An Anniversary

Last week there were lots of news stories commemorating the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Most of the coverage was concentrated on the devastation leveled on the Land of the Rising Sun by the atomic bombs code named Fat Man and Little Boy. Naturally, like most events viewed in hindsight, the second guessing about the necessity of a smack down of this magnitude which rendered so much damage and loss of life was mostly of the "we really didn't need to do it" variety.  The contention that "if only we had dropped the bombs off shore the Japanese would have surrendered" is most often postulated.  This chestnut is usually espoused by folks not around at the time of World War II and/or by mental midgets who think Barack Obama and John Kerry are doing a crackerjack job of handling our nation's defense.  In other words, numbnuts.

Anyone who has spoken with veterans of the war in the Pacific, especially those unfortunate enough to have been taken prisoner by the Japanese, will, to a man, tell you that Japan had no plans to surrender.   American captives witnessed the daily sticks and stones drilling by men, women and children preparing for the Allied invasion they knew was coming.  The bombs dropped by B-29 pilot Paul Tibbetts and company were the sole reason the Japanese accepted the Postsdam surrender terms seventy years ago today, August 14, 1945,  and signed the formal documents aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2.

The courage of President Harry Truman to order the bombings and Paul Tibbetts crew to complete the mission most likely saved a couple of hundred thousand American lives that would have most certainly been lost during a land invasion of Japan.  Both men reportedly slept well for the rest of their lives knowing they had made the right decision and carried it out in a timely manner.  I seriously wonder if we ever again will be blessed to have such men.   Doing what is required to put an end to wars we never seem to start these days finds us timid and reluctant.  Career politicians with an eye on polls seem fearful of making any commitment that risks even a whiff of unpopularity with an impatient and often uninformed electorate.  The U.S. is poorer for it, and, I fear, because we are currently led by an embarrassingly naive and timid administration, we invite war with far greater consequences than the country has ever experienced. The world will always be home to those who seek to dominate others.  To show weakness and lack of will only invites conflict.  We pull our punches and equivocate at our  peril.


"I thought to myself, 'Gee, if we can be successful, we're going to prove to the Japanese the futility in continuing to fight because we can use those weapons on them.  They're not going to stand up to this thing.  After I saw what I saw I was more convinced that they're going to quit.  That's the only way I could do it," - Pilot Paul Tibbetts


"Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences." -Norman Cousins