As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[pnewton]

Originally Posted by exnihilo

Is your disagreement over the gassing or the killing of rebels?

The US nuked two cities and killed far more people than the max of 5,000 it is claimed Saddam killed by gas. If nuking is not absolutely wrong as a means of achieving a just end then I wouldn't see how gassing would not be.

It is the killing of ones own citizenry en masse, men women and children. If a war against a rebellion is just, and that is a big "if", then deaths in combat are not immoral. Deaths during war are first dependent on the justice of the war. All killing is immoral in an unjust war. In a just war, like WWII, killing may be moral, and it may be immoral.

[smichhertz]

Originally Posted by Barb3

Iwhat would you decide??? Go ahead and invade Japan -- or end the war in a few days by dropping the atom bomb??? I think those of you who thought it was "morally" wrong to drop the bomb might change your minds.

You may want to reread the thread more carefully. This point has been brought up and refuted many times. And it's the Catholic Church that declares it immoral, not us. We are simply reaffirming it.

Furthermore, whatever we may or may not do is irrelevant. I might have dropped the bomb, I'll never know because I've never been in Truman's shoes. There are many immoral things I have done in my past. But simply because I am capable of doing immoral things doesn't mean they aren't immoral.

Originally Posted by hosemonkey

Once a nation or a people become committed to war, especially all-out war, it seems futile to try to place rules on just exactly how the killing is to be done.

It's not "futile", it's completely necessary. Sure, in times of war people tend to toss the moral code out the window, but that doesn't mean they should. If something is immoral, then it's immoral and should be rightly condemned by all faithful Catholics.

[exnihilo]

Originally Posted by pnewton

It is the killing of ones own citizenry en masse, men women
and children.

Then I dont understand your objection. What state has let rebels have their way and not resisted them especially by killing them? If people rebel any country first uses police and if they are not enough will use the military.

Originally Posted by pnewton

Deaths during war are first dependent on the justice of the war. All killing is immoral in an unjust war.

I'm sure you'd agree but just to clarify, all killing by the aggressor is immoral in an unjust war. Those defending themselves from the aggressor could be just in their killing.

[hosemonkey]

When someone is doing their very best to kill you, you do not have the luxury of speculating on the morality or immorality of the action that you are engaged in. Bullets and mortars do not differentiate between good and evil. One is reduced to simple survival and whatever gets the job done is good. I do not ever remember hating my enemy, they were good soldiers and merited respect. But that did not for one minute lessen my desire to kill him, because he presented a threat to me, to my comrades and to the people that we were trying to liberate. At the end of the day, we were involved in a noble cause and were treated shabbily by the people and government that sent us to war.

[pnewton]

Originally Posted by exnihilo

Then I dont understand your objection. What state has let rebels have their way and not resisted them especially by killing them? If people rebel any country first uses police and if they are not enough will use the military.

They us them against combatants, not non-combatants. Even Sherman's heinous march did not involve killing every Southerner he laid his hand's on: men, women and children.

I'm sure you'd agree but just to clarify, all killing by the aggressor is immoral in an unjust war. Those defending themselves from the aggressor could be just in their killing.

That is correct.

[pnewton]

Originally Posted by hosemonkey

When someone is doing their very best to kill you, you do not have the luxury of speculating on the morality or immorality of the action that you are engaged in.

Of course you don't which is why war, as Sherman says, is Hell. Neither should there ever be one second to judge men in combat as to whether their actions are right or wrong before God. However, the lives of those lost in unjust combat, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, are still dead due to an immoral act. That in no way reflects on the moral state of an individual pilot.

That is why with the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima I am very slow to judge those who lived then based on my knowledge of the Catechism and just war doctrine developed since then. All I am willing to say is that such mass destuction of innocents is (present tense) objectively immoral. If that puts me on the fence, so be it.

[hosemonkey]

Agreed up to the point one may argue that the Japanese people were not entirely innocent in the prosecution of that war. They were entirely willing to die to the last man resisting against invasion and were forestalled only by the Emperor's command to surrender.

[smichhertz]

Originally Posted by pnewton

All killing is immoral in an unjust war.

I'm not sold on this point. Usually, none of the soldiers fighting the war had a say in the decision to go to war in the first place. Hence, I do not think that every soldier fighting for the unjust aggressor are necessarily committing an immoral act when they kill. Generally speaking, a combatant killing another combatant is morally permissible in a war regardless of whether it is just or unjust.

[pnewton]

Originally Posted by smichhertz

I'm not sold on this point.

Me either, even though I said it. Call this more of an inclination to an opinion. I guess there simply must be some multiple culpability on some at some point for the death, if not the soldier (unlikely) then the one who prosecuted the war unjustly. I do not know the proper expression of this and it might take a life of study to formulate it better.

That is why I read the great works of others and documents of the Church: to steal material.

