Atomic Anniversary
Sixty-five years ago, on August 6, the United States dropped the first offensive nuclear weapon in history. This bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan. The U.S. military dropped the second and last nuclear weapon ever used in war, “Fat Man,” three days later on nearby Nagasaki, killing approximately 39,000 people.
Whether these bombings were justified is a matter of dispute. As of 2005, only 57 percent of Americans approved of the attacks. Although a Democratic president (Harry Truman) authorized the bombings, more Republicans (87 percent) than Democrats (47 percent) support his decision.
Some believe that the use of atomic bombs on Japanese civilians was unnecessary, if not downright immoral. “If terrorism is the massacre of innocents to break the will of rulers,” Pat Buchanan once asked, “were not Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrorism on a colossal scale?” Others contend that the bombings prevented further deaths (both Japanese and American), thwarted Soviet occupation, and unsettled Japanese nationalism, which was bound up with faith in the emperor’s divinity. In the July 2009 issue of Chronicles, for instance, Roger D. McGrath argued that the bombings were justified because they immediately ended Japanese fighting, which would have persisted for months and possibly years. McGrath concluded that the bombs ultimately saved thousands of American and Japanese lives.
Perhaps so. One needn’t look further than Guadalcanal and the like to see the disasters that a massive land invasion of Japan could have wrought. But McGrath’s interpretation merely begs the question: What were the moral implications of the bombings—not just for the United States and Japan but for the world?
The bombings represent a human tragedy on many fronts. By virtue of the fact that 180,000 people died in August 1945, the bombings stand as two of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the world. Yes, the Japanese were conditioned to fight to the very last soul, even to commit hara kiri rather than surrender or shame their country and themselves. And yes, the Japanese government was largely to blame for insisting on a course of action that was certain to lead to the mass deaths of both soldiers and civilians. But were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary? I suppose one could argue that. For them to have been necessary, however, speaks poorly of humanity itself. Among the trillions of lifeless spheres in the universe, Earth teems with life, and yet its history is full of killing. Perhaps, in the end, some good came from the fact that the bombings deterred future nuclear warfare. The world has suffered the use of atomic bombs, and never should again. On this atomic anniversary, we ought to consider the moral implications of war. We also ought to consider how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to shape American policy toward Japan.
After the bombings, the United States, in the person of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and the Japanese, in the person of Prime Minister Kijuro Shidehara, inserted Article 9 into the new Japanese constitution. The clause explicitly renounced the maintaining of Japanese military forces. Japan, it proclaimed, could not resort to war to resolve foreign conflict. Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) repeatedly tried to eliminate Article 9—or, failing that, to reinterpret its language as banning offensive but not defensive weapons. The LDP’s efforts failed, over and over.
U.S. troops have remained in Japan since World War II, although they now occupy peripheral territories such as Okinawa, which became part of Japan during her imperial ventures. Because Article 9 forbids most of the practices of a traditional military, the Japanese have watched the United States carry out activities that, if executed by the Japanese, would have violated the Japanese constitution. Nuclear-armed U.S. vessels docked in Japan during the Cold War, for instance, and not until former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama took office did the Japanese government reveal this secret. Previous prime ministers refused to release this information for fear of civil unrest. Paradoxically, the only country to have used nuclear weapons against its enemy was shipping nuclear weapons into the one-time enemy’s borders.
Japan, perhaps more than any other nation, looks to history and tradition to explain and understand today’s phenomena. Of course, Japan has been guilty of historical amnesia and, worse, revisionism. But most Japanese citizens maintain a respect for the past. Japan’s 20th-century history was horrific, but the Japanese have learned from their mistakes and as a result have adopted a sober approach to international relations and a modest foreign policy. In a recent poll, Japan ranked second among nations in having a positive world influence.
