A DATE TO REMEMBER – AT 10:49 A.M. ET:  This is one of the most famous dates in American history.  It was on this date in 1945 that the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in an attempt to bring World War II to a quick close.  Three days later we dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki.  The Pacific war that began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and which escalated dramatically with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, ended within a week.

There will be the usual hand-wringing today.  Of course, no moral person rejoiced in the terrible casualties suffered by the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  But the bombings, by bringing the war to a quick close, undoubtedly saved the lives of far more human beings than were taken.   Had the bombs not been used, the United States would have invaded Japan within months.  One can only contemplate the human carnage.

Since 1945 some on the political left have used the nuclear attacks to condemn America.  The Soviet Union was our ally in World War II, however, and such condemnations were not heard when the bombs were dropped.

Today we contemplate the possibility that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of, or be developed by, terrorist groups and rogue states like Iran.  It is a horrible prospect because two nuclear devices set off in American cities would produce more casualties than have been suffered in all of America's wars combined.  And yet, as Iran moves forward with its nuclear program, our reaction is ineffective sanctions, and little more.

August 6, 2011