The event was, blessedly, before my time, but the debate seems likely to span a lot of generations. I'm going to duck out on the issues themselves, and instead just say that Things Have Changed since then. And a good thing, too. Something often not mentioned in the debates/arguments surrounding this event is that in 1945 it was acceptable to bomb cities. Cities full of people. Cities full of noncombatants, women, children, babies! Today, that is no longer an acceptable tactic. Unfortunately we still do it, those of us who have bombs and airplanes to drop them from, but we say we don't. We use terms like Surgical Strike, and Selective Targeting. We claim that our ordnance is now smart enough to tell the difference between a terrorist and a child. Now if only we could just keep those photographers from taking pictures of the dead children, maybe we could get on with our war.
In any event, despite the hypocrisy, total wars are more restrained than they formerly were, and the death toll is consequently less.
Before I got sidetracked, the point I was trying to make is that when the arguments pro/con/middle/decline-to-state/whatever are made, the fact that bombing civilians was, at that time and place, a normal tactic. The rightness or wrongness wasn't part of the decision to drop the bomb.
One hopes it is part of the decision today.
(1) Tail Cone (2) Stabilizing Tail Fins (3) Air Pressure Detonater (4) Air Inlet Tubes (5) Altimeter/Pressure Sensors (6) Lead Shield Container (7) Detonating Head 8) Conventional Explosive Charge (9) Packing (10) Uranium (U-235) (11) Neutron Deflector (U-238) (12) Telemetry Monitoring Probes (13) Receptacle for U-235 upon detonation to facilitate supercritical mass (14) Fuses (inserted to arm bomb)
No comments:
Post a Comment