Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The US doesn’t need to apologize to Japan for the Atomic Bombs

Following President Barack Obama’s visit to Japan this past week, I got into a rather heated discussion with an ivy-league millennial b-school student friend of mine.  Said Millennial kept arguing that it was a travesty that no one from the US was ever tried or held accountable for the ‘war crime’ of dropping atomic bombs in Japan at the end of WWII and at the very least we should offer an apology. 

First off, let’s disregard for a moment the fact that the MORONs at Fake (Fox) News, CNN and other media outlets screwed up yet again and are continuing to LIE to their viewers and readers by reporting (sorry, can’t really even bring myself to call what those overpaid fools do reporting anymore, how about…) writing that the President was apologizing for actions in WWII.  In truth President Obama did NO SUCH THING, he apologized only for the recent incident involving a US Marine who admitted to raping and killing a 20 year old Japanese woman. 

Secondly, said Millennial is dead wrong and here’s why…  The atomic bombing of Japan in WWII was not nearly as morally reprehensible as a war crime when you consider we were only responding in kind.  Germany bombed cities and civilians all over Europe.  Japan bombed cities and civilians all over China.  We simply came back and responded in kind, just with significantly more force.  And we even provided them the courtesy of forewarning. 

“Bombing of Chongqing; 18 Feb 1938-23 Aug 1943; the temporary Chinese capital Chongqing was the target of a long series of aerial attacks by both Japanese Army and Japanese Navy aircraft beginning in early 1938. These attacks were meant to serve two purposes: to destroy Chinese civilian morale, and to soften defenses for the planned offensive of Sichuan province. Of the many raids of various sizes, the larger ones generally came in the spring of 1941, some of which killed thousands of civilians in single days. An estimated 11,000 bombs were dropped by the Japanese, most of which were incendiary bombs. Over 10,000 Chinese were killed, most of whom were civilians.” – C. Peter Chen, ww2db.com

“Bombing of Nanjing; 15 Aug 1937-31 Dec 1937; Bombing of Nanjing, the capital of China, began in late Aug 1937. On 21 Sep, the Japanese Army Air Service under Prince Naruhiko ordered a renewed aerial campaign against the city. The residential districts in southern Nanjing suffered heavy damage in late Sep, with the greatest loss on 25 Sep when Japanese bombers made 95 sorties between 0930 and 1630 hours, dropping 500 bombs and causing 600 civilian casualties. During this aerial campaign, power plants, water works, the radio station, and the Central Hospital were also targeted. Air raids on Nanjing began to cease as the Battle of Nanjing began in Dec 1937.” – C. Peter Chen, ww2db.com

And those are just 2 instances, there are many more examples.

What if we hadn't chosen to drop the bomb and Japan and Germany turned things around and won the war?  Would that be better for humanity if no war crime had been committed in that instance?  I agree that it was a horrible act and came with a horrible loss of civilian life, but I also believe there is a grey area, a moral cost/benefit trade-off that exists in all areas of life, but especially during times of war.  What are you willing to trade in exchange for not having dropped the bomb?  200 lives, 2000 lives, 20,000 lives, 200,000 lives from a war that continues years further than it did?  Then what about freedom and democracy itself?  Should the US have lost the war rather than take a path they knew could win it only because that one act is horrible?  Somewhere in there the benefit of not dropping those bombs is far outweighed by the costs of that inaction.

How can you truly apologize if you believe it was horrible, but possibly necessary at the time?  The apology is entirely hollow if you say you’re sorry, but at the same time believe that without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, you would make the same choice all over again.  The United States should not be apologizing when the real blame lies with the Japanese leadership and the decisions of the Japanese prince and government at the time of WWII.  Those actions forced our hand and required our response. We had no way of knowing the devastation and death toll would be as high as it ended up being.  We had a new weapon.  We only had time to test it once thanks to an ongoing world war that someone, ahem Japan & Germany, started.  We wanted the war to end, so we used it.  We didn’t know about nuclear fallout and the impact the radiation would have for generations to come.  We made the best decision available with the facts that we had at the time.  Are you asking for an apology only for the fact that it was much more destructive than the US had originally estimated?  That I might be ok with, everything else was excuse the pun… a necessary evil.

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