As we mull the decision to use military action against Syria to discipline them for using chemical weapons, we seem to forget that the U.S. committed the worst atrocity ever against civilians when we dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. That killed 80,000 people, and thousands more died of radiation exposure. Three days later, we dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
Why is it we often view the U.S. as the super power whose role is to protect the world from injustice when we ourselves often commit the same injustices in the name of peace?
- Jan Brown, Ankeny