![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
William L. Laurence
Nov. 17th, 2004 01:35 amAtom Bomb on Nagasaki
The New York Times, September 9, 1945
Setting: Nagasaki, Japan. August 9, 1945.
Event: Bombing of Nagasaki, U.S. atom bomb II
Notable Quotes:
"It is a thing of beauty to behold, this 'gadget.' Into its design went millions of man-hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history."
~ Description of a deadly weapon in terms of beauty. This passage also shows Laurence's scientific background: he had "followed the developments in nuclear physics with keen interest."
"There comes a point where space also swallows time and one lives through eternal moments filled with an oppressive loneliness, as though all life had suddenly vanished from the earth and you are the only one left, a lone survivor traveling endlessly through interplanetary space."
~ This passage strikes me as a foreshadow of what was to come at Nagasaki, and for the "lucky" few who were to survive the bombing.
"In about four hours from now one of its cities, making weapons of war for use against us, will be wiped off the map by the greatest weapon ever made by man: In one tenth of a millionth of a second, a fraction of time immeasurable by any clock, a whirlwind from the skies will pulverize thousands of its buildings and tens of thousands of its inhabitants."
~ Laurence acknowledges the death that will take place.
( more quotes... )
I cannot help but be reminded of what's been happening with Iraq. The U.S. bombing over Japan had one single purpose: bomb the Japs into surrendering. It obviously worked. Fast forward 60 years. I find United States' recent military aggression in the Middle East to have a similar goal: to force surrender, using all possible means, from the very people and land it raided and destroyed. Is it going to work this time?
I know I'm oversimplifying the issue. But I just can't be supportive of U.S.'s foreign policy, which crowns itself Superior over other nations. Especially not since I'm in over my head with theories and articles and discussions and papers in my Problems & Methods of Middle Eastern Studies class '_'
Even if it works. Even if there isn't a better way... Does the ends really justify the means?
The New York Times, September 9, 1945
Setting: Nagasaki, Japan. August 9, 1945.
Event: Bombing of Nagasaki, U.S. atom bomb II
Notable Quotes:
"It is a thing of beauty to behold, this 'gadget.' Into its design went millions of man-hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history."
~ Description of a deadly weapon in terms of beauty. This passage also shows Laurence's scientific background: he had "followed the developments in nuclear physics with keen interest."
"There comes a point where space also swallows time and one lives through eternal moments filled with an oppressive loneliness, as though all life had suddenly vanished from the earth and you are the only one left, a lone survivor traveling endlessly through interplanetary space."
~ This passage strikes me as a foreshadow of what was to come at Nagasaki, and for the "lucky" few who were to survive the bombing.
"In about four hours from now one of its cities, making weapons of war for use against us, will be wiped off the map by the greatest weapon ever made by man: In one tenth of a millionth of a second, a fraction of time immeasurable by any clock, a whirlwind from the skies will pulverize thousands of its buildings and tens of thousands of its inhabitants."
~ Laurence acknowledges the death that will take place.
( more quotes... )
I cannot help but be reminded of what's been happening with Iraq. The U.S. bombing over Japan had one single purpose: bomb the Japs into surrendering. It obviously worked. Fast forward 60 years. I find United States' recent military aggression in the Middle East to have a similar goal: to force surrender, using all possible means, from the very people and land it raided and destroyed. Is it going to work this time?
I know I'm oversimplifying the issue. But I just can't be supportive of U.S.'s foreign policy, which crowns itself Superior over other nations. Especially not since I'm in over my head with theories and articles and discussions and papers in my Problems & Methods of Middle Eastern Studies class '_'
Even if it works. Even if there isn't a better way... Does the ends really justify the means?
