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Japan had already surrendered (albeit with conditions) the bombs were utterly unnecessary to end the war, and only used in order to ensure that Japan's government would step down.

In light of that? No, i don't think the bombs can be justified.

Requia wrote:Japan had already surrendered (albeit with conditions) the bombs were utterly unnecessary to end the war, and only used in order to ensure that Japan's government would step down.

In light of that? No, i don't think the bombs can be justified.

Take a look at my post above:

They don't need "justification." Japan was not following the instructions of a superior power, and so the superior power bombed them with superior weapons. Surprise! Shock!

...or maybe the same damn thing people have been doing for 10,000 years? (With, admittedly, more technology.)

Unit1126PLL wrote:

Requia wrote:Japan had already surrendered (albeit with conditions) the bombs were utterly unnecessary to end the war, and only used in order to ensure that Japan's government would step down.

In light of that? No, i don't think the bombs can be justified.

Take a look at my post above:

They don't need "justification." Japan was not following the instructions of a superior power, and so the superior power bombed them with superior weapons. Surprise! Shock!

...or maybe the same damn thing people have been doing for 10,000 years? (With, admittedly, more technology.)

Are you seriously suggesting that the Japanese government shouldn't have been forced to step down!

You are both wrong! Japan hadn't surrendered, there had been talks but no formal surrender was ever offered, and certainly none that was satisfactory for all the rape, murder and plunder that they had inflicted on the world!

The justification of which you speak can be found in the mass graves that riddle the formerly occupied lands that are filled with innocent civilians and soldiers who surrendered honorably. Seriously, you guys need to read up on how brutal the Japanese were.

Do you understand they were so brutal that they expected the same harsh treatment when they surrendered! There are many stories of US marines watching in horror as Japanese women threw their own babies off jagged cliffs because they thought the allied soldiers would treat them the way the Japanese treated everyone they conquered!

I am not concerned with "horrors" on EITHER side of the war.

My only concern is:

Was it logical?

The answer is a resounding YES.

In fact, I would argue that the question:

IS it logical?

Still should be a resounding YES, but for some reason, isn't.

I think that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared essentially over 100 thousand US casualties easily. The operation for the invasion of Japan involved the landing of US marines and troops on soil that had been hit by atomic weapons less than 72 hours ago.

Japanese civilians would have been spared slaughter by their own troops and by their own psyches. Being captured was considered dishonourable at that point. Many Japanese POWs commited suicide in the first 2 weeks of imprisonment.

So essentially both sides were spared a lot of grief, so therefore it was logical.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
1) Dropping bombs on civilians is bad.
Why?
[strawman]Because it kills innocent people[/strawman]
Boo hoo? Why are innocent people so important?
[strawman]Because they just are, OK!?[/strawman]

That isn't what a strawman is. In order to argue from a strawman you have to misrepresent the position of your opponent. When you say dropping bombs on civilians is bad, and then contend that its because civilians are innocent, or that they are treated differently than military personnel by convention, then you aren't making a fallacious argument of any kind; let alone a strawman.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Additional: I will note that the above argument would require you to prove that any of the people killed were innocent, which (in wartime) is extremely hard if Clausewitzian logic is employed.

Clausewitz argued for the importance of moral virtue in war, and was really the first person to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, so I'm not sure that's the person you're thinking of. Additionally, the idea that war is a political tool subjects it to political whims, and if the polity in question wants to avoid killing civilians, then the killing of civilians should be avoided in war.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2) Dropping atomic bombs is bad because of radiation.
Living on a planet this close to the sun is bad because of radiation. What? It kills people too you know!

That's only a reasonable counter if the initial argument is one from category, and not one from degree (the radiation caused by certain atomic weapons is worse than solar radiation as experienced on Earth's surface) or agency (no one started up the sun).

Unit1126PLL wrote:
1) gak HAPPENS, DEAL WITH IT

That isn't a good argument. People often deal with things by determining whether or not they believe they are wrong, important, or otherwise interesting.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2) BOMBING THE BAD GUYS IS NEVER BAD.

That just as arbitrary as the supposed strawman you alluded to in your first "refutation".

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2a) THE BAD GUYS ARE WHOMEVER LOSES, ALWAYS.

Seeing as the vast majority of wars throughout history have not been clearly won or lost, this doesn't help very much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Unit1126PLL wrote:I am not concerned with "horrors" on EITHER side of the war.

My only concern is:

Was it logical?

The answer is a resounding YES.

In fact, I would argue that the question:

IS it logical?

Still should be a resounding YES, but for some reason, isn't.

Have you ever heard the phrase "logic is blind"?

Logic can tell you whether or not something follows from a given set of fundamental premises, but it cannot tell you what those premises are. Hence, logic can tell you that if you want to eat cheese, you have cheese, and you will not suffer from this consumption, then you should eat the cheese. But logic cannot tell you that you should want to eat cheese, which violates Hume's famous is-ought problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
They don't need "justification." Japan was not following the instructions of a superior power, and so the superior power bombed them with superior weapons. Surprise! Shock!

