On August 9, 1945 at about 11:02 in the morning the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki in Japan. For an excellent description of the attack, the city, the bomb, the casualties, and the aftermath see here.
In the introduction to his book Ripples of Battle, Victor Davis Hanson gives the context for the dropping of the bomb:
At peace and in affluence, many Americans look back in revulsion at Hiroshima, but hardly any of these moral censors were mature enough in 1945 to remember Okinawa. They can hardly appreciate what suicidal fanaticism in April, May, and June of that year had taught past generations: over 12,000 American dead, 35,000 more wounded, and over 300 ships damaged. In fact, 35 percent of all American combatants who fought in and around Okinawa were casualties. The Japanese lost 100,000 killed and another 100,000 civilian casualties — much of it in hand-to-hand fighting on this large island, but an island minuscule in comparison with the far better defended and as yet unconquered Japanese mainland.
The blogosphere is strangely quiet about this 59th anniversay of the use of the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The thoughtful blogger Alice in Texas has not forgotten:
If someone had a better idea to end the war than dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima, I’ve never heard of it. Rather than asking, “Was it worth it?” we should probably just regret that we didn’t find that better solution at the time. Not because we could have, or should have, but because of the horror that resulted from what we did. Killing thousands of innocent civilians is never a good thing. But sometimes it is better than the alternative.
As I wrote in my entry for Friday the 6th, I’m chagrined that my country used the bomb. And I think we should remember.
Will we find a better solution in dealing with the evil that confronts us now? I honestly don’t know. But I’m convinced that unless we face it with a sense of immediacy and with all of the honesty, courage, tenacity, and ingenuity that we can muster—and with faith as well—that we may be driven to using the enormous power that we have at our command as we did almost sixty years ago: without restraint.
Chagrined? Why? What on earth was wrong with using an atomic bomb?
Other than that its given a handy club to ignorant America-bashers, the net result of the atomic bombings was just more dead in a very long war with lots of dead resultant. Dead is dead and our exit is more or less painful – death found approximately 60 million people between 1939 and 1945; were any of their deaths better deaths than those suffered at Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
I think we’re too conditioned by doomsday scenarios from the Cold War – too many people took the message of “Fail Safe” to heart, and hardly anyone read “On Thermonuclear War”; in 2004, I’d agree to using nuclear weapons if the situation warranted it (force used comensurate with the benefits gained) without the slightest qualm of conscience. What else could we do if, say, an Iranian-sponsored terrorist organisation set off a WMD in New York? It’d be bad for the Iranian civilians (technically innocent – but guilty of not long-before overthrowing their horrific government) killed in such a counter-strike, but if it ensured that no other WMD’s were set off in the United States, then it’d be worth it – and I can’t think of any other action likely to have such an educational effect upon that part of the world after such an attack upon the United States.
The bombs were used – some said we could have just starved them out, as if this is a better alternative; having people slowly starve to death (away from cameras, it goes without saying) is, I guess in the minds of some, preferrable to their instant incineration by a nuclear weapon. Go figure. I’m pretty much indifferent to the fate of those who die at the hands of American arms because invariably their held their fate in their hands and decided to place them in front of American power.
No, Mark, I disagree. Mass death is always evil even when the alternative is worse. I suggest reading this and thinking about it.
That something is necessary does not make it good. To think otherwise is to diminish our humanity.
Even if we recognize our own inability to act perfectly we can’t let it diminish our resolve to act as we must and as we should. IMO, that is the struggle of our lives.
Whoa there, Kingfish, or Dave Schuler, you are not making any sense. “Mass death is always evil even when the alternative is worse.” Does not simple logic require that one choose the lesser of two evils? You suggest that a blockade of Japan, which would have led to mass starvation of more people than died in the two atom bombings, is preferable. From whose standpoint? That course would have led to more Japanese deaths, although out of camera range. Further, it is grossly a-historical to avoid looking at the actual state of American opinion in the summer of 1945. I don’t believe that the US public would have gone along with blockade rather than an invasion to get it over with.
There is nothing magically evil about the use of atomic weapons. In the event that another terrorist strike hits the US, and if it can be linked to Iran or Syria, I think the public would demand MASSIVE retaliation.