Things Noted Here and There ...

Alan Allport - 8/7/2005

A joke, Jonathan, a joke ...

Jonathan Dresner - 8/7/2005

I don't consider "Professor" to be "name calling" usually. Apologies for the premature designation; I can't keep track, sometimes.

Alan Allport - 8/7/2005

If we're going to have this discussion, it'll be without the snide asides. You've already called me morally bankrupt

Well, you did start the name-calling by referring to me as a Professor.

And I said your contention was morally bankrupt. I meant that in a very specific sense - that it had no exchange value that I could see in the marketplace of ideas. I'm sure (for the record) your personal moral credentials are AAA-rated. As for asking about your preference so far as the outcome of WWII is concerned - I was being quite sincere. There are folks out there, usually of the hardline pacifist type, who have argued that the conduct and outcome of the war was so disastrous for humanity that who won and who lost was at least to some extent a matter of indifference. I strongly disagree with this view, but I see that it is not entirely without merit and it is of the non-lunatic type. I was not attributing it to you, simply acknowledging that it exists.

Now, please stop being so touchy.

The causal relationship between the use of the bombs and the effects I mention is not "weak," it is indeterminate because nobody has really spent the time and energy to figure out what happened.

If you can suggest some really cogent reasons as to why the use of the A-Bombs helped produce the arms race (and so on), then I'd certainly be willing to listen to them. But I would suggest that the absence of such reasons isn't an 'indeterminacy'; it's an absence. It seems to me that the source of all the effects you mention lies in the existence of the bombs rather than their use; why would events after 1945 have turned out differently had the bombs never been used? Until at least a sketch of an counterargument appears then there's nothing to even contest.

I don't accept your premises or conclusions on the arms race, nor is your assumption about my "real beef" correct. "Total war" does not necessarily mean "unrestrained destruction"; it means the total committment of social, economic, human and political resources to the pursuit of war, but that does not automatically make all of those "resources" legitimate targets for obliteration.

Well, you are of course entitled to create whatever personal definition of total war you wish, but all I was trying to get at was that in WWII the term became generally understood by the Allies to mean (amongst other things) that traditional 'non-combatants' were now legitimate targets of attack. Would you agree with that? And would I be right in saying that you regard that attitude as one of the principal moral failings of the Allies during the war?

Jonathan Dresner - 8/7/2005

The causal relationship between the use of the bombs and the effects I mention is not "weak," it is indeterminate because nobody has really spent the time and energy to figure out what happened. I don't accept your premises or conclusions on the arms race, nor is your assumption about my "real beef" correct. "Total war" does not necessarily mean "unrestrained destruction"; it means the total committment of social, economic, human and political resources to the pursuit of war, but that does not automatically make all of those "resources" legitimate targets for obliteration.

If we're going to have this discussion, it'll be without the snide asides. You've already called me morally bankrupt, and I'm not sure why I should continue to enlighten you if I'm going to have to fight WWII all over again to do it.

Alan Allport - 8/6/2005

OK. But the causal relationship between the use of the A-Bombs in August 1945 and most of the effects you mention is rather weak. Once a successful nuclear device was invented, there was going to be a nuclear arms race between the USSR and the West - whether or not the bomb was actually employed at the end of WWII really had little to do with that one way or another (if Truman had stayed his hand, would Stalin have suddenly lost interest in nuclear weapons?) It seems to me that your real beef is with the much more fundamental decision by the Allies to accept conditions of total war against the Axis. That's fair enough, but I'm curious then as to what you think the Americans should have done in order to defeat Japan (I'm assuming that you think a Japanese defeat the desirable outcome to the war; please correct me if I'm wrong).

Jonathan Dresner - 8/6/2005

Well, as you point out in your post above, mechanistic explanations are, at best, metaphors. I do not consider the use of the atomic bombs and their short term effects separate from the long-term effects of nuclear weapons development and manufacture (including devastating pollution and disease among "downwinder" populations), proliferation (we can't really call that a closed issue, can we?), and the cultural impacts (I'd call them "damage" but we should leave that for another discussion) of a decision so terrible that we still haven't come to grips with it.

