Today is Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Day.

Leaving out DU weapons, the ONLY time atomic weapons have been used.

People all over the world will be remembering and grieving, both for the victims AND that the U. S. used these weapons!!

A moment of silence is requested.

A plan of action to stop the U. S. from developing "new" nukes is desired.

At Los Alamos and across the state, thousands will be remembering and grieving.

What is your community doing?

I didn't know that
My community has been more than careless

There are silent vigils going on all day around Western MA

the Crew of the USS Indianapolis which delivered the bomb components. The ship was sunk by a Japanese Submarine and two thirds of its crew left to flounder in the shark infested waters of the Pacific for almost a week before they were rescued. They were discovered 58 years ago today 3 August 1945. Half of the crew was lost to the Pacific, many eaten by sharks.

... about the only time atomic weapons have been used.

Small point, maybe, but the first atomic bomb was used on New Mexico, July 16, 1945. Moreover, the West has suffered the results of literally hundreds of above ground tests in the years after WWII until above-ground testing was banned. Lots of people living with the health results of those tests.

Cheers.

Bikini Atoll, one of the most shameful operations conducted by our military, in the name of "science"

"While the 167 Bikinians were getting ready for their exodus, preparations for the U.S. nuclear testing program advanced rapidly. Some 242 naval ships, 156 aircraft, 25,000 radiation recording devices and the Navy's 5,400 experimental rats, goats and pigs soon began to arrive for the tests. Over 42,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel were involved in the testing program at Bikini.

The nuclear legacy of the Bikinians began in March of 1946 when they were first removed from their islands in preparation for Operation Crossroads. The history of the Bikinian people from that day has been a story of their struggle to understand scientific concepts as they relate to their islands, as well as the day-to-day problems of finding food, raising families and maintaining their culture amidst the progression of events set in motion by the Cold War that have been for the most part out of their control."

http://www.bikiniatoll.com/

serious diseases and death as a result of our own hatred...we wanted so badly to KILL others, such a horrible hatred....

and NOW, we have indeed poisoned ourselves...

the Uranium miners

the people living on or near Uranium tailings pilings

the people who worked or still work in our nuclear weapons complexes...so many died from cancers, from the solvents and degreasers, from plating operations, from radionuclides, from beryllium machining...

the people who live near our nuclear weapons complex...places like Rocky Flats, near Denver, Colorado, where radionuclides flow off the site and down into Standley Lake, the drinking water supply for thousands of people in Westminister...and every site, like the Hanford site, where radionuclide pollutants flow into the Columbia river...the air is also badly polluted, with cancer-causing chemicals attached to soils and lifted into the air during high winds and into people's lungs...everything around these sites are highly polluted air, water, soils, animals, insects....

BILLIONS of dollars have already been spent for clean-ups...and NOW, the pollutants are not even stable...BILLIONS more must be spent, and these chemicals are so toxic, never degrade...it is likely that we will indeed pass this legacy of hate down to future generations...

and AMERICA has way too many nuclear bombs...if anyone should disarm...it is us...the only Nation to ever nuke whole cities of innocents...

Boy, I could almost guarantee I would read some ridiculous comments in this thread. Have you forgotten that Japan attacked America? Have you forgotten that the war was still going on?

War sucks. When it happens, lots of people die. But it is sure as hell better that a benevolent U.S. won that war than Imperial Japan.

just going about their normal lives when America destroyed them....

Just like we are all going about our normal lives today: eating breakfast, going to church, shopping, taking the train, driving to Grandma's house, enjoying a picnic....and then, suddenly, and unexpectedly (there wasn't even a warning to take cover or leave the city), the USA dropped the ONLY bombs ever used on innocents...these were NOT military combatants...


read what America did (from a surviving child):

-snips-

When we were playing in the school ground, an airplane came, but we kept on playing, only saying "Why did they give the all-clear?" All of a sudden, there was something like lightening and I covered my face with my hands. When I opened my eyes and looked around, it was dark and I couldn't see anything. While I was feeling around in the darkness, it became light. I was thinking of going home, and I found that all the houses around me had been destroyed and fires were burning here and there.

