Japan In Wwii

[Era Might]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='01 April 2010 - 07:10 PM' timestamp='1270163425' post='2085184']I think most people are unaware of the horrors and atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers to Allied civilians and military POW.
[/quote]
Kurt Vonnegut has a powerful essay called "Fates Worse Than Death" (written in 1982). It's too long for me to type out, and I can't find it online, but here is an excerpt:

[quote]But suppose we foolishly got rid of our nuclear weapons, our Kool-Aid, and an enemy came over here and crucified us. Crucifixion was the most painful thing which the ancient Romans ever found to do to anyone. They knew as much about pain as we do about genocide. They sometimes crucified hundreds of people at one time. That is what they did to all the survivors of the army of Spartacus, which was composed mostly of escaped slaves. They crucified them all. There were several miles of crosses.

If we were up on crosses, with nails through our feet and hands, wouldn't we wish that we still had hydrogen bombs, so that life could be ended everywhere? Absolutely.

We know of one person who was crucified in olden times, who was supposedly as capable as we or the Russians are of ending life everywhere. But he chose to endure agony instead. All he said was, "Forgive them, Father—they know not what they do."

He let life go on, as awful as it was for him, because here we are, aren't we?

But he was a special case. It is unfair to use Jesus Christ as an exemplar of how much pain and humiliation we ordinary human beings should put up with before calling for the end of everything.

...

I told you a crazy dream I had--about [i]The New Yorker[/i] magazine and this cathedral. I will tell you a sane dream now.

I dreamed last night of our descendants a thousand years from now, which is to say all of humanity. If you are at all into reproduction, as was the Emperor Charlemagne, you can pick up an awful lot of relatives in a thousand years. Every person in this cathedral who has a drop of white blood is a descendant of Charlemagne.

A thousand years from now, if there are still human beings on Earth, every one of those human beings will be descended from us—and from everyone who has chosen to reproduce.

In my dream, our descendants are numerous. Some of them are rich, some are poor, some are likable, some are insufferable.

I ask them how humanity, against all odds, managed to keep going for another millenium. They tell me that they and their ancestors did it by preferring life over death for themselves and others at every opportunity, even at the expense of being dishonored. They endured all sorts of insults and humiliations and disappointments without committing either suicide or murder. They are also the people who do the insulting and humiliating and disappointing.

I endear myself to them by suggesting a motto they might like to put on their belt buckles or tee-shirts or whatever. They aren't all hippies, by the way. They aren't all Americans, either. They aren't even all white people.

I give them a quotation from that great 19th century moralist and robber baron, Jim Fisk, who may have contributed money to this cathedral.

Jim Fisk uttered his famous words after a particularly disgraceful episode having to do with the Erie Railroad. Fisk himself had no choice but to find himself contemptible. He thought this over, and then shrugged and said what we all must learn to say, if we want to go on living much longer:

"Nothing is lost save honor."

I thank you for your attention.[/quote]

Edited April 1, 2010 by Era Might

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 April 2010 - 09:40 AM' timestamp='1270132844' post='2084771']
If I tell you that next Sunday I am going to kill you, would you be standing around waiting for me?
[/quote]

What on earth are you trying to say? That his presence after a warning would change the intrinsic moral quality of [i]your[/i] act? If not, [i]what[/i], precisely, [i]are[/i] you trying to say?

~Sternhauser

[dairygirl4u2c]

if we were to have another WW lke back then now, or if our political and media were like it is now, back then... i doubt we'd have another nuke bomb and/or i doubt we'd have done itb ack then.
poit being, media scrutiny is a whoel lot different now, than it was then. decisios were more kept to the people making them etc. public scrutiny would show it for waht it is-- mass genocide, revenge, etc. sure, there'd be a heck of a controvey about it, but the sensibility of people would prevail nowadays. i'd like to think, anyway. (minus the point of a nuke war, and necessity, etc etc)
id like to think times have changed, for the better, anyway.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 April 2010 - 05:03 PM' timestamp='1270159421' post='2085154']
When I think of incendiary bombing I think of what the germans did to London during the blitz.[/quote]

The first German raid on London was caused by a navigational error on the part of a few pilots. The British responded by [i]deliberately[/i] bombing Berlin. A gigantic "tit for tat." Politicians are children writ large.

[quote]My uncles served in the Pacific theater, they fully expected to die in the invasion of japan, since it would be a fight to the death over every blade of grass and every inch of soil. None of them were sorry when Japan was bombed, and no vet I every talked to was sorry either. It was war, and if all it took were 2 bombs to stop it they were mighty glad.
[/quote]

How can you bring this up as some sort of justification? Why do you mention it? You should know better. Their emotions, including and their gladness, is absolutely no Catholic way to judge the morality of an action, just as homosexual people saying, "We're in love" is no justification of their actions.

