The only thing I can think of to justify the use of the bomb at the end of the war was so everyone would know what happened if an atomic bomb was dropped, hopefully so threats of it would be taken seriously in the future. (So much for that, Mr. Kennedy.) The Cold War might've had much more serious consequences if we didn't already know the extent of destruction that could happen.

But that is no excuse. Being from a military family, I of course feel that a single lost solider is one too many, but to think that civilian deaths are somehow less important, collateral damage, useful to the cause, something, is wrongheaded to me. It's still a human life. And shouldn't civilian losses be considered worse, since it's a war they didn't sign up for? The way that Iraq civilian casualties are treated over here--casually--is really shocking to me.

Back to atomic bombs, I have to disagree with you and say that I think our strategy was crueler and wronger than yours. We didn't have to live through the blitzkrieg. Realistically, Pearl Harbor was just not that bad. Nothing that I know of justifies what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet I'm not a bit surprised that it happened--because this race of men generally does things just because they can.

/end rant

I don't know anything about the J.C. de Menezes shooting, but from what I looked at on the internet it seems kind of wrong, if he was unarmed and not doing anything harmful to the officers. Here a lot of people get killed by police in standoffs or resisting arrest, and sometimes it happens for awful reasons like racism or psychopathic cops, but I think we generally leave methodical killing to the CIA and the NSA.

Hey! You're commenter number 1000! Email me and we'll do a prize thing. Finally, you'll have your own Snowbook, with none of that pesky handing over of money. Whoopee!

I should confess that prior to reading Rob's post I hadn't done a lot of reading on this case. Having just done a bit of surfing, the string of errors of judgment and management in the Metropolitan Police's handling of the case was terrifying, and the approach of the armed officers shocking so I'm glad Rob's post prompted me to find out more.

However, Rob asks when the police got the right to intentionally shoot someone - we have had armed police in this country for decades - not routinely armed but specially trained firearms units. This is so that they can shoot people in order to prevent those people from injuring other people and that's what they have been doing for many years in situations of bank robberies, hostage taking, maniacs in schools with guns etc. The question is in what circumstances they are entitled to shoot and whether when they shoot they should be allowed to shoot to kill. The police are entitled to use reasonable force and in some cases reasonable force means deadly force. If they believe that shooting to kill is the only way to prevent the person from shooting a hostage or detonating a bomb then that seems to me to be an acceptable moral decision and I believe that the law has long recognised this. If they have that right, then sometimes mistakes will be made and innocent people will be killed. The question is then in what circumstances we consider the mistake to be culpable. The problem with the Menezes case was that the officers carrying out the shooting were given information by other officers which led them to believe that this man was a suspected suicide bomber. They should never have been given that information as it was fundamentally flawed. I'm very glad that I don't have to make life or death decisions. I think those who do should have the highest level of training and be lead by people of the highest calibre with the best systems of intelligence and decision making. I think we have failed in this case to meet those criteria. But, in principle, if the person pulling the trigger genuinely believed on reasonable grounds that the man ahead of him was a suspected suicide bomber who could be about to detonate a bomb and this was the best way to prevent him from doing so and in the process killing many more people then I think this would be the right thing to do.

Isn't this case just like the atomic bomb case an example of the doctrine of utilitarianism i.e. the greatest good to the greatest number. If the people deciding to drop the bomb genuinely believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that many more people would be killed if the war continued than would be killed in the atomic explosions, and that the war would continue if they did not drop these bombs, does that not justify them? I find this very difficult - the horror of what the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced is so extreme that even this principle - which generally I agree with, seems somehow inadequate and mealy-mouthed. Then again, as Kat says, at least now we know and it will be that much harder for a leader ever again to authorise use of such dreadful weapons.

Judith, I suppose I end up where you did, with the ends justifying the means, because any other approach makes matters worse. And while the moral principle shouldn't alter with the size of the act one is contemplating I think what one might call the 'burden of proof' *should* change. If you're risking detaining a man by mistake, the damage is small and largely reversible. Executing him by mistake is far worse and so a higher level of certainty should be required (not a lower one, as appears to be the case with the Menezes shooting). And when it comes to condemning hundreds of thousands of innocents to lingering deaths, I think the level of certainty required that this act truly makes the world a better and not a worse place should be so high as to be virtually unattainable. That's without even questioning whether it's right to kill children so that soldiers may live.

Here's a list of quotes by American leaders who didn't think the atomic bombing was justified or necessary. They include Eisenhower, who of course later became president.

Nixon and Hoover, two others quoted there, were presidents too, although both of debatable quality. MacArthur disagreeing with the bomb decision is pretty significant, considering how gung ho he was to invade Japan just before they surrendered. (Of course, he wanted to be president when the war was over.)

Em, what a shame that this bile-filled post was post #1000! I'll email you.