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Hiroshima 60 Years Later Excused but not Justified Mike Murray If President Truman had not decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago this past August, in all likelihood my grandfather would not have returned, or not have returned well enough, to raise a family with my grandmother. When the Japanese surrendered my grandfather was en route to the Pacific battle zone after finishing a tour in Europe, and the casualty rate projections were very high. His recent passing in April and the 60th anniversary of the bombings seems to be a good occasion to reflect on the world’s only combat experience with nuclear weapons. Despite large scale memorial services in Japan and much of Europe, the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki received little media attention, at least in the major east coast papers. The Washington Post did not comment on the event in its editorials, and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both used the occasion to discuss the politics of weapons proliferation (1). Several human interest stories did appear in the major news sources (2), but little substantive reflection on the use of atomic weapons took place, outside of a lone Wall Street Journal editorial (3). This article will reflect upon the type of justification of the bombings offered by this editorial because I think its acceptance of cost/benefit analysis concerning the use of weapons of mass destruction relies on a mistaken understanding of what it means to justly fight a just war. After noting that the casualty estimates for a mainland invasion of Japan were 200,000 to one million Americans and over one million Japanese, the Wall Street Journal Editorial powerfully concludes: “when President Truman gave the go-ahead to deploy Fat Man and Little Boy, what those bombs chiefly represented was salvation: salvation for all the GIs; salvation for the tens of thousand of Allied POWs the Japanese intended to execute in the event of an invasion; salvation for the grotesquely used Korean ‘comfort women’; salvation for millions of Asians enslaved by the Japanese.” The bombs prompted the Emperor to “end the war,” preparing the way for “the country’s subsequent prosperity.” Like the American nuclear arsenal in the Cold War, which “provided an umbrella for freedom,” the use of nuclear weapons, however horrible, made the world a better place. The Wall Street Journal Editorial page is not alone in this view. In an article appearing in the very conservative National Review (4), Stanford military historian Victor Davis Hanson cites the prevention of many American and Japanese deaths in order to raise the possibility that the bomb came too late, after the devastation of Okinawa. He then dismisses moral concerns surrounding unrestricted bombing because “its morality [was] already decided by the ongoing attacks on the German and Japanese cities begun at least three years earlier.” Finally, acknowledging the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he concludes that “Hiroshima was the most awful option imaginable, but the other scenarios would have probably turned out even worse.” This last line highlights the problems with these most popular justifications for the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese: by focusing on the alternative outcomes, the end-states, they ignore the role of intention in evaluating the ethics of the action, and consequently ignore the classic just war distinction between the intentional and accidental killing of innocents. Hanson and other supporters of the dropping of the bomb acknowledge that it was dropped in order to shock the Japanese with mass destruction and death. The facts confirm this view: it would be strange to view Hiroshima as a military target because it had been left largely untouched by the previous three years of Allied bombings, and Nagasaki was chosen only because the original choice, Kokura, could not be reached due to weather. In other words, the standard justification for the use of the bomb denies that the intentional killing of civilians is wrong if it will avert a larger number of deaths. This position sharply opposes the just war tradition’s distinction between the intentional and accidental killing of civilians. The traditional distinction tracks easily with common sense ethics in two ways. (This should not be taken to mean that common sense ethics are always right.) First, the prohibition on intentional killing of noncombatants, even for the “greater good,” accords with how we as individuals think we should act. Although in end-state calculations one death is better than two, we do not think it acceptable to kill one man in order to prevent the deaths of two. The man who intentionally shoots a rival in order to prevent him from organizing the killing of two others is not looked upon with approval but rather with repulsion. We think intentionally killing innocents is morally troubling, period. Analogously, the nation who intentionally kills millions of civilians in order to prevent them from organizing or facilitating the killing of (perhaps) millions of others should not be looked upon with approval. To see the analogy clearly, imagine that the only way to provoke unconditional surrender was not dropping the bomb on Hiroshima but rather, for some unknown causal link, on Paris. The situation looks strikingly similar from an ethical lens- intentionally killing many civilians will likely prevent future deaths- but the obvious choice is likely the opposite: few would opt for dropping the bomb on Paris. Of course, the fact that Hiroshima is in Japan makes the choice to drop the bomb seem more legitimate because Japanese citizens inhabited a nation at war. But surely the fact that a baker lives in a country involved in a war he may or may not support, as opposed to living in a non-warring nation, does not change his right not to be intentionally killed. Munitions factory workers, whose status as intentional targets is questionable, did not populate Hiroshima, so the example proves strong: the intentional killing of noncombatants is morally troubling. Second, we find intentional killing in order to secure a better consequence troubling in part because we realize that we are not responsible for end-states but rather for our own intentional actions. The reasons for this absolution of responsibility are twofold. Practically speaking, it is impossible to really know for certain all of the consequences of any action. For example, it seems clear now, and may have even seemed clear in 1945, that unconditional surrender was the only way to secure world prosperity. But, anything approaching certainty in this determination is woefully arrogant. Dropping the bomb could have devastated Japanese morale, sending the government and the economy into a tailspin from which it could not recover. It could have incited Japanese anger at America, prompting the rise of a Hitler-like dictator a la post-WWI. It could have