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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums68 Years Ago, plus or minus a few days, something horrible happened, and something hopeful.
Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 04:36 PM - Edit history (1)
I was born to a 21 year old woman living in Arizona, while her husband, who was only 20, was in Northern Africa, flying the same B-17 he had flown on many bombing missions, now ferrying people on their way back to the USA from Italy. That was, for me and for my parents, the hopeful thing.
A few days later, the United States dropped the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, and then on Nagasaki. The European war was over, but the war in the Pacific was still going on. That was the horrible thing, and it remains a horrible thing.
Now, 68 years later, we're still talking about those two nuclear weapons. None have been used since to destroy cities and kill people. And that's rightfully so. The world, and we, were horrified at the destructive power of nuclear weapons and, despite an arms race that saw the creation of thousands of the infernal devices, none were ever used in war again. It's good that we're still talking about it.
Still, the question of whether we should have used those weapons at the end of the Pacific war can never really be answered. Now, 68 years later, we are no closer to a satisfactory answer than we were in 1945. The war with Japan ended quickly after those two bombs were dropped, and no such wide-scale war has occurred since.
That 20 year old man, and his wife, are still alive, and living on their farm in California. Their health is declining, and at 88 and 89 years of age, they don't have a lot of time left. They're typical of those who were involved in WWII in one way or another. One was a bomber pilot, and the other a very young woman with a newly-born infant and an absent husband. Ask them about dropping nuclear weapons on Japan, and they'll say the same things people are saying today. They don't know whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing to do, and can tell you why there is indecision in their thinking. They lived it.
I didn't live it. I was born almost simultaneously with the bombing. I grew up hiding under desks during "Atomic Bomb" drills, and helped my father build a fallout shelter under our house in 1960, during the Cuban missile crisis. I grew up being an opponent of nuclear weapons, and nuclear power generation, too, following a meltdown in the first commercial nuclear power generation facility ever built, not 10 air miles from my Southern California home.
Nuclear weapons are a horror. That is precisely why they were never used again in a war. I hope that continues to be the case, and I think it will. We don't do world wars any longer, but that doesn't mean we're not at war with one country or another or one terrorist organization or another from time to time. Humans are at war much of the time, have been through most of human history, and more's the pity.
But what happened 68 years ago presents questions that can't really be answered well. Was it the right or wrong thing to do? I don't know. My parents, who were intimately aware of it, don't know. Nobody really knows. That's what happened, and was the final end to that horrible war. It hasn't happened again. It should never happen again. I hope it does not happen again.
But that was 68 years ago. Most of the people who were alive then are dead. The ones who are not, including me, still cannot adequately answer the question, because there is no correct answer. Not ever using such weapons again is the correct answer.
leftstreet
(36,097 posts)Communism
Labor Unions
South America
etc
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)It wasn't my choice, you know. And that is not the point of my post, anyhow. I'm not sure what your point is, either.
leftstreet
(36,097 posts)That was my only point
I liked your post, by the way. It's representative of thousands of kids growing up post WWII
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)avoid using nuclear weapons every since. That is a sign of some sort of rational thinking, at least.
We still have them, though. That needs to be corrected, I believe, and I've believed that since I was able to think for myself.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)My parents told me and I thought that Pearl was a woman and I remember saying, "Poor Pearl." But I am one who lived at that time, and I am still around and hope not to be if we have another world war.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)who remember, at least as children.
SharonAnn
(13,771 posts)Needless to say, my parents' and their families were worried sick. My grandfather had been serving as Army Dr. in the South Pacific campaign for almost 2 years.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)in 1946. Worry was the order of the day for those who were at home at the time.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)This is the moral dilemma we face. But it is particularly pertinent in these times, I think, when we ponder the more surgical ways in which war is able to be waged today. Technology continues to change the face of warfare. In World War I it was mustard gas; it World War II it was aerial bombing and, eventually, nuclear weapons; in Vietnam it was agent orange; in the era of non-state warfare it is the drone.
My father, who is going on 97 this year, has become rather philosophical of late. A veteran of World War II (he flew 60 missions in the South Pacific, as a tail gunner), he has been reassessing what he was asked to do back then, especially since one of his grandsons married a Japanese woman and moved to Japan. He even says that he believes he was dropping agent orange on towns and villages, and he looks sad. He has been morally challenged. But he recently said something to me that got me thinking. We bombed whole cities full of innocent civilians in World War II, he saidDresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. It was terrible. But why is it that people today think we can have wars but not kill anyone?
