The president averred that no less a statesman and nationalist than Winston Churchill refused to continence the use of torture against German prisoners of war or detainees during the height of the Blitz. Purportedly the reason for this stance was its immorality.
Let's go to the videotape.
If, indeed, the oft repeated but never properly documented Churchill tale is true, there is a very good reason for refusing to torture or otherwise "intensively interrogate" Luftwaffe prisoners--other than the fact there was no intelligence imperative to do so. The mistreatment of German PoWs would result in the similar mistreatment of British soldiers, seamen and airmen in Nazi hands. The fear of quid pro quo was an absolute deterrent--on both sides of the battleline.
Churchill's lack of concern over morality per se is readily demonstrated from the well-documented historical record.
The British PM had no problems with authorising the fire bomb raids against the civilian residential districts of German cities. The intent of the attacks was put forth bluntly in numerous internal memorandums. The intent was to kill as many civilians as possible. And, terrorise those who were not killed.
Unlike the Blitz where the German bombing of purely civilian targets (defined here to be limited to residential districts and excluding civilian facilities such as railroads, docks and warehouses which had military utility) was the result of technological deficiencies which precluded accurate bombing of war related factories, the British air effort as it matured in 1942 was deliberately aimed at killing and terrorising the civilian population of Germany. The British knew what they were doing. They knew so well that they lied to the American government and public.
The British government from the PM on down believed (correctly) that the Americans were too High Minded and otherworldly to understand and support the terror campaign. So, the British referred to it as "the worker de-housing program." Churchill and the others did this with a straight face.
In the interests of inter-Allied cooperation and harmony, the administration of FDR did not dissent from the British effort. However, when the Brits tried to convince the Americans to join with them in incinerating German men, women and children, the attempt failed. Our ostensible reason was the unsuitability of American aircraft and crew training to missions other than daylight precision bombing.
The real deal was different. The senior leadership of the Air Force as well as the civilians in charge of the government recoiled at the notion of intentionally targeting civilians. While none of these men were opposed to killing civilians, they did insist that such be an ancillary, a corollary to the bombing of factories or other infrastructure components directly useful to the war effort.
The reasons for rejecting a pure counter-civilian terror campaign were twofold. The first was the belief it would not work. The reasoned conclusion that far from undercutting morale or war production, a terror effort would strengthen both. The accuracy of this view was amply demonstrated by post-war analysis of production statistics that proved production went up along with the tonnage of bombs dropped and number of workers "de-housed."
The second reason was moral. There were men, both in uniform and in mufti, who would not continence direct attacks on civilians. This course of action, even if effective, would be morally wrong.
It is evident that Churchill did not buy the morality argument for a nanosecond. But, he needed the US and was unwilling to argue the morality issue with FDR, although there are hints that he wanted to.
If Winnie was annoyed at our moral sensibilities in the area of terror bombing, he would have thrown a hissy-fit over our reaction to his big idea for (a) revenging the Blitz and (b) making D-Day unnecessary. Winston Churchill, the alleged paragon of morality according to the president's understanding of history, wanted to bomb Germany's urban areas with anthrax.
That's right, bucko, anthrax. Its qualities and characteristics were well known to the British. The boffins of that "tight and sceptered isle" had experimented with it in the pre-war years. It had been successfully weaponized. An early production plant was churning the spores out in limited quantities at an old immigration inspection station in Canada.
The Americans, working from British specifications, were in the process of building an industrial production plant capable of making the bug in ton quantities when Churchill developed (Whether on his own or through the machinations of his science advisor, Lord Cherwell, is unclear.) his notion of using biological warfare to devastate the German population.
Even the architects of the "worker de-housing program" were shocked and horrified by this idea. Apparently morality is flexible. Burning civilians to death is OK. Germs are not OK.
The argument against the anthrax employment was based, however, not on matters of morality as it was well understood that such would cut no ice with Winston. Rather, the British opponents contended correctly that use of anthrax would render large parts of Germany uninhabitable for generations after the war. This effect would run counter to Churchill's post-war goal of stopping the plague of Bolshevism east of the Elbe.
At the same time the Americans, having caught word of Churchill's idea, dragged their feet in getting the Pine Bluff production facility on line. Without American industrial grade production, there simply would not be sufficient agent to undertake the scheme. This deliberate slow-down was undertaken with the tacit approval of FDR, whose moral sense would have been outraged by the concept.
Yes, bucko, FDR was a very moral man when it came to methods of fighting war. Don't believe this?
Come with the Geek to the island of Iwo Jima. The Navy and Marine Corps planners knew that this island would be an extremely tough place to take. It was very heavily fortified with miles of deep tunnels and hundreds of well sited bunkers. Further, the place was exceptionally well defended by over 22,000 troops who were quite willing to die in place. Thus, it would be very costly in American lives.
The planners suggested that the US stand off-shore and drench the place with mustard agent. They argued that the nature of the defenses and the utter absence of civilians as well as the prior use of chemical weapons by the Japanese in China combined to make Iwo Jima the perfect place for the US to resort to chemical means.
The capstone of the planners' argument was simply that the use of mustard gas would save American lives. Potentially, the landing would be unopposed.
FDR said, "No." He would not go down in history as the first American president to authorise the use of chemical weapons in a non-retaliatory context. His reasoning was strictly moral in its basis.
The moral sensibilities of FDR were responsible for 6,825 American combat deaths.
Whether that exchange was justified can be argued endlessly.
Fairness requires mentioning that FDR raised no moral objection to the use of mass firebomb raids against Japanese cities. These raids were far more destructive than their equivalents in Germany burning square mile after square mile of predominantly civilian residential districts. President Roosevelt accepted the argument that the Japanese scattered small factories throughout these residential areas. That was true, but it can be argued that the killing of more than 100,000 civilians in one raid on Tokyo was not morally justifiable.
Certainly, FDR's successor had no moral qualms regarding the use of nuclear bombs on Japanese targets in the hope that doing so would save the US from the enormous losses forecast to accompany an invasion of the home islands. The moral correctness of Truman's decision can be and has been debated without any resolution for the sixty-four years since the mushroom clouds grew over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
President Obama was poorly advised to cherry pick his history. Not only did he pick the wrong cherry, the internal contradiction of his position on the use of "torture" in the interrogation of captured terrorist suspects illustrates the the problem of using morality as a basis for policy.
Prohibiting the use of mustard agent against Iwo Jima cost American lives. Its use would have saved an unknowable number of these.
Similarly, the use of nuclear weapons against Japan saved an unknowable number of lives, both American and Japanese. The non-use of this option might have resulted in no additional loss of life given the collapsing nature of Japanese political will and economy under the twin pressures of the blockade and Soviet invasion of North China. We will never know. History's tape runs in one direction only with no rewind possible.
The president acknowledged that the use of waterboarding and other, similar methods did provide useful information. Information which may well have saved lives. At the same time Mr Obama implied that the use of "torture" lessened American security by eroding the firm moral foundation which separates us from our Islamist enemies.
This (to quote one MSM outlet) "nuanced" view of the torture controversy has not ended debate and doubt over whether the morality of means outweighs considerations of effectiveness. It is a question which is fundamentally unanswerable.
It is an ancient question, asked countless times over the centuries. Does the end justify the means or do evil means pollute even the most worthy of ends?
The president provided no answer. He didn't even ask the question correctly.
No comments:
Post a Comment