You've just provided a justification.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Never read any critics, just read and interpreted it myself in Philosophy class last semester.

If the interpretation you have of Clausewitz includes the elimination of morality from the calculations pertinent to war, then you interpreted it incorrect (he explicitly contradicts that idea when discussing military genius). Clausewitz wrote On War in a dialectical style, which means he gave phrase to a lot of argument which he later rejects.

More to the point, you cannot just read On War and claim to know anything about what Clausewitz thought, his views changed over time, and were expressed in other formats.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
1) Dropping bombs on civilians is bad.
Why?
[strawman]Because it kills innocent people[/strawman]
Boo hoo? Why are innocent people so important?
[strawman]Because they just are, OK!?[/strawman]

That isn't what a strawman is. In order to argue from a strawman you have to misrepresent the position of your opponent. When you say dropping bombs on civilians is bad, and then contend that its because civilians are innocent, or that they are treated differently than military personnel by convention, then you aren't making a fallacious argument of any kind; let alone a strawman.

Fair enough, it wasn't a straw man, my bad. And it's not that the argument is fallacious, it's that I disagree with the premise that civilians ought to be treated differently.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Additional: I will note that the above argument would require you to prove that any of the people killed were innocent, which (in wartime) is extremely hard if Clausewitzian logic is employed.

Clausewitz argued for the importance of moral virtue in war, and was really the first person to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, so I'm not sure that's the person you're thinking of. Additionally, the idea that war is a political tool subjects it to political whims, and if the polity in question wants to avoid killing civilians, then the killing of civilians should be avoided in war.

It may not be, but the passages I remember spoke of wars as "state on state" rather than "army against army" and that, therefore, the entire state was a target.

If he didn't say that, then he should have; makes a lot of sense.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2) Dropping atomic bombs is bad because of radiation.
Living on a planet this close to the sun is bad because of radiation. What? It kills people too you know!

That's only a reasonable counter if the initial argument is one from category, and not one from degree (the radiation caused by certain atomic weapons is worse than solar radiation as experienced on Earth's surface) or agency (no one started up the sun).

Unit1126PLL wrote:
1) gak HAPPENS, DEAL WITH IT

That isn't a good argument. People often deal with things by determining whether or not they believe they are wrong, important, or otherwise interesting.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2) BOMBING THE BAD GUYS IS NEVER BAD.

That just as arbitrary as the supposed strawman you alluded to in your first "refutation".

Unit1126PLL wrote:
2a) THE BAD GUYS ARE WHOMEVER LOSES, ALWAYS.

Seeing as the vast majority of wars throughout history have not been clearly won or lost, this doesn't help very much.

This isn't one of those cases, so this is irrelevant.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:I am not concerned with "horrors" on EITHER side of the war.

My only concern is:

Was it logical?

The answer is a resounding YES.

In fact, I would argue that the question:

IS it logical?

Still should be a resounding YES, but for some reason, isn't.

Have you ever heard the phrase "logic is blind"?

Logic can tell you whether or not something follows from a given set of fundamental premises, but it cannot tell you what those premises are. Hence, logic can tell you that if you want to eat cheese, you have cheese, and you will not suffer from this consumption, then you should eat the cheese. But logic cannot tell you that you should want to eat cheese, which violates Hume's famous is-ought problem.

Unfortunately, here, we DO have a given set of premises thanks to Nature, and I think Hume missed the point in his is/ought problem. We have an Evolutionary Imperative to eat things that follow a certain set of guidelines. We survived because of this imperative. Survival is what is required of us. Therefore, we have this imperative.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
They don't need "justification." Japan was not following the instructions of a superior power, and so the superior power bombed them with superior weapons. Surprise! Shock!

You've just provided a justification.

You're right, I should've said "moral justification." My bad, erase the first sentence entirely.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Never read any critics, just read and interpreted it myself in Philosophy class last semester.

If the interpretation you have of Clausewitz includes the elimination of morality from the calculations pertinent to war, then you interpreted it incorrect (he explicitly contradicts that idea when discussing military genius). Clausewitz wrote On War in a dialectical style, which means he gave phrase to a lot of argument which he later rejects.

More to the point, you cannot just read On War and claim to know anything about what Clausewitz thought, his views changed over time, and were expressed in other formats.

Then I was wrong about Clausewitz, but fortunately my arguments do not require his agreement. Throw everything I said about him out entirely, if I am that wrong.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think attributing that argument to you guys is "creating a position that is easy to refute," "attributing said position to [you guys]," and then "refuting it." But that's not important.

