Being a U.S. war criminal means never having to say sorry. Paul Tibbets, the man who flew the Enola Gay and destroyed Hiroshima, lived to the impressive age of 92 without publicly expressing guilt for what he had done. He had even reenacted his infamous mission at a 1976 Texas air show, complete with a mushroom cloud, and later said he never meant this to be offensive. In contrast, he called it a “damn big insult” when the Smithsonian planned an exhibit in 1995 showing some of the damage the bombing caused.
We might understand a man not coming to terms with his most important contribution to human history being such a destructive act. But what about the rest of the country?
It’s sickening that Americans even debate the atomic bombings, as they do every year in early August. Polls in recent years reveal overwhelming majorities of the American public accepting the acts as necessary.
Conservatives are much worse on this topic, although liberals surely don’t give it the weight it deserves. Trent Lott was taken to the woodshed for his comments in late 2002 about how Strom Thurmond would have been a better president than Truman. Lott and Thurmond both represent ugly strains in American politics, but no one dared question the assumption that Thurmond was obviously a less defensible candidate than Truman. Zora Neale Hurston, heroic author of the Harlem Renaissance, might have had a different take, as she astutely called Truman “a monster” and “the butcher of Asia.” Governmental segregation is terrible, but why is murdering hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians with as much thought as one would give to eradicating silverfish treated as simply a controversial policy decision in comparison?
Perhaps it is the appeal to necessity. We hear that the United States would have otherwise had to invade the Japanese mainland and so the bombings saved American lives. But saving U.S. soldiers wouldn’t justify killing Japanese children any more than saving Taliban soldiers would justify dropping bombs on American children. Targeting civilians to manipulate their government is the very definition of terrorism. Everyone was properly horrified by Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 murder spree in Norway – killing innocents to alter diplomacy. Truman murdered a thousand times as many innocents on August 6, 1945, then again on August 9.
It doesn’t matter if Japan “started it,” either. Only individuals have rights, not nations. Unless you can prove that every single Japanese snuffed out at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was involved in the Pearl Harbor attack, the murderousness of the bombings is indisputable. Even the official history should doom Truman to a status of permanent condemnation. Besides being atrocious in themselves, the U.S. creation and deployment of the first nuclear weapons ushered in the seemingly endless era of global fear over nuclear war.
However, as it so happens, the conventional wisdom is an oversimplification at best. The U.S. provoked the Japanese to fire the first shot, as more and more historians have acknowledged. Although the attack on Pearl Harbor, a military base, was wrong, it was far less indefensible than the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s civilian populations.
As for the utilitarian calculus of “saving American lives,” historian Ralph Raico explains:
[T]he rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.
The propaganda that the atomic bombings saved lives was nothing but a public relations pitch contrived in retrospect. These were just gratuitous acts of mass terrorism. By August 1945, the Japanese were completely defeated, blockaded, starving. They were desperate to surrender. All they wanted was to keep their emperor, which was ultimately allowed anyway. The U.S. was insisting upon unconditional surrender, a purely despotic demand. Given what the Allies had done to the Central Powers, especially Germany, after the conditional surrender of World War I, it’s understandable that the Japanese resisted the totalitarian demand for unconditional surrender.
A 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey determined the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nukings were not decisive in ending the war. Most of the political and military brass agreed. “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing,” said Dwight Eisenhower in a 1963 interview with Newsweek.
Another excuse we hear is the specter of Hitler getting the bomb first. This is a non sequitur. By the time the U.S. dropped the bombs, Germany was defeated and its nuclear program was revealed to be nothing in comparison to America’s. The U.S. had 180,000 people working for several years on the Manhattan Project. The Germans had a small group led by a few elite scientists, most of whom were flabbergasted on August 6, as they had doubted such bombs were even possible. Even if the Nazis had gotten the bomb – which they were very far from getting – it wouldn’t in any way justify killing innocent Japanese.
For more evidence suggesting that the Truman administration was out to draw Japanese blood for its own sake, or as a show of force for reasons of Realpolitik, consider the United States’s one-thousand-plane bombing of Tokyo on August 14, the largest bombing raid of the Pacific war, after Hirohito agreed to surrender and the Japanese state made it clear it wanted peace. The bombing of Nagasaki should be enough to know it was not all about genuinely stopping the war as painlessly as possible – why not wait more than three days for the surrender to come? But to strategically bomb Japan five days after the destruction of Nagasaki, as Japan was in the process of waving the white flag? It’s hard to imagine a greater atrocity, or clearer evidence that the U.S. government was not out to secure peace, but instead to slaughter as many Japanese as it could before consolidating its power for the next global conflict.
The U.S. had, by the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroyed 67 Japanese cities by firebombing, in addition to helping the British destroy over a hundred cities in Germany. In this dramatic footage from The Fog of War, Robert McNamara describes the horror he helped unleash alongside General Curtis LeMay, with images of the destroyed Japanese cities and an indication of what it would have meant for comparably sized cities in the United States:
“Killing fifty to ninety percent of the people in 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional – in the minds of some people – to the objectives we were trying to achieve,” McNamara casually says. Indeed, this was clearly murderous, and Americans are probably the most resistant of all peoples to the truths of their government’s historical atrocities. It doesn’t hurt that the U.S. government has suppressed for years evidence such as film footage shot after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet even based on what has long been uncontroversial historical fact, we should all be disgusted and horrified by what the U.S. government did.
How would it have been if all those Germans and Japanese, instead of being burned to death from the sky, were corralled into camps and shot or gassed? Materially, it would have been the same. But Americans refuse to think of bombings as even in the same ballpark as other technologically expedient ways of exterminating people by the tens and hundreds of thousands. Why? Because the U.S. government has essentially monopolized terror bombing for nearly a century. No one wants to confront the reality of America’s crimes against humanity.
It would be one thing if Americans were in wide agreement that their government, like that of the Axis governments of World War II, had acted in a completely indefensible manner. But they’re not. The Allies were the white hats. Ignore the fact that the biggest belligerent on America’s side was Stalin’s Russia, whom the FDR and Truman administrations helped round up a million or two refugees in the notorious undertaking known as Operation Keelhaul. We’re not supposed to think about that. World War II began with Pearl Harbor and it ended with D-Day and American sailors returning home to kiss their sweethearts who had kept America strong by working on assembly lines.
In the Korean war, another Truman project, the U.S. policy of shameful mass murder continued. According to historian Bruce Cumings, professor at the University of Chicago, millions of North Korean civilians were slaughtered by U.S. fire-bombings, chemical weapons and newly developed ordnance, some of which weighed in at 12,000 pounds. Eighteen out of 22 major cities were at least half destroyed. For a period in 1950, the US dropped about 800 tons of bombs on North Korea every day. Developed at the end of World War II, napalm got its real start in Korea. The US government also targeted civilian dams, causing massive flooding.
In Indochina, the U.S. slaughtered millions in a similar fashion. Millions of tons of explosives were dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. These ghastly weapons are literally still killing people – tens of thousands have died since the war ended, and three farmers were killed not long ago. Among the horrible effects of the bombing was the rise of Pol Pot’s regime, probably the worst in history on a per capita basis.
The U.S. has committed mass terrorism since, although not on quite the scale as in past generations. Back in the day the U.S. would drop tons of explosives, knowing that thousands would die in an instant. In today’s wars, it drops explosives and then pretends it didn’t mean to kill the many civilians who predictably die in such acts of violence. Only fifteen hundred bombs were used to attack Baghdad in March 2003. That’s what passes as progress. The naked murderousness of U.S. foreign policy, however, is still apparent. The bombings of water treatment facilities and sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s deliberately targeted the vulnerable Iraqi people. Once the type of atrocities the U.S. committed in World War II have been accepted as at the worst debatable tactics in diplomacy, anything goes.
American politicians would have us worry about Iran, a nation that hasn’t attacked another country in centuries, one day getting the bomb. There is no evidence that the Iranians are even seeking nuclear weapons. But even if they were, the U.S. has a much worse record in both warmongering and nuclear terror than Iran or any other country in modern times. It is more than hypocritical for the U.S. to pose as the leader of global peace and nuclear disarmament.
