North Korea's bomb - and Hiroshima
Many of the headlines greeting North Korea's nuclear blast yesterday carried the phrase "as big as the Hiroshima bomb" or words to that effect. But that's not the only reference point that Hiroshima should evoke.
Simply stated: The fact that the U.S. first developed, and then used - twice - the WMD to end all WMDs against heavily-populated cities, killing a quarter of a million civilians (and very few soldiers), has severely compromised our arguments against others building the weapon ever since.
Americans may not like to hear that but it happens to be true - as any review of statements from leaders abroad and media there shows, even in the many countries that have never had any interest in building such a bomb. Our view of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) and the common world view is 180 degrees different.
In a nutshell, Hiroshima was our original sin.
Yes, the debate over whether the bombs should have been dropped continues to rage, with valid points on both sides. Believe me, I know and respect most of them. But the world doesn't see it that balanced. They see us continually demanding that others not build, or stop building, nuclear weapons when we have actually used them. And then (like the Soviet Union) built tens of thousands more warheads. And maintained a "first use" policy against others. And defended the idea of dropping these WMDs on two cities.
I wrote a book in 1995 with the great Robert Jay Lifton called "Hiroshima in America" which probed American reactions (political, cultural, psychological) to the atomic bombings since 1945. We happen to believe that the bombs should not have been used in August, 1945, as even conservatives like John Foster Dulles and David Lawrence, and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, argued at the time. But put that aside. I'm not saying that there is nothing scary about North Korea or Iran (or anyone else) getting the bomb. I'm just pointing out that it is almost impossible for us to work our will on this abroad given our, ahem...track record.
And that's the true meaning of the "Hiroshima" you see in the headlines.
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Greg Mitchell's latest book is Why Obama Won. He is editor of Editor & Publisher and his Twitter feed is @GregMitch.
Could we STOP CONFLATING IRAN AND NORTH KOREA?
North Korea threw out IAEA inspectors, withdrew from the NPT, and built a bomb.
Iran has allowed more inspections than legally required, had suspended its enrichment program for 2 years as a good faith gesture, has offered to place additional, voluntary restrictions on its nuclear program beyond the requirements of the NPT, and has never been found to possess a nuclear weapons program.
BIG DIFFERENCE. And yet our punditry say "North Korea and IRan" in a single breath.
May 26, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, maybe some do but the author here did not say "and":
"I'm not saying that there is nothing scary about North Korea or Iran (or anyone else) getting the bomb. "
May 26, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it, in our current considerations, in our obsessiveness to define "America's original sin" (there seem to be so many), the atomic bombings are never engaged in the context of World War II? In the relentless - and now, frantic - attempts to configure these tragic events as yet another unique American evil, it's as if we're watching the fabrication of familiar, tiresome counter-reality: That the bombs were dropped out of the clear blue sky on unsuspecting Japanese, slumbering along with the rest of the world in glorious peace.
No, Mr. Mitchell, most of us out here - in the reality-based community - live in the "here and now". We don't have time to prop up ragged agendas with past events, however horrible. When we've stopped burning Muslims out of their homes - and stop averting our eyes when our brave li'l ally in the Levant does so - we can puff ourselves up in high moral dudgeon.
May 26, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note the mention of the "great" Robert J. Lifton. Lifton has turned the fostering of American guilt over Hiroshima into a veritable home industry and has not been particularly picky over the ways in which he has done it. But there's more and more pushback these days, even among ordinary people. A teacher near here made the mistake of peddling that book about Sachiko and the thousand paper cranes to a class of students that included several of Chinese origin whose families hailed from Nanjing. They, of course, wanted to know how and why the Japanese had obtained the monopoly as pity objects when as many and more had died elsewhere. No good answer to that question, of course.....
May 26, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am startled by your historical ignorance. Let's quote from a document that should have some credibility, since it was written by the Hiroshima Peace Museum:
It says something about your general level of knowledge that you don't know what even the victims of the bombing now freely admit to -- Hiroshima was a base city with a "strong military character."
May 26, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hiroshima was a base city with a "strong military character."
So roast 'em, baby!
May 28, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the bombing of Hiroshima was terrible. Particularly in retrospect (first use of nuclear weapon). But so was the massive fire bombing of Tokyo, and almost every other city in Japan. Bombings are not worse for being nuclear (except for long term waste issues of truly massive weapons). The indiscriminate laying of waste is what is terrible and wrong. That is why war is generally not a good option.
But let us remember the Hiroshima and Nagasaki where not just war bombings, they were also tests. The US dropped two different types of bombs (one Uranium, the other plutonium) and dropped many recording devices around both cities to record the impact they would have at various distances. These were live tests on live people in live cities.
And the bombings ended the war.
I submit that the atomic bombings of Japan were and continue to be a complicated issue.
May 26, 2009 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe the decisions to drop atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were correct decisions. At that time we were losing American military people at a rate far higher than during the first two years of that war. Japan was refusing to surrender, apparently planning to kill as many of our military as possible while fighting to the last man. No president would have refused to use the one weapon that could bring that war to a quick end, with a minimum of additional US casualties.
It is only in retrospect that we can see that a bit more patience, and a (b)willingness to sacrifice several thousand more Americans would have brought the war to an end not too long after it did end. Of course had Truman chosen that route he would have been impeached, and rightly so.