So, wait, are you trying to say that the dialogue which you posted was meant to be a strawman? Because if that's the case, then yes, you're correct.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I, being a logical being, do not see killing innocent people as detrimental to my survival or to the survival of the human race (provided it is limited in scope to fewer than 7 billion people). Enlighten me as to what I am missing?

Really? You don't see why killing innocent people would prove problematic for society, and therefore humans (social animals) and yourself (a human, who is therefore a social animal)?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if there is no distinction between guilt and innocence which is recognized by convention, then the entire moral basis for the convention of not killing everyone I see is eliminated.

I mean, you may not realize it, but even stating that something which is detrimental to your survival should be stopped is a moral position. Hell, and statement which includes should is usually going to be a moral position.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think attributing that argument to you guys is "creating a position that is easy to refute," "attributing said position to [you guys]," and then "refuting it." But that's not important.

So, wait, are you trying to say that the dialogue which you posted was meant to be a strawman? Because if that's the case, then yes, you're correct.

It was meant to be, yes. Sorry for the confusion!

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I, being a logical being, do not see killing innocent people as detrimental to my survival or to the survival of the human race (provided it is limited in scope to fewer than 7 billion people). Enlighten me as to what I am missing?

Really? You don't see why killing innocent people would prove problematic for society, and therefore humans (social animals) and yourself (a human, who is therefore a social animal)?

I think that within one's social "tribe" that killing innocents is a bad thing, hence why I avoid doing it myself. But our tribes can only be so large, and so other tribes, rather than cooperating, are competing for resources. So when one "tribe" kills another "tribe," that's fine, it's called a war.

dogma wrote:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if there is no distinction between guilt and innocence which is recognized by convention, then the entire moral basis for the convention of not killing everyone I see is eliminated.

I only vaguely see what you are trying to say, but here's my stab at it:
You should shoot for survival. Which means that, if killing everyone you see enhances your survival, then you should do it. However, due to our minds being more powerful than our instincts, we can oust the people who would do that from our tribe with threats to their very survival.

I.E. don't kill people, not for any moral reason, but because you're likely to get killed in return and that is contra-survivalist.

dogma wrote:
I mean, you may not realize it, but even stating that something which is detrimental to your survival should be stopped is a moral position. Hell, and statement which includes should is usually going to be a moral position.

You're right, it is a moral proposition. I don't claim to have no morals! Just differing ones, which make the most sense to me.

So, by your thinking, dropping the bombs was bad?

Unit1126PLL wrote:
And it's not that the argument is fallacious, it's that I disagree with the premise that civilians ought to be treated differently.

Well if you simply disagree, then you shouldn't contend that the opposition is arguing fallaciously.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
It may not be, but the passages I remember spoke of wars as "state on state" rather than "army against army" and that, therefore, the entire state was a target.

If he didn't say that, then he should have; makes a lot of sense.

Yes, the entire state would be the target in the sense that the belligerents are attempting to achieve political ends with respect to one another. That isn't the same thing as arguing that civilians should be targeted, which Clausewitz did not advocate.

You should look up his argument regarding the distinction between limited wars and total wars.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
This isn't one of those cases, so this is irrelevant.

The point is that developing a specific set of moral imperatives which govern only a very small set of incidences is going to be seen as poor argument. Moreover, if you're going to argue that the side that won is the good one, then you are further going to have to express why the side that lost can't legitimately see them as bad.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Unfortunately, here, we DO have a given set of premises thanks to Nature, and I think Hume missed the point in his is/ought problem. We have an Evolutionary Imperative to eat things that follow a certain set of guidelines. We survived because of this imperative. Survival is what is required of us. Therefore, we have this imperative.

Survival isn't required of us, people kill themselves quite frequently; both by direct action, and in defense of causes. When you argue from nature, you must contend with all of nature; even the parts which you do not consider to be valuable.

Again, logic is blind.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
You're right, I should've said "moral justification." My bad, erase the first sentence entirely.

Justification is necessarily a question of morality. Even when you argue something like "survival is good, therefore you should try to survive" you are making a moral argument.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that within one's social "tribe" that killing innocents is a bad thing, hence why I avoid doing it myself. But our tribes can only be so large, and so other tribes, rather than cooperating, are competing for resources. So when one "tribe" kills another "tribe," that's fine, it's called a war.

What about those instances in which trade with another tribe is important to the survival of your own tribe?

For example, had the British slaughtered American civilians during the Revolution, they would have been without a key economic partner.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I only vaguely see what you are trying to say, but here's my stab at it:
You should shoot for survival. Which means that, if killing everyone you see enhances your survival, then you should do it. However, due to our minds being more powerful than our instincts, we can oust the people who would do that from our tribe with threats to their very survival.

I.E. don't kill people, not for any moral reason, but because you're likely to get killed in return and that is contra-survivalist.

The problem is that what you're describing are social conventions, which are predicated on morality; in the instance of your argument here "survival is good".

