Ensign Peak Investing in Northrop Grumman

[the narrator]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I agree they were already defeated (they could not win) but that is different than saying they were ready to surrender.  Leaving out the morality of using the bomb, I think the Japanese would have gone on fighting for months if nothing had changed.

I guess you could know more about it than Eisenhower....

 

Quote

They didn't surrender after it was dropped on hiroshima.

 

Nagasaki was bombed 3 days after Hiroshima was laid to waste. They didn't have the easy communication we have today. The Japanese leadership had barely just learned about the devastation when Nagasaki was bombed. 

Edited June 10, 2024 by the narrator

[bluebell]

6 minutes ago, the narrator said:

I guess you could know more about it than Eisenhower....

Wow, kind of snarky for someone so Christ-like.  

The historical evidence isn't conclusive on the issue, and many historians disagree with the opinions of the ones you cited.  The truth on this issue won't be found in the historical record.  There's not enough information for anyone to do much besides make assumptions based on their interpretation of incomplete evidence (some of which contradicts with itself).

That's history, as unsatisfying as it is.

[Calm]

32 minutes ago, bluebell said:

They didn't surrender after it was dropped on hiroshima.  If they had been ready to surrender before Hiroshima, that delay is hard to explain.

Possibly after Hiroshima…..They were pissed and in true despair figured any country who was willing to drop the bomb (plus the firebombing) was going to destroy them anyway, so they should take as many of the enemy as possible before they were killed.

(Above is pure speculation)

Edited June 10, 2024 by Calm

[the narrator]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Wow, kind of snarky for someone so Christ-like.  

The historical evidence isn't conclusive on the issue, and many historians disagree with the opinions of the ones you cited.  The truth on this issue won't be found in the historical record.  There's not enough information for anyone to do much besides make assumptions based on their interpretation of incomplete evidence (some of which contradicts with itself).

That's history, as unsatisfying as it is.

I highly recommend watching The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. McNamara was one of the architects of the firebombings.

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Wow, kind of snarky for someone so Christ-like.  

The historical evidence isn't conclusive on the issue, and many historians disagree with the opinions of the ones you cited.  The truth on this issue won't be found in the historical record.  There's not enough information for anyone to do much besides make assumptions based on their interpretation of incomplete evidence (some of which contradicts with itself).

That's history, as unsatisfying as it is.

This above is a trained historian’s POV, btw, narrator, not just someone with American History 101 on their transcript like me.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

32 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I agree they were already defeated (they could not win) but that is different than saying they were ready to surrender. 

The line in the sand of “unconditional surrender” was an arbitrary one. It’s impossible to say how the counterfactual history of a defeated Japan that was allowed to negotiate terms for peace would have compared to the history of Cold War we actually got. But just wanted to clarify that we were the ones who demanded nothing less than an unconditional surrender.  

Edited June 10, 2024 by SeekingUnderstanding

[bluebell]

15 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The line in the sand of “unconditional surrender” was an arbitrary one. It’s impossible to say how the counterfactual history of a defeated Japan that was allowed to negotiate terms for peace would have compared to the history of Cold War we actually got. But just wanted to clarify that we were the ones who demanded nothing less than an unconditional surrender.  

I agree, it's impossible to say how things would have played out in a different historical timeline.  To me, that's one of the most important thing to realize on this topic.  Some people are comfortable declaring what would or would not have happened in absolutes, but I think such declarations are a misunderstanding of what the historical record is.  Most of this topic isn't history, it's supposition (or what might have happened) and though that should be based on evidence and extrapolation, in some sense it's all just a bunch of educated guesswork.  

