THE TERADACTYL: I Am Become Death

(Robert Oppenheimer reflects on the moments following the first successful detonation test of a nuclear bomb)

Today, August 6th, is the 67th anniversary of the world's first nuclear strike on Hiroshima, Japan followed by the second attack on Nagasaki August 9, 1945. There were actually three targets, the city of Konkura was meant to be bombed the same day as Nagasaki but was spared due to poor weather conditions. Though the targets did have military value, one of the key reasons for the bombing was to to obtain a strong psychological impact on Japan and demonstrate to the world the atomic power held by the United States. This was the moment that would give birth to the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction politics, and eventually, even the killing of Iranian scientists.

Sixty-seven years on, the decision to use the bomb can still be debated. While the teaching of WWII in schools (certainly in mine) nearly always implies that the use of the atomic bomb was to "end the war". That is, to stop Hitler. The truth is that Germany was well and truly defeated before the atom bombs were dropped on Japan. Another crucial truth that is rarely appropriately taught is the scale of death, torture and crimes against humanity that were committed by the Japanese military across Asia. Nazi Germany is the symbol of WWII, the swatsika blazoned perpetrators of the Holocaust, while accounts of Japan's participation almost solely focus on Pearl Harbour and the Japanese hold out to surrender following Germany's defeat.

We are right to continue to question the moral implications of the bombings. Yet those of us who stand on the side against nuclear proliferation and work towards peace are obligated to confront all the complex implications of our position. To charge that the bomb should never have been used whatsoever would require a vast accounting of facts and intimate knowledge of all political and military intelligence available to the President of the United States at that point in history. I'm no military strategist, I am at best only qualified as a unacademic philosopher and an empathetic human being.

Hiroshima - Ground Zero

So for my part, the only stance I can take is that a nuclear bomb exploded near the coast of Japan would have been sufficient to illicit surrender. Attacks on civilians were not necessary. Though holding that position begs the question; considering how tenacious the Japanese were and what they were capable of, what if a warning shot had not been enough?

Japan's War Minister did not initially want to surrender even after the bombing, he believed America had used all the atomic power it possessed. Fortunately Emperor Hirohito chose surrender on August 12th, 1945 and part of his statement read:

Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilisation.

This statement could be used to argue that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was indeed necessary, and obviously the choice to use civilian targets was instrumental in Japan's surrender. I contend Hirohito's words equally convey that the absolute power of the bomb could have been demonstrated on a different, wholly non-civilian and non-populated target to the same effect.

The civilians killed in the world's first nuclear attack were not only largely non-military, there were also an estimated 20,000 Korean and Chinese conscripts between both cities. The initial death toll was 210,000 and many more died soon after from radiation poisoning, burns, and high rates of cancer continued for decades following the attacks.

The total number of innocent lives affected will never be calculated with certainty. Images of the attacks were actively suppressed by the allied governments. Photographs of the victims and the devastation were deemed inflammatory and unnecessary for the allied civilian populations to witness.

Hypocritical, considering allied soldiers forced German civilians to view the concentration camps near their towns and cities, so they could bear witness to hell that the Nazis had wrought. The gravity of using the power of atomic energy against human beings demands that every one of us be exposed to it's aftermath. Not through fictionalized accounts, (though there is a nuclear scare film from the UK that comes close), but by coming face to face with the incomprehensible suffering of the victims.

The choice to use a nuclear bomb on civilian targets is fundamentally incompatible with justice. To engage in this type of nuclear strike is to be culpable for mass murder of innocent human beings almost solely due to their unfortunate circumstance of having been born of that particular place and time.

If we are to stand and speak against war, nuclear war and nuclear proliferation we will have to be vigilant, but also humble. As great as the strength of our convictions, if it happens that well-meant appeals for peace stop a nuclear strike that can be unequivocally proven to have been necessary to prevent a truly greater evil, then we will deserve to be judged harshly for our idealism. I will stand up and be held accountable if that day comes.

If you intend to be a part of the movement for nuclear disarmament, let it comfort you to know that far superior thinkers than you and I have come to the same conclusions. Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein's manifesto asks us to imagine renouncing war, and acknowledges that as a species our destructive capabilities have left every one of us in peril.

There is another truly unsung hero whose name you've probably never been taught, Sir. Joseph Rotblat, the only nuclear scientist who left the Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project in 1944 for the sake of conscience. He entered the program initially because he believed in stopping the Nazis, but when he discovered that the primary goal of the bomb was in fact to intimidate Russia, he resigned immediately. His name may not be familiar to you, yet he is a Nobel Prize winner and spent his life working with fellow scientists and academics to stop nuclear proliferation. Unlike other scientists on the Manhattan Project, Rotblat believed that science has a moral obligation to speak out and to be held accountable when discoveries are used for immoral purposes. His own research was instrumental in the revelation that a nuclear reaction could be used as a bomb, and he spent the rest of his life campaigning against it.

May many others follow his example.

Strangest Dream ,The by Eric Bednarski, National Film Board of Canada

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