G7 health ministers lay flowers at statue for Nagasaki A-bomb victims

How many of these countries have nukes or host them?

Flower will help nuclear non-proliferation, it's nice to see meaningless event being staged in Japan.

Yeah, the nuclear bomb blasts were horrific, bla, bla, bla. Let’s not forget the millions of innocents Japan wiped out during the first half of last century throughout Asia and the northern pacific. Where are the flowers for them?

What Japan did in the past will never justify the use of horrible atomic bomb against civilians. The bomb was not against army! It was used to kill innocent people that some of them were at work, at home or gathering with families. The author of that bomb is sitting in the throne of the country since them and worshipped by young generations. Interesting?

Nagasaki Peace Memorial Statue was sculpted by Seibo Kitamura to symbolize God and Buddha's love; the raised right arm is meant to symbolize the threat of an atomic bomb; left arm peace and tranquility; half-closed eyes prayer for atomic-bomb victims to rest in peace. 

The catch is: does the statue embody all these good intentions? For starters, why is it a stripped muscle man with a countenance not like a mongoloid?

Compare this with the Peace Memorial Statue sculpted by Shinzan Yamada at the Peace Memorial Park in Mabuni , Okinawa.

Sur-realism art may be the answer here. Or erect nothing for anything sacred and sanctuary.

 It was used to kill innocent people

Not is wasn't. The bombing's aim was to quickly end the war, which it did.

The US air force routinely dropped leaflets - over 100 million - telling "innocent people" to get out of the cities and listing future target cities. But the Japanese authorities issued harsh penalties for those caught reading them and so the vast majority of civilians stayed put.

@JeffLee Children were evacuated from cities including my future MIL & FIL to Okayama and Nagano respectively. If residents of large cities like Tokyo and Osaka didn't have families in the countryside many urban residents did not have the financial capacity to move to the countryside. Parents needed to remain in the city to make an income. Many innocents perished in these raids burning to death or dying of smoke inhalation.

kime - What Japan did in the past will never justify the use of horrible atomic bomb against civilians. The bomb was not against army! It was used to kill innocent people that some of them were at work, at home or gathering with families.

It seems you have a somewhat twisted view of history. The Japanese imperial army killed more civilians in the Hangin massacre than both nuclear bombs put together. Add to this the massacres in the Philippines, Singapore and Korea. Regardless of how attrocious the nuclear bombings were Japan did far worse throught Asia in the firat half of last century.

Parents needed to remain in the city to make an income. 

They would only have needed to evacuate only for a couple of weeks or so, after a bombing took place. The US leaflets gave a list of cities of potential target cities in the following couple of weeks or so as a heads up to the civilians.

Japan's military and industrial facilities were clustered in and around the urban areas. If the US had left those areas untouched, Japan would have never surrendered and fought harder, and the war would have never ended until maybe the Soviets arrived in big numbers. Hello, World War 3.

History can’t be undone, so a discussion is of not much use, and of course no one was an angel at those times, neither the winners nor the losers. They all have done very bad and brutal things at those times. The bigger and overwhelming problem here and now is, that they all haven’t learned anything through all those 78 years since then. Mankind is still completely stupid without exceptions, still owning , producing or operating with atomic weapons arsenals and not only some of those G7 keeping them but also many other countries, and in tendency even more and more countries openly or hidden all want such inhuman technology and work with much effort to possess atomic bombs in the future too. So whatever you discuss here, but when everyone is still on the wrong path after eight decades, then there just isn’t any sign of hope regarding abolition of atomic weapons.

They all have done very bad and brutal things at those times...

The difference is that brutality was institutionalized within the Japanese (and German) military. So beheadings of POWs and civilians, etc. was expected as a Japanese soldiers' or officers' duty and seen as normal.

That clearly wasnt the case with the US and the Allies, whose policies were a lot more humanitarian and codified as such. When Allied soldiers committed killings of innocents, etc., these were rogue actions, outside their institution's norms and subject to punishment.