The hypocrisy and moral degeneracy in the mouths of America’s celebrated leaders should frighten us more than anything coming out of Iran or North Korea, especially given America’s capacity to kill and willingness to do it. Upon dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, President Truman called the bomb the “greatest achievement of organized science in history” and wondered aloud how “atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence toward the maintenance of world peace.” Nothing inverts good and evil, progress and regress, as much as the imperial state. In describing the perversion of morality in the history of U.S. wars, Orwell’s “war is peace” doesn’t cut it. “Exterminating civilians by the millions is the highest of all virtues” is perhaps a better tagline for the U.S. terror state.
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Arguably, bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved millions, if not billions of people. It demonstrated the devastating capacity of nuclear weapons. No great powers with nuclear weapons have been at open war since.
at open war *with each other*
Rachel, if you argue that it’s necessary and just to murder 200,000 people to save millions, or even billions, whether or not you’re correct about the utility of such murder, you are certainly not anything remotely like a libertarian. There’s a word for someone who thinks it’s OK to sacrifice the rights of the few for the greater good: collectivist.
Mr. Gregory, Though I am not able to agree with the final conclusions in which you and Ms. Harvard have arrived about the atomic bombings of Japan, I still intended to compliment your article, as well, for its powerful advocacy of a very defensible position. Please accept my apology for the unintended oversight.
Ah yes, libertarians at their finest. Disagree with me? Ad hominem “you’re a statist/collectivist/whatever” attacks. We really need to work on this.
At any rate, I’m not saying that the bombing of Nagasaki/Hiroshima was a good thing, I’m saying that the use of nuclear weapons was inevitable. I would much rather that the US used them (heaven forbid I recognize that foreign policy is run by states, and that I prefer my own, thank you), and only twice. Again, I would much rather that Nagasaki/Hiroshima demonstrated the devastation of nuclear weapons to prevent a great power war since WWII.
It is naïve to think that without the demonstration of Nagasaki/Hiroshima, the world would be as you see it today. That 200,000 people died is tragic—no matter the circumstance, it always is—but you have to consider the counterfactuals like any good social scientist. Would you really have preferred an extended WWII? The possibility of testing nuclear weapons against the Soviets, and them returning the favor on our homeland? Call me a statist all you want, but war is fought between states, not individual groups of people. Since that’s the case, I’m going to be rooting for my own.
You write, “Only individuals have rights, not nations,” but you have to remember that in war, states only care about other states surrendering, not individual people. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, I strongly suggest reading some Walt, Waltz, and Mearsheimer.
If A is a collectivist, B’s observation of the same does not constitute employment of an ad hominem. In fact, to the extent that A cries foul, A is deliberately obfuscating. Put another way, A is employing an age old dodge and it is fundamentally unacceptable for those who would consider themselves to be critical thinkers.
Yes and saying one’s views are collectivist is not an “ad hominem”. That terms is vastly overrused and wrongly used. It’s not a synonym for insult.
I’m not saying that Rachel is a collectivist, and therefore her position is wrong. I’m saying that her position is collectivist, and therefore wrong (unless we’re wrong about libertarianism, and collectivism is correct while libertarianism is wrong).
“Ah yes, libertarians at their finest. Disagree with me? Ad hominem “you’re a statist/collectivist/whatever” attacks. We really need to work on this.”
I was merely pointing out that the position you’re entertaining is outside the bounds of libertarianism. It is metaphysically possible, I suppose, that the war on drugs reduces drug abuse, but if that’s the kind of argument you would consider especially relevant, then you’re not really arguing about libertarianism, but rather giving a utilitarian argument against libertarianism. If the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is justifiable, then libertarianism itself is *wrong*, and there really is no reason to assume that it would be correct in other areas. If nuclear war could possibly be justified, we have no principled basis on which to oppose drug laws, immigration restrictions, or price controls.
“Would you really have preferred an extended WWII?”
No. I think the U.S. government should have simply negotiated a peace with Japan much earlier. There was no threat to American soil. A more pragmatic possibility would have been simply to bring the forces home any time in 1945, since Japan was so completely devastated it could have posed no possible threat by that time.
“I’m saying that the use of nuclear weapons was inevitable. I would much rather that the US used them (heaven forbid I recognize that foreign policy is run by states, and that I prefer my own, thank you), and only twice.”
Nuclear weapons were created by the U.S. government and likely would have not arisen without the U.S. government. The Manhattan Project was an enormous undertaking.
I don’t think preferring your state win is a libertarian position. I want all states to collapse and surrender in all wars, and leave their own people in peace.
” Call me a statist all you want, but war is fought between states, not individual groups of people. Since that’s the case, I’m going to be rooting for my own.”
War is indeed fought between states, and individuals on both sides are caught in the crossfire. “My own” are the individuals in all countries, and the side I oppose comprises the states of all countries. War is evil—the height of government evil, in fact. Have you read Rothbard’s “War, Peace, and the State”? The primary duty of all libertarians is to oppose war, always.
I actually know a lot about libertarian foreign policy. I have an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago and have written extensively about libertarian foreign policy. I think the problem here is mistaking what libertarians should do when at war as opposed to getting into the war in the first place. There is very little prescriptive theory about what libertarians should do when at war as opposed to before war. Yep, trade and freedom of movement helps avoid war, and yup, I do not support war in almost every case. That doesn’t tell us what to do once war has begun.
War is a terrible, miserable thing, but libertarians must address what is fair and foul play in strategy. Some of us may be ancaps (I myself straddle the line), but we have to operate in a world with states. That means focusing on state survival from other aggressors. You’re right: nuclear weapons wouldn’t exist without the US government, but the world is actually safer with them under MAD. And the fact is, you have to deal their existence instead of debating their origination, and how to deal with that reality.
Most libertarians would argue that the only justification for war is in response to an attack (and I agree here). Once at war, I think that most libs would adhere to the Powell Doctrine: win the war as quickly and decisively as possible. Think the Gulf War. Think, retroactively, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ending the war sooner is better than ending the war later.
You’re also suggesting this is nuclear war. This is not the case: it is a nuclear strike. No nuclear power would ever use nuclear weapons against another nuclear power. Nuclear war ain’t gonna happen.
Simply saying “we should have negotiated with Japan” sounds somewhat intentionally negligent of history to me. Remember that the United States dropped the second bomb because the Japanese hesitated to negotiate after the first. As Richard B. Frank wrote, “It is fantasy, not history, to believe the end of the war was at hand before the use of the atomic bomb.” The Japanese were nowhere near surrendering or ready to talk peace before the atomic bomb.
You write, “I don’t think preferring your state win is a libertarian position. I want all states to collapse and surrender in all wars, and leave their own people in peace.” Here, I’m saddened to see that you’re using libertarianism as a heuristic for foreign policy; foreign policy and national security is where libertarianism is weakest and has the most divides. If one state collapses, another one fills the void. That is the story of history.
For whatever this observation is worth, I submit that the Battle of Okinawa more than adequately demonstrated that the Japanese were far from surrendering. If the Japanese had really intended to surrender, all they needed to do was lay down their arms before the Okinawa Battle. By definition, war will always be horrible, which is why it should always be avoided if possible. For whatever reason, the supposedly destroyed Japanese Empire did not see the need to avoid the continuation of the war, and thereby brought additional and largely unnecessary destruction upon their own people.
After more than three years of prosecuting the worst war in human history, it is not reasonable to expect that the Allies should have been blessed with the infinite patience to understand the Japanese cultural needs for the retention of their Emperor. The fact that the Americans eventually did accept this for practical reasons, seems remarkable in itself. The Japanese could have been equally practical, by simply surrendering during any of the dates prior to the atomic bomb drops.
For so many to now question the decisions made by our US government during that time of war, is far too easy – and merely creates the rhetorical conditions in which participants are unnecessarily called upon to “take sides”. There is nothing wrong with asking the profound questions which this thread is posing. To my limited mind, there is much wrong with passing judgement on the decisions made by prior government officials during such a very stressful period in human history.
As I believe most well intended people will accept, “Hindsight will always be 20-20”. I know that there is no possibility of finding agreement among the very intellectually capable participants here. So, the best that we can hope for is that we have all learned enough to avoid the too often repeated mistake of granting so much power to our respective governments, thereby enabling them to subject us to such risk of destruction as the Japanese government did.
