OMNI
HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI NEWSLETTER, AUGUST 6 AND 9, 2014,
69TH ANNIVERSARY.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice.
What’s at stake: The official
and dominant US explanation of the annihilations of the civilian cities of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki has been that they prevented the necessity of an invasion and
saved US soldiers’ lives. But many other
cogent explanations are available which together make a powerful case against
the bombings. What’s at stake is that
the official explanation has provided the US with a justification for repeated
resorts to “shock and awe” instead of diplomacy since 1945. We must stop invading, bombing, and occupying
“enemies,” and acknowledging the atomic bombings as unacceptable war crimes
will help end the US foreign policy of violence and wars.
Forward to your social
media. Send to Facebook as an Event.
OMNI NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT
See:
Nuclear
Free Future Month Newsletter
Nuclear Abolition Day June 2
Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific
Day
Three newsletters for H-N Remembrance
2013
Myblog:
War Department/Peace Department
War Department/Peace Department
Newsletters
See: Nuclear Weapons War Disarmament
Index:
Contents of Hiroshima-Nagasaki
Newsletter, August 6, 2014
OMNI’s
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Remembrance, August 10, 2014
Dick, Bibliography: No Rationalizations for Hiroshima/Nagasaki,
Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Gerry
Sloan, “6 August 1945”
UN
Secretary General, Ban ki-moon
Noam
Chomsky, “Hiroshima Day,” 2014
David
Swanson, Truman’s Motives
John
Pilger, Lies About Hiroshima, Lies Today
Hiroshima
Day, August 6, 2014, Google Search
Anti-Nuclear
Weapons Organizations, Google Search
War
Resisters League, Uranium’s Legacy and Nuclear Free Zones
HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI REMEMBRANCE, AUGUST 10, 2014
The Remembrance this year will take place at the Town Center,
Fayetteville, AR, August 10, 7p.m. MC Kelly Mulhollan, Proclamation by Mayor Jordan, meditation by
UUF Rev. Parrish, poetry by Gerry Sloan, bombings unjustifiable by Dick Bennett,
nuclear weapons abolition movement by Art Hobson, and more. Come share with us this moment of looking
back in order to end the fear and madness.
A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY QUESTIONING THE BOMBINGS OF
HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI (Causes, Consequences) and ADVOCATING THE ABOLITION OF
NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Prepared by Dick Bennett for OMNI’s 2014
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Remembrance: A New Generation of Truth.
UNDERSTAND THE BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
Pearl Harbor: No Choice But War—for the Japanese. . .and
the US
Roland Worth, Jr. No Choice But War: The United States
Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific. 1995. The
US embraced a severe embargo “knowing full well its probable result.
Hence. . .the Pacific war was caused by the United States launching a policy of
economic destruction against the Japanese nation” (218).
Surrender Imminent, Soviet Invasion August 9, 1945
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Racing the Enemy: Stalin,
Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. 2005. “In his 2005 book, Racing the
Enemy, Hasegawa puts forward the view that the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the main decisive factor
in the Japanese decision to surrender, ending World War II, specifically the Pacific Theater. Instead, Hasegawa looks to the
breaking of the Neutrality Pact by the Soviet Union, and the imminent fall of Manchuria and Korea to
the Soviet invasion of
Manchuria.[3] This view is in contrast to earlier critics
of the bombing, who argued that US President Harry S. Truman's underlying objective was
showcasing US military might, as a deterrent to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's ambitions. Hasegawa emphasizes the
extent to which Japanese decision-making was independent of the nuclear
attacks. According to British historian Geoffrey Jukes: "[Hasegawa]
demonstrates conclusively that it was the Soviet declaration of war, not the
atomic bombs, that forced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally."[4]
Bombings Did Not End WWII in the Pacific
In the
piece below, John Pilger readily debunks the myth that the bombing of Hiroshima
was either needed or intended to end the war in the Pacific. . . .