An attempt to put Axis and Allies on the same moral ground indicates a profound ignorance of history. But that's going around a lot these days, especially in Japan.

The bomb was not against army! It was used to kill innocent people that some of them were at work, at home or gathering with families.

Wrong. This old and tired lie just won't go away because some japanese intentionally want to try to play the victim.

Anyway, it is well-known and well documented that the japanese leaders had been and were using civilians as soldiers at the time and they were training any able-bodied japanese citizen to take up arms against the impending invasion ( which didn't happen, thank God ) , therefore there were no so-called innocent civilians, rather, a well- trained citizen army combatants.

Health ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies on Sunday laid flowers before the Peace Statue in Nagasaki to offer prayers for victims of the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb, ahead of the summit beginning next week in Hiroshima.

Maybe these Health ministers, politicians contemplating this tragedy, in fact the dreadful loss of life from all wars, could explain the fact these shows to offer prayers for victims of the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb are hollow shallow, from the fact that Nuclear proliferation carries on unabated.

Most importantly the lessons learnt, and taught by educators.

I suggest the fact we are closer to Armageddon, appears that all and sundry have learnt little or nothing.

his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons

"The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination." But he doesn't sign up. Strange vision.

I'm probaby going to get downvoted to oblivion but I believe that the US, under the conditions at the time was right in using the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Although I do not see any valid reason to have dropped the second one on Nagasaki before the Japanese military had a chance to understand and digest the Hiroshima bombing. But that the use of the A-bomb was right and necessitated at the time does not negate the fact that it was indeed an act that qualifes as a War Crime.

Those who still argue about what the Japanese military did, are completely missing the point. That does not justify bombing a city of civilians. We are watching in horror today seeing what the Russians are doing to Ukrainian residential buildings and hospitals.

General Curtis LeMay who was in charge of the aerial bombings of Japan said himself that if we had lost the war he might have been tried as a war criminal. By 1945 Japan's military targets and industrial centers had been so devasted by US bombings that there were no legitimate targets left. Given free orders to fire upon any targets of opportunity, P-51s were strafing school children. Acts like these have been documented. And no one ever charged.

When civilians are targeted, it becomes a crime against humanity. This is why 93 countries have attended the Hiroshima A-Bomb Ceremony. It has nothing to do with who was the aggressor. Civilians of al nations in any war are "victims". It expresses the global hope that we will never use nuclear weapons against each other in war again.

And today, with Putin having made the idea of the use of nuclear weapons palatable, it is more important than ever that the free world stand together against their use. And we must let the autocrats understand that we will absolutely not tolerate their use.

@Ossan

Although I do not see any valid reason to have dropped the second one on Nagasaki before the Japanese military had a chance to understand and digest the Hiroshima bombing.

Secretary of War Korechika Anami said he was nearly certain right after HIroshima that that bombing was a one-off and maybe not even atomic, downplaying its significance at the Supreme War Council deliberations.

But then came Nagasaki. Anami recounted that the second bombing was seen by him and other council members as probable proof that the US had a nuclear inventory and would be willing to use it until Japan's unconditional surrender.

Thus, the council, deadlocked on the surrender decision, turned to the emperor, who made the decision for them. Hirohito's surrender speech, heard around the world, cited the nuclear weapons as a prime reason for his decision to surrender. With Japan giving up, the rest of the world could once again enjoy peace.

When civilians are targeted, it becomes a crime against humanity.

Then all the major combatants are guilty. All bombed cities. The US was one of the very few that explicitly and routinely gave advance warnings to civilians.

The bomb was not against army!

It's pretty tough to bomb an army looking to go house to house fighting. How much more devastation would have been unleashed if Operation Downfall would have been unleashed? How many Americans would have been killed? How much of Japan would be sitting in a North Korea police state or part of Russia today?

The author of that bomb is sitting in the throne of the country since them and worshipped by young generations. Interesting?

Huh?

The first and only use of atomic weapons certainly produced the desired result, capitulation, total unconditional surrender.

Academics and historians have debated back and forth, the necessities of use of weapon of mass destruction to end the war with Japan.

