Stephen Harding wrote:

: In reading your defense of the American use of the atomic bomb, and
: the refutation of some of the lefties claims of the evil nature of
: American leadership (over the entire history of the nation), I thought
: perhaps you weren't quite the anti-American ideologue I'd pegged you as.

And you were right -- I am not an anti-American ideologue.

I do condemn and resent, however, those -- on the left; but
also people on the right, like you -- who somehow want to
lump together the historical decision to use the bomb against
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intentions of the current US
governments to develop nuclear weapons that are explicitly
intended for first-strike use in limited warfare. Different
context, different leaders, different goals and different
consequences: Let us decide each case on its own merit.

Truman's decision, seen in the context of 1945, was an
understandable one, rationally defensible and morally not
worse than many other acts perpetrated in this war, by friend
and foe alike. It is very hard to attach any kind of approval
to this decision; but perhaps it is sufficient to say that
certainly most of the arguments that are used to condemn it
don't survive closer scrutiny.

The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral
grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime
example of ideology-driven boneheadedness.

--
Emmanuel Gustin