Just War Pacifism

Just War, Pacifism and Realism From an Ethical Perspective

Abstract
Human beings have been fighting with each other since prehistoric times, and people have been discussing the rights and wrongs of it. The Ethics of War begins by assuming that war is a bad thing, and should be avoided if possible, but there can be situations when war may be catastrophic. War is a bad thing because it involves deliberately killing or injuring people, and this is a fundamental wrong. The purpose of war ethics is to help decide what is right or wrong, both for individuals and countries, and to contribute to debates on public policy, and ultimately to government and individual action.
The city normally held about 250,000 people, but by the mid-1930 's its population had swollen to more than 1 million. Many of them were refugees, fleeing from the Japanese armies which had invaded China since 1931. On November 11, 1937, the Japanese army advanced towards Nanking from different directions. On the 12th, the defending Chinese troops decided to retreat to the other side of Yangtze River. On the 13th of December, the Japanese Army first entered the city. On the same day, Nanking fell to the Japanese. In the next six weeks, the Japanese started Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, during which an estimated 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed, and 20,000 women were raped. During the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese committed atrocities against innocent civilians, including mass execution, raping, looting, and burning. It is impossible to keep a detailed account of all of these crimes. However, from the scale and the nature of these crimes as documented by survivors and the diaries of the Japanese militarists, the evidence of this historical tragedy is
Japanese soldiers exercised inhumane and barbaric methods of killing. The brutalities included shooting, stabbing, cutting open the abdomen, excavating the heart, decapitation (beheading), drowning, burning, punching the body and the eyes with an awl, and even castration or punching through the vagina.
Raping
Approximately 20,000 women were raped by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre, most of whom were brutally killed afterwards. The Japanese soldiers even raped girls less than ten years old, women over seventy years old, pregnant women, and nuns. Rampant raping took place in the streets or at places of worship during the day. Many women were gang raped. Some Japanese even forced fathers to rape their daughters, sons to rape their mothers, etc. Those who resisted were killed immediately. Atrocities In The Safety Zone
When the Japanese were approaching Nanking in mid-November, a group of concerned foreigners formed an international rescue committee to establish a safety zone in an attempt to protect the refugees. The safety zone was build inside the city and included of more than twenty refugee camps, each of which contained from 200 to 12,000 people. During the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese frequently entered the safety zone to arrest young men. Each time, several hundred young men were arrested and executed on the