[sfc_darrel]

Our Friends the Japanese
Time was when history was written by the victors. Today, it seems, it's written by the victims. Today is the 57th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and Reuters reports the top local pol marked the occasion with some anti-American cant:

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba lamented the world's growing tendency to forget the horrors of the atomic bomb and warned his audience that the dangers of nuclear war were rising. . . . He added that the possibility of history's repeating itself had grown since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Akiba invited [President] Bush to Hiroshima "to confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons can do to human beings" and lashed out at Washington's go-it-alone stance.

"America has not been given the right to impose a 'Pax Americana' and to decide the fate of the world," Akiba said. "Rather, we, the people of the world, have the right to insist that we have not given you the authority to destroy the world."

Editorialists at the Boston Globe pick up the theme, wringing their hands about the possibility that America will "follow Japan's earlier path of wanton military aggression and contribute to future suffering." This is a rather appalling thing to say when America is defending itself against wanton aggression.

A pair of articles in left-wing British papers--of all places--provide a nice counterpoint to all this America-hating nonsense. The Independent picks up a report in Japan's Asahi newspaper that Japan itself had plans to build a nuclear bomb. Asahi "says the military ordered the destruction of the plans the day before Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945," the Independent reports. But "scientists . . . thought this was 'a waste' and decided to save at least part of the plans." They gave them to a researcher named Kazuo Kuroda, who later became a professor at the University of Arkansas. The plans surfaced when Kuroda died in April 2001.

Still among the living is Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the airplane that nuked Hiroshima. Studs Turkel interviews him for the Guardian and asks his views on current events:

Turkel: One big question. Since September 11, what are your thoughts? People talk about nukes, the hydrogen bomb.

Tibbets: Let's put it this way. I don't know any more about these terrorists than you do, I know nothing. When they bombed the Trade Centre I couldn't believe what was going on. We've fought many enemies at different times. But we knew who they were and where they were. These people, we don't know who they are or where they are. That's the point that bothers me. Because they're gonna strike again, I'll put money on it. And it's going to be damned dramatic. But they're gonna do it in their own sweet time. We've got to get into a position where we can kill the bastards. None of this business of taking them to court, the hell with that. I wouldn't waste five seconds on them. . . .

Turkel: One last thing, when you hear people say, "Let's nuke 'em," "Let's nuke these people," what do you think?

Tibbets: Oh, I wouldn't hesitate if I had the choice. I'd wipe 'em out. You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the sh--: "You've killed so many civilians." That's their tough luck for being there.

Not for nothing are Tibbets and his peers called the Greatest Generation.