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Editorial
Editorial Archives
Friday, December 10, 2004; Page 18
‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ Live On
December 7 marked sixty three years since Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The day reminded many that September 11 was not the first foreign threat on our home soil and perhaps won’t be the last. But what “the date that will live in infamy” may not have done is point to this country’s history of seeking to “pay back” its enemies at any cost.
“The memory of the ‘sneak attack’ on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace,” states the United States Navy’s website. This description is painted in patriotism, masking what some have called the Armagaden that was America’s retaliation by bombing two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
An estimated 50% of Hiroshima’s 350,000 population died as a result of the Uranium bomb, the first nuclear weapon in the world, that was dropped on August 6, 1945. The bomb was nicknamed 'Little Boy’ in reference to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The second operational atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki- nicknamed 'Fat Man' (as a tribute to Winston Churchill), three days later, killing 73,884 and injuring 74,909.
For those who survived, heat rays, high-temperature fires and radiation led to catastrophic conditions that often affected even their unborn children.
Pearl Harbor was a tragic moment in U.S. history that will forever be imprinted on the minds and hearts of this country’s citizens, and 9/11 as well, but the citizens of this country must be burden barriers for the global community, recognizing that they are many innocent civilians in distant lands that are suffering and dying because our leaders are in constant need of retribution.
It seems that the United States government has an unspoken rule that one American life is worth thousands of non-American lives. This is dangerous; we must not believe that our existence is more precious than that of another. We must mourn the losses of those two Japanese cities as if they were our own. We most mourn the loss of innocent Iraqi and Afghan men and women as if they were our own. We must mourn the loss of all who are wrongfully persecuted or punished by our government as if they were our own. If not, we are no better than those we seek to bring to justice. |
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