~Sternhauser

Edited April 1, 2010 by Sternhauser

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 April 2010 - 08:54 PM' timestamp='1270166099' post='2085197']
The first German raid on London was caused by a navigational error on the part of a few pilots. The British responded by [i]deliberately[/i] bombing Berlin. A gigantic "tit for tat." Politicians are children writ large.



How can you bring this up as some sort of justification? Why do you mention it? You should know better. Their emotions, including and their gladness, is absolutely no Catholic way to judge the morality of an action, just as homosexual people saying, "We're in love" is no justification of their actions.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
I am simply pointing out how the actual people involved in the war felt. I also think that judging yesterdays' behavior by todays "standard" is ridiculous.
Every age thinks it knows better than the last,and we have the "right" to condemn them without living in their shoes, but here WE are with a legitimately elected government that condones the slaughter of millions of children for the sake of convenience, and we dare judge dropping two bombs that ended a world war?
I'm sorry innocent people died then, but we did drop warning letters and said to leave. I'm more sorry about the evils my own government permits today.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 April 2010 - 07:15 PM' timestamp='1270167320' post='2085207']
I am simply pointing out how the actual people involved in the war felt. I also think that judging yesterdays' behavior by todays "standard" is ridiculous.
Every age thinks it knows better than the last,and we have the "right" to condemn them without living in their shoes, but here WE are with a legitimately elected government that condones the slaughter of millions of children for the sake of convenience, and we dare judge dropping two bombs that ended a world war?
I'm sorry innocent people died then, but we did drop warning letters and said to leave. I'm more sorry about the evils my own government permits today.
[/quote]
I don't honestly think that applies this time. Like I said before, I know that the circumstances were extreme. The world had never experienced a situation like that.
Killing is always killing though, and targeting civilians is, and has always been, wrong. I would be saying the same thing if I were 18 years old at the end of WWII, at least I hope to God I would be. We're using the same standards they had then, and that we've had for centuries.
Also, the evils today don't minimize the evils of the past.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 April 2010 - 07:15 PM' timestamp='1270167320' post='2085207']
I am simply pointing out how the actual people involved in the war felt. I also think that judging yesterdays' behavior by todays "standard" is ridiculous.
Every age thinks it knows better than the last,and we have the "right" to condemn them without living in their shoes, but here WE are with a legitimately elected government that condones the slaughter of millions of children for the sake of convenience, and we dare judge dropping two bombs that ended a world war?
I'm sorry innocent people died then, but we did drop warning letters and said to leave. I'm more sorry about the evils my own government permits today.
[/quote]

"We" don't support abortion. "We" didn't elect those people. "We" don't condone it. [i]I [/i]oppose abortion. [i]I [/i]have written against it. [i]I[/i] have spoken against it.[i] I [/i]have prayed for its end. [i]I [/i]have stood outside of abortion mills in vigils. And God willing, [i]I[/i] will continue to do so until the day [i]my[/i] corpse is lying in an earthen pit. And you're absolutely right. [i]I do[/i] judge the moral quality of slaughtering innocents. [i]I[/i] condemn it! [i]I [/i]will [i]not [/i]pretend their actions were moral because [i]they[/i] "felt glad" the war was over, or because [i]they[/i] said "they started it," or "they were worse." [i]I[/i] will [i]not[/i] leave any shadow of doubt in [i]anyone's[/i] mind that might lead them to believe that I do not [i]condemn[/i] their actions as gravely and intrinsically immoral. I will, at the very [i]most[/i], say that their [i]ignorance[/i] provided them with a shield from some of the culpability for their gravely immoral actions. Jesus gave us the example: "Forgive them, Father, [forgiveness meaning that what they were doing was [i]wrong[/i]] for they [i]know not[/i] what they do." The sooner people start thinking as individual moral agents, and not in "collectives," the sooner we will conduct ourselves, as individuals, in a morally responsible way. There is no moral responsibility to be found in a collective. "The mob burned the stores." Sure "it" did. The lack of intestinal fortitude and a morbid fear of moral accountability is why so many people bask in a collective mindset.

There's a tremendous difference between acknowledging the influence of emotions and the possible lessening of culpability for a gravely immoral act, and saying "What they did was not an atrocity because they didn't think it was an atrocity. And because they were [i]worse.[/i]" Judging from your words, it appears that you have sympathies with the latter line of reasoning. If that is not the case, please explicitly say so by condemning the actions as intrinsically immoral.

I know how they [i]felt[/i], and I know how they tried to justify their actions. I was once speaking to a a B-17 pilot, and out of the blue, (I had not, until that point, mentioned or revealed anything of my views) he scrunched up his face, and with a dogged expression of conviction, he blurted out "There's one thing in life you have to do: you have to [i]follow orders. No matter what." [/i]The SS [i]Totenkopf[/i] division couldn't have agreed with his philosophy more. (Note to intellectually dishonest people: I did not say that he was the moral equivalent of a roving death squad member. I said that that their ideology in attempting to justify immoral actions was the exact same.)[i] [/i]I wonder how many times he's felt the need to tell himself that line. How many times has he had to reassure himself that his actions in the 8th Air Force, including daylight raids against civilian cities were moral?

