THANK GOD FOR THE ATOMIC BOMB

The New Republic ^ | August, 1981 | Paul Fussell

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Many years ago in New York I saw on the side of a bus a whiskey ad I’ve Remembered all this time. It’s been for me a model of the short poem, and indeed I’ve come upon few short poems subsequently that exhibited more poetic talent. The ad consisted of two eleven-syllable lines of “verse,” thus:

In life, experience is the great teacher.
In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.

For present purposes we must jettison the second line (licking our lips, to be sure, as it disappears), leaving the first to register a principle whose banality suggests that it enshrines a most useful truth. I bring up the matter because, writing on the forty-second anniversary of the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I want to consider something suggested by the long debate about the ethics, if any, of that ghastly affair. Namely, the importance of experience, sheer, vulgar experience, in influencing, if not determining, one’s views about that use of the atom bomb.

[MosesKnows]

In life, experience is the great teacher. In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.

To address the ad only ...

In school, teachers teach you a lesson and then give you a test
In life, life gives you a test that teaches you a lesson

My opinion of bombing Japan to end the war is that it was clearly the correct decision to take.

Japan had more trained and equipped military in Japan at the end of the war than at the beginning of the war. The Allies destroyed Japan’s Navy and they had no way to move those troops and equipment to the forward battle areas.

The Japanese people had been indoctrinated that they would have to fight to their death if the Americans invaded.

The bombs ended the war with the least amount of casualties on either side with the added bonus of demonstrating to the entire war the enormous power available. I think that demonstration added mightily to the fact that the world has never used the bomb against populations since that time.

The next benefit is that other nations developed their own capability. The world today would be a far different world had but a single nation possessed that power.

[MosesKnows]

they would soon be shipped to the Pacific

Correct. There was a motto, the Golden Gate by 48.

The Allies knew they would win but they also believed it would take an invasion of Japan to achieve an unconditional surrender.

[Mat_Helm]

A very well written paper from an honest perspective. You could substitute the idea of War in place of the atom bomb. They are one and the same. The choice to use the bomb is the same choice for going to war to begin with. The moral choice to kill one man defending yourself or others from a killer intent on taking you or your loved ones life is the same moral decision regardless if you are faced by one man or a nation of men. God created all men and all are equal in His eyes. The killing of one man is just as sinful as killing millions. But defending oneself is also the same as defending millions. It is a sin to take a life unjustly. It is not sin to defend oneself or others or lay down ones own life while protecting the innocent.War was let out of the bottle when Cain killed Able. The atom bomb was let out of the bottle the same day that Adam ate from the tree of knowledge. Sooner or later more nuclear weapons will be used. The answer is to end war and as long as evil exists in the world there will be no end to war. It therefore ends when God puts an end to it. Jesus accomplished that on the cross when He conquered death. So it is an individual choice to either except His love and salvation or not. In the end when He returns and restores the order of things your choice will have been sealed and goats will be separated from the sheep. That is the truth of life.

[Jay Thomas]

Very well said. Thanks for posting.

[trisham]

"Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes,
they just don't know where to look."

~Ronald Reagan

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[pallmallman]

AMEN to that!!!

[pallmallman]

God Bless Ronald Wilson Reagan and all the heroes to he refers....Oh Lord do I ever wish that he was our President today!!!

[trisham]

Me too!

[Oztrich Boy]

The Japanese were looking to surrender for months. All that they wanted was to be able to keep their emperor as figurehead

And a excuse to surrender without losing face. Which they got.

[Dayatdabeach1791]

In the final days of the war, the Jap emperor was about to talk directly to the people for the first time and tell them to lay down their arms. (The emperor figurehead was actually Ivy league educated) When the generals found out about his plans to surrender they contemplated killing him.

[caveat emptor]

Apparently the Japanese were hoping for some sort of conditional surrender, brokered by the Soviets. Their unconditional surrender came not because of the A bombs, but on August 15, a week after the Soviets invaded Manchuria and overwhelmed the Japanese forces there. Soviet–Japanese War (1945)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The military faction was still holding out for a negotiated settlement. Only the intervention of the Emperor ended the war. On the night of August 14 some young military officers attempted a coup to oust the Emperor and continue the war.

You are wrong.

[caveat emptor]

The military faction was still holding out for a negotiated settlement. Only the intervention of the Emperor ended the war. On the night of August 14 some young military officers attempted a coup to oust the Emperor and continue the war.

You are wrong.

Nope. I have no opinion on that. It was an idea which I hadn't heard before, a variant of the view that Stalin had a deal with the Japanese, but stabbed them in them back. Had you clicked on the link I provided you would have realized there was some historical evidence for the views expressed.

You, on the other hand, seem to have strongly held opinions and willingness to express them, though not coherently, and without explanation or support. But you could be on to something. Send me a link to some historical evidence, specifically how your three statements tie together to explain the events, and showing that the Japanese thought or at least hoped the Soviets would help with a conditional surrender of some sort, and that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and rapid defeat of the Japanese military there had nothing to do with prompting Japan's sudden unconditional surrender. Thanks.