A grim anniversary

Today is the 75^th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb. 

I grew up in Oak Ridge, TN, a city that was founded in secret for the purpose of enriching uranium for atomic bombs. The Hiroshima bomb was a uranium fission atomic bomb. 

The idea of immolating thousands of civilians was not novel at that point. See, e.g., the Dresden and Tokyo firebombings. Hiroshima was certainly a valid military target.

One counterfactual argument is that, had the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not occurred, millions of deaths, Japanese and Americans, would have occurred before Japan surrendered. Another counterfactual argument is that Japan would have surrendered if only a demonstration bomb had been detonated, since the Soviet Union was on the point of invading from the west. 

As an ardent consumer of history, I believe it is important to avoid “presentism,” the impulse to judge the behavior of people in the past by present standards. From my reading of the history, I have to agree with Truman’s decision. 

And in the words of Gen W.T. Sherman: "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

That’s history. What about the present?

Now we see the mad logic of war in Israel. It could step back from the brink of regional war (including nuclear war under its Samson doctrine). The US is being pulled into it by a similar logic: Defend Israel even if it brings havoc on itself.