Judith
Norman
“The Lies Of Hiroshima Are The Lies Of Today Aug 06, 2008” By
John Pilger
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3578
[I have the article, having
copied it when it was published in Z Magazine. But this
link failed just now. –Dick]
Kill Japanese
“Harry Truman and Memory of Mass
Murder” By David Swanson 06 August 2013. High
officials intended to kill as many Japanese as possible. Since then, the US has threatened to use
nuclear weapons a dozen times.
Revenge
“America's Habit of Revenge” by James Carroll.
Published on August 5, 2003 by the Boston Globe. [Also published in Carroll’s book, Crusade:
Chronicles of an Unjust War. 2014. Carroll was an USAF General, and
his magnificent book about the Pentagon, House of War, won the
National Book Award. –Dick]
Alternatives Not Tried, War Crimes Committed
Are There Any [Good] Arguments for Nuking Hiroshima?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2011/08/bretigne-shaffer/are-there-good-arguments-for-nuking-japan/
The Bombs were not the only
options available to the US. Truman and his administration wished to hit
the Japanese, and in doing so they committed two of the most atrocious of all
war crimes—the deliberate murder of several hundred thousand innocent
civilians.
ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The Case for Abolition by Jonathan Schell
The
Gift of Time : the Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now. 1998.
The
Abolition. 1984.
The
Fate of the Earth. 1982.
The
Time of Illusion. 1976.
History of US Nuclear Domination
Joseph Gerson. Empire and the Bomb: How the US
Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World. 2007. The US
is the chief source of global destabilization. Chapters: 1. “Empire and
Nuclear Weapons. 2. “First Nuclear Terrorism—Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.” 3. “Postwar Asia—Targeting Korea and China.”
9. “Abolition or Annihilation.”
History of the Abolition Movement
Lawrence Wittner. Confronting the Bomb: A
Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement. 2009. Are the people of the world ready “for
the new thinking…necessitated by the nuclear age? His reply: YES. “…the history of the disarmament
movement inspires a greater respect for the human potential.”
Gerry Sloan will read several of his poems
at the 2014 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Remembrance.
Here is one of them.
6 AUGUST 1945
For the first time in history,
man usurped God's prerogative
to wipe the planet clean, snuff
out His creation in a twinkling.
If warfare is madness, we were
mad in the extreme in our
vainglorious attempt to harness
the atom, our reptilian brain
and nuclear energy
grotesquely incompatible. Mythology fails us
who pulled back the veil, lifted
the lid to Pandora's box, releasing
the genie from its
damnable lamp which left silhouettes in cement.
Words fail us
proverbial ostriches, heads helplessly buried in sand,
when reality exceeds
our ability to disbelieve, paralyzes our will
to take those impossibly
difficult steps toward disarmament.
UNITEDNATIONS
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
LATEST STATEMENT
Hiroshima,
Japan, 6 August 2014 - Secretary-General's message to Peace
Memorial Ceremony [delivered by Ms. Angela Kane, High Representative for
Disarmament Affairs]
I am
honoured to send greetings to all participants in this year’s Peace Memorial
Ceremony in Hiroshima.
The
atrocious bombing we remember today had as its original target the Aioi Bridge
not far from this ceremony, according to historians. In the years since, the
citizens of Hiroshima and supporters around the world have created many new
kinds of bridges -- of trust, friendship and understanding.
This
solemn commemoration connects memories of a tragic past with the vision of a
future free of nuclear weapons. I am especially grateful to the hibakusha for
forging links with the new generations who can carry forward the commitment to
pursue nuclear disarmament until it is finally achieved. The United Nations is
actively pursuing this goal.
Hiroshima’s
many messages of peace and hope have educated the world about the devastating
humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, inspiring a global campaign
focused on the unacceptability of using these arms under international
humanitarian and human rights law. The hibakusha have been the face of that
effort. Their testimonies have deeply touched me and countless other people.
