Us or Them: the US and Hiroshima, Israel and Iran
Us or Them: the US and Hiroshima, Israel and Iran

In the US in the 1940s and 1950s the late Margaret Bourke-White was a very famous and exceptionally talented photojournalist. Among other things she loved airplanes and she loved flying. This was also true during World War II when she was assigned to the army as a journalist.

At one point in the early 40s she flew in a bombing mission over Tunis and the pilot was Paul Tibbetts, who flew the Enola Gay over Hiroshima and dropped the A bomb there.

Some years later, in the 1950s Bourke-White met Tibbetts again at an air base in Kansas. She asked him how he felt about the people on the ground when he dropped the bomb and he said something rather ignorant and unfeeling in reply. Col. Tibbetts said: “They’re so poor and miserable it probably helps them as they’d only die anyway…”

This caused Bourke-White to ask herself if it was necessary to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. She writes: “I was distressed that I could feel no emotion. And if I did feel what should I feel? Pity?  Regret?” She concludes it was necessary to drop the bomb on Hiroshima because the war against Japan was a fight to the finish.

“It was their lives or our lives”, she writes, “their ideas or our ideas.”

Bourke-White’s assessment is totally accurate with respect to the challenge with which the Empire of Japan confronted the civilized world in World War II. According to the historical record, the ideology of Japanese imperialism and world domination which ignited World War II, originated in Japan in the end of the 19th century.

Starting with universal military conscription, in 1873, the Japanese military indoctrinated thousands of men from various social backgrounds with military-patriotic values and the concept of unquestioning loyalty to the Emperor. The Japanese government at this time was strongly influenced by the recent striking success of Prussia in transforming itself from an agricultural state to a leading modern industrial and military power.

The government adopted Prussian political ideas, which favored military expansion abroad and authoritarian government at home. The Prussian model also devalued the notion of civilian control over the independent military, which meant that in Japan, as in Germany, the military could develop into a state within a state, thus exercising greater influence on politics in general.

Between World War I and World War II, the Japanese nation embarked on a course of imperialist expansion, using both diplomatic and military means to extend its control over more and more of the Asian mainland. It began to see itself as the protector and champion of Asian interests against the West, a point of view that brought it increasingly into conflict with the Western powers.

When its aggressive policies met firm resistance from the United States and its allies, Japan made common cause with the Axis countries of Germany and Italy and launched into war with the United States and the Western alliance.

During the 1930s, the military established almost complete control over the government. Many political enemies were assassinated, and communists persecuted. Indoctrination and censorship in education and media were further intensified. Navy and army officers soon occupied most of the important offices, including the office of the prime minister.

On account of its desire for world domination, within a short time following the start of World War II, Japan aggressively expanded its control over a large territory that extended to the border of India in the West and New Guinea in the South.

he Islamic Republic of Iran is a latter day Japan. A principle tenet of the Islamic extremism which governs Iran is reviving the Caliphate and the domination of imperial Islamic rule throughout the world. This principle emanates from another extremist Islamic belief which is Triumphalism.

Hassan al Banna the founder of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood said: "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." This also epitomizes Iran’s political raison d’etre. Iran is unquestionably in a war with the West and it is a fight to the finish because Iran’s fanatic Muslim leaders hate western values and western culture generally and are avowed to subdue the West through the superior force of Islam. In particular,

Iran’s barbaric leadership hates Jews from the Koran and they lust to annihilate the Jewish people and Israel. Logic dictates that if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb Israel’s neck is the first one in the Iranian nuclear noose. Iran’s fanatic Islamic government really only wants the bomb to wipe Israel off the map.

So, the same principle holds that the US applied in Hiroshima, their lives or our lives their ideas or our ideas.

In brief, Israel along with its western allies needs to drop an atomic bomb pre-emptively on some location in Iran to make the same point to the lunatic Ayatollahs that the US made to Japan in Hiroshima.

Dropping the A bomb on Hiroshima forced Japan to surrender. It ended a protracted brutal war against a relentless savage enemy,  spared the lives of perhaps a million US servicemen, and led directly to the recreation of Japanese society and government according to a rational, civilized, peace oriented model that has stood the test of time.