A couple of weeks ago I saw part of a TV programme while I was setting up the video to tape the following programme. It was a re-run of "The World at War" and just happened to be about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the behind-the-scenes politicking between Churchill, Stalin and (I suppose) Truman. The incredible thing for me was the interview with the pilot of 'Enola Gay' (his name escapes me) who talked with evident pride of the preparation for the mission. I'm summarising but the bottom line of his recollection immediately after dropping the bomb and seeing the mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima was that of 'a satisfaction of a job well done'. Half a million people (civilians mostly) killed and all he felt was pride in the accuracy of his bombing. My girlfriend and I watched this in disbelief and thought 'how can anyone feel this way after wiping a whole city and its population off the map?' Does it make it easier killing all these people from a height of however many thousands of feet it was? Our reaction was, and is, that that man was scum, a murderer and a war criminal, although he was 'only carrying out orders'. Are there no orders too barbaric to be followed? And to follow up with Nagasaki. Yesterday was the national day of Catalonia and therefore a holiday for my girlfriend and I. We were able to have lunch together, a rare treat for us, and just as we were about to start our 'siesta' the news broke on the TV. We were transfixed by the images and it was hours before we were able to switch it off. It was appalling and unforgivable and our hearts go out to our friends in NYC and their friends and families and everyone affected by this barbarity. Nevertheless, I had a flashback to the Enola Gay pilot and supposed that somewhere out there wherever yesterday's attacks were planned someone must be sitting back in satisfaction, feeling proud about 'a job well done'. I wonder if the Enola Gay pilot, if he is still alive, would recognise this sentiment. I imagine that these comments may upset some people and I apologise in advance for that. It is not my intention to offend, I swear. War is war and peace is peace and there is no comparison between Hiroshima 1945 and NYC/Washington 2001. This is probably the first time that an attack of this magnitude has happened on the US mainland, but to my parents' generation the London blitz and the firebombing of Dresden and Leipzig are real memories, not 'Mars Attacks' FX. Please don't get me wrong. I am appalled that the USA, as perpetrators of many illegal and immoral activities (The Contras, Kissinger's part in Allende's downfall, 'Agent Oranging' in Vietnam, and a long etc.) has become the victim of yesterday's terrorism, but it was to be expected that if the USA continued to throw its weight around as the planet's geopolitical sheriff, someone would one day perpetrate an outrage like this. It is perhaps the scale of the attacks that is most shocking. War is war and peace is peace, I hear you say. I know, I know, but it shows again that nobody is safe from terrorism. Fanatics cannot be stopped, not even by the world's mightiest military force. The only solution is a political, not a military solution. "Jaw Jaw is better than War War" as Churchill said. All the listers talk of love, peace and reconciliation while the press is full of vengeance and retaliation. Where do we go from here? Sorry again if these thoughts seem out of place. We can't help what we think, or know why we think it. Mike
