AUGUST 11, 1945

AMERICA, AMERICA GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE

What does it say about a nation that cold bloodedly murders 140,000 men women and children in one day and then five days later slaughters 70,000 more?  Is this a necessity of war, or genocide?  Was this collateral damage or an act of state sponsored terrorism?   Does it depend on who is doing the slaughter and who is slaughtered?   

After burning 140,000 people in the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 the United States dropped another nuclear bomb on the city of Nagasaki five days later, killing 70,000 of that cities 270,000 population. 

At that moment the United States became the most feared nation in the world.  Not only did it have the technology to slaughter hundreds of thousands of human beings in an instant but it also had the will to do it.

Back in the States the war was over.

  

People celebrated; but no one asked 'what have we done?' 

This does not stand as a condemnation of our nation state, but a condemnation of the human race in general.   The slaughter of civilian populations is not new to our race; it has gone on since the beginning of time.   Our closest kin in the animal kingdom, the chimpanzee, has been known to kill and eat its own kind, to attack other chimpanzee bands and to kill for pleasure or without purpose.   We have these same traits, and this is born out by our history.

I find it hard to believe that after the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of civilians in one bomb blast, that this country would be so callus as to repeat the carnage five days later.   

I do not excuse the United States for the attack on the Japanese cities; I do, however, feel that any other nation with the capacity and the same war mentality would have committed a similar atrocity on its ‘enemy.’  

I do condemn this country for not including this most heinous act in our history, along with condemnation and an apology, in the school books of our children.

We are who we are: not Americans, not Germans, not Japanese, not Russians… – but human beings.  We see what we are capable of - with no regret, so be afraid.  Be very afraid. 

the Ol’Buzzard