Dropping the Atomic Bomb --- A War Crime and Unnecessary

Once upon a time a leading conservative scholar named Richard M. Weaver wrote a book in 1948 called Ideas Have Consequences. It is a short book, but very dense philosophically. One reason he wrote this book was in disgust of the use of atomic weapons in World War II. This event, he believed, was part and parcel will the loss of any moral sense. Weaver laid out his case that people have abandoned any sense of "logical realism" to find transcend truths. Rather we have "nominalism" and thus nihilism. Moral truths and rectitude vanish in such a climate. Decadence fills the culture. This move produces wars with no restraints.

Here Richard Weaver comments on the atomic-bomb project and the use of such weapons:

At Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a force of seventy thousand persons labored at an undertaking whose nature they knew little or nothing about; in fact, wartime propaganda had been so effective that they took pride in their ignorance and boasted of it as a badge of honor or as a sign of co-operation-----in what? It is just possible that a few, and I should be willing to say a very few, had they known that their efforts were being directed to the slaughter of noncombatants on a scale never before contemplated, or to a perfection of brutality as we have defined the term, might have refused complicity. Perhaps they would have had some concept of war as an institution which forbids aimless killing; perhaps they would have had a secret feeling that the world is morally designed and that offenses of this kind, under whatever auspices committed, bring retribution; in any case, it is just possible that a few of these anonymous toilers would have given a thought to the larger responsibility. It was rumored that among the world's elite concerned with atomic research that there were a few who declined to participate in an operation so contrary to the canons of civilization. . . . Imagine the modern state considering a referendum to conscience! The bomb was an unparalleled means; was this not enough? Just so does modern industrial and political organization, which is irrational hierarchy, make the citizen an ethical eunuch. If Thoreau felt, in his time, that it was a disgrace even to be associated with the government, what would he have felt in this? These corrupt bureaucracies are contemptuous of the people, in whose name they so piously speak.

Would such a learned man get a forum today at the various mainstream conservative outlets?

A year or two ago I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh celebrating dropping the atom bombs. It was a sick spectacle.

. . .

Truth is the first thing that must be extirpated in war. It cannot be allowed to get in the way of any government's war. Hence the public must be purged of truth and any objective morality. In its place must be a whipped up war nationalistic spirit. Myths of greatness and infallibility push aside objective observations. And if there is any evidence of some kind of emotional connection between a high percentage of people to their relationship with statism, war patriotism and the myths that surround that patriotism would be very high up on the list of evidence. In plain sight this was seen in the lead up to the Iraq War. For example, Charles Goyette, a talk radio show host in Phoenix, Arizona, was one of the lone voices bringing a anti-war message during this time. He was called everything from "hating America" to being a "terrorist lover." Mr. Goyette was one of many people who were attacked by this "war spirit," so to speak. (Read "How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio" by Charles Goyette.)

This war nationalism and the myths of war, particularly in the United States, was written about by another leading scholar in conservatism. His name was Robert Nisbet, a sociologist and historian. A flip through his last two books (among others) reveals his thoughts on what the intellectual basis of conservative thought is on questions of war and peace.

He believed that World War I was the genesis, or at least when this myth came to a forefront, of the view that the United States government cannot lose in war. It derived from the false assumption that the U.S. government "almost single-handedly, won the war," wrote Nisbet in The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America. This is the "Great American Myth."

The Great American Myth gave birth to other myths: Can Do, Know How, and No Fault, myths which abide to this minute in America and yield up such disasters as Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, and Grenada.

A few pages later he wrote this:

Add to what has thus far been said about the Great Myth and American Know How the attribute of No Fault, and we have the myth fairly well identified. Presidents, secretaries, and generals and admirals in America seemingly subscribe to the doctrine that no fault ever attaches to policy and operations. This No Fault conviction prevents them from taking too seriously such notorious foul-ups as Desert One, Grenada, Lebanon, and now the Persian Gulf.