Rachel Burger: Simply saying “we should have negotiated with Japan” sounds somewhat intentionally negligent of history to me. Remember that the United States dropped the second bomb because the Japanese [government] hesitated to negotiate after the first. . . . The Japanese [government] were nowhere near surrendering or ready to talk peace before the atomic bomb.
We could talk more about whether Anthony’s comments are “negligent of history,” but this seems grossly negligent — whether “intentionally” so or not — of what Anthony actually said to you. Here’s what he wrote in reply to your question:
Anthony Gregory: No. I think the U.S. government should have simply negotiated a peace with Japan much earlier. There was no threat to American soil. A more pragmatic possibility would have been simply to bring the forces home any time in 1945, since Japan was so completely devastated it could have posed no possible threat by that time.
Pointing out that the Japanese government was slow to accept the U.S. government’s mad-dog demand of unconditional surrender provides no evidence at all about whether or not the U.S. government could have negotiated a peace with the Japanese government if it had been willing to negotiate over conditions. Moreover, whether or not a negotiated peace was possible, your comment simply ignores the entire second half of Anthony’s point, which is that the U.S. government could simply have withdrawn from the field, walked away and unilaterally stopped fighting in 1945, since there was no longer any plausible defensive purpose to continuing the war. Maybe Anthony’s right about that and maybe he’s mistaken about something; but if so, you haven’t given us any reason to think so.
Would I rather be a libertarian or an apologist for genocide. So hard to decide.
Many of the apologists for mass murder, and who defend such heinous acts of terror do so, because at heart they do not know any better. There is a sociopathy that has been inbred through American society especially regarding American terror war’s. Those who support what happened in Japan are no better than those who supported Hitler’s reign of terror. These people have no moral high ground, or any reverence for human life except their own family clans, circles..ect…
Ms. Burger,
I had the benefit of studying World History in Hawaii in the 1970s. You would think that of all places, being the target of the initial attack would make the Hawaiian people lean toward the “it was justified side”. Instead, for the first time, I heard about how the embargo of Japan and the subsequent economic fallout was the reason for the attack on Pearl Harbor. I also learned that at the time of the atomic bombings, American knew that Japan was on the verge of surrendering.
I would urge you to read some unbiased historical document.
How would you judge Japan’s willingness to fight to the end? Were the kaimikazes hitting our ships a last desperate “Hail Mary” or a sign of fanatical resistance to the last man?
Really? We needed a “demonstration” to know these things were bad? I think you hit the nail on the head though, “demonstrating” the power of our new toy was a prime motivator for using these. Not to deter future use, but to intimidated USSR and others. All the use of the weapons “accomplished” was to make other nations want the bomb for themselves. Read “Hiroshima in America”.
Rachel Burger: It demonstrated the devastating capacity of nuclear weapons.
As you like, but maybe they could have arranged for a “demonstration” that didn’t involve massacreing a quarter of a million men, women and children within 72 hours? The government blew up atom bombs in the desert for years and filmed the results; if you really think a demonstration was what’s important (rather than thinking, say, that it is as good an after-the-fact rationalization as any to pass off an act of calculated mass murder), then isn’t it worth noticing that it would not have been hard to arrange a public demonstration for anyone who wanted it without actually killing anybody at all?
I don’t think a private demonstration would have been nearly as effective, do you? In a way, a public demonstration holds governments more accountable to their people in avoiding nuclear war.
Rachel Burger, what would a “private” demonstration of the A-bomb have looked like? Maybe somewhere in General MacArthur’s living room? So are we to understand that the killing of a couple of hundred thousand people was then a “public demonstration”, and if so, of what–of the technology, or of the willingness to murder so many people, or both? And how exactly did that hold anybody “accountable”? Would you also say that bombing Vietnam and Cambodia held Nixon and Kissinger “accountable”? Did 9-11, since it was “public”, hold Osama bin Laden “accountable”? The illogic of your posts on this issue just staggers the imagination. In fact, your arguments for the “possible” retroactive benefits of the bombings (“arguably (sic!), bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved millions, if not billions of people”) remind me of nothing if not a kind of imperial theodicy: yes, God/Truman permitted them all to die horribly, but surely it was all part of His Master Plan for the Greater Good. If that’s what an MA in international relations at Chicago gets you, then you’re welcome to it.
All the
I don’t think a private demonstration was possible beyond testing sites, therefore Nagasaki/Hiroshima. The destruction of those cities was a very smart move on behalf of the United States. At no point did I say it was moral, just tactical. The United States developed nuclear weapons; it would be naïve to think that at no point would they demonstrate that power.
Sorry, but accountability is a joke when it comes to international relations. There isn’t a monopoly of force (world government) to drag war criminals into court, especially from western countries. The United States is a big bully (think the burning of Korea, terrorizing of Vietnam, and destruction of Iraq), and I don’t agree with most of its military strategy. However, when the world witnessed the destruction of Nagasaki/Hiroshima, cities became “hostages” in the Cold War under MAD. When your voting public is a hostage, you’re going to do everything possible to avoid a nuclear attack.
I doubt that Truman could see as far down the road to witness all the benefits (yes, benefits) Nagasaki/Hiroshima brought the United States; I believe his plan was to demonstrate strength to the Soviets (success) and force Japan to surrender (success). While I don’t think that mass murder is moral under any circumstance, I think that, in hindsight, using the A-bomb was a solid national security decision for the United States.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t mourn the Japanese lives that were lost or question the morality of the decision, but it did make history turn out better for the United States.
I whole-heartedly agree with Anthony Gregory’s remarks. To reply to Rachel’s comment, I wrote an op-ed on an online magazine that touched upon that mindset.
“The bombing has been justified with the overused claim that it shortened the war and saved the lives of many American troops. Indeed, I pay great respect to all men – past and present- for their service to protect our country. However, the justification of saving men in war for the cost of Japanese children is no different than the justification of saving Taliban soldiers for the cost of American children […]Some say that bombing of Hiroshima was different from war crimes, but how so? There is no difference between dropping an atomic bomb in a city overpopulated with civilians than it is to look into a child’s eye before shooting them. Rape, pillage, torture and execution of prisoners, and the deliberate killing of civilians are all prohibited acts of war. If torture on civilians would shorten the war, would it be moral for the commander-in-chief to order it? The same applies to rape, raids, and pillages.”
http://define-liberty.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima-what-happens-when-you-leave-power-to-the-state/
The United States, long before 1945, had been employing its military against civilians. Consciously. Deliberately. Purposely.
Libertymike, I discuss that strategy in this very article, and condemn it.
Ms. Harvard, your article is very well written and provides a terrific contribution to this very thought provoking dialogue. While I am not able to agree with yours and Mr. Gregory’s conclusions about the necessity or morality of the atomic bombings, you have both presented substantial foundational arguments in support of your views. Hopefully, many in both government and civilian positions of responsibility will seriously consider the arguments that you and Mr Harvard have presented. With the destructive capabilities and practices in the conduct of present day warfare, we civilians, of all nationalities and cultures, must begin accepting the responsibility of limiting the abilities of our respective governments to recklessly and irresponsibly expose us to unspeakable destruction. Understandably, this is “much easier said than done”, but historical reality unequivocally demonstrates that we have no alternative.
With their navy at the bottom of the ocean, and having had us destroy sixty of their cities, the Japanese people (including women and kids) were trained and equipped (crudely) to force the coming ground invasion force to kill them where they stood, lest they be bludgeoned and hacked up blown up by these “civilians”. Or, perhaps the Japanese civilians would have greeted the invasion force by committing mass suicide, as they did on Saipan because their rulers had misled them in their beliefs. As far as leaving Hirohito in place, the US occupation force had far more control over an irrational populace by granting him continuance in his role than we would have had had they been allowed to dictate their own surrender terms. In my opinion, the only thing I might have done differently than HST would have been to assess the feasibility of a leaflet drop telling them to leave town and to watch the strikes. Perhaps he did so(?) and concluded that risking bomber crews was not worth it
A state that kills civilians to save soldiers is morally similar to a fascist or communist state.