I started running home, crying and calling, "Mother! Mother!" But I couldn't tell where my house had been. I just went around this way and that, and then I heard my sister calling my name. I was shocked when I saw her, because she was stained with blood all over. I looked at myself; the skin of both my arms and feet had peeled away and was hanging off. I didn't know what all this meant, and I was frightened, so I burst into tears. Meanwhile, Mother had crawled out from the pile of tiles and dragged an overcoat and Father's cloak out of a trunk and wrapped us in them.

We spent the night in Yasu Shrine in Gion. Because of their burns, everyone was crying for water all night. The next morning, we were taken by truck to a Buddhist temple in Kabe. That night, my sister died. How can I describe Mother's grief? How can I describe the horrible scenes I saw in the temple then? Who can imagine the miseries we went through except those who were there themselves? It is entirely beyond my power to put the terrible sight into words. Countless people suffering from burns and wounds, groaning with pain, their bodies covered with maggots, and dying in delirium, one after another. It was hell on earth.

http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/children.html

here are more "Innocents", muddleoftheroad...so YOU can remember....


Shin's tricycle
Shin-ichi was a three year old boy who loved his tricycle. When the bomb was dropped, he was playing with his best friend, Kimiko. They died. They were buried in the garden of Shin-ichi's house together. In July 1985, 40 years later, their parents decided to move them to a proper grave.

http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/PPM/tricycle.html

Oh you mean like the hundreds of thousands the Japanese raped and butchered in Nanking?

Japan had to be stopped. Until that happened, America had to do everything is its power to stop them.

or else you wouldn't be here. Discussing this with you, however just infuriates me no end. I'm afraid I'm incapable of doing it in a civil way, and I don't want to get myself banned, so I'm going to leave it to others. I really hope you learn more about this and come around. I highly recomend that you see "Barefoot Gen", Shohei Imamura's "Black Rain", and get yourself over to Japan and spend a day at ground zero before you glibly defend this thing.

And then think about it whenever somebody goes into paroxysms about the relatively tiny Sept. 11th attack, because the terrorists who did that probably justify it in exactly the same way you justify the a-bombings.

They'd say "The US supports Israel, an expansionist state which is slaughtering innocent Palestinians, and we have do do whatever is in our power to stop them" They don't have carriers or bombers, so they used our planes. They are called fanatics, but we were being logical cold and clinical. Why is being cold and clinical in war better than being fanatical?

Their act of terror was wrong, and so was ours. You would no doubt say that their terrorism de-legitimizes whatever goals they my advocate. Hiroshima likewise works to de-legitimize us.

You keep referring back to the victims of Nanking, rather than looking honestly at the crimes against humanity that were the American atomic bombings of Japan. This is EXACTLY the same thing as GW Bush's friends who try to deflect attention from the recent crimes of the Iraq war, by pointing instead to all the "mass graves" of Saddam's victims. This is a silly game that it's ALWAYS possible to play -- justifying your own criminal aggression by pointing to nasty acts of your opponents.

You also exhibit the limited knowledge of WWII typical of the brainwashed American who has only looked at the official US version of things. You write, "Japan had to be stopped." This is already twisting history to conform with US propaganda. Japan was not trying to take over the world, & they had no intentions of harming the US mainland at all. They were trying to become the strongest regional power in the southeastern Pacific, & to rid that region of American & British dominance. That's an aggressive intention, but it's not pure evil. After all, what right did the Anglos have, to dominate all regions of the earth? From the Japanese point of view, the Americans & Brits had less right to dominance in the SE Pacific than they (the Japanese) did -- who at least live there. The Anglos were insisting that there be no challenge whatever to their dominance. It's easy to "want peace" if you're the undisputed ruler of the earth, because that merely means that you want no challenges to the status quo.

... them, too.

Replaced by a facistic mercenary steamroller. Living in Japan, I was ashamed on a WEEKLY basis because that's how often our soldiers on Okinawa raped girls, beat somebody up, killed someone driveing drunk, etc, etc, etc. Those gentlemen that gave hershey bars to the little Japanese kids have been replaced by a bunch of mindless thugs. And we're all aware of your pride in the Hiroshima/Nagasaki holocaust. You just keep on defending it for all I care. I personally pray that we never again have a leader who needlessly slaughters tens of thousands of innocent women and children for the sake expediency or intimidating a country that we've decided to turn from an ally into an enemy. Your belief in the virtue of those attacks borders on religious, since it has no basis in reality.

