From: Dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2001 - 05:47:17 MST
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> c) Holding them to their own standard, and given that the US-Japanese
> conflict fell outside of the Geneva Conventions, since Japan never
> signed them, the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as
> firebomb attacks on other Japanese cities, were entirely legal.
Not being a lawyer, shouldn't the US have acted according to what it
felt was right? Your argument above makes sense, but I was told about
two wrongs not making a right a long time ago. It seems to me that this
is a lot of the problem, using these weapons lowered those who used them
in the eyes of the world, whereas restraint, or acting according to
principles the US espoused, would have been the better option. Unless of
course there were other reasons for using it other than the publicly
announced reasons.
I have not read the Geneva convention but I'd have thought that one
country signing it binds them to act accordingly, not that both parties
have to be signatories for it to apply. Although, we are talking war
here, so it may well be full of loopholes.
The "the Russians would have risked a nuclear war in the future if it
wasn't demoed properly" argument makes a LOT of sense to me, much more
so than the reason we are given (Japanese surrender).
Dwayne
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