Post
by IAR80 » 11 May 2002 13:45
So you're implying that the lives of japanese civilians are worthless compared to the lives of westerners, that all crimes of any kind, including dropping a nuke on a essentially defeated nation is justified in the name of democracy?
Be objective. Democracy is a regime like any other. If crimes in the name of other ideas are blamed, why is democracy exempted? Can't imagine a world without democracy? Think that WWII was about prserving civilization? You are naive then. The world did fine in the Middle Ages and would have done just fine if the allies would have lost. I agree that horrible crimes would be commited but civilization would move on, not end. The basic problem here is ending lives to save others. Are those other lives worth more saving? No. All human are created equal, the people that were nuked were humans => droping the nukes is a crime. If Hitler would have managed to drop a nuke, the world would cry out in outrage, but if the allies drop one, everything's fine. I just happen to disagree. If a government is democratic, its brutal retaliation is more justified? I mean, just because it's a democracy, automatically grants a nation the right to commit any crimes? If yes, then these crimes are commited in the name of its people. Horrifying and familiar sintagm, isn't it? Yes, if democracies stoop to that level, they are no better than the dictatorships they fight, because there is a difference between the governing class and the people. The governing class influences the people, so killing the people, which are replaceable, yields little results and huge amount of killings are needed to reach out to the governing class. This is what the americans did in Japan in WWII. A wiser solution would have been to eliminate the leadership, the masses would then bow because of lack of guidance. Also the casualties would have been fewer. But somehow the americans chose the hard way.
That's my problem with the nukings. What did the people on the mainland do to justify such a ferocious attack? Nuking a fleet, a airbase or enemy troops would have been a different story. Even nuking the imperial palace would have found some justification. But nuking a city is inexcusable, especially when the output of the japanese factories was approaching 0 because of lack of raw material.
The nukings weren't to force the japanese to surrender(the latest declassified documents state that the japanese were quite ready to surrender before the first nuke was dropped), but to deter Stalin from messing around in Europe.
This crime was commited in the name of geopolitics, which, although wrong, I fear was necesarry.