Besides, even if the attacks were "logically" the wisest decision, I want these decisions made by human beings with empathy, not some goddamn calculator-man like Rumsfeld, who says our troop losses are "historically low" or very few compared to the number of people in car accidents. These are people's precious children, not just numbers. Those people in Japan were too.

Spewing Rush-isms about that "that's war - it's all about killing people and breaking things" doesn't justify a gaddamn thing. Those people were mercilessly murdered no matter how you rationalize it. Our rebuilding of Japan was a good start in repairing our 'karmic debt", but until we really understand it and come to grips with it, as well as other misdeeds in our past, we will be forever a tainted nation.

I'll admit to looking at this in a rather subjective way. I have a very deep emotional connection to this particular subject, and I think this deserved better than just objective reasoning. The apologists for this atrocity and act of terror infuriate me because I used to be one of them. One cannot, however, live among these people, have mixed Japanese children, and visit those sites and still adhere to those nonsensical excuses. It boggles my mind how some people can still cling to those excuses, even when they've been so thoroughly disproved.

I ask you again, Muddle. Why the MLK avatar?

Just pleased with the result.

The war ended. Japan was not only defeated, but became a bulwark of civilization. Seems to me a good thing all around.

As for being an apologist, I'm not. I/We have nothing to apologize for. BTW, I haven't heard too many apologies out of Japan for THEIR WWII actions.

My MLK avatar is because he was a great man, a great leader of my people. He was not, however, a fool.

"My MLK avatar is because he was a great man, a great leader of my people. He was not, however, a fool."

I agree, but I seriously doubt that Dr. King would have agreed with much of what you've been saying, as he was an avowed pacifist.

I am not an avowed pacifist. I don't have to be to give honor to a great man like Dr. King.

As for being an apologist, I'm not. I/We have nothing to apologize for. BTW, I haven't heard too many apologies out of Japan for THEIR WWII actions.


Nice logic you've got going there. They did it so we should too. They won't apologize so neither should we.

Hey I've got a great idea. We should march our way over to Germany and kill about 6,000,000 Germans. After all, they did it first.

:eyes:

We ended the war, we didn't begin it.

That’s the problem. You're using one nation's atrocities in order to justify another's. I'm simply pointing out how illogical that is.

How many thousands more would have or could have died otherwise?

I just have a tendency not to doubt the folks in history who made the tough choices -- especially when they worked out as well as the conquest of Japan did.

I wont even go into the details why but u might want to do some reading other than right wing propoganda..

whether japan attacked America or whether a war was going on doesnt justify dropping not one but two atomic bombs on civilian populations .

I care about the truth of history. The war against Japan had to be fought and had to be won. If you want to blame anyone for that war and for the bombings -- not just the nuclear ones, but the fire bombings as well -- blame the Japanese who started the war and failed to end it.

to accusing Muddle of being a winger. Thus far I've had no reason to believe that he is one. I do think his arguments RE the A-bombing smack of RW thinking, but I'm pretty sure that this sort of thinking is very common in the democratic party. polls say something like half of democrats still support the current phony war! I disagree completely with most of what muddle is saying, but I don't think we should be calling him names. And If I crossed that line in my anger earlier, I apologize.

I also liked Muddle's explanation of why he uses the MLK avatar.

"I am not an avowed pacifist. I don't have to be to give honor to a great man like Dr. King."

With all the atacks coming at you, you do handle them gracefully, Muddle. I hope we can eventually agree on something, someday.

the MLK atavar is simply a disguise....lots of us here recognize this tactic...

as you noted, "I do think his arguments RE the A-bombing smack of RW thinking".....yes, a complete lack of consciousness for other human beings...even children cannot be seen as "innocents", only deserving of having their skin burnt off and blood oozing out all pores as they scream and moan and die, yes...that's what these RW er's love....

you further noted...
"I disagree completely with most of what muddle is saying..."
yes, most of us do too....all the time...really does belong on a RW board for 'RW thinking'...in many ways, it's time consuming and detracts from our normal conversations by real DUers...but that type of distraction is what they want...then they go back to their RW places...