One of
the great ironies of modern science is that humans are searching for life on
other planets while retaining and modernizing weapons of mass destruction that,
if used, can destroy all life on planet Earth. We must address this failing and
counter the militarism that breeds the pursuit of such weaponry.
The
people of Hiroshima have a direct bridge to the United Nations, where nuclear
disarmament remains one of our most important goals. The United Nations is an
indispensable arena where Member States and civil society can work together to
advance our vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Let us
press for immediate and concrete progress so that the hibakusha and the world
can witness the final destruction of the last nuclear weapon as we end the
historical nightmare known as the age of nuclear weapons – and welcome the
dawning of a new era of hope, peace, and prosperity for all.
Statements on
6 August 2014
Recommended
Reading From The American Empire Project
|
HowManyMinutesto Midnight?
HiroshimaDay 2014 by Noam Chomsky  If
some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they
might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons)
and NWE (the nuclear weapons era). The latter era, of course, opened on
August 6, 1945, the first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious
end of this strange species, which attained the intelligence to discover the
effective means to destroy itself, but -- so the evidence suggests -- not the
moral and intellectual capacity to control its worst instincts.
Day
one of the NWE was marked by the "success" of Little Boy, a simple
atomic bomb. On day four, Nagasaki experienced the technological
triumph of Fat Man, a more sophisticated design. Five days later came
what the official Air Force history calls the "grand finale," a
1,000-plane raid -- no mean logistical achievement -- attacking Japan's
cities and killing many thousands of people, with leaflets falling among the
bombs reading "Japan has surrendered." Truman announced that
surrender before the last B-29 returned to its base.
Those
were the auspicious opening days of the NWE. As we now enter its 70th
year, we should be contemplating with wonder that we have survived. We
can only guess how many years remain.
HumansForPeace.org --
AfterDowningStreet.org
Harry Truman and Memory of Mass Murder
By David Swanson 06
August 2013. [I read
this in Z Magazine, Sept. 2013.
–Dick]
Harry
Truman spoke in the U.S. Senate on June 23, 1941: "If we see that
Germany is winning," he said, "we ought to help Russia, and if
Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as
many as possible."
Did
Truman value Japanese lives above Russian and German? There is nothing
anywhere to suggest that he did. Yet we debate, every August 6th or
so, whether Truman was willing to unnecessarily sacrifice Japanese lives in
order to scare Russians with his nuclear bombs. He was willing; he was
not willing; he was willing. Left out of this debate is the obvious possibility
that killing as many Japanese as possible was among Truman's goals.
A U.S.
Army poll in 1943 found that roughly half of all GIs believed it would be
necessary to kill every Japanese person on earth. William Halsey, who
commanded the United States' naval forces in the South Pacific during World
War II, thought of his mission as "Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more
Japs," and had vowed that when the war was over, the Japanese language
would be spoken only in hell. War correspondent Edgar L. Jones wrote
in the February 1946 Atlantic Monthly,"What kind of war do
civilians suppose we fought anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped
out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians,
finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the
dead, and in the Pacific boiled flesh off enemy skulls to make table
ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers."
On
August 6, 1945, President Truman announced: "Sixteen hours ago an
American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army
base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more
than two thousand times the blast power of the British 'Grand Slam' which is
the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare." Hiroshima was, of course, a city full of
people, not an Army base. But those people were merely Japanese. Australian
General Sir Thomas Blamey had told the New York Times: "Fighting
Japs is not like fighting normal human beings. The Jap is a little
barbarian…. We are not dealing with humans as we know them. We are dealing
with something primitive. Our troops have the right view of the Japs. They
regard them as vermin."
Some
try to imagine that the bombs shortened the war and saved more lives than the
some 200,000 they took away. And yet, weeks before the first bomb was
dropped, on July 13, 1945, Japan sent a telegram to the Soviet Union
expressing its desire to surrender and end the war. The United States had
broken Japan's codes and read the telegram. Truman referred in his diary to
"the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace." Truman had been
informed through Swiss and Portuguese channels of Japanese peace overtures as
early as three months before Hiroshima. Japan objected only to surrendering
unconditionally and giving up its emperor, but the United States insisted on
those terms until after the bombs fell, at which point it allowed Japan to
keep its emperor.