Alan Allport - 8/6/2005

That the bombs saved lives is, at best, a "watertight assertion" in the short run. I do not accept it as a long-term proposition.

I would be interested to know why. (And I mean that really. If you ever have time to go into this in more detail).

Jonathan Dresner - 8/6/2005

That the bombs saved lives is, at best, a "watertight assertion" in the short run. I do not accept it as a long-term proposition.

David Silbey - 8/6/2005

"Using them was a crime against humanity, a crime even in the context of that great crime, war. It was understandable in context, even possibly the best conceivable course of action by those men at that time; nonetheless, I consider it a stain on our national honor"

Let me ask a hypothetical question. If Truman had decided not to use the bomb and in the next week, the Army Air Force had mounted a massive conventional bombing attack on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using incendaries and hundreds of B-29s, and destroyed with both cities losses of life similar to the A-Bombings, would you feel it was crime against humanity?

Alan Allport - 8/6/2005

I don't care if they saved lives (based on our best, most subtle post hoc calculations, to rectify the sloppiness of our failed contemporary rationalizations).

The rationalization for using the bombs has not changed; it was always based on the calculation that it would save lives. In recent years that calculation has broadened in scope to include lives originally marginalized for ethnocentric reasons - so for example we are now more inclined to consider the fates of the 20-25 million Asians, mostly non-combatants, who died because of Japanese aggression, rather than simply those of the Allied soldiers who would have died in an invasion of Japan. But the logic of the rationalization has not changed. I am glad, by the way, that you don't appear to seriously challenge the point that the bombs did save lives. That I think is now a watertight assertion.

This, Prof. Allport, is the crux of our disagreement: you are arguing about ends v. ends, without regard to the means; I'm arguing about means v. means, without regard to the results. Because, no matter how noble our ends, our means must be consistent with those ends, or else the short-term benefits of a shortcut will be wiped out in the long-term consequences.

With respect, your argument seems even more bizarre now. You appear to be saying that a 1940s-era atomic bomb was so unequivocably an evil weapon, exclusive to all others in the arsenal of the period, that it would have been better if it wasn't used even if more people died as a result, and died in an even more horrible way - say, slow starvation through blockade, which was about the only other means to bring Japan to surrender in 1945 other than a grotesque slaughter through invasion, be it Soviet or Anglo-American. You may feel that this is a philosophically consistent position; that's fine. I think it's morally bankrupt. But as you say, we're unlikely to reach any further agreement on this.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/6/2005

If I gave the impression that I didn't have an opinion about the justice or rightness of the bombs, I apologize, and I'll clarify: I condemn them. I condemn Hiroshima and I condemn Nagasaki.

I don't care if they saved lives (based on our best, most subtle post hoc calculations, to rectify the sloppiness of our failed contemporary rationalizations). Using them was a crime against humanity, a crime even in the context of that great crime, war. It was understandable in context, even possibly the best conceivable course of action by those men at that time; nonetheless, I consider it a stain on our national honor (Note: I'm never prouder to be an American than I am when I avail myself of the right to catalog our failings in hope of improving us) and I believe that we abjure (I'm using that word a lot tonight) arguments which might lead us to sin again.

This, Prof. Allport, is the crux of our disagreement: you are arguing about ends v. ends, without regard to the means; I'm arguing about means v. means, without regard to the results. Because, no matter how noble our ends, our means must be consistent with those ends, or else the short-term benefits of a shortcut will be wiped out in the long-term consequences.

David Timothy Beito - 8/4/2005

Greg: Thanks. I overstated. Thanks for the info. Schuyler may not have been a conservative in 1942 but he was moving rapidly moving the Old Right during the war and continued to oppose the internment in the decades after the war. Interstingly, Scholars also opposed the Great Sedition Trial of righwingers in 1944, unlike the hard left which applauded it.

