Subject:
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Re: The Eternal Nuke Debate? (was: Re: First entry in "predict the responses!")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 23 May 2002 00:25:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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434 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> Just a psychological sidebar. Yes, I think dropping the bombs was
> justified, only for a slightly different mix of reasons--some of
> which may not have been apparent to Truman and the CGS in July
> and August of 1945.
I guess I am just trying to give some perspective to the "us vs. them"
mentality that seems to pervade these discussions -- and I insist that there
is no "us" and also no "them." Human being are capable of atrocity if
pushed to a point beyond their feeling safe. The result is horror -- war
and everything worse than war.
John seems to think there is some other creature out there that does things
Americans wouldn't do, and that much at least is false. We have done it,
and our power in the world is predicated on the threat that we will do it again.
Some nutty Palestinian runs into a public place in Israel with a bomb
strapped to his torso and blows himself up along with everybody and
everything in his vicinity. Him we call a "madman" -- he has taken innocent
lives in what should be a strictly military conflict. For "them" we have a
set of rules that claims, in part, that warriors only fight against other
warriors -- this is how ethical wars are fought.
And what -- the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were inhabited entirely by
military personnel? I don't think so. The only slightly more ethical thing
about our bombing methods is that they don't include suicide as part of the
bombing process -- at least one set of lives is spared, that being the lives
of the bombers themselves. But, blowing people apart at the atomic level and
turning pavement into glass is not an ethical activity - it never was and
never can be.
I dunno -- here I am trying to make sense of chaos. Wars are not ethical.
Pointing out the ethical warrior flaws of the other side is like shooting
fish in a barrel. When it comes to war, everyone is wrong. In the main, I
object to the idea that we are speaking of it from some kind of morally
superior position. Once upon a time, we did what we thought was necessary
to save our own skins and those of the ones we considered allies or
otherwise in need of our aid. Some of our war heroes even sacrificed their
own lives for the sake of the rest of us. Everyone else in the world acts
in pretty much the same manner -- no more or less morally superior or
culpable than ourselves.
When it comes to dying, it's always better it should be the other guy than
oneself -- I just want to point out that this position, while understandable
and probably a universally held attitude, is not a morally superior stance.
But while John has decided to throw in the idea of rationality into the mix
here, why can't we discuss how each side saving their own skins is not
exclusive of the other side doing the same thing. When you have peace, you
don't need to be justified.
So LFB, that some good results may have obtained from the horrors of WWII --
if you could ask them, it probably wouldn't mean much to those that died in
Japan. But yes, flowers may grow out of the matter in which other things
have died.
As W.S. Burroughs wrote of the Corn God of the Mayans "Death is the seed in
which I grow."
-- Hop-Frog
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