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> So you actually think that intentionally killing civilians to win a war is morally okay? I just don't hold that view. Even if the civilian deaths attributed

> So you actually think that intentionally killing civilians to win a war is morally okay? I just don't hold that view. Even if the civilian deaths attributed to the A-bomb where less than that of a supposed land invasion?. WW2 saw lots of that. Think of the bombing of Dresden when the Allies whipped out the city with incendiary bombs because it was a mayor city factory (ammo, etc.).

samastur 13y ago
Yes, even then. Even if you could be sure that there would be more civilian deaths (which you really can't be), there is a big ethical difference between choosing to kill someone and being forced to do it.
- mpyne 13y ago
  No one "chose" to kill civilians at Hiroshima or Nagasaki though. The U.S. dropped leaflets all over both cities warning them of the bomb. Either way by your logic firebombing attacks such as at Dresden or Tokyo would have been just fine (oh no, my bomb had to have hit a barracks, not a hospital!) even though they can't possibly all have been right. So it's not even true to say that conventional bombing wouldn't have killed civilians; every pilot who went on a bombing mission, conventional or nuclear, knew that they were killing civilians too. And both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had actual military value, it's not as if either of them were resort villages. If the Japanese decide to put tons of civilian structure in between the military establishments then that's on them. Conventional bombing was so inaccurate that practically the only thing you'd be sure to hit while trying to bomb a military target is everything around it.... including the civilian establishments.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future? My point here was never that other war atrocities are somehow good. It's just my belief that intentionally killing unarmed civilians is murder, in a moral sense, irrespective of circumstance or nationality. If you must take out a military target and there are civilian casualties, then so be it, provided you did your best to minimize them. However, sprinkling some leaflets before dropping an atomic bomb is not doing your best to minimize casualties. If a display of nuclear power as a deterrent was truly required to end the war, and it may well have been, I can think of numerous less deadly steps that could have been taken first. An aggressive warning strategy that comes to mind would be bombing the remote and relatively unpopulated mountainous regions of Japan.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future? As a first strike, you mean? No, we have far more effective conventional military weapons that would obviate the need for the overkill that a nuclear strike would deliver. They didn't have that in WWII though, which is the discussion everyone focuses on, and people always seem to conveniently ignore that the only thing stopping further American and Japanese bloodshed was ending the war ASAP. To the extent that the A-bombs allowed to the Emperor to save face while still surrendering, those A-bombs saved untold hundreds of thousands or even millions of further Japanese lives, not to mention the cost in American (and Soviet!) casualties.

samastur 13y ago

Yes, even then. Even if you could be sure that there would be more civilian deaths (which you really can't be), there is a big ethical difference between choosing to kill someone and being forced to do it.

mpyne 13y ago
No one "chose" to kill civilians at Hiroshima or Nagasaki though. The U.S. dropped leaflets all over both cities warning them of the bomb. Either way by your logic firebombing attacks such as at Dresden or Tokyo would have been just fine (oh no, my bomb had to have hit a barracks, not a hospital!) even though they can't possibly all have been right. So it's not even true to say that conventional bombing wouldn't have killed civilians; every pilot who went on a bombing mission, conventional or nuclear, knew that they were killing civilians too. And both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had actual military value, it's not as if either of them were resort villages. If the Japanese decide to put tons of civilian structure in between the military establishments then that's on them. Conventional bombing was so inaccurate that practically the only thing you'd be sure to hit while trying to bomb a military target is everything around it.... including the civilian establishments.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future? My point here was never that other war atrocities are somehow good. It's just my belief that intentionally killing unarmed civilians is murder, in a moral sense, irrespective of circumstance or nationality. If you must take out a military target and there are civilian casualties, then so be it, provided you did your best to minimize them. However, sprinkling some leaflets before dropping an atomic bomb is not doing your best to minimize casualties. If a display of nuclear power as a deterrent was truly required to end the war, and it may well have been, I can think of numerous less deadly steps that could have been taken first. An aggressive warning strategy that comes to mind would be bombing the remote and relatively unpopulated mountainous regions of Japan.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > I'm actually kind of curious, are you okay with nuking cities in the future? As a first strike, you mean? No, we have far more effective conventional military weapons that would obviate the need for the overkill that a nuclear strike would deliver. They didn't have that in WWII though, which is the discussion everyone focuses on, and people always seem to conveniently ignore that the only thing stopping further American and Japanese bloodshed was ending the war ASAP. To the extent that the A-bombs allowed to the Emperor to save face while still surrendering, those A-bombs saved untold hundreds of thousands or even millions of further Japanese lives, not to mention the cost in American (and Soviet!) casualties.