Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60th anniversary

Its ok to use Nuke... but not ok to use Chemical... cause chemicals are dirty and smell bad...lol

There certainly would be no Godzilla movies.

they are now.. If hitting a country with nuclear weapons would definitely lead to building a developed country, then maybe many countries have to be hit by nuclear weapons:)

More Japanese would have died in the invasion than by the nukes--if both Japanese and Allied estimates are to be believed. Allied estimates of its troop losses were in the hundreds of thousands.

Again, war is a horrible thing for which civilians pay a far greater price than a country's leaders. Any of the combatants that developed the bomb first would have used it. I for one am glad the US and not Hitler, Stalin or the Japanese military developed it first. Is there anyone out there that really thinks otherwise?

I have become death, destroyer of worlds.......the man who said those words was instrumental in the manhattan project and later went on to help found CND.

I think for the Americans it was an easy decision. They didn't start the war and to invade Japan to force surrender would costs 10s of thousand of American lives because these guys fight to the last man. (hey they were still pulling Jap soldiers out of the Filipino jungle in the 1980s who hadn't given up)'

So it can down to a question of Japanese or American lives. Easy decision if you are a US President.

I believe the Americans told the Japs they had 9 bombs and even named the cities they would hit. If the Japs had knowingness they had only two they may have fought on.

I think several days in between way enough time to surrender. It was, after all, far more time than they gave the people of Nanking.

Bachus, The bombing of two cities were planned by the US much before and the US wanted to test out the two kinds of bombs they had assembled. That it the reason they dropped them one after the other without giving much time for the Japanese to revert.

Infact the US didn't wait long enough for the Japs to surrender after dropping Little Boy.

Knight returns--why didn't Japan respond to the ultimatum after Hiroshima as I have stated to you before? That is the point I keep waiting for you to answer.

Just because they had assembled two types of bombs didn't mean they had to use both one after the other. One bomb was good enough to impart great damage to the Japanese and break them.

I feel this was a premeditated action of the US to use both the bombs in any case. I also feel 72 hours was not enough time for a country to announce its surrender.

"The experiment has been an overwhelming success" - President Harry S. Truman. (After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.)

Bachus, I feel you are confused. The ultimatum to surrender was actually given by US and the UK much earlier on 26th of July 1945 in Potsdam Declaration and they warned of quick and utter destruction. Its true Japan ignored the ultimatum as they probably couldn't gauge the potential of the bomb.

Now, the question is, why did US drop the Fat Man knowing very well they had already done immense damage to the civilian life with the first bomb.

Bachus, the answer to this is what I have already told earlier..

"It is one of the worst atrocities ever! There is NO excuse for it!"

What a well-formed, persuasive argument LP. Thank you for you canny insights.

The consequences of the bomb is that it ended the war before Stalin, Hitler or Japan developed it or before the allies had to invade Japan, which would have resulted in far more civilian deaths.

The scientists (including Einstein) had written a letter to the US president clearly outlining the consequences of the bomb, but it was ignored. Politics IS a dirty business!

It is one of the worst atrocities ever! There is NO excuse for it!

They understood it well enough after a second bomb was dropped. They wrongly assumed the Americans had more nukes, which they did not.

Probably Japanese do not understand english well. :-P

Knight returns. After the first bomb was dropped, Japan was offered a surrender ultimatum--surrender or else another bomb. It declined even to answer, so a second bomb was dropped.

Check the dates in history books when the these two bombs were dropped. Little boy was dropped on 6th Aug 1945 and Fat man was dropped on the 9th of August 1945.

Japan finally surrendered on the 15th of August.

Do you guys really think, dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki was really required. Historians differ in their interpretations but the dates tell us the real story.

Despite being fully aware of the after effects of and atomic blast, what was the justification of deploying another bomb within 72 hours of the first one?

Note that Little Boy was Uranium 235 and Fat Man was Plutonium. It is evident that US seized a good opportunity to test Plutonium at the expense of thousands of Japanese lives.

It's not as if the Japanese were especially kind to their fellow Asians; in fact, quite the opposite--one empire traded for another. Of course, in many countries foreign empires were replaced by domestic tyrannies.

"which terrorist group did that" That's a good one.

It doesn't fit in with their west is evil narrative. That is why they try to change the argument and their grasp of history is poor. Pity the education in their home countries that left them intellectually poor.