Take this perspective, from Nick Fotion, a professor of philosophy:

Quote

 

So what might it have been like not to drop the bombs? Very likely the war would have continued for some time even after the Soviet Union had gotten into the fray. The conventional bombing campaign of the mainland would have continued, perhaps for two or more months. The number of Japanese killed from these bombings alone would likely have equalled those killed by the two nuclear bombs. But then there is the invasion of Kyushu to consider. It was scheduled for early November 1945. In size and scope, that campaign was to be much larger than the costly fight for Okinawa. Okinawa cost the Japanese well over 100,000 lives, in effect their whole fighting force on the island. Counting navy and kamikaze deaths, the Japanese may have lost as many as 120,000 lives. On the U.S. side more than 12,000 soldiers and sailors died, and more than 40,000 were wounded. But the Kyushu invasion, called Coronet, would have involved a U.S. fighting force at least twice the size of the Okinawa force. The Japanese defenders on the mainland were likely five or six times more numerous compared to those on Okinawa. Further, civilians were being trained to fight. Not only that, the suicide attackers in the form of several thousand airplanes, hundreds of mini submarines and small boats were likely to be far more effective defending the homeland than Okinawa, simply because the American and other Allied ships would be right off shore rather than several hundred miles away.

No doubt the projection of a million U.S. casualties (both dead and wounded) by some who defend the use of the nuclear bombs represents an exaggeration. Still, U.S. casualties very likely would have reached more than 200,000 and, if things had not gone well, even 300,000. Japanese casualties no doubt would have been much higher both because of overwhelming U.S. and Allied fire power and the desperate way the Japanese were fighting.

 

Those are some good numbers and they are based on the data available.  But that data is still incomplete even if the treatment of it is sound, and so the conclusions (no matter what side of the debate they fall on) will always have some weaknesses.

I don't know that allowing the japanese to eventually surrender a few months (and lives) later would have had a positive impact on the cold war or not.  Russia certainly wasn't willing to concede anything after victory in Europe, and the US was in a tight spot with them.  Allowing them to get involved in the Japanese theater and expand their land/resource grab could have had disastrous consequences and eventually led to a "hot" war.  Or maybe not. There isn't really a way to tell.

For anyone interested, Netflix has a fascinated series on the end of WWII and the birth of the Cold war called Turning Point that provides a lot of context and information.  It's got multiple episodes, highlighting how complex all of this history is.  I'm not saying it's the last word on the subject or anything, but it's really interesting for those who like this topic.

[bluebell]

36 minutes ago, the narrator said:

I highly recommend watching The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. McNamara was one of the architects of the firebombings.

I'll add it to my list.  Biographies/autobiographies are useful in historical study.  Understanding personal perspectives of those who were there, while not capable of telling us "what actually happened," are still very useful in getting a fuller picture of an event.

[bluebell]

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

This above is a trained historian’s POV, btw, narrator, not just someone with American History 101 on their transcript like me.

Trained just enough to be dangerous....  

[Calm]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Trained just enough to be dangerous....  

the most fun kind….

[LoudmouthMormon]

On 6/9/2024 at 2:15 PM, SeekingUnderstanding said:

My wife has family in both Korea and Japan.

6 hours ago, the narrator said:

My maternal grandfather survived two firebombings in Japan.

Since we're sharing, 

My father was a WWII vet who fought his way to Germany, and was part of the allied occupation force for a little bit.  He was 2 days away from starting jungle training, and he spent the rest of his life convinced that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved his life, and the lives of tens of thousands of US soldiers.

 

6 hours ago, the narrator said:

TLDR: Curtis Lemay and Harry Truman are burning in hell.

If they are, I'm sure they're looking down at the Japanese military leadership, who are burning in a deeper level of hell.  You launch a surprise attack against a neutral country, you sort of cede the moral high ground, IMO.   And if we're gonna be opining about the eternal fate of people, we can add whoever was responsible for feeding the Japanese will to fight to the last person.  And whoever was responsible for placing Japanese emperors on such a high pedestal in the hearts of the Japanese military and people.   Y'all talking about how defeated and done Japan was, and yet Hirohito escaped war crimes charges from the Tokyo tribunal.  And actually stayed in power to a certain extent.  (Although I guess it was nice that he formally renounced his divinity in 1946.) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
You know how weird it is to see a Wikipedia page this massive?  The thing just goes on, page after page after page.  Is there a similar page for any country that is longer?  How many of the folks sourced and named in this article are burning in hell, according to y'alls righteous judgments?

