O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
God grant this victory lead to peace.
May it be said that the Navy SEALS were God’s instrument of justice for bin Laden…just as Fat Boy and Little Man were God’s instruments of justice against the brutal, racist, Japanese militarists.
But Joseph, the U.S. didn’t drop its nuclear weapons on the “brutal, racist, Japanese militarists”. It dropped them on two cities full of civilians–including women, children, old men, unborn babies, American POWs, and the largest Catholic community in Japan.
If you hold all these to be legitimate military targets just because they happened to be living in a nation with which America was at war, then you follow the same logic as Bin Laden himself. Al-Qaeda is at war with America; is everyone in America therefore a legitimate military target?
Sardath, I suggest you do some research into how the Japanese treated prisoners of war, both civilian and military, and how they treated the Chinese in Nanking. In many ways, the Japanese were more gruesome than the Nazis, and that’s saying something.
I’m not talking about what constitutes a “legitimate military target.” I’m talking about God’s avenging the innocent through human means and stopping even more bloodshed. Had Japan not surrendered after Nagasaki, the Americans would have had to launch a full-scale invasion of the Home Islands. That invasion would have extended WWII by perhaps two years and resulted in millions more dead and wounded — especially since the Japanese planned to militarize all civilians in case of an invasion.
Sardath, let me add a couple of points:
1. Did “the largest Catholic community in Japan” acutally oppose the atrocities that the militarist government was engaged in, or did they just shut up and go along w/the patriotic fervor? Did they have any opportunity to protest, given the totalitarian nature of Japanese society then? I don’t know what the answer is but the questions must be asked.
2. The United States warned Japan that if it did not surrender unconditionally, it would be exposed to the damage created by new, horrible weapons. The Japanese tried to surrender on their own terms (retain the army and the emperor), which were absolutely unacceptable. Thus, the Japanese government bears the primary moral responsibility for the fate of its citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki! The revisionists in the Catholic apologetics-industrial complex refuse to recognize that.
Joseph, I am well aware of the horrific behavior of the Japanese during the war, but that is no justification for our side to behave the same way. And blaming such actions on God, instead of taking responsibility for it ourselves, only makes it worse.
The notion that we had to vaporize two Japanese cities to force them to surrender is a lie concocted after the fact to justify a decision that was made on other grounds. The Japanese were already trying to surrender several months before the bombs were dropped. Their only condition was that we not dethrone their emperor–a request which in the event we acceded to anyway. You can read the details here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html
http://www.zcommunications.org/a-new-look-at-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-by-frank-brodhead
So if the bombs were not necessary to end the war, why did we drop them anyway and kill perhaps a quarter million civilians in the process? As one American general later put it, “we used them as an experiment”–which puts us in the same category as the Germans and Japanese who were hanged by the Allies after the war for conducting experiments on Jews and POWs.
A large number of highly placed American officials, both military and civilian, went on record after the war as being against the bombings. See, for example:
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
Even President Truman himself later referred to the use of atomic weapons on civilian targets as “far worse than gas and biological warfare because it affects the civilian population and murders them by the wholesale.”
The Catechism states: “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.” I frankly don’t understand how anyone who considers himself a Christian can take any other position.
Joseph, did America’s Catholic community acutally oppose the atrocities that our militarist government committed in Vietnam and Iraq , or did they just shut up and go along with the patriotic fervor? In both cases it was much more the latter than the former, if I recall correctly–so does that mean it would be an act of God’s vengeance against sinners if Vietnam or Iraq had vaporized a couple of American cities to encourage us to stop attacking them?
Sardath, I would not compare the American incursion into Vietnam or the invasion of Iraq with the Japanese invasion of China and their behavior during WWII.
Regarding Vietnam, the United States was part of a regional alliance (SEATO: South East Asia Treaty Organization) that was formed to prevent Communism from spreading. The United States wasn’t the only nation with troops supporting South Vietnam: Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea supplied troops, as well (though not in the same large numbers, obviously).
The Vietnam War was part of the larger policy of “containment” established by the U.S. in the 1950s. That let to the formation of NATO, SEATO and CENTO (Central Asia Treaty Organization). It had absolutely nothing to do with the kind of imperialistic aspirations the Japanese manifested in the 1930s and 1940s.
Neither did the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003. For you to be right, Sardath, then the Americans would have had to annex both South Vietnam and Iraq and consider them colonies (which didn’t happen) and you’d have to mulitply My Lai and Abu Ghraib by a factor of at least 1,000 to equal the kinds of atrocities the Japanese committed on their fellow Asians, among others.
Let me ask you, Sardath, how did the Americans exploit the natural resources of Vietnam and Iraq? Did the Americans steal Vietnamese rubber or Iraqi oil?
If you have to site Lew Rockwell for your positions, then those positions deserve no respect.
Finally, as someone born into and raised as a Catholic, I have come to have little respect for Catholic thinking on geopolitical or military matters. The Catholic Church, like most mainline Protestants, has effectively embraced pacifism and appeasement regarding Islam, the biggest threat to Western Civilization today. Your (and the Church’s) attempt at moral equivalence merely reflects the spirit of the times, not any intelligent understanding of history.
