President Biden is accusing Russian forces in Ukraine of committing war crimes by engaging in brutal attacks on civilians. What he is referring to is a longtime principle of warfare in which military forces battle military forces and do not knowingly target civilians with death and destruction.
Meanwhile, the media is reporting that Russian forces are becoming increasingly stalemated on the battlefield, unable to complete their conquest of Ukraine and effect the regime change that they seek within the Ukrainian government. If Russia fails in its effort to bring regime change to Ukraine, that would enable Ukraine to be absorbed into NATO, the corrupt dinosauric bureaucratic entity from the old Cold War racket. That, in turn, would enable the Pentagon to achieve its goal of installing its nuclear missiles pointed at Russia along Russia’s border.
WIth the relentless pressure that the U.S. government and its NATO cohorts are putting on Putin, including with sanctions that are designed to kill Russian civilians, a question must be asked: If Putin’s back is to the wall, if Russia is faced with defeat in Ukraine, if the Russian economy is disintegrating, if the Russian people are faced with death by starvation or massive impoverishment, and if the Russian government is close to collapsing, would Putin resort to dropping a nuclear bomb on Kiev in order to bring a quick end to the war?
If he were to do so, there is no doubt what the response of U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists would be. They would exclaim, and rightly so, that Russia had just committed a massive war crime by targeting and killing a massive number of civilians with a nuclear bomb.
But there would be one big problem staring U.S. officials and the mainstream press, along with American statists, in the face: The U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which knowingly and intentionally targeted, killed, and injured an untold number of Japanese civilians during World War II.
Ever since those bombings, U.S. officials, the U.S. mainstream press, and American statists have maintained that the bombings were justified because they “shortened the war.” Their argument has always been that the lives of thousands of American soldiers were saved by bringing about a quick surrender by Japan.
Here at FFF, we have always opposed that reasoning. In war, soldiers die. That’s just the way of war. To knowingly and intentionally kill innocent women, children, seniors, and other civilians so that soldiers could live was, well, quite immoral and, yes, a war crime.
But given the continued support by U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what would they say if Russia were to say the same thing — that its nuclear bombing of Kiev saved the lives of Russian soldiers by bringing about a quick surrender of Ukraine?
My hunch is that U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists would take a different position than they do with the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think they would say, “Our atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a good thing but your atomic bombing of Kiev was a bad thing. That’s because we are good and you are bad.”
Why do I reach that conclusion? Well, for one, isn’t that what they are saying about the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan compared to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Aren’t they essentially saying, “Our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were good while your invasion of Ukraine is bad. That’s because we are good and you are bad”?
Or consider the dark-side activities engaged in by the U.S. national-security establishment, such as state-sponsored assassinations, torture, kidnappings, secret torture-and-prison camps, indefinite detention, coups, massive secret surveillance, military tribunals, and alliances with dictatorial regimes. Don’t U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists say to the Russians (and the Chinese, North Koreans, Saudis, Cubans, etc.): “Our dark-side activities are good while yours are bad. That’s because we are good and you are bad”?
The crisis in Ukraine provides the American people with a tremendous opportunity to engage in some serious soul-searching by looking at ourselves and our very own government. Looking at what the Russian regime (and other totalitarian, authoritarian, or communist regimes) can provide a revealing mirror into our own government, specifically the national-security establishment part of the government.
There is no greater benefit we could provide ourselves, our families, our nation, and the world than to lead the way toward a free, peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous society here at home. That necessarily entails restoring our nation’s founding principles of a limited-government republic, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and a restored regard for the principles in the Bill of Rights.
The post The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Were War Crimes Too appeared first on The Future of Freedom Foundation.
The Future of Freedom Foundation was founded in 1989 by FFF president Jacob Hornberger with the aim of establishing an educational foundation that would advance an uncompromising case for libertarianism in the context of both foreign and domestic policy. The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government. Visit https://www.fff.org