I disagree that there is anything 'graceful' about it...it's really just mean, that's all, sort of like the bully KKKarl rove...so now you know why such a response from real DUers...we've been subjected to this 'RW thinking' so much that we're hoping those RW ers go somewhere else besides DU....they want to hurt children, and are cruel to many people here...it's too much for lots of us...that's why the strong reaction to it...it's all the time "RW thinking"...

And I thank you. Based on the sincerity of your post, I have no doubt we agree on many things.

I've said this before, there's tons on DU that I agree with, but usually those threads already have quite coherent comments representing almost any view I could ever conjure. Thus I am drawn, often at least, to threads where I feel there is a lack of an opposing viewpoint that I hold.

This thread is a prime example. Most Americans have no issue with the war in Iraq (though I do) and sure as hell have no issue about how we ended the War in the Pacific. (I don't as is obvious.)

And what, pray tell, would that be? How can someone really care about "truth of history" when he shows absolutely no inclination to learn ANYTHING about events from the other side?

You have shown time and again that you know absolutely NOTHING about the background of this horrific event. To you WWII started on December 7, 1941, when in actuality the seeds had been sown in 1853 when Matthew Perry used "gunboat diplomacy" to bomb, in a totally unprovoked manner, the coast of Yokohama.

You are completely blind to the fact that every imperialist nation at the time was committing atrocities-- who did you think the Japanese learned from?

You might also want to ask yourself just how we got control of Hawaii in the first place. Hint: It wasn't because Queen Liliuokalani was growing tired of her kingdom.

The year the Queen was overthrown by US marines was 1893. Japan, sensing that the US was bent on establishing an empire in the Pacific, attacked China and took possession of Taiwan in 1895. In a tit-for-tit, the US attacked Spain and took control of the Philippines in 1898, effectively boxing Japan in from the south.

After Japan defeated the Russian navy in 1905, there was a rash of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US and Europe that would last until well past WWII.

As for the necessity of using the bombs, it has been shown time and again that Japan was ready to surrender as least as early as May 1945, after the fall of her only ally. Truman's men knew about this offer. And a military man of the highest stature, General Eisenhower, event went on record as saying that the bombs were NOT necessary.

So before you start spouting off more platitudes about "seeking truth", you should remove those blinders that you keep firmly fastened to your eyes.

but it was still Japan who attacked the United States.
There was a vigorous discussion between the Japanese Army and Navy when Germany invaded the Soviet union. The Kwantung Army officials refused to coordinate attack against the soviet because of the unprecedented defeat at Nomonhan in the summer of 1939, instead they occupied southern French Indo-China.....
It was a strategic mistake that Japan made in the crucial moment of its history.

and don't forget the atrocities committed by Unit-731....

The war started 100 years before.

What a complete rationalization. By that definition, every historical event is linked to every previous one and so we have to blame everything on the Big Bang or Adam and Eve or whatever.

So now, it was U.S. actions in Hawaii or the Philippines that caused the Japanese to attack Pearl decades later.

Or maybe it was, "a rash of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US and Europe." Lord knows, we don't dare have anti-Japanese SENTIMENT.

After all, sentiment started the war.

Ooops, wrong. It was imperial Japan with a really big fleet that attacked Pearl. NOT sentiment. It was Japanese soldiers killing helpless American POWs at Bataan. It was Japanese soldiers raping and killing Nanking residents by the tens of thousands.

And it was American soldiers who ended the war that Americans did NOT start.

As for the bomb, ready to surrender does not equal surrender. Ready is a theory. Surrender is a fact.

of the Pacific War. You just close you eyes and say "We wuz right"

Once again, a timeline

1840s-- Britain humiliates China in the Opium War. Europeans carve up spheres of influence in China

1853-- the US attacked Japan-- unprovoked. This leads directly to a civil war in Japan, the bakufu (shogunate) versus the modernists/militarists who don't want Japan to end up like China.

