Regarding the July 1 front-page story "A-bombings 'couldn't be helped': Kyuma": Someone finally had to say it in Japanese politics, although Fumio Kyuma (who resigned as defense minister Tuesday) could have said it better. He should still be thanked for saying it.
The proposition that dropping the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki headed off a Soviet invasion of Japan, averted a more colossal death toll among Japanese civilians that could have resulted from a mainland invasion, and spared the lives of many U.S. servicemen is at least arguable.
Moreover, acceptance of these propositions is still compatible with the belief that use of atomic bombs is immoral in terms of a "just war." Although a mainland invasion targeting military units and installations might have been the morally better alternative, civilian deaths resulting from bombardments, crossfire, impressment into actual combat, mass suicides, disease and starvation could well have been even more calamitous.
It is no easy matter deciding whether we should tilt to the Augustinian or Benthamite sides of this debate. Kyuma deserves credit for bringing at least part of it out into the open, and his statements could not have been better timed. This is one of a number of war-related matters that urgently need open and honest discussion in Japanese politics.
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