[Vision2020] Bishop: Bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki Same As Terrorism

[Phil Nisbet]

Quotes from Ike no less, gee, I guess we should be impressed.  Trouble is 
that Eisenhower was not commander in the Pacific and had no way of knowing 
or understanding the situation there.

On August 6th 1945, in Okinawa, my father was attempting to bring holdouts 
from caves in the hills.  The Sgt translator beside him was shot dead.  That 
unit of the Americal was expected to be the beachhead unit when they headed 
for the Japanese Home Islands.  My dad still has lovely pictures of Japanese 
civilians litering the beach below the bluffs of the seaside, where they 
were assisted to die by the Japanese troops.

The Emperor's intervention and call to end the war were critical, not Soviet 
actions.  Hirohito called for an end to the war based upon what he had seen 
of the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  If he had not called for 
compliance, the people who attempted to stop peace moves would have been 
successful in prolonging the war.  The number of Japanese who died would 
have been far greater in the event of invasion, regardless of if it was the 
Americans or the Soviets who invaded first.  Heck more died in the 
conventional bombing after the two atom bombs, during the week leading to 
final agreement to surrender.

And of course nowhere in the followup screed do we find the original premise 
that dropping the bomb was an act of terrorism.  Yet we are treated to the 
same old tired, look at the crane holding 'victim' looking for peace.  So 
where is the reference to the peace loving brethern of that young man and 
the slaughter they created in China, the Philipines, Thailand, Burma, 
Malaya, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands?  The Peace Loving Japanese have 
not even said they are sorry for the Rape of Nanking or for the death camps 
they ran or the medical expiriments they conducted on civilians or their use 
of Germ Warfare on chinese.  "Victim" my eye.

