This lesson really stuck out to me mostly through the images and percentages which darted in and out during the scene. Many cities were bombed before the nuclear war and the amount of people killed within such little time is insanity. McNamara says that 100,000 people were killed in one night, which is why proportionality should be a guideline in war. It's not right or "good" to kill 67% of the Japanese and then bomb them. Yes, we know that war involves killing but you have to draw a line somewhere that prevents wiping out a population, including innocent civilians. This argument is very persuasive to me. I don't think anyone would say that it is moral to have such a high ratio of people killed compared to the short amount of time they were killed in. If you needed anymore evidence to agree with this lesson, you could talk about the effects of the war veterans that are alive today and how messed up physically and emotionally they are; for example, look how many people were brutally wounded from the war. I think in some ways this lesson contradicts lesson #4-"Maximize Efficiency," for obvious reasons. One last thing, McNamara brings up a good question, "If we lost the war would we be war criminals?"
http://members.aol.com/tjdewey/Vietnam Vet
No comments:
Post a Comment