Joseph, the American “incursion” into Vietnam killed over three million Asians. The American invasion of Iraq caused over a million deaths there. In both cases that constitutes genocide on a rather grand scale, even if not quite on the scale practiced by the Japanese.
Yes, other countries–many of them American client states subjected to immense pressure by the U.S. government–contributed troops to both operations. The Germans and the Japanese had their puppet troops as well, drawn from the subjects of the nations under their control.
Did the Americans exploit the natural resources of Vietnam and Iraq? Well, they certainly intended to, as official U.S. government statements at the time amply testify. Vietnam was about the control of rubber, tin, and other strategic resources; Iraq was about oil.
And I did not cite Lew Rockwell; I pointed you to an article that happens to be hosted on his web site. Not the same thing at all.
I must admit, however, that I got a good laugh out of your claim that I lack an “intelligent understanding of history.” Given what you have written on the subject so far, I dare say my understanding of the relevant history is a great deal better than yours.
Sardath, you understand nothing about diplomatic history, nor do you understand what “genocide” really means. “Genocide” is the deliberate attempt to eradicate an entire people, such as the Nazis tried to do with the Jews and the Turks tried to do with the Armenians. That’s entirely different than so-called “collateral damage.” Moreover, if you seriously equate the United States wtih the Nazis and Japanese militarists, then your moral compass is broken beyond repair.
Since you’re so concerned about “genocide,” where are your protests against what Saddam Hussein did to his own people? For that matter, where are Rockwell’s or Pat Buchanan’s — or the Vatican’s? Since y0u’re so opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, would you like to have had Saddam back?
You’re right in saying that you did not “cite” Rockwell but anybody has to think twice before using a source that Rockwell approves. It’s like going to Ahmadinejad for an opinion on the Holocaust, in my mind.
All right, Joseph, if you really think I’m so ignorant about all this, I am willing to be instructed.
Explain to me what it is about “diplomatic history” that I’m ignorant of, and why it is relevant to this discussion.
Explain how it is that, if you’re so well informed on the subject, you are still propagating the idea that the U.S. was forced to vaporize two Japanese cities to “save lives”–a piece of lying propaganda which (as I have already shown you) a great many of America’s military leaders rejected at the time.
And while you’re at it, please explain how it is that you do not know that the internationally accepted legal definition of “genocide” is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or IN PART, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or IN PART”.
And given that, please explain how it is that the deliberate and systematic destruction of a country’s civilian infrastructure, including power generation, water treatment, hospitals, transportation systems, levees, and agriculture, with the explicit intent to cause the deaths of vast numbers of non-combatants–all of which the U.S. did in Indochina and/or Iraq–fails to fit that definition.
And finally, please explain how one can be a Christian and applaud the infliction of such horrors on innocent third parties–especially considering that according to the historical record as preserved in the ante-Nicene Fathers, the early Christians were prohibited from killing even in self-defense, and were absolutely forbidden from enlistment in military service under pain of irrevocable lifetime excommunication.
Sardath, hiding behind the “internationally accepted legal definition” of genocide doesn’t mean you are correct. If the United States wanted to commit genocide in Iraq and Vietnam, it very well could have done so. It could have wiped out the entire population of both countries many times over. The fact of the matter is that it didn’t. The United States did supervise a coup that overthrew and killed Vietnamese President Diem. That’s not genocide.
Same in Japan. If the United States behaved toward the Japanese that it occupied the way the Japanese behaved toward the Chinese they occupied, then MacArthur’s occupation of Japan would have been filled with all kind of atrocities of Japanese civilians. Not only didn’t that happen during MacArthur’s occupation, but the Japanese revered MacArthur when he was relieved.
Don’t believe that? Read the following:
Imparato, E. T. (2000), General MacArthur: Speeches and Reports 1908-1964, Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Pub, ISBN 1563115891, OCLC 45603650
James, D. Clayton (1970), The Years of MacArthur (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), ISBN 0-395-10948-5, OCLC 60070186
Not only did the American occupation forces not commit atrocities against the Japanese civilians. They undertook major land and constitutional reforms, gave women the right to vote, outlawed racial discrimination and encouraged trade unionism. They also tried to do the same after the overthrow of Saddam. This is the activity of genocidal maniacs?
If you are so angry at the slaughter of Japanese civilians by nuclear weapons then why don’t you exhibit anger at the ultimate party responsible, the Japanese government? It was that government that wanted to continue a war it could not win and wanted to turn civilians into combatants.
If you think that the idea of saving lives is a piece of “lying propaganda,” I suggest you read the following:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm
DREA, Edward J., “Previews of Hell,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Spring 1995.
FRANK, Richard B. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Random House, 1999.
GUDMUNDSSON, Bruce I., “Okinawa,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Spring 1955.
MADDOX, Robert James. Weapons of Victory: The Hiroshima Decision, Fifty Years Later. University of Missouri Press, 1995.
