Today is
August 6th, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the U.S.
bombing of Hiroshima. I always felt that
the bombing was justified and necessary.
Without a demonstration of our overwhelming military superiority Japan
almost certainly would have fought on, with the consequent death of thousands
of Americans and possibly hundreds of thousands of Japanese. But, like most people Hiroshima continues to
trouble me.
It so
happens that, quite by circumstance, today I have been reading an account of
the Bataan death march and the subsequent treatment of our soldiers by the
Japanese army. I confess that I have to
struggle against the impulse to regard Hiroshima and Nagasaki as condign
retribution for Bataan. But I shouldn’t
feel that way, and I know it. However, it
is difficult.
As someone
surely must once have said, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth
eventually must lead to a blind, toothless humanity”. So I am going to stop reading about Bataan, and watch something mindless on TV. Moral cowardice, I guess, but then, that’s me
If God
really did create us, He shouldn’t be too proud of His handiwork..
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