This is what humans can do to one another

[misscam]

Japan marks anniversary

It is now sixty years since the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and over 100.000 people lost their lives in a flash. (Over 140.000 dead in the end.)

There have been many debates over whether or not it was necessary, whether or not it was justified, who had the blame, who was bad, who was good, who was neither. It is perhaps an important debate - but today, go beyond it.

History teaches its lessons in blood. This is what humans can do to one another, whether 'necessary' or not. In the end, the suffering is the same and the dead remain dead. And always, the innocent do suffer when leaders declare war upon each other.

This is what humans can use science for. Death in a metal container, a giant leap forward in how to effectively kill as many as possible at once. The leaps continue. Nuclear weapons remain in high numbers around the world. Don't forget what we are capable of. Never forget.

This is what war brings. Black rain and burned flesh. A bomb knows no conscience, cannot tell a soldier from a child. It kills, as we have made it to kill so very easily. War is not glorious. Victory might be, but war is not. War is death, suffering and the frailty of life against metal, flames and ever more efficient engines. War is this, is Hiroshima, is thousands of screams as a city is flattened.

Remember, or the lesson will be repeated and someone might find it necessary to drop another bomb on another city to end another war - and for all our progress, we will have gotten nowhere at all.

Can we afford to learn this lesson too many times?

Don't forget. Remember. This is what humans can do to another.

Comments

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

Humans are stupid. I remember being told about that Christmas in World War I when the Brits and the Germans climbed out of their trenches, played football, shared cocoa and had a sing-song. Then they went back to their trenches and started killing each other the next day.

We humans are just so stupid.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

You should read "All Quiet On the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque. It's very moving.

For all our brains, we sure are good at not using it, yes.

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll look out for it. I love your icon.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

G'Kar is love.

[hadria.livejournal.com]

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is
not a crime. -- Ernest Hemingway

There was a beautiful/terrifying article I read yesterday about this man who had married a Hiroshima survivor. She was a nurse in a hospital only a mile or two away from the blast site and she lost consciousness for three days after being struck by broken shards of glass. She woke up in a cremation pit just a few hours before they were going to burn all the dead bodies and climbed out under her own power. She didn't speak of her experience until 1982 when she finally confided in her husband and he insisted that they spend the rest of their lives making sure other people hear her story. She just passed away a few months ago - cancer, I think. He said she'd be so proud if she knew people were still learning her story even after she died all these many years later.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Stories like that should be remembered. If war is reduced to numbers, it loses some of its horror. Stories like hers help to prevent that.

This account was also quite chilling.

[saxihighlandck.livejournal.com]

This was one of the stupidest things America as done. I mean, we're taught that dropping the bombs were the only way to stop WWII and the Japanese. I did a paper on the Atomic Bomb, got an A on it. I never went to get it because it pained me to see what my country could do to another country even if it was almost 55 years ago at that time. We destoryed two cities that August, not one like most people think. We destroyed so many lives and many more because of the radiation.

It's scary that the president we have in office now, could eventually destory the world if someone pisses him off enough, or he acidently hits the big shiny red button, or uses that shiny red phone.

I don't trust my government and I know something like that will happen again, let's hope it's not in the near future.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

And if it had the chance, Germany would have done it to Russia or England. Or Japan to China. War can make villains of all. That is important to remember too.

Whether or not the US did what it needed to do is a debate still ranging and I doubt there'll ever be a definite answer. History only tells us what was, not what could have been.

[saxihighlandck.livejournal.com]

That is true. Hitler would have used it without blinking. Good thing Einstien was with us and not with him. Japan would have used it also. *sigh* I guess it's just that we get it drilled into our heads that everyone is evil. I really hate the USA school system.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Evil is sometimes such a convinient word to hide behind. I think in our focus on WW2, we forget that that was probably one of the most clear necessary wars that have been (though you could argue it became necessary through a lot of mistakes). Wars aren't really that easy, the Allies against the Nazis. Usually, whoever has the most force is the one who commit the most atrocties - but those who have been subjected to atrocties often go forth and are just as bad if power shifts again.

We're all capable of evil.

Icon is tongue in cheek.

[dawning-star.livejournal.com]

My great-great Uncle Sam was a Marine during World War II. Apparently he came home after the bombs were dropped, rather relieved, as he would have been on the front lines for an invasion of Japan.

It can be argued one way or the other. The Atomic Cafe does an excellent job of showcasing that, in my opinion.

But it is still one of the most horrific things we, as a species, have ever done.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* As I said, my entry was not really about whether or not it was justified. Historians still argue both sides of that one and I don't think there is a definite yes or no answer. We can never truly know the 'what ifs'.