Presidential
advisor James Byrnes had told Truman that dropping the bombs would allow the
United States to "dictate the terms of ending the war." Secretary
of the Navy James Forrestal wrote in his diary that Byrnes was "most
anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got
in." Truman wrote in his diary that the Soviets were preparing to march
against Japan and "Fini Japs when that comes about." Truman ordered
the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6thand another type of bomb, a plutonium
bomb, which the military also wanted to test and demonstrate, on Nagasaki on
August 9th. Also on August 9th, the Soviets attacked the Japanese. During the
next two weeks, the Soviets killed 84,000 Japanese while losing 12,000 of
their own soldiers, and the United States continued bombing Japan with
non-nuclear weapons. Then the Japanese surrendered.
The United
States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that,"… certainly prior to
31 December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan
would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if
Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
contemplated." One dissenter who had expressed this same view to
the Secretary of War prior to the bombings was General Dwight Eisenhower. The
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy agreed:
"The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no
material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already
defeated and ready to surrender."
Whatever
dropping the bombs might possibly have contributed to ending the war, it is
curious that the approach of threatening to drop them, the approach used
during a half-century of Cold War to follow, was never tried. An
explanation may perhaps be found in Truman's comments suggesting the
motive of revenge:
"Having
found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us
without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten
and executed American prisoners of war, and against those who have abandoned
all pretense of obeying international law of warfare."
Truman
doesn't say he used the
bomb to shorten the war or save lives. He says he used the bomb because
he could. "Having found the bomb we have used it." And he
provides as reasons for having used it three characteristics of the people
murdered: they (or their government) attacked U.S. troops, they (or their
government) brutalized U.S. prisoners, and they (or their government) -- and
this is without any irony intended -- oppose international law.
Truman
could not, incidentally, have chosen Tokyo as a target -- not because it was
a city, but because we (or our government) had already reduced it to
rubble.
The
nuclear catastrophes may have been, not the ending of a World War, but the
theatrical opening of the Cold War, aimed at sending a message to the
Soviets. Many low and high ranking officials in the U.S. military, including
commanders in chief, have been tempted to nuke more cities ever since,
beginning with Truman threatening to nuke China in 1950. The myth developed,
in fact, that Eisenhower's enthusiasm for nuking China led to the rapid
conclusion of the Korean War. Belief in that myth led President Richard
Nixon, decades later, to imagine he could end the Vietnam War by pretending
to be crazy enough to use nuclear bombs. Even more disturbingly, he actually
was crazy enough. "The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? … I just want
you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes," Nixon said to Henry Kissinger
in discussing options for Vietnam.
I
just want you to think, instead, about this poem:
Hiroshima
by Sherwood Ross
I am
the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto
A graduate of Emory College, Atlanta, Pastor of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima I was in a western suburb when the bomb struck Like a sheet of sunlight. Fearing for my wife and family I ran back into the city Where I saw hundreds and hundreds fleeing Every one of them hurt in some way. The eyebrows of some were burned off Skin hung from their faces and hands Some were vomiting as they walked On some naked bodies the burns had made patterns Of the shapes of flowers transferred From their kimonos to human skin. Almost all had their heads bowed Looked straight ahead, were silent And showed no expression whatever. Under many houses I heard trapped people screaming Crying for help but there were none to help And the fire was coming. I came to a young woman holding her dead baby Who pleaded with me to find her husband So he could see the baby one last time. There was nothing I could do but humor her. By accident I ran into my own wife Both she and our child were alive and well. For days I carried water and food to the wounded and the dying. I apologized to them: "Forgive me," I said, "for not sharing your burden." I am the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto Pastor of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima I was in a western suburb when the bomb struck Like a sheet of sunlight.