NEWMAN, Robert P. Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. Michigan State University
more to come….
Here is a comment from a Catholic priest who was an eyewitness to Hiroshima:
We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians.
Regardless of the discussion of the ethics of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no question exists of the fact that the Japanese government supported total war.
This is the link to the full account: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mp25.asp
This is from historian Robert James Maddox:
Another myth that has attained wide attention is that at least several of Truman’s top military advisers later informed him that using atomic bombs against Japan would be militarily unnecessary or immoral, or both. There is no persuasive evidence that any of them did so. None of the Joint Chiefs ever made such a claim, although one inventive author has tried to make it appear that Leahy did by braiding together several unrelated passages from the admiral’s memoirs. Actually, two days after Hiroshima, Truman told aides that Leahy had ‘said up to the last that it wouldn’t go off.’
Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz ever communicated to Truman any change of mind about the need for invasion or expressed reservations about using the bombs. When first informed about their imminent use only days before Hiroshima, MacArthur responded with a lecture on the future of atomic warfare and even after Hiroshima strongly recommended that the invasion go forward. Nimitz, from whose jurisdiction the atomic strikes would be launched, was notified in early 1945. ‘This sounds fine,’ he told the courier, ‘but this is only February. Can’t we get one sooner?’
The best that can be said about Eisenhower’s memory is that it had become flawed by the passage of time.
Notes made by one of Stimson’s aides indicate that there was a discussion of atomic bombs, but there is no mention of any protest on
Eisenhower’s part.
Even after both bombs had fallen and Russia entered the war, Japanese militants insisted on such lenient peace terms that moderates knew there was no sense even transmitting them to the United States. Hirohito had to intervene personally on two occasions during the next few days to induce hardliners to abandon their conditions.”
From Koichi Kido, one of Hirohito’s closest advisors:
We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war.
From Hisasune Sakomizu:
(The bombings were) a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/opinion/blood-on-our-hands.html
still more to come….
Regarding the prohibition of Christians from military service and killing in self-defense:
1. Rome’s military was dedicated to serve Caesar as a god, which obviously would have run against the Christian conscience.
2. It’s one thing to kill in self-defense; it’s quite another to kill to protect others…especially if those others never asked to be put in danger in the first place.
3. It’s also one thing to serve a military focused on territorial conquest for its own sake or the expropriation of another country’s natural resources. It’s quite another to serve in a military that fights in legitimate self-defense against unwarranted aggression, or to protect others. Despite notable exceptions (such as the Mexican-American War), the United States military has, for the most part, engaged in the more noble tasks.
Joseph, the Giangreco article is almost entirely irrelevant to this discussion, since it is dealing with casualty estimates, not the use of the bomb. I have no doubt a full-scale allied invasion of Japan could have caused immense casualties on both sides (although it was impossible to know such a thing then and it remains impossible even now–and others consider the threat overblown). But would such an invasion actually have been necessary if the U.S. had refrained from dropping atomic weapons on civilian targets? As far as I can see, the article has nothing whatever to say on that point. Some of the other pieces you cite do discuss this, but only from one point of view; others could be cited in the opposite direction. The literature is huge, and historians are divided. (See, for example, the “suggested readings” section in Wilson Miscamble’s “The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan”.)
Your quote from the Catholic priest at Hiroshima is quite a selective edit. Note what he goes on to say: “The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that might result?” That is indeed the crux of the matter. Are we permitted to do evil that good may come? The classic Christian answer to this question is in the negative, especially when the evil in question is mass destruction of innocent lives.
Your quotation from Maddox doesn’t inspire confidence. He says there is “no persuasive evidence” that any of Truman’s top military advisers thought the bombings unnecessary or immoral; but even if true it does not mean what is implied, because hardly anyone (including Truman) understood the destructive effect the bombs would have until after they were used. Maddox admits that Leahy never believed the bombs would even detonate (meaning there was nothing to oppose) and that MacArthur wanted the invasion to go forward regardless (indicating he didn’t think the bombings would have the desired effect). As for Eisenhower’s detailed and repeated statements afterward that he had opposed the bombings as both unnecessary and immoral, Maddox simply dismisses his testimony as “at best” the result of a flawed memory–strongly implying that he thinks Eisenhower was simply lying, which I very much doubt. As for the others, I invite you to review again this compilation:
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
Of course it’s always possible that Maddox’s book manages to debunk each and every one of these; if so, I’d like to see it. Perhaps you can provide me with the page numbers.
But the more important question isn’t whether Truman and the others believed the bombings were justified at the time, but rather whether they were objectively justified in light of what we know now. Regardless of what opinions American leaders held at the time, in retrospect many of them–including Truman–came to believe that the bombings had been a mistake–both unnecessary and immoral. According to Miscamble, Truman himself, on the day of the second bombing, was already beginning to have second thoughts about the devastation he had let loose on “the women and children in Japan”; as he wrote to Senator Richard Russell: “I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can’t bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should act in the same manner.” Shortly thereafter he ordered that no more such bombs be used, regardless of alleged military necessity, because he couldn’t face “the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people”, especially “all those kids”. If the man who ordered the bombs dropped felt that way about it afterwards, is it really so unlikely that others felt the same?
