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(...) Exactly correct-- my point was that I'm not sure I understand what ends you believe were intended. If the end was "to scare the Japanese" rather than "to have Japan surrender", then yes, I agree that the bombing may have been necessary. I just (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) In your defense, though, I would assert that it's not necessary (possible?) to be completely moral. However, in a field of several choices, the greatest "net good" outcome is preferable to less "net good" outcomes. We can be criticized after (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) It would still be cowardly for them to fly their own planes into the buildings because they would be making an unprovoked attack against innocent and unsuspecting civilians on the civilians' home soil during a time when the home nation was at (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Isn't that what I said? (...) Now you're the one who's going for the complicated explanation ;) I could draw it out further and say isn't one of Osama's major "justifications" with the US the fact that we dropped the Bomb on the Japanese as an (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) I think we differ on this. You can't separate ends from means. Here's my view If the end was intended to be moral, but it is achieved by immoral actions (immoral in this usage means bad morals, not amoral) it comes out immoral anyway. If the (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Just some minor picking while I try to think about that hole. (...) Dan's referenced site makes the case that it wasn't a "drop one, then decide to drop the other" plan. Both were dropped as part of the same plan, so you should take issue with (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Well-- two things. First off, you may be quite right-- I don't really know what our mentality was at the time. Perhaps that was the best information we had available, which would mean that an A-bomb hit MAY have been the only way to show that (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Yes, but not for the reasons you state, I think. The hole is that I don't think morality is necessarily tied to these events. Whether or not it was a moral action doesn't matter to whether it was "necessary" or not, unless your ends are (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Yes, let's not blur the issue-- what part does being cowardly have in being a terrorist? Let's say they flew their own planes into our buildings. No longer a terrorist action? I don't think whether they/we were cowardly or not is really (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) no argument there from me - one question though. what if, fearing the canadians, you abandon your land for 30 years? do you still own it, and everything that has been built on it since? it's possible to contend that whoever settled the (now (...) (24 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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