http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7073441.stm
Apparently he requested to not have a funeral ceremony or headstone incase they became targets for anti-Nuclear protesting. I'm curious to know how people saw him; a monster who assisted genocide or just a man doing his job?
the latter
clearly
The criticim he recieved during his life
and the fact he wants an unmarked grave would suggest it isn't that clear to everyone
well it should be
poor bloke. way to draw the short straw regards the duty roster.
Ours is not to reason why...
a man doing a job that i could never do
Fly a plane?
Now now
he had to press a big red button too
There were more than just him in the plane
He flew the plane, he didn't actually drop the bomb, that would have been somebody else.
yeah too much duff
dying with dignity?
watch it you!
just doing your job
is not excuse for anything.
especially if your job is killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in less than a minute.
If it was the choice between me pressing the red button and shooting myself in the head I'd choose the latter. In reality it was the choice between pressing the red button and getting severly court martialled, dishonourable discharge and severely bollocked. Again I think I'd choose the latter.
Many people are culpable for hiroshima and there's no level on which he isn't one of them.
if this was me, now, then
perhaps this ^
BUT, this was the 40s, this was a man trained and conditioned to kill as a member of the military, and this was in World War where the goodies/baddies were slightly more clearly marked out.
oh sorry
I didn't realise the civilians of hiroshima were baddies.
oh come on
you know thats not what I mean!
i'm just trying to say its not quite as simple as 'you old mass murdering wanker'.
I don't believe
that I claimed it was that simple.
What I said was that it being your 'job' to kill thousands of people does not absolve you of moral respsonsibility for doing so. I also put forward the opinion that this pilot clearly had a choice, and that he chose to go through with this act of killing and so must shoulder some (but by no means all) of the blame.
I don't accept that him being 'conditioned' or being succesfully brainwashed into viewing the conflict in terms of absolute rights and wrongs/goodies and baddies is an excuse either.
He knew what would happen when he pressed that button. How many children and innocent non-combatants did he vapourise by dropping that bomb? To be able to press that button shows either and dangerous lack of empathy, or at the very least a severe lack of imagination.
Even if he rationalised it, as lyle does below, by saying that those deaths accelerated the end of the war, then he still directly killed those people - and whether you consider it right or not that's still a bigger body count than probably any other person in history.
you'll note i've refrained from direct value judgements on his character, I have also not speculated as to his masturbatory habits.
A simplistic point perhaps
but if he had refused, surely someone else would have done it? In this sense, does it matter who the body count can be attributed to?
well that's fine
but once again if someone had said to me 'either you kill these hundred thousand people, or we sack you and get someone else to do it' I'd have still chosen the latter.
Cowardly perhaps, but that's not the issue. The issue is can we blame the person who did, in the end, drop the bombs? He was a tool of a military strategy which would have been enacted anyway. But he still chose, to an extent, to be the executioner of that strategy. And I think that means he is partially to blame.
I'm not saying I'd go round his house and push dogshit through his letterbox because of it - I'm just saying he can't be absolved of all blame.
No, I think I agree
I definitely would have refused to use a weapon that would kill so many people (or at least I think I would; I suppose the cicumstances under which I decided this are drastically different to those under which he made his decision).
I'm just looking at it fatalistically; someone was bound to do it
every soldier in a war
can be blamed for his actions.
Now the people that should really be considered responsible are the ones that gave the order... Yes, the pilot could have said no and faced military trial. They would have found someone else faced with the same moral dilemna. Who could have said no and faced military trial...
he was a pilot of a bomber
so it was certainly not the first time he killed a lot of people including many non-combatants...
War is morally unacceptable. Every soldier has a moral respsonsibility for killing people.
Yes, bombing is especially awful but it was war. Moral judgements at times of war are always difficult.
I agree with all that
and I don't think it contradicts anything I've said.
No really indeed.
The problem of moral for soldiers is really difficult.
Look at first world war. Hundreds of french soldiers were executed for refusing to obey orders when they realised they were just sent to a massacre without any point. Officers than make them executed were later heroes of war...
bf
Like restlessboy said...just cos you take money to do something, you aren't absolved from all moral responsibility.
So yes- he's the man that ultimately accepted money to kill more people than anyone in the history of time has ever killed. Fucking worst mass murderer ever and he lives to be an old man. Where's the justice in that
he was a military during war
so killing people wasn't out of question...
And if Hiroshima was an horrible thing, you have to keep in mind it helps stop the war faster and with a far smaller number of casualties...
during a dying war
But Japan wasn't going to surrener
unless something spectacular happened, see below
^ this
Japan was not going to surrender, and the choice was the bombs or and invasion of mainland Japan; an invasion which the US army had estimated would cost 8 million lives. That's not casulaties, that's deaths.
Also, it wasn't more people than had ever been killed ever; a few weeks previously a conventional bombing raid on Tokyo had killed 10,000 more people than Hiroshima and Nagaska put together.
bf
yeah...we WOULD be told that though, wouldn't we. Being on the winning side and all that
I still stick by it. Being paid to do something doesn't absolve you of moral responsibility.
