An argument for the bomb

A few years ago my Asian Studies class had a debate about the merits of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. This debate stands out in my mind because only two or three students were making arguments in support of President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb. Our professor was passionately opposed to the decision and, naturally, scores of my classmates nodded their heads in eager agreement with what she said. It's regretful to see how little perspective people today have on the various factors that prompted us to drop the bomb.

Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star Tribune provides a needed reminder of the alternative to dropping the bomb. She writes:

As the 60th anniversary of "the bomb" approaches, we've largely forgotten conditions in 1945. Our children get ideas about the war from books such as "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes," an elementary school favorite about a young Hiroshima victim. They learn of the bomb's horrors but not why it was dropped.

Those who lived through the war, however, can still remind us.

She goes on to note all the hundreds of thousands of American AND Asian lives that would have perished had we proceeded with a protracted invasion of Japan that, arguably, could have made the invasion of France look like a walk in the park. Read the whole thing.