May 12, 2016
original size of this picture
I don’t get it. On the one hand, we’re told that the
intentional targeting of civilians in wartime is a war crime. On the other
hand, we’re told that the intentional targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with
nuclear bombs was not a war crime.
Which is it?
The issue is back in the news with President Obama’s
decision to visit Hiroshima. The question that is being debated is whether he
should apologize for President Truman’s decision to order U.S. troops to drop
nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
If the targeting of civilians in wartime is okay, then
clearly the decision to nuke the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not a war
crime.
But if that’s the case, then why was U.S. Army Lt.
William Calley prosecuted during the Vietnam War? He’s the officer who
intentionally killed several defenseless women and children in a Vietnamese
village. The military prosecuted and convicted him of a war crime. Why? If it’s
not a war crime to intentionally kill women and children in wartime, then why
was Calley prosecuted and convicted of war crimes?
The fact is that it is a war crime for troops to
intentionally target non-combatants in wartime. Nobody disputes that. But then
given such, why the pass on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Everyone agrees that Truman
was targeting non-combatants — mainly women, children, and seniors — when
he ordered the nuking of those two cities. How do defenders of Truman’s decision
avoid the inexorable conclusion that Truman’s action constituted a war
crime?
Their primary argument is that the nuclear bombings of
the cities shortened the war, thereby saving the lives of thousands of U.S.
soldiers who would have died had the war been continued to be waged, especially
if an invasion of Japan had been necessary.
That’s in fact the rationale that has been cited for
decades by U.S. soldiers who were fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. Many of
them have expressed gratitude over the years for what Truman did because it
enabled them to live the rest of their natural lives while, otherwise, they
might have been killed in subsequent battles.
But there are big problems with that rationale.
For one, the fact that killing non-combatants might or
will shorten a war is not a legal defense to the war crime. Suppose Calley had
said that his killing of those women and children had shortened the Vietnam War
or that he intended to shorten the war by his actions. Would that have
constituted a legal defense at his war crimes trial? Or suppose U.S. airmen who
have bombed all those wedding parties in Afghanistan were to say, “We did it on
purpose because we felt it would shorten the war.” Would they be let off the
hook at their war crimes trial?
The answer is: No because that is not a legal defense
to the war crime. The law does not say that the crime is excused if it succeeds
in shortening the war or if it is intended to shorten the war.
Moreover, once that rationale is accepted, then
doesn’t it logically apply to both sides in a war? What’s to prevent an enemy
nation from intentionally targeting American non-combatants during war under
the rationale that by doing so, it is bringing the war to an early conclusion,
thereby saving the lives of many of its soldiers? Once both sides are relying
on that rationale, doesn’t that effectively nullify the legal prohibition?
The fact is that soldiers die in war. That’s the
nature of war. What’s one to say about a soldier who exclaims, “Thank you for
killing those defenseless women, children, and seniors so that I could live out
my natural life”? It’s certainly difficult to imagine Gen. George Patton ever
saying such a thing. One cannot imagine that Patton would ever have been
willing to kill defenseless women, children, and seniors if it meant that the
lives of his soldiers would be spared. I think Patton would have said, “Get out
there and fight. If you die, so be it. We are not going to kill defenseless
women, children, and seniors just so you can live a longer life.”
Some defenders of the nuclear attacks say that since
Japan started the war, the Japanese people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had it
coming to them. But since when do individual citizens have much say as to when
their nation goes to war or not? How much say did the American people have in
George W. Bush’s and the U.S. national-security state’s decision to go to war
against Iraq and Afghanistan?
And let’s not forget who intentionally maneuvered,
postured, and provoked Japan into attacking the United States, especially with
his oil embargo on Japan, his freezing of Japanese bank accounts, and his
settlement terms that were deliberately humiliating to Japanese officials. That
would be none other than President Franklin Roosevelt, who was willing to
sacrifice the soldiers at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines in order to
circumvent widespread opposition among the American people to getting involved
in World War II. Isn’t there something unsavory about provoking a nation into
starting a war and then using that nation’s starting the war to justify nuking
its citizens in an attempt to bring the war to a quicker conclusion? Wouldn’t
it have been better and less destructive to not have provoked Japan into
attacking the United States in the first place?
Defenders of the nuclear attacks also say that Truman
had only two choices: nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continuing the war
until Japan surrendered. But that’s just not true. There was another option
open to Truman — a negotiated surrender. Given Truman’s steadfast insistence,
however, on “unconditional surrender” —a ludicrous and destructive position if
there ever was one — a negotiated surrender was an option that he refused to
explore, choosing instead to kill hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in
order to secure his “unconditional surrender” from Japan, which, by the way,
turned out to not be “unconditional” after all since Japan was permitted
to keep its emperor as part of its surrender.
The real reason why so many Americans still cannot
bring themselves to acknowledge that the nuclear attacks on the people of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes is their inability or unwillingness to
acknowledge that their own government, including their own president and their
own military, were capable of committing and actually did commit a grave war
crime–the intentional killing of noncombatants consisting primarily of women,
children, and seniors. In the minds of many Americans, that’s something only
foreign governments are capable of and willing to do, not their own government.
This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.