And an older one on Nagasaki

[conuly]

This is geared towards Christians, but it's a good read for everybody, I think.

Comments

[phoenix-blue.livejournal.com]

We're talking about a nation that would have died to the last man, woman and child rather than surrender -- taking a million or more American lives with them in the process. We're talking about a government that killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of Chinese. We're talking about a culture that viewed itself as superior to any other on Earth, much like Hitler's Third Reich saw itself as the apex of humanity.

There was no Holocaust per se in the Pacific Theater, but what the Japanese government did before and during World War II, necessarily with the consent of its people, was evil.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended it. They ended the war, and they gave back life to the Japanese who would no longer have to waste their lives to a futile struggle against American and Soviet invasion. It's sad that so many people had to die the way they did -- those who didn't die instantly would have been in agony until their bodies failed. But what would have been worse, in my view, is a world without Japan, because that's exactly where we would be today.

Today's historical revisionists can sit back and argue from their armchairs that it was wrong to use the Bomb, that we should have whet the altar of war with millions of Japanese and American lives instead. I say they're full of horseshit: sometimes there are no right choices, and the choice that's least wrong is the one that, ultimately, kills the fewest. In war, those are frequently the only options you get.

[conuly]

And at what cost? My mom grew up, I grew up, we all grew up knowing that one day we could go poof in a minute.

You might talk about "revisionism", but when people alive then and presumably in the know about what was going on have commented that Japan was "ready to surrender" and had "already sued for peace" before the bombs were dropped... I don't understand how that makes any sense.

[stejcruetekie.livejournal.com]

And this is why Mennonites rock!

[conuly]

Yes, I suppose it must be.

[phoenix-blue.livejournal.com]

We're talking about a nation that would have died to the last man, woman and child rather than surrender -- taking a million or more American lives with them in the process. We're talking about a government that killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of Chinese. We're talking about a culture that viewed itself as superior to any other on Earth, much like Hitler's Third Reich saw itself as the apex of humanity.

There was no Holocaust per se in the Pacific Theater, but what the Japanese government did before and during World War II, necessarily with the consent of its people, was evil.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended it. They ended the war, and they gave back life to the Japanese who would no longer have to waste their lives to a futile struggle against American and Soviet invasion. It's sad that so many people had to die the way they did -- those who didn't die instantly would have been in agony until their bodies failed. But what would have been worse, in my view, is a world without Japan, because that's exactly where we would be today.

Today's historical revisionists can sit back and argue from their armchairs that it was wrong to use the Bomb, that we should have whet the altar of war with millions of Japanese and American lives instead. I say they're full of horseshit: sometimes there are no right choices, and the choice that's least wrong is the one that, ultimately, kills the fewest. In war, those are frequently the only options you get.

[conuly]

And at what cost? My mom grew up, I grew up, we all grew up knowing that one day we could go poof in a minute.

You might talk about "revisionism", but when people alive then and presumably in the know about what was going on have commented that Japan was "ready to surrender" and had "already sued for peace" before the bombs were dropped... I don't understand how that makes any sense.

[stejcruetekie.livejournal.com]

And this is why Mennonites rock!

[conuly]

Yes, I suppose it must be.