Can there be good in something as horrible as War?

Answer

          Can there be good in something as horrible as War?

There can never be good in something as horrible as war. To begin with, the Second World War was a global war that involved a vast majority of the world’s nations that eventually formed two opposing military alliances called the Allies and the Axis. Although related conflicts begun earlier, the war lasted from 1939 to 1947 resulting in an estimated fifty million to eighty five million fatalities, making it the deadliest conflict in human history[1]. In The Good War, examples are given of the good, the bad and the dreadful memories of the Second World War from a perspective of forty years of after the events as shown by Studs  Terkel[2]. Wide spectrums of people, from militants to civilians, and their reflections and experiences regarding the Second World War or the Good War and its aftermath are gathered. Howeveran there be good in something as horrible as war? This is debatable, but the subsequent reflections from these participants reveal just why the Second World War was far from being good and it was more of a disaster than a “good war”.

For a long timehere has been an implied contrast between the first and second world wars such that we have come to think of them as the Bad war and Good war. From 1914 to 1918 as many as eighteen million people died, while more than seventy million died from 1939 to 1945. The immensely key difference here was that almost all of those killed in the first World War were soldiers in uniform, while the horribly peculiar and most distinguishing feature of the second world war was that up to fifty million of the dead were civilians. A British woman who read Cinderella to her children during the blitz said you could actually hear the bomb drop many hundred yards that way and you would think, the next one is going to hit directly. But still, you would continue to read. An example is the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1941 that killed many people and caused the American entry into World War II. The bombing of Chongqing by the Japanese, the allied strategy of creating firestorms in cities like Hamburg and the attacks on allied cities with retaliatory-weapons by the Germans were meant to terrorize and kill enemy civilians[3]. The belief that the Second World War was fine and noble is highly dubious in itself, since it makes so much look like normal, from the slaughter of civilians by allied bombing to the gang rape of millions of women. Apart from causing emotional distress to civilians, this is particularly against the principles of international humanitarian law governing the legal use of force in an armed conflict.

In 1945he atomic bomb was dropped without warning on Hiroshima, destroying the entire city and killing a hundred thousand civilians. Nagasaki was then bombed later, leveling it and killing seventy thousand people. With the powerful impact of radiation poisoning, half a million civilians were murdered. John Smithermanho enlisted in the Navy in 1945 and was involved in an operation exercise in which new bombs were being tested, died last year but with the belief that such exposures to radiation were responsible for amputations and other dreadful physical deterioration that he suffered in his last years. The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance to the war against Japan. It was not necessary as the Japanese were already defeated by then and ready to surrender due to the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons[4]. Voices of a man and woman who are hibakisha, survivors of the bomb in Hiroshima recall that what they remember most are the screams for water. By being the first to use this weapon, the US had adopted an ethical standard only common to the barbarians of the dark ages. Its horrible effects have been felt for a long time therefore it would be quite an irony to call it a good war.

American rulers’ commitment to democracy was not any better because basic political rights were denied to Blacks in the South, enforcing Jim Crow segregation through literacy tests, poll taxes and clan terror. Consequently, blacks not only lost their right to vote but also suffered vicious repression. This racism extended to blacks inside the US military since the military maintained segregated units and systematically denied promotion to blacks during the Second World War. Blacks who fought in the Second World War were therefore restricted to the worst jobs with the lowest pay at the time. For instance, a Navy stevedore initially charged with mutiny for refusing, along with fifty other blacks, to load ammunition following a devastating explosion in Port Chicago, Calif., in 1944. In the end for the first time there was racial integration of the facility as a result of public indignation over their treatment[5].  Another outrageous violation of U.S democratic Principles was the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans in concentration camps right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese on the West Coast were rounded up and jailed for the sole crime of being Japanese even when some of them had never been tt5o Japan. Most of them lost their property, jobs and houses.

In conclusion, it is most astounding that the soldiers affirmed that the Second World war was a “good war” while simultaneously bemoaning their own inhuman acts and attitudes towards the enemy. This seems to be a very odd contradiction. But as immense events go, the Second World War seems comfortably distant therefore easy to weigh up its good and bad yet those who actually witnessed it can never forget the bleak messages of madness, suffering, grief and annihilation.

[1] “World War II Era: 1939-1950.” World Oil 237, no. 2 (February 2016): 33-40. Business Source Complete, (accessed March 24, 2016).

[2] Terkel, Louis ‘Studs’. ‘The Good War’: An Oral History of World War II. n.p.: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2013. Gale Virtual Reference Library. (accessed March 24, 2016).

[3] Ivhuan Arreguin – Toft. “How the Weak Win Wars”: a Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. December 19, 2005. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 30-42, ISBN 0-5215-4869-1. (accessed March 24, 2016)

[4] Grimsrud, Ted. The Good War That Wasn’t—and Wjuhy it Matters: World War II’s Moral legacy. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2014.

[5] Terkel, Louis ‘Studs’. ‘The Good War’: An Oral History of World War II. n.p.: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2013.