Obama's speech at Hiroshima | National Catholic Reporter

Obama's speech at Hiroshima | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Bombing civilians because your enemy has is not a moral act. It is simply relying on blame to justify your actions. It can be wholesale or retail. Retail is a fighter pilot straifing the ground in Japan as ordered. That is what my recently deceased uncle Kermit did in Japan. He never flew again after the war. Drones are what allow pilots not to do such things up close and personal so that they are no longer at risk. My uncle's brother-in-law, my father, designed the autopilot for the latter. He died in 1998, blissfully unaware that his solution for pilot safety would be used to make Yemeni, Afghan and Pakistani civilians hate Americans - although Trump would double down on that strategy.

As for Obama's moral center, it is his business, although I suspect he is too easily influenced by his generals and diplomats, including Mrs. Clinton. Still, one does not know, nor can we for decades, what operations he vetoed for moral reasons. That he did no mention Christ in a non-Christian nation was entirely appropriate, especially when confronting a tragic act by a Christian nation. As a nation, we leave these questions of the morals of war with our presidents, even though we are sovereign and morally culpable for what is decided. Think about that in November.

As for Hiroshima, there is a very thick history of the decision to do it and the morality of it - and whether it was about Japan at all. Read the tome by Gar Alperovitz if you are seriously interested in this topic. Of course, as a socialist and a Jew, he won't be citing Christian theology on the subject - he reveals the history and some of the ethics, which is not the same as the theology.

There are many who say that the Christian theology of nuclear war is unilateral disarmament due to what such a war would do to the planet. Seemed about right to me when I was in college and we were debating such things. Going back to Obama (and Clinton), there is a multi-billion, I dare say trillion dollar nuclear maintenance plan being proposed. It seems that you can't just let nukes sit without refreshing them occassionally with certain gasses and that this is expensive.

Carter tried a 90% disarmament when he was inaugurated. Everyone talked him out of it. Given the time, his advisors were likely correct, although the Soviets were starting to come apart even then. By the way, he was the President who gave us both the B-2 bomber and drone prototypes. I think the conclusion must be that no one is innocent here. Even I had my three years as cold warrior in the Department of the Air Force, including time working on the B-1B and ICBM modernization. So much for college optimism.