IN SEARCH OF… Principles

From the Palm Treo:

I’m sitting in the back yard, watching over some steaks and a little corn on the cob.

I have a question that I dare say will make some of you rather uncomfortable.

To set this up, I’ll take you back to last evening. I noticed a good deal of traffic coming into the site linking an Obit I posted last November the 2nd, on the passing of Brigadier-General Paul Tibbets. The traffic was incidental to a news article, which talked about the Enola Gay and the display of same, which doesn’t really enter into this post.

I was struck, however, by a thought, on reading the post. In it, I captured some of the left-wing moonbat comments about Tibbits. I warn you, the comments are At the very least despicable. Stay with me, here, however , because I have a serious point to make about current events.

Kay in Maine comments on the death of Paul Tibbetts, the man who flew the Enola Gay:

Paul Tibbetts did not die a hero to America. I’m sorry, but it does not take a brave person to strap a bomb to a plane, fly high above a sleeping city, and then drop an atomic bomb on it! Only a coward could be proud of himself after doing something like that. You can argue that he was taking commands from his higher ups. That would be one thing…if he felt a shred of compassion as to what this one act on humanity did. Nope. All we got to hear over the years is ‘people were going to die anyways’, so dropping a bomb on this city killing 80-150,000 at once was the only way to save America. Oh please! Coward!

Not only was a he a typical reich winger throughout his life, meaning he had zero compassion for the people of our planet, but he managed to be the typical reich winger upon his death by being a coward. Why? He told his loved ones that he didn’t want a stone or a marker for his grave. Why? Well, apparently this “big brave reich winger” didn’t want Americans to stand around his grave protesting what he had done in WWII! Wow! If you’re a big brave hero who saved America, wouldn’t you think that you would want Americans TO USE THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS THAT YA FOUGHT FOR IN WORLD WAR II for the opportunity to dissent against your own barbarianism? Nope! Typical reich wing coward ole Tibbetts was.

Not surprised. Rest in peace if you can Paul! Spit. Good riddance.

As I say despicable. Disgusting. Completely detached from reality.
But it got me to thinking, about the left and their spittle laced tirades over ‘torture’,  and over jailing people without due process, supposedly never knowing their guilt or innocence. We are repeatedly told about the number of people who have died in American attacks, who also were supposedly innocent because they were never proven in a court of law to be guilty. All ignoring, of course, that such are a a part of war.

Now, certainly, there is a legal point as regards bombing supposedly innocent civilians. In terms of the left’s definition of the law, from strictly a legal perspective,  there is a certain similarity between  the civilians killed incidental to the two bomb drops on Japan are similar to those “civilians” captured and imprisoned incidental to the Iraq war. There is undeniably a certain kind of mindset that can call either situation criminal. One that doesn’t think in terms of anything but legalities.  The principles behind those legalities, somehow seem to go wanting every time.

As an example; might it be said that there is some doubt as to the culpability of the civilians who died in those attacks, to the Japanese war effort? I could even see someone arguing that the suffering imposed on the Japanese people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in fact “torture”.

I’ve raised this point in a couple of different conversations on line within last 48 hours. I will say up front that I hold neither situation to be criminal, nor do I hold either situation to be immoral.  Given the circumstances of the times and what we faced both were within the realm of western morality.

I see a good number of people who (properly) hold General Tibbits in honor, and properly so for doing the job that he had to do and doing it well .  The actions of dropping those bombs saved literally millions more than were killed incidental to the actual bomb drops.  Most of them, American lives.  There is no question in my mind that it was the right thing to do.  Yet some of the same people  start playing a moral and legal  “gotcha’  when it comes to our conduct in Iraq.  It’s that disconnect that concerns me.

That argument has been used rather widely to make political points as regards Iraq. But on what basis?

(Note the words employed in this last line, please….)

On what principle are the two situations different?

Addendum:  (David L)

War is Hell, Sarge.

The leftards obsession with Hiroshima both baffles and amuses me.    As  I wrote on 10 May, the atomic raid on Hiroshima was not the deadliest air raid of the war, only the most protested.   The deadliest raid of the war was Toyko.

So shall repeat the questioon.   Should be disinter FDR so we cna hang him as a war criminal?

From the personal perspective, I support the atomic raids on Japan.  I am here.  My father was World War Two veteran, and had we not dropped the bombs, I might never have been.  And you?