The Lies Of Hiroshima Are The Lies Of Today Aug 06, 2008 By
John Pilger
When
I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there.
It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed,
back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a
quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette
were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more,
then walked down to the river and met a man called Yukio, whose chest was
still etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic
bomb was dropped.
He
and his family still lived in a shack thrown up in the dust of an atomic
desert. He described a huge flash over the city, "a bluish light,
something like an electrical short", after which wind blew like a
tornado and black rain fell. "I was thrown on the ground and noticed
only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and
when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had
no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead." Nine years later, when I
returned to look for him, he was dead from leukaemia.
In
the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the allied occupation authorities banned
all mention of radiation poisoning and insisted that people had been killed
or injured only by the bomb's blast. It was the first big lie. "No
radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin" said the front page of the New York
Times, a classic of disinformation and journalistic abdication, which the
Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett put right with his scoop of the century.
"I write this as a warning to the world," reported Burchett in the
Daily Express, having reached Hiroshima after a perilous journey, the first
correspondent to dare. He described hospital wards filled with people with no
visible injuries but who were dying from what he called "an atomic
plague". For telling this truth, his press accreditation was withdrawn,
he was pilloried and smeared - and vindicated.
The
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a criminal act on an epic scale.
It was premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic
criminality. For this reason its apologists have sought refuge in the
mythology of the ultimate "good war", whose "ethical
bath", as Richard Drayton called it, has allowed the west not only to
expiate its bloody imperial past but to promote 60 years of rapacious war,
always beneath the shadow of The Bomb.
The
most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the
Pacific and save lives. "Even without the atomic bombing attacks,"
concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, "air
supremacy over Japan.
War
Is A Crime .org
HumansForPeace.org
-- AfterDowningStreet.org
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Harry Truman and Memory of Mass Murder
By davidswanson - Posted on 06 August 2013
Harry
Truman spoke in the U.S. Senate on June 23, 1941: "If we see that
Germany is winning," he said, "we ought to help Russia, and if
Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as
many as possible."
Did
Truman value Japanese lives above Russian and German? There is nothing anywhere to suggest that
he did. Yet we debate, every August
6th or so, whether Truman was willing to unnecessarily sacrifice Japanese
lives in order to scare Russians with his nuclear bombs. He was willing; he was not willing; he was
willing. Left out of this debate is
the obvious possibility that killing as many Japanese as possible was among
Truman's goals.
A
U.S. Army poll in 1943
found that roughly half of all GIs believed it would be necessary to kill
every Japanese person on earth. William Halsey, who commanded the
United States' naval forces in the South Pacific during World War II, thought
of his mission as "Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs," and had
vowed that when the war was over, the Japanese language would be spoken only
in hell. War correspondent Edgar L. Jones wrote in the February 1946 Atlantic Monthly, "What kind of
war do civilians suppose we fought anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood,
wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians,
finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the dead, and
in the Pacific boiled flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for
sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers."
On
August 6, 1945, President Truman announced: "Sixteen hours ago an
American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army
base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the
blast power of the British 'Grand Slam' which is the largest bomb ever yet
used in the history of warfare."
Hiroshima was, of course, a city full of people, not an Army base. But
those people were merely Japanese. Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey had
told the New York Times:
"Fighting Japs is not like fighting normal human beings. The Jap is a
little barbarian…. We are not dealing with humans as we know them. We are
dealing with something primitive. Our troops have the right view of the Japs.
They regard them as vermin."
Some
try to imagine that the bombs shortened the war and saved more lives than the
some 200,000 they took away. And yet, weeks before the first bomb was
dropped, on July 13, 1945, Japan sent a telegram to the Soviet Union
expressing its desire to surrender and end the war. The United States had
broken Japan's codes and read the telegram. Truman referred in his diary to
"the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace." Truman had been
informed through Swiss and Portuguese channels of Japanese peace overtures as
early as three months before Hiroshima. Japan objected only to surrendering
unconditionally and giving up its emperor, but the United States insisted on
those terms until after the bombs fell, at which point it allowed Japan to
keep its emperor.
