Protestors Miss Context

Gathered in Hiroshima to decry America’s use of the atomic bomb to end the long war of Japanese imperialism, “mourners” took no notice of the millions of human beings slaughtered by militarist Japan over the preceding five decades. This is typical of a modern tendency to ignore the context of American military enterprises.

Whether tallying U.S. casualties in Iraq with no reference to the accomplishments of the liberation of twenty-five million human beings and the establishment of a pluralistic democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East, or complaining about the overwhelming force America employed to convert our mortal enemies Germany and Japan into our peaceful democratic allies, self-proclaimed peace activists reflexively abhor the American military might that has done more to establish peace on Earth than all the feel-good peace activism the World has ever known.

Americans ought never be ashamed on August 6th, but should rejoice (as our parents and grandparents did at the time) that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki cut short the bloodiest war mankind has ever known, sparing countless other lives and restoring peace to many nations.