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Nagasaki observes 74th anniversary of A-bombing

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Every year, at this time, we go through yet another round of this. This much I know:

anyone who has a pat answer that dropping the bomb was necessary/bad, hasn't thought about the issue enough.

In truth, it's complicated, and good people can and do disagree in good faith. So long as they are appraised of all the facts.

For an excellent presentation of those facts, I offer the following:

"Hiroshima and the Historians:" Kenneth B. Pyle 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mfigIUbao

Start at around 10:00 minute mark.

Enjoy!

0 ( +7 / -7 )

The War need not have happened. And many of the results and methods were not what needed to happen. And that applies to both sides. I do not seek to rekindle historic pains but speak of truth from actual history which can be studied and understood with careful research by any individual.

I am glad to see this issue covered. I know the Daughter of Oppenheimer who led the US effort to develop the bomb and he regretted deeply to his last days that it has occurred. He felt it was a blight on humanity and that it need not have been used on a city to show its power.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Democracy in Japan at work.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

As they love to tell others, why don't ALL of us just forget and move on ? After all it is over 7 decades now , isn't it ?

-2 ( +9 / -11 )

Sorry but history can sometimes be a poor judge of present reality.

Has the region seriously as a whole learned the lessons past? It begins with the first breath of life and education.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

As they love to tell others, why don't ALL of us just forget and move on ? After all it is over 7 decades now , isn't it ?

That's not how it works when you're playing the victim card.

Its ironic that the people directly responsible for WWII would never have allowed free speech, but the people that dropped these bombs wrote it into the constitution.

2 ( +11 / -9 )

Japan was working to develop its own A bomb can you imagine what would have happened had they succeeded?

4 ( +14 / -10 )

Japan was working to develop its own A bomb can you imagine what would have happened had they succeeded?

They would have freed East Asia from colonial powers? (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

4 ( +15 / -11 )

Its ironic that the people directly responsible for WWII would never have allowed free speech, but the people that dropped these bombs wrote it into the constitution.

Chip Star, that may be the best comment you have ever made. I gave you a thumbs-up for that.

Japan was working to develop its own A bomb can you imagine what would have happened had they succeeded?

I shudder to think. Ultimately though Imperial Japan would have been defeated through even more devastating firebombings on top of the ones that were carried out, killing and maiming even more thousands of people.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

@Chip StarToday  02:52 pm JST

They would have freed East Asia from colonial powers? (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

It'll depend on when they have the nuke. Let's say they make it in 1941 (we'll also give them suitable delivery means since otherwise they'll have real trouble moving a Little Boy sized bomb around). They might be able to then demonstrate it to the United States (who will still be years from having their own). The Pacific War might just be averted, Chip Star. China might just throw in the towel. It might not be so bad :-)

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

It'll depend on when they have the nuke. Let's say they make it in 1941 (we'll also give them suitable delivery means since otherwise they'll have real trouble moving a Little Boy sized bomb around). They might be able to then demonstrate it to the United States (who will still be years from having their own). The Pacific War might just be averted, Chip Star. China might just throw in the towel. It might not be so bad :-)

I'm certain all the countries that Japan raped would celebrate being under the yoke of Japanese fascists.

-3 ( +9 / -12 )

Chip Star, that may be the best comment you have ever made. I gave you a thumbs-up for that.

Thanks.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

I'm certain all the countries that Japan raped would celebrate being under the yoke of Japanese fascists

.

Lol !! They celebrate in tears and sobs muffled by big yens dolled out to elite politicians not to be too loud and to " manage " anything on Japanese atrocities.

If Japan had nukes in good time ? I'm sure they'd have had no compunction whatsoever to use them liberally.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Readers, please stay on topic.

As they love to tell others, why don't ALL of us just forget and move on ? After all it is over 7 decades now , isn't it ?

I could'nt have put it better myself. Year after year we get this anual "discussion" which turns the whole thing into a circus. It happened, and everybody has their own conclusions.

I think after 75 years, this event only needs to be remembered every 5 years, up to a centinary.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

I always found it sad that it took TWO A-bombs to convince Japan to surrender. Nagasaki could easily have been avoided.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

@The Avenger

I always found it sad that it took TWO A-bombs to convince Japan to surrender. Nagasaki could easily have been avoided.

And it’s sad that Nagasaki doesn’t get all the attention Hiroshima gets because it wasn’t the first victim. Close, but no cigar.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

@Kazuaki Shimazaki

China might just throw in the towel.

Why should China have surrendered? You have perhaps not learned the lesson of Pearl Harbor: any people attacked will fight back.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

The American sanction against Japan were wrong

You seem to be saying the US should have stood by and done nothing.

