IKE: "the Japanese were ready to surrender & it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing"

[Dragonfli]

62. That is not only a valid question to ask me, it is a very good one.

Let me start by noting my agreement with you that some wars need to be fought, I am a pacifist, but one that has had to physically fight several times in his life for both personal protection and the protection of victims being preyed upon. I look at fighting wars the same way, it is for defense.

It is for me also about what should not be done, evil should not be done. I would never even consider crushing a five year old's testicles as a method of interrogating his father who is a suspect (even tho John Yoo declared such actions legal and acceptable).

I would not threaten and kill a persons family or blow up a school to dishearten even an evil enemy lest I also become evil and my own enemy.

I would not use children or other civilians as booby-traps with bombs attached to them as an effective method of killing an enemy (no matter how effective it might be)

I would not drone attack a wedding party because one criminal may be in the crowd of innocent well wishers, and I would also not follow up with a missile directed at the first responders trying to save as many hurt civilians as they can.

In this case I would not consider as an option the bombing of two large concentrations of civilians with nuclear weapons in order to intimidate an evil leader far from the scene of my attack, it just would not be among my strategies to kill hundreds of thousands of mostly women, children and elderly as a valid tactic, such tactics belong to those such as the Japanese Emporer at the time and his Nazi friends with their ovens, becoming evil is no way to defeat evil.

I am not aware of what honorable tactics were available at the time, but many generals disagreed with the use of those horrid weapons on civilian populations, they felt their were other options, as one who does not wish to become as evil as what I would fight, I would have listened to their advice to find viable alternatives to such a horrid and evil solution.

Does this make any sense to you?