9/11 vs. Hiroshima
A friend of mine posed an interesting question - what similarities are there between 9/11 and Hiroshima? I think there are obvious similarities between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor (surprise attack, shock to the nation, a "where were you when you heard..." feeling that few other events possess). As far as 9/11 and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, there are some things in common: both 9/11 and H/N targeted civilian populations. Both attacks were seeking political objectives: the removal of American forces from the Middle East and the capitulation of Japan, respectively.
One big difference: America didn't consider itself as war with al-Qaida on September 10, 2001 but the Japanese certainly were at war with us. More importantly, the magnitude of the events are on completely different scales. Anyway you cut it, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were far worse events. Tens of thousands of people were incinerated instantaneously, with many thousands more to die of horrific burns and radiation sickness. I think the bombing of Hiroshima is the single most important act in human history, because it shows the limitless violence man is willing to use on other human beings, and it demonstrated that the human race now has the capacity to destroy itself.
All that said, 9/11 is less morally justifiable than the atomic bombings. The reasons for al-Qaida to kill 3,000 Americans are certainly sane, but dubious. American money props up autocratic regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and all the Gulf States, so we are indirectly responsible for the oppression of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. We back the barely legitimate state of Israel and allow it to oppress the Arab population under its control. Finally, American troops occupied the Holy Land of Islam by being in Saudi Arabia (at the time 9/11 occurred). If you are a Muslim radical, those are all really good reasons to hate the U.S.
However, we also have done good things toward Muslims: American troops defended Muslims in Kuwait and restored its independence, we (belatedly) helped Bosnian Muslims against racist Serb oppression, we pressured Israel to give the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, and we helped the mujadeen in Afghanistan fight the Soviet Union. These acts were in our best interest, but we did do these (basically) good things nevertheless. Supporting Israel and other perceived anti-Muslim, anti-Arab acts are done for political reasons, not out of some Crusade-like hatred of Islam.
Assassinating Mubarak or killing all the wacko Jewish settlers in the West Bank would have been much more justifiable acts of violence in my opinion. Obviously, I don't think big enough. Osama directed his hatred at the U.S., so killing 3,000 Americans and destroying symbols of American capitalism makes sense in an evil sort of way. Some have argued that 9/11, as appalling as it was, worked. We have moved our forces from Saudi Arabia (one of Osama's biggest hangups), and our occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are casting us in the role of villainous superpower perfectly. The invasion of Iraq in particular was a huge gift to Osama's recruiting efforts.
Killing civilians is vile. Many of 9/11's victims had to make the choice of burning to death or plummeting 100 stories. The cruelty of using civilian planes to kill civilians is an especially diabolical twist. For reasons I have listed above, the WTC attack cannot be called "unprovoked" but I don't think the average American thought we were in a global war either. In that sense 9/11 and the atomic bombings of Japan are very different.
Despite my deep regret that my country is the only one to use atomic weapons in combat, and my feeling that we did not HAVE to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki to make Japan surrender, I think it is very smug of Americans today to second-guess Truman's choice to use the Bomb. Frankly, we care a lot more about civilian deaths in war today than we used to. Both Allies and Axis attacked civilian populations regularly and intentionally.
World War II was a total war, mobilizing every participant's full human resources. Civilians played a huge part in the war machine of a country - mass industrial capacity required massive numbers of workers. Both sides though destroying factories and the people that worked in them would hurt the enemy war effort. Killing 3,000 office workers didn't change the United States' military capacity one iota. Bombing factories in World War II turned out not to be nearly as effective as was thought at the time, but that is 20/20 hindsight. Military leaders THOUGHT destroying cities helped weaken the other side, and so they kept doing it.
Then there is the revenge factor, which is a base human instinct but no less real. Japan attacked us. They tortured American prisoners of war in unbelievably ghastly ways. Because of the fog of cultural insensitivity and plain old racism, we did not understand Japan's motives or the viciousness of their warrior ethic. And let's be clear, the Japanese Empire was a cruel, expansionistic, xenophobically racist regime. It was a military junta masquerading as a monarchy. It murdered millions of Chinese and other East Asians. Everywhere they conquered, they were first greeted as liberators and then despised as they persecuted the native populations. Ho Chi Minh was on our in WWII, fighting Japanese occupiers.