Yeah Dogma has it right, that's was the most bizarre use of the term strawman I think ive ever seen. In plain English, Its simply misrepresenting someone by superficially repeating a part of their argument and changing it a bit.

Here's an easy to understand one..


Matty - "I prefer beer to spirits"

Matts Dad "Matty said he cant handle spirits, the big soft girly poofter"

Matty "eh?!"

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
And it's not that the argument is fallacious, it's that I disagree with the premise that civilians ought to be treated differently.

Well if you simply disagree, then you shouldn't contend that the opposition is arguing fallaciously.

I wasn't?

EDIT: Drop the damn straw man thing. I was wrong; my bad! It doesn't even hold on-topic relevance.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
It may not be, but the passages I remember spoke of wars as "state on state" rather than "army against army" and that, therefore, the entire state was a target.

If he didn't say that, then he should have; makes a lot of sense.

Yes, the entire state would be the target in the sense that the belligerents are attempting to achieve political ends with respect to one another. That isn't the same thing as arguing that civilians should be targeted, which Clausewitz did not advocate.

You should look up his argument regarding the distinction between limited wars and total wars.

I don't advocate targeting civilians, just that, if they're hurt during the course of normal military activities (such as atomically bombing their factories out of existence, or strategic bombing their resource centers), then nothing is really lost and no one ought to make a big deal out of it.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
This isn't one of those cases, so this is irrelevant.

The point is that developing a specific set of moral imperatives which govern only a very small set of incidences is going to be seen as poor argument. Moreover, if you're going to argue that the side that won is the good one, then you are further going to have to express why the side that lost can't legitimately see them as bad.

I will readily change my moral imperatives to suit the most logical answer. I don't believe morals ever have to be solid and immobile; I believe it is a flaw if they are. And the side that lost can see them as bad, sure, but don't be surprised if the greater humanity doesn't see it that way (nor should they).

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Unfortunately, here, we DO have a given set of premises thanks to Nature, and I think Hume missed the point in his is/ought problem. We have an Evolutionary Imperative to eat things that follow a certain set of guidelines. We survived because of this imperative. Survival is what is required of us. Therefore, we have this imperative.

Survival isn't required of us, people kill themselves quite frequently; both by direct action, and in defense of causes. When you argue from nature, you must contend with all of nature; even the parts which you do not consider to be valuable.

Again, logic is blind.

Survival is required of us. The fact that some people fail hard enough at it to kill themselves (either in the defense of hopeless causes or out of despair) doesn't mean it isn't required, it means some of us don't make the grade. And what do you mean by all of nature? I don't understand that point.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
You're right, I should've said "moral justification." My bad, erase the first sentence entirely.

Justification is necessarily a question of morality. Even when you argue something like "survival is good, therefore you should try to survive" you are making a moral argument.

Fair enough, it does need justification. And I am doing it.

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that within one's social "tribe" that killing innocents is a bad thing, hence why I avoid doing it myself. But our tribes can only be so large, and so other tribes, rather than cooperating, are competing for resources. So when one "tribe" kills another "tribe," that's fine, it's called a war.

What about those instances in which trade with another tribe is important to the survival of your own tribe?

For example, had the British slaughtered American civilians during the Revolution, they would have been without a key economic partner.

Then we adjust the policy (towards trade) to be pro-survivalist. Nowhere did I say we HAD to fight, I just said that when we do, innocents die, it's called "war."

EDIT 2: Lemme adjust my phrasing: It may have sounded like we were always competing between tribes. I admit, it was a mistake that I said that. What I meant was "when we do compete for resources, rather than cooperate for them, war starts and one tribe kills another tribe." Better?

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I only vaguely see what you are trying to say, but here's my stab at it:
You should shoot for survival. Which means that, if killing everyone you see enhances your survival, then you should do it. However, due to our minds being more powerful than our instincts, we can oust the people who would do that from our tribe with threats to their very survival.

I.E. don't kill people, not for any moral reason, but because you're likely to get killed in return and that is contra-survivalist.

The problem is that what you're describing are social conventions, which are predicated on morality; in the instance of your argument here "survival is good".

Yes, why is it a problem to describe a social convention that is predicated on the morality of "survival is good"?

LordofHats wrote:

I'm a little skeptical on this. Can you provide a source?

The article on page 3 supports the opposite conclusion.

Leslie Grove's book Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project

I feel no need to even address the article in detail to be honest. He has some interesting information, but a lot of it screams "cherry picked for my purposes" and flies in the face of several known facts, like the fact that Japan wasn't surrendering, and a general lack of historical perspective on how he approaches a lot of his quotes and information. His entire position on Imperialism screams that he doesn't actually know much about the history of it. Imperialism was on the downturn in WWI, and was dead by the end of WWII as a goal of Western powers, something the author of the article hand waves away by acknowledging while at the same time saying we bombed them because there isn't enough room for non-white imperialists around here! EDIT: The US had given up Imperialism ages ago. It was dead and buried when the Great Depression hit. Imperialism and the authors entire position on it is more in line with the British Imperialism rather than American Imperialism.