Ashamed of their violent past, Japanese leaders since 1951—with the notable exception of proto-nationalist and historical-revisionist prime minister Shinzo Abe, whose tenure was short-lived (2006-07), in part because of his jingoism—have worked to reestablish Japan’s credibility in the world and to promote and adhere to pacifist principles. The same cannot be said of the United States, which has used the successes of World War II as justification for one foreign invasion after another. As Japan has become a satellite of U.S. power, the U.S. military has, in various ways, colonized or occupied other countries (in South America, the Pacific, the Middle East) and has presumed the willingness of Japanese citizens to host foreign troops within the borders of their country.
Okinawans and their neighbors have demanded the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. The current dispute over Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has drawn international attention to U.S. exploits in Japan—including rape, sexual assault, and other crimes—and has cost Hatoyama his job.
With regard to Futenma, compromise with Japan is not a last resort for the Obama administration. Obama may be even more delighted by war than his predecessor. As John Feffer explains (at TomDispatch.com),
Under an agreement the George W. Bush administration reached with the previous Japanese government, the US was already planning to move most of the Marines now at Futenma to the island of Guam. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is insisting, over the protests of Okinawans and the objections of Tokyo, on completing that agreement by building a new partial replacement base in a less heavily populated part of Okinawa.
For 50 years, the U.S. government has taken Japanese support for granted, while the Japanese government has bent over backward to please the United States, going so far as to lie to its own people about secret deals that violated the national constitution. The United States has treated Japan like a pet, condescending to her on nearly all matters international. Japan, however, is one of the most powerful nations in the world, and one of the few whose retaliations against the United States, economic or otherwise, would have devastating consequences for Americans.
Faced with the choice of appeasing her Asian neighbors or ignoring them in favor of the United States, Japan has opted for the former—in particular, for mending relations with China. The United States, having overextended herself in the Middle East and offended the majority of the world, has lost credibility in Asia. The Japanese do not wish to be associated with her—not anymore. And who can blame them? When American politicians on both the left and the right believe that colonialism is still a viable policy, when they invade sovereign countries, when they couch their rhetoric in terms of crusading ideological zeal, the world watches, listens, and turns its back.
For 50 years, Japan has stood with us, and U.S. leaders have taken advantage of this deference. But as a small group of disgruntled “conservatives” in Japan demands an amendment to Article 9 to allow for armament and militarization of their country, Washington should bear in mind one word: blowback. A time will come when the United States is no longer on top, when the now-passive Japan grows tired of serving a foreign nation. We have already seen the effects of blowback in the Middle East. We have yet to see how far-reaching these effects can be when our allies and not just our enemies have had enough.
Americans still look to World War II to justify their military presence in Japan. Instead, we must own up to the present. We must work with Japan, listen to Japanese interests, and learn from Japan’s vexed past. If Japan wants to elect left-wing DPJ leaders who will burden the Japanese economy, weaken Japanese industry, and embarrass the Japanese government, so be it. We should not use the occasion to deepen our involvement in a region that we don’t, and don’t care to, understand.
Imperial Japan, which lasted from roughly 1868 to 1945, is not a model to mimic but one to avoid. It brought about war, invasion, mass death, torture, rape, and occupation. The Empire of Japan fell long before my generation. And I’m afraid my generation has forgotten the evils of empire and has embraced imperialism as the American way.
On this atomic anniversary, it’s not enough to remember those who died in Japan, or in the Pacific, or during World War II. We must honor them by learning from their mistakes.
This article first appeared in the August 2010 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
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Not quite. This article is very much what a white guy, infatuated with Japan after a longer stay would offer as an insight. But it is erroneous. Japanese are masters of diplomacy and trade and thus masters of deception that produce reactions along the lines of this article. There is no country in the world that has benefited more than Japan form its alliance with the US which depends on being the way that it is. Okinawa rumblings are for domestic consumption, the ever present election issue. As for who Japanese really are, we remember Nanjing, Shanghai, Wanping, Wuhan etc,, Bataan, Korea etc., all of which they have yet to apologize for in earnest, while the weak-kneed is the US are ready to apologize for Hiroshima. As for whether LP or LDP is in charge, I don't think US has a problem with either.