There are far more consequences than the most tragic of them all (the murder of 200,000 innocent civilians) that currently still affect us today. It’s remarks that Rachel Burger and others make that continue to allow atrocities committed by the state more acceptable to the public. I’m sure Rachel does not agree with many of the drone strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Waziristan, Pakistan — because of the rate of killing one terrorist per 49 innocent civilians is just purely vile. So how would it be acceptable to murder 200,000 civilians to protect armed men who took an oath to defend this country through military means?
Since 1945, the United States has continued with drone strikes and dropping explosives on cities with the understanding that thousands would die instantly, yet they still pretend that their intention wasn’t to kill so many civilians. In March 2003, 1,500 bombs were used to attack Baghdad; before 1945 that would be considered an outrage yet today, it would be considered progress. Now, the United States fears that Iran will one day wage a nuclear war. Besides the fact that there is no real evidence linking Iran to any nuclear weapons, Iran has not attacked a country in hundreds of years. In this day and age, nothing in this world can overturn good and evil, war and peace, and life and death but the state.
Because there is no winning the War on Terror, but there is winning a war against a state Japan. Boom boom, we win.
The War on Terror is nothing more than a tool used by the US government to in act a doctrine to destroy the constitution, and civil liberties. Any intelligent individual knows this. The US does not win war’s…Japan was a vehicle used by the US to see how far it could push its thirst for blood letting. Vietnam, Iraq, and all of the proxy war’s that the US has lost were far worse than anything perpetuated by Pol Pot in Cambodia, or Hitler during his reign of terror. Your comments here give credence as to why Americans are looked upon as foolhardy, dimwitted, and myopic by the rest of the world.
Unproven assertion.
Demonstrates implicit belief that soldiers are not people.
Micha Elyi,
“Demonstrates implicit belief that soldiers are not people.”
Hardly. It demonstrates the belief that it is wrong to treat soldiers as more valuable and deserving of life than civilians.
Rachel, curious, since you’re really fascinated by libertarian war theory, have you seen this? It’s my bibliographical essay on libertarians and war. You might find some value in the references:
https://libertarianstandard.com/2013/03/20/libertarians-and-war-a-bibliographical-essay/
Rachel, I hope you see this comment. I couldn’t reply directly to yours. I will check out what you’ve written and add it (eventually) to my bibliographical essay on war and libertarianism. Have you seen it? You might find it worth scanning, for it has lots of citations. If this area interests you I’d be curious what you think:
https://libertarianstandard.com/2013/03/20/libertarians-and-war-a-bibliographical-essay/
Got it. Thanks Anthony!
Ordinarily I would correct the massive number of factual mistakes you make in your article, but it is clear that you are hell bent on mistating reality. So rather than waste my time on this nonsense, I will merely say that it is kind of bizarre how certain people have manufactured this whole different world of non-facts to support – Libertarianism? Libertarianism must be for slightly goofy people, I must conclude.
sherm, why don’t you start by correcting one factual mistake?
Americans who actually condone the massive war crimes of Nagasaki, and Hiroshima are a disgrace to not only fellow educated Americans, but they are on par with the Nazi mentality that was pervasive at the height of Hitler’s powers. There was no logical reason to drop any bombs on Japan, furthermore, the US instigated the entire conflict with Japan, by blockading the country which began hostilities. America is a terror state period, and has been since its inception. Only fools will regurgitate the fake history that the masses in the US continue to blather on about with their fake pride, and mendaciously blind view of reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
I know, John Kerry sounds ridiculous when he uses that as an argument.
It’s astonishing to me that the elephant in the room doesn’t get mentioned once on this whole thread: racism. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was indeed like killing silverfish to Truman and Co., because they thought of the “Japs” as subhuman, a point underscored in Bruce Cumings’ work on Korea. Racism is of course the ugly cousin of nationalism, which is what informs pretty much all the comments here in defense of the bombings (Rachel Burger’s, in particular). The defense of the holocausts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have always rested on airy counterfactuals: what MIGHT have happened, had we acted otherwise. What we know DID happen is that tens of thousands of children and other non-belligerents were annihilated for the sake of strategic and political advantage, with hardly a moral pang because the children in question were “slanty-eyed”. Stalin’s scorched-earth defense of the Soviet mainland and his mass executions of potential enemies behind the lines were more justifiable. (Which is to say: not at all.)
Yes, analyze strategic costs and benefits of bombing Japan, determine in the long term the strategy was good for the United States. Asians died so therefore racist.
But what about the (Japanese) children???
“Yes, analyze strategic costs and benefits of bombing Japan, determine in the long term the strategy was good for the United States. Asians died so therefore racist.
“But what about the (Japanese) children???”
Yes, what about them? Libertarians often recoil at the “what about the children?” hysteria because it’s used to justify collectivist violations of individual rights. In this case, “what about the children?” would simply be a question about the individual rights of children being violated by collectivism. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that children were among the victims of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Truman, or any of the WWII war leaders.
I for one don’t care primarily about “what’s good for the United States.” The United States, as a political entity, is the primary threat to my own liberty, and one of the greatest threats to world peace. What’s good for the United States as a political collective is often what’s bad for me, and even if that weren’t true, it’s often bad for individuals living throughout the world who have exactly just as much right not to be bombed by the U.S. government as I have not to be bombed by al Qaeda.
“Yes, analyze strategic costs and benefits of bombing Japan, determine in the long term the strategy was good for the United States. Asians died so therefore racist.
“But what about the (Japanese) children???”
Yes, what about them? Libertarians often recoil at the “what about the children?” hysteria because it’s used to justify collectivist violations of individual rights. In this case, “what about the children?” would simply be a question about the individual rights of children being violated by collectivism. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that children were among the victims of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Truman, or any of the WWII war leaders.
I for one don’t care primarily about “what’s good for the United States.” The United States, as a political entity, is the primary threat to my own liberty, and one of the greatest threats to world peace. What’s good for the United States as a political collective is often what’s bad for me, and even if that weren’t true, it’s often bad for individuals living throughout the world who have exactly just as much right not to be bombed by the U.S. government as I have not to be bombed by al Qaeda.
As for whether the bombings were racist, you have to actually look at American culture at the time of the war, which was indeed thoroughly racist against Japanese people.
Rachel, I’m going to respond (briefly) here to both your responses to me (see above).
1. What analysis of “strategic costs and benefits”? And more saliently, what “United States” was bombing Japan supposed to be good for–the areospace and arms manufacturers, military-industrial managers and shareholders… or ordinary people who had to live with the legacy of Truman, Dean Acheson, MacArthur and Curtis LeMay? Frankly, when you refer to the bombing as a “solid national security decision”–and mean this apparently as some sort of justification–it makes my spine chill. Whether you want to admit it here or not, you’re using the language of technocratic mass murderers.
2. You write above that: “I don’t think a private demonstration was possible beyond testing sites, therefore Nagasaki/Hiroshima. The destruction of those cities was a very smart move on behalf of the United States. At no point did I say it was moral, just tactical. The United States developed nuclear weapons; it would be naïve to think that at no point would they demonstrate that power.”
This is utter nonsense. My point about a “prive demonstration” was that the concept has no application with regard to nuclear weapons; what definitely was possible would have been to demonstrate the power of the new weapon without killing ANYBODY, let alone cities full of civilians. (The Japanese, you might remember, had ships on the high sees, not just at harbor in population centers.) But your argument is actually worse than that: you claim that, by the very fact that we showed how horrible the weapons were, we somehow prevented their repeated use. This would, in effect, justify ANYBODY using the A-bomb, once it appeared on the scence, and furthermore, using it on anybody (the more victims, by your logic, the more the “deterrent effect”). Besides that, your claim is mere speculation: how could you ever prove that this was the case? The United States still has first use enshrined in its strategic policy (!), and came within a hair’s breadth of using the bomb in Korea and Vietnam (not to mention the current fashion for potentially bunker-busing “mini-nukes”). The only thing your argument seems to prove is that it’s a damn good thing the Soviets got the weapon, too, and then China; otherwise there’s little doubt in my mind that the people you say it’s naive to think wouldn’t use the bomb would indeed have used it again and again. And they’d have kept on using it so long as the promised “tactical” advantage were to be gained from it.
