Bryan Fischer
Who's to blame for Hiroshima?
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Saturday was the grim anniversary of the day that will live in infamy, when Japan launched an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, with its death toll of 2,388 American lives.
This, of course, propelled the United States into World War II, and the battle against the Axis powers and their totalitarian ambitions for the world led to the loss of over 400,000 American lives by the time that chore was done. The total casualty count for the United States, by the end of the war, was over 1 million killed or wounded.
In comparison, the combined death toll for Hiroshima and Nagasaki was around 250,000 lives.
From a moral standpoint, while a nuclear bomb is a terrible instrument of war, a bomb is still just a bomb and dead is still dead whether from a conventional weapon or an atomic blast.
The alternative to dropping Fat Man and Little Boy was a costly and bloody invasion of Japan itself. Our sobering experience in taking Pacific islands taught us that the warriors of Nippon would fight to the death and drag as many Americans to Sheol with them as they could. No surrender, no retreat. In fact, the last batch of Japanese soldiers didn't give up the fight until 1949. One lone Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, didn't come out of the jungle and surrender his sword until 1974.
Both Truman and Churchill estimated that the bombs saved the lives of one million American soldiers and 500,000 British soldiers. These all were men who thus received the gift of life and the prospect of building marriages and families and careers after the war was over. The bombs, terrible though they were, preserved a future for countless American men and brought husbands home to their wives and fathers to their children.
My own father was one of those men. He served as a medic in the war, and was on a troop ship headed for Japan when Japan surrendered. Medics go where they are needed, where the battle is the most intense, and thus my father would have been at considerable risk if an invasion had been necessary. I may owe my own life to the military action that brought Japan to its knees.
It's worth noting that the decision to drop the bombs saved countless Japanese lives as well, both civilian and military. The Japanese themselves proudly adopted the slogan, "One hundred million [subjects of the Japanese Empire] will die for the Emperor and Nation." The loss of life Japan would have suffered is incalculable.
If the loss of human life is inevitable, which it is even in a just war, then a respect for the sanctity of human life dictates a strategy that will reduce the loss of human life to a minimum while accomplishing the objective of defeating the enemy and preserving liberty. On that basis alone, the use of nuclearized weapons to end WWII saved countless innocent lives on both sides and was therefore morally justified.
But it still remains that the United States dropped these bombs. Is the United States to blame from a moral standpoint?
The salient fact here is that the United States entered the war to defend American sovereignty when we were attacked by an enemy. This America had an inalienable and God-given right to do. Nations as well as individuals have a divine right to self-defense. It is the fundamental responsibility of our government and our military to protect our lives, liberty and property from foreign threat, and our political leaders and our men in uniform therefore fulfilled their moral duty by neutralizing a lethal threat.
Since Japan was the aggressor, and the loss of life in the war occurred only because of its deadly and unwarranted hostility, Japan must bear all the blame for the loss of life that occurred in the necessary and morally justified response of the Allied powers. The entire casualty count in the Pacific theater, both American and Japanese, must be laid at the feet of the nation who dropped the first bombs in that war.
So were Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrible, terrible humanitarian tragedies? Of course they were. Was the United States to blame? Of course not. The moral culpability for the loss of life, not just in August of 1945 but in all four years of combat, rests entirely with the nation of Japan.
Bottom line: no Pearl Harbor, no Hiroshima.
Meanwhile, 56 million innocent humans have been slaughtered on our shores through abortion. And the moral culpability for that horror rests entirely on us.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
December 8, 2013
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Saturday was the grim anniversary of the day that will live in infamy, when Japan launched an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, with its death toll of 2,388 American lives.
This, of course, propelled the United States into World War II, and the battle against the Axis powers and their totalitarian ambitions for the world led to the loss of over 400,000 American lives by the time that chore was done. The total casualty count for the United States, by the end of the war, was over 1 million killed or wounded.
In comparison, the combined death toll for Hiroshima and Nagasaki was around 250,000 lives.
From a moral standpoint, while a nuclear bomb is a terrible instrument of war, a bomb is still just a bomb and dead is still dead whether from a conventional weapon or an atomic blast.
The alternative to dropping Fat Man and Little Boy was a costly and bloody invasion of Japan itself. Our sobering experience in taking Pacific islands taught us that the warriors of Nippon would fight to the death and drag as many Americans to Sheol with them as they could. No surrender, no retreat. In fact, the last batch of Japanese soldiers didn't give up the fight until 1949. One lone Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, didn't come out of the jungle and surrender his sword until 1974.
Both Truman and Churchill estimated that the bombs saved the lives of one million American soldiers and 500,000 British soldiers. These all were men who thus received the gift of life and the prospect of building marriages and families and careers after the war was over. The bombs, terrible though they were, preserved a future for countless American men and brought husbands home to their wives and fathers to their children.
My own father was one of those men. He served as a medic in the war, and was on a troop ship headed for Japan when Japan surrendered. Medics go where they are needed, where the battle is the most intense, and thus my father would have been at considerable risk if an invasion had been necessary. I may owe my own life to the military action that brought Japan to its knees.
It's worth noting that the decision to drop the bombs saved countless Japanese lives as well, both civilian and military. The Japanese themselves proudly adopted the slogan, "One hundred million [subjects of the Japanese Empire] will die for the Emperor and Nation." The loss of life Japan would have suffered is incalculable.
If the loss of human life is inevitable, which it is even in a just war, then a respect for the sanctity of human life dictates a strategy that will reduce the loss of human life to a minimum while accomplishing the objective of defeating the enemy and preserving liberty. On that basis alone, the use of nuclearized weapons to end WWII saved countless innocent lives on both sides and was therefore morally justified.
But it still remains that the United States dropped these bombs. Is the United States to blame from a moral standpoint?
The salient fact here is that the United States entered the war to defend American sovereignty when we were attacked by an enemy. This America had an inalienable and God-given right to do. Nations as well as individuals have a divine right to self-defense. It is the fundamental responsibility of our government and our military to protect our lives, liberty and property from foreign threat, and our political leaders and our men in uniform therefore fulfilled their moral duty by neutralizing a lethal threat.
Since Japan was the aggressor, and the loss of life in the war occurred only because of its deadly and unwarranted hostility, Japan must bear all the blame for the loss of life that occurred in the necessary and morally justified response of the Allied powers. The entire casualty count in the Pacific theater, both American and Japanese, must be laid at the feet of the nation who dropped the first bombs in that war.
So were Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrible, terrible humanitarian tragedies? Of course they were. Was the United States to blame? Of course not. The moral culpability for the loss of life, not just in August of 1945 but in all four years of combat, rests entirely with the nation of Japan.
Bottom line: no Pearl Harbor, no Hiroshima.
Meanwhile, 56 million innocent humans have been slaughtered on our shores through abortion. And the moral culpability for that horror rests entirely on us.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