In any case, you seem to be missing a very important point: If the commitment of a nation to “total war” makes everyone and everything within that country a legitimate military target, then that puts every American at risk. In light of both history and official policy, there can be no question that the U.S. is committed to the practice of total war when it deems the issues sufficiently dire. We waged total war against Germany and Japan; we threatened it against the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and North Korea; we carried out something very close to total war against Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Iraq; and we were apparently preparing at one point to do so against Iran. Would you consider it permissible for one of those countries, or their allies or defenders, to have vaporized a couple of American cities in order to save the lives of their citizens from what they considered to be an unjustified American assault? Would you have considered such an act to be an instance of the same sort of divine judgment against America that you believe Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have been against Japan? For that matter, would 9/11 not also have to be considered an act of divine judgment against America for its sins? And if so, what business does the U.S. government have taking vengeance on an instrument of God’s wrath?
“Rome’s military was dedicated to serve Caesar as a god, which obviously would have run against the Christian conscience.” Generally not true. Roman Emperors were usually not elevated to divine status until after their deaths; and in any case this was not the ground stated by the Fathers for their objection to military service. The objection was to killing per se, and to the taking of the military oath, and to making oneself subject to any commander other than Christ–all of which are integral parts of the U.S. military today.
“It’s one thing to kill in self-defense; it’s quite another to kill to protect others…especially if those others never asked to be put in danger in the first place.” As may be, but the Fathers make no such distinction, nor any distinction; in their eyes killing is simply killing, and no Christian may kill another human being for any reason whatever. It’s also hard to see how killing civilians in third-world countries with cluster bombs and hellfire missiles can constitute “protecting” anything except our own economic and geopolitical interests.
“It’s also one thing to serve a military focused on territorial conquest for its own sake or the expropriation of another country’s natural resources …” Both of which our government has done on more than one occasion, and in the latter case continues to do to this day. (You really need to consider the reality of economic imperialism, which is every bit as devastating as old-style territorial conquest. It is no longer necessary to make formal colonies of someone else’s country to add them to our empire; we just corrupt their government, take over their economy, and rule them through our proxies and puppet regimes, with the threat of American military intervention standing in the wings in case the locals get too far out of line. Ask anyone from Latin America how this works, and you’ll probably get an earful.)
“… It’s quite another to serve in a military that fights in legitimate self-defense against unwarranted aggression, or to protect others. Despite notable exceptions (such as the Mexican-American War), the United States military has, for the most part, engaged in the more noble tasks.” This is a very generous reading of history, but not a particularly accurate one. When did the Vietnamese ever attack the United States? Who were we trying to protect when we invaded Iraq? Unfortunately, the Mexican-American war is not a “notable exception”–it is far closer to the rule.
Joseph, with respect to the issue of “genocide” I am not trying to “hide” behind the international definition; it is the definition which was formally proposed by the person who invented the term and the concept in the first place, and it has been enacted into international law, which makes it the norm for intelligent discussion. If you wish to make up your own definition that suits your purposes better you may certainly do so, but you can’t really expect everyone else to follow your lead.
And for the record I did not accuse the United States of behaving like “genocidal maniacs” in Indochina, but of committing genocide–which, under terms of international law, is exactly what it did. There was nothing “maniacal” about it–it was done quite carefully and systematically, with great deliberation and care, and with full knowledge of the consequences to the people we were targeting. Three million of them died as a result.
And it involved a lot more than just the coup that overthrew Diem. Since you are such a fan of history, you should already know that; but just to refresh your memory, here is some of what the U.S. did in and to Vietnam:
– supported French efforts to re-colonize the country after the Japanese surrender, leading to eight years of brutal warfare
– contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against the Vietnamese during the final phases of that war
– after the war, subverted the international agreement for free elections to unify Vietnam under a single national government because we didn’t like the people we knew would win
– created a corrupt puppet state in Saigon to rule the southern half of the country
– supported that state’s brutal persecution of and eventual war against opposition groups
– trained Saigon government forces in the use of torture and assassination against political opponents
– took over prosecution of the war when the Saigon regime proved unable to do so
– established American death squads in the south to destroy the opposition infrastructure
– deported large portions of the rural population in the south to “strategic hamlets” and de facto concentration camps
– used toxic chemical defoliants to destroy large portions of the countryside (with residual toxicity and epidemic birth defects to this day)
– turned much of the south into “free fire zones” in which everything that moved was considered a legitimate target to be destroyed by any means necessary, including napalm
– fabricated the Tonkin Gulf incident to expand the war to the northern half of the country
– bombed virtually the entirety of the north back to the stone age except for the two major cities of Hanoi and Haiphong, with occasional attacks on them as well (including the destruction of churches, hospitals, etc.)
