Greetings fellow Outkasts. I must apologize again this week for once more delaying my Matrix post. I have a good reason for this though, I got a job. Don’t worry, it’s only temporary. I meant to post the next entry in my matrix series earlier this week but I just haven’t found the time. I would post it today, but I have a much more important topic on my mind.
Sixty-one years ago tomorrow the USAAF B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear bomb called Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast instantly killed an estimated 70-80 thousand people upon impact, about 2,000 were Americans. Casualties believed to have happened as a result of the ensuing radiation bring the estimated death toll of Hiroshima to 140,000. Ninety percent of Hiroshima was either damaged or destroyed.
Three days later the USAAF B-29 Superfortress Bockscar dropped the Fat Boy nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. 70,000 were killed instantly and another 60,000 were wounded. An additional 10,000 deaths have been attributed to the radiation that followed. Most of the city was spared simply because bad weather prevented the gunner from hitting the intended target. Over 260,000 Japanese survivors are still living in Japan.
One of the more disturbing facts, possibly more so than the death toll itself, is that the United States government not only stands by the decision to drop the bombs, they teach their citizens that it was justified. Supporters of the bombing say it saved the lives of many in the U.S. military and mainland Japan had the U.S. been forced to invade Japan. First of all, the death estimates for an invasion of Japan are purely speculation and cannot be the basis for a solid argument. Secondly, it potentially saved many military lives while the atomic bombings were directed at heavy populated civilian targets. Military personnel voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way while civilians are at the mercy of the militaries. To accept such mass destruction of civilian life as a casualty of war is not only callous but ignorant and detrimental to society as a whole. Supporters of the bombings also point out that other aerial battles have caused more casualties than the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not on such a scale as them. The debut of the atomic bomb on a global scale not only opened up a huge danger for the whole planet, but displayed a whole new disregard for life in general. This point has been made from philosophers such as Albert Camus to the original engineer of the bomb, Albert Einstein. Lastly, as pointed out by such military leaders as General Dwight Eisenhower and General Douglas MacArthur, the dropping of the bombs was unnecessary. Japan was already having talks of surrender; most of the Japanese support for the war was within the ranks of the Japanese military leaders, who could block the passage of surrender or a cease-fire. Many believe that Japan would have surrendered earlier had the U.S. offered that Japanese Emperor Hirohito retain his position, which was a condition of the Japanese surrender anyways. The U.S., after the Hiroshima bombing, encouraged the Japanese to petition their government to surrender and warned of a second bombing, yet did not give adequate time for political resolution, dropping the second bomb three days later. Many also argue that the U.S. did not wait for a Japanese response to the Soviet Union declaring war on them.
I am not asking you, today, to change your opinions about the decision to drop the bomb. I am merely asking you to remember the lives lost in one of the most horrible tragedies this world has seen. What disturbs me most is not the support of the decision, it’s the unquestioned support. It’s the way people ignore the crisis that took place in Japan and support the decision based on government position of the situation. A memorial at the Hiroshima Peace Park reads that, “Rest in Peace, for this mistake will not be repeated.” I now wonder if these words are anything more than foolish optimism. The people who made this statement believed that the world would never have to witness a horror like that because of the impact it made around the world. Now that impact is lost. We no longer recognize this as a mistake, it is merely collateral damage. We refuse to question the wisdom of this action, and by doing so ignore the horrible loss of life that occurred that day 61 years ago. I ask you, today, to not let their memory die, to not let their death be in vain. The dawn of atomic weaponry should’ve opened our eyes to our own wrongdoings; it should’ve shown us how monstrous we can be. Instead it made us more callous and unquestioning. It made us more willing to take lives for our own good. I am asking you, in remembrance of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to join me in a day of silence on the anniversary of their untimely deaths. I ask you to silence yourselves, just like the United States silenced hundreds of thousands of people 61 years ago. Do it to avoid desensitizing yourself to needless slaughter. Do it for the memory of those who lost their lives unnecessarily in hopes that future generations may be spared the same gruesome fate. Do it so that their message is not lost. Do it for the sake of a better humanity.
