Commentary
In just a handful of days, it will be 65 years since we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Can Catholics say it was moral? Without a doubt, I say yes.
Here's some of my rationale;
1. In an invasion of the Home Islands, U.S. KIA estimates were approx 1,000,000.
2. In an invasion of the Home Islands, British Commonwealth KIA estimates were approx 1,000,000.
3. In an invasion of the Home Islands, Japanese civilian deaths from famine alone were estimated at approx 5,000,000.
4. During the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa, Japanese parents killed their children by the hundreds (some estimate thousands). Then the parents would commit suicide themselves. What would happen during an invasion of the Home Islands, where millions lived?
5. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were far from "innocent" targets. Both were valid military targets.
a.) Hiroshima was slated to be the HQ for the Japanese defense on the Southern Front (Operation "Getsu-Go"; Japan's plans for defense of the home islands) when the Allies invaded (Operations Down Fall, Coronet and Olympic). Hiroshima was home base for 43,000 Japanese troops waiting to kill American, British, and Commonwealth troops.
b.) Nagasaki was home to two major Mitsubishi arms factories.
c.) Both cities were military transportation hubs.
d.) And I don't buy this "it was an anti-Catholic plot to kill Japanese Catholics when we hit Nagasaki". Much like many of the German and Italian Catholics, Japanese Catholics had no problem whatsoever killing Yanks, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Canucks, etc, by the truckload all for the glory of the Empire.
6. Hiroshima also had thousands of soldiers stationed in and around the city. Hiroshima was also the HQ for the 2d Imperial Army. Again, making them valid military targets.
7. The entire nation of Japan was girding for armed combat. If you thought that the German Volkssturm units (little boys and old men who fought the Red Army to the death) were tough, wait until we met the Japanese Home Guard, bushido tradition and all. And yes, 9-year-old little Japanese boys and girls were in training to charge American machine gun nests with sharpened bamboo spears. Don't kid yourself... they would have done it. And Allied troops would have had no choice but to mow them down by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands.
8. There was a slogan popular in Japan in the closing months of the war; "One hundred million heartbeats. One death". Hmmm, what did they mean by that? National Hari-Kiri or a National Fight To The Death.... or both?
9. If "the war was already over and Japan was ready to surrender" as the revisionists tell us... why did it take TWO atomic bombs to make Japan surrender?
10. Many within The Church point to #2314 of the CCC; "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."[109] A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes." Notice the word "indiscriminate"? Taking out a valid military target is far from indiscriminate.
So, it's a fact that we killed 180,000 Japanese in the atomic bombings of Japan. Here's one I have for the revisionists.... would they have been happy if more than 2,000,000 Allied Servicemen died, along with the vast majority of the Japanese people?
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Comments
Excellent piece, buddy. This whole A-bomb issues irritates me severely. When the Japanese whine about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they forget that it's essentially payback for Pearl Harbor, and countless atrocities that followed. You did a great job of boiling your arguments down to a few bullet points. Please remember to also boil your water. Wilmington has become a Third World city! Have a great week-end. Keep on keeping on. Your pal and fan, Verne.
I find it very interesting after all of the documented atrocities the Japanese Armed Forces committed in WW11 there is this ongoing debate about the use of the bombs. The cold heartedness and ruthless way the Japs treated people was completely animalistic. We are now going to continue to pick apart the decision to drop the bombs, are you nuts. I guess it would have been better to prolong the war and kill millions of Japanese and allies plus the cost versus the 200,000 or so that did die. If you idiots can't see the the benefit of the bomb there is no use in even talking to you. Also, I don't think we have had another world war since then,I wonder why that is. Could it be that the nuclear age discouraged war on the same scale. You bleeding heart liberals make me sick,if you don't like it here go somewhere else, like the middle east I'm sure they are very understanding or Africa I hear things are going quite well there. Better yet ask for admission into the special place in Franc
With all do respect, the real issue should be to evaluate the moral object (what is chosen to be done) as good, evil, or indifferent, because it is not permissible to do even the slightest evil for the sake of a perceived great good. The object chosen was nuclear annihilation of a target. With such a weapon, one cannot avoid choosing the killing of innocent children and women in dropping that weapon.
Some of your reasons do not stand the test of Catholic morality. Unless you are a Proportionalist (which is moral heresy), the first three and final reasons are invalid. Such effects cannot change the moral object.
True, parts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military target. But, consider this weeks first reading (Abraham pleading for Sodom). It is indiscriminate to intentionally destroy more than the target. Such destruction was foreseen and intended. [And in fact, the bomb exploded over a church Christian center of Urakami not a factory.]
FO,
Just a few things you're leaving out.
1. It was Japan who militarized these cities.
2. It was Japan who stationed thousands of troops there.
3. It was the Japanese who built arms factories there.
4. It was the Japanese who officially decreed that all civilians were combatants.
5. It was Japan who was offered to surrender, but refused.
6. It was Japan that rcv's warning.
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