1867-- The modernists/militarists win, setting Japan on the road to imperialism

1893-- US marines overthrow legitimate government of Hawaii. US imperialists clamor for a Pacific empire.

1895-- Japan goes into the empire business by taking Taiwan.

1898-- US takes Philippines from Spain (ostensibly to fulfill their role in the "white man's burden" but actually to seal off Japanese southern advance and to have a base close to China).

1905-- Japan defeats Russian navy at Tsushima. Western countries are aghast that a "heathen" Asian country defeated what was supposed to be a much stronger "Christian" caucasian navy.

1906-- Many anti-Japanese laws passed in the US, including a law in San Francisco designed to keep Japanese out of white schools. This is in addition to state laws that prohibit Japanese from marrying Caucasians (while such marriages were allowed in Japan)

1907-- T. Roosevelt gets Japan to make the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" which effectly ends Japanese immigration to the US. All Japanese immigration is banned in 1924.

1922-- Law passed to revoke citizenship of any American marrying a foreign national (aimed particularly at Japanese-American marriages. Japanese could not become naturalized citizens of the US, unlike other immigrants)

There is more.

They apparently sank a vessel that had entered U.S. territorial waters and was a threat to American shipping. Frankly, I hope under similar circumstances today we would do the same and sink an invading sub.

Do you have a point about this? Other than to clarify that Japan was invading U.S. territory?

And the Soviets should have sunk an American sub each time one entered Soviet waters?

It seems not only are those who forget it doomed to repeat, so it seems are you. Endlessly.

In EVERY war, there are lots of little things that antagonize each side. But nothing on that list was a provocation for 1941. I know, the ending of WWI helped create a Europe that spawned the German Reich. But it did not make them invade. It did not invite a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor.

You rationalize far too much in your quest to try and make the U.S. look like a perpetual bad guy. But you fail, miserably.

as long as it's attacked first?

compensate dying uranium miners, most of whom are Navahos. They got letters saying: you are eligible for compensation because the government didn't tell you about the hazards and didn't make any effort to protect you,but sorry no money. (Just DIE quickly so we won't feel guilty about not paying you.)

speakers, and somber calls for remembrance.

Is remembering the Americans who died at Pearl and in the Bataan Death March and knowing that as horrible as the nukes were, they ended a war that America didn't start.

memorials in your community today....

Do you know that the US put a fuel & scrap metal embargo on Japan 4 months before Pearl Harbor? That is the economic equivalent of strangling someone. It was a deliberate provocation -- probably undertaken with the conscious intent of forcing Japan to strike an overt blow, which would then justify US entry into the war.

To claim that "America didn't start the war" is a naive oversimplification that ignores the substantial ways in which the US really did actively invite the conflict. If you think about it for a minute, you'll see that something is very odd about a small power like Japan in 1941 attacking a vastly larger power like the US. The Japanese militarists were not nice guys, but they were also not stupid. They would never have attacked a far larger power unless they felt they had absolutely no choice.

Comparing the Bataan Death March to nuking 2 cities full of civilians is absolutely ludicrous. The first involved only soldiers. The latter not only involved women & children & the aged, it also killed thousands as many people and polluted the land permanently with radioactivity. The bomb was also unnecessary - Japan was already defeated.

First off, yes I knew about the embargo, but embargos are LEGAL ways nations express their discontent with the actions of other nations. They in no way resemble war.

The Japanese clearly assumed they would fight us sooner or later. (So much for those who think negotiation settles everything.) The U.S. not only didn't strike the blow, we were far from prepared to do so. Sorry, this war falls solely on Japanese shoulders.

As for the Bataan Death March, it is but one example of a nation that brutalized a good chunk of the entire world and gets off relatively easy in the history books because their crimes are overshadowed by those of their ally in Europe. Ask the Chinese in Nanking or the Comfort Women of Korea just what nice guys the emporer's troops were.

Japan was NOT defeated. As long as the fighting continued, it was up to the U.S. to stop it.

"As for the Bataan Death March, it is but one example of a nation that brutalized a good chunk of the entire world and gets off relatively easy in the history books because their crimes are overshadowed by those of their ally in Europe. Ask the Chinese in Nanking or the Comfort Women of Korea just what nice guys the emporer's troops were."