Exactly. No nation is blameless in this sort of war. Yet it the civilians that suffer the greatest at the hands of their governments' enemies. All very sad indeed.

And which bunch of terrorists did this?

http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/

they weren't on the verge of surrender. japanese at the time were fighting a religious spiritual war. and dying was praised and surrendering was very lowly seen.

they knew they were loosing, but they were to die fighting to the end, or stop the war in a honorable way: the ultimate request for this honorable ending of fighting was by preserving the image of the emperor, seen as god on earth.

my comment at 1:38

The nukes were not pre-emptive strikes, and the US could have ascertained the impact of the weapons by testing them in remote areas (wait a minute, I believe they did that).

If Japan was on the verge of surrender, why did the government not do so after Hiroshima and thus prevent the Nagasaki bombing?

I'm not for killing, I'm not pro-nuke either. I am just pro-accuracy in history.

Baburao--why not count all the people the Asians have killed? The Mongols, Turks, the hordes that came out of Asia and into Europe in the 4th, 5th, 6th centuries, etc., etc., etc. put up a pretty high body count if I remember history correctly.

blisteringbarna

it wasn't out of "revenge" or a "vow"

much of that achievement was promoted by the US, in taiwan, japan, and korea to redress their economies and prevent their shift to the soviets. same as plan marshal in europe. the american help, fell on very caring and motivated active men and women who took the best of the situation. good for them.

china in comparison is bleek: can u give me the name of a chinese mark, accessory, car, or brand? unlike japan sony, casio, toshiba, ... china is just a big slave nation, manufacturing for others. little no innovations.

Monkey told me once America was responsible for the Polynesian Wars, the formation of Pangea, the Mongol Invasion of Japan, driving the Jews out of medina and Mecca and the big bang. They have a lot to answer for. You need to watch them as America or its people never do anything good and even when Americans eat hummus it is with evil intentions.

All's fair in love and war.

Pre-emptive strikes are used only to gain unfair advantage.

It conflicts with the overall premise of a just war..

After Hiroshima & Nagasaki Japan vowed to destroy America... through commerce...

Since at that time Japan was severely restricted in building armies they knew armed conflict was out of question.

Japan decided to build same things that America produced but just to make it better and cheaper. This would, in time, crumble their economy. During that era Automobiles & electronics were getting popular.

Japan managed to take a lot of market away from US. But it was only during the past 25 years that China started using this tactics (I thing after Tiananmen Square incident). China has been much more successful than Japan in using this tactics although Chinese products are considered much inferior.

China alone has taken almost 75% of the market share in a lot of products. Today a lot of labour intensive job has gone to China. This has been the one main reasons of job loss in the US market.

US wanted to ascertain the critical masses of weapon grade Uranium and Plutonium for real...so they bombed Japan twice when Japan was on the verge of surrendering to the US.

dont think it will be of any help to raise the dead

I'm lactose intolerant.

So, shall we get back to topic of Japan and nuclear weapons....?

fubar just for ur info

"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

—C.S. Lewis

Perhaps if the US hadn't waited so long to enter WW2 in the first place, the war wouldn't have escalated as much as it did.

Should the US have launched a pre-emptive strike on Japan, or was it right to wait for Japan to attack it first?

For that matter, was it right for the US to sit on the sidelines and watch Germany attack the rest of Europe, and dither about getting involved?

Or even for the UK to wait for Poland to be invaded?

Is there some sense to pre-emptive strikes, or are they always wrong? Do they save lives, or cause unnecessary killing?

add or count the number of ppl make a list since day 1 the U.S or west has started to kill ppl i hope if it ever ends

Bachus, good points. I agree that if Japan had developed nuclear weapons first, they would have used it. As such Japan managed to develop biological weapons and used it in China. Japan used bubonic plague as part of its biological weapon in China. They were all in a race to develop nuclear, chemical andn biological weapons. It was indeed an all out World War. Something we all should want to avoid as much as possible today.

@Dark Knight:

If you want a *really* good laugh, read the rest of the "Master of the Universe" page. I can't begin to understand what the source of it is. I think it's one of those right wing Christian/pro-Israeli/Zionist/Muslims are all evil type websites that stupid religious people actually read:

http://www.shofarbetzion.com/01/IranandNuclearWeapons.html

I don't keep a good diary, but I'm pretty sure that I've never killed anyone or looted their nation. But I'll have to check on that.

