This weeks marks the 64th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the close of WWII. According to a recent poll, half of Americans approve of the bombings, and - considering how little real history is taught here, that is no big surprise. In fact, dropping atomic bombs was a political move, not a military strategy to shorten the war. It was a message to the Soviets that we were prepared for the coming conflict with communism with this new and formidable weapon.
So many people were incinerated and radiated on those terrible days. No matter, we relegate the past to irrelevance. Maybe, just maybe that's not the right thing to do.
An editorial at http://tvnewlies.org reminds us of what took place. It's worth a read and a reminder that our nuclear weapons today make the bombs of August, 1945 look like pea shooters. It begins:
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the United States dropped a nuclear weapon nicknamed "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima , Japan. This attack was followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To date, these are the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.
In Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
When the bombs were dropped I was very happy. The war would be over now, they said, and I was very happy. The boys would be coming home very soon they said, and I was very happy. We showed ‘em, they said, and I was very happy. They told us that the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed, and I was very happy. But in August of 1945 I was only ten years old, and I was very, very happy.
The crew of the B-29 was so young and heroic, and in the photo they also looked very happy. For some reason, I clearly remember the name of the pilot, Paul Tibbets. Of course I remember the name of the plane, the Enola Gay. And oh yes, I remember the name of the bomb. It was called Little Boy. That made me smile.
I was so proud to be an American that day because we had done something so remarkable. They said we were the first. We were Americans. We were powerful. But they didn’t say that Little Boy had killed 66,000 people with its huge fireball that fateful day in August. They didn’t say that Hiroshima was not a military target, but a city filled with men and women and children and animals who had no idea they were about to die so horribly. When you’re ten, they don’t always tell you everything
The article continues here:
http://tvnewslies.org/...