The Terror America Wrought

The Terror America Wrought

By Robert Scheer

Created Aug 8 2007 - 9:11am

- from Truthdig (posted with permission) [1]

During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been

condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this

week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S. attack that deliberately took

the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese

cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in the Strategic Bombing Survey

conducted at President Harry Truman's request, when the bomb hit Hiroshima

on April 6, 1945, "nearly all the school children ... were at work in the

open," to be exploded, irradiated or incinerated in the perfect firestorm

that the planners back at the University of California-run Los Alamos lab

had envisioned for the bomb's maximum psychological impact.

The terror plot worked all too well, as Hiroshima's Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

recalled this week: "That fateful summer, 8:15 a.m. The roar of a B-29

breaks the morning calm. A parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a

flash, an enormous blast--silence--hell on Earth. The eyes of young girls

watching the parachute were melted. Their faces became giant charred

blisters. The skin of people seeking help dangled from their fingernails.

.... Others died when their eyeballs and internal organs burst from their

bodies--Hiroshima was a hell where those who somehow survived envied the

dead."

Like most of the others killed by the two American bombs, neither the

children nor the adults had any role in Japan's decision to go to war, but

they were picked as the target instead of an isolated but fortified military

base whose antiaircraft fire posed a higher risk. The target preferred by

U.S. atomic scientists--a patch in the ocean or unpopulated terrain--was

rejected, because the effect of hundreds of thousands of civilians dying

would be all the more dramatic.

The victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were available soft targets, much like

the children playing in Iraq, suddenly caught in the crossfire of battles

waged beyond their control. In "White Light/Black Rain," a devastating HBO

documentary released this week, there is an interview with the sole survivor

of a Japanese elementary school of 620 students. The murder of the other

619, and the 370,000 overall deaths attributed to the bombings, 85 percent

of which were civilian deaths, has never compelled a widespread examination

of the "end justifies the means" morality of our own state-sanctioned acts

of terror. Indeed, the horrifying footage taken by Japanese and American

cameramen soon after the devastation, and shown in the HBO film, was long

kept secret by the U.S. government for fear that an informed American public

might question this nation's incipient nuclear arms race.

Just exactly what distinguishes the United States' use of the

ever-so-cutely-named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" atomic bombs on cities in

Japan from the car bombs of Baghdad or the planes that smashed into the

World Trade Center? To even raise the question, as was found in one recent

university case, can be a career-ending move.

Of course, we had our justifications, as terrorists always do. Truman

defended his decision to drop the atomic bombs on civilians over the

objection of leading atomic scientists on the grounds that it was a

necessary military action to save lives by forcing a quick Japanese

surrender. He insisted on that imperative despite the objections of top

military figures, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who contended that the

war would end quickly without dropping the bomb.

The subsequent release of formerly secret documents makes a hash of Truman's

rationalization. His White House was fully informed that the Japanese were

on the verge of collapse, and their surrender was made all the more likely

by the Soviets' imminent entry into the fight.

At most, the Japanese were asking for the face-saving gesture of retaining

their emperor, and even that modest demand would likely have been abandoned

with the shift of massive numbers of Allied troops and firepower from the

battlefront of a defeated Germany to a confrontation with its deeply wounded

Asian ally. Instead, the U.S. played midwife to the birth of the nuclear

monster, the ultimate terrorist weapon that presents a continuing and

growing threat to the survival of human life on Earth.

This is a lesson to be pondered at a time when President Bush plays power

games with a nuclear-equipped Russia while coddling Pakistan, the main

proliferator of nuclear weapons to rogue regimes, and Congress authorizes an

expansion of the U.S. nuclear program to better fight the war on terror by

"improving" the ultimate weapon of terror, which the U.S. alone stands

guilty of using.

More links:

For a fuller explanation of the suppression of footage taken shortly after

the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, follow this link [2].

Click here [3] to go to HBO's site for "White Light/Black Rain."

