Stockpiling a Hurricane
I have been completely against nuclear weapons for a while. The idea of indiscriminately killing thousands (or millions) of people and leaving a radioactive legacy for the people of the future to deal with just doesn't work with my theory of just war.
Yesterday in my class on the Catechism we discussed the morality of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of WWII. I think I agreed with my professor that though we may have benefitted from using the bombs and thousands of American lives may have been saved it was not a morally right action. Every time I've ever brought that up the response has been that we would have lost [insert large number here] troops invading Japan. How do you know? No one does.
I am not a military strategist, but I think there are always other options besides destroying entire cities (and lots of innocent people) to break the morale of a nation.
1 comment:
We discussed this some more in class yesterday so I can clarify a bit. My point is that some choices and actions are wrong no matter how great the outcome is. (Remember, I'm looking at this from a particular Catholic perspective. Not all Catholics would agree but that's where I'm generally coming from.) Yes, using the A-Bomb(s) on Japan saved many lives, but that never makes killing innocent people moral. I read recently that our country is built on values and ideas. We are a young country. We don't have a thousand year history and weren't even the original inhabitants of this land. We were born out of an idea - an idea that all people should be free and that governments are for the people. These are values, whether we follow them today or not. When we go against these values (by killing innocent people) we are forgetting where we come from and I think that will be the eventual downfall of the USA. Also, on nuclear weapons in general, if the idea is that these warheads will kill tons of people (including people who have not attacked us or helped others do so) plus screw up the environment and cause health problems for years, then I don't think we should have them at all. The basic ideas of nuclear war go against the principles this country was built on. Screw deterrence. I want to have a country that fights just wars and fights them honorably. If this means losing our status as a nuclear power, so be it.
Thanks for the thought provoking comment!
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