About every two years there is enough pressure built up for a new post on the events today. Today is another anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. At the risk of sounding insensitive, the popular sentiments often ring hollow and uninformed. There are no thesis statements attached to all of this outpouring of sentiment. There is never any mention of Japan's plans to build their own nukes, nor of their post-war experimentation with them.
Today on television there will be at least two emotionally charged television shows about how a group of young people lost their lives in the bombings. There are countless "news" reports on the events in 1945 and commemoration activities today. There are memorial services held all over the country, and all over the globe. What is the thesis statement? Any writer knows that there must be a statement somewhere identifying the the central theme of the piece. What is it here? Is it that we should abolish nuclear weapons? Is it that we should pursue a peaceful solution to our problems in the future? Is it that America performed a war crime for which it should be tried and punished? What is the point?
Secondly there is no discussion of Japan's nuclear program. Japan had a program, and it was believed at that time that Japan would test its weapon on August 12 in Hunan, China, the same place where Japanese planes had spread plague virus in experiments on biological weapons. One has to wonder if the people of Hunan were to be used again in nuclear weapons experiments. The Red Army invaded Hunan before the Americans could get there to assess the situation, and as Japan had a weapons production facility there, the Soviets were not interested in having the Americans searching around and getting their hands on valuable information.
There is no discussion of Japan having enough capability to build a nuclear weapon, making it a de facto nuclear state. There is no mention of its "space program" being similar to North Korea's, with definite applications for business and industry, that could just as easily be a missile development program.
This emotional appeal will continue through into September with remembrances of Nagasaki, and the end of the war with no direct, meaningful appeals for peace, nuclear disarmament, or mutual understanding. After all of the tears, and the wishing it hadn't happened, what are we supposed to think?
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