http://titan.iwu.edu/~rwilson/hiroshima/My God, what have we done? - Enola Gay pilot, after bombing Hiroshima.
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Let us start by considering what nuclear bombs do. We will need to keep this in mind later on, as we go through various arguments justifying their production and deployment. Although I will question every possible positive aspect that is attributed to these devices, it is on moral grounds that I personally object the most. Now these moral objections apply also, perhaps, to any kind of weapon, and to the very notion of armies and national security. This does not lessen their validity. If, from our past, we have inherited certain unhappy situations which we cannot immediately remedy, we still must endeavour to lessen their impact or, at least, to keep things from getting worse.
Hiroshima had a population of 350,000 when a 15 kiloton bomb was dropped upon it. 70-80,000 died in the instants following the explosion; and another 75-125,000 in the following 5 years from its effects. The numbers for Nagasaki are as frightening: Of a population of 230,000, some 40,000 were killed on explosion, and another 100,000 within the next 5 years. These were small towns and small bombs. The power of later bombs is measured in megatons rather than kilotons; the destruction such a bomb could cause to a metropolis of a few million beggars description.My God, what have we done? - Enola Gay pilot, after bombing Hiroshima.
There is much more to be said about the horrors of atomic war: The annihilation from the first shock wave, the instantaneous conflagration due to the heat released, and the painful cancerous deaths of those who survive both blast and fire. But these facts are known to all who care to know. The disturbing part now is how easily they can be rationalized away.
The moral issue that needs addressing is not the evilness of exploding an atomic weapon in war. Few will dispute that point, though they may excuse it as necessary to avoid other evils. The problem lies not just at the point where the decision to use the bomb is made, but even earlier, at the point where it is decided to build one.
It is a terrible thing to own a nuclear bomb. It means that the owner has reached a point where he can condone mass murder of the most extreme kind, that he is contemplating crossing the very last line that bounds human sanity. And this psychosis can strike the most normal, the most upright, of people. One must ask: How did he become like this? And we in India must now ask, how did we become like this?
A last word about the word "moral". Morality has earned a bad name nowadays, due to its application to the suppression of rights. It is also looked down upon by those who claim to be realists. Nevertheless, the search for a moral world is a universal human endeavour, justified not just by some religious dreams, but by its growth out of the evolution of our species. The human animal is, as an individual, a remarkably puny one. It is our collection into tribes and societies that enables our survival. Such a common endeavour demands rules of "good" behaviour that foster empathy and co-operation, and this is what we now call "morality". To give it up is to surrender our species to the void.
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