[ RadSafe ] RE: [AMRSO] On This Day( NY Times) - Observation of Moment of Silence

[Peter Bossew]

Grant, Don,

I disagree with you in this point.
The war of the Allies against the Nazis & Japanese was necessary, and in 
that sense a good one. This must not be forgotten forever.
But still, the atomic bombs and the destruction of Dresden (like all the 
air raids of this kind, after it has turned out the the anticipated 
effect - demoralization of the people - did not happen as planned; quite 
in the opposite - British and US knew that, and still carried on), were 
crimes. These were atrocious crimes within a just war... history is 
complicated as this. (As another example of this complexity, the 
Stalinist regime was a highly criminal one, but still we have to be 
thankful that they bore the brunt of destroying the Nazis.)

According to most historians, as far as I know, the dropping of the A 
bombs on J is today considered as the initial shot of the Cold War, 
politically targeted against the SU, only physically Japan was chosen, 
for various reasons:
- it was easy to justify (this works until today obviously), because J 
at that time was a criminal, genocidal regime;
- the US & Allies in the Pac. war have suffered heavy losses against J, 
so this was, to many in the West, a kind of fair revenge;
- the Japanese as such were systematically de-humanized by US propaganda 
during the war (as unfortunately it happens so often in wars), so moral 
doubts could be anticipated to be no major factor;
- it had to be shown to the SU that J belongs to the US-sphere.

In fact, J was about to capitulate at that time, it was merely a matter 
of formalities and negotiations. And then, even if one believes that the 
first bomb was necessary, what about the second only 3 days later 
without letting them due time to react ?

The Nagasaki bomb was "necessary", because also the effect of  a Pu bomb 
on human guinea pigs had to be tested. Maybe more importantly, the 
capacity of the US to produce more than just one bomb had to be 
demonstrated to the SU.

Again, J was an abominable regime. Unfortunately, many Japanese, 
including apparently their prime minister (a good friend of the US, 
ironically), use the atomic bombs for trying to make forget (or at least 
down-scale) their own historical crimes, which in reality are unique, 
sui generis. To me this is a kind of mental continuation of these 
crimes, similar to what the neo-nazis do.

Still, I say, these bombs were crimes.
History is complicated.

regards,
pb


Grant Wilton wrote:
> Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was no crime,
> certainly no more so than war itself.
>
>
> Grant Wilton
>
>
>   



> The bombings were not a crime. They were an act of self defense. Japan attacked us first. We just ended it.
>
> DPM


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Peter Bossew 

European Commission (EC) 
Joint Research Centre (JRC) 
Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) 

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