If the bombs had been dropped on the perpetrators of the Bataan Death March or the Rape of Nanking, we wouldn't be having this argument right now.

The Japanese should apologize for their war crimes. That has nothing to do with our culpability in an act of unthinkable terrorism.

Yes, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indeed crimes against humanity (thanks alot, Harry), but I take issue with your Bataan statement:

"Comparing the Bataan Death March to nuking 2 cities full of civilians is absolutely ludicrous. The first involved only soldiers."

Yeah, RichM...unarmed soldiers. The sheer brutality our soldiers faced as POWs was, in fact, comparable to our government's onslaught on a defeated Japan--comparable in that those who suffered were in a state of helplessness.

Yet another reason why war in of itself should be expunged from our consciousness.

Bataan March -- unarmed soldiers, about 10,000 died.

Atomic Bombings -- unarmed civilians, about 150,000 died immediately, and many tens of thousands more in the years that followed, not to mention the birth defects & radioactive poisoning of the land.

Draw your own conclusions.

Both are terrible things -- but to say that the first is AS terrible as the second is quite a stretch. To argue that, you'd almost have to argue that a Japanese life is worth only a fraction of an American life.

Sure. :eyes:

Why make something up for a rhetorical point?

Maybe that's just in Japan. This subject drives me nuts because of the ignorant defenders of the bombing that come out of the woodwork. I wish I'd been born a New Zealander sometimes.

but this is a day when many have off, Sunday, a day to mourn.

as a guest of the US Navy. I met a very young girl named 'Atomi'. She was a Hiroshima Survivor. Thus her name 'Atomi'.

Sad. We are a sad people.

180

The incendiary bombings of Japan killed more people than both A-bombs.

In total yes; but not in one attack, let alone one bomb.

nuke.

"...the firestorm on March 10, 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians and razed nearly half of Tokyo in the final months of World War II....

Though later overshadowed by the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo wrought devastation comparable to that caused by the two atomic attacks, Saotome said. Historians estimate that 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0310-01.htm

And both those cities were small (350000 inhabitants).

General Style.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=121349&mesg_id=121349#123159

of the victims of these bombings over the years. Particulary on and since 9/11. People of both sides do horrendous things in times of war. Bringing innocent citizenry into the fray is as inexcusable as the torture of prisoners of war. If everyone in the world considered tit for tat, or a wrong rights a wrong, a fair concept we would have decimated this world a hundred times over by now. ;(

Just one small example:

While searching for Dolittle's Raiders (the guys that took off from the Hornet in B-25's in April of 42), the Japanese Army killed 250,000 chinese civilians. Now this total is about the same number of Japanese civilians killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The PTO was a brutal war. The Allied forces were faced (in the summer of 45) with the prospect of an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands that could have cost up 750,000 Allied lives. The Japanese would have suffered much worse, maybe 1 to 1.5 million. Now you may think that the blockade of Japan would have brought about a surrender, but the reality is that "boots on the ground" was still going to be needed.

It was war. And as I remember from my days during the Vietnam War, "War is not healty for children and other living things".

I do feel for the lives lost on both sides, but war is a sickness, and sometimes when you have a sick pet, the best thing to do is to put it down as quickly as possible. This is my view of what Truman was trying to do when he gave the order to drop those hellish devices.

Were not of particular value to the US and were targeted rather than more serious military targets such as Yokohama, Yokosuka and Sasebo. These cities of important military value were spared so that the US Military could move into ready made military facilities. Dry dock six in Yokosuka, one of the largest in the world was spared from destruction for example. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstration targets, nothing more. Niigata was at one time a target, another unimportant city. Because of weather conditions Nagasaki got that bomb. Humanity was totally lacking by targeting them.

IMHO.

180

Hiroshima - HQ for the 3rd Army. In charge of all defense for the invason beaches of southern Japan. Est. 25-50,000 troops. Also a major naval port.

Nagasaki - Home of the Nagasaki Torpedo Works (aka "Long Lance"), major seaport and would be involved as an entry point for troops returning from China (1 million plus).

The Allied military was well aware of these facts by early 1944.

