Checking your facts.
Dear Son,
it is always a good idea to check certain facts before spouting off. It’s always a good idea to check your spelling as well. Something I must learn to do.
In my letter “Who’s to blame?” I mentioned the bombing of Japan at the end of the Second World War and how it was justified.
In the current climate we are being told that extremist Muslim Imans are to blame for the London bombings as well as terror attacks around the world. Is the Christian faith so much better at promoting peace?
The plane that dropped the first nuclear bomb, Enola Gay, was blessed by a Catholic Priest. Did the Preist know what the plane was going to be used for? He knew that it was instrument of war and was going to be used to kill people.
The actual bomb it’s self was blessed by a Protestant chaplain who asked God:
to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies.
After the bomb was dropped President Truman broadcast his justification of his terrorist act. He claimed that the bombing would shorten the war and thus save American lives. It was believed by many that the Japanese would never surrender and would fight for every inch of land. This, of course, was rubbish. The American Military had already broken the Japanese codes and were reading all the Japanese military and diplomatic messages. They knew that Japan was ready to surrender but dropped the bombs anyway.
Truman however first and foremost justified killing 90,000 people as an attack:
against those who have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.
So we have a terrorist act, blessed by Clerics and the justification : revenge. No so much different from the killing of people in London on 7th July 2005.