I’ve been reading some excellent and well written articles on the dropping of the bomb and the aftermath, 60 years later.
Rightwing Nuthousehas an excellent post, including a comment on the Peace Bell.
Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review Online, writes about folks who wonder if it was the right choice. And he explains why the choice was made. He ends with:
The truth, as we are reminded so often in this present conflict, is that usually in war there are no good alternatives, and leaders must select between a very bad and even worse choice. Hiroshima was the most awful option imaginable, but the other scenarios would have probably turned out even worse.
An article by the New York Daily News interviews a woman who was 13 when the bomb dropped and was left without her family suffering radiation poisoning.
West, now 73 and a retired Vassar College lecturer, believes the atomic bomb that robbed her of her family and her innocence saved countless lives – Japanese and American.
“If it was not for the atomic bomb, we [Japanese] were in such a mental state, we would have fought until the last person,” said West, who was taught as a little girl how to fight with a sharpened bamboo stick in the event of an invasion.
“I never, never, never hated the Americans,” said West, who now lives near Poughkeepsie and is married to a former G.I.”
Sine Qua Non has a photo essay consisting of three pictures and two questions.
Another post. Very even handed. It looks at both sides of the question, from a US perspective.