IMDB plot summary description for 2008 movie "Descending from Heaven"

IMDB.COM ^ | 2008 | Puffdream

[rlmorel]

You didn't see fit to answer my question. That's fine. But reading this post, you said:

I believe the position of the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe was far more morally justified.

If bombers using conventional bombs had been deployed to obliterate the 2nd Army Headquarters and other MAJOR military targets in HIroshima, and these efforts sparked a firestorm that took out half the city, the casualties might have been comparable, but in terms of intentionality the operation could have withstood candid moral scrutiny.

Okay.

So, here is the scenario: the war drags on for another year into the summer of 1946.

We use B-29 bombers loaded with HE and Incendiary to bomb, perhaps killing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more Japanese, losing thousands of our own men in the process.

Japanese are eking out a substinence existence, eating grass, roots, and fish heads. Japanese children starve to death because of the blockade of the mainland and the interdiction by aircraft of food being transported.

This culminates in the invasion of the Japanese mainland with the resultant loss of tens or hundreds of thousands more Japanese, as well as tens of thousands of our own troops killed or wounded.

This scenario would be more morally defensible in your opinion?

[tanknetter]

Eisenhower reiterated in a 1963 Newsweek interview that “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing”.

Eisenhower was simply wrong in this regard. The article Why Truman Dropped the Bomb from the 08/08/2005 edition of The Weekly Standard (Volume 010, Issue 44) demonstrates why and how. This is not to accuse Ike of revisionism. But I do want to point out that as SHAEF he probably didn't have access to the Magic decrypts (or at least the full and complete series) and in his post-war career he probably didn't have the incentive to go dig them out for review. His comments strike me more as him repeating an opinion that had been expressed to him by others who he believed to have been better informed than himself.

Regarding the indiscriminate nature of weapons, it's hard to argue either that the US style of daylight precision bombing wasn't anything but, or that the promotion of it as "precision bombing" was something other than a PR effort attempt to claim the moral high-ground. If not in Europe, this was certainly the case in Japan where LeMay abandoned high-altitude precision daylight bombing with HE in favor of massed low-level nighttime strikes using firebombs/napalm, knowing full well that cities like Tokyo were packed full of wood and paper structures.

[tanknetter]

This culminates in the invasion of the Japanese mainland with the resultant loss of tens or hundreds of thousands more Japanese, as well as tens of thousands of our own troops killed or wounded.

There is one additional, and critical, element that needs to be added to your scenario: the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan, probably no later than late Summer or early Fall of 1945.

The result is, at the very least, a partioned Japan and a MUCH stronger Soviet influence in mainland Asia. If not a completely Soviet-controlled Korea and SEA, then certainly one that the US is incapable of defending (resulting in a completely Soviet-controlled Korea and SEA ... just a few years later).

[rlmorel]

That is all very true as well.

[bootless]

A WW II vet who served with my father in England had quite a bit of postwar experience in Europe. He told me that Hiroshima/Nagasaki also saved untold millions of lives in Europe/Russia, because Stalin was trying to get the bomb. He also said that the fact the US got there first pretty much cooled his plans off.

More lives saved...

[Mrs. Don-o]

No.

[rlmorel]

Okay, then. That is what I needed to know.

We have a basic difference of opinion, and it is non-resolvable.

I believe that the life of my family and those around me is more valuable than the life of people who may live in another country or locality.

If I am having weapons rained down on me that may cause indiscriminate damage, I believe that I can take all necessary steps, up to and including nuclear war to stop the attacks.

You do not agree, and I accept that. I simply disagree, and would ask that you not interfere in my actions to defend myself and my countrymen.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Are you saying that shocking the Japanese nation with the obliteration of a city as such was no part of the intention?
"You're changing your criteria now. "No part?""

That's not changing criteria. The forbidden thing is to kill innocent persons deliberately, i.e. "with intent." All systems of justice take this into account. Let me give you an example:

Say a man is on trial for killing another man. It's objectively a bad thing, of course, but "intent" is going to determine the person's individual guilt.

If the man shot the other guy point-blank in the head because the other guy stole his wallet and he wanted it back, he had two "end" intentions: getting is money back, preventing any resistance on the thief's part. This is justified. But the decision to shoot the guy in the head actually involved another intention, a "means" intention: killing the guy as a means to an end. Since killing the guy formed part of his intention (he intended it as his means to an end) there's criminal intent.

Getting his wallet back was just. Preventing effective resistance from the thief is just. Killing him as a means to an end is still murder.

Please note, I'm not using this as an analogy to obliterating Hiroshima. I'm just using it as an illustration of mens rea: "guilty mind" as understood in criminal law. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the phrase "the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty."

Here's the wartime application:

During WWII, the U.S. Army Air Corps usually carried out what would have been called "precision bombing" in the European theater. "Precision" in those days was not very precise, because "smart weapons" had not yet been invented, visual targeting was crude, and collateral damage was huge. However, the U.S. bombers attempted precision bombing in Europe to the best of their ability, which means a choice for daytime bombing missions and the best maps nd guidance available. This is in contrast to the Nazis, of course, but also in contrast to the RAF, which deliberately chose carpet-bombing from the git-go.

The position of the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe was morally justified.

And the Hiroshima application:

The relevant decision-makers made a choice not to use conventional bombs, but to develop and then use a weapon which was intrinsically indiscriminate: a WMD which had no possibility of even the (crudely imperfect) degree of precision which the US Army Air Corps preferred to use in Europe.

If bombers using conventional bombs had been deployed to obliterate Japan's 2nd Army Headquarters and a dozen other major military targets in Hiroshima, and these efforts sparked a firestorm that took out most of the city, the casualties might have been comparable --- they might have been identical --- but in terms of intentionality the operation would have withstood objective moral scrutiny.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I do "see fit" to answer questions. If some of my answers are not prompt, it's because I'm "dialoguing" with about 5 people simultaneously here.

And I am not at the keyboard all day and all night. Like all of us, I have other responsibilities.

I thank you, by the way, for you thoughtful responses. I will try (try) to respond in kind.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Two points: (1) I'm with Eisenhower, and (2) no matter what was in the Magic decrypts, it's a matter of intention. Please see mine at #108. I will read Weekly Standard later if I have time. In fact I'll bookmark it. And thanks for the thoughtful discussion.

[rlmorel]

Given your tone in the non-sequitur about killing babies, I made the assumption the subject matter didn’t fit with your idea of where this discussion should go.

Which, by the way, is somewhat of a hijack of the thread. In my opinion, you should have started a thread of your own on this subject.

Just my opinion.

[Petronski]

Thank you for deigning to explain mens rea to me.

You're entitled to condemn Hiroshima if you wish, but that does not make your reasoning right. Just shallow.

[Mrs. Don-o]

G’bye. Good discussion.

[Mrs. Don-o]

See #113.

[cowboy_code]

Hollywood Producers in real life....

[Castlebar]

That sounds fascinating. Can you post a link to any sites with info on that?

[null and void]

This for one:

http://books.google.com/books?id=TH6NcrKvUkQC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=boron+graphite+german+atomic&source=web&ots=CbEemQ6D31&sig=QrSPawRZ74R-CM9KjSAXN9mkAUA&hl=en

[null and void]

Here:

http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-53/iss-7/p34.html

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd

And here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KnpGtu-R77UC&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=boron+graphite+atomic+germany&source=web&ots=R-ORduedzC&sig=VlZPGWTb-sl-LgU_nWaWHajj_HE&hl=en#PPA213,M1

(The ‘thimble full’ quantity is just my guess, but is probably pretty close)

[Castlebar]

THANKS!