Also the consequences of such human loss.

J. Robert Oppenheimer so called "father of the atomic bomb" suggested remorse and subsequent need to court redemption is in many respects assumption as quote Oppenheimer justified pursuit of an atomic bomb as inevitable

@ Ossan,

I upvoted. Unfortunately, it seems as if history is at the brink of repeating itself.

Seems need for WMB weapons proliferation in order to stop War from occurring, like in India & Pakistan's case.

At least Russia's ongoing unprecedented Weapons & WMD proliferation to NK, Iran, China etc. making World LESS likely to pursue War. Also causing unprecedented military spending increases in G-7 especially.

Dangerous Deterrent Better than Absence of Deterrent

Most nations have committed atrocities against other nations, and continue to do so up to the present day.

However all of those atrocities were commited using with conventional weapons, which is no excuse and by no means jusifies it.

That said, lets not forget that america was the first nation to use weapons of mass destruction against other human beings, and all the people who are trying to justify americas actions, by pointing to things that other nation have done should be ashamed of themselves.....there is absolutely no comparison and you know it !

They dropped NUCLEAR BOMBS on civilians TWICE.

These health ministers are the same lot who recently pushed lockdowns, untested jabs and masks on their populations under fear of arrest and loss of livelihood even though is coming to light that they knew these measures do not work, or didn't care even when they found out this was the case. But they stand here trying to look important without a shred of credibility left.

Japancat,they had 12 prepared more powerful

Yeah, war is bad for your health if you're a grunt or a common civilian, but for some others good for the bank balance. The USA and the rest of the world should reflect more deeply on the enormity of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and the killing of civilians with so-called "conventional" weapons) while the willfully forgetful Japanese should pay more attention to memorializing the millions who perished to construct their phony "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" because where there is no remembrance there is no contrition.

The US is responsible for two of the worst acts in the history of mankind…; (to date, it is the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict (let’s hope it was also the last) )…; To the hundreds of thousands of victims of the atomic bombings, Rest In Peace.

The US is responsible for two of the worst acts in the history of mankind…

oh, yes, definitely.

Just put the US on the list though behind the war crimes committed by Japan, Germany, genocides inflicted on its own people by China and the USSR, Srebenica massacre by Serbia, the Armenian genocide, Rwanda genocide, the Killing Fields, the slave trade initiated by the UK, French massacres in Algeria and Vietnam...I guess if there is a list the US is in the top 100,000 or so.

CPTOMO

the slave trade initiated by the UK,

really, the UK was formed in 1922.

Nuclear scientists participated in the Manhattan Project willingly to forestall Nazi Germany from developing nuclear weapons first ahead of the U.S. But when Nazi Germany was defeated in 1944, it turned out that Hitler's Germany had already abandoned a plan to develop atomic bombs.

That news, together with Nazi Germany's defeat, made many scientists leave Los Alamos National Lab because they thought it was meaningless to continue developing atomic bombs.

Wilkins and Jeffries were two of 70 Manhattan Project scientists who signed a petition urging President Harry S. Truman not to use the atomic bomb on Japan without first demonstrating its power and giving Japan the option to surrender. But Truman never saw the petition, which became apparent when it was declassified in 1961.

That said, lets not forget that america was the first nation to use weapons of mass destruction against other human beings, and all the people who are trying to justify americas actions, by pointing to things that other nation have done should be ashamed of themselves.....there is absolutely no comparison and you know it !

You're not familiar with the way WW1 was waged or the atrocities commited by the Axis in WW2. There is a comparison and you know it!

"The visit by the G7 chiefs to the peace park in Nagasaki came as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has voiced eagerness to pitch his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons at the summit in Hiroshima amid Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine."

Except, of course, he won't put his hollow words into action and sign a ban on such weapons. Nothing is a bigger and more obvious sign of the hypocrisy of such politicians and much of the nation.

kime: "What Japan did in the past will never justify the use of horrible atomic bomb against civilians."

