You know the first great world war, you know the second great world war, and you are waiting for the third. Since the second world war, up to now there have been one hundred and twenty-five small wars. But even small wars kill millions of people. You don't call them world wars just because they are located in a small area and nobody cares about them. Nobody counts how many people are killed daily because of obedience.
Obedience teaches you blindness.
Obedience teaches you unintelligence.
Obedience teaches you that "You don't have any responsibility on your own, just follow the order!" — but the order is to kill people.
The man who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the pilot of the plane — killed within ten minutes more than two hundred thousand people, and he slept perfectly well in the night, with not even a little prick of conscience, that "What have I done?"
No, the army is prepared just to follow. You are not responsible for what action is going to take place and what the consequences are going to be. The next morning the pilot was asked by the journalists, "How do you feel?"
He said, "There is no question, I am feeling perfectly good that I followed the order."
Truman was the president of America who had ordered that Nagasaki and Hiroshima should be destroyed — without any reason or rhyme, because Germany had surrendered and Japan too was going …. The papers were being got ready, just the signature was needed of the emperor of Japan. Within two or three days, or at the most seven days, agreements would have been completed and Japan would have surrendered.
Seeing that Japan was going to surrender, Truman was very quick. Before Japan surrendered — because then he would not be able to test his atom bombs — he gave the order. Even his military experts said to him, "This is absolute wastage. It is unnecessary murder — and not of one man, but more than two hundred thousand people!" Hiroshima and Nagasaki were big cities.
But Truman did not listen to his military experts. He said, "You don't know politics, you keep quiet. An order is an order. You send the order that immediately, tonight, the bombs have to be dropped, before the agreement is signed." And when the order comes from the president, the commander-in-chief immediately gives the order to the lower — to the people trained just to follow, because obedience is the greatest virtue.
Truman was also asked the next morning, "It was your order, how do you feel about killing so many people unnecessarily?" The whole world could see that Japan was going to surrender, there was no need at all. The war had almost stopped; the commanders from both the sides were having discussions and making arrangements how to surrender.
Truman said, "I had to test the atom bombs. We have wasted so much money in creating atom bombs …. I am perfectly happy that the bombs worked, and now we will be growing more into atomic technology."
And Truman was blessed by the pope. Churchill was blessed by the pope, and Eisenhower was blessed by the pope, and MacArthur was blessed by the pope — and these were the killers.
But on the other side also, you will be surprised: God is one, and the archbishop of Germany blessed Adolf Hitler in the name of the same God. The archbishop in Japan blessed the emperor in the name of the same God.
OSHO
