An email sent today to my friend Ella Rutledge:
Dear Ella,
re:
U.S., Japanese leaders visit Hiroshima as Russia nuclear tensions rise
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee
The Washington Post
March 26, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/26/japan-russia-nuclear-hiroshima/
HIROSHIMA, Japan — As Russia threatens the possibility of a “nuclear dystopia,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel paid tribute Saturday to victims of the atomic bombing here and warned of the human devastation caused by nuclear weapons.
In a somber moment in the rain, the men each laid a wreath at the Hiroshima victims memorial. They visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, near ground zero, and its exhibitions documenting the human toll of the atomic bombing. In 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, vaporizing the cities and instantaneously killing tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, in each.
I FEEL STRONGLY THAT THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI WAS WRONG.
Seems that most people don’t agree with me, even now.
220,000 killed. We talk about the Ukraine invasion, Children dead. Bombing of a maternity hospital.
I recall reading that there was an elementary school in Hiroshima in the epicenter where the bomb was dropped. All the children were killed instantly.
220,000 deaths (total for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings). US casualties in the whole Vietnam war were about a third of that.
You and I have discussed this via email before; and agreed (and you pointed out things I did not know). Where and when the bombs were dropped. Let’s say Hiroshima was chosen was a target for good reasons (which of course I would not agree with). So we had to drop another bomb on Nagasaki three days later?
We are preaching nuclear deterrence. We scold nations that have or are developing the bomb. We are the only country that has ever used a nuclear weapon (I am not talking, obviously, about tests). And we are sanctimonious about rogue states and war criminals?
Roger
— posted by Roger W. Smith, March 27, 2022
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See also my post