60 Years-atomic Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki War Crime without charges

[Galahad 0]

It's incredible... What I would like to see happen, is the whole world uniting against USA. Why? I'll tell you why...US presidents have nothing better to do, but to go around the world, looking for stuff to buy. When they can't buy, they take. USA (the government, not the people) is the greatest evil ever. They impose their oppinion on the whole world, and propagate double standards. "Everyone is wrong, we are right". Right my a*s...Nuclear bombing was the most cowardly thing ever done, and I think USA should at least pay great amounts of money to Japan. If they can put people on trial for war crimes, they can certainly be put on trial for same things. No double standards! Who gave the USA the authority to police the world? What do they know? The citizens of USA live in dark, because theire government serves all kinds of stories...US want's to stay the ruler of the world, and they don't choose the tools to remain in power...I say, USA should be put to trial, for war crimes against Japan.

[hulunes 0]

... ...we should not blame any fault happened long ago.we should cherish the precious peace.if you are intertest in the history about worldwar 2,especially in east Asia,which you will find the truth,find the key to who is wrong,who should be alarmed to give up the war.what skynet said is a little prejudice to japanese blameless people.but till now,what i angry is japanese government who still insist to falsify the history of world war 2 in pupils's history.any east asian knows that...i think if you really want a reply for 60 yrs ago,why dont you review and check what you did before and are doing now?do you really love peace?

[JasperIk 0]

Japans shouldn't have Bombed Pearl Harbor, but American shouldn't have bombed Japan with an atomic bomb! Not only do bombs destroy homes, lives, and everything else around people...but Atomic Bombs, cause genetic defects. Its going to take atleast a hundred years before no defects are found in children, that were born to survivors of the attack. American Unintentially caused harm to Japans "future" innocent off spring... But the only way to really give a war crime to America, would be to punish people who weren't even that old when it all happened, or werent born yet... you know? Not many people old enough, to punish!

[ongnoai 0]

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have marked the anniversary of its destruction by the world's first atomic bomb 60 years ago.

 

Yes the bombing ended the war but many innocent civilian were killed so it is War Crime.

 

173198[/snapback]

Well Kasm, I was born quite some time ago in a country not so far from yours which was at that time under jap occupation. Believe me, you would probably keep some grudges against them if you had only had this experience. Those on the spot knew down to the marrow of their bones that the criminal foolishness of the japanese high-command has to be shattered down to shambles if this war was to be ended at all. I'm sure that if you get to talk with elderly Aussies around you about that time they went through, they' ll say the same I do.

 

Now, I understand your point is about having double standards about the guilt of war crimes. I'm afraid I'm entirely in agreement with you even if I hardly share your views to stamp out Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes. I still rue to think that Henry Kissinger has been responsible for purposedly sabotaging peace talks with the Vietnamese just before Nixon's re-election just for the sake of making Viętnam an argument for reelecting the president, and hence keep his job as State Secretary. The States now have the dubious privilege of harbouring a war criminal at large who could be indicted for more than 1 or 2 million deaths, roaming around with the hellish gal of the guy who can demand 50,000 bucks every time he spreads his nauseous vomit in public speeches.

 

Let's face it. It's uncommonly cheap to become a war criminal. Dear Henry, according to thorough investigations, could overthrow Chile's Allende for less than a million bucks. A bargain, so to speak. It makes the individual corpse very inexpensive, right?

 

This is life, simply, my friend. History is to be written by the victors, as a certain Adolf Hitler was prone to say. The best we can do is to never forget and see to it that we do not personally agree to do the same as they did. Because we're a deadly species, and most everyone of us could be brought to do the same, under the circumstances.

 

Cheers to all, guys.

[ago 0]

I can't beleive what I am reading here! What do they teach you in school?1. The fleet attacked in pearl harbour was a military fleet. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki the victims were civilians.2. The USA guilty for war crimes for which it didn't pay.History is to be written by the victors. Amen.