I think the label Hitlerian here is far from the usual hyperbole; it’s entirely proportionate to what Truman did, and what you appear to want to justify.
I forget the racism issue. Anthony Gregory is entirely right. Just to be more specific, though, who do you think wrote this?:
“The Lord made a White man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess.”
Three guesses.
Racism might not have been the primary motivation for dropping the bomb, but it certainly factored in; it in sure as hell informed the way the public *reacted* to the bombing.
So who wrote it? I can’t even make a guess.
gaoxiaen,
“So who wrote it? I can’t even make a guess.”
Harry Truman.
Dear Rachel,
Gregory is right. From the historical evidence you are quite clearly wrong (the bombings saved millions of people etc), and likewise from a libertarian or any other humanitarian perspective. If one justifies terrorism in the interests of a state’s survival (whatever state that is – anyone can do it after all, in the interests of their own contrived geographical entity) you become a defender of that state’s terror and there’s nothing to morally distinguish you from the rest of the pack.
Simple question: would you rather have “fought” the Cold War with or without the presence of nuclear weapons, MAD, and the reminder of Hiroshima/Nagasaki?
I don’t think the U.S. should have waged the Cold War at all. But no nuclear weapons would have been better. Sure, it turned out there was no nuclear war, but the distinct risk of mass destruction was totally morally unacceptable. The abolition of nuclear weapons has to be at the top of the libertarian agenda.
I disagree. As a realist, I believe it’s inevitable for great powers to wage war; we would have had conflict with the Soviet Union regardless of nuclear weapons in our search for hegemony. This is why China and the United States are so at odds with each other right now: the quest for domination.
The threat of nuclear war is immoral? Why? And how on earth are you going to abolish nuclear weapons without governmental intervention?
RB: The threat of nuclear war is immoral? Why?
BM: If you are actually interested in exploring the answer to this question, start here:
Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism, by John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., and Germain Grisez
Again, I have written a summary here, however, the book is so thorough and well presented that no summary does it justice.
Rachel,
You say you disagree with Anthony’s statement that the United States shouldn’t have waged the Cold War at all by responding that it’s inevitable for “great powers” to wage war. Surely you can see that a contestable descriptive claim does not in and of itself refute a normative statement about what ought or ought not to be done.
Perhaps you see the inevitability of war between the “great powers” as justifying what would ordinarily be considered theft, assault, and murder on a massive scale? As necessary evils given that warring states exist? The task of the libertarian then is to minimize the evil by fighting a “just war,” since we cannot eliminate it entirely?
By the by, I’ve studied international relations fairly extensively as well. It was the primary field for my undergraduate political science degree and the secondary field for both my MA and PhD. Not that such official certifications can decide debates.
I’m curious whether you’ve read “The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did” by Ward Wilson on ForeignPolicy.com and what you thought of it.
“As a realist, I believe it’s inevitable for great powers to wage war; we would have had conflict with the Soviet Union regardless of nuclear weapons in our search for hegemony”
See, this is what I find frustrating in libertarian foreign policy realists. We don’t apply the same logic to any other area of policy. Consider these statements:
• It is inevitable for modern nation-states to tax citizens heavily to finance welfare and schools
• It is inevitable that pressure groups like prison unions will enjoy concentrated benefits from programs like the drug war. Victimless crime crackdowns are inevitable in any modern state
• It is inevitable that states will meddle with free trade
• It is inevitable that modern governments will restrict the rights of their people to bear arms
The inevitability of statist behavior on the part of states does not deter libertarians, in general, from opposing such behavior. So why is the supposed inevitability of bellicosity in the modern U.S. warfare state an excuse? Shouldn’t the state’s natural tendency to pursue policies in tension with libertarian values lead libertarians to reject the state before it leads them to water down their values to involve themselves in the “realist” discussion?
As a realist, I believe the species is doomed to self destruction because the power systems humans build reward people like Rachel.
For those actually interested in getting a clearer picture of both the bombings and the myth surrounding the bombings, I highly recommend the book by Gar Alperovitz: “The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb.”
It would be difficult to read this book and then conclude there is any justification for the actions taken by the US against the Japanese during the last several months of the war – including, of course, the atomic bombings.
I have written a summary here, however I highly recommend the book.
So far everything I have read in this essay is absolutely correct. However, as one has studied the dropping of the atomic bombs quite extensively I would like to add the following points.
1… With the exception of handful of Truman’s closest aides, practically all of our military leaders were adamantly opposed to dropping such weapons. Their short-coming was that they should have disposed of Truman for such an act of barbarity before executing such a horrific order.
2… The original estimates of US lives lost for an invasion of the Japanese islands was 30,000. This number grew as a result of a senior general’s promotions (I can’t remember them man’s name) until it reached 1,000,000; an absurd number that was based upon nothing but fantasy.
3… The entire US military infrastructure, including Truman and his administration, knew that the Japanese had been completely defeated as a result of the ongoing Naval blockade so militarily there was absolutely no reason to drop atomic weapons.
4… The dropping of the atomic bombs had nothing to do with defeating the Japanese but was used to warn Stalin of US power should he decide to intercede by invading Japan himself as he had originally planned.
5… Contrary to what the author has stated, the Germans were closer to their own development of atomic weaponry than is widely believed but did not succeed since they gave up the program pre-maturely.
Steve you make excellent points (first four) each on their own and together render absurd any defence of Truman’s use of the A Bombs on Japan
I would only add that there is compelling body of thought and evidence, spearheaded by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, that it was not Truman’s use of the A bomb on Japan that forced the Japanese to surrender. It was rather the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict that did so.
And the name of the senior general who promoted that propaganda figure of 1,000,000 U.S. casualties in an invasion of Japan is General Stimson
To your first point here is a compendium of comments by the top American military brass and US government figures who condemned the bombings on both moral and military grounds http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
To fine tune your 4th point. I would say the dropping of the atomic bombs was about saving Western Europe. The Russians had an overwhelmingly superior mass of men and machines deployed in Eastern Europe at the end of WWII. Stalin and Truman both knew how easy it be for Stalin to overrun the rest of Europe. It wasn’t like it was out of character for him to invade countries eg Finland, Baltic Republics, Poland, Bessarabia etc. The only thing that could have stopped Stalin was the specter of A Bombs being dropped on his armies and cities. Because it sure wasn’t anything else in the Allied arsenal that could have done it
Geoffrey Allan Plauché:
Sorry, I didn’t completely connect the dots. Because I believe that great power war was inevitable between the Soviets and the United States, I believe that nuclear weapons deterred the mass scale of violence seen in other great power wars. Indeed, there hasn’t been in open great power war since WWII—the longest span of time in documented history—and I believe the presence of nuclear weapons is to thank for that.
I frankly don’t believe in just wars. Morality, as Morgenthau is quick to point out, should not dictate international relations and power posturing (mind you, I’m back to why one should start a war, not what to do once in one). Great power war is not just or unjust, simply inevitable within the security dilemma (which, given your background, I’m sure you’re familiar with).
I believe that the task of libertarians, particularly in the United States, is to avoid starting wars that we shouldn’t belong in, and finishing any war as strategically and quickly as possible (I mentioned the Powell Doctrine above, and no, I don’t think that nuclear weapons are the strategic quickest way to end a war given international ramifications). We should emphasize that the surveillance state is unnecessary. We should cut unnecessary defense spending. Am I sounding more human yet?
I haven’t read Wilson’s FP piece yet, but I’ll be sure to check it out.
If we oppose the government starting immoral wars, why should we favor the government winning those wars? Shouldn’t we want the government to surrender a cause that’s unjust?
Rachel,
“Indeed, there hasn’t been in open great power war since WWII—the longest span of time in documented history—and I believe the presence of nuclear weapons is to thank for that.”
Well, even if true, that doesn’t mean the power of atomic/nuclear bombs had to be demonstrated on live targets in order to do so. Surely the tests both governments conducted would have been sufficient. But even if the tests weren’t sufficient, you’re left making a utilitarian argument that the murder of hundreds of thousands of people is justified by the possibly greater number of lives that might be saved later on by conducting said mass murder. It’s easier to go back in hindsight and say that more lives were saved than extinguished by committing mass murder, although still impossible to prove, but even here you’d be attempting to justify mass murder and you just can’t. When you consider present or future actions, you don’t even have the benefit of hindsight; you have only a vague possibility.
