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A Hiroshima Memorial
A Hiroshima Memorial. Friday was the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, an event that that has touched me in many ways.
I never had any doubt for the need to use the bomb in 1945. My father had orders to join his third marine division in Okinawa for the invasion of Japan when it was dropped. If the plan had gone ahead, I would not be writing this letter today. My biochemistry major and math minor at UCLA landed me a summer job as a research assistant at the Nevada nuclear test site in the late sixties where I got to know the men who worked with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to build the bomb. There, “yields” meant millions killed, not interest paid.
When I first landed in Japan, I made a beeline straight to the Atomic Bomb Victims Hospital to interview survivors 30 years after the attack. I listened to stories about people vaporized, but whose image was etched into solid granite, and the rivers that were choked with countless bodies. Textile patterns were permanently burned into human skin, the light colors reflecting radiation, while dark ones absorbed it. Some 50 of the city’s 150 doctors were killed instantly, and the rest were seriously injured. They were futilely left to treat gamma rays and beta particles with only mercurochrome, or traditional Japanese folk remedies like moxabustion. Tens of thousands showed up at hospitals with no visible injuries, only to die agonizing deaths within the day.
Two weeks after the bomb, everyone’s hair started falling out and immense welts called keloid tumors appeared, classic symptoms of then unknown radiation poisoning. American scientists descended on the city by the hundreds measuring every imaginable parameter with grim precision, such as the heat at ground zero that reached an unbelievable 6,000 degrees, and the melting of ceramic roof tiles to a radius of 1,300 yards. They told the Japanese that no one could live there for 20,000 years. The residents ignored them and moved back in to rebuild as soon as the fires abated.
I met one spry Japanese American woman who grew up in Fresno, California and spoke perfect 1930’s English, but was sent home to Hiroshima to avoid the war. I’ll never forget the massive scars on her forearms where her summer yukata cut off. A barking dog caused her to briefly look away from the curious descending parachute from a lone B-29 overhead, thus saving her face and her eyesight. Her three young children didn’t make it.
For me the experience converted an interesting physics experiment into the greatest source of human misery of all time. As the years went on I met many more Hiroshima survivors, known as bakusha, who after a third shot of Suntory whiskey would talk about the artificial weather the bomb created, the gale force winds and the black rain. Every type of plant strangely flourished after the bomb, but men and women were left sterile, and birth defects skyrocketed. In later years I attended memorial ceremonies where 140,000 candlelit paper boats were placed in the Motoyasu River at night to symbolize the lost souls.
Ironically, those who survived the bomb now have the greatest lifespan of any group in Japan. I guess that if you can survive an atomic bomb, you can handle anything. I’m sure free health care for life and pensions helped too. There was also that one dose of radiation treatment, courtesy of the US government.
Today Hiroshima is a major focus of international pacifist and disarmament groups. The effort is being led in the US by former secretary of state, George Schultz, who has played a key role in cutting American nuclear stockpiles by 75% to 5,113 today. Some 20% of America’s nuclear power is currently generated by plutonium from recycled warheads from the former Soviet Union.
You can learn more about his efforts by visiting the Plowshares Fund at http://www.ploughshares.org/ .To buy John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize winning Hiroshima, which describes the doomed city immediately after the attack in all its horrific detail, please click here at http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-John-Hersey/dp/092389165X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281130125&sr=1-1 . It is not a light summer beach read, but is enlightening and sobering.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.
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You forgot the secret codewords "homeland" and "patriot".
You'll never make clueless rabid neocon radio jock status unless you get with the program.
A great nation and freedom are not mutually exclusive but often in opposition. As soon as we hear "the nation" pulled out of the rhetorical ammunition belt know that individual freedom is being slid into the back pocket.
I see you've been reading a lot of Saul Alinsky. We're talking on different planes. Yours is much lower, btw. If you don't like "the nation" please leave, preferably as soon as possible.
The secret development of the bomb was a breaking point in the history of American democracy. There was no possible way spending a billion dollars with congress having essentially no clue fit into any original conception of constitutional. The secrets never stopped proliferating. Creating the every growing secret state.
No citizen has any choice in the matters of the empire but know this. You can enjoy the benifits material and psychological from living in the most powerful nation in history but don't pretend it makes you free.
Eisenhower advised against using the bomb. Then again Robert Welsh called him a communist and by todays standards he was.
The surrender would likely have come without an invasion but the path and timing were uncertain. Russia was going to move on the northern islands with intent to invade the main island. Vastly complicating the post war history and we knew it. We did not want that. It was unknowable at the time but seemed inevitable that the USSR would become our advisary. The bomb was thus aimed at the USSR aas much or more than Japan. It stopped their military from moving into asia.