It's absolute nonsense to apologize for ancestor's deeds.
The Japanese are smart to not adopt the Japanese equivalent of "white guilt".
Americans, on the other hand, swim in apologism and white guilt while still continuing to murder millions of innocents since WW2. The Japanese have an average IQ of 107, and the Americans have an average IQ of 98 - the nine-point difference reflects in showing which country is more hypocritical in giving past apologies while never learning from past mistakes.
If I ever saw Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in person, I'd salute him, because he killed far less innocent people than Barack Obama did in Pakistan.
"...Roger D. McGrath argued that the bombings were justified because they immediately ended Japanese fighting, which would have persisted for months and possibly years. McGrath concluded that the bombs ultimately saved thousands of American and Japanese lives."
Pure rubbish. The Japanese tried to surrender on terms, attempting, through intermediaries, no less than three times. One of those intermediaries was the Vatican.
By the way, for all of you "Catholic" Americanos; Hiroshima and Nagasaki were purposely targeted because they were centuries-old centers of Japanese Catholicism. A large proportion of Japan's Catholics lived in those two centers.
"A large proportion of Japan’s Catholics lived in those two centers."
Yes, and there were several miraculous interventions during the bombing in which certain institues and buildings were caved while others were spared. The Jesuits had a large seminary and Church that was surrounded by debris and destruction while their property was left unscathed and still standing. Of course the Mother of God was more central to the Jesuits devotion in those days, but it is interesting that in many cases such as the bombing of Monte Casino, the assasination of South Vietnamese leaders, the bombing of the two cities in Japan and the wanton destruction of the oldest Christian communities in Iraq, etc. that American Catholics tend to be such willing participants. I am sure George Wiegel could offer reasonable explanations of the necessity for all such acts but I remain suspicious of his scholarship and the folks who pay for it.
"By the way, for all of you “Catholic” Americanos; Hiroshima and Nagasaki were purposely targeted because they were centuries-old centers of Japanese Catholicism"
Oh nonsense. 'Purposely targeted'? Give me a break. You got any proof for that?
Calm down Daniel. Certainly there was a purpose, the question is what was the purpose ? There is more under the heavens and earth than was dreamt of in any one philosophy. Take a look at this little story about Jesuits who survived one of the nuclear attacks from 8 blocks away. http://holysouls.com/sar/rosarymiracle.htm
No robert, it just sounds like another silly trad Catholic conspiracy theory, and there are a million of them. I've heard this one before - Truman was a freemason, and therefore he conspired to kill as many Catholics as possible.
The policy of demanding unconditional surrender, as well as the looming threat of the Soviet Union, had more to do with the bombing than any conspiracy theory (note - I wouldnt have supported the bombing).
"I’ve heard this one before – Truman was a freemason, and therefore he conspired to kill as many Catholics as possible"
Never heard that one and wouldn't believe it if I had. In fact I don't believe in conspiracy theory as it is both used and exploited. For me the truth itself is always stranger than fiction such as "The policy of demanding unconditional surrender,.... had more to do with the bombing than any...or "Sherman's march to the Sea was necessary to let the Southerners know ...." or "The central war on terror is in Iraq" ... and other such nonsense that we take for granted because " I read it in a book? I heard it on the news? My professor wouldn't lie? As a youngtser I read William James, "The Variety of Religious Experience" and realized that testimony is sometimes believable and sometimes not believable. The truth has a different ring to it and strikes deeper than the superficial --which is another reason for more poetry and less prose.
I think it is probably accurate to say that if there had been more Catholics in the upper echelons of the U.S. government at that time, someone might have noted the importance of Nagasaki and taken it off the potential target list, as Secretary of War Stimson removed Kyoto due to its historical and religious (Shinto/Buddhist) significance. (Or maybe not - how much do American Catholics know about Japanese Catholicism?)
It is a big leap from there to the idea that Catholics were deliberately targeted. It is well-established that the city of Kokura was the chosen target for the August 9 attack, but it was covered by cloud on that date and plans were shifted to the backup target of Nagasaki. That hardly sounds like a targeted attack.
