visit Hiroshima, a prospect that has set off arguments about whether he should apologize for our use of nuclear bombs to end World War II. The White House says he will not. While the case that he should is strong, the case that he shouldn’t is stronger.
Most Americans, from 1945 to the present, have believed
that President Harry Truman was justified in bombing Japan. Most
supporters of that decision say the bombs saved lives by breaking
Japan’s will to continue fighting. The alternative, they add, was a
ground invasion that would have caused much more blood, Allied and
Japanese, to be shed.
But there are others who dispute the claim
that the bombs were necessary to bring about Japan’s unconditional
surrender. An official U.S. government report in 1946 concluded
that “it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air
supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring
about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.”
The core conviction of the opponents, though, is that it is always
wrong to take actions intended to kill noncombatants, even on the hope
the killing will bring about very desirable effects. That principle
forms part of the Western tradition of thinking about the ethics of war.
This tradition is not pacifist: It accepts that wars can be just, and
that in a just war the military can justly take actions it knows will
cause civilian deaths. But this view insists that the killing of
noncombatants, including children, cannot be the goal of a just military
act, either as an end in itself or as the means toward some other end
(like breaking the enemy’s will so as to yield peace).
largely adhered to this tradition, before 1945 and after. We have
sometimes debated whether our use of drones is causing too many civilian
deaths. But we do not deliberately target civilians for killing
whenever we think the consequences would be beneficial. When Donald
Trump suggested deterring terrorists by killing their family members, he
was recommending a highly controversial change in our practices.
atom bombs on Japan is hard to reconcile with the honorable tradition.
This doesn’t call into question the essential justice of the Allied
cause. It doesn’t mean 33 deserves all the connotations of a “war
criminal” or “murderer,” terms some of his critics have been willing to employ. But it does suggest he chose wrongly.
Most Americans don’t view Hiroshima and Nagasaki similarly. They think we were justified.
44 therefore cannot legitimately apologize on behalf of the American
people. He can regret the loss of life while staying silent on the
morality of the bombings. Any apology should be left to a future
president -- and issued only if America reaches a new consensus on this