There are only losers in wars.

Objectively false, but I completely appreciate the sentiment.

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

Hope will always spring from the ashes. Everlasting Peace will prevail.

RIP to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

RIP to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

and of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Why the yearly anti-American sentiment? Why cant they just forget about this and move on it happened so long ago? Sound kinda familiar?

Why the anti-Japan sentiment? Why cant they just forget about comfort women and move on it happened so long ago?

Neither subject is Anti Japan or America but some can make it so. Neither will be forgotten and people will not stop talking about either as they are important.

Both are tragedies of war. Remembering tragedies gives honour to the victims and helps promote discussion to ensure they never happen again.

By all means, down vote if you think the atomic bombings were not a tragedy.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

@zichi

There are only losers in wars.

Winners and losers on both the “winning” and “losing” sides.

The losers are those killed, maimed, those who lost their loved ones and property, and so on. On both sides. In the context of the Pacific War, this means Americans and Japanese. And before someone adds that “many more Japanese civilians suffered”, I consider soldiers human beings and not “warriors” expected to throw their lives away according to Bushido rather than surrender.

As far as winners on the “losing side”? It seems that the Imperial family made a remarkably quick financial recovery after a short period of postwar “suffering”.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

This is not about America bashing though the USA is the only country to use atomic weapons. It is about the use of the weapons again. Perhaps one day the USA will be nuked and the same arguments the Americans use will be used against them to justify the attack. Americans are not any better than anyone and the Milligram and Standford experiments are proof.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

And yet there is no mention of as to why the bombings were comeplety necessary? The annual victim playing is growing stale

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

Vince Black, Americans do the same thing remembering their past. Americans can never think about the other side and again Americans are not saints. They are people and the Americans commit war crimes as well. The message is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

I went on a field trip today with my preschool to Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

We were getting ready for lunch when they rang the siren for Nagasaki. All the kids stopped and prayed. It gave me shivers.

Another thing that was strange to me was how easy it was to explain to a child what happened.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

@zichi

It wasn't just American.

I made that reference for brevity’s sake. And if I might make the same point, your list is not all inclusive either.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

A lot of bitter and sad people here who cannot stay silent for a day to respect the dead.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Given that Japan became an arms dealer in 2014 I don't think the central government is listening

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

An epitaph at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial says, “Please rest in peace. We will not repeat the same mistake again .” This shows Japanese people’s determination that though they have the right to retaliate against the US for the genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they will not make the same mistake by nuking the US for retaliation.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

@Vince Black

And yet there is no mention of as to why the bombings were comeplety necessary? The annual victim playing is growing stale

The bombings were not necessary at all.

No invasion was necessary.

It was not necessary for the US to provoke any conflict in the first place.

It is just a lie the American military-industrial complex taught the American people who now parrot it like a mantra, to shut their consciences up about the brutality of it.

Partly for the mass murder of the defenceless, the women, children and the elderly; and, partly, so as not to question how their government was willing to deliberately sacrifice its young men as bait.

But, mostly, as a noise to distract and drown out the racist and imperious treatment of Japan and Japanese people over the 90 years prior, and in two continents, that led up to the events unfolding as they did. Treatment most Americans, Westerners even, are utterly ignorant off.

Only when seen in the greater context can it be fully understood how wrong it was.

-7 ( +5 / -12 )

We are human beings and we have the rights to destroy all remaining Automic bombs in all countries.we can not be the next destroyer of world after Oppenheimer

the man who regretted through out his life.He declared himself that he was the destroyer of world after Hiroshima.since I love Japan I am Learning Japanese

specially Hiragana( very easy for me )

may God bless Japanese people.

doumou arigatou gozaimasu.

gaman

10 rue Lebouis

France

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

If only the US had stayed away from their genocidal leanings.

How dare they try and try to justify this.

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

@Toasted

Agreed,

Due to American occupation censorship, visual evidence of this genocide was not to be publicly shown in Japan until 1952. 

The American public did not see any of the newsreel footage in mainstream theaters or television for 25 years, and the U.S. military film of the genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained hidden for nearly four decades. 

It's ironic the people responsible for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki censored all criticism of themselves and images and information about the bombings while enshrining the the "right" to "free speech" the constitution.

Has a comparison with Orwell's "Animal Farm" ever been more apt? Perhaps some pigs are more equal than others.......

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

Hope will always spring from the ashes. Everlasting Peace will prevail.

RIP to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

.... and RIP to the victims of Unit 731.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

It is worth remember that in the case of Nagasaki the target was specifically the largest Christian Cathedral in Asia, St. Mary’s Urakami Cathedral, in the area where the highest density of Japanese Christians were to be found.