So I fail to see any value in your line of reasoning for libertarian policy. Why bother with all of this unprovable speculation and crass calculation when we already know that using a nuclear bomb would be heinously immoral and unjust, because it involves mass murder, no matter what the longterm consequences might be?
“Morality, as Morgenthau is quick to point out, should not dictate international relations and power posturing (mind you, I’m back to why one should start a war, not what to do once in one).”
I disagree with Morgenthau vehemently. There is no sphere of human action, no human context, in which morality does not apply.
“Great power war is not just or unjust, simply inevitable within the security dilemma…”
War is pretty much inherently unjust, whether or not it is inevitable and whether it be waged by powerful states or relatively weak ones.
Best case scenario: even a purely defensive war, unprovoked and fought on the defending state’s claimed territory, will almost invariably involve some combination of theft (taxation and inflation), economic regulations, security crackdowns, property damage, possibly a draft (kidnapping and outright slavery), civilian injury and death, and myriad other rights violations carried out by agents of the defending state. And how many truly defensive, unprovoked wars has the United States been in over the course its history?
Even the American Revolution was fomented by colonial elites who wanted to create more powerful local states free of British control through which they could protect and further their political and economic interests; it was far from a purely noble fight for freedom and independence.
“…the security dilemma (which, given your background, I’m sure you’re familiar with).”
Of course, but I don’t see how it makes (great power) war neither just nor unjust.
RE: Anthony Gregory
(Sorry I can’t hit reply anymore)
Because I believe in the security dilemma. I do not believe it’s inevitable for states to do anything policy-wise domestically; that’s entirely volatile. However, governments will always fight for their own survival, and typically the threat is from an exogenous source.
“I do not believe it’s inevitable for states to do anything policy-wise domestically; that’s entirely volatile. However, governments will always fight for their own survival, and typically the threat is from an exogenous source.”
Oh, I don’t know. Regulating trade and immigration, taxing subjects to finance special interests, erecting large domestic programs—practically every state does these things. Not all states go to war, especially in the fashion the U.S. empire does.
The atomic bombings were mostly for show. The infamous Bat Bomb project would’ve been more effective at destroying Japanese cities (and accidentally destroyed most of a US airbase when only about a dozen armed bats woke up and got loose during a photo shoot). But the bat bombs depended on the bats nesting under the eaves of thin wooden buildings, and the weapon wouldn’t be nearly as effective in Europe or the Soviet Union. Bats just can’t intimidate people very well. So we nuked them instead.
Good thing, because in Okinawa somewhere around a fifth to a third of the civilian population died. Repeating such battles throughout even a fourth of the Japanese mainland would likely have resulted in the deaths of several million civilians.
So, are you ok with the rest of the tactical bombing campaigns? I don’t know why this topic only comes up on this anniversary, its like people suddenly believe that bombing is only ok up to 1945 . I look forward to hearing your answer and alternative.
Tactical bombing involves attacking the military itself. What was done to Japan is STRATEGIC BOMBING, which is meant to destroy their industrial capacity and to coax civilians into opposing their government (i.e., terrorism) While I cannot speak for Mr. Gregory, I am almost 100% certain that he opposes that as well. Here is Historian Gabriel Kolko:
“During November 1944 American B-29’s began their first incendiary bomb raids on Tokyo, and on 9 March 1945, wave upon wave dropped masses of small incendiaries containing an early version of napalm on the city’s population—for they directed this assault against civilians. Soon small fires spread, connected, grew into a vast firestorm that sucked the oxygen out of the lower atmosphere. The bomb raid was a ‘success’ for the Americans; they killed 125,000 Japanese in one attack. The Allies bombed Hamburg and Dresden in the same manner, and Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and Tokyo again on May 24. The basic moral decision that the Americans had to make during the war was whether or not they would violate international law by indiscriminately attacking and destroying civilians, and they resolved that dilemma within the context of conventional weapons. Neither fanfare nor hesitation accompanied their choice, and in fact the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima was less lethal than massive fire bombing. The war had so brutalized the American leaders that burning vast numbers of civilians no longer posed a real predicament by the spring of 1945. Given the anticipated power of the atomic bomb, which was far less than that of fire bombing, no one expected small quantities of it to end the war. Only its technique was novel—nothing more. By June 1945 the mass destruction of civilians via strategic bombing did impress Stimson as something of a moral problem, but the thought no sooner arose than he forgot it, and in no appreciable manner did it shape American use of conventional or atomic bombs. “I did not want to have the United States get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities,” he noted telling the President on June 6. There was another difficulty posed by mass conventional bombing, and that was its very success, a success that made the two modes of human destruction qualitatively identical in fact and in the minds of the American military. “I was a little fearful,” Stimson told Truman, “that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength.” To this the President “laughed and said he understood.”
Most WW-II heavy bombing was strategic, not tactical, because the bombers didn’t have the accuracy to hit dispersed, dug in targets. The circular error probable of most of our missions, prior to radar assisted bombing, was about a mile. That meant we could hit areas of a city, but precision targeting wasn’t generally possible with high-altitude bombers.
The only thing atomic bombing changed is that it could severely damage a city without requiring hundreds and hundreds of aircraft pumping out climate-destroying CO2, and the intense shock wave could destroy an area much larger than the fireball, so the entire city need not be completely incinerated to achieve the same effect, which also reduced the amount of green-house gases released. And of course it showed that we could destroy a country without even getting our hands dirty, depriving the Japanese Army of a chance to save face by dying gloriously in battle.
You are, of course, a disturbed maniac but I’m sure you have no conscious grasp of that fact. Deep down, though, I’m sure you know.
This is an excellent article, and I applaud Mr. Gregory for putting it so pointedly and powerfully. The US was born in slavery and genocide, and as soon as the native inhabitants had been exterminated or shunted into hellish concentration camps euphemistically described as reservations, we stormed off to the Philippines and murdered 200,000 “subhuman” others to make the world “safe for democracy.” The recipients of our benevolence lie in graveyards all over the world. My great uncle led the first medical team into Hiroshima some three hours after the attack. He was a surgeon in the Japanese navy, stationed in Kure. It was a small medical team with very few supplies. His first instruction was: we must help only those who have a chance of survival. They walked by helpless old men and little children whose flesh was hanging off their bodies. They came up over a rise and saw below a small undamaged schoolhouse. Exposure to lethal doses of radiation causes intense thirst, and the children and teachers had manage to make their way to a small pond near the school. They were all dead. My great uncle said it looked, coming up over the rise, like a blossoming flower. They walked by a mother who lay on the ground cradling her infant. Both were burned, but the infant was giving suck as her mother moaned quietly. My uncle ordered the team to move on. Neither the mother nor her infant had any chance of survival. When I hear people attempt to justify the intentional murder of tens of thousands of defenseless civilians, it makes my blood boil. We need a people’s truth commission to lay bare the atrocious crimes of the United States. Perpetrators still living should be held to account. We Americans don’t punish our war criminals. We name airports after them – to our indelible shame.
whoa… that was heavy. i am with you. no one should have as much power over others as does Washington. the “union” needs to topple like the soviet.
I hope Rachel ‘the jingoistic warmonger’ Burger reads your comment but, if she does, needless to say, she won’t “get” it.
If we wanted to use the nukes to scare Japan into surrendering, a more prudent use would have been to invited representatives of the Japanese government to witness and record a test to show to the Emperor. There is no reason to believe that any secrets would be divulged beyond the destructive potential of the weapon.
There is also no reason to believe that this would not have been effective because the bomb DID INFLUENCE THE JAPANESE DECISION TO SURRENDER.
We have heard many times that the Japanese were fanatics and an invasion would have made Europe look like boot camp. This is true enough. But what were the Japanese fanatical about? Not militarism, but LOYALTY TO THE EMPEROR. This is proved by the only sporadic resistance of both the Japanese military and populace to the Allied occupation which began in late August.
They would listen to their Emperor, as proved by the fact that they listened to their Emperor, who was indeed shocked by these horrifying devices.
