Hiroshima and Nagasaki: unequivocal condemnation from the American Bishops

U.S. Bishops Mark Anniversary of Atomic Bombings, Reaffirm Condemnation of 'Total War'
- has the full text of the statement.

No matter how noble the ends of a war may be, they cannot justify employing means or weapons that fail to discriminate between noncombatants and combatants. As the Second Vatican Council declared, "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." (Gaudium et Spes, no. 80)

Also discussed in Catholic World News.
where I commented (edited from its original form):

Does anyone recall a letter sent by the Japanese Bishop's Conference to the United States with their unequivocal condemnation of "indiscriminate destruction and death to civilians and soldiers alike" on the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 2001?

To end the war, a land invasion of Japan would be necessary. We may quibble about the exact number of deaths and injuries, but it certainly would have been more in a land invasion than those consequential to the atomic bomb. It shortened the war.

Are the bishops suggesting that we should have surrendered in 1941 or that in 1945 we negotiate a ceasefire that would allow Tojo to remain Prime Minister? What is their peace plan for 1945? To slowly starve the Japanese people with a nonviolent naval blockade?

It's odd to condemn the dead leaders of the United States for a great moral evil of 60 years ago when they are silent on today's slaughter of the unborn for which living American leaders, among them Catholics, are responsible.

Victory is achieved in a war only when the other side concedes defeat. Any suspension of hostilities would only allow the Japanese government to retool and accumulate more soldiers and weapons. How to make the Japanese War Cabinet concede defeat? is the critical question. Arguments that rely on American knowledge or estimates or Soviet knowledge or estimates are irrelevant. What matters is what Japan thought about their own ability to make the Americans pay such a high cost to defeat them that they would seek a negotiated peace.

The Japanese were willing to pay a high price indeed: on Iwo Jima only 200 of the 21,000 of the Japanese garrison survived. The rest were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. The American cost was 6821 killed and 20,000 wounded. Both Japanese and American commanders extrapolated the numbers to invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The other alternatives to invasion are just as deadly: In brief, they are bomb them to the stone age with conventional bombs and let the Soviets absorb 250,000 casualities and allow them repeat what they did to Germany in Japan.