Quite true, but inapplicable here.
The targets were not indiscriminate (the cities contained war production factories and were selected for that reason), the civilian population was warned, and the alternative was the deaths of probably nearly a million Americans plus even more Japanese in a mainland invasion. The Japanese had already demonstrated that the "civilian" population was willing to fight to the death and commit mass suicide rather than surrender. Truman's alternatives were a lot of deaths, or a hell of a lot more deaths.
My father in law was already there (he had survived Guadalcanal and Iwo, where he went in on the second day) and his orders were cut for the mainland invasion. My father was on his way there as he had received his orders to embark for the Pacific from Italy.
Not to mention that the Japanese were the aggressors.
I just don't see it. Can you elaborate on your position?
To be quick, Hiroshima certainly had many legitimate military targets, all of which could have been justifiably smashed into smithereens; but the offensive fact is that the atomic bomb was not "targeted" on the military targets, it was intrinsically and intentionally indiscriminate.
Second, it is true that the Japanese military leaders were intentional massive aggressors. However the ordinary people of Hiroshima were noncombatants. In any society, the gardener gardens. The mother mothers. The just man, as Hopkins says, justices.
The point of the prohibition of the targeting of civilians, or the intentionaly indiscriminate destruction of a city as target (city=target bombing) is that even in war this is not permitted.
Utilitarianism and Consequentialism fail as moral theories, because (1)one can never be morally cetain of consequences, (2) no calculus can tot up the consequences which spread globally, and for generations; and (3) you cannot be morally reponsible for consequences generated by the free choices of others.
If I were to post exactly the same message on DailyKos or Democratic Underground, I daresay I would get a whole lot of opposition to the first part
("Abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes")
but using curiously similar arguments: (1) there are no moral absolutes, (2) the ultimate consequences of millions of unwanted childbirths far outweigh the problem of killing innocent human beings, (3) fetuses are not innocent human beings; and (4)to hell with the Catholic Church.
If the intentional killing of tens of thousands of civilians does not count as murder, it is hard to maintain with a straight face that the commandment aganst murder actually prohibits anything at all, if you've got a "good enough reason."
In four days, I shall return to revisit the discussion. Carry on! BTW, here's something from Prison Fellowship/Breakpoint -- a source respectd by many Evangelicals, as well as by me --- which makes some points worth thinking about.
The Japanese had been insisting on that as a condition of surrender for a year. The US continually said no, the surrender must be unconditional.
It is not transparently obvious that there was anything in the slightest bit necessary about this sequence. One might argue that it was, that some total break of will was necessary for the surrender to be "real". But it is sheer speculation. On its face, the Japanese said "we'll surrender if you leave our king", the US said "surrender without that assurance or we'll kill you all", and then said "and oh by the way you can keep your king" after they surrendered.
Yes a conventional invasion would have been worse. But it is not remotely clear that was the only alternative. The road not taken was to negotiate a peace in slightly better faith, instead of in implacable self righteousness.