Another conservative critic was R.C. Hoiles of the Santa Anna Register (now Orange County Register), who, according to Kenneth R. Gregg, was opposing it from a very early stage.. For more details, see here: http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=49796#49796 http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9623.html Taft was not a critic as such but seems to qualify as reluctant....certainly compared to congressional colleagues.

Greg James Robinson - 8/3/2005

Based on my research, I would not say that "many" early critics of the internment were conservatives. Of course, there were not "many" early critics, if by "early" you mean in 1942 when the West Coast Japanese Americans were removed. (I am not sure that George Schuyler counts as a conservative in 1942). The few who opposed Executive Order 9066 were either liberal-Left (Pearl S. Buck, Norman Thomas), African Americans (Hugh MacBeth, W.E.B. DuBois, E. Franklin Frazier, Paul Robeson) or religious progressives. It is true that in the early postwar years, a few conservatives and many moderates regretted the government's action, but so did many of the people who had been involved.

Alan Allport - 8/2/2005

If the allies had the wherewithal to obliterate six more major German cities, they could have wiped out the Holocaust infrastructure, then it wouldn't have mattered quite as much how many months the war dragged on.

That doesn't necessarily follow (the main problem that the Allies had in attacking the Holocaust apparatus was distance, not quantity of aircraft - the camp infrastructure lay too far eastward - and that wouldn't have been altered by an increase in resources). But the idea that if you subtract Holocaust deaths then it "doesn't matter quite as much how many months the war dragged on" strikes me as peculiar. Battle casualties increased as the war dragged on; 360,000 killed in Operation Bagration, half a million in the Battle of Berlin (that's not even taking the Western Front into account). And according to Speer the city-bombing that did take place probably stripped twelve months off the length of the war - also cutting short the Holocaust program. That's a calculus that ought to give anyone pause for thought.

I am considerably less interested in rehashing the 20th century's dilemmas than I am in producing some principles and institutions by which the 21st century can be qualitatively different.

Fair enough, but if rehashing isn't your style then you really shouldn't lay down prescriptions for jus in bello that - it appears, at least - are intended to apply retroactively.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/2/2005

What I would do, and what I would like to think I could accomplish, are two different things. You're presenting a zero-sum dilemma (with your assumptions, not mine) when historical scenarios aren't. If the allies had the wherewithal to obliterate six more major German cities, they could have wiped out the Holocaust infrastructure, then it wouldn't have mattered quite as much how many months the war dragged on.

I am considerably less interested in rehashing the 20th century's dilemmas than I am in producing some principles and institutions by which the 21st century can be qualitatively different.

Ralph E. Luker - 8/1/2005

Oscar, I think you're letting Adesnik off the hook a little too easily. For one thing, I don't think that Secretaries of State, Republican or no, appear _because_ they are black. More importantly, I think that it would be fairly easy to run through a list of obvious guests, Charles Rangel, John Lewis, Barak Obama, etc., and obvious experts, and obvious journalists who could give Sunday morning a little more color.

Oscar Chamberlain - 8/1/2005

Ralph, you are right about the ugly tone of Adesnik's critique. However, in his criticism he somewhat inadvertently makes an important point. Too few of the major players in DC are black; and it is major players are who are interviewed.

How about DC outsiders? Any guest on those shows who is not a major DC player is almost certainly well known independently. Otherwise that person won't be a draw.
How many African-Americans outside are well known political actors? Again, it's a small number, and we have seen them a lot, haven't we?

Now one can argue that these shows should be more inovative in who they interview, and I would agree. But these are not investigative programs. They are not documentaries. They are intended to be interviews of the powerful, and few blacks have power.

One solution is in the hand of the political parties and other major interest groups. They can make sure that blacks are among their point persons on key issues. Right now, the Republicans are better at that but there are only so many black Republicans.

PS Perhaps the networks prefer inviting black republicans rather than black democrats because the former still have a bit of a "man bites dog" draw.

Alan Allport - 8/1/2005

There's no reason conventional bombing, if it were targetted and restrained, can't be considered a legitimate tool of war by our current rules, but atomic bombs (even the first couple of them) are still city-killers, with little possibility of redemption.

