On Tuesday, November 27, 2001 11:00 AM John Clark jonkc@worldnet.att.net
>>Your argument above makes sense, but I was told about two wrongs not
>>making a right a long time ago.
>
> I suppose a million American casualties in a invasion of Japan would be
viewed as a
> wrong too by Americans, a wrong they wanted to avoid. We'll never know if
the numbers
> really would have been that high but it's not unreasonable for the leaders
of that time to
> think they would be, certainly many thousands of soldiers thought the
nuclear bomb had
> saved their life.
False alternative! You are narrowing the options down to bomb or invade.
If the US had sought _conditional surrender_, an invasion and subsequent
might not have been necessary. In fact, the Japanese were already making
peace feelers to the Soviets in 1945 before atomic weapons were used.
Even this third alternative is not the only one, but I find it much more
moral and better than what happened. It is only the modern, collectivist
view of war as between whole nations that makes most people think of every
war as needing to be a total war -- one of society vs. society where all the
resources and manpower of each society is mobilized, used, and targeted. If
we remove that grid, wars can once again become limited affairs -- army vs.
army or, better, leader vs. leader rather than all against all.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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