There is one small glimmer of hope in this human prediction and that is the fact that it is "a given" that the effects of even a successful preemptive nuclear strike, will also bring a slow destruction on the aggressor too. That scenario has never been played out before. The distances between the trench lines in WWI were not great. An undisturbed pastoral scene was the reality a short distance behind the lines on either side. In WWII, the devastation pattern widened to include whole cities of noncombatants, but still remained reasonably localized. With the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima all that changed.
Nuclear radiation blasted high into the atmosphere, travels on wind currents to lay a pattern of destruction and disease many thousands of miles from the actual blast. It became very evident, very quickly, that given enough bombs or warheads delivered preemptively to annihilate an enemy, the aggressor would also die -- only slower. In fact the whole world could die if the pattern of man's ambition to win at all costs was to be repeated as it has been many times in the past. With such knowledge, dare man unleash the "god of war?"
So why was the bomb used 70 years ago? This week I have been reading numerous quotes from the WWII era that deny that the bomb ever had to be used to bring about the Japanese surrender. Admiral Nimitz, General MacArthur, Admiral Leahy, General Bonner Feller, all said at the time, that Japan was economically and militarily isolated and that before 1945 ended, Japan would surrender even without an invasion. In addition, the Russians had already received overtures from the Japanese that they wished to surrender to them rather than the Americans.
The military leaders, I have already quoted were expressing an opinion to counter the view that had been generated by the bloody fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The acceptable theory was that the use of the bomb was justified to prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans if Japan itself had to be invaded .
In 1989, historian Gar Alperovitz reported, “American leaders knew well in advance that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not required to bring about Japan’s surrender;” and later, in his 847-page The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Random House, 1995), “I think it can be proven that the bomb was not only unnecessary but known in advance not to be necessary.” The popular myth “didn’t just happen,” Alperovitz says, “it was created.
When the 70 scientists that were part of the Manhattan project saw the effects of a test bomb on 15 July 1945, they sent a letter to President Truman pleading that he never use it. Truman never received the letter. From the evidence we have, it is apparent that deep in their souls, they were compelled to admit, that although they were responsible for the first nuclear bomb success, they could see that mankind would now have a weapon that could ultimately destroy everyone. The after effects of a thermo-nuclear war would end life on earth as we know it . Successful though they were in pursuing this invention, they wished no precedent for its use to be a part of their legacy to mankind.
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets . We can only speculate then that Truman's goal was to send a message to the world -- that America was #1 in the arms race and that Russian intransigence and arrogance that they had just experienced at Potsdam, would not be tolerated. So President Truman made the decision to use the bomb not for military reasons--- but for political.
The bomb was therefore used as a terror weapon against the civilian population of Japan in order to compel immediate surrender to the Americans and to declare to the world that America was the sole nuclear power. In Nuremburg, that same week, the protocols for war crimes were being drafted in order to condemn the Nazi regime. Ironically the protocols included the terror bombing of civilian cities as a war crime. Obviously, the term "war crime " would apply only to the losers.
All the proceeding is my introduction to this Blog entry. What I really am here to say is, that it is my conviction that (miracle of miracles ) Thermo-Nuclear war will never happen. First, the nuclear club is very small and the entry fee is very expensive. Second, the potential devastation is much higher now than it was at the beginning of the nuclear age because of the increased size and effectiveness of the weapons. Cruise missles can deliver nuclear weapons many times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima ..... and everyone knows it. The Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine therefore, is not dead. Three, there is evidence to suppose that the *2D sanctions, politics and war rhetoric we hear in the news, are belied by published economic and cooperative ties, which indicate that a **3D relationship exists among the Elite of both sides. ....... and Fourth, and most important, the God of the universe has throughout history, systematically revealed knowledge progressively to man, and just because he has allowed him to open the ultimate "Pandora's Box", He will restrain man and prevent him from destroying the world that He has promised to judge at the last day? To permit the unthinkable would be deny Him glory. Only a fool can believe that the infinitely complex and precise material universe has no Creator, and that man is at liberty to destroy it.
Psalm 2 : vs 1 and 4 says " Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing ?....He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall have them in derision."
*2D refers to events that are published and/or visible to the world . Actions that are analyzed supposedly to reveal motives.
**3D refers to plans and relationships which are kept concealed because knowledge of them would betray plans that powerful people would want to remain secret, especially from their national populations .
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