Another Day to Remember

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The sixth of August is bad enough, often forgotten are the horrors of the ninth of August with the near obliteration of the largest Christian community of Japan.

Such means are never just and never justified--no matter how one argues for the case for potentially shortening the war. And we must stop to consider why these weapons were deployed in Japan and not in Germany--one is led to suspect that it may have been that we didn't really regard the Japanese as fully human.

And are there people that we look upon that way today? Perhaps Arabs? Perhaps Muslims? If so, shame on us--it is time to learn that one cannot abstract a person. One cannot rely upon that abstraction to provide distance from the persons harmed. We owe it to ourselves to live the life of those mothers whose children have been taken from them, those husbands and wives who have lost their spouses. These are personal moments, personal tragedies, intimate and horrifying moments of human destruction and loss. Abstracting a person for a principle results in far too many such moments. The devil is in the details--the details of lives sundered and destroyed, that too often in our comfort we choose to ignore, or more culpably, we choose to explain away or try to justify.

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Maybe we nuked Japan because Germany surrendered in May? And they were on their way to total defeat therefore usinf nuclear weapons was not necessary, but it would have been acceptable. The German people were in full support of the murderous actions of the Nazi's...secondly I am more afraid the Muslims will nuke us before we ever consider using nuclear weapons against them...22 Aug is the day that Iran will deliver their decision on whether to continue their nuclear program. Coincidently, 22 Aug is a "holy day" for Islam. It is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). It has an apocolyptic meaning ..see this link for details http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008768

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on August 7, 2006 11:42 AM.

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