Peter Howitt
@peterhowitt.bsky.socialI am fascinated by the dropping of the #A-bombs and the easy ethical justification provided. We should always give a huge discount to any narrative which we find so comforting. So many global political issues stem from the increased militarisation necessary during WWII (but that continued after it)
We hear that history is written by the victor. Churchill is often attributed with this phrase because he said (House of Commons on Jan. 23, 1948):
"I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself"
As an experiment ask a few of your more thoughtful friends what they think about the use of atomic bombs in Japan. I tried it and nearly everyone repeated the historic party lines "it hastened the end of WW11", "it saved lives" or (interestingly) "it was not more destructive than fire bombing"
This thread is not an apology for winning WWII; I simply ask whether the danger arising is that the other side were so clearly evil that we have never had to come to terms with our own part in the causes of the war and the self-serving justification for the intentional mass killing of civilians
Einstein (who was a pacifist but not absolutely so) remained troubled by the use of the atomic bomb in Japan: "I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan but I could not do anything at all to prevent that fateful decision" www.theguardian.com
Einstein's pacifist dilemma revealed
Previously unpublished letters from Albert Einstein to a Japanese pen pal show the physicist to be defensive over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which became possible through his genius...
www.theguardian.com
The co-pilot of the Enola Gay, Capt. Robert Lewis, wrote in his logbook: “My God, what have we done?”
electricliterature.com
It seems unarguable that the possession of atomic weapons has ushered in a historically long period without full-scale global conflict. It seems less clear that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary or proportionate to end the war (I assert no privileged ethical position).
Given the factual and counterfactual difficulties and the scale of intentional civilian suffering, we must be particularly careful about ethical positions we hold if we benefit emotionally from holding those views (writing from the ‘victorious’ side that committed the horrific acts).
Some say that by the time of the bombing the Japanese knew they were defeated, and the Russian intervention was more important than the bombs in ending the war. From this perspective, the bombs were more a show of strength aimed at terrifying the Russians. www.washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Did America Have To Drop the Bomb?Not to End the War, But Truman Wanted To Intimidate Russia
www.washingtonpost.com
These events remind us that, even if we are on the winning side of a war, we must always be critical of our leaders and their purported aims and justifications (including post rationalisations as per Henry Stimson). Otherwise we are asserting ‘might is right’. www.asianstudies.org
www.asianstudies.org
There is good evidence that Pres. Truman was misled about Hiroshima being a military target and base and that he also was not advised of the bombing of Nagasaki. He then ordered a halt to further use of nuclear weapons, saying, he didn’t like the idea of killing “all those kids.”
An earlier draft of his press release following the bombing stated: "The world will note that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima which is purely a military base. This was because we did not want to destroy the lives of women and children and innocent civilians".
"After the Hiroshima bombing..., but before Truman knows the full extent of civilian casualties, [the ref is to] Hiroshima [as a purely military target]. Sometime before the final version is released..., it is revised to indicate..it was not “purely military”
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
A “purely military” target? Truman’s changing language about Hiroshima
A remarkable set of speech drafts from August 6-9th, 1945, shows an evolution in Truman's thinking about the bomb — from an unambiguous good, to a horror that needed to justified.
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
"Secretary of War Stimson... informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test..and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent." Gen. Eisenhower
"my belief [was] that Japan was already defeated ... and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid...the use of a weapon whose employment was...no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives...The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..." (Eisenhower)
It is striking that two consecutive US Presidents appear to have either been misled or had grave misgivings about the alleged reasons for using the atomic bombs. Eisenhower famously went on to warn about the dangers of the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."
Eisenhower warned:"...In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
www.archives.gov
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address (1961)
EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Farewell address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961; Final TV Talk 1/17/61 (1), Box 38, Speech Series, Papers of Dwight D.
www.archives.gov
This is not a dry reassessment of the dropping of the atomic bombs. The world we live in is precisely the world Eisenhower tried to warn us about, where US might is right and there is serious money made from bombing large parts of the planet. Let's not forget too the terrible human cost in Japan
In Hiroshima alone 70 per cent of all buildings were destroyed and it caused an estimated 140,000 deaths by the end of 1945 (getting close to half of the largely civilian population), along with increased rates of cancer and chronic disease among the survivors.
www.icanw.org
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings
The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, and their effects are still being felt today.
www.icanw.org
We have a natural blind spot to our own failings. I was very disappointed with the film Oppenheimer because it did not close with a look at the impact of the atomic bombs on Japanese civilians. Too much for Western audiences to buy presumably. Ethical and artistic cowardice with serious consequences
Since WWII the USA, often with allied support, has maintained military dominance over the world at the cost of terrible suffering for many people in different countries. Some will say this is the cost of a fragile global peace (Pax Americana) and is an imperial norm:
www.maurer.ca
Countries bombed by the United States, 1946—2020
www.maurer.ca
What is striking is the ignorance of most people about the impact of this military-industrial complex. Look at the appalling treatment of Laos: "the CIA dropped more explosives on Laos than the official air force dropped on Germany during all of the Second World War"
I have visited Laos and it was the most beautiful country I have ever been to. It has a strong Buddhist culture and the people are very gentle. The USA conducted a secret, unlawful and immoral war against it and has never made reparations for it.
