* According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the most recent homicide rate (2012) in the United States is 4.7 per 100,000 people. The rate in Honduras: 90.4. It’s that horrific.
* Some anniversaries are cringe-inducing. Hiroshima is one. Japan just marked the 69th anniversary of that city’s atomic bombing. U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy represented the U.S. at the somber, never-again ceremony.
We know the context, including the lives of American G.I.s that would have been lost in an all-out invasion of the Japanese homeland. But targeting areas that are sure to incinerate thousands of civilians–140,000 at Hiroshima and 70,000 three days later at Nagasaki–will never feel right. It just won’t.