[Beat
the Soviet Union, August 9]
Presidential
advisor James Byrnes had told Truman that dropping the bombs would allow the
United States to "dictate the terms of ending the war." Secretary
of the Navy James Forrestal wrote in his diary that Byrnes was "most
anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got
in." Truman wrote in his diary that the Soviets were preparing to march
against Japan and "Fini Japs when that comes about." Truman ordered
the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6thand another type of bomb, a
plutonium bomb, which the military also wanted to test and demonstrate, on
Nagasaki on August 9th. Also on August 9th, the Soviets attacked the
Japanese. During the next two weeks, the Soviets killed 84,000 Japanese while
losing 12,000 of their own soldiers, and the United States continued
bombing Japan with non-nuclear weapons. Then the Japanese surrendered.
[Bombs
unnecessary]
The
United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that,"… certainly prior to 31
December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan would
have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if
Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
contemplated." One dissenter who
had expressed this same view to the Secretary of War prior to the bombings
was General Dwight Eisenhower. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Admiral William D. Leahy agreed: "The use of this barbarous
weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war
against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to
surrender."
Whatever
dropping the bombs might possibly have contributed to ending the war, it is curious
that the approach of threatening to drop them, the approach used during a
half-century of Cold War to follow, was never tried. An explanation may perhaps be found in
Truman's comments suggesting the motive of revenge:
"Having
found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us
without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten
and executed American prisoners of war, and against those who have abandoned
all pretense of obeying international law of warfare."
Truman
doesn't say he used the bomb to shorten the war or save lives. He says he used the bomb because he could.
"Having found the bomb we have used it." And he provides as reasons for having used
it three characteristics of the people murdered: they (or their government)
attacked U.S. troops, they (or their government) brutalized U.S. prisoners,
and they (or their government) -- and this is without any irony intended --
oppose international law.
Truman
could not, incidentally, have chosen Tokyo as a target -- not because it was
a city, but because we (or our government) had already reduced it to rubble.
The
nuclear catastrophes may have been, not the ending of a World War, but the
theatrical opening of the Cold War, aimed at sending a message to the
Soviets. Many low and high ranking officials in the U.S. military, including
commanders in chief, have been tempted to nuke more cities ever since,
beginning with Truman threatening to nuke China in 1950. The myth developed,
in fact, that Eisenhower's enthusiasm for nuking China led to the rapid
conclusion of the Korean War. Belief in that myth led President Richard
Nixon, decades later, to imagine he could end the Vietnam War by pretending
to be crazy enough to use nuclear bombs. Even more disturbingly, he actually
was crazy enough. "The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? … I just want
you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes," Nixon said to Henry Kissinger
in discussing options for Vietnam.
I
just want you to think, instead, about this poem:
Hiroshima
by
Sherwood Ross
I am
the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto
A
graduate of Emory College, Atlanta,
Pastor
of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima
I
was in a western suburb when the bomb struck
Like
a sheet of sunlight.
Fearing
for my wife and family
I
ran back into the city
Where
I saw hundreds and hundreds fleeing
Every
one of them hurt in some way.
The
eyebrows of some were burned off
Skin
hung from their faces and hands
Some
were vomiting as they walked
On
some naked bodies the burns had made patterns
Of
the shapes of flowers transferred
From
their kimonos to human skin.
Almost
all had their heads bowed
Looked
straight ahead, were silent
And
showed no expression whatever.
Under
many houses I heard trapped people screaming
Crying
for help but there were none to help
And
the fire was coming.
I
came to a young woman holding her dead baby
Who
pleaded with me to find her husband
So
he could see the baby one last time.
There
was nothing I could do but humor her.
