August 6, 1945. Could we have at least afforded them a demonstration detonation offshore beforehand? They still would not have surrendered, but we would have met a certain moral obligation. -nvp
Thanks to Dr. Mazza for the following:
“…the use of the A-bomb on the Japanese cities
in 1945 was immoral. Too many civilians were
killed in comparison with the military objectives
gained. Some…argue that by killing so many
civilians our armies terrorized the people…to
surrender…more lives were spared than were
destroyed by the bomb. But such an argument…
results in a bad means to a good end.”
–Fr. Francis J. Connell, Dean School of Theology, CUA,
Outlines of Moral Theology, 1958
As for the eight priests who miraculously survived at Ground Zero (ICYMI):
Fr. Hubert Schiffer had just finished Mass, went into the
rectory and sat down at the breakfast table. He had just
sliced a grapefruit and put his spoon into it when there
was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was
an explosion in the harbor (this was a major port where
the Japanese refueled submarines.)
Then, in the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific
explosion filled the air with one bursting thunderstroke.
An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me
through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ’round
and ’round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.”
…
To the doctors’ amazement, Father Schiffer and the other priests had no
radiation or ill-effects from the bomb. When asked to account for this
incredible situation, in which he and his companions were spared, he
said: “We believe that we survived because we were living the message
of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
He felt that they received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother,
which protected them from all radiation and ill-effects. (This coincides
with the bombing of Nagasaki, where St. Maximilian Kolbe had
established a Franciscan Friary which was also unharmed because of
special protection from the Blessed Mother, as the brothers, too, prayed
the daily Rosary and also had no effects from the bomb).
Father Hubert Schiffer died on March 27, 1982, 37 years after that fateful
day. He gave his account of the Hiroshima bombing at the Eucharistic
Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. At the time, all eight members of the
Jesuit community from Hiroshima were still alive.
Glory to God in the highest!
Power of rosary and Mary’s protective mantle.
Same thing like the first Crusade: you were just entering the war and unjust on how you fought it. There is no simple “yes, it was wholly just” or “no, it was unadulterated evil”.
Other than vengeance, what was the real need to do this? “But a million US troops would have died to take the Home Islands!” is the argument. Why did we need to invade? They had no air force and no navy. Strategic bombing could have prevented any rebuilding of their offensive forces. Starvation would have led to surrender. Invasion not needed, nuclear atrocity not needed.
Even worse, the Japanese were already negotiating an end to the war with the U.S., so the idea that they would never surrender, because “honor,” was already demonstrably untrue.
The problem was that the U.S. didn’t want a simple end to the war, they wanted a COMPLETE and TOTAL surrender under which Japan would be completely subjugated and agree to nearly anything the US imposed on them. The war was an investment, and the US Capitalists and Imperialists wanted to squeeze everything they could from it. This meant hurting Japan beyond what was necessary.
The investment in the A-bomb also needed to be tested in a real exercise. And was also a live demonstration to the world about US dominance, especially the Soviet Union, who like the US, also saw Japan as a strategic location of national security interest, and planned to invade and occupy Japan too.
Those US bases exist in Japan until today for a reason. Japan is a forward operating base against Russia and China, and the Japanese all know that the US presence there serves as their nuclear deterrent, whilst also making them a target of nuclear retaliation, despite the country officially possessing no nuclear weapons of their own. Something the anti-nuke Japanese view as an inherent hypocrisy of the country’s no-nuke stance.
Interesting that there was a high Catholic population there. And today the majority are Shinto.
Nagasaki was the epicenter of Catholicism in Japan.
The last thing the powers wanted was Catholicism to fill the void a dethroned Hirohito would create.
I remember being taught in (public) junior high and high school that the atomic bombing of Japan during WW2 was a good thing because it ended the war. I was also taught that the French Revolution was a good thing and that even the Russian Revolution had good intentions at first.
It’s seriously hard to believe the lies we were fed.
Truman was so overrated. He did all these awful things like establish the CIA, drop the world’s only 2 known nukes, found NATO, Cold War & Korea War.
Then he wrung his hands, complained of how he was railroaded into these things & regretted them. Yet his legacy is taught as “The Buck Stops Here”, because, supposedly, he made big difficult decisions.
Anytime a leader caves into the Deep Staters and commit monstrous crimes for them, their media & academia will praise that leader revoltingly as tough, nuanced, responsible, deep, true statesman, yadda yadda.
There were a lot of POW’s that were saved from summary execution due to the dropping of those bombs.
In addition more civilians were killed by the fire bombing of other Japanese cities than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So our fire bombing of Tokyo was also morally licit? Good to know.
“It wasn’t as horrifically bad as this other atrocity” is a helluva defense
We were also sold lies in getting involved in Europe in WWII. Frank Capra made a series of propaganda films called Why We Fight, to convince the American public to get involved, which they vehemently opposed doing. The Capra films intentionally omitted a number of facts about the Soviet Union and its involvement for fear that it would dissuade American support for the war.
There were a lot of sales pitches before and after dropping the nukes (none of which hold water, morally speaking) that involved a lot of mind-reading and precognition like you’d see in Minority Report. “The Japanese are going to XYZ if we don’t nuke them.”
How many times have we heard this in the last 25 years to justify unjust wars? It didn’t start after 9/11.
My grandfather was a radio operator on a medical ship off the coast of Japan. The justification that I wouldn’t be here if the U.S. didn’t nuke Japan is consequentialist, and likely just a scare tactic and justification for dropping the bomb.
sorry, that’s Jeff 0
Now that many are taking another look at history of WWII, the official narrative versus the official forbiddeness of unofficial historians such as David Irving, it is increasingly clear that the Western powers were completely willing to committ unnecessary War Crimes and commit atrocities that even Hitler wouldn’t, from Churchill’s bombing of German civilian cities to the US doing the same to Japan. The same propaganda is repeated today about Palestine, Iran, Russia, etc. as the West burns everything to the ground and cover-up their complicity in civilian targeting, assassinations, terrorism, rape and torture and more, censor and punish anyone for exposing it, and when exposed, justify it as absolutely necessary for XYZ reasons.
Little wonder that Our Lady of Fatima didn’t pick any “good sides” in the great wars she prophecied, nor mention any “holocaust”, as her sceptics and critics once argued to downplay the Apparition. Her message was simple and succint.
The “purely coincidental'” bombing of the highest Catholic population concentrations in Japan certainly has nothing to do with Harry Truman being a 33rd degree Mason.
And just two years earlier, 33rd degree Freemason FDR bombed San Lorenzo in Rome where the remains of Pius IX were interred (PIX was the Masons most hated pope).
Pius IX was also the pope who canonized the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki… just to bring it all home.