Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, one of President Harry Truman's two acts of butchery against Japan in August 1945. There isn't much to be said about those unspeakable atrocities that hasn't been said many times before. The U.S. government never needed atomic bombs to commit mass murder. It's "conventional" weapons have been potent enough. But considering how the "leaders" saw The Bomb, its two uses against Japan stand out as especially heinous acts. The U.S. government may not have used atomic weapons since 1945, but it has not yet given up mass murder as a political/military tactic. Presidential candidates are still expected to say that, with respect to nuclear weapons, that "no options are off the table."
The anniversary of the Nagaski bombing is Thursday.
Rad Geek People's Daily has a poignant post here. Rad says: "As far as I am aware, the atomic bombing of the Hiroshima city center, which deliberately targeted a civilian center and killed over half of the people living in the city, remains the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of the world."
But you and Charles must not have read Cathy Young's deep thoughts on the subject: http://reason.com/blog/show/121813.html
ReplyDeleteNow then. Don't you feel chastened for your "extreme anti-Americanism"?
In 2002 aboard a cruise ship, I had the pleasure of dining with an elderly gentleman and lady, identified the previous evening as having the marriage of longest duration -- 55 years! -- on the ship.
ReplyDeleteDinner conversation turned to politics, and I welcomed the perspective of someone decades my elder. Somehow the subject of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki arose, and in my pre-enlightenment stage, I defended their use by all the cliche arguments. The gentleman had been a U.S. Army soldier in the Pacific, so it was with shock that I listened to his bitterness and cynicism about the use of atomic weapons, thinking that his life was among those saved by their use.
He launched into a lengthy lesson about what I now understand to be the reality of history. It is possible that he set me on the road to anarchism, helped along by Jake Hornberger, Butler Shaffer, John Hasnas and of course, Sheldon Richman.
It's been a long, eye-opening journey and I'm looking forward to the next decades. Thanks to the brave and dedicated writers who keep ideas alive and help us to recognize reality!
Re the Cathy Young post:
ReplyDelete"Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome": Oliver Kamm.
Yeah, yeah. Tell it to the kids who were vaporized and the adults who were turned to shadows on walls.
"Here, I will say that my knowledge of World War II is limited": Cathy Young.
Funny how the those who keep an open mind on mass murder always say things like that.
Its just sickening to think that the Americans would actually do that to innocent people when Japan was actually trying to negotiate peace. The yanks wouldn't accept any of that though, the relatively few lives lost and pre-planned attack on Pearl Harbor had to be avenged by obliterating two cities full of people.
ReplyDeleteWhy were the Americans the good guys in comparison to the Nazis again?
"Why were the Americans the good guys in comparison to the Nazis again?"
ReplyDeleteOooooo! I know! I know!
Because the U.S. won!
Power is corrupt and tends to absolutes. What could be more absolute than nuking not one city, but two!
POEM TITLE "COMEMORATING THE 1945 INNOCENT VICTIMS OF
ReplyDeleteTHE BLIND JUSTICE AT HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI"
By Haider S. Jafari
A bench of some heads of some units
Decides to stop the six year long war
A decision of jury from an elegant nation
The barbaric judges from a big civilization
The aim was to stop the war on earth
War claiming so many lives of humans
To stop the war they ignited another chain
The nuclear chain causing human slain
The endless energy chain “mc square”
The Einstein equation all we admire
Then the Land of the rising sun
Was showered with “Supersuns”
The “suns” from a technical civilization
Took thousands from life to extinction
Within moments killed the harmless
Living in Hiroshima then in Nagasaki
The earth turned black the sky turned red
Smiling kids, harmless olds, all were dead
It was not a country that was bombed
It was humans who were massacred
The leaders had the differences
But the civilians paid the price
With bombs they tried to kill a nation
But what they killed was a generation
The world is now on the edge
Let us make a solemn pledge
Why not we destroy all big weapons
Before we are destroyed by these weapons
To all bomb droppers we must say “No No”
To all bomb makers and sellers “Go Go”