Today in history - Hiroshima - Aug, 6 1945

Today in 1945 was
the day that the
Enola Gay dropped
the first fission bomb
used in war.

People look back at
this and say "what
monsters we americans
were"

Euroweenies might
say that we should have
invaded japan rather
than nuking them.

[photo link]


But President Truman was told that we could suffer
1 million casualties in an invasion of Japan. This was
believable after the invasion of Okinawa, where more
people died than due to the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.

Truman's priorities looked something like this:
US Civilians
US Soldiers
Japanese Civilians
Japanese Soldiers

He weighed the lives of his troops heavier than Japanese
civilians, and chose to end the war by nuking the japanese
rather than trying the invasion.

This ranking is no longer true, enemy civilians deaths are a bigger
tragedy than the deaths of our soldiers. Through rules of engagement
we expect marines to clear rooms by sticking their head in and
looking rather than the older technique of throwing grenades
in and following up with bullets, then looking.

It's obvious that the Israeli's are facing an even harder problem,
the world press ranks their civilians as less valuable than lebannese
civilians. Israeli's are killed by rockets that are aimed at them...no
big deal, lebannese civilians are killed by accident...oh, woe.

I think this war is going to get worse before getting better. If
hezbollah survives this war, we'll soon be facing hezbollah terrorist
attacks that will be emanating from a country that is in theory
a democracy and america's friend. Iran may begin shooting missiles
at Israel, either by proxy or directly.

When it does get worse, we need to look at how we are ranking
people and objectives. Can we win this war if we weigh enemy civilians
as more valuable than our soldiers? We don't need a 'shock and awe'
campaign of bombs against empty palaces, we need to make a concious
decision after discussion how the war is to be fought.

Can we win if we have to apologize for every bomb dropped, especially
when fighting an enemy that sees apologies as weakness?

Comments

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