imaginary conversation

"[I]t wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing....."
---President Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Quoted in Alperovitz 1995, reference below)

a: Those South Koreans won't stand for that!

b: (silently) what is this? a sporting match?

a: Yeah, but there wont' be another nuclear war.

b: Did you know that we are the only country to ever use nuclear weapons.

(unsaid: so what are you talking about? another nuclear war? It wasn't a war; it was a massacre...)

a: ??

b: And did you know that American prisoners of war died in Nagasaki?

(correction: and Hiroshima.... and also American wives who happened to be visiting
their husbands' families when the war started)

a: That's not true. I am a history buff and I would know.

Now the conversation really does become imaginary...

b: Well, just play along with me for a moment... What if the USA is the only country
ever to use nuclear weapons, and what if our leaders lied to us about their reasons,
and what if they were willing to sacrifice innocent Americans?

How would that change your picture of history?

And would it make you so eager to see South Korea attack North Korea?

Would you be so sure that North Korea is bad? --because they have nuclear weapons.

Maybe they have nuclear weapons because they want protection against the sort of people who would use the atom bomb against their own people, if it were necessary to get what they wanted......

WARNING; the above is incomplete, inaccurate, and distant from reality.....just a fairy story...

RECOMMENDED READING (not fiction)
Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Random House 1995.