Some things I’ll never accept, even if it puts me at visceral, rhetorical odds with most others. We should never target civilian populations in the context of war. And, yes, that goes for Hiroshima and Nagasaki too.
And, yes, I’m aware, am I ever, of the existential arguments to the contrary. My father would likely have been part of VJ Plan B: the invasion of the Japanese home islands.
I was moved in seeing that the grandson of former President Harry S. Truman recently attended the annual service for the atomic bomb victims at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The visit by Clifton Truman Daniel was the first by a Truman-family member. He was accompanied by American Ambassador John Roos. I was also saddened to learn that America didn’t start sending a government representative to the annual commemoration until two years ago.