British, Dutch, French, Portugeuse and American holdings were still well and truly in Imperial hands at the start of WWII, even if the holdings had become steadily more shaky in some areas (the Indian independance movement). The French attempted to reassert their Imperial colonies immediately after the war, which lead to the war in Indochina. The Philipines remains in the pocket of the US to this day. It's true that the majority of Imperial holdings were unlikely to continue being ruled by Imperial hands, but this has nothing to do with the goodwill of their White masters and is entirely a result of the efforts of those people.

There's ae some great books on the American spin of Imperialsm BTW. And I asked you for a source that indicates the bomb was going to used against Germany before it's capitulation.

Also, check when the NSA was founded. It's very informative. He pretty much lost all credibility for me in the first few hundred words with that one. It's hard to intercept enemy communications when you don't exist.

I thought Japanese messages were being decoded even before Midway?

International and foreign policy motives (To clarify, motives heavily tied to what would soon become the Cold War) played a bigger role in dropping the bomb than racism. Racism probably had a role to play. I wouldn't be shocked. But Mr. Hume takes it to an absurd level that I don't think he's even properly supported. He strings together a bunch of inflamatory remarks and cherry picked quotes and says they say what he wants them to say.

That said, regardless of motivation, in hindsight we do know that Japan was unlikely to surrender. It's not really a debatable position as far as I know. Invasion of Japan would have killed just as many if not more people as the bombings (likely more). We'll never know in the end. X-Day never came and Downfall never happened. All we can do is play the numbers game. In retrospect the bombing did end the war. Alternatives may have ended it but I find anyone claiming Japan would have surrendered on its own or should have been left alone because it was no longer a threat to have a poor grip on historical reality (as it is currently known). The bombings played an important role after the war too. You never know how deadly a weapon is till you use it. Because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no sane person wants to use nuclear weapons, which may not be true if they hadn't been used then (they probably would have ended up being used later in another conflict). The same thing happened with chemical weapons after WWI.

The willingness of Japan to surrender (to certain terms) without dropping the bomb is a well known contention. Simply stating "It's historical fact that the Japs weren't giving in!" without refering to any authority brings nothing to this discussion.

dogma wrote:

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
And you seem to be incapable of differentiating between a nation that is in a state of war with the USA, versus any other nation that just happens to exist at the time. The USA was not engaged in active warfare with "every other country in the world." It wasn't on the verge of starting an invasion that would have made D-Day seem like a gentle seaside holiday with "every other nation in the world."

Because for the purposes of this argument the distinction is irrelevant. The presence of a declared war does not indicate the presence of an unusual threat. Hostility and threat are not the same thing.

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Its a very simple position. Can Japan extend any war-fighting capability to menace the USA, its armed forces or areas under its aegis in 1945? (As asked IN 1944/45.) and thus does it constitute any potential threat? The answer is actually YES, it potentially can engage USA forces or the USA mainland, as indeed it did. Japan managed to strike against the mainland of the USA with a weapon. The weapon used was ineffective, but the delivery system was not. It achieved its purpose. THAT THERE constitutes a threat.

And, again, that argument is nonsense because it further extends to any and all nations near the United States or the territory it controls, meaning that the extent to which Japan presented a threat to the US was no greater than that presented by any and all other countries in the world.

Arguing that because the Japanese had the capacity use an ineffective explosive delivery system that they represented something akin to a unique threat, thereby necessitating the use of nuclear weapons to force a surrender is preposterous because the argument that a surrender must be forced in order to end a war is a nonstarter.

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Nice to know this gets to be a sensible grown-up conversation though. If my "argument" is that bad, you should be able to demolish it without resorting to juvenile name-calling. Of course it would have to be an "argument" for that to work, as opposed to a display of facts. But if that's all you've got, then knock yourself out son.

I've already explicitly indicated, several times, why your position is flatly wrong. The flaming began after you restated it in increasingly absurd ways, while failing to properly refute my objection.

Unusual threat? Who said "unusual"? I just said "Threat". And a "Hostile" nation is quite distinct to a non-hostile one. And again, "all nations near the USA" were not engaged in a shooting war with the USA, and are thus utterly irrelevant to this conversation. But there is little point speaking to you, because you obviously aren't reading anything that gets said, and have resorted to adding emphasis where I haven't used it, and apparently also inventing new arguments I haven't made. I never claimed that Japans ability to threaten the US was the reason for using the bomb. I was simply pointing out the fallacy that Japan was "no threat" to the USA, and a couple of reasons why it was a threat. Here is another: A Japan left unmolested on its home islands would inevitably rebuild itself, especially with a great part of its military still intact and present overseas, in much the same manner as post-Versailles Germany and potentially once more become a threat to the USA (and anyone else in the area.) Thus if Japan continues to be a threat for whatever reason a solution must be found. The response in Europe to the possibility of a rebuilt Reich (again) was the invasion of its borders, forcing an unconditional surrender, and the subsequent division of Germany. Others in this thread have adequately described the problems with an invasion of the Home Islands, so what other ways are there to force an unconditional surrender and occupation?...And so the reasoning continues...