They had suffered and survive 250 years of oppression in Japan, only to be nuked by the "Christian" American society.

Kokura was the prime target. Because of low cloud, the target was switched to Nagasaki at the last minute.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

We must remember and become stronger by it.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

it's just having done so - and many Japanese stayed on in Asia to fight against the colonial power and train Asian nations to resist them

So all the exaction committed by Japanese Imperial army was just to train Asian people to fight against colonial power. By doing bad things, they convinced their new colony people that colonization was bad and that they should fight against it. Thanks to teaching us that. To think Japanese Imperial army take upon itself to murder, plunder, rape, torture, ... fellow human being just to motivate them to stand against colonial power. I would never have guessed.

I do not remember from which country was Dutch a colony of. It seems the JIA teaching extended to Dutch lady so I guess they needed to learn how to stand against colonial power too. And the Japanese ones ?

Or perhaps the justification is as shitty as when European countries try to go around saying the colonization was to bring development, civilization, ... to these territories. Sure it was not possible to do it without colonization (if that was really needed) ...

What is going to be the next one ? Japanese government asked US to send nuke to help science progress ?

War is not made to be beneficial to peasant, civilian, low level troop, .... They are bombed, raped, killed, starved, manipulated, nuked, plundered .... and so and so ... only for the benefice of a few. As said by several before, war atrocities should never be forgotten so that they never happen again.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Japan was working to develop its own A bomb can you imagine what would have happened had they succeeded?

@macv. You may find this intetesting.

www.forces-war-records.co.uk.

The story of Marcus MvDilda.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@Ex_Res

Kokura was the prime target.

While that is correct, the Cathedral was the landmark the crews were looking for in Nagasaki.

@Flute

I do not remember from which country was Dutch a colony of

The Dutch East Indies, known known as Indonesia.

A good example to choose.

After the war ended, Japanese troops had to stay on to protect the Dutch from being literally cut to pieces by the local. Ditto, in the case you refer to, where the officers faced capital punishment from the IJA because what happened was against regulations.

Of course, no one actually read the history and prefers recycling the propaganda.

@Douglas Whitman

Maybe they should also remember all the Korea, Chinese, Filipino, Malaysian, and American lives lost to Japan's major involvement of WWII.

You would have to look behind the scenes to who was fueling, funding and arming the resistance, eg America's proxy war against Japan in China, before WWII started.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

I often wonder how the naysayers would feel if their country had been nuked.

Never forget, the only country that has used such weapons still claims its superiority on a daily basis.

You cannot but admire the Japanese reserve and forgiveness when it comes to these acts of mass murder.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Very good speech by the Mayor of Nagasaki. However.....

What is often ignored in the debates about the atomic bombs and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is the outcome of the War and what would have happened to Japan, had the atomic bombs not been used.  

Also the lessons from the Battle of Okinawa is all too readily forgotten. hough sources vary, during the Battle of Okinawa, 110,000 Japanese military, between 40,000 and 150,000 Okinawan civilians and 49,000 American military were wounded and/or killed.

As the fighting drew closer to mainland Japan, the Japanese leaders' mentality at that time, would never surrender or admit defeat, fighting to the very end. Surrendering would be "loss of face".  To not "lose face" was more important than losing hundreds of thousands of lives. (Look how many Okinawan lives during the Battle of Okinawa were sacrificed before Japanese military finally gave up and pulled back). To continue fighting was not a matter of Japanese military thinking, it was an aspect of Japanese culture and psychology at that time.

A popular Japanese slogan at that time was "The sooner the Americans come, the better...One hundred million die proudly."

Despite Japan being militarily finished, they still had in reserve an army of four million men in reserve, some 10,000 airplanes (to be used as Kamikaze), many warships, submarines and human torpodoes and other weapons to protect and defend the homeland and the Emperor.  Japan's defense plan was "Operation Ketsu-Go". (https://fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap4.htm)

While the Battle of Okinawa was being waged, the U.S. military planners were planning the inevitable invasion of mainland Japan. The U.S. plan was to invade Kyushu in November 1945 with a second invasion in June 1946.  

Not widely known to the U.S. planners at the time, the Soviet Union were also planning to invade Japan from the north, invading Hokkaido in August 1945. By the time of the U.S. invasion, Soviet Union would have ample time time to capture Hokkaido and a good portion of Honshu and occupying the northern part of Japan.

