Fog of War (#3)

A lesson that struck me as very interesting was lesson #9: in order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. I think that in other words, this means to get to your final goal, it may take a few detours along the way. The evidence presented throughout the documentary is very supportive of this lesson. The US army proceeded to burn 67 cities with fire bombs before we dropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also, when our troops went over to find the nuclear weapons, they were prepared to fight and use them if they were attacked. Fortunately, they got them out without war beginning. While they went in with the mindset that it could potentially become evil, the outcome was very positive. In my opinion, war is no good. Therefore I think the continuous fighting that was done throughout the whole war was an evil that had to be overcome before the final goal of winning.

However, even with the evidence, I am not at all persuaded that this lesson is just. First off, the documentary clearly stated that it was believed that America could have achieved the same goal without so many lives being lost. McNamara even says himself, "How much evil do we have to do before we see good?" Was the fire bombing necessary before destroying it all over again with the nuclear bombs? Was it necessary to drop one nuclear bomb, and then drop another three days later? These are questions I wish would have been answered during the documentary. I also think that this sort of contradicts lesson #5: proportionality should be a guideline in war. They didn't seem to follow this at all, which resulted in too much evil before we were able to see the good.