Nagasaki

[shance]

NAGASAKI

Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

A stark reminder that despite all the rhetoric about the threat of Iraq and Iran's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, one and only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons on a civilian population, and that nation is the United States of America.

Despite propaganda about necessity and live saved by use of the bomb, history records and declassified information reveal Japan knew the war was lost and had already decided to surrender by the time the bomb was used.

But Truman went ahead with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, primarily to demonstrate to the rest of the world, and the USSR in particular, that the USA had the political will to use such weapons.

So, for the United States to in any way speak critically of other nations' desire to build such weapons, is as we can now see, the pot calling the kettle black.

www.conniespage.com

[NotGivingUp]

1. It was mass murder. Horrendous. Thank you for posting. n/t

[shance]

4. You welcome NGU*** Im not the original poster of the information just a messenger.

as we all are.

;)

[hack89]

6. What is your standard for mass murder in war time?

Serious question. Tens of millions were killed in WWII - Hiroshima and Nagasaki were probably not in the top 10 when it comes to civilians being killed (the siege of Leningrad being an example of death on a much larger scale. Famine in China being another example. And of course there is the Holocaust.)

So what constitutes mass murder - 10,000 dead? 50, 000? 100,000? Any deaths at all? If the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had died of starvation over a 6 month period due to a blockade of Japan, would that still be mass murder?

It is fine if you think that any deaths are mass murder - it is a morally defensible position. I am just trying to understand what distinguishes Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the many other examples of civilian death in WWII.

[shance]

9. Because most people would rather shop at Banana Republic or the Gap

than truly understand the magnitude of what mass weaponry does and continues to do to innocent individuals and people just like you and like me.

Not to mention the animals and plants and all the other invaluable natural life it can potentially and irreversibly alter.

[VTMechEngr]

11. Continues to Do...

Radiation exposure due to testing, war, etc is nothing compared to that received from just living on Planet Earth. The sky hits you with 15 times the radiation, and has been doing that since we first arrived on the planet.

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/osradtraining/backgroundradiation/background.htm


The exposure for an average person is about 3.6 mSv/year, 80 percent of which comes from natural sources of radiation. The remaining 20 percent results from exposure to artificial radiation sources, such as medical X-rays, industrial sources like smoke detectors and a small fraction from nuclear weapons tests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation

[nofurylike]

19. good answer. enlightening. thank you. n/t

[Parche]

2. Japan

They were NOT going to surrender, that is a fact :hi:
This helped them to.

[shance]

3. That may make you feel better, but unfortunately that does not appear to be the truth Parche.

That is not what records and declassified documents now show.

I don't want to believe it either, however, how does it help us to believe what has now been proven not to be the truth?

The facts seem to now show the Japanese were planning to surrender, this was a fact known apparently by the Administration, and the bombs were dropped any way.

You know what, on whole other note, even if they WEREN'T going to surrender, does that in any way justify evaporating two cities?

Think about it.

Have you seen pictures of the destruction?

How would you feel if that happened to your city, your family, you?

Seriously is that the way you want to die?

Not to mention the cancerous toxicity after the blast has already occurred for years to come.

Or here's another scenario what if Japan had known we were going to surrender and bombed two of our cities anyway?

We need to ask more questions and take a deeper look at the actions being implemented in our name and how we would feel if those actions were being inflicted upon us?

[Parche]

5. Facts

Planning to surrender and actually surrendering are 2different things.


We were still at war with Japan, so yes dropping them ended it.


I know it saved lives, sailors, POW's and civilians.

:hi:

:nuke: :nuke:

[shance]

8. No it didn't parche, it killed thousands if not millions of people

or are you that narrow minded and cold hearted as to the suffering of others?

Don't use the "it saved lives" to try and instill guilt and suppression of discussion.

My father was a young surgeon in the Phillipines, and he was a supporter of Truman. He also received a Bronze Star for his service in the military.

I have always believed in Truman as well. I tend to in many ways still believe he was a man of character, however, the fact that these young kids were put in harms way, including my father, who was one of the most incredibly wonderful men I've ever known, and who was about thirty at the time, ready to settle down and have a family.

The people that got my father and others into that war, were American war profiteers who placed my father and millions of other fathers and family members, and loved ones of ours in jeopardy.

The vicious bombs that were dropped on those two islands didn't save any lives, it killed and it killed and it killed.

And while no one else lived the pain, trauma, nightmares, disease, toxicity, famine, heartbreak, spirit collapse of those two islands, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki felt them for decades upon decades to come.