Nice to know that facts still have no place in your world view though.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I'm not just saying this because I posted the article on page 3, but it seems to me that an awful load of members have been missing a major irony of the pacific war, and yes, I'm looking at you Frazz, especially with statements like these

The Japanese invaded country after country. The allies were the ones being invaded.

So China and Hong King were being invaded, despite large chunks being occupied by Britain and other European powers for a number of years. Ditto India, Singapore and Malaysia.

And what about American colonies in the pacific: Midway, Wake Island, Phillipines etc were they not aleady occupied?

Let's not forget the evils of Japanese occupation, but the west was in no position to take the moral high ground about Japanese imperialism. Hence, the conflcit boiled down to a racial struggle. Germany was nuked, Japan was not, despite the Germans being far more of a threat.

The Japanese voluntarily joined the international Imperial system in the late 19th century and used it to take hold of places like Formosa and Korea. This put them on the same moral ground as western colonising nations. Then the Japanese attacked the other members of the system. This put them on the lower moral ground.

Not to mention that they were just about pressured into such an attack by said nations. As well as the oft forgotten volunteer armies of Taiwanese, Manchukans and Philippines that joined up. People tend to overlook that Japan used the long running British tactic of recruiting locals into their armies, including in some cases Pacific Islanders. Many Asian s freely joined the Japanese Empire because they thought that an actual Asian imperialist power was better than a Western one. The war crimes were primarily commit against Western troops (or those loyal to them) and the Chinese, both because they were actively resisting the Japanese Empire. The morale code of Japan at the time was unique due to the still strong running samurai heritence, POWs were seen as lower than animals because they had lost their honour but still clinged to life instead of regaining the honour through suicide (as stated in my above post, suicide is seen very differently in the Japanese culture). By that logic, it was okay to treat them like dirt and conducting experiments on them, which by the way was a seldom encountered thing (the experimentation that is).

So yeah, the Japanese did some bad things. Did they deserve the bomb? No, but as I have stated in my above post, it was a matter of projected casualties and practical mathematics, in the end both sides "earned" something, the US no longer had to throw their boys away on a war that the public had started realizing could have been avoided if US foreign policies before the war wasn't egocentrical, the Japanese in that their people could come to peace, instead of the entire population throwing themselves at the Americans. You wouldn't believe the propaganda and actual civilian letters and diaries that I have read that speaks of "the ultimate line of defence". To make a long story short, the Americans would have had to wade through women, children and elderly blood to conquer the Japanese mainland, because that was what the population was ready to do.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I don't advocate targeting civilians, just that, if they're hurt during the course of normal military activities (such as atomically bombing their factories out of existence, or strategic bombing their resource centers), then nothing is really lost and no one ought to make a big deal out of it.

The atomic strikes were most definitely attacks intended to target civilians.

In any case, you could make the same argument regarding murder. The point of making a big deal out of these things is to make people reticent of taking similar actions in the future.

Additionally one might make the argument that doing unnecessary damage to anything is foolish because one never knows if the thing in question would be useful in the future.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I will readily change my moral imperatives to suit the most logical answer. I don't believe morals ever have to be solid and immobile; I believe it is a flaw if they are. And the side that lost can see them as bad, sure, but don't be surprised if the greater humanity doesn't see it that way (nor should they).

The problem is that if you're arguing from a generalized position (the side that wins is good), then your argument must generally apply across the human population. The argument you've made above is more akin to "The side that wins is good, if I wanted that side to win." And that is really just a derivation of the "The side that I like is good."

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Survival is required of us. The fact that some people fail hard enough at it to kill themselves (either in the defense of hopeless causes or out of despair) doesn't mean it isn't required, it means some of us don't make the grade.

No, that doesn't follow unless you attribute agency to nature, which is an odd thing to do. A requirement is something which is necessary for the achievement or fulfillment of something else. Survival cannot compel itself without being reduced to a preference, which indicates that it is merely a subjective concern subject to Hume's is-ought problem, and human nature cannot compel survival because humans clearly also kill themselves due to their nature. This leaves nature itself, or God if you like, to require survival and neither of those make much sense outside intentional arguments regarding human preferences. And, even to the extent which they do make sense, the argument will not hold because you still have answer a question regarding why humans should place value on the compulsion of God/Nature.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
And what do you mean by all of nature? I don't understand that point.

