Midchuck, today is my 69th birthday. I will never celebrate another without being reminded of the horrors of today. A few weeks before my thirteenth birthday I was among millions of Americans who rejoiced at the news that a hundred thousand Japanese died in Hiroshima and was disappointed when later death counts were more conservative (not yet taking in the many thousands who were yet to die). Nagasaki gave us another excuse to rejoice (no one told us of the fact that Nagasaki was the center of Christianity in Japan). I have since come to believe that the bombings were not necessary, that they were motivated more by our desire to intimidate the Russians than out of a belief that they were necessary to save American lives.

But I fully understand that in the heat of war, decisions are made in the heat of emotion, and can accept that with our feelings about Pearl Harbor and with the fact that the war was still going on, the decision to use the bomb was reasonable--at least for Hiroshima.

I have since come to believe that to rejoice at any killing is wrong: "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in Mankind,"John Donne wrote. I would fight to defend my country, and would even fight to defend Israel and think it's right that the US do so, but I think that because we do so we have the right and duty to insist that Israel observe international law and recognize the human rights of the Palestinians, that Israel not become their former Nazi enemy and claim lebensraum.

I don't think Americans should have been bombed into extinction because of their elation over the destruction of a couple of Japanese cities, and I don't think the Palestinians should be bombed into destruction because of their joy at seeing whom they reasonably regard as their enemy suffer.

--seed(Charles Kratz--a long time Mudcatter who's been taking a sabbatical)