elg14 and MD,
You ask some good questions and I will give you my impressions since I
was in the Pacific theater when this was going on.
I am sure that there was a large body of opinion, particularly from
people who had lost sons and relatives, to kill the SOBs under any
circumstances.
Perhaps you have heard of the Kamikaze pilots. After the Phillipines were
retaken and the next major step was an invasion of Japan the Japanese
started arming planes with bombs and dispatching them without enough fuel
to return. The idea was to crash into our ships with a guided bomb so to
speak. This went on for some time.
The general opinion at that time was that we would face an enemy that
would die rather than surrender. If this was true then you can imagine the
number of deaths on both sides that would have resulted from an invasion.
It was felt that an invasion of the homeland would result in the complete
destruction of Japan as well as very high losses on our side. It was in
this atmosphere that the decision was taken to use the atomic bomb. It may
have been used in any case but, as you say, we have no way of knowing.
Remember, we were operating in an atmosphere in which about six million
people had been executed in an attempt to wipe out an ethnic group.
We do know the result of using the bomb. It resulted in the surrender of
Japan with what I consider to be relatively light losses to the Japanese
and none on our side. What would have happened if using the bomb had not
caused the Japanese to surrender I am unable to say. We would have had to
bomb Japan into complete destruction in order to avoid unacceptable losses
on our side.
Given the results I believe that it was unquestionably more moral to use
the bomb than to invade. It would have been a tougher question if the
Japanese had not surrendered but I still think that even that circumstance
would have been more moral since it would have largely confined the losses
to one side and, given our understanding of the mind set of the Japanese
the losses to them would have been huge either way.
In my mind your questions regarding sentience and abortion are tougher. I
think no one would say that it is OK to kill a newborn but is there some
mystical occurrence at the breaking of the umbilical cord or does existence
begin at the moment of fertilization? I don't know the answer to these
questions. Do we prefer the life of a thirty year old mother over the
newborn? The concensus seems to be yes since the mother has an established
life and connections but what about the case of two functioning adults? ?Do
we prefer the older or the younger or should we base those decisions on
their worth to society?
Do you think Dr. Kevorkian is correct about euthanasia. When does life
become not worth saving? Should we regard humans in the same way that we
view our pets? Is it OK to kill animals so that we can eat them? We are
carnivores so where is the line between conscience and practicality? Give
me some answers-I am going nuts. Ken
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