[HoRuS 0]

True! History is written by the victors and that's the problem. Eversince WW2 the American government decides what is written in history-books and what should be left out. Even in their movies it,s always this: America = good guys, the rest of the world except UK = bad guys.

 

First of all, America is stolen from the Indians, so what the **** are they trying to tell us what is justice? It's a nation, build on blood and still spreading blood, but now around the globe. Don't get me wrong, most citizens are aight, but the government is corrupt eversince they set foot on that land.

 

Always in the wars in wich the US fight, more citizens get killed then soldiers, whether it is in Hiroshima or Iraq. Now they're telling other nations to get rid of nukes, while they're one who used nukes themselves. Iraq never used nukes, Iran never used nukes, Japan never used nukes but the US did! Is this justice?

[adriantc 0]

True! History is written by the victors and that's the problem.

You are very true! History is made by the victors. In every american movie they show nazy soldiers as evil in person. Of course Hitler and his war dogs were above madmen, they were simply evil. But I am sure that the common soldier had a family waiting at home and they were not the evil figures shown in every movie.
Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote "The end justifies the means". Of course that is very true and valid if we look from the american perspective over the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it seems the americans haven't learned a thing from that experience. The capitalism made them extremly selfish... they only think about themself. War in Iraq still makes a lot of civilian victims... it is even worse when we think that the war in Iraq is a war fought not for some principal, but for the black gold, the oil. The war on terror is just a smokescreen for the real war. The power in the world is extremly unbalanced... The UE or any other country cannot match military or economicaly the USA. In other words the USA do whatever they want in the world without anyone beeing able to complain. The perfect example is the war in Iraq... some oposed but no one could have done a thing. This "I rule the world" perspective makes way for small countries like Iran to fight back in their own stupid way. Balance is everything and there is none in the world now.
A very few americans will be really against the atomic bombings. As I see it the First and The Second World made America what it is today, the biggest power in the world... The bankrupcy of Europe was a blessing for the American economy... many countries ready to buy a lot of stuff for the right amount of money. So the atomic bombings were like cheating in a video game. You will end the game but you will never fell victorious. Once again "The end justifies the means" if you are on the right side of the war...

[catfish 0]

True! History is written by the victors and that's the problem. Eversince WW2 the American government decides what is written in history-books and what should be left out. Even in their movies it,s always this: America = good guys, the rest of the world except UK = bad guys.

well thats to be expected, and in this particular case above most, you can even say its true. the holocaust et all pretty much fits the general definition of evil.

i mean how much can you blame a counry for making movies that glorify itself a wee bit? dare i even talk about say, the russian propoganda? those movies w/ stalin landing in berlin etc. The USA is not so much different from every other country in the world

First of all, America is stolen from the Indians, so what the **** are they trying to tell us what is justice? It's a nation, build on blood and still spreading blood, but now around the globe. Don't get me wrong, most citizens are aight, but the government is corrupt eversince they set foot on that land.

every land was "stolen" from someone else. you claim america is based on blood, but how about europe? wars have been raging up and down the entirety of europ for the better part of the past 2000 years. (and probably a fair bit longer)

Always in the wars in wich the US fight, more citizens get killed then soldiers, whether it is in Hiroshima or Iraq. Now they're telling other nations to get rid of nukes, while they're one who used nukes themselves. Iraq never used nukes, Iran never used nukes, Japan never used nukes but the US did! Is this justice?

and the us was responsible for all those civilains being killed? you make me laugh.

the 2 bombs killed a grand total somewhere under/around 250,000: less then jap did during the rape of nanking, and is a whole hell of a lot less then the germans inflicted on the russians, whose civilian casulties (if i recall correctly) were in the TENS OF MILLIONS.

so we are telling other nations to get rid of nukes, and you say that makes up hypocrits? hardly. any country by definition looks after number one, and you can hardly say an iran w/ nukes is a good idea. (esp after that wipe isreal off the map episode) In anycase MAD was not a factor back in wwII, a nuke was just another weapon. (not to mention a hell of a lot LESS powerful then a modern nuke.)

