On Truman and War

This is something of an incomplete thought, so please pardon me on that count.

PBS is running a series on seven US Presidents and over the course of the week I have caught pieces of the episode on Harry S. Truman, known here as a Missourian, but most likely known around the world as the man who dropped the Atomic Bomb.

I felt the show did a good job of explaining how Truman felt and what he thought in the aftermath what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was not happy, not thrilled to have done this to men, women and children, thousands of whom died from the bomb itself, and many more who died as a result of radiation poisoning. Yet, he was thankful to have ended the war. But the film images of Truman, on a naval carrier, on his way home to the US as he received the word of the "successful" operation by the Enola Gay, got me to thinking about our current conversations on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

See, it's now become fashionable to talk about how we've now been engaged in the war "longer" than we were in World War II. But that is something of a flawed statement when we realize two things:first, World War II began long before the US got involved. Hitler's regime began it's movement to occupy Europe in Sept. 1, 1939, whereas the US government only became involved in the military action after the attack on Pearl Harbor n Dec. 7, 1941. Secondly, we ought to remember that the possibility of World War II stretching further into the horizon past Aug. 1945 was avoided by the fact that Truman dropped the bomb. We mustn't forget that the four years in which the US had direct military involvement were not the only four years of the War.

I say this because I want us to remember that if we are committed to no longer using atomic weaponry, which I certainly hope is true (When we look at the pictures of the survivors of HIroshima or Nagasaki, we ought to be saddened at their suffering and seek to continue to avoid such a thing again), we ought to expect that our current war will take longer, and be harder, and likely for many more reasons that I understand.

Don't misunderstand me: I hate war. I hate that so much suffering and loss has to happen, not only to Americans, but to Iraqi's and Afghani's and many innocents. I hate the hatred behind terrorism, and to the seeming malevolence that terrorists hold towards others, but the seeming insensitivity many Westerner's and American's have seemed to develop towards Arabs. It saddens my heart to hear of the war on a daily basis, and I must confess that I have grown apathetic in my own way. I am trying to let the suffering of others wound my heart again so that I care, and so that I pray.

I don't profess to have any deep understanding of these issues. But when I heard that statement, equating the time in World War II to our current war, I had to remind myself that over 60 million human beings died in World War II, that much of Europe stood in shambles in the aftermath, that it took decades for their economy to recover, and that even when WWII was "won" the US still found itself mired in the Korean and Vietnam wars. The many, many lives lost already are precious, and I won't even pretend that their loss, though lesser in number, is somehow lesser in value. But I would beg that we think carefully about using this argument to somehow call for our military to pull out, all at once, completely. That ought to be the goal and the hope. But we ought to think carefully before comparing the two wars in this way.