If the Battle of Okinawa was horrible for both sides, imagine how the "Battle of Japan" would have been! Imagine the ferocity, fanaticism, and desperation of the Japanese military and civilians fighting the incoming invaders. Men, children, women and elderly fighting to protect their homeland and Emperor.  Imagine the casualties!

Then there's the postwar aftermath: Japan would have been a divided country like Korea with North Japan under a DPRK-like government and South Japan under U.S. occupation, eventually reverting to sovereign South Japan.

Can anyone here honestly admit that this outcome would be the more preferable than what actually happened?  

Fortunately this didn't happen. The U.S. gambled on the atomic bombs, which helped convince Japan the futility of continuing the war effort; Truman warned Stalin to stay out of Japan (with the atomic bomb backing him up) and Japan avoided the fate of a divided country.  

If it hadn't been for the atomic bomb, postwar Japan would have been a very different country.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I agree with Halwick's comment, except that the U.S. did know about the USSR's plans to attack Japan. It had been agreed that the USSR would attack Japan 3 months after the fall of Nazi Germany, which is exactly what happened. What did not happen, thankfully, was the division of Japan between North and South. The USSR asked to have the country divided, as with Korea, but the USA refused, since the invasion of Japan did not happen. If the invasion had been necessary, I do not doubt that the USA would have gladly accepted allied assistance, as a way to reduce American casualties. This would have been very bad for Japan, both because of the huge casualties that would have occured, and because of the horrible result of being dominated by the USSR.

Speaking for most sane humans, I deeply regret that the atomic bombs needed to be used against Japan. However, I think that if they had not been used the results would have been even worse, with higher casualties for all sides, and with the long term destruction of Japan and the Imperial system. The Emperor would not likely have survived an invasion.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Furthermore, why haven't there been a World War III between the Soviet Union and U.S. or China and U.S.? Why haven't the many international crises throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s erupted into a full-blown, all-out World War III?

It is because the nations like the U.S., Soviet Union and China --- nations capable of waging Total War --- possesses nuclear weapons and knowing such wars involving nuclear weapons would lead to "mutual assured destruction", have made total, all-out-warfare unthinkable, unfightable and unwinnable.  

In this way, nuclear weapons have actually contributed to "world peace" and forced nations to resolve their conflicts through peaceful dialog and negotiations.

To abolish nuclear weapons takes the world back to a time when the world was nuclear-free, but hardly peaceful. There were NO nuclear weapons in 1914 (World War I), 1931 (Japan invading Manchuria and expansionism throughout Asia), 1939 (World War II in Europe) and 1941 (U.S entry into World War II.)  

As long as nations capable of waging war continues to rely on conventional weapons, war becomes thinkable once again. In the absence of nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons becomes the new choice of terror and doomsday weapons.

While the world is obsessed with abolishing nuclear weapons and striving for a nuclear-free world, it has forgotten how horrible and inhumane biological and chemical weapons are.  How about pleas for abolishing biological and chemical weapons in the same breath as nuclear weapons? 

Abolishing the tools and weapons of war will not lead to peace. The seeds of war are everywhere and rooted in deep conflicts of interests in political ideology, economic, religious, and cultural/racial differences. Only when these conflicts are abolished (realistically impossible) can there be hope for true world peace. 

Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is when dialog and negotiations fails to resolve the conflict and nations are forced to resort to war, that they look to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki memorials to remind us of the effects of Total, All-Out, Unlimited World Wars.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

@

Chip Star

The American sanction against Japan were wrong

You seem to be saying the US should have stood by and done nothing.

You do understand that the USA's provocation of the Pacific War was in no way charitable?

It was entirely motivated by its own imperial interests, taking advantage of the distraction and demise of the European superpowers in the region.

It's destruction of Japan was merely about cynically removing the most likely economic challenger and for not any moral reason.

@Serrano

But the civilians were supporting the military. Suddenly the situation gets complicated...

Actually it's very clear because the Showa bureacracy kept such good records (and they remain).

We know for a fact that war was started by the military without even the government's backing.

In truth, how democratic a society do you think Japan was in the 1930s?

Take for example, another unfortunately fact that Japanese women were not granted the right to vote until 1945/47.

Bang goes 51% of the electorate (incidentally, we know 67% of eligible women voted in the first election and 39 were elected).

In addition, children comprised of approximately 15% of the population.

So were your bombs magic bombs able to differentiate between war supporters, conscientious objectors (of which Japan had many, despite being against the law, especially among the pacifist Christian Socialists) and children?

To say nothing of the POWs and 10,000s of foreign migrant workers.

Or where they all just guilty by association for being perilously yellow, even the Koreans who claim they were being forced to work and the Korean women providing sexual services for them? (Koreans in Japan had their own Korean comfort women in Japan).

