www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Just war, pacifists, suicide bombers, and terrorists

I�ve read them and disagree with them. Their ideas that unconditional surrender was not necessary seem to add up to nothing more than wishful thinking. All of the other possibilities posited also seem very unrealistic.

I agree that Hanson does not provide the rationale or historical analysis of the need for unconditional surrender in this article. He has provided it elsewhere in his writings and certainly others have. I have seen no argument that successfully disproves the absolute need for unconditional surrender by the Japanese.

Everyone knowing all this does not in any way mean that the end of the war was close at hand. In all likelihood it could have gone on for several years longer, with hundreds of thousands more being killed. It is very natural for people to believe that things would have turned out the very same way if we had simply not dropped the bomb and simply waited for the Japanese to come to their senses and surrender unconditionally. Wishful thinking does not usually translate into reality.

I never suggested that the decision makers gave no thought to the moral implications or that they acted with utter indifference. They most certainly did consider the moral implications and were right to do so. They concluded that their action was moral and just. I agree with that conclusion and it is a morally legitimate conclusion for them and me to hold.

Unconditional surrender was indeed imperative. I think that the certainty of some that a surrender with terms would have guaranteed the same outcome is unrealistic and too much like �Monday morning quarterbacking�. We have the luxury of discussing the War knowing that we won.

In Catholic tradition the demand for unconditional surrender is considered immoral; an enemy must be guaranteed certain humane conditions before surrendering.
This discussion reminds me of the conversation around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the bombings. There was a lot of argument about the possible consequences of invasion, arguments about whether Japan was ready to surrender at any rate, arguments about just how many Americans would have died in an invasion [my father, by the way, had just served in Italy and would almost certainly have been sent to Japan for the invasion]. What no one discussed was the objective immorality of total war, of intentionally killing civilians. Even Catholics, as we have seen here, tend to be consequentialists when it comes to moral reasoning. And if this is adopted nothing is inherently immoral...
The bombings, with the conventional bombings of German and Japanese cities, are America's great unrepented sins.
-Daniel

You�re playing with words here. The United States was not demanding unconditional surrender from the Japanese so that they could engage in general pillage and genocide of the Japanese people and nation. They were demanding unconditional surrender so that the violence would stop, and that there would be no pockets of resistance. The Japanese were not simply holding out for guarantees that American forces would not come ashore and start raping and killing women and children.

I agree. Such discussions will probably continue on each major anniversary, until such time that it recedes into the distance past.

The morality (or immorality) of total war has been discussed endlessly. The need to win against your aggressor must be balanced with the necessity to avoid civilian killing. Pacifists always seem to think that a war can be won without civilian deaths. That is a rather utopian view of the morality of war, one that is divorced from the real and fallen world we live in.

I respect such a position, but I also disagree with it. I see nothing immoral about these bombings. For me the greatest sin was Yalta, where we allowed Stalin to take control of Central and Eastern Europe, resulting in millions of deaths. But it is not an unrepented sin because President Bush, on his recent trip there, apologized on behalf of the United States for Yalta and our lack of support to the peoples of the former Soviet Union.

While you know and I know that American forces were not intent on pillaging and raping, I doubt the Japanese knew that. Americans have been among the gentlest of conquerors but the Japanese, who no doubt expected to be treated the way that they treated the conquered, needed the reassurance of stated terms.
And while I am not a pacifist it should be noted that when the just war principles were articulated "civilian deaths" meant the occasional peasant who was trampled in the charge, or caught in the archery crossfire. It could not be imagined that it ever would mean tens of thousands incinerated in an instant.
In light of the new realities of war, I concur with Popes John Paul and Benedict: the teaching needs rethinking.
-Daniel

Insisting that the limits of civilian casualties are immoral beyond the �occasional villager would get caught in the archery crossfire, or trampled in the charge� is a pacifist position because it pretty much negates any possible response with force. Wars are best avoided but sometimes you have no choice but to engage in them and defeat your enemy. Sometimes a military industrial city is a legitimate target.

I do agree that the Church needs to continually revisit and restate its position on issues of war and peace.