I know, further, that there are an awful lot of of people today who believe torture, abortion, deliberately killing civilians, homosexual behavior, (and in Muslim countries, wife-beating) are perfectly acceptable. And that there are an awful lot [i]more[/i] who haven't got the guts to speak out against them plainly and vehemently. They're [i]all [/i]wrong. Wrong. Incontrovertibly. You can't be a Catholic and say that those actions can be morally licit.

There were plenty of sane people speaking out against the animalistic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nobody wanted to hear them. You don't read about them in history books. They were scorned, called "communists," "anti-American," "Tojo lovers" and "traitors," just as so many are today. Servant of God Dorothy Day was one of their victims. Her friend Peter Maurin was another. There were people who knew better. Lots of them. They were drowned out by the deafening, foolish hoots from adherents to popular ideas, such as nationalism. They were insulted in the same manner as such people are today.

~Sternhauser

Edited April 2, 2010 by Sternhauser

[toledo_jesus]

The death of civilians is regrettable and unavoidable in modern conflict (though we have gotten very good at minimizing same). When you have a fascist regime instilling "Bushido with Machine Guns" into the populace, expect civilians to be pressed into service against the foreigner.

Think how many more would have died if we'd actually invaded mainland Japan. Not just Americans - Japanese civilians. Some estimates put it in the millions.

The atomic bomb was actually one of the least immoral of the options available. It broke the Japanese psychologically in a way that fighting hand to hand across the Pacific had not. Okinawa and the extreme violence there was a big factor in deciding to drop the atom bomb. Japanese didn't surrender like Germans or Italians did. They fought to the last man, even when retreat was the strategically better option.

Would the moral thing to do be to just allow the Japanese to dominate China and turn the other cheek at Pearl Harbor? Pearl being a sneak attack that was, despite revisionist history, unprovoked.

Morality on the personal level does not translate well to national policy, in my opinion. It really can't.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='dominicansoul' date='01 April 2010 - 11:18 AM' timestamp='1270135103' post='2084789']
most of those killed were peasants. i dont' think they had anywhere to run to...besides, they were forced to work in the munitions/weapons factories...

if obama started a war and forced us to work as his pawns in the politics of war, and we were stuck in a hell hole, without any thing but the raggedy shirts off our backs...I'm sure we would meet the same fate...regardless of warnings...
[/quote]
Many authorities state that it was necessary to kill some of those civilians in order to free the rest.

[toledo_jesus]

nm

Edited April 2, 2010 by toledo_jesus

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='01 April 2010 - 08:29 PM' timestamp='1270171750' post='2085263']
Think how many more would have died if we'd actually invaded mainland Japan. Not just Americans - Japanese civilians. Some estimates put it in the millions.
[/quote]

Immaterial. Consequentialism is a heresy.

Either say that killing the innocents was a grave evil that should never have been done no matter what, or say that the intention or end of an act can justify the means. There is no middle ground.

~Sternhauser

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 April 2010 - 10:34 PM' timestamp='1270172097' post='2085271']
Immaterial. Consequentialism is a heresy.

Either say that killing the innocents was a grave evil that should never have been done no matter what, or say that the intention or end of an act can justify the means. There is no middle ground.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
War is an inescapable fact of human existence. It is bad. But until such time as our fallen natures are amended, the best wars are those fought with a mind toward ending them quickly.

How would you have beaten the Japanese? What's the moral way to fight a war? Let the other guy win?

The killing of innocents was a grave evil among a time of great evils, perpetrated so as to preclude the inevitable occurrence of yet more evil and suffering. There is no middle ground, nor are there better choices.

--Toledo_Jesus_auser

Edited April 2, 2010 by toledo_jesus

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='01 April 2010 - 08:41 PM' timestamp='1270172483' post='2085273']
War is an inescapable fact of human existence. It is bad. But until such time as our fallen natures are amended, the best wars are those fought with a mind toward ending them quickly.

How would you have beaten the Japanese? What's the moral way to fight a war? Let the other guy win?

The killing of innocents was a grave evil among a time of great evils, perpetrated so as to preclude the inevitable occurrence of yet more evil and suffering. There is no middle ground, nor are there better choices.
[/quote]

Consequentialism. It is a heresy.

~Sternhauser

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 April 2010 - 10:42 PM' timestamp='1270172534' post='2085274']
Consequentialism. It is a heresy.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
Burn me at the stake, after you finish answering my questions.

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 April 2010 - 10:42 PM' timestamp='1270172534' post='2085274']
Consequentialism. It is a heresy.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
oh, 250 words or fewer please.