I agree the atomic bombings were terrible actions completely contrary to the rules of just war, but we have to be accurate even when discussing atrocities, and I have never heard any evidence for this theory of a targeted attack on Catholics.
I have heard that Japan did try to surrender thrice in the months before the bombing, and MacArthur was urging acceptance of surrender. But Roosevelt and the joint chiefs would not accept surrender because the first bomb was so close to completion, and they wanted to see what it would do to a large urban population.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt died after having approved the bombings. Truman had no idea that an atomic bomb programme even existed until his first day in the white house, at which point he was told that the bombings had been approved by Roosevelt.
Truman was unable to prevent the bombings because he was new to the presidency and was weak at that point, and the joint chiefs were determined to do it.
There were only two bombs dropped because that's how many they were able to complete right at that point, and meanwhile the Soviet invasion of Manchuria put pressure on the U.S. to accept Japan's surrender, thus inadvertently preventing further bombings.
This all may or may not be true, or partly true, but it's what I read somewhere a long time ago.
I am sure George Wiegel could offer reasonable explanations of the necessity for all such acts but I remain suspicious of his scholarship and the folks who pay for it.
I can't speak for Wiegel himself, but the magazine he runs, First Things actually printed a nice condemnation of the attacks. The comments, of course, were another story.
When I hear someone defending the bombings I understand that I'm speaking with a person who would defend any atrocity or injustice in the name of "patriotism." Or, to put it another way, I'm speaking with someone who has stopped taking right and wrong seriously. I think Roe was the inevitable result of the bombings: once a whole nation accepts consequential ethics, it cannot be long until that demon interposes itself between nature's closest bond. That's just how we're wired.
I think your last paragraph is right on target, Matt.
After all, killing innocents is killing innocents, whether it be tens of thousands of Japanese civilians, hundreds of thousands of German civilians with firebombs, or millions of American babies. What's the difference, if you're far away from the killing and you dont have to see it face to face?
Matt,
I thank you for the note about First Things. My assumption was based upon their all out support for the pre-emptive war against Iraq which the last two Popes condemned and described as unjust aggressions. Weigel, and so many of those "catholic" writers at First Things are little men compared to the giants they replaced. I don't mean to cast aspersion on them or the magazine but we must admit that in things controversial and yet clear,they are incapable of assserting anything beyond the shadow of a reality. It would be considered impolite and an affront to the people who hired them. They like to deliver soft blows in exchange for receiving the same treatment. They do not understand the determination and audacity of the enemy which goes way beyond supping with sinners, whose company I would prefer any day to the company of cowards.
In line with what James states, it's my understanding that Nagasaki was an alternate target. Allen writes ".. the joint chiefs were determined to do it", though my understanding is that Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. George Marshall (and other military leaders) were against dropping the A-bomb on a population center. I've read that these men advocated dropping the bomb in the ocean off the Japanese coast as a visible demonstration of what would happen if the Japanese refused to surrender. Truman apparently would have none of it.
The idiotic policy of unconditional surrender was a disaster that pushed the Axis governments into prolonging their countries' agony. More to the point, can anyone doubt that our power-hungry rulers in Washington during WWII (as now), because of their extreme immorality and indifference to human death and suffering, were certainly not true Christians? What kind of example did they set for future generations? No wonder there are so many hypocritical, war-loving "Christians" today. No wonder there are so many others who've lost their Christian faith.
Robert,
While First Things did the right thing in this particular instance, they don't make a habit out of courageous stands. I read their website, because they have some smart and thought-provoking articles, but I never buy it so as not to give them even a penny of my money. Because of their endorsement of the war machine and their tacit endorsement of the idea that Judaism and Christianity are of a type, I feel as though I cannot.
They do produce a nice magazine, though. It's really a pleasure to read a hard copy of it, because it's so well type-set, formatted, and bound. They use wonderful paper.