President Truman was under enormous pressure to end the war as quickly as possible. Germany was already defeated and Japan was on the ropes, but every day Japan did not capitulate, it meant more American deaths. It can be convincingly argued that America SAVED Japanese civilian lives by the atomic bombings. The alternative was to conventionally bomb every city, village, and hamlet in Japan, while continuing to starve the Japanese people in a blockade, until we were ready for a massive amphibious invasion. Plus, some of Japan might have been occupied by the Soviet Union, leading some Japanese to enjoy Stalinist-style Communism like their neighbors in North Korea.
Also, would the Japanese have cooperated with the American occupation forces like they did if we hadn't scared the shit out of them with the A-bomb? This isn't a demeaning question - there was virtually no resistance to American occupation (compare that to some other places we know!). Japan transformed itself from a brutal authoritarian state to a parliamentary democracy peacefully and very quickly. Japan was an American ally in the Korean War just five years later. Maybe if the Japanese were conquered in a brutal conventional invasion, there would have been pockets of resistance that would have delayed Japan's transformation into an extremely rich democracy.
But I digress. The bottom line is Truman wanted to end the war ASAP and as the American president he had the responsibility to prevent American deaths first and foremost. An amphibious invasion was projected to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives (I am almost sure this is exaggerated, but again, hindsight). The atomic bombings were a way to hit Japan in such a devastating way that surrender would be quick, with the happy side-effect of warning the Soviet Union to back off. Some people think using the deaths of two cities as a warning to the USSR is appalling. That was NOT the main reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked, but it is hardly a bad idea to intimidate a potential enemy, one that was poised to swoop into Western Europe and all of East Asia, and that was ruled by one of the most evil men that ever lived. So even as the first salvo in the Cold War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki's destruction is somewhat justifiable.
I wish the U.S. didn't do it. I wish we didn't firebomb Tokyo either. And guess what? I wish we didn't imprison Japanese-Americans, I wish we treated the Indians decently, I wish we never had slaves, and I wish we always allowed women to vote, and so on and so on. If I were to make a list of all the shitty things America has done, Hiroshima would be down on the list (I originally wrote "pretty far down the list" but not really - third behind 1. slavery and 2. murdering/displacing Native Americans).
I hope history makes clear the full complexity of the decision Harry S. Truman had to make. History will show Osama Bin Laden to be a murderous asshole.
One big difference: America didn't consider itself as war with al-Qaida on September 10, 2001 but the Japanese certainly were at war with us. More importantly, the magnitude of the events are on completely different scales. Anyway you cut it, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were far worse events. Tens of thousands of people were incinerated instantaneously, with many thousands more to die of horrific burns and radiation sickness. I think the bombing of Hiroshima is the single most important act in human history, because it shows the limitless violence man is willing to use on other human beings, and it demonstrated that the human race now has the capacity to destroy itself.
All that said, 9/11 is less morally justifiable than the atomic bombings. The reasons for al-Qaida to kill 3,000 Americans are certainly sane, but dubious. American money props up autocratic regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and all the Gulf States, so we are indirectly responsible for the oppression of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. We back the barely legitimate state of Israel and allow it to oppress the Arab population under its control. Finally, American troops occupied the Holy Land of Islam by being in Saudi Arabia (at the time 9/11 occurred). If you are a Muslim radical, those are all really good reasons to hate the U.S.
However, we also have done good things toward Muslims: American troops defended Muslims in Kuwait and restored its independence, we (belatedly) helped Bosnian Muslims against racist Serb oppression, we pressured Israel to give the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, and we helped the mujadeen in Afghanistan fight the Soviet Union. These acts were in our best interest, but we did do these (basically) good things nevertheless. Supporting Israel and other perceived anti-Muslim, anti-Arab acts are done for political reasons, not out of some Crusade-like hatred of Islam.
Assassinating Mubarak or killing all the wacko Jewish settlers in the West Bank would have been much more justifiable acts of violence in my opinion. Obviously, I don't think big enough. Osama directed his hatred at the U.S., so killing 3,000 Americans and destroying symbols of American capitalism makes sense in an evil sort of way. Some have argued that 9/11, as appalling as it was, worked. We have moved our forces from Saudi Arabia (one of Osama's biggest hangups), and our occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are casting us in the role of villainous superpower perfectly. The invasion of Iraq in particular was a huge gift to Osama's recruiting efforts.