Yeah.  People sharing stories about how nobody knew about the firebombings, and how horrible and indefensible US actions were.  Here's a perspective for ya: 
- 1936-1945: Unit 731 conducting biological and chemical warfare experiments on human subjects.  Eventually killing upwards of 300,000.  They called the test subjects "logs".
- 1941: Surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
- 1942-1945: Japan carrying out the Three Alls Policy of "kill all, burn all, loot all" in China, resulting in the deaths of over 2.5 million Chinese civilians. 
- December 1944: Japan planning Operation PX, attacking San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco with bubonic plague, cholera, typhus, dengue fever, and other things.
- August 7-9 1945: US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Up until then, as far as I can tell, nobody in Japan ever voiced any thought except "Japan will never surrender". 
- August 9: Full Japanese cabinet debates surrender for a full day.  Meeting ends at 5:30, no consensus.  2nd meeting ends at 10pm, no consensus.  Imperial conference lasting into the 10th, then we finally get: 
"It goes without saying that it is unbearable for me to see the brave and loyal fighting men of Japan disarmed. It is equally unbearable that others who have rendered me devoted service should now be punished as instigators of the war. Nevertheless, the time has come to bear the unbearable."

 

A wise and worthy saying is "War doesn't decide who's right, it decides who's left."  But the armchair quarterback tactic of judging one side, while giving unequal examination to another side, is hardly a worthy endeavor.  Folks who are so convinced that the US done wrong by humanity, I dare you to spend as much time reading the wiki article on Japanese war crimes.  I double dog dare ya.

Shortly after WWII, the allied forces and West Germans were all friends, as we united against communist Russia and East Germany.  But as far as I can tell, the generation who fought in WWII stayed mad at Japan for the rest of their lives.  But it was just because of media spin, right?  Heh.  

Edited June 10, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[SeekingUnderstanding]

17 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

A wise and worthy saying is "War doesn't decide who's right, it decides who's left."  But the armchair quarterback tactic of judging one side, while giving unequal examination to another side, is hardly a worthy endeavor.  Folks who are so convinced that the US done wrong by humanity, I dare you to spend as much time reading the wiki article on Japanese war crimes.  I double dog dare ya.

Is it your position that war crimes by one side make war crimes by the other acceptable? Really?

Otherwise I have no idea what your point is. Not one word of this thread has been spent defending the actions of the Japanese. 
 

And again, the unconditional surrender of Japan was an arbitrary goal. One that was not required to end the war. So when we talk about what would have been required to accomplish this goal without the bomb, that should be remembered. 
 

And to share further, my grandpa fought in wwii and my Grandma lost her cousin to Pearl Harbor. And yet I still don’t condone nor excuse the mass torture of civilians. 

Edited June 10, 2024 by SeekingUnderstanding

[LoudmouthMormon]

24 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Is it your position that war crimes by one side make war crimes by the other acceptable? 

No.  My position is: "the armchair quarterback tactic of judging one side, while giving unequal examination to another side, is hardly a worthy endeavor"

And, my position is also: "War doesn't decide who's right, it decides who's left."

 

Quote

Not one word of this thread has been spent defending the actions of the Japanese. 

True.  But neither does there seem to be any serious consideration of why the arbitrary goal of 'unconditional surrender' seemed like such a good idea at the time.  My post was an attempt to perhaps shed a little light, as we go about making moral judgments about the eternal souls of those who demanded that goal. 

The Japanese emperor, and an entire nation of people who thought of him as divine, had to be brought to the brink of extinction before they even considered surrender.  Y'all arguing that the level of destruction we rained down on Japan wasn't necessary.  I respectfully disagree, and posted an argument to substantiate my opinion. 

