Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• August 6th and 9th respectively are the 75th anniversaries "of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In those two blasts and their atomic afterglow over 200,000 Japanese died. The devastation in both cases was overwhelming.... Japan unconditionally surrendered within a week.... These bombing raids were part of a strategy of demoralization in which military facilities and armament production were not the main targets. By deliberately attacking civilian populations the Allies hoped to teach their enemies a lesson and bring them to their knees. Some few Catholic scholars, notably Elizabeth Anscombe and Fr. John Ford, S.J. [link added] argued at the time that the Allied approach was immoral.... if Anscombe’s and Ford’s premise about intentional killing of the innocent is correct, then the conclusion is inescapable: these Allied actions constituted murder on a vast scale, running to hundreds of thousands of lives" (Public Discourse, 8/3/2010)