Slim Novel 17 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage
5. This seminar is held the first Sunday of year 2002 in Professor John Edwardes Homat apartment in Tokyo. It is 1:01 afternoon as Edwardes stands at the end of the usual brown oval mahogany table facing his entrance door with the usual seminarans in attendance. Despite his age 102 years and because he has followed Physician's Notebooks advice, Edwardes appears remarkably energetic and sharp. However, his years show in the shock of white hair combed with his right main parting, and also his quiet, lined, one might say wizened face denoting wisdom rather than age. He stands straight and without assistance in his salt & pepper sports jacket. Meanwhile, wife Yuko is busy giving coffee or tea by request, but no cookie or cake. Edwardes has found coffee or green tea without calories is best to stimulate intellect for Seminar.
He tinkles bell in right hand. "Gentlemen, Ladies, kid!" - he refers to his son - sitting down table to his left. "Today, Seminar: Are the seemingly innocent civilian victims of war events and terrorism really innocent or can they be blamed for being victims of their own ignorance and inertia? Allow me to start with World War 2 bombings of cities because, given my great age, I could say I was there."
Kimura, editor emeritus of The Nippon Times interrupts as Edwardes likes him to do at Seminar. "Do you make a moral difference between the conventional fire bombing, like Dresden or Tokyo, and the atom bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki?"
"No. And I am glad you point a distinction that so many critics of the atomic weapon have often made - as though the immorality of the bombing relates to the unfair use of a technical advance by one side over the other. In my opinion there is nothing more or less immoral in using atomic bombs than in using conventional bombs. Undoubtedly had this seminar been held on the first Sunday in the year 1002 the distinction might have been between the newfangled immoral use of guns and cannons compared to the conventional bows and arrows."
He pauses. "Also my question focuses not on the morality of the weapons user but of the so-called victim of the weapons use. But I appreciate your interruption because it makes another important point - weapons are weapons no matter their newness or destructiveness. They may kill and maim people and their morality of use should not be determined by the newness of their technology."
Ms Harumi, Seminar's communist, raises her right hand. "Are you saying that the helpless civilians - of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, whatever the bombed city or whichever side, - could be to blame for the bombs dropping and killing or maiming them?"
"Not in every case." Edwardes smiles because he had asked Harumi to interrupt in order to make the point. "For example, the civilians of Shanghai who died in the Japanese bombing of the city in the 1930's had no way by previous action or inaction to prevent those bombings. In that case, they were truly innocent victims."
"Ah, I see!" exclaims Kimura, "you are getting at the population involved and how it acted or did not act prior to the bombing."
"Precisely, Kimura san. Take Dresden? The civilians in the overwhelming mass represented the population of Germany that had voted Hitler and his Nazi's into power, or by inertia allowed it; and whether each voter personally agreed or not with Nazi policy, they had had 12 years between the 1932 election and the bombing to have observed the effects of Hitler's policy of bombing civilians, as his air force did at Guernica in the 1930's, or gassing Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and communists, as had been going on daily for the decade or more, or his general warlike policy that was sure to cause the most severe blow-back on Germany. The inability of this population to stand up to and stop Nazi policy that was clearly calling for a blow-back made the victims heavily responsible. Similarly in Japan whether it be firebomb on Tokyo or atom bomb on Hiroshima."
"But Japanese civilians were helpless against the criminal government!" Kimura exclaims.
"And you might have said the same of the German populations in 1945," says Edwardes with obvious satisfaction. "But it is not enough to call them helpless."
Eddie signals to speak. "John, I see your point - the civilian population may, and if so, must, bear an ultimate, long range responsibility for the acts of their governments in terms of suffering violent blow-back from those acts no matter how much each individual disagreed with those acts or no matter how hard or dangerous it might have been to oppose those acts - and I agree with it. Allow me to deal with the victims of the 2001 World Trade Center, the WTC, in a somewhat similar light."
Edwardes nods affirmatively and Eddie continues.
"The attack on the WTC, as we now know, was masterminded by Osama bin Ladin and assisted by his small clique in Afghanistan. But it could never have happened had the USA not prosecuted the Cold War to what It considered a successful conclusion - the collapse and dismemberment of the USSR. A very few Americans lent very small voices in protest against the Cold War from its moment of initiation in 1945, but even those few, still bear a collective responsibility for the way it ended. And had myself or one of these been in the WTC on that September day that it went down, no tears should have been shed or recriminations made. We knew the blow-back was coming and - given the 1990's WTC basement attack - should have even known where it would hit."
Eddie pauses and takes a drink of coffee. The seminarans hang on his last words and wait for more.
"But that is not all for the responsibility for the attack. Recall that bin Ladin's organization in addition to bombing the WTC basement parking lot in the 1990's also bombed the US Embassy in Nairobi Kenya. And, in retaliation, the US President Bill Clinton, without asking congressional permission or notifying the UN or the countries involved, committed acts of war exactly like the Empire of Japan committed an act of war against the USA on December 7th 1941. Clinton ordered the shooting of heavy explosive missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan killing innocent civilians and missing his target bin Ladin. A few of us Americans - myself included - in our very small voices and with our very insignificant bodies protested, in New York City outside the U.N. and in Washington D.C. outside the White House, that Clinton's act besides being unconstitutional - only congress can make an act of war - also would cause blow-back in the USA. But Americans simply ignored the significance of Clinton's act although many would probably not have supported it individually. And on that day in 2001, more than 3000 Americans were killed because they could not have cared less about Clinton's unconstitutional act of war in their name."
Eddie sits.
Edwardes says, "OK, folks we will now have our tête-à-têtes with sushi and sashimi and also salami and pasta that I have arranged. And Chianti wine to wash it down and stimulate each person's tongue."
End of Chapter. Next: 17.6 An Old Man's Wisdom
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