| With all due respect, his opinion is not gospel. The decision was made by a group of advisors and the President, it was thoroughly kicked around, and, I believe, was responsibly made. Of course some people will always believe it didn't have to come to that. As I mentioned to zonder, though, that was somewhat fatuous. We had already dumped tons of bombs, conventional and incendiary, on Germany and Japan, killing thousands of civilians, in response to the tactics of our enemies. We could not allow them license to bomb London, Nanking, Shanghai, etc. while being confident that their own cities would be safe, so we had already "gone medieval", as they say nowadays. Read "Slaughterhouse Five", a fine surrealistic novel about the firebombing of Dresden. We did more damage to it, with less justification, than we did to Hiroshima, which was of some military value. The only difference in the use of the atomic bomb was the shock of so much power in one bomb. We could have accomplished the same effect in an evening with a squadron of planes with incendiary bombs. There is something hypocritical in the approval of people like Ike of the concept of strategic bombing, and their handwringing over the use of the first atomic bombs.......... |