[CroSpartacus 0]

The US runs the world and it seems that they don't really care if what they do is a war crime or not. The British Empire is responsible for thousands of atrocities they committed in all their colonies and yet they are not being tried by any court.The Hague is a joke. Slobodan Milosevic has been there for about 5 years and nothing has happened to him. He pleads sick and they postpone his trial for months where nothing gets done. Even the judge presiding over his trial is retiring meaning that the case can be started all over again from the beginning.

[s2city 0]

That's not a very objective view... but I guess if that's how you think. I don't believe the US runs the world; our planet is called Earth... not America. The legal system isn't perfect, I doubt if any legal system can be. But anyway, I just wanted to throw my two cents in regarding the Atomic Bombing -- true it ended in an incredibly huge number of deaths, but in truth, had there been no bombing just as many allied soldiers could have died. Like I said that's just my two cents... take it or leave it.

[Earths Daughter 0]

I think war crimes have a lot to do with whether or not it's something that most other nations would not do. At the time, the US scientists didn't understand nuclear weapons very well, and the US politicians therefore would have understood them even less. The politicians would have heard "blah, blah, blah, more powerful bomb than ever made before, blah, blah, blah, large explosion, blah, blah, blah". And that would have decided them to use it. Everybody that had bombs and planes or rockets were using them throughout the whole war. So the A-bomb was just a bigger bomb to the politicians and military leaders. Any other country that had it back then would have dropped it, too. Because they had no idea what it would really do. they just expected a bigger explosion than other bombs, and nothing more. As for whether or not the US knew about the dangers of radiation, I seriously doubt it. The US personnel that went in to help survivors were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. Then they were working on artillery that fired nuclear shells during the 1950's. Anybody that fired a nuclear artillery shell would be close enough to die. And during the 1980's I read an article about the American Navy Seabees that did the cleanup on the Bikini Atoll in the 1960's where nukes had been tested. They went out and used bulldozers and piled up the dirt in a big pile and poured a concrete dome over it. The Navy guys doing it did not have any real protection, and were getting cancer years afterwards. And the US was doing above ground nuclear testing at White Sands all those years, in their own country. So I don't think they really knew about gamma rays back then.It was just a bigger bomb to them at the time, that's all. And any other country would have dropped the biggest bomb they could. If Germany had an A-bomb during the London Blitz, they would have nuked London. When the Brits were bombing Nazi-occupied territory, they would have used it in France, Germany, Belgium, etc. The Russians would certainly have used it on the Nazis, and vice versa during the long fighting in Russia. After the US used it on Japan, and found out how bad the damage was at that time, they gave Japan all sorts of favorable trade treaties out of guilt, which are still in effect today. The A-bomb was not dropped right after Pearl Harbor, so why draw a straight line from one to the other? There was a lengthy war fought first with lots of people dying on the Japanese and Allied side before the A-bomb was dropped. You have to realize how the people thought at the time. It was just a bigger bomb, nothing else, and if it helped end the war, so much the better. Too many people had died on both sides, and nobody really wanted the war to drag out another several years.When Dictators round up a bunch of unarmed civilians and have them all killed, that's not an act of war, that's just slaughtering helpless people. That's a war crime. When military leaders use the best weapons they have available during a war, that's normal. The US never used the best weapns they had available after WWII, however. They considered them too horrible to use them again, although they certainly had the chance in several wars after WWII. When Allied troops invaded on D-Day, and pushed up into Germany, any Allied Soldier found to have raped a German woman was court-martialed and killed. But how many German troops raped Allied women in countries they invaded and were never punished for it? How many Japanese troops raped women in occupied countries and were never punished for it? Unfortunately, war brings out the worst in a lot of people, and all war crimes will never be punished. The important thing is that the Allies had laws and military regulations against raping women, and killing babies and unarmed civilians in the countries they were in. And the Nazi and Japanese troops considered it a normal thing to do, and a way of having fun, instead of a crime. Try not to let your dislike of modern US military policies color your thinking about the past. They did what any other country would have done in their situation in those days. They used the best weapon they had to try to end a war costly in lives on both sides. Hindsight is 20/20, meaning you know all the consequences of an action after it's already done. But you can't use that hindsight to change the past. Nor should you use it to condemn what was a normal act for a nation at war in those days.As for your dislike of Bush, he's a lame duck president, he can't run for election next term. So hopefully we'll get a President who does not have such a gift for angering most of the world running things next term. Hopefully the next one will sign the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, and make a few more changes to US policy. By the way, oil prices in the US have gone up, not down because of the Iraq invasion. Every time anything bad happens in the Middle East, US oil prices go up. It's always been that way since we started importing oil from the Middle East, any halfway educated person in the US knows that. So the war was not to get oil cheaper from the Middle East. We all knew it would be more expensive if we invaded Iraq. But Bush is another topic entirely, so I don't want to get started on that.

