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The Forum > Article Comments > Hiroshima and Nagasaki - no place for blame > Comments

Hiroshima and Nagasaki - no place for blame : Comments

By David Young, published 6/8/2009

Unfortunately the world can never move on from Hiroshima and Nagasaki while there are still nuclear weapons on this planet.

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David Young,

"The history books in Japan are so brutally honest that it is almost painful",that's certainly not the impression given by the media here,very interesting.
Posted by mac, Saturday, 8 August 2009 4:33:12 PM
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David Young writes; "One of the facts not generally known in Australia is that the Allies knew that Nagasaki was the site of a prison housing American and Australian prisoners of war. The bomb at Nagasaki was dropped almost over that prison."
Another fact not generally known in Australia is that practically every significant industrial city had its labour camps where Allied POWs were held. For the Japanese, they were a form of "insurance" against mass aerial attacks as well as for slave labour.
Both cities were highly industrialised to provide the IJA with materials with which to conduct war. 90% of Nagasaki's population worked in these industries [John Toland, THE RISING SUN pp 801-2]. The municipal prison that Young refers to was less than 275yards from the hypocentre. Urakami prison was also destroyed. It is unlikely that POWs were held there.
Non-Japanese that suffered included Allied POW slave labour at the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works where some of these died. There was a POW camp around a mile distant and an unknown number died here also. 40 miles from the blast at Senryu camp Dr.Julian Goodman captured at Bataan and Dr.John Higgins, an Australian, both felt tremors as if from a huge barrage of artillery. It continued for 5 minutes. [Toland p805]
Posted by Extropian1, Sunday, 9 August 2009 5:27:56 PM
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"Seeing the documentary evidence that Japan tried to surrender on July 29, 1945, but was ignored until after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was saddening."
Japan attempted several negotiated settlements during and late in the war, mostly through Russia and its Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Secretly agreed terms of the Potsdam terms of surrender required Russia to declare war on Japan within months of the Axis defeat in Europe. In addition, the Japanese failed to appreciate the continuing Russian hostility and imperative for revenge over defeat in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War and the invasion by Japan of Siberia at the outbreak of WWl at the behest of the Allies. Molotov personally informed the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, that Russia declared a state of war between their respectve countries as of 9th August 1945. Russian troops by this time had already entered Manchuria. [Herbert Feis, CONTEST OVER JAPAN] The very first attempt at a peace settlement was suggested by Marquis Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and supreme confidant of the Emperor, before the fall of Singapore! [Lester Brooks, BEHIND JAPAN'S SURRENDER ch.10] At no time before the deployment of the bombs did Japan accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The terms set out for cessation of hostilities by Japan were, at that time and at any time previously, unacceptable to the Allies.
Actually, Japan had a dread of Russian occupation, cognisant as it was of the brutality meted out to the Germans when Russia invaded Germany itself and when Russian armour defeated all before it in
dispossessing Japan of Northern China. It preferred by far an occupation by the western Allies.
Nor did the Allies wish Russia to invade the home islands of Japan. The administrative nightmare of a divided occupation of Berlin and Germany was a significant factor in preventing Russia from another
similar occupation. The Allied plans for the rehabilitation of Japan were diametrically opposed to those that could be forseen in any Russian plans. It was a given that the latter would execute the Emperor Hirohito for war crimes.
Posted by Extropian1, Sunday, 9 August 2009 5:39:39 PM
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Continued...........
Japan's documentary evidence of the attempted surrender of July 29 is too selective and too simplistic to give a true and accurate representation of the circumstances. Absolutely nothing, whether political or military in these particularly turbulent times, is susceptible of a simple explanation. The so-called attempt to surrender was in fact a Japanese reaction to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. First news of the terms reached Japan on July 26. On July 28 Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki declared that the cabinet would "mokusatsu" that document. Hizatsune Sakomizu, chief cabinet secretary said he intended to convey the meaning of "no comment" but the subtlety of the Japanese language spread the meaning to "treat with silent contempt" or "to ignore". And this was how the Japanese English language press interpreted it in their headlines. On this basis, on the rejection of the Potsdam Declaration's terms by Japan, President Harry Truman, under immense pressure to end the war at any cost and to save thousands of American lives should an invasion be required of the Japanese home islands, gave the go-ahead for the deployment of the nuclear bombs. [Brooks, ch 12]
I repeat, Absolutely nothing, whether political or military in these particularly turbulent times, is susceptible of a simple explanation. To declare Japan already beaten into submission is a simplistic single factor in a multitude of factors that bear on the events that ensued. Strict control of these events up to and during the occupation was necessary for a unified Japan to suffer a benign administration and rehabilitation.
Posted by Extropian1, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 9:27:01 AM
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People kill people, NOT Nuclear Weapons.

In the throng of OVERPOPULATION for endless ECONOMIC GROWTH, the pain and suffering of billions is always going to be a minor tradeoff for political power, plus corporate, investor and institutional profits. The more people the greater the power & profits and the greater the silence of the lambs.

At the end of the day , nukes or antimatter weapons or some other obscenity will prevail while women are encouraged to have all the rights and all the children they want so they can breed new blood along with millions more immigrants.

Rudd & Laurie Ferguson's endless water & energy hungry immigration into a waterless land dying under smoke-plumes from power station & tailpipe stacks is proof that LOGIC does not apply where profits & bloody minded power take centre stage.

Today we build population numbers to sideline and dehumanise critics. Tomorrow there will be no voices left to counter the most ghastly weapons of mass destruction and the most ghastly deeds in the name of endless economic growth.

And it won't be over Nagasaki or Hiroshima it will be in the Western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne where all the social failures have been pushed & compressed.

Immigrate in the millions, say
get their GST,
who can say boo when too many's the sway
And when it gets too hot?
Forget the Hard Labor, We can Nuke 'em, you see.
In Australia, that's just Parli-amen-tree.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 9:54:59 AM
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