Time Flies

Or, as Howard Devoto once wrote, time crawls. August 6 brings two fairly significant anniversaries (yes, I'm well aware that this would've been better to have been written twenty-four hours ago, or so, but I hadn't realized the significance of the date then--sorry). The first, older anniversary recalls the first atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima sixty-three years ago. I tend to cut against the grain on the question of whether the bomb(s) were necessary, believing that Japanese surrender could've been accomplished without that demonstration of power and destruction (but then the United States--and more importantly, the Soviet Union--wouldn't know precisely what kind of power was at its fingertips) but I addressed some of that three years ago, so I won't go into it again here. But it is useful to recall that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are small potatoes compared to what is out there nowadays.

Which brings us to out second anniversary. Seven years ago, George W. Bush received his infamous "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo and briefing. Go check out this PDF of the declassified document (via Think Progress). It's impossible to read the memo without awareness of what was soon to follow, but to a certain extent it's stunning in its simplicity and straightforward statement of facts. It's also stunning to see how, after nearly seven years of the War on Terror, much of this memo remains applicable today.