I must say, this is one of the more cerebral comment threads I’ve ever read. I think I learned more from the comments than I did from the article, not to diminish the contribution Mr. Gregory’s piece makes to the libertarian discussion on the use of WMDs.
We need a +1 button for comments. 🙂
Lost to history in this atrocity is the unintended victims of the atom bombing of Hiroshima. But it goes to show what a monster Truman really was (as though 200K murdered innocents wasn’t enough to show it already) Among Truman’s victims at Hiroshima were 12 American PoWs, Korean and Chinese labor conscripts, students from Malaya on scholarships. And 3,000+ Japanese American citizens. That’s right Trumann perpetrated his own 9/11 on August 6th 1945. He killed more than 3000 American citizens But you won’t see that date commemorated with anything but the usual media/government issued jingoistic sloganeering propaganda and disinformation
Thank you for that addition.
Bookends: ‘day of infamy’ + Hiroshima/Nagasaki
I have wondered: At the very least, couldn’t the US have dropped the Abomb in a rural area of Japan first, to show that it was serious about doing it, and as a show of force and the destructive scope and power of the bomb?
I know dropping it was unnecessary either way. I’m just saying that if the terrorists were going to drop it, couldn’t they have at least done this first? But I guess the answer is no, since we know they didn’t drop the bomb to end the war, as that was already happening. So really they just wanted to drop it on civilians.
This piece is hard to top. I republished it with my own introduction at http://peterattwood.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-american-christian-famine-since-1945.html
If the jingoistic, warmongering of types like Rachel Burger are indicative of what is being churned out at places like the University of Chicago, I can only bask in the satisfaction that I never stooped so low as to think that a college brainwashing was needed.
The author ignores the fact that the Japanese military during World War II were among the worst purveyors of genocide in the history of the world. We still don’t know how many tens of millions of Chinese citizens they murdered, but it was certainly more than the number who died in the killing machines of the Nazis. The Rape of Nanjing was so brutal that even a German Nazi party member, John Rabe, who was living in Nanjing at the time, was horrified and tried to protect the victims.
And the linked article that the author uses to defend his thesis is one of the most immoral things I’ve ever read. “Project its power”? Are you kidding??? Genocide is justified on the basis of the need for raw materials? Moral equivalence of tens of millions of deaths of innocent Chinese to the occasional US interventions in Latin America???
The article is evidence for the evils of isolationist libertarianism.
The US responded with what the linked article called “economic warfare” — sanctions. What should have been done? World War II in Asia and the Pacific was started by Japan and had the US not gotten involved it the genocide might never have stopped.
Here is your logic: The Japanese government and military committed war crimes against Chinese civilians. Therefore, the American government and military can commit war crimes against Japanese civilians. This is lunacy at best and is better described as evil.
It’s a common error to consider Hiroshima a “civilian” city. At the time of World War II, nearly all the cities of the combatants included military forces and facilities. In the case of Hiroshima: “During World War II, the 2nd General Army and Chugoku Regional Army were headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at Ujina port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping.” Yes, there were civilians there also, but according to the Geneva Convention, military forces are not allowed to hide among civilians, and the blame for civilians killed when they are attacked falls on those among the civilians, not the attackers.
Only the shock of two cities destroyed by two bombs (not months of many cities destroyed by many bombs) convinced them of the futility of continuing to fight. Even so, they only barely surrendered after Nagasaki: an attempted military coup nearly prevented it.
All cities are “civilian” cities. That is why they are called cities. That there were military bases within them is irrelevant to the use of the nuclear bomb, which targeted civilians.
“Only the shock of two cities destroyed by two bombs (not months of many cities destroyed by many bombs) convinced them of the futility of continuing to fight.”
WRONG http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/
Sorry, I don’t agree that attacking a port city with several military headquarters and stores of military equipment counts as “targeting civilians.”
Sure, the Soviets had something to do with the surrender, too, but it’s absurd to think that the atom bombs had nothing to do with it. In any case, we were fighting a war against a determined, vicious enemy who was perpetrating war crimes up to the moment of surrender. Thousands of people were dying every day under Japanese occupation. It’s absurd for Anthony Gregory and other armchair moralists to use hindsight and say, “Oh, those last punches we landed weren’t really needed, because I think that if we had just stopped fighting right around then, they’d have collapsed soon anyway.” Yeah, easy to say, but the arguments about surrender within the Japanese regime, even after Nagasaki, indicate otherwise.
Sure, the Soviets had something to do with the surrender, too, but it’s absurd to think that the atom bombs had nothing to do with it.
…
Agreed. Indeed, the Emperor’s Gyokuon-hoso specifically mentioned them. However, the decision to surrender was triggered by the fact that with the Soviet declaration of war, their strategic goals were then made impossible.
Sorry, I don’t agree that attacking a port city with several military headquarters and stores of military equipment counts as “targeting civilians.”
…
When you use a nuclear weapon. It damn sure is. And, at that, incendiary weapons, such as were unleashed upon Japanese civilian areas in the closing months of the war. What was done to Japan can be described as nothing other than war crimes. This is precisely the reason why both LeMay and McNamara SAID THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN PERSECUTED FOR WAR CRIMES (SEE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdmfPThGZ-s )
Here is Gabriel Kolko:
During November 1944 American B-29’s began their first incendiary bomb raids on Tokyo, and on 9 March 1945, wave upon wave dropped masses of small incendiaries containing an early version of napalm on the city’s population—for they directed this assault against civilians. Soon small fires spread, connected, grew into a vast firestorm that sucked the oxygen out of the lower atmosphere. The bomb raid was a ‘success’ for the Americans; they killed 125,000 Japanese in one attack. The Allies bombed Hamburg and Dresden in the same manner, and Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and Tokyo again on May 24. The basic moral decision that the Americans had to make during the war was whether or not they would violate international law by indiscriminately attacking and destroying civilians, and they resolved that dilemma within the context of conventional weapons. Neither fanfare nor hesitation accompanied their choice, and in fact the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima was less lethal than massive fire bombing. The war had so brutalized the American leaders that burning vast numbers of civilians no longer posed a real predicament by the spring of 1945. Given the anticipated power of the atomic bomb, which was far less than that of fire bombing, no one expected small quantities of it to end the war. Only its technique was novel—nothing more. By June 1945 the mass destruction of civilians via strategic bombing did impress Stimson as something of a moral problem, but the thought no sooner arose than he forgot it, and in no appreciable manner did it shape American use of conventional or atomic bombs. “I did not want to have the United States get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities,” he noted telling the President on June 6. There was another difficulty posed by mass conventional bombing, and that was its very success, a success that made the two modes of human destruction qualitatively identical in fact and in the minds of the American military. “I was a little fearful,” Stimson told Truman, “that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength.” To this the President “laughed and said he understood.”
World War II was unique in many ways. On the political level, the US was at war with expansionist totalitarian systems who were notoriously ruthless towards civilians. (Italy, not so much.) On the technical level, aircraft had developed to the point where long-range bombing was possible, but not terribly accurate. German bombing of cities in Spain during their civil war, and against Rotterdam and London and others early in WWII, set a precedent. Numerous Japanese atrocities against civilians set another precedent. The stage was set, and advocates of strategic bombing got to try their method of war, which (it should be remembered) was intended to avoid the mass casualties of WWI trench warfare.
What were FDR and Truman and Churchill to do? Try to fight a desperate war using a more restrictive set of rules that their opponents wouldn’t follow? Actually, in many cases, they did. They didn’t execute prisoners, or use them in medical experiments. Truman decided to not use an atom bomb on Kyoto for cultural and humanitarian reasons. And both sides restrained from using poison gas. But the Allied bombing of German and Japanese cities was a natural consequence of precedents set by enemies. I’m sure the Army Air Corps would have loved it if they could have made sure that their bombs only hit arms factories and other military targets, but it simply wasn’t possible. Even then, there are moral issues: Is a civilian worker in an arms factory a legitimate target? What about one in a truck factory? One working on a railroad that often ships arms and troops? What about one working at a power plant? A food cannery? Most of those aren’t purely military, yet all contribute to military power.
