Some damned fool European artist or architect memorably (and proudly) proclaimed 9/11 as the greatest work of art of the 20th century or some such.
If that’s true, then the explosions of the 2 nuclear bombs over Japan were the greatest works of art of the millennium.
Although way before my time, an uncle of mine was captured in the Philippines by Japanese forces and had the ignoble glory of being forced on the infamous “Long March”, I believe it was called.
He was lucky. Before the march, his entire company was executed – some by beheading – for no apparent reason except convenience. He was spared because he was an MD and his captors needed his skills for their own troops. He eventually survived the war and returned home.
Japanese brutality and viciousness were (are) legendary throughout Asia. In the realm of cruelty and inhumanity – of unspeakable monstrosity – , they are in a category all to themselves, leaving the Nazis light years behind.
Therefore, although I look at what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with horror, I nevertheless applaud President Truman for the action he took and the countless lives it saved and the suffering it prevented.
It was probably the most difficult decision an American president ever had to make – and I thank God he was in office at the time.
President Bush faced and still faces a similar situation following 9/11, although one less “artistic” in nature. That is to say, his response in Afghanistan, in Iraq, the passage of the Patriot Act and so forth – the bedrock of leftist froth against him – had to occur.
Not because Saddam “had to go” or because the “Taliban had to be gotten rid of “ or because “Al Qaeda was making inroads in Iraq” or because of the “enemy was amongst us”, but because America had to show the world that a direct terrorist attack against US territory would bring unimaginable, painful and lasting consequences to the attackers and their supporters.
And that’s exactly what’s taking place.
The entire Arab world stood in shock as the US invaded Iraq – something they thought couldn’t and wouldn’t take place. They were even more shocked when Saddam was found in a hole in the ground, and they gaped in disbelief as he was hanged.
Intelligent Arabs, regard the incremental dislocation, marginalization and eventual dismantling of their entire culture, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Moslems – perhaps hundreds of thousands – as a direct result of 9/11. They stand aghast at what’s happening, much as the Japanese did following the nuclear explosions over their homeland.
More than anything else, it is this Arab sense of outrage and desperation that has stopped Osama Bin Laden and Co. dead in its tracks – an unexpected and fatal miscalculation by the proponents of a world-wide Islamic Umma.
Neither the bombings of Japan nor the disarray and disintegration of Arab culture and institutions, is a pretty picture, to be sure. But sometimes, in the real world, the ends do justify the means.