There's an assumption here that only 'targetted and restrained' bombing - standards notoriously difficult to explain or define, as WWII demonstrated - is a legitimate form of warfare, and that 'city-killing' is not. Fine. But here's one thought. After the firebombing of Hamburg in July 1943 Albert Speer said that if the Allies destroyed six more cities in the same way, Germany would effectively be out of the war. It didn't happen, mainly because the RAF and USAAF lacked the means. And one doesn't have to accept Speer's claim. But let's say he was right. Would it have been immoral to kill six more German cities like Hamburg and bring the Second World War to an conclusion almost two years before it actually did end? Would that have been a 'redeemable' act? What would you have done if the decision had been in your hands?

Jonathan Dresner - 8/1/2005

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with defining the atomic bombs as "just another big bomb" in effect. Mostly because of the terrifying effects of radiation poisoning, but also because of the impossibility of using them without raising these kinds of ethical questions: there's no reason conventional bombing, if it were targetted and restrained, can't be considered a legitimate tool of war by our current rules, but atomic bombs (even the first couple of them) are still city-killers, with little possibility of redemption.

David Timothy Beito - 8/1/2005

The same is also true, btw, for the Japanese internment. Many early critics of the internment were conservatives, such as George Schuyler.

Ralph E. Luker - 8/1/2005

I take your first point. It's a good one. On the second point, the conservative critique extended beyond the years of the Truman administration and is found even in the early issues of National Review, which has to be pretty surprising, given the current configuration of American politics. It may have drawn on an older tradition of conservative advocacy of restraint -- even isolationism -- in foreign policy. Whatever the virtues of that tradition, it seems utterly lost to contemporary neo-conservatives.

Alan Allport - 8/1/2005

Doesn't the fact that there has been no subsequent use of an nuclear weapon in warfare or the centrality of nuclear arms control, first to east/west, and now to international diplomatic negotiations, give you pause in asking the question?

I don't think the atomic weapons of today can be usefully compared to those of 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man were essentially big conventional bombs; they did damage on a scale similar to that of the large British and American raids over Germany, just faster. Their technical apparatus was novel, but their effect was not, except in terms of speed. The kinds of atomic weapons that really did threaten the future of mankind were not invented until the 1950s, and I don't think it's helpful to refer to them when trying to understand the events of 1945. In any case, the world entered the atomic age in July, not August, 1945, with the first successful test of an A-bomb. Even if Little Boy and Fat Man had not been used against the Japanese, they could not be uninvented. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks had no causal bearing on the subequent nuclear arms race, except perhaps to deter the future use of such weapons.

What Malley and Mohan don't mention, although I would have thought it an obvious enough point, is that the 1940s conservatives were attacking the decisions of a sitting Democratic president. Surely mundane partisanship was not completely absent in these critiques.

Ralph E. Luker - 8/1/2005

Alan, Malley and Mohan are better qualified to answer your question than I am. What interested me about their piece was not the conclusion you cite, but the prior building of evidence of conservative opposition to the decision to drop the bomb in the first generation after the war. Doesn't the fact that there has been no subsequent use of an nuclear weapon in warfare or the centrality of nuclear arms control, first to east/west, and now to international diplomatic negotiations, give you pause in asking the question?

Alan Allport - 8/1/2005

Leo Malley and Uday Mohan suggest that: "Sixty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, we have an opportunity to grapple anew with the questions surrounding that event." Why? I have never really understood why the atomic bombings are regarded as so uniquely controversial. If - and I mean that as a big if - the United States crossed a moral line, then it did so years before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when it began radar-assisted (and in practical terms, fairly indiscriminate) bombing of urban targets in Germany - raids which resulted in far more aggregate destruction and loss of life than anything Little Boy and Fat Man did. In terms of casualties the A-Bomb raids were a footnote to the strategic firebombing of Japan. I do not really understand why killing city-dwellers with uranium is a different kind of ethical challenge than killing them with TNT or jellied gasoline.