– attempted to destroy the levee system supporting agriculture in the north in order to starve the population into submission
– carpet-bombed heavily populated urban areas with B-52s in the final days of the war
– afterwards, refused to pay the $5 billion in promised reparations for the damage we inflicted
And that’s just what we did to the Vietnamese. The people of Laos and Cambodia also suffered immensely from what we did to them along the way–but that’s another story.
And all this–the deaths of three million people and the near-total destruction of three entire countries–you blithely dismiss as “collateral damage” and therefore of no account?
Sardath, first I want to apologize if I did not treat you with respect. I have a tendency to be very passionate in my opinions and, sometimes, take them too personally. I don’t want to behave toward you the way a prominent Catholic apologist once behaved toward me.
You talk about the definition of genocide. That definition is so academic and so broad that it essentially equates all war as genocide. As a result, it basically downplays what the Nazis, Turks and Khmer Rouge, for example, did to the Jews, Armenians and Cambodians, respectfully.
But the more important question isn’t whether Truman and the others believed the bombings were justified at the time, but rather whether they were objectively justified in light of what we know now. Regardless of what opinions American leaders held at the time, in retrospect many of them–including Truman–came to believe that the bombings had been a mistake–both unnecessary and immoral.
The problem with that statement is that people can only make decisions on what they know at the time, not on information that comes to light afterward, and on the most important questions that they immediately must face. Regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the fundamental questions remains the same: Which would result in more *American* casualties, using nuclear weapons or embarking on a full-scale invasion against a militarized populace? I stress “American” because, as commander-in-chief, the President has a moral obligation during wartime to minimize the amount of American casualties to obtain military objectives. Remember the circumstances immediately preceding the bombings, as Victor Davis Hanson said:
But in August 1945 most Americans had a much different take on Hiroshima, a decision that cannot be fathomed without appreciation of the recently concluded Okinawa campaign (April 1-July 2) that had cost 50,000 American casualties and 200,000 Japanese and Okinawa dead. Okinawa saw the worst losses in the history of the U.S. Navy. Over 300 ships were damaged, more than 30 sunk, as about 5,000 sailors perished under a barrage of some 2,000 Kamikaze attacks.
And it was believed at least 10,000 more suicide planes were waiting on Kyushu and Honshu. Those who were asked to continue such fighting on the Japanese mainland — as we learn from the memoirs of Paul Fussell, William Manchester, and E. B. Sledge — were relieved at the idea of encountering a shell-shocked defeated enemy rather than a defiant Japanese nation in arms.
Earlier, Hanson writes:
Yet such opponents of the decision shied away from providing a rough estimate of how many more would have died in the aggregate — Americans, British, Australians, Asians, Japanese, and Russians — through conventional bombing, continuous fighting in the Pacific, amphibious invasion of the mainland, or the ongoing onslaught of the Red Army had the conflict not come to an abrupt halt nine days later and only after a second nuclear drop on Nagasaki.
Moreover, regardless of the merits or demerits of the bombings, the Japanese government bore the immediate responsibility for the safety of Japanses civilians. Any intellectually honest discussion of the topic must address that responsibility.
Regarding your statements about the Christian’s role (or lack of same) in military service, I would like to know if you are a pacifist or a conscientious objector. I don’t ask accusingly; if you’re either, that would explain many of your positions — as would being a Libertarian.
Regarding the Vietnam War, I would suggest that the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge did far worse. That’s not to justify the actions you site. But far more people left Southeast Asia — most of them emigrating to the United States, as it turns out — after the Communists took control than during the Vietnam War.
Regarding “total war,” I lived through the late 1950s and 1960s. I begged my father to build a bomb shelter in the backyard (he refused). I felt tremendous fear every time an air-raid siren went off. I felt such fear even looking at civil defense tests on television. I don’t know how old you are but I was quite aware of the potential for
civilian deaths on American soil — despite the fact that those deaths did not occur during my lifetime until 9/11.
The problem is that negotiations and economic boycotts will not stop totalitarian aggressors. They didn’t stop Hitler or the Japanese. They will not stop the Islamists. Why? Because such enemies operate from a world view that demands either subjugation or death from those they conquer. Whether you or anybody else likes it or not, we are on a collision course with Islam that (outside of divine intervention) can only be resolved militarily. I don’t wish it to be that way but the Muslims will not give up their cherished “principle” of jihad, which has led to the murder of thousands — including Muslims, ironically enough. When will people like you start lobbying the Catholic Church to take a greater stand against that in its “dialogue” with Islam?
What about the Soviets, you ask? Well, I submit to you that the policy “mutually assured destruction” probably kept the United States far safer than any arms-control treaty.
Sadly, there has never been a time when civilians have not been targeted by armies. Look at the Crusades, for example. I wouldn’t want my children to go through the fear I experienced. Yet I also know that, as long as geopolitical evil exists, we have a duty to protect our loved ones to the greatest extent possible.