Dear Administrator,

My grandfather, Fr. John, was a chaplain for the anti-soviet underground way back when.

I think I mentioned that he gave me an embroidered pillow-case and told me it was from a village where more than 200 insurgents were buried.

When I asked him how he knew, he blurted back, "Because I buried them, what did you think?"

He also told me how, when he was going home at night and had to walk past a forest where there might have been guerrilla snipers, he was told to sing out loud as he went.

So he walked along and sang as many parts of the church services from memory as he could . . .

As for civilians, this reminded me of the time my grandmother had a party for friends in her home and she also invited a Soviet officer who came with one of his soldiers.

The soldier became so drunk at the table that he began to have his soup using a fork . . .

Then the unimaginable happened. One of the other guests wanted to ask him to stop that and, unfortunately, said, "Sir" or "Pane" (which was forbidden as a reflection of bourgeois, upper class values and therefore anti-Soviet).

At this, the officer, whose face was beet-red, ordered everyone into the kitchen and told them to face the wall, as he drew his side-arm.

(One favoured Soviet (police) tactic was to march up and down a line of people with their backs turned and then shoot a chosen victim in the nape of the neck.)

My grandmother joined her guests at the wall, however, and, at this, the officer told her that she was exempt, it wasn't HER fault etc.

But my grandmother stood firm and said to him, "Comrade, these are my guests whom I have invited, just as I have invited you. If they must die, I must die along with them!"

At this the officer mellowed and said, "You know, I have a babushka in Moscow just like you!"

He then told everyone to turn around and left my grandmother's home in peace with the drunken soldier.

His commanding officer came by the next day to apologise profusely and told her that the officer was being "disciplined in the extreme" for his actions.

Alex

Dear Administrator,

Your point on Yalta - God bless you, Sir!

I was regularly ridiculed in public school whenever I made mention of this with respect to Stalin and his crimes against humanity.

Whether you are American, Polish, Ruthenian or what - you are definitely, NASH!

Alex

What the Japanese were holding out for, from the various third parties that they had contacted about negotiating a surrender was immunity for and retention of the emperor - which, as it turned out, was acceptatble to US anyway.

So what. Remorse, repentance, and commitment to a better way always involves an after the fact revaluation of what was done after the fact. The fact taht the decision was hard at the moment doesn't affect whehter it was objectively moral or not. Moreover, while it is Monday for Hiroshima, it is Wednesday for the possible next use. It would be nice if the strictest scrutiny were applied to the idea of incinerating tens of thousands of innocents. That the reflexive default reaction were, as Paul VI put it: jamais plus, rather than repeat as deemed necessary.

So you say. The burden of proof for this proposition - the gravity of which is measured in tens of thousands of incerated innocents - is enormous. Good luck in defending it when it counts.

Insisting that the limits of civilian casualties are immoral beyond the �occasional villager would get caught in the archery crossfire, or trampled in the charge� is a pacifist position because it pretty much negates any possible response with force. Wars are best avoided but sometimes you have no choice but to engage in them and defeat your enemy. Sometimes a military industrial city is a legitimate target.

I do agree that the Church needs to continually revisit and restate its position on issues of war and peace. [/QB][/QUOTE]


No, the pacifist position is that use of deadly force is always immoral, that even if only soldiers are killed it is murder, The position I outline is the traditional Catholic position, which needs to be reexamined in light of technological weaponry.
For starters, I would point out that the Gospel does not guarantee worldly success, that if the choice is victory with indiscriminate slaughter or defeat we must choose defeat [I am not granting that failure to nuke Japan would have meant defeat; it is widely believed that Japan was at the point of surrender]. I am making the point that "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" "Gaining the whole world" in this context may mean attaining victory, preserving democracy, and so on.
-Daniel

It occurs to me that even if Hiroshima was a legitimate military target -highly debateable- to hold that bombing it, knowing that tens of thousands of civilians would be incinerated, is not "indiscriminate" is rather an astonishing claim.
But then maybe it depends on what "is not" is or is not...
-Daniel