I’ve just read Sherman’s Memoirs and did not detect any such genocidal inclinations towards Southerners. Sherman had served in Florida, South Carolina, and, after resigning his commission, in Lousiana and had many friends throughout the South.

He fully intended to “make Georgia howl” as a matter of policy but was careful to minimize civilian distress so long as they did not interfer in his mission. The memoirs contain his general orders to his troops. He even publicly hanged one of his own men convicted of rape.

If Truman had decided to refrain from using the bombs, and invaded Japan instead, he would have been impeached the moment the truth came out. The families of three hundred thousand dead soldiers and Marines would not have forgiven him.

The US Army went to enormous lengths to save as many Japanese lives as possible, improving nutrition, health care, sanitation, and myriad other factors. (How many people know that the leading cause of death in Japan at that time was tuberculosis? Dr. Sams undertook a campaign that essentially eradicated tuberculosis from Japan.)

The dedication of this one man led to saving literally millions of lives after the war.

Were the atomic bombings terrible? No doubt, though the alternatives were far, far worse. Did the bombings reflect a genocidal American attitude toward the Japanese? Exactly the opposite, as Dr. Sams and his staff attest.

Scott

We have a very serious problem concerning another kind of bomb, not an atomic bomb.

Denial of emergent and convergent global threats by informed leaders and delaying tactics by their many minions are threatening life as we know it and the integrity of Earth today.

We are not seeing colleagues speak out loudly, clearly and often to report that The Human Species’ Population Bomb is Exploding NOW, as I did in 2005.

http://www.fragilecologies.com/mar22_05.html

The deafening silence of too many reputable scientists and the shrill voices of many too many political hacks and ideologues are symptomatic of deeply distressing problems. Top rank scientists in many places are either being subjected to venal pressures and, in some cases, driven out of “politically incorrect” areas of research or else their positions and programs are cut out of the government’s budget. Low rank scientists, willing to subscribe to whatsoever is politically convenient and economically expedient, remain in place.

By recklessly funding such entities like the Department of Defense and related `defense’ activities for the sake of winning military battles in distant lands, we are losing “the war” against environmental degradation, biodiversity extirpation, and the preservation of Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.

How could my single, admittedly not-so-great generation of wrong-headed leading elders have become so terribly misdirected? These self-proclaimed “masters of the universe” have vanquished moral authority, but not the designated enemies. Perhaps wanton greed, acquisition of too much power, and idolatry of endless wealth accumulation and economic growth-mania of many too many leaders have something to do with my `religious’ generation’s adamant pursuit of so many unfortunate errands perpetrated by a confederacy of fools.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
established 2001

A little bit of infantry folk-wisdom. Two young riflemen are discussing their targeting preferences. One prefers head-shots, the other center-mass (torso) shots. The head-shooter opines that if you hit him, he’s done; the torso shooter likes the larger target area. As the discussion goes back and forth, their sergeant comes by. Head-shooter asks: “Sarge, where do you like to shoot the bad guys?”
“In the back,” replies the sergeant.

If you don’t understand this, stay out of the infantry.

Therefore, I think the concept of Just War is bunk, especially if we want to say that our war was justified before God. If God loves all of his creation, then we can’t say he is happy when we go around destroying it. It is also a good point to note that God forgives, so even though we screwed ourselves up getting in the position where ‘laws failed’, and then did more evil – relatively – to get us out of that position, there is still forgiveness.

If there is any ‘just’ war it is that we believe – in the sense of the judgments made about this fallen existence – that we made the best choice we could.

Besides, if moralists argue that the ends never justify the means, then they surely can’t be Christian moralists. I would think that if they were in a legal battle with God himself, he would maintain quite firmly that some pretty extreme means are justified in light of the eternal salvation of man.

Denis is right, the argument really is ‘what means are justified’? When we speak of worldly, and thus to a degree relative things, we know from the beginning that ‘any’ means are not justified.

This is why even with the technocracy and science and all-what-have-you we still need men of wisdom.