A rchive Date
[ 09-08-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Japan ]

Nuclear bombs saved lives

Japanese should be the ones apologizing

Calgary Sun

August 9, 2000

The Japanese think the Americans should still hang their heads in shame because, 55 years ago, we dropped two atomic bombs on their nation and brought the Second World War to an end.

Some naive groups also still believe we should abolish nuclear weapons and make ourselves defenceless, even though China, India and Pakistan continue to test or refine their own atomic arsenalsand the rogue states of North Korea and Iraq are feverishly trying to build their own bombs.

In reality, our nuclear weapons are weapons of peace. They are our safeguard against blackmail by heinous dictatorships.

On TV this weekend, I saw shots of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori shedding tears for the victims of the

Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

, heard the tolling of a lone bell, listened to 300 children singing, and saw 150 doves released into the sky.

Very nice, but also a charade.

For what we didn't hear from Japan was any explanation why

President Harry Truman

ordered bombs be dropped on Japan, or any apology for the crimes that militaristic nation committed.

We're not likely to hear any, either, for Japan has never officially apologized for its cowardly attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 and unleashing its might against the defenceless countries of Asia.

The war is shaded over in Japanese schools, so most Japanese children somehow think the Allies were the aggressors and their own nation an innocent victim.

It's impolite to mention the sickening Rape of Nanking in which an estimated 250,000 girls and women were repeatedly raped, or to mention the inhumane conditions in prisoner of war camps, and the use of live prisoners for chemical and biological weapons experiments must be forgotten.

Yet, we still continue to rub Germany's nose in the dirt just about every day for what Nazi leader Adolf Hitler dideven though Germany has frequently apologized and made huge reparation payments.

Even Israel admits to Germany's record of making amends.

Coincidentally, while

75,000 people died in the Hiroshima attack

and 70,000 when the bomb fell on Nagasaki, an estimated 200,000 Germans died in the February 1944, carpet-bombing of Dresden. Yet the Germans don't constantly condemn the British and Americans for this 'war crime.'

To this day, Japan's evil wartime leader, Hideki Tojo, is regarded as something of a hero. That's even though he was hanged for his abominable crimes by the Allies. Can you imagine the uproar if any Nazi official was treated with honour?

The truth is the Japanese got what was coming to them when Truman ordered the bombings. Germany had surrendered, but Japan was determined to fight on to the last Japanese man, woman and child.

It's estimated that one-million American boys would have died in a conventional assault on the Japanese mainlandand four- million Japanese. By dropping the bombs, the U.S. actually saved millions of Japanese lives.

Today, despite constant campaigns by such appeasement groups as Project Ploughshares, Physicians for Global Survival, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and other outfits, we have avoided another world war simply because we do have nuclear weapons.

The Soviet Union was bent on world conquest, but our nuclear arsenal protected us.

Right now, Washington is working on a $60-billion peace shield to protect the U.S. and Canada against nuclear attacks by the likes of North Korea and Iraq. Neither Kim Jong-il nor Saddam Hussein are going to disarmbut these leering despots would love to see us drop our defences. The looney-tuneas former U.S. president Ronald Reagan would call themnuclear disarmament types are playing straight into the hands of our enemies.

Back in 1964,

Stanley Kubrick

directed the satirical movie masterpiece Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Well, as long as we have the bomb we don't have to worrybut if we get rid of it, we're asking for war.

Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@cal.sunpub.com

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