[ongnoai 0]

As for your dislike of Bush, he's a lame duck president, he can't run for election next term. So hopefully we'll get a President who does not have such a gift for angering most of the world running things next term. Hopefully the next one will sign the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, and make a few more changes to US policy.

 

By the way, oil prices in the US have gone up, not down because of the Iraq invasion. Every time anything bad happens in the Middle East, US oil prices go up. It's always been that way since we started importing oil from the Middle East, any halfway educated person in the US knows that. So the war was not to get oil cheaper from the Middle East. We all knew it would be more expensive if we invaded Iraq. But Bush is another topic entirely, so I don't want to get started on that.

 

Hey there, folks.

 

I couldn't figure this debate would be so interesting right from start. I'm getting a high opinion about what's been written before I came into it.

 

Couldn't we all agree simply that WAR itself is a war crime? The one country that resorts to declaring war to another will eventually end up with its history tarnished, be they the victor or not. History written by the victor is apparently realistic, but bound to ultimate failure. Mankind has a way to turn a critical look upon their own history and today's contrived truth will be tomorrow's object of contempt.

 

Now, Earths Daughter, I quite appreciate your equanimity about the bushes. You should not forget however that *BLEEP* Cheney got an astounding US$ 38 million parachute (according to Michael Moore) from the company (a company having vested interest in re-building Iraq, right?) he left prior to becoming vice-president, and Condoleeza was a top executive in Chevron if I'm not misled. I hardly believe in miracles, sorry for that. Believe me, nothing will come up from expecting future betterments without our acting. Bad politicians are elected by bad (i.e. gullible) voters. Hope is to be found in good (i.e. realistic) voters to elect good presidents. It would be about time, I should say! Think of it next time you vote, all.

 

Cheers!

[brainless 0]

earths daughter: yes, those scientists who developed the nuclear bombs did not really know what they were doing. that's why sensors have been dropped together with "the Bomb" ... and they did not have the time to find out what they did because, after all I know, the A-Bomb is the weapon which took less time than any other weapon to make it from the testing range to a battlefield. First test: Middle of July - First use: early August.

 

anyways, I read an article about why President Truman decided to drop "the Bomb" over Japan even though he and his advisors knew that Japan was de facto not a threat to the US army anymore which is actually a theory that sounds convincing ... however, I do not know about the author's sources and I'm not too sure about this news sites' credibility so I'd appreciate any comment pointing out sources which support or falsify this theory.

 

You can find the article I base this post on here (only available in german): http://www.saar-echo.de/de/art.php?a=24729

 

1) During a conference in Potsdam-Babelsberg right after the bomb test runs (Truman was already in Germany when the first nuclear bomb ever was triggered around 5:30 am local time in New Mexico, at about 19:30 (that's 7:30 pm) german time, but don't ask me any questions about time shift between Germany and New Mexico), Truman tried to impress Stalin with his news about a "super bomb". Stalin was kind of bored about this since his spies in Los Alamos passed news about the development on to him (though Stalin probably did not know the actual effect(s) of "the Bomb"); Truman probably did not know that Stalin knew.

 

2) US "Target Intelligence COMmittees" (TICOM) searched for and captured german code breakers, beginning in late 1944 because US military officials thought the Germans might have cracked the soviet encryption.