purl.stanford.edu
The Cost of Imperialism: Designing a Model of Reparations to Laos from the U.S. for the Secret War Bombing
During the Secret War concurrent with the Vietnam War era, the U.S. dropped over 270 million cluster bombs on Laos, making it the most bombed country per capita in the world. To this day, approxima...
purl.stanford.edu
If you think my point is to pick on the US, think again. All empires are cruel in maintaining their position. The question is who chooses how cruel. A cursory glance at modern history shows the people (and often even the politicians) are lied to, to justify the unlawful and unnecessary use of force.
This disconnect between public reasons given for extraordinary violence and actual motives seem even further apart today than ever. The WMD lies based justification for the Iraq war was the latest pinnacle of this disconnect. Lies that killed hundreds of thousands
en.wikipedia.org
Casualties of the Iraq War - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Currently we see the military and political lie machine in full force in Israel, where the US is fully behind a #Genocide of Palestinian civilians who were already living under a cruel and barbaric apartheid regime for decades:
www.amnesty.org
Israel's apartheid against Palestinians
Palestinians are systematically subjected to home demolitions and forced evictions, and live in constant fear of losing their homes. For more than 73 years, Israel has been forcibly displacing entire...
www.amnesty.org
The USA's war machine created during WWII is out of control. It makes little difference whether a Democrat or a Republican is in power since it is deeper than that. Look what happened to the last US President that preached peace:
youtu.be
President John F. Kennedy's "Peace Speech"
YouTube video by C-SPAN
youtu.be
"the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women" Kennedy was killed later that year.
youtu.be
Assassinat de John F. Kennedy
YouTube video by Le Point
youtu.be
So where do we go from here? We must start with a lot more honesty about how we got here, who makes decisions that kill tens of thousands of people and what is the quality of information behind those decisions. Like a detective we start by asking in every military conflict 'Cui Bono?'
Visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum:
hpmmuseum.jp
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum | Learn
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays belongings left by the victims, photos, and other materials that convey the horror of that event, supplemented by exhibits that describe Hiros...
hpmmuseum.jp
Iri and Toshi Maruki Marukis are the subject of the documentary 'Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima'. They went to Hiroshima after the destruction of the city and tried to help survivors. Visions of charred bodies and the smell of death stayed with them long after.
marukigallery.jp
The Hiroshima Panels | Maruki Gallery For The Hiroshima Panels
marukigallery.jp
"They lay dead in heaps along the riverbank, their heads pointing toward the water they had been seeking. Having reached the river, the water remained out of reach below the steep bank, and they died with their thirst unquenched."
"Parents were forced to abandon children pinned under fallen houses, children abandoned parents, husbands abandoned wives and wives husbands...Still, in the midst of this, many witnessed the miraculous sight of children who survived, held tightly in their dead mothers’ arms."
In Nagasaki (which was a fall back secondary target for the city of Kokura), the plutonium atomic bomb exploded near the Urakami Cathedral killing an estimated 80,000 people within the year (including as many as 10,000 Christians )
artsandculture.google.com
Atomic Bombing in Nagasaki and the Urakami Cathedral - Google Arts & Culture
10,000 Christians out of 15,000 lost their lives
artsandculture.google.com
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: nagasakipeace.jp
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum | Visit | English | NAGASAKI PEACE official website of Nagasaki City
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.
nagasakipeace.jp
..it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 population were killed ...and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki.
The nuclear radiation..caused thousands more people to die from radiation sickness...Survivors faced a horrifying aftermath in the cities.
www.bbc.com
Recommended documentary (including interviews with US servicemen) - White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (HBO):
youtu.be
youtu.be
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: en.wikipedia.org
"Peace is the apology of the strong
to the weak,
agreeing strength lies in vision.
Peace is the disarming of arms
before beauty —
iron turns to rust when left out in the dew."
Mahmoud Darwish (the poet laureate of the Palestinian people)
modernpoetryintranslation.com
A State of Siege (extract) – Modern Poetry in Translation
modernpoetryintranslation.com
"Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace."
(Yehuda Amichai, Israeli poet)
www.poetryfoundation.org
Yehuda Amichai
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
www.poetryfoundation.org
As much as they dreamed of peace, both Darwish and Amichai rejected the sterile language of the peace treaty...converting them into something touchable and everyday... Amichai's vision of peace is not the technical "peace of a cease-fire", but a living thing.
www.theguardian.com
Amichai to Darwish Palestinian and Israeli writers on conflict
Heather McRobie: Beyond the Gaza news headlines, as an Amman-based writer, my response is to give voice to the perspective of Middle-Eastern poets and novelists
www.theguardian.com