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Just war and today's wars


MarysLittleFlower

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Nihil Obstat

Nonsense. You cannot equate the actual positive choice for evil with a choice not to commit evil, and you cannot equate the choice not to commit evil with an active choice for a different evil. That is absolutely incoherent and the sign of a deeply skewed moral outlook.

Edited by Nihil Obstat
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Credo in Deum

I fail to see how a course of action which would have caused more to die can be considered "morally right" is the life of the civilian worth more than the soldier?  From your statements I think your answer would be yes, but don't let me assume; what is your answer?  Further I am not speaking of every individual Japanese person, but that the majority would have stood and fought invading American soldiers and the same end would have been met but at a greater cost to both sides.  Did you know the Japanese army was so upset with the emperor for announcing a surrender that a thousand of them attacked the Imperial Palace (August 14th, 1945)?  Lastly you too have made assumptions: I do not support nuking North Korea.  A war with North Korea would be terribly a terribly sad ordeal because its people are so ignorant as to not be culpable for their actions.

No one knows if more would have died vs the amount of people who did die during the bomb and the fallout, and frankly it doesn't matter.  Regardless of how many would have died, what matters morally is how they did die.  It's not about a civilian being worth more than a solider.  It has everything to do with the boundaries that exist which separate the soldier from the civilian.  One is a combatant and the other is not.  One has distinguished themselves to be a threat, the other has not and thus should be treated as a non-combatant until they have proven themselves to be a combatant. Treating every civilian as a soldier, including those who have absolutely no possible way of fighting (babies, the elderly), is morally detestable and evil.  Also yes, I did know the army stormed the palace.  So what? 

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It was likely because they were racist too. They waited until the end and then decided to drop a bomb on Japan. Why not Germany and when Hitler was alive? It's not like they didn't know about all the atrocities and deaths going on. Did they ever bomb or destroy any of those train lines taking Jews to their deaths? What about those gas chambers installations? Nope..

Japanese people aren't white and they aren't Christian. So it seems they were disposable to 'end it'. There was also an aspect of retribution to it too after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. But at least the Japanese only bombed a military target!

 

It's possible that the reason the A-bomb was not used on Germany was that it was not ready until after the war in Europe was over (the first A-bomb test was in July). 

However, one friend of mine (who is now a priest) wondered if anti-Catholicism had a part in it, as Nagasaki was a center of Catholicism in Japan, and the bomb detonated above the Catholic cathedral.

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Tab'le De'Bah-Rye

idk, if Tab is on here right now, but I still wanted to address this statement, because I don't think it has addressed yet.  Just war does not say you can use all force necessary. You are not allowed to directly attack civilians; civilian casualties are to be minimized; only as much force as necessary to defend is to be used. 

There are an equal number debates over whether fire-bombings were just, but maybe the nuclear bombs are more discussed because they were so dramatic and pointed to a very clear shift in warfare.  I think you could make a good argument, though, that the mentality to hit civilians was well in place through the firebombings and not a new strategy. 

It is not nescisary to kill civilians, therefore undue force. It is difficult to not have innocent casualties in war though, although yes of course these are to be avoided at all costs. But how many innocent civilians are there if many civilians are supporting the 3rd reich and its desire to take over europe? How do you tell who is innocent and who is not, many civilians of an enemy nation actually support the enemy, that's why they remain in the nation and have not fled. And the ones that remain obviously are taking a risk and already prepared to die at the hands of either waring parties.

Just popped in quickly. Back to my fast. God bless you all. All my comments are just alternative, i don't intend to be argumentative.

Edited by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye
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