Theinevitable revelation that we spent a billion dollars on the bomb and didn't use it would have been political suicide for Truman. Politics demanded we use it.
As to the people killed, just fodder for the great grand strategic thinkers in the modern technolical age. As were the hundreds of thousands and now perhaps million of non combatents killed by our arial bombardments since 1942. Someday the number will be in the hundreds of millions. Somebody is going to have to pay for the weaking of our global hegemony. For the emergence of a multi polar world. Many bodies will have to be produced to assuage our loss. Politics demands it. That is what Iraq was about and Iran will be. Somebody has to pay.
It will be good for the markets.
The dangers inherent in the bomb made security of the utmost importance.The security surrounding the bomb has expanded and metastasized to the point that the case can be made that the American experiment ended with the development of the bomb.Where the early bombs were huge and heavy consider a truly modern one, like the W-88 400 kiloton yield thermonuclear warhead...that will easily fit in the trunk of a subcompact car.Imagine such a car arriving in a major city.Scratch one city.Everyone in the nuclear weapons business is watched.Closely.When the Founders started this country, none of them could envision such a thing.Because the danger is so great, the secrecy is very deep.And over time, the oversight has been lost as the black world has expanded insanely.
Freedom has been a casualty of the bomb...there is no doubt.And the forces that have grown up in it's shadow are inimical to the American experiment.The sheer numbers of people watching other people in this county would freak the average American out.The project is just huge.It is also safe to say that they are largely above the law, since National Security is inherent in what they are about.
The military industrial complex is out of control....and also beyond oversight or control anymore.
American experiment over....sometime between 1945 and 1950.But over, it is.
This almost makes my head explode. You lost me at fitting the development of the bomb into the constitution. Bizarre. You need to get an education. And frankly, if you paid for an education, i'd ask for a refund ASAP. Submit this post as proof. You'll win in court every day of the week with this as evidence that you were gyped!
Eisenhower was a communist by today's standards?
Russia was doing what?
Holy Fuck Man, if I was you, I would be really fucking pissed at the people that filled your head with such inane bullshit.
"The bomb was thus aimed at the USSR aas much or more than Japan. It stopped their military from moving into asia."
"Russia was doing what?"
This is correct, that is what Stalin was planning to do. It was a consideration, and not a minor one.
Hiroshima survivors are called "hibakusha", not "bakusha".
The Hiroshima myth is based on a central tenet of the US imperial mindset.
That central tenet alleges that what would be war crimes if committed by others,
are not war crimes, or even despicable, if committed by the US.
The excuses are varied, but most are characterized by arguments of:
Military necessity, military expediency,
war crimes do not exist because war is hell,
and our enemies cannot be victims because we are already victims first.
Can the same arguments be used by others?
If Hitler had obliterated London or Philadelphia with an A-bomb,
Could “military expediency” or the like provide an adequate exoneration?
The key for some then becomes “who started it?”
So first we have to determine when it started.
Best to dismiss Western imperialism in Asia,
the punitive WWI peace treaty,
the undeclared Atlantic war at sea between the US and Germany,
and the “crippling” US economic sanctions against Japan that Roosevelt was convinced would provoke war.
Then we can say they started it.
So let’s say we agree to that.
But should it make any difference how a war starts?
Is not barbarism, the mass slaughter of men, women and children, still barbarism, still criminal?
Apparently not for some , not so long as done by the US, even to the extreme nowadays of the US striking first.
@rwe2late
+1
+1000
Thank you! For the erudite manner in which you lay down the argument, GROUND FLOOR, I say!!
"The Hiroshima myth is based on a central tenet of the US imperial mindset."
Corrected: The Hiroshima fact is based on a central tenet of the US anti-imperial mindset.
Fixed it for you. No charge for that this time.
"TBT or not TBT" is a registered anti-imperialist advisor.
rwe2late
+1000
The "greatest source of human misery of all time" wasn't the bomb, it was the 75+ year nightmare known as the Soviet Union. And whether we did, or did not, need to drop the bomb is irrelevant - Imperial Japan started and persevered in hostilities toward the US. Responsibility for any and all adverse consequences of THEIR DECISION lay squarely on their shoulders.
Only if world history starts for you on Dec 7, 1941
30+ million dead, not including proxy wars, does put the Soviets in second place for biggest all time scorers.
Ironically, those who survived the bomb now have the greatest lifespan of any group in Japan.