It is this that one has to overcome to try to persuade men that the conventional wisdom is often wrong of matters of war and state. Life too often shows that it is the unconventional wisdom that has the truth on its side. So it does in the infinitely immoral and unnecessary, since Japan wanted to surrender before the event, dropping of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II.

In this goal I'll use (primarily) Mr. John V. Denson for help...

In his article "The Hiroshima Myth" he writes:

The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the Emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the Emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945.

It is true that Japan government was not willing to surrender unconditionally. They were not willing to give up their Emperor. "The Japanese religion," writes Denson, has "the belief that all the Emperors were the direct descendants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu."

Denson quotes a passage of a book called The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperocitz, which I will excerpt:

We have noted a series of Japanese peace feelers in Switzerland which OSS Chief William Donovan reported to Truman in May and June [1945]. These suggested, even at this point, that the U.S. demand for unconditional surrender might well be the only serious obstacle to peace.

...At the center of the explorations, as we also saw, was Allen Dulles, chief of OSS operations in Switzerland (and subsequently Director of the CIA). In his 1966 book "The Secret Surrender", Dulles recalled that "On July 20, 1945, under instructions from Washington, I went to the Potsdam Conference and reported there to Secretary [of War] Stimson on what I had learned from Tokyo – they desired to surrender if they could retain the Emperor and their constitution as a basis for maintaining discipline and order in Japan after the devastating news of surrender became known to the Japanese people." [Emphasis mine]

It was "documented by Alperocitz that Stimson reported this directly to Truman." To continue:

Alperovitz further points out in detail the documentary proof that every top presidential civilian and military advisor, with the exception of James Byrnes, along with Prime Minister Churchill and his top British military leadership, urged Truman to revise the unconditional surrender policy so as to allow the Japanese to surrender and keep their Emperor. All this advice was given to Truman prior to the Potsdam Proclamation which occurred on July 26, 1945.

And here is Gary G. Kohls in "Whitewashing Hiroshima: The Uncritical Glorification of American Militarism":

Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman, said in his war memoirs, "I Was There": "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." And General Dwight Eisenhower agreed. [Emphasis mine.]

Gary Kohls talks about the destruction:

An estimated 80,000 innocent civilians – plus 20,000 young essentially weaponless Japanese conscripts – died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing. Hundreds of thousands suffered agonizing burns, leukemia and infections for the rest of their shortened lives, and generations of the survivor's progeny inherited horrible radiation-induced illnesses, cancers and premature death. What has been covered up is the fact that 12 American Navy pilots, their existence well known to the US command, were incinerated in the Hiroshima jail on Aug. 6.

The 75,000 Nagasaki victims were virtually all innocent civilians, except for the inhabitants of an allied POW camp near Nagasaki's ground zero. They were incinerated, carbonized, then evaporated, by a scientific experiment carried out by obedient, unaware soldiers. The War Dept. knew of the existence of the POWs but, when informed, simply replied: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard (atomic bomb mission code name) remain unchanged." [Emphasis mine.]

Japan would have surrendered, if the U.S. agreed to let them keep the emperor. But in the end this is exactly what happened. The terms of surrender were exactly how the Japanese government wanted it to be! Dropping the bombs was needless bloodshed and frankly evil.

John Denson closes with this:

Now that we live in the nuclear age and there are enough nuclear weapons spread around the world to destroy civilization, we need to face the fact that America is the only country to have used this awful weapon and that it was unnecessary to have done so. If Americans would come to recognize the truth, rather than the myth, it might cause such a moral revolt that we would take the lead throughout the world in realizing that wars in the future may well become nuclear, and therefore all wars must be avoided at almost any cost. Hopefully, our knowledge of science has not outrun our ability to exercise prudent and humane moral and political judgment to the extent that we are destined for extermination.

I recommend you all read the above two articles for more details. Here is further online reading:

• Remembering Hiroshima by David R. Henderson
• The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Untold Story by Gary G. Kohls
• A Military Chaplain Repents by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
• Hillary, Hiroshima, and Hubris: Justifying mass murder by Justin Raimondo