Thank you, Matt. I went over there and looked at your posts. You were arguing with kids that don't know anything so your principles were ignored or at least not understood when noticed. You,however, are in good company as some of the greates scientist who worked on the bomb were fearful of Truman using it stupidly.
Leo Szilard for instance gave a good interview in which he noted that the idea of unconditional surrender was absurd, Japan would have accepted the conditions of surrender that were ultimately given to them by us, if we would have offered them earlier when they were actually suing for peace.
Another alternative would have been to annhilate a smaller city after providing adequate opportunity for the Japanese to evacuate that city before its destruction. This is sometimes referred to as a demonstration bombing. Also great power imposes the obligation of exercising restraint which was hardly considered by Truman and his advisors at the time and is not considered at all in our own time.
The kids blogging over at First Things should be ignored and if not ignored, at least encouraged to blog for National Review, Weekly Standard and the other diminishing neo-con organs of propaganda. It keeps them in the wading pool where nobody will get hurt or drowned while adults can keep an eye on them.
Here is a little of the interview from Dr. Leo Szilard, the Hungarian-born physicist who helped persuade President Roosevelt to launch the A-bomb project and who had a major share in it. In 1945, however, he was a key figure among the scientists opposing the use of the bomb. Later he turned to biophysics, and awarded the Einstein medal for "outstanding achievement in natural sciences." http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html
The idea of "saving lives" by using the A-bomb is so ludicrous it was not even proposed at the time as a possible justification by anyone except politicians. In fact the sites were chosen so as to "provide as much destruction and loss of life as possible" so as to preclude any other emotion from the enemy but death, destruction, fear, loathing and surrender.
My Great Uncle (not a Catholic), a drafted Navy medic, medal winner on Okinawa, saw Nagasaki right after the surrender. For his entire life, to my Father and Uncle he was the great war hero, and in 9th grade, I wrote him a letter for a school project to recount his heroism. The letter is kept safely, but it held back.
Years later, visiting Grandmother and him after college graduation, I told of my travels of Great War trenches, where eldest bro, Harry had done a stint under less bohemian circumstances. I let slide my general view, and the walls came down.
I heard things from Great Uncle that I won't be able to shake...about Nagasaki.
Now his Great Uncle fought in the Defense of Richmond, and when he heard my view, in my mind, some semblance of relief that is was over.
He let me know that it ceased to matter if the 'kamikaze, suicidal Japs' stuff was true, it was no longer true to him. An officer surrendered to him, a mere medic, in Nagasaki.
He saw, first hand, not one example of the propaganda. He knew at the time, what he had been part of, kept appearances up, but, as noted, I like to think, I offered a touch of closure. He gave the Officer's sword away to a local kid. He didn't want the Damn'ed thing or have it be part of the family.
Wish I had it, as a prop to explain to the boys.
I always found anti-Japanese Allied propaganda disgusting, no matter how genuine Japanese atrocities really were.
All those pictures of "Slap a Jap" are blatantly dehumanizing, and the desire to put collective punishment on Japanese people by American top command is despicable. And to excuse it, by saying that ordinary Japanese were enemy combatants too is sad.
I believe one of the reasons Nagasaki and Hiroshima were selected as targets was they were one of few cities standing after the incendiary carpet bombing.
Reading this article and its commentary, I feel that I've been transported to the backroom deliberations at the Smithsonian prior to their notorious curatorial putsch of a few years ago, in which most traces of American pride in its WW II victory were removed from display, including, if memory serves, the Enola Gay.
"[T]o preclude any other emotion (sic) from the enemy but death, destruction, fear, loathing and surrender", is, of course, though inelegantly expressed, an excellent description of victory.
Mr. Sanjay;
Indeed, Dr. Seuss's, amongst others of course, work was 'off-putting', but it was Life Magazine that attempted to normalize sending skulls home, desecration of bodies and so forth--real barbaric stuff repeated in Vietnam (I assume Korea) if not in the mags, and I assume dare I think about optimism for my generation, still goes on at some level. However, I won't say the Major Media's "humane warfare" of sanctions and 'smart bombs' is some improvement--I refuse that conclusion.
