-J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita
By Juan Montoya
This was the reaction of Oppenheimer after he saw the first explosion of the atomic bomb he had been put in charge of creating by the U.S. Government.
Even back then, on July 16, 1945, he and others knew that they had changed the world forever.
It wasn't that long after, on August 6, 1945, that President Harry S. Truman ordered that the first atomic attack against a civilian population in Hiroshima be detonated. The second one followed a scant days later at Nagasaki, another non-military target.
The first bomb killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. On August 9, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
Oppenheimer and many of the project staff were upset because did not feel the second bomb was necessary from a military point of view. He traveled to Washington on August 17 to hand-deliver a letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson expressing his revulsion and his wish to see nuclear weapons banned.
In October 1945 Oppenheimer was granted an interview with Truman. The meeting, however, went badly, after Oppenheimer remarked he felt he had "blood on my hands." The remark infuriated Truman and put an end to the meeting. Truman later told his Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson "I don't want to see that son-of-a-bitch in this office ever again."
He then went on television and told the U.S. that the bombs had been used against military targets, and the lying has been ongoing since.
We, as a nation, share the dubious honor of being the only nation in the world to have ever used an atomic weapon against a defenseless civilian population.
That's why, as we exercise our veto over the development of nuclear weapons by other nations, there is a certain hypocrisy in our hand wringing.
In the current Iran-U.S. anti-proliferation nuclear talks, there is a message that many Republican and conservative harp on. The gist of it is this: "Iran is a terrorist state. It cannot be trusted to use nuclear power responsibly. It is fostering Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and its sworn enemy is Israel, our proxy in the region."
Given our record on responsible use of nuclear weapons, it's little wonder that we have precious few adherents of our message in the region.The fact that we are OK with our ally Israel being the only nation in the Middle East having some 80 warheads, make our pious statements even less credible.
Nine countries together possess more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status – ready to be launched within minutes of a warning.
Others are: The United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
Instead of disarming, those states who possess them emphasize keeping others from acquiring them. Toward that end, political and economic sanctions are applied against states who want them by the Nuclear Club.
Truman and the United States justified the use of nuclear weapons against Japan on the grounds that American lives would have been lost if the U.S. military had to invade the Japanese homeland. So we have continuously placed a value on human life other than American on a lower scale.
After all, Asian lives are worth less than Americans and Jewish ones are worth more than any Arab's. Has there ever been such a brazen display of racial superiority?
After all, Asian lives are worth less than Americans and Jewish ones are worth more than any Arab's. Has there ever been such a brazen display of racial superiority?
It is tragic that the first debate between Republican candidates seeking their parties nomination for 2016 will be held on August 6, 70 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The debate about nuclear weapons will surely continue. As a nation, we haven't done penance for our acts.
7 comments:
My father an infantry captain at that time, mention to me after the war, that 1 million men had been set in motion for the invasion of the Japanese Isles. With the dropping of the A-bomb,theinvasion was scraped. One million American lives were saved; including his .
My father was on a ship getting ready to die in the invasion of Japan when Truman broke the back of the Japanese Empire. You sir have the luxury of not being there to fuel your childish liberal outrage.
Oh, shut the fuck up, you weepy Messican. Di you serve in the military, juan? One year, like Da Blimp! Fucking bleeding heart pendejo. You fuckers make me sick.
Chinga tu madre, Blimp. Chinga tu madre, Blowboy! (dont write about me, dude)
To understand history you must try to see it from the perspective of the time. I think that if I was looking at participating in the invasion of Japan I would have been happy to see that bomb go off. It would have meant that I wasn't going to die in Japan. I think I would have considered it a good thing. By the way, more people died in a single fire bomb attack of Tokyo (I think it was Tokyo) then were killed by the first atomic bomb.
It took two nukes after the great fire raids had killed many more Japanese subjects in Tokyo weeks before.The Imperial Japaneses were slow learners. At the time Admiral Lehey estimated 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties if we invaded.
Taken as a whole, the two nukes saved millions of Japanese lives and a huge number of American lives as well. Every American life was a husband, son or brother than came back from the war. Every last Jap, soldier and civilian would fight and resist to the death to save their homeland and Emperor. From both a military and humanitarian stand points the use of these nukes was a very wise move. It took a direct order from the Emperor to stop the slaughter and the nukes is what brought him to his senses.
This liberal knee jerk reaction to the use of nukes against Japan is just ideological clap trap devoid of reason and ignorant of the facts.
I agree , American lives were saved by using the bomb and not having to invade Japan,although , saying one million lives were saved is a stretch .
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