How to dismantle an atomic bomb(ing)
For the first time, the United States will send an ambassador to attend the ceremony in Hiroshima marking the anniversary of the atomic bombings during World War II. Some critics think that this is tantamount to a US apology.
Signs of sympathy toward Japanese suffering could be seen as criticism of the U.S. decision to drop the bombs — viewed by many Americans as a pragmatic move to hasten the end of the war that the U.S. entered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
This seems like a very weak argument. Even if the atomic bombings of Japan were morally permissible, they were at best unfortunate necessities of war (in fact, we could say this about any act of war). Even the most ardent supporter of dropping the bomb should admit that it is simply the least horrific choice out of a regretful handful of alternatives. This being the case, sympathy and grief toward the victims of the bomb is not only compatible with support for the decision to drop the bomb, but is probably a morally obligatory addendum to the act itself.
The son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., the pilot who actually dropped the first atomic bomb, seems to have a slightly different argument against sending an ambassador to Hiroshima.
It’s making the Japanese look like they’re the poor people, like they didn’t do anything,” he said. “They hit Pearl Harbor, they struck us. We didn’t slaughter the Japanese — we stopped the war.
This argument, I think, is even more regretfully mistaken. The fact is that the civilians in Hiroshima, the persons who were killed and maimed by the atomic bomb, didn’t kill any Americans. Sure, they may have supported the war effort in a multitude of indirect ways, and it may have been necessary to drop the bomb, but those civilians weren’t fighting in uniform and we killed them as they went about their daily lives. This is different than combat on the battlefield. The combatant/non-combatant distinction is a meaningful and useful one that all nations, ours included, want to uphold.
The soldiers that attacked Pearl Harbor did not live in Hiroshima; the military and government officials who planned and ordered acts of Japanese aggression were not harmed.
Brig. Gen. Tibbets’ son’s line of thinking takes too seriously the metaphor of countries as individual persons, to be blamed and punished together as one agent.
The Hiroshima victims were in fact the “poor people,” this does not preclude Americans from being the “poor people” as well. This is the oppression of war – there are no winners, only survivors and victims.
-Han
Photo taken by Flickr user omegarobot used under a Creative Commons Attribution license
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- Skirting the real question
- It’s hard to be a saint in the (war-torn) city
- McNamara’s philosophical roots
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