Stardate 20010912.0843 (On Screen): I really enjoy reading Lia's site, but on this one I think she has it wrong. Like a lot of people, she obsesses on the nukes which hit Japan in 1945, without realizing that these were not the most devastating attacks the US made on Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than either of the nukes did. (She also badly overestimates the casualties caused by the nukes. Both of them combined killed about a hundred thousand people.)
But the real point is that the analogy of yesterday's bombing to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or the firebombing of Tokyo) is deeply flawed. Those were the final episodes in a war which Japan started. It's also a historical fact that the nukes caused Hirohito to order a surrender. Had that not happened and had the US been forced to invade Japan in November of 1945, vastly more Japanese would have died than were killed by the two nukes. I have studied that period deeply and I have no doubt whatever that President Truman made the right choice to drop the bombs on Japan, and that by doing so he saved both Japanese and American lives.
The analogy to Pearl Harbor is, in fact, much better for several reasons. First, both were attacks made in peacetime. Second, both were made without warning. Third, Pearl Harbor did, and the WTC attack will, raise a righteous anger in the American people. (discuss)
