This year's August end-of-war anniversaries have seen yet another round of Japanese appeals for nuclear disarmament. Past atomic bomb sufferings give Japan a special moral authority in this area, it is claimed.
But calls for nuclear disarmament also demand close argument and tight logic, given the fact that nuclear weapons have almost certainly prevented World War III for over half a century. The sight of Hiroshima antinuclear activists bitterly criticizing the United States for using the atomic bomb while ignoring the reasons why the Allies felt the bomb was needed, not to mention their own city's gritty role in supporting Japan's former militarism, is hardly a good start in the logic stakes.
An NHK round-table debate on the subject earlier this month saw almost all in agreement that, whatever the reasons, the U.S.' willingness in 1945 to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki civilians for military ends represented a new low in wartime immorality.