I mean that if humans kill themselves, then it is in human nature to kill oneself.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Then we adjust the policy (towards trade) to be pro-survivalist. Nowhere did I say we HAD to fight, I just said that when we do, innocents die, it's called "war."

EDIT 2: Lemme adjust my phrasing: It may have sounded like we were always competing between tribes. I admit, it was a mistake that I said that. What I meant was "when we do compete for resources, rather than cooperate for them, war starts and one tribe kills another tribe." Better?

That is better, but the point to be made is that what you do in moment one affects what can happen in moment two. For example, if we kill group of civilians X, we may find ourselves later struggling to obtain a good they provide which we want, either because we killed a lot of them, or because they no longer are willing to trade with us. Statecraft is such that you can't just look at what is important now, you have to consider what might become important later; which is also why direct democracy is a bad system of governance outside very small groups.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes, why is it a problem to describe a social convention that is predicated on the morality of "survival is good"?

Its a problem because you appear to be arguing that social conventions, like those which underpin the civilian/military distinction, are not important, or should be discard; particularly because they're predicated on "survival is good".

Well, and "things I like are good" and "things that are good should be protected."

dogma wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
And what do you mean by all of nature? I don't understand that point.

I mean that if humans kill themselves, then it is in human nature to kill oneself.

Actually I would argue that suicide is a cultural occurrence, but other than that I am not sure what this has to do with the rest of your (as in both you) argument. Care to elaborate?

Vargtass wrote:
Actually I would argue that suicide is a cultural occurrence, but other than that I am not sure what this has to do with the rest of your (as in both you) argument. Care to elaborate?

Well, right, but culture is also a component of human nature. We socialize, develop culture, and sometimes that culture induces suicide so suicide is a property of human nature according to the transitive property.

The reason its relevant here is that an argument from nature dealing with survival must show that at all humans feel compelled to survive all the time. If some don't do so, even its only some of the time, then survival isn't a requirement of humanity; ie. you aren't required to survive in order to be human.

Vargtass wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I'm not just saying this because I posted the article on page 3, but it seems to me that an awful load of members have been missing a major irony of the pacific war, and yes, I'm looking at you Frazz, especially with statements like these

The Japanese invaded country after country. The allies were the ones being invaded.

So China and Hong King were being invaded, despite large chunks being occupied by Britain and other European powers for a number of years. Ditto India, Singapore and Malaysia.

And what about American colonies in the pacific: Midway, Wake Island, Phillipines etc were they not aleady occupied?

Let's not forget the evils of Japanese occupation, but the west was in no position to take the moral high ground about Japanese imperialism. Hence, the conflcit boiled down to a racial struggle. Germany was nuked, Japan was not, despite the Germans being far more of a threat.

The Japanese voluntarily joined the international Imperial system in the late 19th century and used it to take hold of places like Formosa and Korea. This put them on the same moral ground as western colonising nations. Then the Japanese attacked the other members of the system. This put them on the lower moral ground.

Not to mention that they were just about pressured into such an attack by said nations. ...

... .

The Japanese started the Pacific War because they saw an opportunity to seize by force the resources they needed while the European powers were busy, instead of trading for them peacefully. They also had a problem with the USA, who were annoyed by the Japanese encroachment in China. The US cut off oil exports as a kind of embargo.

This all resulted from the militaristic attitude of the Japanese government of the pre-war period. The pressure was caused by their own militarism both from within and by its effect on other nations.

Unit1126PLL wrote:[
It may not be, but the passages I remember spoke of wars as "state on state" rather than "army against army" and that, therefore, the entire state was a target.

If he didn't say that, then he should have; makes a lot of sense.

That second statement made me spit out my breakfast laughing.

As someone including a section on the nature of war in his dissertation as he types, the concept of telling Clausewitz what he 'should have done' is rather amusing to me.


I also enjoy the mental picture I have of Dogma's face of delight upon stumbling across the rest of your post. I imagine it something akin to Morgan Freeman leaning on a table with both elbows, finger interlocked, head resting on fingers, with a massive grin, and saying, 'You're in my world now'.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think that within one's social "tribe" that killing innocents is a bad thing, hence why I avoid doing it myself. But our tribes can only be so large, and so other tribes, rather than cooperating, are competing for resources. So when one "tribe" kills another "tribe," that's fine, it's called a war.

There are a lot more conceptions and definitions of war then that my friend, from Grotius and Cicero, to Neo-Clausewitzian stances and Lenin. I'd suggest a little more research before issuing a definitive statement on the nature of 'war'.

I love how people can talk over the deaths of thousands with such .... little emotion.

I don't like this topic. Justifying the past is wrong in so many levels.

I suppose this whole thread is just about vilification etc...

Dogma is right.

It's one thing to argue if the nukes were necessary to stop the war.

