60 Years On
Posted: Wed 3 August, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 1 Comment »Sixty years ago, the US used atomic weapons against Japan. The BBC has a set of photos of Hiroshima now and then, some of which are really quite affecting.
Oddly enough I was watching an episode of West Wing from Season Five a couple of nights ago that talked about nuclear weapons. (It was “The Warfare of Genghis Khan, should anyone care) Within it, they said that the US was still the only country to have actually used a nuclear bomb in anger – which is true, of course, but I’d never actually thought of it like that.
The use of the A bomb evokes some strange feelings in myself. The flame of peace reminds me of the tomb of the unknown soldier, sombre and thought provoking. The people of Hiroshima suffered on a scale never before seen and hopefully never seen again. At the same time the atomic bomb intrigues me, I find it amazing that man is capable of building weapons on such a scale, imagine walking through a wasteland of 1.5 miles that was flattened by the blast, how much power does such a bomb have to contain to flatten such an area?
I do understand that the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about a swift resolution to brutal and bloodthirsty war, but did it really save as many lives as it destroyed? There lies the question when judging whether the A bomb was justified (or can it be justified to use any weapon that is so indiscriminate, especially where civilians are concerned).