As an aside: One of the reasons the Yokohama Dry Dock was "spared" was that it was so damm big. Yes it was heavly damaged, but not destroyed.

The decision to use the weapons in combat on a city and not have a demostration, was made during two day meeting in Washington, D.C. This meeting which included Oppie, Groves, Stimpson, Marshell, Byrnes, and others was held in early June, 1945. There was a tussle between Groves and Stimpson over one of the cites on the list of possible targets, but at that was how Hiroshima and Nagasaki got to be on it.

Once the decision was made and presented to Truman. He gave his approval just before he left Potsdam to return to the US.


Now as to the why's, wherefores, and how comes of that June decision I suggest you do a little reading. Remember these were different times and people with life experiences, teachings. Judge if you must, but take that into consideration before your final verdict.

I saw it every day for a number of years 1952 to 1955. Yes I am aware of the "Troop excuse", and other reasons. I do not believe it. Sasebo and Yokosuka ports were and are still America's major, most important footholds in the far east. On purpose.

The Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstrations.

180

"Sasebo and Yokosuka ports were and are still America's major, most important footholds in the far east." Ready-made for military occupation.

On a slightly different note, I am interested in a couple of military bases north of Tokyo-- one was near Hitachi, and the other is in Miho. I know for a fact that the Miho base was bombed (I heard from a local resident about that), but I'm wondering about the Hitachi base. I'm pretty sure it was bombed, too, but thought you might know something of this. At any rate, the Hitachi base was used by the US as a bombing range until a few years ago, then it was turned into an amusement park. I think the Miho base is now used by the Self-Defense Forces.

One thing you have to remember is that the Allies only started bombing Japan heavly in mid-late 44. And even then most lot of the raids were ineffective. Why? Because the first strikes were flown out of China and getting supplies to the bomber forces stationed there was a nightmare. And when the B-29's were switched to Guam and the other islands, in early 45, while supplies improved, they encountered something they had not seen before, the Jet Stream. This caused huge problems with aiming and hitting targets with the ordinance dropped from 30,000+ feet.

In March of 45, LeMay changed that by stripping the B-29's of armor, guns, etc. This enabled the bombers to carry more fuel and tonnage. They were ordered to fly lower and dropped mostly firebombs on the paper and wood houses of Japaneses workers (Japan had disspersed most industry into "mom and pop" operations by this point).

In mid-45, most of the hitting of actual "hard" targets was carried out by carrier-based aircraft, which carried a limited bombload. While there were B-29 strikes of some of these targets, once again, most were ineffective.

The fact that these targets were nto totally destroyed is not due to some sinister plot, but the simple fact that they were large, hard targets and that the Allies did not mount an effective stratigic bombing campaign until late in the war (in contrast with German where combined daylight and nighttime bombing was conducted 3+ years).

May they rest in peace, those who died. Harry Truman, I can forgive you but it puts a dark speck on you.

Care to explain the Kucinich comment further, please?

A la Martin Sheen. He has proposed creating a "Department of Peace" to balance out the defense department, and work for peace.

I'm not holding my breath on something like that happening in my lifetime. I do like the idea though. (I'm trying to resist diminishing the compliment by plugging Dean here)

I appreciate the clarification as I narrow my own preference.

I find it hard to feel sorry for Japan for this. Death is death, regardless of whether it comes from a conventional bomb or a nuclear bomb. They started the war at Pearl Harbor. And when you start a war, you have to take on the risk that you might lose. It's just common sense.

I find it hard to feel sorry for Japan for this. Death is death, regardless of whether it comes from a conventional bomb or a nuclear bomb. They started the war at Pearl Harbor. And when you start a war, you have to take on the risk that you might lose. It's just common sense.

I find it hard to feel sorry for Japan for this. Death is death, regardless of whether it comes from a conventional bomb or a nuclear bomb. They started the war at Pearl Harbor. And when you start a war, you have to take on the risk that you might lose. It's just common sense.

BUT DO YOU HAVE TO POST IT THREE #$%#%^ TIMES?!?!?!?!

:eyes:

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"Now we are all sons-of-bitches." Director of the first nuclear bomb test - Trinity

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