At 11:02 am
on August 11, seventy years ago today, the United States dropped the second
atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, Japan killing 70,000 civilians of the
270,000 population.
We easily
call similar atrocities genocide, mass murder or terrorism. In our case we search for justification for
this slaughter claiming a high ground that it saved American lives, and we are
always the good-guys – manifest destiny.
We must
remember the winners get to write the history; and it goes down as genocide if
you are the looser but justifiable if you win
If you are
logical you could see how some middle-eastern nation exploding nuclear weapons
in New York and Chicago could use the same argument of justification that we
use for Japan.
It is human to personalize a vendetta as
justified when it might affect us. My
mother was a Navy Hospital Corpsman and a member of the very first group of
Waves sent into a war zone in WW-II: she was deployed aboard a hospital ship in
the Pacific; and my stepfather was in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. Their loss would have been traumatic for me but
I cannot justify the mass extermination of almost a quarter of a million men,
women and children (non-combatants) in an act of racial genocide perpetrated by
my government.
I do
understand emotion and war time mentality; for in Vietnam I readily bought in
to the notion of KILL’EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT IT OUT.
BUT
This is a
poor statement for the human race that we are readily capable of looking for
justification for the butchery of our own kind.
the Ol'Buzzard
the Ol'Buzzard
Perhaps it is time to once again mention that there is less than a 2 % difference between humans and chimpanzees. Less that 2 %. We are animals. Not the grand super beings our egos portray us as. We kill each other because it is in our DNA. It would take millennia for that to change.We won't survive that long!
ReplyDeletethis, and many other atrocities throughout history, are sad commentaries on us as human beings - if only we'd learn from our mistakes...
ReplyDeletethis, and many other atrocities throughout history, are sad commentaries on us as human beings - if only we'd learn from our mistakes...
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why we don't want anyone else to have "the bomb" because they just might use it like we did.
ReplyDelete