But thank you for your wise words.

And I left Taiwan of my list too. They are also an Asian economic powerhouse as well.

killing ppl , looting nations and telling to learn nice thought and there is no stop to this

fubar unlike what you read on QL, nobody in India blames the British for the state of Indian economy.

Some of the comments on this thread are pure lunacy.

Two countries were at war. One country developed a better weapon first (every major country in WWII had a nuclear weapon research program). The country that developed the bomb first sent an ultimatum of surrender. That country refused the ultimatum of surrender and was duly bombed. Another ultimatum was sent and ignored for several days. Another city was bombed. Had the Russians, Japanese, Germans developed the nuclear bomb first, they would have used it.

In fact, the US and allies probably exercised more restraint than any of its enemies would have. We are, after all, taking about Hitler, Stalin, and Japanese army responsible for the rape of Nanking.

Somebody please tell me what a realistic alternative was if they were President of the US?

btw--When preparing for an invasion of mainland Japan (if the nukes did not work), the allies estimated civilian and military losses at multiple times that what the nukes killed. These estimates were based experiences of US invasions of the outer Japanese islands (in which surrender was rare). It turns out the Japanese gov. estimated potential losses in an invasion as even higher.

Why not wait another 100 years and then India can blame someone for 300 years of theft?

Japan hasn't spent the last 60 years moaning about having 2 nuclear bombs dropped on it, it's economy ruined and it's population decimated.

They just pulled themselves up, dusted themselves off, and set about creating a modern, vibrant economy and society.

India could learn a lesson from the Japanse. (And Chinese, and Malaysians, and Hong Kongese, and Koreans)

HAHAHAHA SO Saddam was about to become "THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE", Phew close shave there!

200 years need to be recovered we can still blame for the rest 135 years to round up 200

How about after 65 years of independence Indians still blaming others for their problems.

and indians were looted for 200 years by ? the worlds strongest nation !

How long before this just turns in to the inevitable India-bashing thread?

"Indians can't run factories"

"Indian politicians corrupted the legal process"

"Money was stolen from the real victims"

"What do you expect from Indian technicians"

I think the mods ought to just oops this now and be done with it.

Personal attacks on me again. You really do like to abuse women.

A thread on Bohpal is not relevant to Qatar Living!

Now i get an idea. You are an indian and not qatari.

ROFL shakti

It is a tragedy thread. And moza is a tragedy in himself.

How did we get on to Bhopal?

The US deliberately killed Japanese civilians as a wartime act.

The Indian government covered up the killing of civilians in an industrial accident (sabotage?) and subsequently did everything possible to restrict information about who was responsible, and how the disaster occurred.

I can't really see any parallels.

Shaktimaan, would you agree that Bhopal Gas tragedy deserves a new thread of its own?

Union Carbide was responsible for Bohpal but I also blame the lack of action of Indian politicians. I guess they were too busy taking kick backs to worry about some poor people being killed.

lame excuse it was a shame Truman didn't have your witch doctor vision into the future , it was predictable in iraq and Afghanistan still what happened millions killed again thanks to USA

Forget for some time H & N. What about BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY. Iam sure you never heard of BHOPAL. Who is responsible.

Monkey it was a shame Truman didn't have your witch doctor vision into the future. If you were around they could have made a different decision and save all those lives.

Also Hiroshima and Nagasaki are perfectly safe now. Background radiation is at normal acceptable levels.

I've always felt that Japan was about to surrender anyway, and the US just quickly dropped the bombs to see what would happen - experiment on thousand innocent lives who still are paying for the radiation caused due to bombing , and yet they keep testing in iraq and afghanistan

Zubair I don't understand the hypocrisy or how the two could be related. The Japanese attacked America. American dropping nuclear bombs on Japan was not their first act either.

The SU invaded Afghanistan and occupied the country, so the SU were guilty of the first agression.

As for Israel the are not a good example of anything. The sooner they come to a just peace with the palestinians the better.

Welcome back brother. :-)

agree fubar.

big part of the bombing was live testing.

but the fact that japan was to surrender to the russians and not to the US, played the major role in deciding for the bombing.

even so, the bombs didn't force japan to surrender. there was a sine qua non from the japanese to spare the emperor from trial and dishonor. only when the us provided those garanties did japan surrendered.