BTW, how many pacifist Christian Socialists do you have in the USA today taking an anti-war stance, and what is their standing within society as the USA prepares to invade and destroy Iran and set up a puppet regime?

The question we should be considering is not whether the mass murder of civilians was moral or legal but whether the war really came to the best end for the most people, based on what happened afterwards.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

@Halwick

Furthermore, why haven't there been a World War III between the Soviet Union and U.S. or China and U.S.? 

A word from William of Occam.

Answer: Because the US never picks fair fights against equals. It only picks on far smaller, less well developed nations, or rolls up once they are almost defeated or depleted.

Which largely makes its occupation of Japan a farce because if China did shrug its shoulders, the USA would immediately retreat.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

The question we should be considering is not whether the mass murder of civilians was moral or legal but whether the war really came to the best end for the most people, based on what happened afterwards.

@pacificwest: Are you suggesting that the inevitable invasion of mainland Japan and the most likely loss of millions of Japanese civilians and military in the desperate and fanatical fight to protect their country and Emperor, and the likely postwar division of Japan into a DPRK-like North Japan and a democratic South Japan would have been the best end for the Japanese people and postwar Japan?

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Primarily, I am stating that there was never a need for an invasion.

America's entire defence for the mass murder of women and children appears to be built up upon false grounds that appeal to their electorate's chauvinistic patriotism (the superior value of American lives), that there had to be an invasion.

Why?

WWII was over. They knew Japan's resources were utterly exhausted. Japan had offered to surrender.

Why did there have to be an invasion and why did they choose to further destroy what should have been the most obvious anti-communist ally?

Could Japan have put up an equivalent or even better defence than the Viet Cong? I think it would have. Japan was better trained/prepared and has even more difficult terrain.

The American people would not have had the stomach for endless loss of young lives for what? What was the gain?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

If that is not clear,

"No need for an invasion = no need for A bombs to saves lives in an invasion".

Ditto, to respond to the next trope about it being a lesson for Russia, if so, then drop it on Sakhalin where they could see it happen.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Halwick concisely covered most of the relevant facts concerning the bombings. One point that is often brought up is that the bombs weren't necessary, that Japan was on its last legs. Perhaps that is true. So, the only other options available were continuing firebombing campaigns, and maintaining a naval blockade to starve Japan into surrender. Both of these options arguable would have resulted in even greater suffering to the civilian population of the country than the atomic bombs.

Japan was NOT offering to surrender either. The Cabinet was dithering and trying to negotiate concessions, trying to use intermediaries like the Swiss or Swedes or Soviets, and not taking Truman's ultumatum seriously. Remember, they were warned.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

@pacificwest

You are not responding to my question. I asked who was Dutch a colony of ? Not who was a colony of Dutch.

If someone claim the exaction committed by JIA was to convince colonized people to free themselves from colonial people, ones have to prove that every victim were colonized people which needed to be teach the JIA way. Hence who were Dutch and Japanese a colony of ? If they were not a colony of anybody why did they needed to be taught to stand up against colonial power ?

War criminal is it ? if I understand what you are implying, if JIA people were found guilty, it means that what they had done was not to help asian people to stand against colonial power. So JIA had no intention to convince lot of asian people to stand against colonial power since official were found guilty for what happened in China, the Philippines, Thailand for example not only the Netherlands.

We know for a fact that war was started by the military without even the government's backing.

In truth, how democratic a society do you think Japan was in the 1930s?

So only the JIA wanted to make other asian people resentful enough to fight against colonial power but the government refused to back them up. I am lost : is that supposed to be good or bad ? It is a bit strange to go around supporting the saying that JIA were good because they tried to free fellow asian and that the government was not bad because because they didn't back up the JIA. Can you please be more enlightening is that matter ?

Of course, no one actually read the history and prefers recycling the propaganda.

Please go say that to people still daring to say colonization was for the good of the colonized people.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"As the only country in the world to have experienced the devastation caused by nuclear weapons, Japan must sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as soon as possible," Taue said in the annual declaration.

If you don't want a Nagasaki, don't start a Pearl Harbor. It is unfortunate that the use of atom bombs had become necessary, but the same thing can be said about all of the cities which were destroyed during WWII.

The first world war had recently ended on November 11, 1918. A second world war began in 1937, or 1939, depending on where you personally believe the 2nd world war started. After the proliferation of "nukes", world wars became a thing of the past. Approximately 20 years between the first two world wars followed by 74 years of no world wars. The reality, and availability, of nuclear arms seems to have led to a more peaceful world.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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