No Guilt

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. This is one of those days where much of the world likes to blame the horror of what happened in Hiroshima on the United States. The Japanese, especially, like to talk about they were the victims of what happened on this date in 1945.

Well, okay. All those candle light vigils in Japan held on August 6th of every year are quite moving. But I'm just curious: Do the Japanese ever shed tears over the 370,000 Chinese they slaughtered in the rape of Nanking? Or the thousands of POW's that died during the Bataan Death March? Or the tens of thousands of women in captured territories that the Japanese forced into sexual slavery? Or Japan's experiments with germ warfare using prisoners as human guinea pigs?

War is a horrible thing, and unfortunately people die. But when one considers how many deaths Japan's belligerence caused, and how many more would have died if the fighting had gone on longer, there's no reason for Americans to feel guilt over what happened at Hiroshima.