The only person "officially" known to have survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki just died this year at 93. Something to reflect on next time you think you're having a bad week...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/06/hiroshima-nagasaki-survivor-...
honestly i can't believe someone who would characterize the bomb as a "gift" to Japan. I am ashamed to live in the only country who has ever used the nuclear bomb. It was nothing more than a science experiment. There is no justice.
MOVE .. LEAVE .. I'LL HELP YOU PACK .. TRY FRANCE
Baka.
"It was nothing more than a science experiment."
See my You Tube post Part 1 on this thread for your "science experiment" validation.
And get a refund on your edjunkation at whatever socialist college you went to.
Listen, nmewn, I am a patriot of this country and will probably end up dying for it when the time comes because I believe in this country. BUT, I do not believe in the empire building that has been going on since the elites took power in 1913. This countries' founders fought and won against EMPIRE and they would be ashamed of the way we have besmirched their names. I have a doctorate and it is not from a socialist college, thank you. My knowledge of history has come from many years of study and I love my country and believe in it and want it to be great again. However, there have always been those who aspire to tyranny, both inside and outside the central government. I am an anti-federalist , I believe in the most limited of central governments, and that my friend is no socialist!
"I have a doctorate and it is not from a socialist college, thank you."
You did not name the college...but it is of minor importance to me.
You may not have noticed but the mention of one's certificates carries as much weight intellectually around here as it's actual measured weight. Does not Krugman have one of these pieces of paper? And the rest of the pedigreed peacocks who have led us down the road of ruin, do they have these framed scraps of paper hanging from their walls like stuffed animal heads as well?
"My knowledge of history has come from many years of study and I love my country and believe in it and want it to be great again."
Unlike you, mine is the love of the people in this country. This is the difference between you and I.
To say the nuking of Japan was just a "science experiment" is to deny my very existence (my dad was in that theater of the war) and my children and their children and so on...all the while overlooking Japanese civilians acceptance of slave labor, genocide, rape and general acts of brutality on a scale rivaling anything ever witnessed on the face of the planet.
Class dismissed professor.
Goodbye.
See my reply above. What about justice for the many millions of Chinese and other Asians forced into slave labor and/or killed by Japan?
No one is stopping you from leaving. In fact, I think I can speak for all of us, when I say, please leave tonight.
Don't think you have the right to speak for anyone but yourself, sucker.
Operation Olympic was scheduled for later in 1945. I think about 1 Million minimum Active Duty would have been called up to be landed physically on the Japanese Homeland.
Every Japanese, Man, women and children were being drilled with whatever was availible reaching back centuries of thier tradition, spirit and strength to defend thier homes.
With that in mind, the two atomic bombs were used and ended the war before we had to commit so much that might only extend the fighting into the early 50's or later.
You, me and quite a few other people living today this generation, last generation on both Japan and US Sides probably owe thier lives to the bomb saving us the necessity of Operation Olympic.
The Japanese have more than shown remorse for picking a fight with the USA. They knew at least one time that we were a sleeping industrial giant that will bury them and they could not invade our homeland because there would be a gun behind every bush and tree.
All of that is written in history. Science marches on.
The bombs availible today deliverable in many different ways offer horrors far greater to the ones who survive the initial hit. And with far greater power than the puny runt bombs that hit Japan.
I think USSR lit off the Tsar Bomba once that it needed so much Parachuting to slow it's fall to allow the bomber that dropped it to get far enough way to survive the blast. It broke windows in Sweden and other places well over 1000 miles away. It was a quite a stunt but I think we never hope to see something like the Sun show up over anyone's cities in our future.
As far as the science experiement as you call it, it developed into many other technologies that are most useful and beneficial for everyone. Nuclear power and fusion along with other technologies offer us the freedom from oil. Unfortunately TMI took care of that idea.
It is fortunate that the U.S. developed the weapon first. I am certain that Japan or Germany would not have hesitated to use an Atomic Bomb on this country.
"For me the experience converted an interesting physics experiment into the greatest source of human misery of all time. "
Oh good lord. Over the top much? All you need to know about the wisdom of dropping the bombs on imperial Japan springs out of any reading, Japanese or American, of what happened on Okinawa. The dropping of the two bombs saved far more lives, ended far more suffering, and avoided far more suffering, than they created. And thereafter the bomb, and the various means of delivering them, gave us the Pax Americana, which has lasted 65 years and counting. They channeled great power conflict away from outright industrial scale hot war into the far more humanitarian economics and diplomacy centered cold war scenario that played out. Without the atomic bomb and its various means of delivery, things would have been much much worse, starting with the fate of the japanese of 1945, and of the american soldiers and families who would have had to fight house to house on the mainland. As to deaths in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki unpleasantries, the firebombings of Tokyo were worse. Let's not waste any Kleenex on emotional reinterpretations of what happened there. Those bombs were a gift to Japan, if not to the indviduals who happened to die or suffer because of them. And the gift keeps on giving even today.