 

The following two points are, according to the article I mentioned above, classified as top secret even 60 years after WWII. That's also the point with which the article's credibility stands or falls (how did the author obtain this information if it's top secret?

 

3) Thanks to the german code breakers, President Truman learned about Soviet plans to invade Japan in August 1945, the US invasion of Japan was scheduled for November - leaving Japan occupied by the Soviet Union since neither the US nor the USSR intended to start a hot war between the two super-powers.

 

4) During WWII, Japan raided large parts of south/east Asia for gold worth "'several hundred billion dollars'" (at the exchange rate the dollar had 60 years ago, not the modern one) while Germany provided only about 20 billion dollars in industrial products, 10 billion of those were to go to the Soviet banks, according to a treaty negotiated by the Allies.

 

-- this is important because, according to the treaty of Bretton-Woods, the US Federal Bank was obliged to be able to exchange dollars for gold at a rate of $35 per ounce of gold. With more gold in the US Federal Bank, the US could give out more dollars, with more dollars out in the world, the US Federal Bank... you know what I mean -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

 

5) I'll quote the article here:

 

The Soviet plans to invade Japan threatened to take the gold Japan stole in the war years before the US could take hold of them. Truman had to act immediately without disclosing the backgrounds of his actions.

 

The sudden nuclear strikes against the practically beat Japan were, according to his Hypothesis, supposed to immediately end the war. Truman's only chance to stop a soviet occupation of Japan were the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Japan [i suppose this is a typo and was meant to read Nagasaki].

 

In the last minute, Stalin gave the order to invade Hokkaido [one of the japanese isles] but aborted the operation in the last second. He feared a direct confrontation with the United States.

...and I just found a hint to a source pointing out the soviet plans to invade Japan: Boris Slavinsky - "The Soviet Occupation of the Kurile Islands and the Plans for the Capture of Northern Hokkaido" in "Japan Forum" (Vol. 5, No. 1, BAJS 1993)

[iGuest 3]

that's not quite right, you know, all you people that are saying that the japanese were horrible people so they deserved it, or that the us was expected to retaliate, cuz of pearl harbor.

I understand that those were a few of the justifications. The japanese did do some pretty horrible things, like medical experimentation, rape, etc. However, didn't you guys know that the US has done things just as bad? if you live in the US, textbooks only give you the winner's side of the story, they don't mention the horrible things that all nations do during wars, that the US has done. Sure, what the japanese did was cruel, but do you see anyone dropping atomic bombs on us because of something that the US military decided to do?

also, that thing about retaliating to pearl harbor... Uh, hello? let's look at this logically, shall we? pearl harbor vs. Hiroshima, military base vs. City (and yes, I do know that hiroshima had a relatively high concentration of military personnel, but the majority of the people there were citizens). Regular bomb vs. Atomic bomb, a few thousand dead vs. Hundreds of thousands dead. So, that retaliation argument? yeah, not working.

I do realize, despite all I just said, that the US did warn the japanese with the Potsdam declaration. However, the Potsdam declaration had no mention of an atomic bomb. All it said was that japan would inevitably be destroyed. I mean, if you were them, back in the 1940's, could you imagine that a killer bomb that would destroy an entire city would be dropped on you? and on the issue of the flyers, even if the people did evacuate, what would the japanese government do with a couple hundred thousand people who now have no place to live? their homes are gone, their jobs are gone, they wouldn't be able to support their kids, and the other cities can't just take a couple hundred thousand people and give them jobs, now can they?

 so yeah, I don't think what the US did was the most humane of decisions. I do realize that had they not dropped the bomb, either japan would have surrendered to the Soviets and would probably be communist right now, or the US would have invaded japan, which would've led to many civilian, japanese soldier, and US deaths as well, so... Given the choices that Truman had, and the knowledge that Truman (or anyone else, for that matter) did not realize that the radiation would be so devastating, I think he made the choice that he saw as best for his country, though I, personally, do not particularly agree with it 

 

-reply by lily