Hiroshima

For the last several weeks I have been reading book after book about the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't know why I do this. I become frustrated, depressed and distraught when I read the details about the horrors of war, but since my earliest memories I have not been able to turn away from pictures and words of war while at the same time fearing such a horrible waste of humanity.

Some of the books concentrated strictly on the science, the physics of what happens when a small fraction of nuclear material is brought to critical mass. Some discussed the human and social tragedy that were direct results of the bombs, but did so dispassionately; strictly an empirical representation of death, disease and trauma. Many authors stated clearly in their introduction that their introduction that they were not going to address the morality or immorality of the bombs or try to assign blame. One, however, asserted that the whole question of blame is useless moving the argument from the citizens of opposed countries to the economic and social practices of those countries that brought people to put on uniforms and attempt to kill those who dressed differently. Eventually it all seemed to devolve to the point where one individual was trying to kill another because they would try to kill him.

I've mentioned before that I don't believe in the concept of innocent civilian bystanders. We choose to honor and support our executive and nation or we oppose it. If we pay our taxes and accept conscription we enable war. Weapons are rarely built by soldiers, they are built by citizens and every citizen from the school teacher who taught that employee math to the grocer who sold them breakfast is involved. The rations are grown by farmers and the money to pay for it all financed by bankers. Every one participates in the process, partly because of allegiance and patriotism and partly because of the need to pay for the necessities of life.

Some of the books were written specifically to address the morality of waging war with atomic weapons. This begs the question, "Is there a moral way to wage war?" This is where our irrationality stands up screaming. How is dying from a metal fragment through the chest more moral than dying from every cell of the body vaporizing? How can it be more noble to take a life with a rifle or a bayonet than it is with a Predator and a Hellfire missile? What we call "collateral damage" is killing the people who feed the soldiers, make their weapons, bring them information and generally enable war. How is killing as many people as you can in smaller batches preferable to killing them in one huge cataclysm?

To assert that there is a "immoral" way to wage war relies on the premise that there is a "moral" way to do it. War is about greed. Greed is always the primary cause. Someone wants something someone else has, which in the end all boils down to agency. Someone wants to impose their will on someone else in a way that will give them what they want. Any action, any method used is moral to protect and defend the exercise of agency. If we accept that "...all men are created equal..." this is the place where equality exists: We are all endowed by the Creator with the right to make our own decisions and choose for ourselves what we do with our resources.

There is no way to morally take away the agency of another. Efforts to explain it in terms of territory, money and resources are the details we use to obfuscate the motivation of the instigator to impose their will.