Comments Elsewhere

Diane: I couldn’t agree more. But more and more, I see myself as separate from so-called liberal interests. I not only find liberal warmongers repulsive, I also fight for the rights of non-humans. Those activities do not go over well in most liberal circles. Neither does any kind of non-superficial feminism.

Oh, I certainly agree. Insofar as I address myself to “liberals” (and for that matter “progressives”) at all these days, it’s because I think that some of them have some confused grasp of values, or at least pay lip service to values, that might lead them to see what I’m talking about — and thus lead them away from what “liberal” (and even “progressive”) mean these days, and move towards a more genuine and worthwhile form of Leftism, feminism, etc.

Anon: They were given the chance.

Who was given a chance? The victims of the bombing? I don’t recall that Japanese civilians had any particular control over the militarist dictatorship’s actions in March – August 1945.

Maybe you mean that the Japanese command was given the chance, and, having (in your judgment) spurned it, the civilians over which they maintained dictatorial control were fair game for massacre. If so, I think that’s a despicable way to treat innocent people.

That said, one of the background premises you’re operating on is also factually incorrect.

Anon: Remember it took two bombs not just one to end the war and that was a Japanese decision to not surrender.

Even if you think that the incineration of Hiroshima was justifiable or even excusable (I don’t), that does you no good with respect to Nagasaki. Only three days passed between the bombing of Hiroshima and that of Nagasaki; the Emperor and the War Council had not even received on-the-ground reports of the level of destruction at Hiroshima until August 8 (the same day that they were informed that the Soviets were entering the war), and they did not meet to decide what to do until 11:00am on August 9 (the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki at 11:02am). There is absolutely no reasonable defense for the massacre of 75,000 civilians simply because of the failure to communicate surrender terms to the Americans less than a day after the War Council was fully informed of their situation, or less than 2 minutes after they had convened the meeting (as it happens, the War Council was unanimous, solely in light of Hiroshima and the Red Army’s advances in Manchuria, that Japan should surrender. They were divided only over the conditions under which they should surrender.)

Of course, even if the United States had waited weeks and the War Council had duly communicated that they refused to surrender, I don’t think that would have justified the massacre of 75,000 civilians who played no part in that decision. But as the facts stand, your own attempt at a justification or excuse for the bombing fails to give any good reasons for Nagasaki.

Anon: Japan would have fought to the last person had there been an invasion.

This presupposes that the U.S.’s demand for unconditional surrender, followed by occupation, by any means necessary — or, at least, by means up to and including the massacre of 500,000 – 1,000,000 civilians by atomic, incendiary, and high explosive terror-bombing — was a necessary or proper war aim in March – August 1945. I deny that it was. Japan was clearly defeated in March 1945 and there was absolutely no justification or excuse for standing on the Potsdam demands at the cost of civilian lives, whether to starvation due to the blockade, “conventional” firebombing, atomic bombing, or a hypothetical amphibious invasion.

Generally speaking, before you can justify this or that enormity in terms of “military necessity,” you first have to show, at the very least, that the war aims for which the enormity was supposedly “necessary” were in fact just aims to pursue by those means.