Archive for category Abu Ghraib

The fact that people are seriously arguing that the US can torture prisoners is deeply troubling.  It occurred to me that we can look at our own history – sending Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War Two, centuries of stealing Native American’s their land and sending them off to reservations and stealing their children and sending them to “Indian Schools” - and identify actions which are unambiguous historical and national crimes, but we can also identify far more ambiguous examples of a difficult, even horrific, moral calculus.

By 1945, it was clear that Japan was not going to emerge victorious from the war – there were simply too many factors working against them.  However, it was also clear that a victory would come only after long and difficult battles.  Harry Truman, thrust into the presidency unexpectedly and frankly unprepared (FDR never much cared for Truman but accepted him as VP to maintain party unity) was faced with horrible options.

The obvious option was an invasion of Japan.  Despite heavy bombing, the Japanese mainland had been left relatively functional (for instance food continued to be shipped internally). In preparing for an invasion, the Allies would have stepped up attacks on transportation systems in the Japanese islands.  Breaking the back of Japan’s national transportation infrastructure, would have plunged the Japanese population into mass starvation (as it was, there was widespread famine in Japan in 1946).  Japan’s governing junta was prepared to put citizens on the frontlines of an invasion.  An invasion of the Japanese homeland could easily have cost a million Allied soldiers and millions of Japanese citizens (I’ve read one article that estimated as much as 10% of Japan’s civilian population killed in battle – not counting those killed by starvation and bombing raids).  In addition, an invasion of Japan would have almost certainly have resulted in the deaths of all POWs being held by the Japanese.  Even faced with such a scenario, Japan’s leaders were convinced they could win a negotiated settlement that would leave them in power.

Truman could have informed the Japanes the US possessed atomic weapons and arranged a demonstration; I’ve never fully understood the reasons for not choosing this option but I also understand that such an option might easily have spurred the Japanese to develop nuclear weapons and then deploy them against the US (IIRC, Japan had two separate efforts to develop atomic weapons but they were hampered by bureacratic infighting).

Truman was concerned about the Soviet Union’s military and territorial ambitions in both Europe and Asia. A quick end to the war with Japan would present opportunities on that front.

Truman opted for the one scenario that seemed most likely to save the most lives: drop atomic bombs on a Japanese city.  I once read a description of all the strategic reasons for choosing Hiroshima and Nagasaki but I’m not sure they matter at this point.  Truman authorized the use of the atomic bomb against a Japanese city, with plans to drop a second bomb a few days later if the Japanese did not surrender.

As I undersatnd it, Japan’s leaders didn’t fully realize what they were facing; initially they suspected the city had been subjected to an attack using incediary devices or some new bombing strategy and discounted reports that a single bomb could have inflicted the damage the city suffered (their belief concerning the incendiary attack made sense given the massive conflagration that consumed much of Hiroshima).  After Nagasaki, Japan’s leaders realized that continued war meant not just military loss but national suicide.  Internal Japanese politics – including an attempted military coup – delayed Japan’s surrender a few days.  (I never really known but I suspect that the Allies were largley ignorant of Japan’s internal political struggles and circumstance.)

It’s entirely possible that Truman’s choice to use atomic weapons is not morally defensible.  The generally accepted explanation seems to hold – and I agree – that the use of such weapons saved millions of lives on both sides by ending the war more quickly.  The moral value is that the lost of two hundred thousand lives is preferable to the loss of millions.

The morality of using atomic weapons (and that’s not a phrase you ever expect to write) can only be established within a very specific historical context – the context of a war that had already lasted for years, that promised to last for years more and cost millions of lives and many more casualties. 

I’ve chosen this scenario because it really happened and it comes as close to any real world “ticking time bomb” scenario that defenders of torture like to offer.  Literally, Japan and the US were aiming guns at each other.  The suffering inflicted on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was every bit as bad as the suffering torture would inflict on an individual.  Certainly, if hurting one person is bad, then hurting a hundred thousand is worse.

Torture’s proponents tell us that the use of torture would be limited to circumstances in which it would get information to save lives.  Truman’s use of the atomic bomb saved lives.

So, then, you might ask, am I defending the use of torture?  Not at all.  Even a basic examination of the two situations reveal deep and very differences.  The basic moral arguments concerning the two circumstances are radically different. Read the rest of this entry »