Thursday, July 20, 2006
Proportional War
Proportionality is an ethical or legal term which has only recently been applied to war as part of the just war theory (See Catechisms 2307-2314). Here's one definition: Proportionality: in the conduct of hostilities, efforts must be made to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary and to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property. The concept hardly belongs to war, as it is a matter more about the seriousness of the conflict rather than some sort of handicapping. It certainly is not a 'governor' device for evening out the casualty rates. But, for example, it would be wrong for us to drop a nuclear weapon on Valparaiso, Chile (picked at random) because a single U. S sailor was knifed in a bar there (although I seem to remember a near declaration of war in the late 19th Century by the US against Chile for just that).
Japan attacked Hawaii in late 1941 (killing a few score civilians) and Alaska (actually Unalaska) in June, 1942 (10 civilians killed at Dutch Harbor) but neither Alaska nor Hawaii was a state at the time. The only bombing deaths of civilians in the continental US was the tragic explosion of a Japanese bomb, carried here by balloon, that killed 6. I posted about that here. So that's the score here in the United States from Japan--one bomb, 6 civilians killed.
We bombed Japan starting with the Doolittle raid on April 18, 1942, but didn't start burning up their cities until late Winter, 1945. Over the last 5 months of the war we dropped over a million tons of bombs on Japanese cities and killed: 2 million 5
Hiroshima [nuclear weapon]:
about 138,890 according to Gilbert. 5
Nagasaki [nuclear weapon]:
about 48,857 according to Gilbert.5
Tokyo bombings:
"On May 24, more than four hundred American bombers dropped 3,646 tons of bombs on central Tokyo, and on the industrial areas in the south of the city. More than a thousand Japanese were killed."5
Tokyo, March 1945: "83,793 Japanese civilians killed. That was the official minimum death toll; later, 130,000 deaths were 'confirmed' by the Japanese authorities." 5
Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Kawasaki March-May 1945:
"more than a quarter of a million"5
6 versus 2 million. That's the 'scorecard' of civilian bombing deaths in the United States and Japan during WWII. People keeping the death statistics in the current war in southern Lebanon should keep that in mind before they pop off about proportionality.
Japan attacked Hawaii in late 1941 (killing a few score civilians) and Alaska (actually Unalaska) in June, 1942 (10 civilians killed at Dutch Harbor) but neither Alaska nor Hawaii was a state at the time. The only bombing deaths of civilians in the continental US was the tragic explosion of a Japanese bomb, carried here by balloon, that killed 6. I posted about that here. So that's the score here in the United States from Japan--one bomb, 6 civilians killed.
We bombed Japan starting with the Doolittle raid on April 18, 1942, but didn't start burning up their cities until late Winter, 1945. Over the last 5 months of the war we dropped over a million tons of bombs on Japanese cities and killed: 2 million 5
Hiroshima [nuclear weapon]:
about 138,890 according to Gilbert. 5
Nagasaki [nuclear weapon]:
about 48,857 according to Gilbert.5
Tokyo bombings:
"On May 24, more than four hundred American bombers dropped 3,646 tons of bombs on central Tokyo, and on the industrial areas in the south of the city. More than a thousand Japanese were killed."5
Tokyo, March 1945: "83,793 Japanese civilians killed. That was the official minimum death toll; later, 130,000 deaths were 'confirmed' by the Japanese authorities." 5
Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Kawasaki March-May 1945:
"more than a quarter of a million"5
6 versus 2 million. That's the 'scorecard' of civilian bombing deaths in the United States and Japan during WWII. People keeping the death statistics in the current war in southern Lebanon should keep that in mind before they pop off about proportionality.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:43 PM 