Be told what?
bf
^a classic case of pretending not to understand in an attempt to avoid addressing your debating opponents points.
See also: below
No, a classic case
of not knowing which of the two points I raised you were referencing so being unable to reply in an informed manner. If you could classify I'd be more than happy to continue :)
yes
and more people died in the firebombings of dresden than died in hiroshima, just took a few more bombs to do it. And every pilot who dropped those bombs also shares the blame for the deaths he caused. So it goes.
My favourite line in that book is
"Billy had a tremendous wang by the way. You never know who will get one" or something along those lines
a far smaller number of
casualties maybe but how many birth defects and deformed children are now being born as a result of it.
I don't think
nor the pilot or even the scientists had an idea of long lasting consequences of radiation poisoning.
bf
ignorance is never an excuse. If you don't know what something is going to do, don't fucking drop it
Then pray tell, all knowing sage
how would you have ended a war against an enemy that was refusing to surrender?
ah
good. so you can't explain why ignorance is an excuse so you turn the argument around by daring grockle to propose a retrospectively coherent military strategy for an world wide conflict that took place 50 years ago.
The fact is the question wasn't 'did it end the war?' or 'who killed more people?' it's 'was this pilot culpable for the deaths in hiroshima?'.
I said nothing about ignorance
you're confusing me with soembody else.
It's just Monsieur Grockle is seemingly opposed to the dropping of the bomb, and I'm just interested to know what other course of action there was?
no
but grockle's point was that ignorance is not an excuse. and that's the point you failed to address. what you did was challenge him to propose a better option when he never claimed he had one.
That's a fault of replying in the wrong place
I was talking generally of his attitude across the thread.
Calm down dear, it's only a commercial
I'm calm
don't mistake robust argument for someone getting pissed off.
ooooooooooo!
bf
He's just flailing- and wilfully misunderstanding you, as he did me to try and avoid any meaningful debate beyond a few hackneyed phrases and ill developed concepts
Sorry master
I'll refrain from daring to disagree with you in future. I was just asking a question, to which I was interested in your answer, but OK. I'll sit in the corner.
And that's not facetious (sp)
it's just you seem opposed to the dropping of the bombs, and an invasion would've cost even more lives, I'm just interested as to if you had been in charge what you would've done.
that's absurd
they were capable of balancing the bombs to make them work, of course they knew about radiation poisoning
I don't hink they did understand it very well
under the plans drawn up for the invasion for japan. they considered using nukes against Japanese troops and the advice they gave to the army was to not enter the area where the bomb was dropped "for at least 48 hours". This would have fucked the American troops up quite a lot.
so many things are done
without having any ideas of long-term consequences...
true
but science was advanced enough to know that unstable atoms would create a massive explosion. they also knew that it caused massive molecular reactions and that humans are carbon based life forms. so it would be extreme naivety to suggest there wouldn't be side effects.
So...
How many posts did it take for this to turn into an argument about using the atom bomb on Japan...
It's about 60 years too late really to argue about whether it was justified or not. Just hope like hell no-one is ever damn fool enough to ever use one (and wipe out the planet most likely this time) ever again.
potd
so far...
In war or battle there are horrible choices to be made
everyone who does this will have to reconcile it with themselves.
You may be on 'the wrong side'
That is your misfortune.
Combatants sometimes make innocents victims.
Sometimes the combatants 'stay innocent' through judgement (or luck)
Even Combatants who have killed 'more innocent' victims can be victims if they survive
Basically the wrong uns are those who welcome or speed up or proong or unecessarily intensify hostilities.
Sometimes those who are the wrong uns are 'wrong' because they are themselves damaged, sometimes they were like it before.
There is no answer, except NOT to over glorify war (which we unfortunately do in films...originally the celebration of heroism and selfsacrifice was a necessity to hold people together, then a consolation for the amount of loss ( and a balancer for the atrocities that happen) unfortunately the films continue and the bravery and heroism seems like something of its own end (of course power is the real motivator)
Nowadays there are fewer war films, but still far more gun carnage pron.
And people still revel far too much in jingoistic headlines.....behind every victory is a tradgedy, dont just celebrate victory, measure the consequences of your victory against the consequences if you were defeated or never gone to war.
WWII is one of the few wars that it would have been morally weaker for a country such as britain not to join.
it seems to me that it was right for us to have militarily opposed the axis.
The overall nastyness ramped up (although this might not seem true to those who endured the british blitz)
Individuals might have felt caught up in something massive where they felt very small.
Only they themselves can truly judge themselves.
Clearly the guy
was just doing his job. To even begin to judge him over 60 years after the event is ridiculous. If you want to play that particular blame game, then you can just as easily say Japan brought it on themsleves with Pearl harbour and stuff...
that's a non sequitur
it's not about Japan 'bringing it on themselves' or otherwise. it's whether he's absolved of responsiblity for those deaths by virtue of the fact that it was his job/he was following orders.
