Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
August 6, 2015
Crowning Savagery
Today is the 70th anniversary of the destruction
of the Japanese City Hiroshima by the United States’ use of a nuclear
weapon. Three days later, the U.S. destroyed Nagasaki with a similar weapon. The United States used these
weapons as a way of forcing an end to the War in the Pacific instead of a
lengthy and deadly invasion of the Japanese main islands; the act accomplished
this goal. The ongoing firebombing of
other Japanese cities was, in terms of overall sums, far more destructive and
lethal than these two bombs. But the use
of this new and overwhelmingly powerful weapon was aimed at producing despair
and terror among the Japanese populace and leadership, and was effective in
accomplishing its policy goals. The two weapons killed up to a quarter of a million
people, most of them civilians including children, the elderly, and the
hospitalized. Within days, the Japanese
Emperor instructed his government and people to bear the unbearable and
surrender without further fighting.
One may debate the various moralities of alternate policy
courses in war—whether these rules of
engagement are better than those, and whether use of this weapon or policy of
destruction is more effective than that.
Accepting U.S. civil war general Tecumseh Sherman’s dictum that “war is
hell,” one might still debate just war theory and the humanity and necessary
morality of respecting the laws of war, including the distinction between
combatants and non-combatants. But one
thing is certain: this act has marked the United States as the only country in
history to use these overpoweringly brutal weapons against civilian
populations. And it punctures many of
the myths we tell about ourselves and belies what we say are our national values. Regardless
of the rational warrants for deploying the bombs, they were set off in an
environment of nationalist and racial hatred that saw the Japanese as sub-human
beasts. The fact that the horrible
details of the bombs’ effects were kept classified for a decade after the
explosions is not merely an indication of our desire to keep exclusive control
of such lethal technology, but also an indication of how damaging such details
were to how we as Americans like to think of ourselves.
We say we are a peace-loving people, a people with only good
intentions for all, a people wanting only life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness for all people: freedom and family, God and country. Some of us say we are a Christian
nation.
But the fact is, we are a brutal people, a war-like
people. We spend more money on military
armaments than the next seven countries combined. We regularly wage war as an instrument of
foreign policy, and are as often as not the first side to “go kinetic.” In an earlier age, that would have marked us
as the aggressor, the initiator of war.
We don’t use our constitutionally mandated method of declaring war, but
rely instead on legislatively granted blanket authorizations for the executive
to use armed force. Domestically, we
insist on a person’s right to use guns.
And though we say this is for self-protection, the number killed each
year dwarfs any reasonable estimate of those killed in self-defense. A constitutional lawyer and high-ranking U.S.
diplomat said at the end of World War II that the bombs undid three centuries
of development of just war theory and the law of war, and was the “crowning
savagery” of a war that saw far too many inhumane and savage deeds on all
sides.
Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the
sword.” He also said, “Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they will be called God’s children.” He
said these things amid real human struggle and horror, in the world of Roman
Imperial oppression, a context rife with many reasons for devastating violence
and self-defense, not in an idyllic stress-free world. As we remember the past and look at our
self-deluding images of ourselves, we should take these words to heart.
Let us pray.
Prayer for Hiroshima (from the Church of England)
- commemorating the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the 6th August, 1945
(Feast of the Transfiguration)
God, you are the Father of all the families of the earth,
and call the nations to live in peace and unity.
We remember with sorrow the devastating destruction and death
unleashed on this day upon the city of Hiroshima,
and later upon the city of Nagasaki.
We pray for the people of Japan,
and all whose lives are disfigured by war.
We pray for ourselves,
the often unwise stewards of the powers of the universe.
Transfigure the lives and cities scarred by conflict
by the revealing of your glory
and move us by your uncreated energies
to advance your sovereign purpose of peace.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ,
our light and our salvation.
Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
Very well said, Tony.
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