A nation of unrepentant bombers

Via Andrew Sullivan, the pictures tell it all.

The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008. Three of these photographs are reproduced in Atomic Tragedy with the permission of the Capp family. Now that the restriction is no longer in force, the entire set is available.

See the rest.

Recall that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed six months of US firebombing on Japanese cities. By August of 1945, Japan was an utterly defeated enemy, and no threat to anyone—certainly not the United States.

Aerial bombing is a feature of the current campaign in Iraq. While precise estimates of civilian casualties are hard to come by, the use of such a tactic on an innocent population in a country that poses no threat to us is simply morally untenable.

In the meantime, there continues to be lots fulminating about Barack Obama’s alleged unwillingness to repudiate William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground with whom Obama apparently has a tangential relationship.

Now, one may find it criminal that William Ayers has learned the same lesson Ann Coulter has—namely, that controversial statements and images help sell books. As objectionable as that may be, Ayers never killed anyone. The only bombing he’s taken responsibility for, a bathroom at the Pentagon, injured not a soul.

Still, Patrick McIlheran devoted a portion of his 1,300-word anti-Obama screed to Ayers today. Seesawing between the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, New York Times columnist Frank Rich, and where John McCain sent his kids to school, McIlheran concludes that Ayers and Obama are ideological brethren because “he’s been on foundation boards with him.”

McIlheran’s own ideological brother Rick Esenberg declares Ayers to be an unrepentant bomber, despite the evidence that he was mostly an incompetent one. Another, John McAdams, John proves he doesn't get today's edgy marketing.

All this angst over someone who never actually bombed anyone. Is there any left for the bombings that actually did?