But justifying the nukes as righteous retribution in return for the Japanese military atrocities is appalling. That is not justice. That's revenge. That's is not war, but a prelude to genocide. What if Tojo managed to keep his war cabinet intact, and win his coup against the Imperial government? Would the US be justified to keep using nukes on the civilian population? Who would be left to learn the lesson that the Western powers are good and kind, and theirs is bad? How is killing civilians punishing those who actually committed the atrocities? We have this ideal that somehow our use of force is justified , even when it copies the methods of our enemies.

One can use that same logic to defend the any Pakistani who want revenge against the US for killing civilians via collateral damage by impersonal predator drones. Or understand why some of the insurgents resist the US because we "liberated" the Iraq people from the evil Saddam Hussein after bombing their country into the stone age with shock and awe, and bungling every reconstruction project. And we still are there to maintain a presence so their newly formed "moderate democratic" government will stay line with the US interests. Just because we don't using raping and torture as a overall policy to subjugate our enemies like the WW2 Japanese military or Nazis did, doesn't make our use of excessive force like nuking Japan any less horrific.

Arguing over if it was a good/humane idea to drop the A bomb is pointless, War is exactly that war and the objective is to win and the allies did win...so we get to decide if it was right or not and guess what we decided it was the right thing to do.

The Imperial army got extremely close to being in postion to invade oz if they had I doubt they would have been the most merciful conquerors and I am 100% sure I would not be here today....So yeah let em burn

Jubear wrote:
The Imperial army got extremely close to being in postion to invade oz

Bless those fuzzy wuzzy angels, Bless the diggers.

Jubear wrote:Arguing over if it was a good/humane idea to drop the A bomb is pointless, War is exactly that war and the objective is to win and the allies did win...so we get to decide if it was right or not and guess what we decided it was the right thing to do.

The Imperial army got extremely close to being in postion to invade oz if they had I doubt they would have been the most merciful conquerors and I am 100% sure I would not be here today....So yeah let em burn

But your timeline is all messed up. BY 1943, Australia was in no serious danger of invasion. So how did nuking Japan save Oz?

Emperors Faithful wrote:British, Dutch, French, Portugeuse and American holdings were still well and truly in Imperial hands at the start of WWII, even if the holdings had become steadily more shaky in some areas (the Indian independance movement). The French attempted to reassert their Imperial colonies immediately after the war, which lead to the war in Indochina. The Philipines remains in the pocket of the US to this day. It's true that the majority of Imperial holdings were unlikely to continue being ruled by Imperial hands, but this has nothing to do with the goodwill of their White masters and is entirely a result of the efforts of those people.

Like I said. It shows a rather simplistic view of imperialism that suggests you don't actually know how it evolved and changed and when it actually died or started dying. The death of Imperialism has nothing to do with the efforts of the people or good will on part of the 'masters.' Imperialism died because by the time WWII came around it was already tettering and by the end of the war the European powers had lost the political willpower to continue, and the Cold War was starting. They started shedding their overseas empires within a few years (exception the French but they're French so it kind of makes sense they sort of tried to keep going).

And I asked you for a source that indicates the bomb was going to used against Germany before it's capitulation.

I gave you one. Leslie Grove, director of the Manhattan Project, wrote it in his book.

I thought Japanese messages were being decoded even before Midway?

Now you're just trolling. Whether or not we were decoding Japanese messages had nothing to do with whether or not the NSA was around to do it. The NSA was founded in 1952. It's predecessor in the late 1940's. They literally couldn't intercept any Japanese encoded messages because they didn't exist to do any intercepting.

The willingness of Japan to surrender (to certain terms) without dropping the bomb is a well known contention. Simply stating "It's historical fact that the Japs weren't giving in!" without refering to any authority brings nothing to this discussion.

A well known contention of people who are ignoring facts maybe. The greatest evidence that they weren't going to surrender is that they weren't surrendering and most historians agree they weren't going to surrender (EDIT: to clarify, not surrender without an invasion or some other act that would force it). It's a historical consensus on an issue backed up by evidence. The author of the article mentioned doesn't even disprove it as much as willfully ignores it and throws out a senseless source of information and point out that some officers wanted to surrender. He doesn't prove the point at all (and he really can't).

If you prefer to ignore it and grasp at historical fantasy behind a shield of 'non-authority' be my guest. Doesn't change what we know or what the Allies knew at the time.

That is not justice. That's revenge.

No, it was a desperate attempt to stop the war and save lives! It would be revenge if we didn't accept an unconditional surrender and then dropped the bomb!

Again the bomb saved more lives than it took including Japanese lives. You also must consider the future lives it saved by it's demonstrated effectiveness at a low yield. So morally it's still the best choice. It's sad that the Japanese put the world in the position where it was necessary, but that was their choice.

You have to look at the alternatives, too.

What were they? How were they better?

Well, if the US didn't bomb Japan, the USSR would see to it that ther would be no Japan.

So I'd say that things ended much better than they could have.