August 6th is the feast of the Transfiguration and also the anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. It is irresistible to create a combined image. What does it mean? No clue. Hey, I'm an artist, not a critic. It is ironic to note that although perhaps 1% of Japanese were Christian in 1945, both these places, Nagasaki especially, were unusually Christian.
It will surprise no one that I support the nuclear attacks on Japan. I mean, it took two of them to get them to surrender! On the island of Iwo Jima alone the United States Marines lost almost 7,000 men and over 18,000 were wounded. There were 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island during the battle, and only 212 were taken as prisoners. It took 35 days to secure 8 square miles. An invasion of the Japanese homeland by conventional forces would have meant many hundreds of thousands of American deaths.
But were American lives of more value than Japanese lives?
Yes, obviously. Always, and especially in war, you have to value those closest to you more than those far away; otherwise you die. If martyrdom or moral purity is your aim, don't go to war.
Robert Kaplan, a man I admire, quotes the famous Clausewitz, the Western theoretician of war:
In affairs so dangerous as war, false ideas proceeding from kindness of heart are precisely the worst. . . . The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.
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