prompted widespread condemnation of the United States, provoking pro-Soviet movements that brought authoritarian governments to power in much of the world. It could have bristled Soviet defense responses, exacerbating the Cold War (5). It is because the long-run consequences of actions are largely unknown that comparison of end-states is at best very difficult and at worst theoretically impossible. But there is a more basic reason that we find comparison of end-states and lack of attention to intention troubling: we realize that we are largely not responsible for what we do not intend. For example, at this point it may be both that my not telephoning the Queen of England may prompt her to commit suicide and that my not telephoning the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia may prompt him to commit suicide. But, clearly I am not responsible for the death of one if I, confined by time and space, choose to telephone the other. Of course, if I were to foresee the deaths of these individuals and, instead of a making a quick phone call, decided to be lazy, my actions would be reprehensible. Similarly, President Truman would not have been responsible for the deaths of American and Japanese in a mainland invasion because he did not intend them. Just as he was not responsible for the torturous treatment of American POWs by Japanese forces even though he sent American forces into situations that could lead to Americans being taken prisoner, so he was not responsible for American combat deaths if he ordered a mainland invasion. Of course, if he were to foresee them he may have decided to pursue another, more proportionate option that would result in fewer casualties than an invasion, but as my first point attests, the intentional killing of noncombatants, as immoral, could not have been legitimately pursued as the answer to the tragic dilemma. Furthermore, we currently seek to minimize collateral damage in our military strikes (6). We look for smart bombs that can enter specific windows of buildings or bunker busters that only destroy the bunker. We decry any military attack that accidentally hits a mosque or a wedding or a school, even if it kills a larger number of enemy combatants of one sort or another. How then, can we then condone the intentional killing of noncombatants in the places of worship, homes, and schools of 1945 Japan? It is as if we were, in order to attack Osama bin Laden and 20 of his colleagues, willing to first kill 20 schoolchildren in order to bring these terrorists out into the open. All this is not of course to wholeheartedly place blame on President Truman. We can really only speculate as to his knowledge of both the magnitude of the destruction and the nature of the military installations near Hiroshima (7). He may have thought that Hiroshima was a valid military target and that the bomb was a proportionate use of force to strike it, or he may have sought the deaths of noncombatants in order to prevent what he saw as a greater evil, a prolonged war. And he was under intense pressure as the new commander in chief. Yet, at the same time we cannot ignore the morally troubling nature of the decision, which in all likelihood probably was made with the illegitimate destruction of noncombatants in mind. Overall, attempts to defend (or condemn) President Truman and/or his decision fail to hold both of these judgments in view. The criminal law distinction justification and excuse is instructive in this regard. In defense of their actions criminals can either argue that they were right in doing what they did or that they should be excused because what they did was not unreasonable under the circumstances. For example, recall the story of the famous Catholic Maximilian Kolby, who had to choose between sending himself or two others to execution at a concentration camp. Kolby chose to sacrifice himself instead of intending the deaths of the two other prisoners. But, few men would make this choice. For this reason (although of course it is more complicated), a man in Kolby’s situation would likely be excused from any charges of conspiracy or intentional killing under the defense of duress. In a sense it would be inhuman to treat Kolby’s decision otherwise. President Truman’s decision was similar: the deliberate destruction of at least 80,000 Japanese noncombatants cannot be justified and is deeply morally troubling, but it was not unreasonable for him to drop the bomb under the circumstances. By this I mean both that President Truman was wrong in his decision to drop the bomb and that he is not completely blameworthy for this action. As a leader, we may have expected that he make the morally right decision, but, as a man, we should have known that he may only not act unreasonably. All of us may have acted in the same way. Mike Murray is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School focusing on bioethics. He is the Whig Editor of the Soapbox. (1) Weapons Proliferation Articles: Ikle, Fred. “Nuclear Explosion.” Wall Street Journal. August 5, 2005; Editors. “A Glimmer of Hope.” New York Times. August 6, 2005. (2) Human Interest Articles: Ito, Joichi. “An Anniversary to Forget.” New York Times. August 7, 2005. See also letters to the editor on August 9, 2005; Millet, Lydia. “The Humblest of Victims.” New York Times. August 7, 2005; Onishi, Norimitsu. “Where First A-Bomb Fell, Prayers Ask ‘Never Again.’” New York Times. August 7, 2005; Faiola, Anthony. “60 Years After A-Bomb, Old Foes Meet Over a Deep Divide.” Washington Post. August 7, 2005. (3) Editors. “Hiroshima.” Wall Street Journal. August 5, 2005 (4) Hanson, Victor Davis. “60 Years Later.” National Review. August 5, 2005. (5) (6) I am indebted to the following article for this point: Ponnuru, Ramesh. “Hiroshima Now.” National Review. August 15, 2005. (7) Although he never publicly admitted it, President Truman had his misgivings about using A-bombs on cities, as evidenced by the following few quotations from a letter to Senator Bissell on August 9, 1945: -“I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in the same manner.” -“For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the 'pigheadedness' of the leaders of a nation and, for your information, I am not going to do it until it is absolutely necessary...” -“My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan.” (Barton Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory, Diplomatic History, Spring 1995, material quoted from pg. 267-268). - On Aug. 10, 1945 (the day after the Nagasaki bomb), having received reports and photographs of the effects of the Hiroshima bomb, Truman ordered a halt to further atomic bombings. Sec. of Commerce Henry Wallace wrote in his diary on Aug. 10th, “Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids.’” (John Blum, ed., The Price of Vision: the Diary of Henry A. Wallace, 1942-1946, pg. 473-474). (For an indepth look into Truman’s misgivings see http://www.doug-long.com/hst.htm) |
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