Forget the past, Forget the innocent victims....LETS CELEBRATE 6OTH ANNIVERSARY...who cares...WE WILL KILL MORE...IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PALESTINE (THRU ISRAEL), SYRIA, LIBYA....We will keep celebrating more and more death. THAT IS WHY WE ARE THE NO 1 POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

Getaway, I did not justify the nuking of Japan. What I stated are facts of what happened. As I said previously, nobody, not even the US expected the aftermath of the atomic bomb which makes it so terrible that no one with nuclear weapons despite having huge arsenals of it, have used it so far. That is why the horror of using WMD or building one with intent to use it is to be deplored. Until the atomic bombing of Japan, anyone uttered a peep about WMDs as we know it now? If they did, please cite your source. What happened in the past happened. How they felt about it, they felt about it, which is why they did what they did. You cannot change history to suit your benefit of hindsight and the political sentiments today.

I've always felt that Japan was about to surrender anyway, and the US just quickly dropped the bombs to see what would happen - they had spent all this time and money developing them and they needed to see how they would work in a real world environment.

dohabunny- no Ma'am you can't justify it no matter what. just like i can't justify nuke USA or Israel because they are the one who are occupying other country and killing civilian in the name of war on WMD!

Let me get this right, Yazleb.

Israel, which has nuclear weapons, destroyed the capability of Iraq to get nuclear weapons.

So the whole of the Middle East can be grateful that Iraq isn't the 'undisputed master of the Middle East'.

Tell me then, who IS the undisputed master of the Middle East?

Which is the country that has invaded and occupied its neighbor, stolen land from the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and kept the region at war for 60 years?

I am showing you their hypocrisy ...

drsam- look at you! on one is bashing here anyone in case you haven't notice you're the one who is gonna start it dude.

An existential danger. In 1981, Israel, in a daring raid, destroyed the Iraqi nuclear installation at Osirak. The whole world, sad to say, including the United States, condemned Israel for this “act of aggression.” But, of course, Israel did the world a tremendous favor, a favor that was only grudgingly acknowledged many years later. Had it not been for Israel’s decisive action, Saddam Hussein would indeed have had nuclear weapons. The Iraqi dictator would have been the undisputed master of the Middle East. The United States, indeed the whole world, would have been at his mercy. This is why it is imperitive to keep nuclear weapons from Iran FUBAR

i agree with baburao and drsam

This is why everyone should have nuclear weapons.. M.A.D

how is it not related?

60 years after having their country totally annihilated, they were able to rebuild it much better than almost every other country, while other countries are still talking and bashing while doing nothing.

people finding reson/excuses for the atomic bombing of Japan.

Its is one of worst atrocity in history.But as they say, we have to move forward and learn from mistakes and hope it does not repeat.

US did not expect the aftermath of the atomic bomb. They even had some of their own testing personnel pose near the detonated test bombs site during their experiments. The devastating aftermath that occurred after that is why they have not used their nuclear bombs since. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was actually meant to be a show of strength to get Japan to not prolong their war, terror and Japanese occupation in East Asia. Something West or Mid Asians did not suffer from during WW2 and consequently may not understand why most East Asian history books regard the atomic bombings as a necessary means to end the war Japan started in the first place.

mozaismyhero- he is being sarcastic that's all! there is nothing wrong with it. and i notice you never asked "drsam" about his last comment regarding flat TVs and LCD, that wasn't related either.

and this is what i call hypocrisy ignorance etc!

This is why Iran needs nuclear weapons. No one will bomb a country that will bomb you back.

a Terrorist group who always succeed in blaming other a Terrorist!

Boycott of the 1980 Olympics is related to atomic bombing in Japan how?

they wanted to invade it first

United States boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

it is so hilarious.

how odd: in 2005, japan was selling flat TVs and LCD, while the boy's TV set is so outdated

Drsam they are only 7 years late for the 60th anniversary..... I guess 67th anniversary doesn't sound so good...

it is not overlooked MIMH:

it's precisely because tokyo and yokohama were bombed, that they chose hiroshima and nagasaki.

a celebration for those who bombed

why 60th anniversary?

but for some that terrorists are real heroes....

the ones who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki are terrorist

Actually more people died in the fire bombings of Tokyo and Yokohama than died in these atomic attacks but that is often over looked.

Let's hope we never repeat such an act. Today's weapons are 1000s times more powerful.