Now you're telling me that at a time when it was known that the
Japanese were preparing to launch up to 150,000 suicide attackers,
an army/navy dispatch facility was a non-crucial target? Sorry,
that just flies straight into the face of all logic.
Hang on, was that the same Eisehower that approved the
employment of incendiaries on Dresden? Sure, it was a conventional
weapon, just one that created fires hot enough to melt steel beams
embedded in concrete.
As for Leahy's comments, well, would that not classify the first
user of any preceding weapon as a barbarian? Yet millions of bombs,
rifles, cannons, aircraft, ships and tanks were employed during the
war - it's a bit hypocritical to claim the moral high ground when
you're approving the use of weapons on the grounds that someone
else used them before.
At the same time, I might point out that Leahy's casualty estimates
for Operation Olympic (the invasion of Japan) was 268,000. Was
Leahy prepared to trade one Allied life for each Japanese life lost
in the bombings? Was his job to look after Allied or Japanese
lives?
Well, if we're really going to get onto the morality bandwagon,
you'd have to question the morality of the "victims", wouldn't you?
What justified the unannounced attack on Peral Harbour? What
justified the random rape, robbery and slaughter of civilians? What
justified the use of the Kempetai's techniques?
That's very murky waters we're swimming in if we're going to go
there.
Hmm - 25 July 1945. About a week before Suzuki spat on the
Potsdam Declaration and left the Allies no choice. Yes, it would
have been a lot easier for Truman to have been prepared to be
civilised on that particular date.
I think the more telling stance was in what Truman said AFTER the
bomb was dropped:
When you lose a war, you could be put on trial for tiptoeing
through the tulips. It's no real measure for ethics or morality
simply because the victors get to write all the rules.
While we're on the topic of the rules of warfare, Japan agreed in
1942 to abide by the Geneva convention, and then spent the next
three years not keeping her word. To have attempted to fight on
equal terms a vicious and determined enemy who already demonstrated
a capacity to ignore all rules of war conduct would have been plain
stupid. If the Allies had decided to go that way, I would advocate
putting Allied commanders up for trial, for war crimes against
their own people.
What if, instead of a nuclear weapon, the Allies had dropped a
fuel-air explosive bomb on Hiroshima? It's almost as destructive,
but it's not nuclear. Would it have made a difference?
I don't know about you, but when I was being taught to set up
minefields during NS, I was thinking, "Jesus, I hope I never get
caught up in one of these - if the AP mines don't get you, the MGs
will, and if they don't there's always the Claymores". The design
of the ambush was plain vicious, but that's warfare and I had to
accept that the enemy could well do the same thing to me - it's
simply the facts of life. When you get down to brass tacks, there's
nothing pretty, civilised or honourable about it whatsoever. From
the Allied perspective, it comes down to the simple point that you
do whatever it takes to ensure that you and your friends are not
robbed blind, raped and murdered at gunpoint.
I'm not saying that the ends justify the means. In that situation,
you don't have the luxury of justification, so you go with the
facts and decide what to do, and hope that someone in the future
doesn't second-guess you, knowing all the time that they definitely
will.