Phil Nisbet

>From: Tbertruss at aol.com
>To: pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Bishop: Bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki Same As 
>Terrorism
>Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 18:53:41 EDT
>
>All:
>
>Consider this quote from Eisenhower regarding the use of nuclear weapons
>against Japan in WWII, and other quotes on this subject, available at the 
>link
>this quote came from:
>
>http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
>
>~~~DWIGHT EISENHOWER
>
>"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in
>Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic 
>bomb
>on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent
>reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon 
>giving me the
>news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using 
>it,
>asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. "During his
>recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of 
>depression
>and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief
>that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely
>unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid 
>shocking
>world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no
>longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that 
>Japan
>was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss 
>of
>'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..." - Dwight
>Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>------------
>
>All of the following information regarding the nuclear attacks against 
>Japan
>in WWII from this site, which presents the arguments pro and con regarding
>these nuclear strikes:
>
>http://www.answers.com/topic/atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
>
>The Manhattan Project had originally been conceived as a counter to Nazi
>Germany's atomic bomb program, and with the defeat of Germany, several 
>scientists
>working on the project felt that the United States should not be the first 
>to
>use such weapons. One of the prominent critics of the bombings was Albert
>Einstein. Leo Szilard, a scientist who played a major role in the 
>development of
>the atomic bomb, argued "If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities
>instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities 
>as a
>war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this
>crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them."
>
>Their use has been called barbaric as several hundreds of thousands of
>civilians were killed, and the choice of areas heavily populated by 
>civilians. In
>the days just before their use, many scientists (including Edward Teller) 
>argued
>that the destructive power of the bomb could have been demonstrated without
>the taking of lives.
>
>It has been argued that the use of atomic weapons against civilian
>populations on a large scale is a crime against humanity and a war crime. 
>The use of
>poisonous weapons (due to the effects of the radiation) were defined as war
>crimes by international law of the time. Some have argued that Americans 
>should
>have done more research into the effects of the bomb, including radiation
>sickness and the terrible burns that followed the explosion.
>Sadako Sasaki, a young victim of the bombing, became a well-known symbol of
>nuclear war and is now commemorated by a statue in Hiroshima, carrying a 
>paper
>crane (a symbol of peace).
>
>Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and
>therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so
>advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945. [11]Â (
>http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm) The highest-ranking officer in the 
>Pacific Theater,
>General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand, but said afterward
>that there was no military justification for the bombings. The same opinion 
>was
>expressed by Fleet Admiral William Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the
>President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces 
>in the
>Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence 
>officer
>who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials) (all also from 
>[12]
>Â (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm)); Major General Curtis LeMay 
>([13]Â (
>http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog23/feature/)); and Admiral 
>Ernest
>King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz,
>Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (both from [14]Â (
>http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm)).
>
>Others contend that Japan had been trying to surrender for at least two
>months, but the US refused by insisting on an unconditional surrender. In 
>fact,
>while several diplomats favored surrender, the leaders of the Japanese 
>military
>were committed to fighting a 'Decisive Battle' on Kyushu, hoping that they 
>c
>ould negotiate better terms for an armistice afterward—all of which the 
>Americans
>knew from reading decrypted Japanese communications. The Japanese 
>government
>never did decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, 
>they
>would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme 
>Council
>was still split, with the hardliners insisting Japan should demobilize its 
>own
>forces, no war crimes trials, and no occupation. Only the direct 
>intervention
>of the Emperor ended the dispute, and even after that a military coup was
>attempted to prevent the surrender (although it was easily suppressed).
>
>Some have argued that the Soviet Union's switch from wary neutral to enemy 
>on
>August 8, 1945 might have been enough to convince the Japanese military of
>the need to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration (plus some 
>provision for
>the emperor). As it happened, the decision to surrender was made before the
>scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin Island, and the Kuril 
>Islands
>was known, but had the war continued, the Soviets would have been able to
>invade Hokkaido well before the Allied invasion of Kyushu.
>
>Other Japanese sources have stated that the atomic bombings themselves
>weren't the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, they contend, it 
>was not the
>American atomic attacks on August 6 and August 9, but the swift and
>devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Stalin's 
>August 8
>declaration of war that forced the Japanese message of surrender on August 
>15,
>1945. Certainly the fact of both enemies weighed into the decision, but it 
>was
>more the fear of Soviet occupation that hastened imperialistic Japan's
>acceptance of defeat.
>
>Many critics believe that the U.S. had ulterior motives in dropping the
>bombs, including justifying the $2 billion investment in the Manhattan 
>Project,
>testing the effects of nuclear weapons, exacting revenge for the attacks on 
>Pearl
>Harbor, and demonstrating U.S. capabilities to the Soviet Union. Scientists
>who had worked on the project later noted that they were pressured to 
>finish
>the bomb by a set schedule, one which was timed to coincide with the 
>Russian
>entrance into the Pacific theater, and one which additionally implied that 
>the
>war would be potentially over very soon.
>
>Some believe more effort to reduce casualties should have been made. 
>Further,
>some claim this could have been done without affecting the stated purposes 
>of
>the bombing. "No evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning of
>atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the 
>Interim
>Committee was that we could not give the Japanese any warning." [15]Â (
>http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm) However, after the Hiroshima bombing, 
>Truman
>announced "If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of 
>ruin from
>the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." On August 8,
>1945 leaflets were dropped and warnings were given to Japan by Radio 
>Saipan.
>(Nagasaki did not receive warning leaflets until August 10). On August 9, 
>1945 at
>11:02 (Nagasaki time) Fat Man exploded at 1950 feet near the perimeter of 
>the
>city, scoring a direct hit on the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works with a 
>yield
>of 19-23 kt. [16]Â (http://vikingphoenix.com/public/JapanInco
>rporated/1895-1945/abombchr.htm) (An English translation of that leaflet is 
>available at PBSÂ (
>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_leaflets.html) and below.)
>
>The decision to bomb Nagasaki only a few days after Hiroshima raises 
>separate
>issues. Some people hold that most of the arguments for the use of the 
>atomic
>bomb do not justify dropping the second one on Nagasaki. In his
>semi-autobiographical novel Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut said that while the 
>Hiroshima bomb may
>have saved the lives of his friends in the U.S. armed forces, Nagasaki 
>still
>proved that the United States was capable of senseless cruelty.
>-----------------------------------
>
>Vision2020 Post by Ted Moffett

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