I can't quite understand why certain people get so irrationally critical about the atomic bomb and never mention the far greater death and destruction brought by firebombing.
Makes me think the real reason is it's a nice way to bash the USA as they were the only ones to use atomic weapons.
Perhaps many of you have seen it, but a friend dropped me an email with photos of Hiroshima today and photos of Detroit today and Hiroshima wins by a wide margin.
No one is sad about the over 6000000 Chinese the Tojo government murdered during the war. That number seems strangely familiar...oh yeah its the same number as the holocaust in europe. We dont really talk about it because Japan is an ally. They got what was coming to them. They are lucky Americans are so nice, or else we would have got really serious with them after WWII. Instead we make them the second richest country in the world. Gen Macarthur was even nice enough to write a constitution for them and fix their stupid feudal society for them.
Now we have to feel bad for whipping their asses? I think not. Nuclear weapons are the greatest weapon ever, and disarmament is for traitors.
Yes, the Japanese are the greatest war criminals the world has ever seen. They make the Nazi's and the Russians look like girl scouts.
Right on dude!
So US killed 300,000 civilians in one day and is better than them all
How absurd!!!!!!!
This isn't a baseball record for chrissake!!
'The world would have been a feudal state if Nazi's and Japs had won'
I don't see a significantly different outcome today other than that we all still blog in English.
+1!
Boo-fuckin-hoo... The blame for Hiroshima lies with the military dictaorship that ran that country. At least the U.S. was tortured to have to drop the bomb. The real test of a people is what would they feel if they were in our shoes. Japan would have killed us all and danced on our graves. Much like the Satanic muslims of today. There is good, and there is evil...that is just reality.
But I do know this: If you are young and are not "liberal" you have no heart. If you are old and "liberal" you have no brain. Hence the age requirement to be President.
How is this remotely related to financial news?
It is not related to the markets, but since the madhedgefund trader has blown out all his client's accounts, he's stuck with rehashing history.
lol
true dat
F.Y.M.
electrochemical energy transformation:
relativity, enzymes, & resonance; stacked.
@mad: Your post is very moving. It is very true that history is told by the victors. I don't know how it is nowadays, but at school we were told only the US side of the story while the victims were portrayed as "bloodthirsty Japs" who wanted nothing more than to destroy America (sound familiar?). The regular people who bore the brunt of these crimes against humanity were very much like you and I: swept away by the crises created by the politicians and rulers at the time and victims of inept "solutions" imposed by the beauracracy. MAY WE NEVER FORGET.
Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa:
Bull+shit. I have never read in any history book that the victims of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "bloodthirsty Japs".
No, victors are not the only ones who write history. Defeated peoples do too and some of them try to whitewash history and make themselves out as victims. The Japanese people who died in those atomic bombings died because Japan's leaders thought it would be a good idea to attack America. They were very wrong.
It sucks that those people had to pay the price of the decisions of their leaders, but this is not something new in history. We can mourn their loss, but we should not obscure the fact on who is to blame for it.
+1 again.
Slice it anyway you like, those two nuclear attacks on civilian populations clearly amount to state sponsored terrorism.
At that point in the war there was absolutely no chance for Japan to be an invasion threat to the US, end of.
The guys flying the Enola Gay could hardly be considered 'freedom fighters', or even 'insurgents'. They weren't attempting to dislodge any Japanese force occupying US soil.
It bears repeating: please refrain from spouting indoctrinated rote.
with this analysis, who is to blame for 9/11?
regarding Pearl Harbor, a must read for anyone looking to understand what happened is Robert Stinnets "Day of Deceit." It outlines how the US pushed the Japanese to attack PH.
It goes without saying that i am not defending the warmongering Japanese military, nor does stinnet. in fact, stinnet believes that the US was morally justified in pushing the Japanese to attack Pearl harbor
Yes, the Japs woke up on Dec 7 and decided while sipping their tea that there was nothing better to do that day than to bomb Pearl Harbor - and the rest was history.
Let me guess - your an American and you're 12 years old.
Keep living in your brainwashed dream land
+100
The Japanese people who died in those atomic bombings died because Japan's leaders thought it would be a good idea to attack America. They were very wrong.
Exactly!