Ken; If you think of it this way maybe it would be more palatable for
you,.... The 1940's is a time when the whole world had gone insane.
World war two represents a total collaspe of morality and civilization.
The United States simply was not immune to that collapse. The allied
powers had no magical protection and was quite involved in the same
crazyness. Listing the atrocities of the enemy justifies nothing. It
only confuses the issue by making it overly emotional. It whips up a
blood-lust that makes mass murder seem less objectionable. I mean how
irrational is your claim that "there were no innocent civilians"? This
is a kind of demonization that takes rational debate off the table. Of
course there were innocent civilians in Japan. By that kind of reasoning
we ought to kill the family, friends and neighbors of all our convicted
murderers, not just the guilty individual. I agree that fire-bombing an
entire city has the same effect as an atomic bomb, but that only means
that they are equally immoral. (And I doubt that morality has changed
significantly in the last 50 years.)
Which is more moral, murder with stone or murder with a laser gun?
Neither.
With all due respect, I think you have a personal interest in these
events that makes rational debate impossible. It seems this topic only
upsets you and its gotten pretty far from the MOQ. What do you say, lets
just be friends and move on to another topic.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clark [SMTP:pclark@ipa.net]
> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 1999 6:32 PM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: MD Re: Judgement at the Smithsonian.
>
> David,
> You still have not grasped the difference between pre-atomic and
> post-atomic war. The bulk of the bombing on both sides in WW11 was
> done
> indiscriminately on cities. I owe the fact that I was able to get a
> parking
> place inside the coronation route for Queen Elizabeth's coronation to
> Germany's indiscriminate bombing of London. Bombed out sites make good
> parking places. The Japanese also attempted to send balloon bombs to
> the
> west coast. We were indiscriminately bombing Japan's cities with fire
> bombs. Killed more people in Tokyo alone than were killed by both
> atomic
> bombs. There were no innocent civilians. The atomic bombing was
> morally no
> different from what was already going on, in fact it was more moral
> because
> it undoubtedly saved lives over an invasion. Do you see why you cannot
> select one aspect of the situation obtaining at that time and make a
> valid
> historical judgement. The historians are attempting to make a radical
> judgement of US morality based on current values. This is wrong. Ken
>
>
>
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