Edited June 10, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[bluebell]

26 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Shortly after WWII, the allied forces and West Germans were all friends, as we united against communist Russia and East Germany.  But as far as I can tell, the generation who fought in WWII stayed mad at Japan for the rest of their lives.  But it was just because of media spin, right?  Heh.  

I don’t know that that’s exactly true. The occupation of Japan after their surrender went very smoothly, and Japan went from enemy to ally fairly quickly, in part because the American occupying forces got along so well with the Japanese.

We also can’t discount a fair amount of racism in the general US views towards the Japanese when talking about American feelings towards that enemy.  Americans were more easily able to view the Germans in a positive light than enemies of a different race.  Sadly, we even sent a boat of Jewish refugees back to the Germans, after refusing to let them disembark when they landed in America, while we accepted boatloads of German refugees without a blink of an eye.  So it wasn’t just enemies that we struggled with.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

30 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

No.  My position is: "the armchair quarterback tactic of judging one side, while giving unequal examination to another side, is hardly a worthy endeavor"

The other side in this case is wholly worthy of condemnation. Their crimes were many and legion. Better?

(ETA:Is there any real debate here? I mean I have never ever ever heard anyone defend Japan’s crimes or diminish them. On the other hand, I frequently hear people defend both the firebombing of Tokyo and the deployment of Nuclear weapons against civilians as justified).

FWIW, condemning the other side (even when they are very wrong) rarely accomplishes anything. In my own life, I can’t change my kids, or my wife, or my coworkers. I can change me though. I’m an American citizen. I have the right and responsibility to vote and voice my opinion on what my leaders do in my name. You can bet if I was Japanese and voted there, I would be coming to this point differently. 

30 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

any serious consideration of why the arbitrary goal of 'unconditional surrender' seemed like such a good idea at the time.

And if that required the mass killing of countless civilians in particularly gruesome, painful and slow ways so be it. Right?

My last post on this topic since it’s not appropriate on this board. Apologies to the moderators in advance. I accept any punishment deemed necessary. 

Edited June 10, 2024 by SeekingUnderstanding

[blackstrap]

Had the bombs not been used ,there would be those who wondered what the effects would be on a population. Sooner or later there would be a ' testing '  , if not WW2 , then Korea or Vietnam or Afghanistan. I have yet to see a weapon developed  that was not used on some population. The exception may be the hydrogen bomb but that is just a bigger , badder Atomic one. 

[the narrator]

17 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

blah blah blah

Nobody is defending the evils that the Japanese did here.

[Teancum]

On 6/4/2024 at 12:25 PM, smac97 said:

I have previously noted that Ensign Peak Advisors seems to have some guidelines regarding investing in, shall we say, "problematic" industries.  See, e.g., here:

And here:

See also here: LDS Church kept the lid on its $100B fund for fear tithing receipts would fall, account boss tells Wall Street Journal

EPA's investment guidelines will, in the end, often have a substantial "judgment call" component.  JPMorgan's legal problems are legion, but EPA apparently still invests in it.  Amazon has been criticized for some of the items it sells (Nazi stuff, gross-out stuff, "sexually exploitative products," etc.), and plenty of books critical of the Church,  but EPA apparently still invests in it.  

Per this article, EPA has invested in various companies which manufacture weapons:

Thoughts?  Should EPA have such investments?

Thanks,

-Smac

I imagine there will be a lot of differing opinions on whether EPA should invest in these types of companies. Personally I am torn.  Almost all of my investments are in mutual funds so I have little to no say over what companies I invest in other than I can choose the type of mutual fund based on my investment philosophy.

[Teancum]

On 6/4/2024 at 3:48 PM, bluebell said:

Thinking about it some more, making weapons and having them and being prepared to defend yourself doesn’t seem like a bad thing. It’s certainly supported all throughout the book of Mormon, for example.

There are a lot of times when war is immoral, of course, but it’s not immoral automatically.