I think that no he's not for reasons I've given above. Whether, as a military strategy, bombing hiroshima was a good move is not relevant to the original question.
the only (slightly) good thing
might be that its use and peoples horror at the idea prevented any of the later bigger ones, when there were many and some might be used in retaliation.
It might have made america and russia more wary about wanting to start anything.
I mean everyone was shocked and in awe of those bombs in japan, far more so than the regular bombings that might have killed more.
It's a difficult one
Yeah, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. But what about the potential number of deaths that would have resulted from a land invasion of Japan? The main argument of those who backed the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is that those potential deaths on both sides were avoided due to Japan's surredering after the bombs were drop. But on the other hand, can a mass killing of civilians on such a scale even be justified in a war situation?
Dropping that bomb certainly isn't a choice I would ever want to make.
By the by this fella
didn't fly the plane and drop the bomb single handedly, which some posts seem to suggest he did.
what difference does that make?
to quote his obituary
he considered it to be a normal bombing run until he turn round to see the result and was astonished by the size of the explosion. Truman asked him, in a private meeting with carious senior officers, what he' dthought of it and he said 'I think I did ask I was told' to which Truman slammed his hand on the desk and said 'You're damn rght you did, I'm the guy who sent you and if anybody gives you a hard time about it, send them to me.'
So there. Have a word with Harry. He's dead? Oh well.
Other sources
including the BBC article I posted suggest that once he knew about the consequences of the bomb, he still fully backed its use though.
yeah
so i suppose this is all pretty academic. The guy never asked forgiveness cos he didn't think he did anything wrong. Which is suppose is best for his own mental health.
Disturbs me that someone could sleep at night after killing thousands of people. Maybe I should ask Tony Blair how he manages?
He's religious
I went there
exactly
unquestioning faith leads to people being able to do stuff like this with a clear conscience. Whether that faith is in Jebus, Allah, or the United States Government.
In the same way of course
he was also partially respnsible for the OMD hit Enola Gay.
Consider him absolved.
I think this is just another case of
personnal moral VS moral/law of a society.
Bombings were considered a normal way of doing war ( and used ) by both sides. So the guy was just doing something that was ( and still is )deemed acceptable by the countries involved in times of war. The fact it was a atom bomb with unknown consequences doesn't change that : using advanced forms of weaponry always has been a way of doing war.
Now, as an individual, I do find the use of massive bombings putting civilians at risk morally repulsive. That doesn't give me the right to judge the morality of the guy from Hiroshima or the actual soldiers in Afghanistan or Irak : they're just doing what both sides are thinking is normal. BUT I can think that the people in charge are wrong in authorizing the use of massive bombings. I find Bush and his superior officers morally guilty of the death of civilians in Irak. Not the soldiers that put the bombs.
The sad part is that it'll be the soldiers that will have nightmares about it...
and the question is
if I was ordered in time of war to push on a button that would cause a massive bombing, would I have the courage to stand on my moral ground and refuse while risking trial...
I know what you're saying
but an army's only effective if the soldiers are willing to carry out its orders.
It's old 'but lyle told me to do it' vs 'if lyle told you to jump off a bridge would you do that?'.
At some point there must come an order that a decent human being thinks twice about. How many terrifying psychology experiments into obedience do we need before people realise they need to think a bit more to avoid being roped into something awful?
The fact that you disagree with the politicians who start a war isn't what gives you the right to ask questions about the morality of soliders. You have that right anyway, and so do they. That's the ultimate point.
As for whether I'd have the courage, if i was a solider, to refuse an order I disagreed with is not something I'm ever likely to know. I'd like to think so, but being a soldier in the first place would pretty much go against my principles so....
Do you really have the right to question the morality of someone ?
You might disagree with what he's doing but if it's socially and legally acceptable, I won't judge him.
I agree about not obeying blindly to an order but dropping a bomb isn't a more anormal order than shooting a soldier with a gun in 'modern' war.
And most people don't choose being a soldier during war, they're drafted to it... Think of all those poor guys executed in 1917 for just thinking the order they were given were pointless...
of course we have the right
otherwise you're advocating blind obedience.
And yes conscription was awful. But I think it's a different situation when someone's unwillingly put into a situation of 'fight or die'.
I think I'd observe a modicum of restraint if I heard an old man say 'I killed five german soliders in WWII, otherwise they'd have killed me.' I don't think I'd turn around and say 'well then you're responsible for their deaths, you're a murderer!'
it's not advocating blind obedience.
It's respecting people choices !
well
what you said was 'do we have the right to question the morality of someone?' and I think we do. If we don't then we have to accept all actions taken as long as someone says 'this is in keeping with my own personal morality'.
So someone who doesn't think killing is wrong - do we question them or not?
that's all I'm saying.
you can respect someone's right to believe what they want and still question them on it.
question ? yes.
judge ? I think no.
And someone who doesn't think killing is wrong, is against the moral laws agreed by society, which isn't the same thing.