By
accident I ran into my own wife
Both
she and our child were alive and well.
For
days I carried water and food to the wounded and the dying.
I
apologized to them: "Forgive me," I said, "for not sharing
your burden."
I am
the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto
Pastor
of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima
I
was in a western suburb when the bomb struck
Like
a sheet of sunlight.
davidswanson's
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share Email this page Printer-friendly versionapan could have exerted
sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the
need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and
supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is
the Survey's opinion that ... Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic
bombs had not been dropped, even if
The
National Archives in
Project
was conducted on that basis." The day after
Since
1945, the
The
role of western journalism in erecting this straw man is critical. That
This
progression of lies has brought us to one of the most dangerous nuclear
crises since 1945, because the real threat remains almost unmentionable in
western establishment circles and therefore in the media. There is only one
rampant nuclear power in the Middle East and that is Israel. The heroic
Mordechai Vanunu tried to warn the world in 1986 when he smuggled out
evidence that
In
the New York Times on July 18, the
Israeli historian Benny Morris, once considered a liberal and now a
consultant to his country's political and military establishment, threatened
"an
The
question begs: are the rest of us to be mere bystanders, claiming, as good
Germans did, that "we did not know"? Do we hide ever more behind
what Richard Falk has called "a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral
screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as
threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence"? Catching
war criminals is fashionable again. Radovan Karadzic stands in the dock, but
Sharon and Olmert, Bush and Blair do not. Why not? The memory of
Jewish
Peace News editors
Jewish
Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
Yoko Ono
Stream
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Dear
Family of Peace This time (on my latest visit to Japan) I went specially to
Hiroshima to fold a paper crane with one victim of the 1945 Atomic Bomb, and
the youth of now beautiful Hiroshima Ci...
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from
The Japan Times HIROSHIMA – Artist Yoko Ono on Wednesday urged youngsters
gathered at a peace event in Hiroshima to help teach the world about the
experiences of the city that was devastated b...
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YOKO
ONO - INFINITE UNIVERSE AT DAWN
Genesis Publications Limited - Deluxe Edition Fully Subscribed The first 350 copies in Yoko Ono’s limited edition have been snapped up by subscribers, who will have their names printed in the book as a gesture of our appreciation. If you missed out on the Deluxe edition, you can register your details to be kept up to date on the remaining 1,150 copies (the Collector edition) at http://www.genesis-publications.com/mailing.asp ‘This then, will be your first voyage made intentionally to create your own conceptual world. Have fun.’ – Yoko Ono in her ‘forward’ to INFINITE UNIVERSE AT DAWN To find out more about the book, click here: http://www.genesis-publications.com/infinite-universe-at-dawn-by-yoko-ono-the-signed-limited-edition/default.htm |
Google Search, Hiroshima Day August 6, 2014
www.morpeth-tc.gov.uk/hiroshima-day-peace-service-wednesday-6th-au...
Join us at The Chantry Peace
Garden at 8am to take part in the peace service on the anniversary of the
dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese City of ...
www.educationscotland.gov.uk/.../h/hiroshimaday.as...
Education Scotland
Hiroshima
Day commemorates 6 August 1945, the day when an atomic
bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed a few days
later by ...
peacequest.ca/remember-hiroshima-day-wednesday-aug-6/
Remember Hiroshima Day,
Wednesday Aug.6. July 17, 2014 , Leave a Comment
·hiroshima-day-poster. Wednesday, August 6th 2014 7pm-dusk.
Skeleton ...
www.wagingpeace.org/sadako-peace-day-reflecting-on-the-past-to-assur...
Jul 10, 2014 - The event
will be held Wednesday, August 6, from 6:00-7:00 p.m., ... a young
girl from Hiroshima who died of radiation-induced leukemia as
a ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima
Wikipedia
From top
left:Hiroshima Castle, Baseball game of Hiroshima Toyo Carp
in HiroshimaMunicipal .... On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m.,
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6 days ago - 69th
Commemoration of Hiroshima. Wednesday August 6, 2014. 7:30 p.m..