Well, Japan DID slaughter more than 10 million across Asia, tested chemical weapons on civilians, did live vivisections, raped and murdered thousands if not more of sex slaves from children to elderly ladies, and even in their own nation forced women and children off of cliffs or to stand in groups in caves and pull grenades as they stood around them. And, of course, if Japan had not done what it did with the sneak attack in Pearl Harbor, the bombings would not have happened. So, I'm sorry, but what happened was the result of Japanese actions.

really, the UK was formed in 1922.

"wallace"--more funny than Monty Python:

*The term "United Kingdom" became official in 1801 **when the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland each passed an Act of Union, *

https://web.archive.org/web/20120415061235/http://www.actofunion.ac.uk/actofunion.htm#act

As per an interesting (and probably correct) analysis by Ward Wilson, it was not the bombs but the entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan which made Japan surrender.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

The bombs were neither necessary nor instrumental in changing the minds of Japanese leadership about the surrender.

Had the Soviets maintained neutrality Japan would have fought on inspite of the bombs since it was already preparing for the American ground invasion. A ground war in Japan would have meant high American casualties, and coupled with Soviet neutrality Japan could have then surrendered on its own terms to some extent.

By focusing on the bombs, Japan is able to play victim and the Americans are able to project themselves as the supreme power which ended the war.

On July 21, 1945, a senior US Army Air Force intelligence officer in the Pacific distributed a report declaring: “The entire population of Japan is a proper Military Target . . . THERE ARE NO CIVILIANS IN JAPAN.” Those seeing this for the first time think it represents hyperbole at best, racist sanction for mass extermination at worst. It was neither. This document does provide a portal to see exactly how the summer of 1945 looked to Americans, particularly those directing or participating in final operations against Japan.

When 1945 began, Japanese leaders recognized their nation’s dark military situation, but they rejected any form of surrender. Instead, they devised a sequenced military and political strategy called Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive.) Its fundamental premise: Americans possessed enormous material power but their morale was brittle. The plan aimed to meet the initial invasion of Japan (which they correctly anticipated would be on southern Kyushu) with massive ground and air forces. These would either defeat the invasion attempt or at least inflict such horrific casualties—American and Japanese--that American will to continue the war would be broken. Then in the second phase of the plan, Japan would obtain a negotiated settlement of the war, far from the declared American aim of the unconditional surrender of Japan. That settlement would certainly preclude an occupation of Japan and guarantee that the old order would continue.

The Japanese armed forces burgeoned in 1945 under urgent mobilization from about 4.5 million men under arms to over 6 million by August. But in March, Japan mustered a vast additional body of combatants: every single male age 15 to 60 and every single female age 17 to 40. This inducted about a quarter or more of Japan’s total population, about 18 to 20 million people. Japan lacked uniforms or any other visible marker to distinguish this new sea of combatants from the remaining civilian population. Multiple millions of these nearly mobilized former male and female civilians now combatants, would be in the Kyushu invasion area.

This brings us to what prompted the assessment that there were “no civilians in Japan.” It represented a reaction to the Japanese government’s measure to obliterate any practical means for US servicemen to distinguish combatants from noncombatants in Japan. The dire implication of this was no surprise to Americans. From 1942 Americans learned that Japanese servicemen regarded surrender as unthinkable. Virtually every Japanese unit fought near to annihilation—a record unparalleled in modern history. Voluntary surrenders were rare. More often, prisoners were only those Japanese left by wounds or debilitation too helpless to take their own life. And there was ample evidence that Japanese soldiers and sailors would use the ruse of surrender to kill unwary enemies—a fate that befell, for instance, one of John F. Kennedy’s shipmates in the South Pacific.

