Normally as wise as they come, Baldwin loses it here.
He says, "Its use will probably save American lives, may even shorten the war materially, may even compel Japanese to surrender."
Baldwin does not begin to understand either the immediate effects -- Japanese surrender -- or the bigger picture of hundreds of thousands of American, and potentially millions of Japanese, lives saved.
Nor does he yet grasp that future terror of these weapons will help preserve the peace amongst rational human beings for generations to come.
Indeed, Baldwin seems already to be suffering from a severe case of what I yesterday called "victor's guilt" regarding the huge number of enemy civilian casualties inflicted by American bombing.
What he may never grasp is that deaths inflicted on Japanese by US bombing totaled only a small fraction of the deaths inflicted by Japanese on civilian populations they had conquered.
Doubtless Baldwin is concerned & feeling guilty about the fact that our civilians never suffered as Germans and Japanese did.
But our allies' civilians did suffer, terribly.
Overall the number of allied deaths (military & civilian) compared to axis deaths approached ten to one.
bump
“Doubtless Baldwin is concerned & feeling guilty about the fact that our civilians never suffered “
That it an interesting observation. It doubtlessly drives a lot of leftist thinking.
Baldwin did seem to be hyperventilating there. He should have taken a Valium and chilled out. Or, I guess in those days it would be a glass of scotch.