Balkingpoints.com / Balkers

5 Responses to “ Hiroshima & Nagasaki +65 ”

1. USA / Roy G says:

   6 August, 2010 at 2:46 PM

   Thanks Jeff, well done.

   Some discussions are global, unending, and integral to a better future. The sheer horror of World War II (not the glorified accounts of news reels and movies), gave us 2 such subjects: the ethnic cleansing of the Holocaust, and the use of nuclear weapons. There is importance in keeping these matters on the table always, as a compass for mankind.

   And see the excellent Ken Burns documentary “The War”, for a more holistic and less sanitized account of World War II.

   If the Holocaust has not managed to stop all ethnic cleansing in the world, perhaps the exponential devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have scared the world’s nuclear powers from using them since. Yes, I seek a positive somehow. There may not be one.

   To judge it, you have to know context;

   a) Allied powers and defenseless nations of Europe and Asia, were in a death-match with expansionist dictatorships of Germany and Japan. Those expansions involved the slaughter of millions of civilians, factoring in the Holocaust and the Japanese incursions into mainland China, Nazi air raids on London, etc. The war where weapons technology, even non-nuclear, culminated to facilitation of such human carnage.

   b) If you are Roosevelt and your scientists tell you such a technology (nuclear) might be within developmental reach, and you suspect that your enemy leadership are being told the same by their scientists, you go for it. Which he did, correctly. You simply cannot take the risk of Hitler or Hirohito getting it first. His decision to begin the Manhattan Project and set up the secret city of Los Alamos, NM with 100,000 people involved, is the decision that made the nuclear bomb and nuclear power, happen.

   c) If you are Roosevelt, maybe you have deeper wisdom about use of such a weapon than your VP Truman. Maybe not, as well. But you have polio and die in 1945 before final victory in WWII. Truman, like FDR a Progressive on domestic matters, was kept out of the loop on war matters and is ripe to be led by his generals when he takes over the presidency.

   d) US generals, don’t know exactly what they have in the new weapon, and wish to find out. They leave 4 Japanese cities alone during conventional bombing raids, to judge the real power of the nuclear bomb if and when it is finished. They also have an argument to pose about bringing the war in the Pacific to a faster completion. In this there is some merit, since the Japanese military had a remarkable no-surrender ethic, evidenced by the awful death tolls on some of the islands like Iwo Jima. This created a daunting prospect of a protracted land invasion of Japan to reach victory, perhaps with more loss on both sides than even what it took invading Europe and pushing Hitler back to Berlin.

   
   These are the factors. I don’t know if it’s enough to justify using one. I’ve always felt you should have tried to demonstrate it’s power to the Japanese leadership in some remote area. That may fail to move the dial – but try it.

   I have even more objection to the 2nd bomb on Nagasaki, with only a 3 day interval. Yes, American soldiers are dying every single day the war goes on. But on August 6,7,8 the Japanese still have not registered what actually happened in Hiroshima.

   Self-impose a cease fire and pull your troops off the islands for 10 days, while they realize the destructive power of the new weapon. The days post-Hiroshima is when I think Truman really got led by his generals.
2. Sammy from Sicily says:

   6 August, 2010 at 3:22 PM

   There is never, and will be never a justification for the killing of innocent lives.

   They say that war is a dirty game..But it is much better not to play this game at all.

   In my opinion Truman was a weak man, and was forced by the circumstances to end the war at any cost. And he took the shortcut by annihilating many innocent people to win his game.

   The big question is: Would the Japanese have done the same thing if they had this nuclear weapon in their possession ???

   I believe that civilized society has evolved to the point that it must definitely abolish all nuclear weapons before it destroys itself.

   Einstein, who developed the nuclear formula, knew that his discovery would eventually be used for the destruction of man. And as I can recall: He did not wanted to have nothing to do to the development of the Atomic bomb.

   Many of those that worked for the development of this destructive device died from radiation related diseases.

   Truman led a quiet life in his hometown, and Tibitt, the man that dropped the atom bomb, died at a ripe old age. But never had any remorse for the death of all those innocent people. He was quoted as saying; that he was following orders. I guess this cleared his conscious of all this affair..So, really who are we to blame for this atrocity.

   Sammy from Sicily
3. USA / desilveywr says:

   8 August, 2010 at 4:15 PM

   Well, it did end the war. The fact that it take in excess of one day to realize the destructive effects of Hiroshima is what led to the necessisity of the Nagasaki drop.

   Truman wasn’t just a puppet for the Military; history demonstrates that he was indeed his own man.
4. Sammy from Sicily says:

   9 August, 2010 at 3:08 PM

   Truman himself wrote later in life that, “I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war… I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again

   But historians have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary and inherently immoral.

   For this reason, I firmly believe that all nuclear weapons must be abolished. So that no man or country that is in possession of nuclear weapons has the power to destroy humanity.

   And this Hiroshima, and Nagasaki atrocity should be a lesson for all responsible people to acknowledge that human life has more value than political, religious, or ideological views.

   In my opinion Truman was a weak man, who obtained recognition through this reckless decision that he made, at the expense of killing many innocents to obtain his victory. Like he used to say the “Buck” stops here.
   Sammy from Sicily
5. UK / Martin says:

   16 August, 2010 at 1:55 PM

   I must admit a bit of surprise that the objective of total nuclear disarmament has come alive after being absent for so long. President Obama started it when he accepted his Nobel Prize last year, and now Ban Ki-moon has taken up the refrain. I suppose there is value in it as a stated goal, yet I find it very hard to believe that present-day nuclear states would ever bring it to realisation.

   However keeping the history of their first use on Japan front and center, is essential to remind all of the horror they cause. The world can work to at least limit their quantity, and it must.