Kat wrote:
> All right, we have symbolically refrained from using nuclear weapons on
> numerous occasions. But aren't we sort of the only people who've ever
> *used* nuclear weapons? Doesn't that sort of muck up our track record?
Let me ask you a question. Would you believe an alcoholic that told you it
was a bad idea to drink too much? WOuld you believe a man that had killed
another man in self defense tell you it was a bad idea to take a human life?
Or would you assume that if *they* did it then you could too? I'd say that
we as a nation know better than anyone else what it does to a people to use
these weapons. That doesn't make us more noble, but it gives our nation a
different perspective on it.
Yes, the US is the only nation that's ever used an atomic weapon in wartime.
At the time, it seemed the best option. No one had ever used one before,
and it seemed likely that the use of this weapon would end the war without
an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Looking back, we can do all kinds
of Monday morning quarterbacking and say, "But but but if they'd done this
and such, everything would have worked out fine!" We can see that now. At
the time, the view was different. A good friend of my father's was a
chaplain during the War in the Pacific. He was involved in the aftermath of
the island campaign, and remembers to this day counseling many, many young
soldiers that *knew*, based upon the bitter, "no surrender" tactics of the
Japanese in Okinawa, Iwo Jima and all of the other islands they occupied,
that an invasion of the Home Islands would be bloody, and millions on both
sides would die. When the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was
announced, the first thought almost every single soldier in the Pacific
theater had was, "Thank God. Thank God, we're not going to have to go and
die in Japan." President Truman made the decision that it was better for
the US and Japan for two entire cities to die immediately rather than
millions of soldiers and millions of civilians die in a long, drawn out
invasion. We will never know for sure if he was right, although the
evidence points in favor of the decision to use atomic weapons. I think I'd
have made the same decision in that situation.
Adam C. Lipscomb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ# 32384792
