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there are obviously two issues getting tangled up here. one concerns tibbets himself--who i dont regard as anyone of particular interest either way (that is either good or bad)
i dont think that alot of americans have come to terms with hiroshima and even more with nagasaki. the latter because even if you can make an argument that hiroshima shortened the war (debatable) made unnecessary a land invasion of japan (debatable as to whether that would have been necessary) and sent a clear message to the soviets about the post-war dick-size competition (less arguable), you cant say anything like that about nagasaki. it was thursday. the weather was nice. try out the fat boy. no matter that it was already obvious that japan would surrender.
you could argue that there was no clear understanding of atomic weapons, that they were understood as really big conventional bombs and that this misunderstanding opened the way to using two of them on japan. its not like there had been any previous experiences with atomic weapons use. the americans are the only ones to have used them.
in many ways, what makes less sense to me is the cold war and the centrality of "strategies" like mutually assured destruction AFTER hiroshima and nagasaki. this is a place where the ethics-challenged characteristics of the political and military systems seems clearer.
but then again, it seems that when it comes to dealing with problematic actions, the americans are not so good. people still prefer to think about "manifest destiny" and not genocide for example.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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