But it was a horrific thing to do, as Japan did horrific things to the Chinese, or Germany to Russians or the English bombings of German cities. It's just a powerful symbol of just how much suffering humans can inflict on other humans in one blinding flash. We can justify till the cows come home - the dead are still ashes. I don't want that to be forgotten.

[chunkylimes.livejournal.com]

Judging by what's going on now, people forget about this kind of thing after about fifty years. And it keeps going on and on and on.

I have heard that the Japanese only surrendured because the Soviets invaded Manchea, not because the bombs were dropped. Can a history nut tell me whether that's true or not?

My conclusion here is that people are unbelievably stupid and need to be saved from themselves.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

There is a book by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, I believe, arguing that point. However, that is not the traditional accepted view. (You can read a bit about it here.)

[caribbeanblue.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful. I'm in tears. May I link from my journal?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead, if you want to. I'd be honoured.

[sinneahtes.livejournal.com]

My former Japanese teacher (who I learned from for five years) was from Hiroshima, born in the area just after World War II. She never said anything about the bomb (she was obviously too young for that), but there were some interesting details that would float into a lesson or two about the things America did to prevent another problem with Japan after the war. She recalled she was totally surprised the first time she came into the U.S. and saw such big flags waving freely in the breeze--she'd been taught "Nationalism Bad, Democracy Good."

I won't forget what the Japanese did to the Chinese or others they reached during the war, but neither will I forget about the internment camps innocent Japanese Americans were forced into, or about the bombs, or what America (or other countries or people) does to anyone. Humans too often cheapen life for their ideas.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes. Even some of what my countrymen did to Germans during the occupation were not exactly shining beacons of moral righteousness. Humans fight bitterly and we're very, very good at dehumanizing our opponents.

[maureenlycaon.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it may be partly instinctive and genetic. You see this behavior in chimpanzee tribes, which sometimes practice deliberate, savage genocide against neighboring chimp troops. Even when they don't, the males form little raiding bands that sneak into the neighbors' territory and commit vicious acts against any chimps from the other tribe unlucky enough to get caught.

Because chimp bands with such instincts are more likely to thrive and pass on their genes, this behavior became instinctive to the whole species. And, sadly, it happens in other species, too -- including humans.

We're caught in an ugly evolutionary trap. What favored our survival five or ten million years ago now isn't tolerable. Can we put intellect and morality above powerful instincts millions of years in the making in order to survive? I don't know. Not many people seem able to do it even in daily life.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Thanks for yet another of your thoughtful posts.

I think what disturbs me most about the atomic bombings -- apart from the blatantly obvious facts that the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction was invented and killed 140, 000 civilians -- is the way in which this tragedy is distorted, twisted and exploited by both nations involved.

Despite lots of debates about a possible justification of the bomb's use in U.S. academic circles, among historians and political scientists, a more general discussion about the perception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes has never taken place. In public, it often seems to be a clear-cut case of "Sadly enough, it was a necessary evil."

Nationalist Japanese, however, uphold the memory of the atomic bombings in order to cast themselves in the role of victims only, not as aggressive perpetrators, while socially ostracizing the Hibakusha at the same time.

On both sides, such an image in stark black and white (good Americans versus brutal Asian gooks, unscrupulous U.S. military versus peaceful and innocent civilians) is created so as to indulge in shameless hypocrisy. But history does not come in black and white; it usually comes in shades of grey, very gritty and distinctly unpleasant.

So, in order to commemorate what happened 60 years ago: Hiroshima
by the German poet Marie Luise Kaschnitz.

*steps off virtual soapbox now*

Sorry if I sound insufferably preachy. But this topic just gets to me; that's all.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Interesting pom. Especially liked the line about the ghosts.

It bothers me that WW2 often gets painted so. I mean, it is perhaps one of the wars that had a certain bad guy/good guy dynamic, at least parts of it. But the Allies bombed German cities and the German population certainly got to suffer at the last stages of the war. Even that war was not truly black and white. We mustn't forget that, or think Germany some sort of deviance where suddenly, everyone got a touch of evil-flu. In the shades of grey, humans are very capable of going very dark.

Really, Japan and the US need to re-examine a few historical viewpoints. Japan needs to face what it did to China and a lot of the Asia-Pacific. That in no way means 140.000 deserved to die from a plane's cargo. The US in some ways need to face the horror of things they've done in war - they don't have a clean slate by any means. No one does.

[edhel-scribe.livejournal.com]

That was very eloquent. I agree one hundred percent.

In war, nobody wins. Both sides lose. So why continue? What do we have to gain from war? Oil? Oil will run out for everyone. Even us. Land? We will run out of land too if we do not work to save what we already have. Freedom? Why fight for freedom if there will be no one there to enjoy it at the end of the fight?

Sorry. Having a moment.