So Ahmadinejad didn't threaten to wipe Israel off the map eh John? A mere technicality mate. He merely agreed with someone else's opinion that Israel should be wiped off the map. And here is the source:

Tehran, Oct 26 - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini.

Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.

If there are lies and distortion they are certainly coming from you.

Gentlemen, Perspective please.
There is clear evidence that Japan were considering surrendering prior to The two bombs.

The same as it was also clear that Japan didn't have plans to invade Australia. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't have. N.B. the first casualty of war/politics is truth.

My father was on the Burma railway and he told me that the most brutal inhuman guards were the Koreans....as if they had something to prove. Meaning, the public isn’t always told everything. The fact is that in war obscenities get done. Simply put the victors write the history.

Morally, just because one side commits atrocities (sacrificing their humanity0 that doesn't justify us doing the same. Before anyone gets excited this doesn't = appeasement or pacifism.

ATMAN, it’s not the Pilgers of the world that will in the long run it’s the ill informed lazy individuals who confuse rhetoric and propaganda with facts. We can’t lose WW2 now.
Remember if WE DON’T LEARN FROM THE TRUTH IGNORING IT BY BLIND PATRIOTISM WE ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.

Pilger is trying to point out that the US govt of the day has many agendas. One was to stamp its self as the world’s most powerful nation….Not necessarily the most moral or honourable.

From a factual point of view, party based politics doesn’t necessarily give us the best leaders. This is even starker in war.
Granddaddy Bush made his money as part of the 3rd Reich’s Bankers.

Anyone recon GWB was a good leader? To his friends war was a profit opportunity. To him that he’s a good American and the USA is the leader of the ‘free’ (sic) world.

We need to be suspicious of other countries motive for wanting us to go to war. So far we’ve followed all too often in other people’s wars and ambitions.

It's the 'leaders' who start these bloody wars and sell it to us on the grounds of patriotism and fear. Sorry but I don't like being a pawn or a mushroom.

Don't feeeeed the TROLL... (Pilger)

That's about all his article deserves.....

this a-bomb use...dont know guys...I mean, lets put ourselves in shoes of powers that had/ordered exploding a-bomb...truman et al...reasonably knew destructive power\radioactivity\lasting contamination...then carefully chose city so blast radius covered most or it...so looks good...and enola-gay so heavy that it almost couldnt take off...flew like a overweight duck any old plane could have brought down till before target...

so japanese didnt have much control over the skies by then...few carpet runs with conventionals would have produced same hiroshima results...with less civilian loss...yep...cold calculated mass destruction of souls...so american government could declare 'we are the most powerful-est'...and that attitude has continued since...eg iraq...

worse...manipulate population mass using corporate media...yes with deceit...eg "No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin" said the front page of the New York Times, a classic of disinformation...now go look at headlines leading to iraq invasion...see the similarity...same aim...act like snakes look like roses...

bottom line...to me three basic groups exist in these situations...those in-control, those loosing-control, and 'general world opinion'...eg american-govt/iraq-got/and us the world...what we get is 'news' but end of day we have to make an assessment/decision/with it where our support lies...and this is the greatest asset of all...the power that controls this most likely wins that war..

what Im saying is we the 'general_world-opinion' never support any wars...instead support right to peaceful growing coexistence...no matter what war-righteous propaganda the media throws at us...and soon we a 'force' will develop among us that enforces this 'want' over all governments...oh yeah...bye bye multi-trillion dollar arm industry to just billions-dollars...

Sam
guess if force of peace existed then...japanese/american people would step inbetween their governments war machines and face them off...end of war...leading to corporative common society growth...see this working...dont you...but yes...fundamentally it requires a 'common decent person of society(not destructive but constructive in acts)' to be 'street smart excellence(intellectual/emotional/spiritual balanced individual) applied with knowledge(educated) and skill(achieve happy daily life) organized to act(motivated and energized) achieve balanced outcome'...

Whenever somebody like Pilger makes a statement that some disagree with, not many seem keen to challenge him on his facts, just his right to state them.

Even if only 10% of what he says is true, then what does other 90% do to the validity of "the Big Picture"?

The truth is far more complex than what we are made to see through the lens of populist history and controlled media.

John Pilger states in the article "In the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the allied occupation authorities banned all mention of radiation poisoning and insisted that people had been killed or injured only by the bomb's blast."

My father served in the occupation forces from the end of the war until 1948, at a place called Bofu, not far from Kobe.

I recall during my school days him talking about having visited Hiroshima shortly after its destruction, and as to both his having been told, as an Australian serviceman, and the Japanese populace at large being told, that nothing would grow there for 70 years! The dozens of photos he had brought back of the utter devastation made such a claim easy to believe.

I particularly remember him remarking that, despite the warnings, Japanese civilians returned to the site within months, and within 12 months were growing vegetables and crops as well, if not better than ever! Of course, for reasons now well known, that might not have been wise. The point is that there was absolutely no secret at all as to there having been serious radiation hazzard after-effects. There was no reason for him having said this if it was not true.

He also resided for a time with a number of local Japanese families. I do not know whether that was by way of compulsory billeting, or by private invitation: I was too young to have realized the possible significance, or even the existence, of the distinction. The impression I have is of the latter. I remember his remarking that early on the populace found it absolutely incomprehensible that acts of personal or official retribution against civilians or demobilised Japanese servicemen simply did not occur.

The Japanese incursion into China between 1931 and 1945 has been claimed to have cost around 35 million Chinese lives.

General Anami's reaction to the first bomb: "So the Americans have a new weapon. So what!".

Something clearly had to happen to change the culture. Fortunately Hiro Hito saw things differently. The atomic bombs gave him the needed clout.