Joseph, your apology is accepted, and I likewise apologize if any of my comments have been over the top. I generally agree with your postings here, and it pains me to be at odds with you. We are both, as you say, passionate about what we believe, and that can indeed easily lead to conflict. But I think honest and even passionate disagreement (from which we can both learn) is still better than a bland “tolerance” which fails to take the other party, or his views, seriously.
I agree that the broader definition of genocide can lead to problems–indeed, the international community has come to the same conclusion and has not yet figured out how to fix it. On the other hand, it does serve at least one useful purpose, namely to point out that much of modern warfare is so horrific in its actual effects on civilian populations as to be virtually indistinguishable from genocide; the difference, if there is one, lies more in the nature of the aggressor’s intention than in the consequences to the victims, and intention is a notoriously difficult thing to judge. It should also be noted that the Turks themselves deny the charge of genocide against the Armenians on much the same grounds as you use to deny the charge of genocide by the U.S. in Vietnam; after all, there are still plenty of Armenians in Turkey, and if the Turks had meant to kill them all they certainly could have done so. It all seems to depend on whose ox is being gored: One man’s “genocide” is another man’s “collateral damage”.
I also agree that, as you say, “people can only make decisions on what they know at the time, not on information that comes to light afterward”. But that cuts both ways. Certainly we cannot reasonably condemn decision-makers based on information we now possess that they did not know then; but neither can we exonerate them for making decisions which seem wrong based on what they knew at the time but are now known to have been correct based on information that they did not possess. In any case, the one thing that is clear in virtually all accounts of the decision to drop the bombs on Japan is that it was done without sufficient attention to the magnitude of what was about to be done, the human cost it entailed, or possible alternatives that could have achieved the same objectives without slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people. If nothing else, this comes through loud and clear in Truman’s own decision a few days after Nagasaki to forbid any further use of atomic weapons against civilian targets; once he understood what he had done, he could not bear the thought of doing it again. One has to wonder if he might have made a different decision at the beginning if only he had bothered to be better informed.
Yes, the American president has an obligation to minimize American casualties. But it is a cardinal principle of both Christian moral theology and international law that high public officials (or, for that matter, even the lowliest infantryman) is obligated in war to be cognizant of the impact of his actions on non-combatants of either side and to minimize their casualties as well. Of course our own government has now virtually abandoned that principle, and considers it lawful war-making to blow up an entire house full of civilians if we suspect that a single terrorist is inside. “We got the bad guy!” Well, maybe–but you also got a whole lot of other people who had no say in the matter whatever. Shrug. “Collateral damage. Not my problem.” But if you are wielding deadly force it *is* your problem. And those who think otherwise should not be in a position to make such decisions in the first place.
So one of the questions that should be asked about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that Truman should have been asking himself and demanding answers about from his advisers, is not just whether the bombings would reduce American casualties, but whether there was any other way to achieve our legitimate objectives without killing all those innocent people. From my reading of the history, that question was never squarely faced, or even seriously asked. By that point we were so deeply enthralled to the concepts of total war and unconditional surrender that such questions were never seriously entertained. And that fact reveals not only a flawed decision-making process but a corrupted moral framework that made flawed decisions almost inevitable. In fighting the devil we had adopted too many of the devil’s stratagems, and come close to becoming the enemy we were trying to defeat.
Yes, as you say, the Japanese government bore primary responsibility for the perpetration of their wars of aggression and the consequences of those wars to the Japanese people. I have never disputed that, but it really has no bearing on the morality of what the U.S. did in response. If a criminal uses a bystander as a human shield and the police end up killing both of them, the criminal certainly bears primary responsibility. But if a police officer in such circumstances were to deliberately fire a bullet through the body of the bystander in order to “take down” the criminal, and then shrug off the bystander’s death as “collateral damage”, I doubt the matter would end there. One may not do evil that good may come of it. One may never deliberately take the life of an innocent person in order to right a wrong committed by someone else. And the fact that people have always done so anyway, especially in warfare, does not make it any less wrong to do so; it simply means that there is special reason to look critically at such decisions and to hedge them about with scruples and restrictions to make sure we are actually doing the right thing for the right reasons, and not just blindly following our animal instincts or unthinkingly doing what our ancestors did.
To answer your other questions: Yes, I too recall the nuclear terror of the fifties and sixties; I too longed for a bomb shelter in the back yard. (My father also refused.) I understand the fear, and the desire to protect ourselves and our loved ones. But as Christians we are supposed to be motivated primarily by love, not fear–and that includes a love even for our enemies. “If you love only those who love you, what more do you do than the unbelievers?”
That does not mean I am a pacifist. (Nor am I a libertarian!) What it does mean is that I take seriously the Christian obligation to put myself in the other person’s shoes, to try to understand where he is coming from, and in conflict to aim for a solution that will do the least harm to both of us.