All the who fought the Japanese learned that the Japanese did not take prisoners, or if they took a prisoner, that individual would likely be cruelly tortured before being dispatched. As an Indian officer serving with the British wrote in a poem capturing typical Allied views of the Japanese enemy:

No prisoners we took, no mercy we gave

Their crimes against comrades we never forgave

Historian Herbert Bix noted the nadir of Japanese savagery towards prisoners. In eight years of war in China from 1937 to 1945, the Japanese killed at least two to three million Chinese soldiers. When Japan was required to hand over the prisoners of war she held after surrender, she presented a total of 56 Chinese. Almost half of Australian battles deaths in the war (8,000 of 17,000) occurred among those captured by Japan. About 35 percent of American prisoners of war held by Japan perished compared to 0.9 percent of Americans captured by Germany.

Americans encountered for the first time a large population of Japanese civilians on Saipan in June 1944. The Japanese military indoctrinated their civilian countrymen that the Americans would inflict unlimited atrocities on captured civilians and then exterminate them. About 13,000 of about 20,000 Japanese civilians on Saipan perished. Several thousand took their own lives rather than be captured. Wrenching newsreels widely seen by Americans showed scenes of Japanese families committing suicide together, including death leaps from cliffs. After Saipan, top level American planning documents spoke routinely that an invasion of Japan would confront a “fanatically hostile population.”

Thus, the statement that there were “no civilians in Japan” projected that an invasion of Japan would be a hellscape of a vast “civilian” population indistinguishable from combatants and that both would fight and choose death over surrender. And this is exactly the intimidating prospect Japan’s rulers sought to project.

The use of the bombs were justified against such a fanatical nation otherwise the death toll and horror would have been much higher. It's the hard cold truth that some still to this day try so hard to ignore by playing the victim.

Japan DID slaughter more than 10 million across Asia, tested chemical weapons on civilians, did live vivisections, raped and murdered thousands if not more of sex slaves from children to elderly ladies, and even in their own nation forced women and children off of cliffs or to stand in groups in caves and pull grenades as they stood around them. And, of course, if Japan had not done what it did with the sneak attack in Pearl Harbor, the bombings would not have happened. So, I'm sorry, but what happened was the result of Japanese actions.

America has never been bothered by these Japanese atrocities. Revenge for Pearl Harbor is the only reason for the atomic bombings

@EvilBuddha

The bombs were neither necessary nor instrumental in changing the minds of Japanese leadership about the surrender.

Emperor Hirohito, the guy actually made the surrender decision, would surely disagree with that assertion. He specifically mentioned the nuclear bombs in his speech to the Japanese people explaining his decision to agree to surrender. He also told grand chamberlain Fujita in 1946 that the US aerial bombings were utmost in his mind when making that decision following Nagasaki.

But I guess Ward Wilson knows better.

*rcchToday**  01:29 pm JST*

*The US is responsible for two of the worst acts in the history of mankind…; (to date, it is the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict (let’s hope it was also the last) )…; To the hundreds of thousands of victims of the atomic bombings, *

The US was responsible for ending japan's years long murder spree against innocent civilians of approximately 20 -30 million people and grotesque raping, grotesque medical experiments, unjustified imprisonments of civilians, grotesque murdering and abuse of Allied POWS and the list goes on.

The US ended all that of which japan started.

japancatToday  12:03 pm JST

Most nations have committed atrocities against other nations, and continue to do so up to the present day.

However all of those atrocities were commited using with conventional weapons, which is no excuse and by no means jusifies it

Japan killed many tens of millions by conventional means and in the most inhumane and grotesque ways.

America ended japan's psychotic murder spree.

As per an interesting (and probably correct) analysis by Ward Wilson, it was not the bombs but the entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan which made Japan surrender.

A common canard by the Stalin fans. Unfortunately, it is right there in the Emperor's speech, the atomic bombings. The Soviet invasion of Manchuko was NOT mentioned. If the Japanese were willing to fight to the death against the US, they surely would have been willing to do the same against the Soviets.

The bombs were neither necessary nor instrumental in changing the minds of Japanese leadership about the surrender.

Completely false. It's all over the discussions of surrender: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan . Sorry, your vaunted heroes, the Soviets, don't get to claim this theater for their "glory".

By focusing on the bombs, Japan is able to play victim and the Americans are able to project themselves as the supreme power which ended the war.

