tabular_rasa | Rant I Did in the AOL Hiroshima Chatroom (Reply)

I've been watching this post all day to see if any arguments came up and not really planning to post anything, but since AOL forgot the link and you all seem so disappointed . . .

I came here last year, said my piece, was argued with, and argued back. One year later, after a little more recovery time from my visit to Hiroshima, and a full AP course of US History, I still have the same standpoint.

Some of the videos we watched in our class about the bomb suggested that Truman and only a select few of his advisors supported the dropping of the bomb-- the majority, in the end, did not-- but it was Truman's decision in the end. Japan sent a peace faction over-- the effort was there-- but as the nation was already practically in shambles and torn between those who wanted calm surrender and those who would fight to the death, it did little good. Really the greatest obstacle in Japanese-US relations lay in Truman's pet phrase "unconditional surrender"-- many of the Japanese made very clear that they would accept surrender as long as they got to keep their emperor, even just as a symbolic figure. Yet this was a condition; we wouldn't accept it. Yet considering that's what resulted in the end anyway, couldn't we have gone without the bombings and simply lessened our too-firm demand for this unconditional surrender? Japan was at the breaking point; they weren't apt to give too many demands-- and perhaps only the emperor, given to them anyway.

Yet my largest qualm with the use of the atomic bomb still lies in ethics. I abhor civilian warfare. I disapprove as much of the firebombing of Tokyo as I do either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Japanese soldiers may have been absolutely abominable to our soldiers and those of their other enemies-- even their captured nation's people, as in the case of Korea-- but they never attacked our civilians. One may suggest they "would have if they had been able," but it was never done.

True, Japanese soldiers may have deserved recompense for their treatment of Korean civilians, but the atomic bombs didn't have much effect on soldiers. Those killed were women, children, the elderly . . . even Korean POWs brought to work in the industrial center Hiroshima was. The bombs were not providing proper revenge-- and revenge is a rather childish concept besides. Sure, it can be said the Japanese would have done everything they could to kill us, that they were all bloodthirsty militants (like those lovely propaganda posters; those things amuse me)-- but whatever happened to that concept we all learned in kindergarten about turning the other cheek and rising above the low tactics, even if they're used against you?

On top of that, the use of the first atomic bombs led to the Cold War-- half the reason we dropped the bombs were to intimidate the Soviets. Of course, we never would have remained ignorant; having made the bombs we would not go without testing them. It's just human nature, curiosity. The bombings at the end of WWII started an age of international fear and deadly competition, certainly not a plus, and possibly not forseen at the time of the bombings.

However, seeing as how the use of the bombs scared everyone that had them so badly that, though there were a few close calls, none were ever used, perhaps several million-- or even billion-- lives were spared-- as the potential was there to wipe out the earth. If the hundreds of thousands of people that died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the purpose to prevent the annihilation of the entire world, then

I suppose there was some use in the bombs. Then again, the world might have been able to infer the results of the bombs from simple controlled tests, and share the same fear without actually dropping them on two cities full of living, breathing people.

So, in the end, it all really comes down to whether we've learned what power we possess and whether we're going to try anything like that again.

If we don't, if we become wiser and more peaceful through the painful lesson taught through death, then perhaps they did not all die in vain.

After all, it would be rather a pathetic thing to learn to harness such power, and only have it be our undoing. Is it the flaw of humankind, knowing how to destruct but not how to keep from destructing?

Happy Peace Day.

I just found an lj community about Mori no Ike! Go figure . . . I'm going to go join it.