One of the real tragedies of the whole “war on terror” is that not only has it done nothing to reduce the level of terrorism in the world–it has actually made it worse, and created more new terrorists for every existing terrorist killed. Just from a purely practical perspective that ought to have us wondering whether we’re doing the right thing. And as much as most Americans believe they have a right to hate the terrorists and kill them at every opportunity because we are the good guys and they attacked us for no good reason, we seldom consider that from the perspective of the terrorists they have a right to hate us and kill us at every opportunity because they are the good guys and we attacked them for no good reason. Of course whether they are actually right about that is another question; but just recognizing how our enemies view themselves and their cause is a good first step in understanding why they do what they do and then crafting the most effective and constructive response to it.
Realistically, ordinary people do not suddenly decide one day to become terrorists and kill Americans–and they certainly don’t do so because “they hate us for our freedom”. People become terrorists because they have been on the receiving end of what to them are unendurable insults and injuries for which they can see no practical hope of redress through ordinary channels; so they resort to extraordinary channels because in their minds the only remaining alternative is to acquiesce in the intolerable. This suggests that the rational response to the rise of terrorism is to try to figure out what it is that these people are so angry about and find a way to defuse their anger. But attacking and killing them just makes them angrier, and only serves to validate in their minds the legitimacy of their struggle.
I vividly recall when a veteran of the British occupation of south Iraq was asked about Iraqi terrorism against the British forces there. He replied, “If someone did to my people the things we have done to their people, I’d be a terrorist, too. The only thing that baffles me is why it took them so long to get around to it. I would have started a lot sooner.”
Which brings us to the “collision course” with Islam that you mention. First, you need to realize that we are not entirely innocent in that collision. Islam was prostrate before the power of the West for centuries, and the nationalism that emerged in the Muslim world after World War II was largely secular in orientation. Furthermore, the Islamic resurgence that did emerge in the later 20th century did not happen entirely of itself, but was to a significant extent engineered by the U.S. (with big gobs of Saudi oil money greasing the wheels) as a way of derailing the growing attraction of Marxism in the Middle East and stirring up trouble for the Soviet Union in central Asia.
Now, as so often happens, what we created has slipped its leash and gone rogue, and we don’t know what to do about it except to try to kill it. But by what justification do we kill people for believing what we taught them and doing what we encouraged them to do?
Frankly, I don’t see any evidence that the Muslim ideology of jihad is any more dangerous than the Jewish ideology of holy war or the Christian ideology of crusade. In the most extreme instances of each, we have a group of people who think they are God’s elect and therefore have a blank check to do whatever they want to everyone else. Certainly those who believe that way will eventually collide–but they are a minority in all three religions and would tend to be ignored by the rest if there were no compelling reasons to do otherwise. The average Muslim is no more interested in violent jihad than the average Christian is in converting the rest of the world to Christianity at gunpoint. It is the extremists on both sides that are dangerous to us all. I suspect if we stopped provoking the Muslim world with our one-sided self-righteousness and our insistence upon our right to be judge, jury, and executioner of their people, the cooler heads on both sides could find a way to keep the extremists on both sides under sufficient control that they would cease to be a problem.
Sardath, jihad has been a part of Muslim theology and political ideology from the beginning, long before the Crusades, let alone the Western colonization of the Middle East. You would be right if Muslim theologians actively fought against it. Not only don’t they, but they actively encourage it. Al-Azhar, the most respected center of Sunni learning in the Muslim world, continuously produces educational materials for children that describe Jews and Christians as “pigs” and “monkeys.” None of their theologians has issued any fatwas against suicide bombings — most of which have victimized Muslims! No Shia theologian has issued any fatwas against Iran’s leadership for tyrannt against its own people, let alone its publicly-stated desire to obliterate another country (Israel).
When the theological “leaders” of any religion encourage the evil in their midst, let alone ignore it or fail to confront it, they say a lot about what their religion truly represents. Same w/the Catholic Church and clerical sex-abuse, though no Catholic teaching encourages that behavior. That’s why I have lost all respect for Catholicism as a moral force. To me, Catholicism is all about power and prestige, not humble service to God.
As far as “love” versus “fear” is concerned, it’s not just out of fear that we protect the innocent from unjust aggression. Nor is it solely out of love. It’s a moral demand from God. St. James said that true religion is helping widows and orphans in distress. The “widows” and “orphans” aren’t just meant literally; they mean every person who is vulnerable, overwhelmed, unable to defend himself. You probably wonder how I can say that, given my support for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fact is that after those bombings, the United States rebuilt and remade Japanese society under MacArthur’s occupation, even to the point where the new Japanese constitution “outlawed” war. Could that have happened w/o the horror of the atomic bombings? I don’t know; nobody does. Perhaps it wouldn’t have.
I would also distinguish between the Jewish ideology of “holy war” and Islamic jihad. In the OT, God ordered the Israelites to obliterate those who opposed them (such as the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15) as divine judgement for the evil they committed. That evil was idolatry and its ensuing effects (such as child sacrifice). When the Israelites moved to Canaan, God ordered them to do likewise to the Canaanites for the same reason. I understand that such interpretations aren’t common today and that they can easily be misused (and have been). Nevertheless, there’s a major difference between a holy, righteous God ordering such a course of action and human authorities doing so on their own (for the example of the latter, see Genesis 34).
