify as pacifists in time of war. This included outright refusal to participate in the defense of hearth and home in Indian uprisings or the Revolutionary War.

  The problem with this Bible-based scruple was it was suicidal in practice should everybody suddenly decide to turn the other cheek during a battle. It would only be possible if a majority of Christians took up arms against common foe while the pacifists stood idly by praying!

  Contrary Argument

  "The only real objection which can be argued against the revival of the early Christian attitude is that Christianity has accepted the State and that this carried with it the necessity for coercive discipline within and the waging of war without; in which disagreeable duties Christians must as citizens take their part.”

  “To refuse this will expose civilization to disaster. . .The truth is that the way of war, if persisted in, is going to destroy civilization anyhow and the continual demand for war service will, sooner or later, bring modern State anarchy …”

  “It is a subject that will not cease to vex the Church until we have decided either to make as unequivocal a condemnation of war as we have of slavery, or to abandon altogether any profession of whole-hearted allegiance to the Christian faith." [1]

  ---

  [1] Cadoux: Early Christian Attitude to War, Foreword, p. ix-x, Rev. W.E. Orchard

  ---

  [1] The Cost of Discipleship,Dietrich Bonheoffer

  [2] The Private History of the Campaign That Failed, Mark Twain
• 

  JeffT

  OK a few points.

  Roughly 10 million chinese civilians died at Japanese hands during the war ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties ). This averages out to Hiroshima or Nagasaki every month from 1937 to 1945. If you can stomach it, read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chan for details.

  The idea of demonstrating the bomb was dismissed for the simple reason that nobody thought the Japanese would pay much attention to it. If they wanted to know what the US could do to them, they needed only to look out the window. Fifty-seven square miles of Tokyo had been destroyed by the time of the atomic bombings. (Source "A Torch to the Enemy" Martin Caidin)

  It is hard to sort out the so-called peace feelers. Some attempts were made, but the US could not determine if they were individual efforts or officially sanctioned. There was a sizable military faction that wanted to continue the war, one group even tried to overthrow the government after the atomic bombings and after Hirohito recorded his surrender message (source "The Last Mission" Jim Smith and Malcolm McConnell)

  Was the bombing an atrocity? I don't know, everything that happened between 1937 and 1945 was an atrocity, its hard to apply in sort of logical scale to what went on during those years. It seems very probable that, had the war with Germany continued long enough, Dresden would have been the first A-bomb target, that's why it wasn't bombed until late in the war. I'm looking for sources on that, I picked it up from a friend that works in military think tank.

  PS: Neither Chruchill nor Roosevelt wanted war with Japan. England had its hands full with Germany and and Roosevelt wanted to help. If Hitler had not delcared war on the us on Dec 11, 1941 England and Russia would have been fighting him alone. Had we known the Japanese were coming we would have ambushed them, that would have been a better outcome for both Roosevelt and Churchill. (source "Roosevelt's Secret War" Joseph E. Persico)
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  Bart Belteshassur

  JB - I don't disagree with your concept of how America behaved during both wars, and would totally support the view that the second world war was just the end result of the first, and that the allies were probably more responsble for WWII by the treatment of Germany at the end of the first. However the first WW set the precident for total war against civilians and countries, with that incident and bombing of civilian targets. Fortunately for northern europe they did not make the same mistake twice, but left the issues that started the whole mess still unresolved to this day.

  BB
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  BU2B

  At least the Japanese attacked a legitimate military target, not Honolulu or Hilo. Their military attacked a military base. The US firebombed Tokyo with flammable gelatin. They targeted the civilian neighborhoods, destroying the residential areas. The rivers became so hot they began to boil. 100,000 men women and children were cooked to death with running around in flames. As if this was not enough, they decided to drop 2 atomic bombs on civilian cities that did not even house significent military infastructure. In my estimation, this was pure evil.

  Here is the civilian area of Tokyo after the genocide

  
• 

  BU2B

  Killing civilians en masse is wrong, even if the nation you attacked engaged in similiar activities. This makes Saddam Hussein's gassing of the kurds look like a walk on the beach by comparison. The United States has engaged in various atrocites in the middle east over the years. Does that mean that 9/11 was justified?
• 

  Band on the Run

  I know that the answer is much more complicated than what I believed as a teenager. Evil is such a subjective standard. It reminds me of the Bob Dylan song "With God on Our Side." I believe I would order the bombs used if I were president. The Japanese have a very different culture. They treated American prisoners of war much worse than Germans did b/c the idea of a surrender was incomprehensible to them. We were going to have to fight door to door against a civilian population dedicated to fighting to the death. I read that the British govt. was not so optimistic about keeping Hitler from invading. They organized members of towns to set up resistance to the Nazis. How many more people would have died in a conventional war that dragged on? I read a biography of Hirohito. His brother was willing to rule in his place. The men with the power were determined to fight even after the bombings.

  France was invaded in record time. The French soldiers retreated. De Gaulle escaped to London with a small contingent. The French attitude was to beg Hitler for favored colony status. The Brits fought and fought. I'd rather be British.
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  Laika

  Thanks for that excerpt Terry, just war doctrine is indeed a sham.
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  Terry

  Just War Theory is, more or less, a logical (in a peculiar way) outcome of Romans 13: 1,2.

  We can blame it on the author of Romans :)