Well, it's a good question. Partly it may be that we have not had a war that anyone has believed in the way people believed in the great World Wars. We just don't think they should be waged at all, and so any collateral damage is unacceptable. But it got me thinking about the current conversations we have here about drones, and about the Apache helicopter footage exposed by Manning, in which two Reuters cameramen died among the 8 people who were killed. This tragedy (the kind of mistake that hapens in the fog of war) has become the rallying cry for many. Yet how it pales in comparison to what was done to Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Let's take Dresden alone:
In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The resulting firestorm destroyed fifteen square miles (39 square kilometres) of the city centre. Between 22,000 and 25,000 people were killed.
And those weren't the only European cities bombed (I think of Rotterdam, for example). I can't imagine what it must have felt like to be an American citizen watching this from home at the time. I can only think how conflicted I would have felt. How many tens of thousands of innocent civilians were killed; and how many cities were devastated. It seems to me at times a tad hysterical to consider the collateral damage from today's surgical strikes in even the same breath. War is horrible; it kills innocent people. I can't ever quite come to terms with it.
If these questions concern you, I can recommend no more beautiful and contemplative film than Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace, which examines these subjects from the perspective of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the nuclear escalation between India and Pakistan.
Filmed over 4 years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA following nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent, War and Peace is a documentary journey of peace activism in the face of global militarism and war.
As we enter the 21st century, war has become perennial, enemies are re-invented and economies are inextricably tied to the production and sale of weapons. In the moral wastelands of the world memories of Gandhi seem like a mirage that never was, created by our thirst for peace and our very distance from it.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)We didn't just kill hundreds of thousands of people, but we caused generations of genetic mutations.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)are horrific, and many nations did that. Warfare in general is horrific. Would that wars did not occur...
Violet_Crumble
(35,955 posts)Happy birthday to you
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)No Okinawa, or Iwo?
No nuclear arms race?
No cold war?
After we ran out of nukes, and the soviets invaded, we finally accepted that 1 condition.
Japan would have continued to fight on if we hadn't.
It was a wise decision, it should have happened earlier though, but politics demanded the SHOCK & AWE.
The Japanese only surrendered when their one condition was met, when we FINALLY accepted their 1 condition, and the Chrysanthemum Throne stands in testament to the wisdom of that decision, as the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world to this very day... too bad we didn't accept it earlier.
I strongly disagree with your statement that "Now, 68 years later, we are no closer to a satisfactory answer than we were in 1945" we now know that they were NOT militarily necessary and I encourage all who require more than some sappy home-spun story to justify the use of those terrorist weapons on an innocent civilian population to read more of the historical record.
Here is a very good place to start...
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)even if you completely missed my point.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)MineralMan
(146,248 posts)OP in my thread, and it is not responsive to my post. Have a nice evening.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)The days of white-washing this horrific war crime are over, and will be challenged whenever it is attempted.
I admit that I still get sick thinking about what we did their so long ago, but what makes me even sicker is hearing the BS that still get's thrown around to try and justify it.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)Sorry you are confused. I hope your thread does not get hijacked, too.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)Which I completely disagree with.
In fact, if we do NOT try to answer that very question, will only increase the likely hood that they are used again.
And there have been times in our history since then were they were again contemplated, and they are on the table today.
So this is a vital question to examine, and understand, not for it to be swept under the rug, not to be questioned, because no one can really know the answer.
That is TOTAL BS.
Violet_Crumble
(35,955 posts)If he had, I wouldn't have thought it was a really excellent OP...
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)"Now, 68 years later, we are no closer to a satisfactory answer than we were in 1945. The war with Japan ended quickly after those two bombs were dropped"
Sorry, but this is a very important question for all of us to understand fully, and to reject the decades old propaganda, that "they saved lives", they "ended the war", they were "military necessary", etc. and start dealing with this issue openly and truthfully for all our futures.
Otherwise we are condemned to repeat it.
rug
(82,333 posts)MineralMan
(146,248 posts)That is always hopeful. Perhaps you missed that.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)lame
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)a hopeful thing? How odd.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)One aimed at discouraging debate and discussion of a very important topic.
How odd.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)And most of what you post ...I read and disagree with.
But, I'm a pragmatic person..and closer in "life perspective" than you might think..
I did read and appreciate your OP...even though I find your views narrow and not viewing "Change" as something we should deal with...because it's "uncomfortable to you" and that you can't seem to understand those of us who fight for change...who might be in your "particular time frame of birth.
Anyway...it was an interesting read...so a K&R to you.
On Edit...I don't think I said what I said very well...
So...I'll just say...we are closer on issues you bring up in your OP than you might think. It's our presentations of how we as children dealt with it...that causes us differences. But, again...we share a history...but we evolved differently .....yet, I think, times are such...we might seek to find more "common ground" in what we face ahead...rather than our "differences."
Not to be ....I get from you! But, I do think you could rethink and look for "commonality" from DU'ers here who have your same experiences...but, took that different path.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)Truly.