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Day Vigil, 06/08/2014 - 07:30, St Paul's Cathedral, Crn Flinders ...
Film Festival : Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki, 06/08/2014
- 17:30 ...
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August 6, 2014 - August 9,
2014. Hiroshima Day Events. A calendar of Hiroshima
Day events around the country. Check to see if there's one in your
area! August ...
Posted by Sandra on Jul 28, 2014
in General News ... bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
on Wednesday August 6, 2014 (Hiroshima Day) at Nathan
Phillips ...
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ANTI-NUCLEAR WEAPONS ORGANIZATIONS, GOOGLE SEARCH, AUGUST 6,
2014
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Wikipedia
Anti-nuclear organizations may
oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclearweapons. Anti-nuclear
groups have undertaken public protests and acts ...
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Wikipedia
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› December 2010
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From Japan to the Navajo
Nation: Generational Legacies of Uranium
Today, in commemoration of the 69th
anniversary of the US dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima, we recognize the legacies of nuclear destruction across our world.
At the height of the Cold War, the US detonated its first atomic bomb on
Hiroshima. A few days later, the US dropped a second bomb on the people of
Nagasaki. Both bombs immediately devastated communities, a legacy which
continues to this day through a host of life-threatening health problems for
bodies and lands. Hiroshima Day has become a day for anti-war and anti-nuclear
resistance, dialogue, and demonstrations.
WRL
also recognizes the impact of nuclear proliferation transnationally, in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as here, on the lands of the Diné people.
In recognition of the continued intoxification of indigenous peoples and their
lands, we lift up the voices of New Mexico's uranium-impacted communities
through the 2012 Nuclear Free Zone Declaration from Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE).
Since the
boom of nuclearism in the 1950s, indigenous communities and coalitions such as
MASE have resisted the contamination of their land by US government
collaborations with uranium mining companies. MASE organizes in the US
Southwest to hold government agencies and companies accountable, demanding the
clean up of the toxic legacy of uranium mining. They are also engaged in an
ongoing struggle to stop new mining operations on land that has already been
poisoned by nuclearism. On October 20, 2012, with support from WRL, MASE
adopted a Nuclear Free Zone Declaration, asserting the sovereignty of people's
rights to safe drinking water and to be free from exposure to hazardous and
toxic substances.
NUCLEAR
FREE ZONE DECLARATION
for Northwest New Mexico/Grants Uranium Belt
for Northwest New Mexico/Grants Uranium Belt
Whereas:
Uranium
legacy contamination poisons our water, land, and lives through ongoing
radioactive releases that will continue to plague our cultural landscape and
future generations,
We are
committed to protect and restore our shared water resources that are so
critical to our continued survival in an arid desert environment, our quality
of life, and multi-cultural preservation,
Therefore:
We,
the undersigned, join a growing global movement to limit the use of nuclear
power and transform National Sacrifice Areas into Nuclear Free Zones.
We
further urge all federal and state regulatory agencies to promote the right to
a clean, sustainable water sources within their jurisdictions as an element of
their public trust to further the best interests of the public welfare,
including those poor, minority populations already overburdened by legacy
contamination from uranium mining and milling in the Grants Mining District.
In
Conclusion,
We,
the undersigned, pledge to work in solidarity with all people who wish to break
free of their nuclear fuel chains and dependency on non-renewable, polluting
sources of energy and move towards the development of renewable and sustainable
energy that does not threaten the public health, public water supplies, or our
special landscapes.
Check
out WRL's blog for MASE's full declaration!
Contents August 6, 2013
Newsletter
68th
Anniversary: Action
OMNI’S
2013 REMEMBRANCE of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
Over 40 Years
Message
from Hiroshima
Google
Search
END HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI NEWSLETTER, AUGUST 6, 2014
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