By Abdul Ruff
America conducted world’s first nuclear attack (Atomic test on humans) in Hiroshima of Japan seventy two years ago, while America constantly giving contradictory statements of never using nuclear arsenal again.
Tormented by terrific memories of destructions of WMD from USA, Japan’s traditional contradictions over atomic weapons have again come into focus. Japan is officially one of the hyper economic powers that have refused to have nukes for whatever reasons.
Humanity is in fact scared of American nukes. Japan had last month sided with nuclear powers Britain, France and the US to sack a UN treaty prohibiting atomic weapons, which was vetoed by critics for ignoring the reality of security threats.
US nuclear experiment with humans
Japan is also the only country to have suffered atomic attacks, in 1945. Japan, the prime target of US imperialism during the World War Two, on 06 August 2017 marked 72 years since the world’s first nuclear attack on Hiroshima. Today, Japan is a close terror ally of USA and NATO. That is story of success of US foreign policy that makes the real enemies its allies to jointly fight against ideological foes Russia and China.
The bombings claimed the lives of 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Some died immediately while others succumbed to injuries or radiation-related illnesses weeks, months and years later. It resulted in Japan announcing its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.
Japan suffered two nuclear attacks at the end of the World War II by the United States in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and in Nagasaki three days later. The bombings claimed the lives of 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Some died immediately while others succumbed to injuries or radiation-related illnesses weeks, months and years later. Japan announced its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.
The anniversary came after Japan sided last month with nuclear powers Britain, France and the US to dismiss a United Nations (UN) treaty banning atomic weapons, which was rejected by critics for ignoring the reality of security threats such as North Korea.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking at the annual ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park near the ground zero, said Japan hoped to push for a world without nuclear weapons in a way that all countries can agree. “For us to truly pursue a world without nuclear weapons, we need participation from both nuclear-weapons and non-nuclear weapons states,” Abe said in his speech at the annual ceremony. “Our country is committed to leading the international community by encouraging both sides” to make progress toward abolishing nuclear arms, Abe added without directly referring to the UN treaty.
Japanese officials routinely argue that they abhor nuclear weapons, but the nation’s defence is firmly set under the US nuclear umbrella and have criticised the UN Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty as deepening a divide between countries with and without nuclear arms. None of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons took part in the negotiations or vote on the treaty.
Many in Japan feel the attacks amount to war crimes and atrocities because they targeted civilians and due to the unprecedented destructive nature of the weapons. But many Americans believe they hastened the end of a bloody conflict, and ultimately saved lives, thus justifying the bombings.
No US president visited Hiroshima and Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima in May last year, paying moving tribute to victims of the devastating bomb.
Americans do not even mention about nuclear attack on Japan.
World War II and WMD attack
Hiroshima was the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission on August 6, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternative targets. Having been fully briefed under the terms of Operations Order No. 35, the 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Tibbets, took off from North Field, Tinian, about six hours’ flight time from Japan.
During the final stage of World War II, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. The United States had dropped the bombs with the consent of the United Kingdom as outlined in the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. In the final year of the war, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a US conventional and firebombing campaign that destroyed 67 Japanese cities. The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945. The Japanese, facing the same fate, refused to accept the Allies’ demands for unconditional surrender and the Pacific War continued. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese response to this ultimatum was to ignore it.
Orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities were issued on July 25. On August 6, the U.S. dropped a uranium gun-type (Little Boy) bomb on Hiroshima, and American President Harry S. Truman called for Japan’s surrender, warning it to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion-type (Fat Man) bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within the first two to four months following the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings had killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.
In 1945, the Pacific War between the Empire of Japan and the Allies entered its fourth year. The Japanese fought fiercely, ensuring that U.S. victory would come at an enormous cost. Of the 1.25 million battle casualties incurred by the United States in World War II, including both military personnel killed in action and wounded in action, nearly one million occurred in the twelve-month period from June 1944 to June 1945. December 1944 saw American battle casualties hit an all-time monthly high of 88,000 as a result of the German Ardennes Offensive. Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still debated to this day.
The role of the bombings in Japan’s surrender and the US’s ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker wrote in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, “the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue.” He wrote that “The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States.”
Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing casualties on both sides during Operation Downfall. One figure of speech, “One hundred million [subjects of the Japanese Empire] will die for the Emperor and Nation”, served as a unifying slogan, although that phrase was intended as a figure of speech along the lines of the “ten thousand years” phrase. In Truman’s 1955 Memoirs, “he states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million US lives—anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million US casualties, and Churchill of saving one million American and half that number of British lives.” Scholars have pointed out various alternatives that could have ended the war without an invasion, but these alternatives could have resulted in the deaths of many more Japanese. Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944, ordering the execution of Allied prisoners of war when the POW camp was in the combat zone.
Those who oppose the bombings cite a number of reasons for their view, among them: a belief that atomic bombing is fundamentally immoral, that the bombings counted as war crimes, that they were militarily unnecessary, that they constituted state terrorism, and that they involved racism against and the dehumanization of the Japanese people. The bombings were part of an already fierce conventional bombing campaign. This, together with the naval blockade, could also have eventually led to a Japanese surrender.
At the time the United States dropped its atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union launched a surprise attack with 1.6 million troops against the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. “The Soviet entry into the war”, argued Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, “played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow’s mediation”.
Another popular view among critics of the bombings, originating with Gar Alperovitz in 1965 and becoming the default position in Japanese school history textbooks, is the idea of atomic diplomacy: that the United States used nuclear weapons in order to intimidate the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War
The nuclear attack on Japan was only the first even WMD experiment by USA and a few hardcore Americans and US Jews as well as Israel are ever ready to nuclear attack again.
WMD of USA and Israel pose the deadliest danger to the world as only these two fascist nations would not hesitate and would very much like to blast nuclear arms to their desired targets with a purely sadistic pleasure motive.