One more thing, Sardath. Your approach of attempting to empathize w/jihadists and reduce Western self-righteousness was the exact same approach the West took toward Hitler in the 1930s (and, no, I’m not accusing you of being pro-Nazi or a cowardly appeaser; I don’t want this to get personal). Before and when the Nazis took power, they expressed sentiments similar to those that Muslims do today: a pervasive sense of victimization (for the Nazis, it was because of Jews, Socialists, Communists, capitalists, the Versailles Treaty’s reparations, the French) and accompanying entitlement (we have a right to act this way because we’ve been victimized). Applying your template to that situation, the West wasn’t entirely innocent either (though in a different sense because of the severe reparations). Yet no reputable historian blames the West for the Nazis militaristic, genocidal exceeses.
I think your approach reflected the approach of many Westerners toward Islam. They try to empathize w/Muslim grieveances but they do so through Western eyes and Western values. They don’t really try to address Islamic values (which, frankly, aren’t Judeo-Christian because Allah is not Yahweh), or the stated values of the the jihadists.
If you want to read an excellent synopsis of the differences between Islam, Judaism and Christianity, get a copy of the May 2004 edition of Commentary Magazine and read an article written by Alain Besancon entitled, “What Kind Of Religion Is Islam?” I’d also suggest you read anything written by Fouad Ajami on the Middle Eastern situation. I find him to be the most intelligent analyist I can find. These are not “right-wing neocons,” nor would they likely endorse any of my positions.
Joseph, jihad has also been an integral part of Christianity for most of its history. As soon as Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire it began persecuting pagans and heretics using tactics remarkably similar to the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries; and the spread of Christianity by the sword was theologized by Augustine and practiced with considerable vigor thereafter through the Middle Ages and on into the modern period. Nor has the pursuit of Christian jihad been definitively abandoned even now; consider, for example, what was said about Muslims after 9/11 by that perennial conservative favorite, Ann Coulter: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Lots of American Christians today, and all too many of their leaders, would enthusiastically agree with that prescription.
As far as the alleged failure of Muslim leaders to condemn terrorism and suicide bombings, here are some links which show a rather extensive (and official) Muslim condemnation of both:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1690624.stm
http://www.minhajpublications.com/?p=490
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
Note especially the position espoused in the first article by Grand Sheikh Tantawi of al-Azhar (the single most important religious authority in the Sunni world): that terrorism is aggression against innocent men, women and children (and therefore forbidden), while jihad is self-defence against injustice and oppression (and therefore permitted). Given the position that you yourself have been staking out in this discussion, doesn’t that make you a jihadist?
With regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki again, I must admit I am completely baffled by your position. You correctly say that the scriptural injunction is to protect “every person who is vulnerable, overwhelmed, unable to defend himself”. How, then, can one justify dropping nuclear weapons on such people simply because they happen to be resident in a nation with which another nation is at war, no matter how just that war might be? Killing the innocent is killing the innocent, no matter where they may happen to reside or what citizenship they may hold.
And the fact that the U.S. subsequently rebuilt Japan in our image (as much to keep them from falling into the hands of the Soviets as anything else) does not erase the fact that the U.S. government deliberately vaporized tens of thousands of innocent people, and left many more with horrific injuries that maimed them for life. From a Christian perspective there is simply no justification for such behavior, no matter what excuses one may manufacture for it beforehand and no matter how much one may attempt to remediate it afterward.
You say that “there’s a major difference between a holy, righteous God ordering such a course of action and human authorities doing so on their own.” Indeed. The problem is that Muslims are just as convinced that God has authorized their jihads as the Jews were convinced in ancient times that God had authorized their holy wars against the Amalekites and Canaanites (or, for that matter, that God is on their side in their never-ending wars with their Muslim neighbors today). But around the same time we find King Mesha of Moab making exactly the same sort of claim for his holy wars against Israel in the name of the god Chemosh, and the Assyrians making similar claims in the name of Asshur, and the Egyptians in the name of Amun-Ra. And in the Middle Ages, most Catholics were fully convinced that God (through the apostolic authority of the Bishop of Rome) had given similar authorization for the use of deadly force against heretics and infidels. Anyone can claim to have God (or some deity or other) on his side, and most nations do sooner or later–but that is no proof that any of them are actually right.
I should also point out that one of the problems with the atomic bombing of Japan is that this was precisely a case of human authorities acting on their own, so none of the logic of holy war can possibly apply. God may have the right to annihilate whole cities or even entire nations, but mere human beings do not, no matter how just they may think their cause is.
Finally, some observations on sources. You rely heavily on Alain Besancon, who has been an apologist for Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church in their handling of the abuse crisis:
http://payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/04/29/alain-besancon-on-benedict-xvi/
and also on Fouad Ajami, who was a favorite of Dick Cheney and apparently the source of the prediction that the Iraqi street would “erupt in joy” at the American invasion.
Surely you can find better sources than these!