Killing civilians is vile. Many of 9/11's victims had to make the choice of burning to death or plummeting 100 stories. The cruelty of using civilian planes to kill civilians is an especially diabolical twist. For reasons I have listed above, the WTC attack cannot be called "unprovoked" but I don't think the average American thought we were in a global war either. In that sense 9/11 and the atomic bombings of Japan are very different.
Despite my deep regret that my country is the only one to use atomic weapons in combat, and my feeling that we did not HAVE to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki to make Japan surrender, I think it is very smug of Americans today to second-guess Truman's choice to use the Bomb. Frankly, we care a lot more about civilian deaths in war today than we used to. Both Allies and Axis attacked civilian populations regularly and intentionally.
World War II was a total war, mobilizing every participant's full human resources. Civilians played a huge part in the war machine of a country - mass industrial capacity required massive numbers of workers. Both sides though destroying factories and the people that worked in them would hurt the enemy war effort. Killing 3,000 office workers didn't change the United States' military capacity one iota. Bombing factories in World War II turned out not to be nearly as effective as was thought at the time, but that is 20/20 hindsight. Military leaders THOUGHT destroying cities helped weaken the other side, and so they kept doing it.
Then there is the revenge factor, which is a base human instinct but no less real. Japan attacked us. They tortured American prisoners of war in unbelievably ghastly ways. Because of the fog of cultural insensitivity and plain old racism, we did not understand Japan's motives or the viciousness of their warrior ethic. And let's be clear, the Japanese Empire was a cruel, expansionistic, xenophobically racist regime. It was a military junta masquerading as a monarchy. It murdered millions of Chinese and other East Asians. Everywhere they conquered, they were first greeted as liberators and then despised as they persecuted the native populations. Ho Chi Minh was on our in WWII, fighting Japanese occupiers.
President Truman was under enormous pressure to end the war as quickly as possible. Germany was already defeated and Japan was on the ropes, but every day Japan did not capitulate, it meant more American deaths. It can be convincingly argued that America SAVED Japanese civilian lives by the atomic bombings. The alternative was to conventionally bomb every city, village, and hamlet in Japan, while continuing to starve the Japanese people in a blockade, until we were ready for a massive amphibious invasion. Plus, some of Japan might have been occupied by the Soviet Union, leading some Japanese to enjoy Stalinist-style Communism like their neighbors in North Korea.
Also, would the Japanese have cooperated with the American occupation forces like they did if we hadn't scared the shit out of them with the A-bomb? This isn't a demeaning question - there was virtually no resistance to American occupation (compare that to some other places we know!). Japan transformed itself from a brutal authoritarian state to a parliamentary democracy peacefully and very quickly. Japan was an American ally in the Korean War just five years later. Maybe if the Japanese were conquered in a brutal conventional invasion, there would have been pockets of resistance that would have delayed Japan's transformation into an extremely rich democracy.
But I digress. The bottom line is Truman wanted to end the war ASAP and as the American president he had the responsibility to prevent American deaths first and foremost. An amphibious invasion was projected to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives (I am almost sure this is exaggerated, but again, hindsight). The atomic bombings were a way to hit Japan in such a devastating way that surrender would be quick, with the happy side-effect of warning the Soviet Union to back off. Some people think using the deaths of two cities as a warning to the USSR is appalling. That was NOT the main reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked, but it is hardly a bad idea to intimidate a potential enemy, one that was poised to swoop into Western Europe and all of East Asia, and that was ruled by one of the most evil men that ever lived. So even as the first salvo in the Cold War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki's destruction is somewhat justifiable.
I wish the U.S. didn't do it. I wish we didn't firebomb Tokyo either. And guess what? I wish we didn't imprison Japanese-Americans, I wish we treated the Indians decently, I wish we never had slaves, and I wish we always allowed women to vote, and so on and so on. If I were to make a list of all the shitty things America has done, Hiroshima would be down on the list (I originally wrote "pretty far down the list" but not really - third behind 1. slavery and 2. murdering/displacing Native Americans).
I hope history makes clear the full complexity of the decision Harry S. Truman had to make. History will show Osama Bin Laden to be a murderous asshole.
posted by David Bowden at 9:35 AM
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