Two nuclear bombs were dropped, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered, unconditionally, after Nagasaki experienced the mushroom cloud fallout.
Japan was defeated, totally defeated and a modern Japan rose from the nuclear ashes. This modern Japan is a testament to the benefits of total defeat, to stripping a culture prone to violence of its martial pretenses.
Modern Hiroshima city is a testament to human resilience in the face of catastrophe. It is also a testament to an America that understood moral certainty and any thirst for revenge were not obstacles to magnanimity. In some ways, they were the precondition for it.
Insipid Pacifism, Implied Anti-Americanism
For too long Hiroshima has been associated with a certain brand of Leftist politics, a kind of insipid pacifism salted with an implied anti-Americanism. That is a shame because today there are lessons in this city’s history that could serve us when the U.S. military forbids the use of the word victory. The current U.S. president doesn’t believe in the exercise of American power, and the U.S. public is consumed with guilt for sins they did not commit.
In 1981 the late Paul Fussell, cultural critic and war memoirist, wrote an essay which includes this:
“When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.” – Paul Fussell
In his column in the Wall Street Journal this week, Bret Stephens is on a train on his way to Hiroshima, and he is reading Fussell’s essay. He says:
“In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs-that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way-I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.” – Bret Stephens in WSJ
At the end of his column Stephens says this:
“Watch the lights come on at night in Hiroshima. Note the gentleness of its culture. And thank God for the atom bomb.” – Bret Stephens
Stephens thanks God for saving life – Japanese and American – due to the atom bomb.
The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.
Total Defeat For The Iranian Mullahs
So how about two atomic bombs on Teheran and Mashhad and some cluster bombs on all the nuclear installations and Iran is defeated, totally defeated and a modern Iran will then rise from the nuclear ashes. This modern Iran will be a testament to the benefits of total defeat, to stripping a culture of terrorism and violence of its martial pretenses.
Then modern Teheran city will be a testament to human resilience in the face of catastrophe. It will also be a testament to an America that understand moral certainty, as America will help build a modern Iran that will be seeking peace. And even a thirst for revenge will not be obstacles to American magnanimity, rather they will be somewhat the precondition for it.
The results of the 1945 nuclear bombing and evolving through the last 70 years, today’s Leftist politics is full of insipid pacifism, salted with an implied anti-Americanism. That is a shame because there are lessons to have been learned from Hiroshima’s history that today could serve America well when the U.S. military forbids the use of the word victory. The current U.S. president doesn’t believe in the exercise of American power, and the U.S. public is consumed with guilt for sins they did not commit. They do not want to understand they did not commit them.
We will then be watching the lights come on at night in Teheran where one will note the gentleness of the change in culture and one will thank God for the saving life – of untold people, American, Israeli and European and who knows who else will fall victim to Iran’s terror – atom bomb.
As with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Teheran taking the nuclear bomb hit will be terrible but with it, it will also be a lifesaving. Just as the nuclear bombs turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists, so will Iran become a nation of peace activists and join the family of civilized nations.