All wars are full of troublesome moral dilemmas, and WWII was no exception. Defending liberty was messy. But FDR and Truman and Churchill had a moral obligation to not just win the war, but to minimize the loses of their own troops in doing so. This meant (in part) using the best available technology (strategic bombers) to destroy enemy manufacturing and distribution centers and military headquarters (a.k.a. cities), despite the civilian populations. Morally troublesome, yes, but there were no better options at the time. It’s absurd to call them “war criminals” as if they were in the same category as Eichmann and Mengele and Tojo.
On the technical level, aircraft had developed to the point where long-range bombing was possible, but not terribly accurate.
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Except that WWII’s aerial bombardment of cities was not MEANT to be accurate, if by accurate you mean doing its best to avoid civilian casualties. It was meant to coax surviving civilians into opposing their government’s policies (i.e., terrorism). Can we be honest with that?
The stage was set, and advocates of strategic bombing got to try their method of war, which (it should be remembered) was intended to avoid the mass casualties of WWI trench warfare.
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Bombing cities was meant to avoid mass casualties? What nonsense is that?! The mass casualties of WWI Trench Warfare WERE SOLDIERS.
This meant (in part) using the best available technology (strategic bombers) to destroy enemy manufacturing and distribution centers and military headquarters (a.k.a. cities), despite the civilian populations.
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Once again, strategic bombing was not MEANT to avoid killing civilians. Indeed, it was meant to do precisely this. Please watch McNamara discussing what LeMay and he were doing, TARGETING CIVILIANS.
It’s absurd to call them “war criminals” as if they were in the same category as Eichmann and Mengele and Tojo.
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I am not trying to downplay Axis atrocities by any means. Actually, it was the Truman Administration itself which helped to cover up some of Japan’s worst war crimes, Unit 731.
That said, I am simply using their own words. LeMay:
“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
At least he was honest.
I know I’m way behind on this discussion, but it was (for the most part) a very interesting and civil debate.
From this I’d like to read more about Dwight Eisenhower. He seems like a very interesting figure considering his quotes on the bombings and his famous “Military-Industrial Complex” warning.
Finally I’d like to say that Libertarians are far too often cannibalistic. Rather than fight those who really oppose the theory, we fight internally about the degree or shade of Libertarian somebody might be.
I have often seen Libertarians joked about with the “No True Scottsman” jab; and often in the comments sections of articles, it rings true.
It does seem that the atomic bombs should be seen as an atrocity.
But your article goes too far. There is a moral difference between bombing civilians of a state with which you are at war and exterminating civilians who fall under your control.
I would also be interested in how you would like to support your claim that the US is the most warmongering state of modern times. What time period are we talking about here? In the 20th century many other countries were responsible for greater death tolls than the US.
The US has been involved in several wars in the 2nd half of the 20th century which were arguably unjustified. But if other countries had enjoyed similar levels of military supremacy during this period is it likely they would have adopted a pacifistic foreign policy?
Arguably no country in history has used an overwhelming military advantage so sparingly. In The Decline of Violence in History Stephen Pinker showed that the 2nd half of the 20th Century was the most peaceful in recorded history, and this period has coincided with US ascendancy.
These mitigating factors do not excuse US mistakes and atrocities. But it is important to put these tragedies in perspective, because the US stands as a global symbol for important things like democracy and liberty and the enemies of those things use criticism of the US to undermine those values.
Incidentally I am not an American, I am English.
Phil
So, what then should have been the correct response from the U.S. military during WWII vis-a-vis the mass extermination of the Jews or Pearl Harbor? When would a “state” response ever be justified? What if tomorrow some nut (identifiable group with or without state sanction) lopped a nuclear or biological weapon at NYC and we knew the culprit? After all, self-defense is part of the libertarian philosophy; the main question is who or what entity should be doing the defending – for the Jews under Hitler, for New Yorkers, etc. Not trying to play devil’s advocate here as I am a huge Rothbard supporter and I totally agree with the premise of the article.
So, what then should have been the correct response from the U.S. military during WWII vis-a-vis the mass extermination of the Jews or Pearl Harbor?
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Well those two things are separate issues. In fact, while there were notable Jew-haters in the Japanese government and military, the Imperial Japanese government found Nazi Judeophobia repulsive (while failing to condemn their own Sinophobia). Wiki has a good summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_Imperial_Japan
Very few Americans went into WWII declaring “Save the Jews!” If that were so, the US would have intervened far sooner. The correct response of the US government to the plight of European Jewry would have been to offer amnesty to them throughout the 1930’s. Look up the story of the SS St. Louis, whose captain tried desperately to find asylum for his 1,000 Jewish passengers. FDR personally refused them.
As for Pearl Harbor, I think that question assumes that FDR was unaware that this attack was coming. I find this to be absurd. But even if Pearl were an absolutely surprise attack, none of that justifies dropping the bombs on Hiro-Naga, nor the vicious bombing campaign of the USAAF on 67 other Japanese cities in the year prior.
Pearl Harbor was an attack on a military target. Only 68 civilians died, and most of them were from errant anti-aircraft fire. Obviously this was not because of the Japanese concern for innocents, as their despicable crimes in China and elsewhere show, but due to the nature and objective of the attack (to destroy as much of the Pacific Fleet as possible to delay intervention in their imperial expansion.
However, when challenged with the fact that at least 300,000 Japanese civilians were wiped out by the USAAF campaign, many Americans just squawk “PEARL HARBOR” as if this absolves it all, which is absurd.
What would be the correct response to Pearl Harbor? I’m not sure. I would say tactical strikes against the Japanese military. Of course, technology would not have allowed that. So I admit I have no answer for you there. All I can say is that we must not look at WWII as a struggle of good vs. evil, but of evil vs. evil. All sides committed acts of terror and as students of history we should recognize that.
Obviosuly Tibbets is a war criminal only shadowed by Adolf Hitler himself…
Any civilized nation tries to avoid civilian casualities in a war, but Tibbets and his overlords went out of their way to maximize it… “attack our military? …we’ll we’ll attack your civilians”
There’s a word for that… Terrorism
I may have missed this on the thread, but Truman, had given the go ahead to use poison gas, if we had to invade Japan. As I recall, estimated casualties for the first month were on the order of 5 million.
This information can be found on the web, with a little searching. Sorry I don’t have the site address handy.
It is good to see there are still gullible people being spoon fed crap by the truckload and eager to swallow propaganda from an inept and long retired administration! Tibbits is war criminal along with Truman no matter how you look at it!
Its their fault for being there he said of Hiroshima, he sold model B29 superfortresses along with scale models of the Little boy bomb signed by him and protested when the Smithsonian wanted to display the horrors the Japanese victims suffered after the bombings.
There was never any need to use Nukes on Japan, they were a beaten Nation and tried to surrender on three occasions prior to the Nuclear bombings. Macarthur and Eisenhower both displayed dismay and said the Atomic bombings were not necessary and Japan was on the brink of surrender.
America may have won the war but if Japan were to call in it’s debts, America would be brought to her knee”s overnight! Who’s laughing now?
Interesting perspective on this issue, I do find the Libertarian position on this issue troubling though, why is the life of a soldier less valuable than the life of a Japanese child? Aren’t Libertarians about the individual, so one life can’t be more valuable than any other. Not only did the dropping of the two atom bombs save american lives, but also Japanese lives. Look at the previous battles, like on Peleliu, where Japanese soldiers were hiding in caves and attacking from there. Our soldiers had to fight them from post to post, because the Japanese would not have surrendered, they would rather have died and taken some American lives with them. That was on a tiny piece of rock that was about 6 miles long and 2 miles wide, imagine how hard they would have fought for the mainland and their capital city. A prolonged war may have also caused more American P.O.W deaths as well, but since we don’t care about the lives of soldiers, what about the lives of the Chinese civilians that were suffering from the continued Occupation of Japanese forces, remember learning about the Rape of Nanking in School? Finally, keep in mind that there are about 79 million baby boomers that are alive today because of all the troops that got to come home because the war ended when they did, a prolonged war would have killed most of the fathers of those baby boomers.
I have always applauded Libertarians for their consistency regarding foreign policy, but its just not practical for many real world situations. I don’t understand how a Libertarian can say it us morally superior to have continued to trade with Japan and Germany as they were committing war crimes in the areas they occupied.