That’s all theoretical stuff since we can’t really speak to the specifics of each company.  With businesses this size there’s really no way to judge the morality of each one based off of what they make. I think one of the reasons that the church probably invests in these kinds of businesses but not in gambling or tobacco is because defense is not against our doctrine or principles. While gambling and smoking are. 

 

Good points. On the other hand a nuclear weapon seems blatantly immoral.  Yet we have them as do the enemies of the US.  And Latter day Saints live everywhere.  The church took a pretty hard opposing stance in the 1980s against the potential placement of the MX missile system in the desert west of SLC. President Kimball was ardently opposed to it. There is even a talk by him referenced as The False Gods We Worship where he speaks out loudly against being a war like nation and against weapons of war.

http://www.nauvoo.com/library/kimball-false.html

Quote

 

And so it often seems to be with people, having such a firm grasp on things of the world -- that which is telestial -- that no amount of urging and no degree of emergency can persuade them to let go in favor of that which is celestial. Satan gets them in his grip easily. If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit.

In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had -- in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people -- a condition repugnant to the Lord.

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel -- ships, planes, missiles, fortifications -- and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching:

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45).

 

We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us -- and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Nephi 1:7) -- or he will fight our battles for us (Exodus 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many). This he is able to do, for as he said at the time of his betrayal, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53). We can imagine what fearsome soldiers they would be. King Jehoshaphat and his people were delivered by such a troop (see 2 Chronicles 20), and when Elish's life was threatened, he comforted his servant by saying, "Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings 6:16). The Lord then opened the eyes of the servant, "And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (vs 17).

What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.

We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the "arm of flesh," for the Lord has said to all the world in our day, "I will not spare any that remain in Babylon" (D&C 64:24).

 

 

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

I imagine there will be a lot of differing opinions on whether EPA should invest in these types of companies. Personally I am torn.  Almost all of my investments are in mutual funds so I have little to no say over what companies I invest in other than I can choose the type of mutual fund based on my investment philosophy.

Yep.  There is seldom a "bright line rule" by which we can make such decisions.  We must instead resort to a balancing test, a weighing of pros and cons, of tradeoffs and concessions and accommodations.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Good points. On the other hand a nuclear weapon seems blatantly immoral.  Yet we have them as do the enemies of the US.  And Latter day Saints live everywhere.  The church took a pretty hard opposing stance in the 1980s against the potential placement of the MX missile system in the desert west of SLC. President Kimball was ardently opposed to it. There is even a talk by him referenced as The False Gods We Worship where he speaks out loudly against being a war like nation and against weapons of war.

http://www.nauvoo.com/library/kimball-false.html

 

Good stuff with valid points.  I don't believe being able to defend yourself is an act of faithlessness in God's protection though.  That's like saying that getting a vaccination or going to the doctor means we've forgotten that God offers blessings of healing.

Things need to be kept in order, which is what I take from that talk.  We shouldn't be a war-like nation, we should love our enemies, we shouldn't put all of our resources into creating weapons.  

Kimball's words often come across more strident than I think it's smart to interpret them.  Just my opinion but to me that's the biggest problem with his Miracle of Forgiveness book.  He's so focused on his point (which is always a valid point in my experience) that nuance in the topic is lost.

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

don't believe being able to defend yourself is an act of faithlessness in God's protection though. 

And certainly contrary to how the Book of Mormon portrays defensive preparation.

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

And certainly contrary to how the Book of Mormon portrays defensive preparation.

Exactly.

[Teancum]

16 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yep.  There is seldom a "bright line rule" by which we can make such decisions.  We must instead resort to a balancing test, a weighing of pros and cons, of tradeoffs and concessions and accommodations.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Hey!  We agree on something.  😁

[smac97]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

Yep.  There is seldom a "bright line rule" by which we can make such decisions.  We must instead resort to a balancing test, a weighing of pros and cons, of tradeoffs and concessions and accommodations.  

Hey!  We agree on something.  😁

I suspect this happens more often than we each likely think.

Thanks,

-Smac