May 27, 2009 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
The hypocrisy of the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against civilians claiming that other countries don't have the right to obtain nuclear weapons is astounding. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted specifically because they were not military targets and thus had not been bombed conventionally-That made analysis of the nuclear weapon's effects easy.
May 27, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well no, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted because they hadn't been bombed much before and we wanted to make it clear to the Japanese that single bombs caused the damage. As it was Nagasaki was a secondary target, the primary target Kokura was obscured by cloud cover that morning. All three cities had many military/industrial facilities as did most Japanese cities at the time.
Yeah it would have been nice if we didn't drop the bombs but the other option was to invade the Home Islands where the Japanese were training little kids armed with pikes to die in Banzai charges against GIs. We'd already seen enough Banzai charges, suicidal Kamakazis and women and children jumping off cliffs on Saipan and Okinawa to know that was going to be a disaster.
Seeing as we have direct experience using these weapons, occupied Japan and studied the effects afterward, and have done extensive studies since on their effects I'd say we're in a unique position to present that information and scare the bejesus out of anyone thinking about using them as Rummy is reported to have done with the Pakistanis and Indians back in 2002 when it looked like they were going to start fighting over Kashmir. We can drag the Russians along to corroborate what a huge waste of money they are.
Of course the most convincing argument is to just get rid of the things.
May 27, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kudos markg8. It is definitely a complicated issue, but we can easily say in retrospect that however horrible, the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. The kamikaze and banzai mentality had to be shattered by something and the "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" did it. Unfortunately WWII was singularly devastating but it could have been worse.
A great book about this is "The making of the atomic bomb", by Richard Rhodes...http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/0684813785
May 31, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to say in terms of sheer numbers, the argument for dropping the bombs wins. Atomic Bombs OR Firebombing+Invasion+Russian Invasion that would have taken MOST of Japan.
So you have a Communist Honshu and Hokaido, a fully communist Korea, Capitalist Kyushu, and 5-10 million dead Japanese and at least 1.5 million dead Americans plus an unknown number of dead Russians.
May 27, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody is arguing that dropping the two bombs was an EFFECTIVE method of ending the war. But that let the Moral Genie out of the bottle. By sheer symmetry, other nations who are contemplating going nuclear facing similar situations in the future will also rationalize it that way: it will be an effective way to minimize the casualties inflicted upon them if they drop the bomb.
You ALL missed that little point Greg Mitchell is making. Namely: If we were justified in dropping nuclear weapons on civilians in a war then so is anybody else who finds themselves in a similar situation. The Moral Genie is out of the bottle and the Nuclear Genie is out of the bottle too and for all intent and purpose, building a bomb will be doable for most countries and the world has a history of wars between nations so it seems we might be doomed because we set the precedent. Chew on that for a while.
May 28, 2009 3:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
So by extension, drug addicts who robbed and murdered while strung out have no moral authority to tell others to stay off drugs?
This is a silly argument. Just because you did something you regret does not strip you of moral standing. In fact, it can give you a deep moral insight into what you did and the consequences of these actions. The very fact that we haven't used another in over 60 years speaks volumes to what we learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Just as the addict knows the horror of drug addiction, we in the States know the horror of atomic weapons. I'm not saying the two are morally equivalent. I'm just saying that the premise of this article is a fallacy.
May 29, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I might be wrong, but to my knowledge no American Administration has ever apologized for the bombings.
But apart from that, the operant principle here is that of symmetry: What you do to others you can expect to be done to you. And the principle of universality comes to mind too. I grant you that two wrongs don't make a right. But in international affairs the operant dictum is precedence. Here is a sketch of the logic involved. Words are cheap, you can say, sorry, we made a mistake. But other powers cannot rely on apologies but have to deal with actual deeds. The deed having been done makes it likely that it could be done again. "No option is off the table" talk does not help assuage fears. So when Iran thinks about ITS EXISTENTIAL survival, it has to take into consideration that it can become a potential target of a nuclear strike and therefore logic dictates that it should too acquire nuclear capability to threaten retaliation and thus prevent a first strike. See, not silly at all, but very serious calculations going on here.
May 29, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only thing wrong with using nuclear weapons as opposed to regular bombs is the radiation both to by-standers and the the landscape. Limit that and I will have no problem with nukes.
June 24, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
We legitimized nuking cities. Now we've re-legitimized torture. Next?
May 28, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I certainly hope neither torture or nuclear weapons are ever legitimate solutions. Rather I would hope we as a human society would see the errors made in the past and that would delegitimize these things in the future.
May 31, 2009 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The military already has pretty much delegitimized nuclear weapons. The only war they prevented was another land war in Europe after WW11 which nobody wanted in the first place. The didn't prevent Korea, Vietnam, any of our other proxy wars, middle east conflicts, or dozens of other conflicts around the world.
Nukes are genocidal city busters that would earn the next user worldwide condemnation if not utter destruction. They are why we invented smart bombs. We can destroy a mid size country's infrastructure, it's ability and will to make conventional war, without the collateral damage of leveling their cities and killing millions.
In the wrong hands, George Bush and Dick Cheney come to mind, that's not necessarily a good thing. That's why it behooves us to keep clowns like them out of the WH.
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