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.
Of course our own prisoners of war were at risk also, not just "civilians", and numbers of them were killed, in some cases because the Japanese deliberately placed them in harm's way. Not to mention the Japanese using them for medical 'experiments', torture, starvation, beheadings, and so forth.
I think you were dealing with an inhuman and evil foe that was willing to die to the last man, woman and child. Unfortunately the civilians acquiesced in this situation and not only worked in the war factories but had demonstrated that they were not truly civilians but also combatants. The gardeners, mothers and any just men who had managed to survive were diverted from their vocations to become soldiers.
Faced with that sort of situation, it becomes a question of do you kill many, or do you kill them all? I'm not sure that 'just war' theory can be considered without taking into account the complete abandonment of all human norms by the Japanese.
Have fun at the shape-note singing!
“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.”
Is it “murder” to kill a murderer while he is in the act of murdering yet more victims, in order to prevent their deaths? If you believe so, then you do not understand the difference between “killing” and “murder”.
If you believe not, then up the scale: If you are a member of a political “State”, containing both civilians and armed forces, and another “State” begins using its armed forces to kill your armed forces, kill your civilians, and destroy your property (e.g., crops, which would lead to starvation) ... is it “murder” to respond in kind in order to get them to stop? Or does your sense of morality limit your response to its armed forces members only? If so, that “State” would not long endure.
Finally, is it “murder” to kill the civilians of one State in order to convince them to stop killing the civilians of another State? Or must you limit your responses to only their armed forces?
At the time that the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, approximately 250,000 Chinese civilians were being terminated every month from the actions of the Japanese armed forces. This was from a combination of explosives (artillery and bombs), bullets, individual actions of Japanese soldiers (e.g., the acts described in the “Rape of Nanking”), starvation and disease.
>>> but the offensive fact is that the atomic bomb was not “targeted” on the military targets, it was intrinsically and intentionally indiscriminate. <<<
Actually, I think that both cities as cities were considered to be legitimate military targets (based upon international criteria), and had been for some time. I don’t think “indiscriminate” applies here. “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, not 10 miles out in the suburbs of Hiroshima.
>>> 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 ordinary people of Hiroshima had the misfortune of living in a military target during a time of war. Perhaps they would have been better served by their (Imperial Japanese) government had the Army barracks, war industries and docking facilities for warships had been located far away from where their urban homes.
>>> 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. <<<
You have not established that the US was targeting civilians. Just because civilians were killed doesn’t mean that they were targeted. If the US had wanted to maximize civilian casualties, they would have deployed their A-bombs differently.
Actually, if the US had wanted to maximize civilian casualties amongst the Japanese it would have not used the A-bombs at all, and instead would gone ahead with Operation DOWNFALL.
>>> 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.” <<<
Once again, why should I believe that the killing of tens of thousands of people by dropping an A-bomb during wartime IS MORALLY EQUIVALENT TO the hundreds of thousands of infants killed in the US each year by their mothers’ use of elective abortion? I honestly don’t see how your “argument by analogy” works in this case.