David. David writes: The 1940's is a time when the whole world had gone insane. World war two represents a total collaspe of morality and civilization. The United States simply was not immune to that collapse. The allied powers had no magical protection and was quite involved in the same crazyness. Clark writes: I agree I mean how irrational is your claim that "there were no innocent civilians"? This is a kind of demonization that takes rational debate off the table. Of course there were innocent civilians in Japan. By that kind of reasoning we ought to kill the family, friends and neighbors of all our convicted murderers, not just the guilty individual. I agree that fire-bombing an entire city has the same effect as an atomic bomb, but that only means that they are equally immoral. Clark writes: If the family and friends of the murderer were supplying him weapons and food and shelter and encouraging him to commit more murders then they should be subject to the same treatment that the murderer gets. We were involved in a war which we could not afford to lose and we were forced to fight it in the way which we had been presented. I am not arguing that any part of the war was moral. I don't think it was. I am not arguing that there was not a better way to handle the A-bomb. What I am arguing is that given the way that events played out using the bomb was more moral than invading Japan. in the context of the times I don't believe that the American public would have stood for anything less than unconditional surrender. I agree that if we had told the Japanese that they could keep their ruler and their government intact we may have gotten them to surrender. Insisting on unconditional surrender probably made inevitable the use of the bomb but I think it was the only course that Americans would have stood for. It burns me up when someone like Nobile makes the statement that Truman should be tried and convicted as a war criminal. It reflects a complete lack of understanding of the events at that time. With all due respect, I think you have a personal interest in these events that makes rational debate impossible. It seems this topic only upsets you and its gotten pretty far from the MOQ. What do you say, lets just be friends and move on to another topic. Clark writes: You bet I have a personal interest in those events. That is why it upsets me when someone selects one aspect (the dropping of the bomb) of the events at the time and judges that event in the light of current ideas of morality. You can point to all of the collateral damage that resulted from the dropping of the bomb, radiation sickness and so forth, but we did not have enough knowledge to even realize that these were problems of such magnitude. We were not even sure that the bomb would detonate. Imagine what would have happened had we tried to make an offshore demonstration of the bomb and it did not work. Truman probably made the only feasible decision that was available. Then to have some pipsqueak like Nobile judge him in a new age light is just too much. A-bombing Japan was a watershed event in history which should be judged in the light of conditions prevailing at that time. According to the book review Nobile bills himself as the Daniel Ellsberg (a la Nixon) of the A-bombing of Japan. Obviously he is out to make a name for himself on the backs of the men who were wrestling with decisions for which they had insufficient information to base a fully informed judgement. They did the best they could under the circumstances and it worked and saved lives. A lot of Japanese lives and even more American lives. Any further use of the bomb in the light of a more complete understanding of its consequences would certainly be immoral. I am ready to drop this. I am sure that I will never convince you that the premises under which you consider Truman to be a war criminal are ill informed and I am equally sure that you will never convince me that you have a sufficient grasp of the conditions of that time to make a well informed judgement. Ken MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