[smichhertz]

Originally Posted by pnewton

Me either, even though I said it. Call this more of an inclination to an opinion. I guess there simply must be some multiple culpability on some at some point for the death, if not the soldier (unlikely) then the one who prosecuted the war unjustly. I do not know the proper expression of this and it might take a life of study to formulate it better.

Yeah, I'm not 100% on that issue either way. Perhaps someone else with more knowledge could enlighten us on that subject.

Originally Posted by pnewton

That is why I read the great works of others and documents of the Church: to steal material.

Haha, I'm right there with you!

[Sincerus]

Samuel T. Cohen, who worked on the Manhattan Project in 1944 and is credited as the inventor of the neutron bomb, “stated that his only regret ...was that the bomb hadn’t been ready in time to be dropped on Germany. This was a feeling shared by many Jewish scientists, Cohen wrote.” (from an article in Forward.)

I think that quote sheds some light on some of the underlying motives in the management of "total war". The average Joe was told the atomic bombs were reluctantly used in order to "end the war" (Woodrow Wilson used the same "ending the war" canard as a justification for intervention in the First World War) but who is to say that one of the real reasons for the mass murder of Japanese civilians wasn't revenge (as Cohen said was the case in regard to Germany)?

Cohen went on to write in his personal memoir:

"Trying to throw a little logic into this emotionally supercharged equation, I might say that even if we had finished in time to drop a couple of bombs on Germany, it’s far from clear it would have made any real difference on the outcome of the war. By this time, the allied bombing and shelling of German cities had reduced most of the country to rubble and it was just a matter of time, a very short time, before the Nazis would have given up. Undoubtedly nuclear bombing Germany would have made many scientists at Los Alamos, especially the Jews, including myself, deliriously happy...."

As expected, Cohen would go on to urge the American government to use neutron bombs in its prosecution of the Vietnam war, so as to "reduce casualties" and "end the war".

[JaneGrey]

Originally Posted by pnewton

Of course you don't which is why war, as Sherman says, is Hell. Neither should there ever be one second to judge men in combat as to whether their actions are right or wrong before God. However, the lives of those lost in unjust combat, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, are still dead due to an immoral act. That in no way reflects on the moral state of an individual pilot.

That is why with the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima I am very slow to judge those who lived then based on my knowledge of the Catechism and just war doctrine developed since then. All I am willing to say is that such mass destuction of innocents is (present tense) objectively immoral. If that puts me on the fence, so be it.

Your second paragraph more or less sums up my feelings on this with the difference that I am more inclined to be on the side of the fence that condemns the A bomb (note the A bomb not America or Americans), as I think we should learn from our mistakes.

[Petergee]

Originally Posted by hosemonkey

Agreed up to the point one may argue that the Japanese people were not entirely innocent in the prosecution of that war. They were entirely willing to die to the last man resisting against invasion and were forestalled only by the Emperor's command to surrender.

I guess if the USA was threatened with invasion, many millions of USAmericans, probably the vast majority, would be entirely willing to fight and die to the last man resisting against invasion; in fact probably millions of them would continue doing so even if the US President ordered them to surrender. Would that make it morally OK for the would-be invader to nuke US cities? Or are there special moral rules which apply only to the USA and no other country?

It's very disappointing to see that almost half the voters on this poll say that nuking Hiroshima was morally OK, despite the Catholic Church's clear statements that it was not, before, during and after the event. Normally CAF posters have more common sense and orthodoxy. It seems that many of the USAmericans who constitute three quarters of CAF posters have allowed their Catholicism to have become infected by the morally bankrupt secular arttitude of "my country, right or wrong".

[pnewton]

Originally Posted by Petergee

It seems that many of the USAmericans who constitute three quarters of CAF posters have allowed their Catholicism to have become infected by the morally bankrupt secular arttitude of "my country, right or wrong".

This rather opinionated, blanket-spanking insult is bound to yield some interesting results. You do know, I would hope, that you can post your opinions, show facts and point to Church teaching without insulting the integrity of others, judging them from a distance, or making assumptions about the motives of others.

[Petergee]

Originally Posted by pnewton

This rather opinionated, blanket-spanking insult is bound to yield some interesting results. You do know, I would hope, that you can post your opinions, show facts and point to Church teaching without insulting the integrity of others, judging them from a distance, or making assumptions about the motives of others.

I'm not assuming anything or being opinionated or "blanket-spanking" anybody, much less insulting their integrity or judging anybody. (Btw that's quite a mouthful of insults to me on your part, surely one insult would have done.)
All I said was "It seems ...". If you or anybody else can offer any alternative explanation to my own surmise about why so many voters on this poll flatly contradicted Church teaching, (which as far as I'm aware has not happened on any other CAF poll), I'm all ears. Sorry you're so offended by my humble attemptys to frankly discuss the issues.