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Date Posted: 09:57:35 08/09/08 Sat
Author: Ned
Author Host/IP: 75.106.170.21
Subject: Dawg - the "two wrongs" lesson...
In reply to: Prairie Dawg 's message, "Re: Never forget: Hiroshima" on 00:47:02 08/08/08 Fri

... is that what you get? That they do make a "right?" The old "an eye for an eye" (which, as Ghandi points out, eventually renders everyone blind!) and "do unto others before they do unto you?"

When I was growing up, those ideas were used ironically, with a clear understanding that they were the distorted "ethics" of the morally bankrupt. Now George Bush & Co. have made them the center of America's "world leadership" through his socio-pathic concept of "pre-emptive war."

People can and will speculate endlessly about what "coulda-shoulda-woulda" happened if only. Maybe - as some argue - the Japanese would have surrendered peacefully once Russia began to move. Maybe every American in the Pacific Theater would have died invading Japan. Maybe given their situation at that point and absolute Allied naval and air supremacy, a total blockade of the islands would have brought the Japanese to their knees in a matter of a month or two....

But the reality we have to deal with is the reality: the lives of almost 100,000 snuffed out in an instant, and more than half-as-many more suffering longer,more painful deaths that stretched out from a few days to a few years. And the knowledge that the vast majority of those killed were those left behind by the war: women. children, the elderly and infirm; in short - the helpless and innocent.

The Hiroshima massacre was not the most deadly of WWII by any means, although it certainly makes the "top ten." But that is no reason to forget what we chose to do there. If we are unwilling to admit, face and learn from our actions, how will we ever progress?

Did the horrible, deadly excesses of the Second World War pave the way for legitimizing attacks against civilian targets? Did the "allowable collateral damage" at H & N (and the arguments you are making for it here, Dawg) pave the way for Al Qaeda's rationale that the occupants of the Twin Towers were legitimately "the enemy?"

Actions have consequences. If we learn from them, we can perhaps mitigate the negative consequences to some degree and promote the positive ones - like Japan's long-standing commitment to rejecting Militarism, and to self-defense only, and to depending on diplomacy and the strength and good will of the peaceful nations of the world united (rather than violence) to keep peace in the world.

When I was growing up, my teachers told me that we learn by example, and they tried to embody the ideals they were teaching - albeit less than perfectly. The adults among us, they told me and my fellow students (and us, when we would become adults) had a responsibility to set a standard of moral behavior - one that was perhaps even "out of reach," but one toward which we could all aspire.

Your position here. Dawg, seems to argue for mere survival, at any price - especially as long as (it appears in the short run) "someone else" pays that price.

Is that really a path for humanity to anything other than the blind alley of endless brutality, alienation and chaos? If it is, I don't see it. What do you make of the lyrics Howie quoted above?

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