[Parche]

10. People

Thats not our problem, Japan did start the war, the US just finished it.

Yes I dont like to see our sailors suffer from a kamikaze hit, or a POW being killed,
or a Marine being killed in a 'banzai' charge.

Who got those people in the war?

Japan attacked the Phillipines/Singapore/Hong Kong and Pearl Harbor

[hack89]

12. Lets say the bombs were not dropped

and the US decided on a submarine blockade instead of invasion - a reasonable choice as the submarine campaign against Japan was highly effective and there were already massive shortages of fuel, food and medicine. Would that really be a more humane choice? Imagine starvation and epidemics during a bitterly cold Japanese winter. Hundreds of thousands if not millions would die - the old, the young, the sick and the weak would suffer tremendously. Now explain to me why that would be a more desirable choice.

[shance]

14. Lets go back to the original fact. You seemed to have disregarded the important FACT they

had surrendered.

They were trying to salvage their country and everyone living there.

So I take your point is obsolete if that is the case, as evidence points to that being the case.

[JVS]

20. interesting use of the pluperfect

[hack89]

29. What are you talking about?

They had not surrendered.

[LeftishBrit]

25. I agree with you about Nagasaki...

but do you truly think that fighting in WW2 was unnecessary, and forced on people by 'American war profiteers'.

As a Europaean and an ethnic Jew - and as a human being - I am extremely grateful to your father and to everyone in all countries who fought to defeat the Axis.

[krispos42]

27. Ever read "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" by Harry Turtledove?

It shows the Greater German Reich in 2009, after the Nazis conquered most of the world. They used nukes to take down the US, incidently.

But it tells the tale of a Jewish family hiding in German society decades after the Nazis thought they had made Europe judenfrie.

It's a very good book. It shows, I think, just how important it was to win WW2.

[LeftishBrit]

30. No, but it sounds interesting

Thanks for the recommendation; I'll look it up.

[VTMechEngr]

7. 100, 000 died in Tokyo in just one night of bombing!

Tokyo and several other cities looked much the same after the fire bombings, with similar casualty rates.

Tokyo lost 100,000 people in a single night.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm

Is it the numbers that horrify you, or just that one bomb did that damage rather than many?

[Selatius]

15. Unfortunately, we evaporated many Japanese cities with just conventional bombs.

Nuking was simply a new way, a more efficient way of doing the same thing. Japan has Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Germany has Dresden.

[krispos42]

26. True, but...

The radioactive remains, ionizing radiation, and heavy particles generated in a nuclear explosion linger far longer than the smell of napalm. And do more damage.

We know that now, better than we did back then.

[VTMechEngr]

28. I have mixed opinions on this topic.

I figure it doesn't matter if its death from a fire storm, crushed by a bombed building, blown up by bombs, or vaporized from a giant flash of splitting U-235, the end result is still Dead.

That we can just slaughter each other mercilessly is the topic that should be discussed, not this flame bait about the bomb. How is the Bomb worse a death mechanism than lining men, women, and children in front of pits and shooting them, raping the women of a city before killing them, or unleashing a firestorm upon a city? The bomb gets argued because its a popular stand in for the real debate: Mankind's inhumanity to his fellow mankind.

[Madspirit]

13. k&r...n/t

[nofurylike]

16. thank you posting this. n/t

[nofurylike]

17. k & r

[nofurylike]

18. absolutely unbearable..... n/t

[Hideboh]

21. The Japanese got what they deserved for what they did in previous years

BTW, Almost all the Japanese are outrageously ignorant and indifferent to the atrocities they committed in China, Korea, and South East Asia. They simply do not care much about what their ancestors did in the past.

[shance]

22. Tell us, with references, what did they do Hideboh, that was not done to them?

I am honestly as others are, willing to look for answers.

[VTMechEngr]

23. The Rape of Nanking come to mind...

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/nmintro.htm

[LeftishBrit]

24. Did the civilians deserve it?

The children?

The children not yet *born* who suffered later from genetic damage?

I do believe that Japan deserved military defeat; but no human being deserves the atom bomb. As I said in another post, leaders at the time may not have fully realized the *long-term* damage that it would do, though they would have known that many people would die immediately. But now we do know. I hope that no one ever uses the bomb again.

Just to add for clarification: I do think that WW2 was one of the few wars that there was no choice but to fight, and that the decisions by our countries to go to war were correct decisions. If Germany and Japan had won, or their leaders had been allowed to rule unchecked, the consequences would have been disastrous.