_______

--

NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

available to advance understanding of

political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I

believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson

On Aug 9, 1:00 pm, "Gandalf Grey" <gandalfg...@infectedmail.com>

wrote:

>

> The victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were available soft targets,

Hiroshima was Japan's largest military town. Hiroshima's military

districts held tens of thousands of soldiers (giving it the highest

soldier/civilian ratio of any Japanese city). Hiroshima also held the

headquarters of the Japanese Second General Army, which was in charge

of repelling any invasion in the southern half of the Japanese home

islands (including Kyushu, where we were planning to invade next).

The second bomb was intended for Kokura Arsenal, a massive (4100' x

2000') arms-production complex. The secondary target was the

Mitsubishi Shipyards, an even more massive warship construction

facility across the bay from Nagasaki. Due to technical and weather

difficulties, the bomb ended up being dropped on Urakami, an

industrial zone north of Nagasaki. There it destroyed the Mitsubishi

Steel Works and the Mitsubishi Torpedo Works.

Before Japan attacked us, Pearl Harbor had been regarded as immune to

air-dropped torpedoes because the water was so shallow the torpedoes

would hit the ocean floor and embed themselves in the mud. This was

the only harbor in the world (outside Japan) that had such a natural

defense against air-dropped torpedoes. In order to attack us, Japan

had to develop entirely new torpedo technology designed specifically

for Pearl Harbor. The Mitsubishi Torpedo Works is the place that

designed and built those torpedoes.

> 370,000 overall deaths attributed to the bombings, 85 percent

> of which were civilian deaths,

Between 150,000 and 220,000 deaths are attributed to the bombs.

At least 20,000 were Japanese soldiers.

> has never compelled a widespread examination

> of the "end justifies the means" morality of our own state-sanctioned acts

> of terror.

That is mostly because America does not engage in state-sanctioned

acts of terror.

> Just exactly what distinguishes the United States' use of the

> ever-so-cutely-named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" atomic bombs on cities in

> Japan from the car bombs of Baghdad or the planes that smashed into the

> World Trade Center?

The fact that the A-bombs were dropped on large military and arms-

manufacturing centers.

> on the grounds that it was a

> necessary military action to save lives by forcing a quick Japanese

> surrender. He insisted on that imperative despite the objections of top

> military figures, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who contended that the

> war would end quickly without dropping the bomb.

Top military figures did not oppose the bombs during the war.

Ike claims he opposed them in an idle conversation, but his story is

at odds with the records from the era, and there is reason to doubt

it.

If Ike's story is true, it was just an idle conversation with Stimson,

which was never repeated to anyone else, and Ike's assessment would

have been contrary to the intelligence coming out of Japan at the

time.

> The subsequent release of formerly secret documents makes a hash of Truman's

> rationalization.

Anti-war clowns come out with dramatic claims of "new evidence" every

year. And then they trot out documents that were publicized 40 years

ago, and which don't even come close to supporting their position.

> His White House was fully informed that the Japanese were

> on the verge of collapse, and their surrender was made all the more likely

> by the Soviets' imminent entry into the fight.

Actually, the first evidence that the White House got that Japan was

interested in surrender came the day after Nagasaki, when they first

asked to surrender.

> At most, the Japanese were asking for the face-saving gesture of retaining

> their emperor,

Nope. Before August 10, the Japanese Army was insisting that the

terms include things like:

a) no occupation of Japan

b) Japan be in charge of any war crimes trials

c) Japanese troops simply back up and go home instead of surrendering

"Gandalf Grey" <gandalfgrey@infectedmail.com> wrote in message

news:46bb467d$0$32652$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...

> The Terror America Wrought

> - from Truthdig (posted with permission) [1]

> During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been

> condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this

> week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S. attack that deliberately took

> the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese

> cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yep, when we tell somebody to surrender they need to OBEY.

Let's nuke Mecca!