The truth hurts you, I understand, but it wasn't the Soviets that defeated the IJN and cut off the home islands.

China is not against nuclear arms discussion within the G7 forums, instead China applauding those talks and actions but that was limited inside the three members (US,UK,France) only. Their nuclear arms reduction is very welcome. Just for and only for them!

@JeffLee

Have you even read his analysis?

The Supreme Council knew that they will have to surrender at some point, but 'unconditional surrender' like what the US and Britain were asking for was not acceptable to them.

From the FP article - Gen. Anami on Aug. 13 remarked that the atomic bombings were no more menacing than the fire-bombing that Japan had endured for months.

And remember, whatever Emperor Hirohito thought it was the Supreme Council making decisions at that point of time.

https://archive-2017-2022.indepthnews.info/index.php/opinion/3758-soviet-advance-not-u-s-atomic-bombings-forced-japan-to-surrender

China is not against nuclear arms discussion within the G7 forums, instead China applauding those talks and actions but that was limited inside the three members (US,UK,France) only. Their nuclear arms reduction is very welcome. Just for and only for them!

Given China's development of hypersonics and stealth aircraft, it should be clear that NOTHING should be done on arms control without them leading the way.

It befuddles the commonsensical mind as to why some intentionally ignore japan's decision of Ketsu Go which is the traning and arming of virtually all the japanese population to fight against the Allies since it was already proven on Okinawa with the corps of civilian boys who were suicide bombers trained to run up to Allied tanks and roll under them with a loaded bag of explosives invariably blowing themselves up.

That's what the Allies were up against. A highly fanatical populace.

A common canard by the Stalin fans.

And what makes you assume I am a Stalin fan? I like Khrushchev though, since he reversed many of Stalin's policies. Russians today don't like him because he handed over Crimea to Ukraine SSR.

If the Japanese were willing to fight to the death against the US, they surely would have been willing to do the same against the Soviets.

Since you prefer hitting the keyboard over researching -

https://archive-2017-2022.indepthnews.info/index.php/opinion/3758-soviet-advance-not-u-s-atomic-bombings-forced-japan-to-surr

Neither the American conventional nor the nuclear bombing turned the heads of Japan’s leaders. Its Supreme Council did not meet until two days after the Hiroshima attack of August 6. Yet when the Soviets intervened on August 9 word reached Tokyo by 4.30 am and the Supreme Council met by 10.30am. Following Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito had taken no action. He merely asked for “more details”. When he heard of the Soviet invasion he immediately summoned Lord Privy Seal Koichi Kido and told him, “In the light of the Soviet entry…. It is all the more urgent to find a means to end the war.”

As Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki explained on August 13, “Japan had to surrender because the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido, (a large northern island belonging to Japan). This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war while we can deal with the United States.”

Most people hope this never happens again.

Emperor Hirohito, the guy actually made the surrender decision, would surely disagree with that assertion. He specifically mentioned the nuclear bombs in his speech to the Japanese people explaining his decision to agree to surrender. He also told grand chamberlain Fujita in 1946 that the US aerial bombings were utmost in his mind when making that decision following Nagasaki.

But I guess Ward Wilson knows better.

I guess Jeff Lee knows better.

Let me reiterate the point that Ward Wilson was making in his article. Since folks are fond of responding to back up their arguments without even going through the sources given.

From the FP article -

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

saying that the Bomb won the war would please Japan’s American victors. The American occupation did not officially end in Japan until 1952, and during that time the United States had the power to change or remake Japanese society as they saw fit. During the early days of the occupation, many Japanese officials worried that the Americans intended to abolish the institution of the emperor. And they had another worry. Many of Japan’s top government officials knew that they might face war crimes trials (the war crimes trials against Germany’s leaders were already underway in Europe when Japan surrendered). Japanese historian Asada Sadao has said that in many of the postwar interviews “Japanese officials … were obviously anxious to please their American questioners.” If the Americans wanted to believe that the Bomb won the war, why disappoint them?

A stupid, contrived ceremony.