Yes, many of us would not be here. Canadian forces were also training for that invasion. I was always taught that it was the code of death before dishonor that made the bombing necessary. I am not saying that is correct, but I wonder how scared of Russia anyone would have been by that time in the war. As I understand it, one of the things the Russian people hated America for was the long wait before they joined, which allowed Russia to be seriously depleted. I do understand that the Japanese were already commandeering cooking pots etc. for metal to make weapons, so they must have known the end was in sight, but that had been going on for long enough to scare many people into believing they would not surrender, period.
It is easy to start myths during war time, people are so scared and the average person is not told much of the truth for good reasons, many times. I see it today, so many people are so scared of terrorism and have no idea of how it started. How does one educate a population that is now in it's second or third generation of ignorance of history, science, math, philosophy and common sense?
Bright Blessings,
Kim
At 01:23 PM 8/5/2005, you wrote:
Hi All,
Although I'm in agreement about the Enola Gay exhibit, I will have to disagree about the use of the bombs. As slightly more modern barbarians we really have no idea of the mindset of Japan's WWII government. Perhaps Keith can give his insights since he lives close by. My reading of that history is that Japan's military had a stranglehold on the government. That their way was the Bushido way. There's a lot of death before dishonor in that line of thinking. My father related many stories to me of the kamakazi attacks during the invasion of Okinawa. That they were ineffective does not discount their willingness to die. There were a lot fewer prisoners taken in the Pacific war. Some of that was certainly racism on our side but a fairly good piece of it wasn't. I've spoken with many veterans from that campaign. Many reasonable men told me quite frankly that the Japanese would rather die than surrender. If they could die taking a few of their enemy with them all the better. If this willingness to die was prevelent in their armed forces I think one can make the jump that if the home islands were attacked that our casualties would be very high. Perhaps not the million so often quoted but if it was only a quarter of that, many of us who are currently alive would never have been born. My father was in training for the invasion when the bombs were dropped. He told me everyone on board his troop transport breathed a sigh of relief when they realized they would not have to invade. I personally have no use for nuclear technology or nuclear weapons and am fully against them. But the truth be told, I'm here today because they were used and we haven't had a world war since thier invention.
my two cents for the day,
Tom Irwin
- From: Appal Energy [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
- Sent: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 14:21:01 -0300
- Subject: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima
- http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bird5aug05,0,760322.story
- The myths of Hiroshima
- By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, KAI BIRD and MARTIN J. SHERWIN are
- coauthors of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert
- Oppenheimer," published earlier this year by Knopf.
- SIXTY YEARS ago tomorrow, an atomic bomb was dropped without warning on
- the center of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. One hundred and forty
- thousand people were killed, more than 95% of them women and children
- and other noncombatants. At least half of the victims died of radiation
- poisoning over the next few months. Three days after Hiroshima was
- obliterated, the city of Nagasaki suffered a similar fate.
- The magnitude of death was enormous, but on Aug. 14, 1945 just five
- days after the Nagasaki bombing Radiadio Tokyo announced that the
- Japanese emperor had accepted the U.S. terms for surrender. To many
- Americans at the time, and still for many today, it seemed clear that
- the bomb had ended the war, even "saving" a million lives that might
- have been lost if the U.S. had been required to invade mainland Japan.
- This powerful narrative took root quickly and is now deeply embedded in
- our historical sense of who we are as a nation. A decade ago, on the
- 50th anniversary, this narrative was reinforced in an exhibit at the
- Smithsonian Institution on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the
- first bomb. The exhibit, which had been the subject of a bruising
- political battle, presented nearly 4 million Americans with an
- officially sanctioned view of the atomic bombings that again portrayed
- them as a necessary act in a just war.
- But although /patriotically/ correct, the exhibit and the narrative on
- which it was based were historically inaccurate. For one thing, the
- Smithsonian downplayed the casualties, saying only that the bombs
- "caused many tens of thousands of deaths" and that Hiroshima was "a
- definite military target."
- Americans were also told that use of the bombs "led to the immediate
- surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the
- Japanese home islands." But it's not that straightforward. As Tsuyoshi
- Hasegawa has shown definitively in his new book, "Racing the Enemy"
- and maany other historians have long argued it was the Soviet Union'ss
- entry into the Pacific war on Aug. 8, two days after the Hiroshima
- bombing, that provided the final "shock" that led to Japan's capitulation.
- The Enola Gay exhibit also repeated such outright lies as the assertion
- that "special leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities" warning
- civilians to evacuate. The fact is that atomic bomb warning leaflets
- were dropped on Japanese cities, but only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- had been destroyed.
- The hard truth is that the atomic bombings were unnecessary. A million
- lives were not saved. Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, the man who first
- popularized this figure, later confessed that he had pulled it out of
- thin air in order to justify the bombings in a 1947 Harper's magazine
- essay he had ghostwritten for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.
- The bomb was dropped, as J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of
- the Manhattan Project, said in November 1945, on "an essentially
- defeated enemy." President Truman and his closest advisor, Secretary of
- State James Byrnes, quite plainly used it primarily to prevent the
- Soviets from sharing in the occupation of Japan. And they used it on
- Aug. 6 even though they had agreed among themselves as they returned
- home from the Potsdam Conference on Aug. 3 that the Japanese were
- looking for peace.
- These unpleasant historical facts were censored from the 1995
- Smithsonian exhibit, an action that should trouble every American. When
- a government substitutes an officially sanctioned view for publicly
- debated history, democracy is diminished.
- Today, in the post-9/11 era, it is critically important that the U.S.
- face the truth about the atomic bomb. For one thing, the myths
- surrounding Hiroshima have made it possible for our defense
- establishment to argue that atomic bombs are legitimate weapons that
- belong in a democracy's arsenal. But if, as Oppenheimer said, "they are
- weapons of aggression, of surprise and of terror," how can a democracy
- rely on such weapons?
- Oppenheimer understood very soon after Hiroshima that these weapons
- would ultimately threaten our very survival.
- Presciently, he even warned us against what is now our worst national
- nightmare and Osama bin Laden's frequently voiced dream an atoatomic
- suitcase bomb smuggled into an American city: "Of course it could be
- done," Oppenheimer told a Senate committee, "and people could destroy
- New York."
- Ironically, Hiroshima's myths are now motivating our enemies to attack
- us with the very weapon we invented. Bin Laden repeatedly refers to
- Hiroshima in his rambling speeches. It was, he believes, the atomic
- bombings that shocked the Japanese imperial government into an early
- surrender and, he says, he iss planning an atomic attack on the U.S.
- that will similarly shock us into retreating from the Mideast.
- Finally, Hiroshima's myths have gradually given rise to an American
- unilateralism born of atomic arrogance.
- Oppenheimer warned against this "sleazy sense of omnipotence." He
- observed that "if you approach the problem and say, 'We know what is
- right and we would like to use the atomic bomb to persuade you to agree
- with us,' then you are in a very weak position and you will not
- succeed . You will find yourselves attempting by force of arms to
- prevent a disaster."
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