Mr. Jacobi;
The problem nationalists might run into there, is that Great Uncle would have rather died a Man, in an invasion (obviously, he'd have preferred a negotiated surrender by the powers that be--why do I feel the need to mention that?)--by the hypothetical parameters set by the apologists- then carry on with what he saw. Have you looked at the albeit censored pics we are allowed to see? Yeah sure, keep the Enola Gay up there, and lets pretend for 5-10 more years it was the Red Barron. I'm confident Mr. Mendenhall is on the right path...
Great Uncle was delighted to hear the Old Right narrative of the time period, recounted by a kid.
Gilbert,
"American pride in its WW II victory ...."
There remains plenty of honor via WWII from which Americnas can and should take justifiable pride. Nagasaki, however, was not Normandy or Iwo Jima. Let's not start the stupid neo-con pranks about patriotism here at Chronicles. My family served in WWII, Korea, and shot by snipers in Vietnam. Even my own insignificant service as a Marine officer was as a volunteer after I completed college on my own. I normally enjoy your comments for their hard hitting honesty and insight. Why go rogue now? Is Palin campaigning in California?
Mr. Bowen,
I have spoken with several of my fellow veterans of the Viet Nam war, as well as others from WW I and WW II, who were troubled by dark episodes that had occurred during combat. I was, and remain, angry at and ashamed of my comrades in arms who sullied the honor of my service with their hysterical, unmanly descent into Mansonism at My Lai. I am thus not unfamiliar with the other side of the stories of military heroism.
I have the highest respect for men like your great uncle and their experience. His preference, after all the risks he'd already run - and no one would know more about what an invasion of the mainland would entail than a medic and veteran of Okinawa - that his victory had been earned in honorable battle rather than through the Mephistophelian intervention of men in white lab coats, shows he possessed a combination of courage and magnanimity that is all too rare. I stand by my conclusion that the bombing was justified, though. My reading includes Hershey's "Hiroshima", interviews with and articles about the bombers' aircrews and most of the Manhattan Project scientists, especially Oppenheimer, and other sources memory fails to recall names for. I have been ambivalent at times, but finally solidified in favor of the bombing when I read - it might have been from Roger McGrath - that up until the last moment before emperor Hirohito came on the radio to tell his people to surrender - after the bombing - there was a military coup in progress with the object of preventing him from speaking, thereby opening the way for a cabal of hard-liners to continue resistance. No one doubts that a continued popular resistance by the Japanese people and garrisoned troops would have caused immense loss of life. As for the possibilities of selecting a smaller city or conducting a demonstration explosion at sea, I am persuaded by the argument that, with he uncertainty about whether the bomb would be effective and with the Soviets poised to invade, the risk of a fizzle, which we have recently seen happen to another country in the infancy of its nuclear program, North Korea, posed too great a risk of encouraging them and giving new hope to the Japanese.
Robert,
I had no intention of pranking when I wrote, and I can't find anything in my comment that could be called an inadvertent prank, either. But then, pranks being clever fellows, perhaps one just hopped in there when I wasn't looking. I should have thought, however, given your vast reading, legal training, and the container-ship quantities of verbiage you are obviously capable of putting out, that you could have substituted another word for "stupid".
"Neocon"?! "Palin"?! "California"?! I don't have time to go into all the ways these characterizations or associations are wrong, except to wonder who you could possibly have confused me with.
Gilbert,
I was rersponding to your words,"I feel that I’ve been transported to the backroom deliberations at the Smithsonian prior to their notorious curatorial putsch of a few years ago, in which most traces of American pride in its WW II victory were removed from display."
As if anyone who disagreed with the Atomic Bombing of the civilian populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was diminishing American pride in WWII vitory. It was a rhetorical prank to insinuate what is illogical and untrue. If you think otherwise then say it and if not then live with the reality of your false insinuation.