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

[Steven Dapra]

At 07:14 PM 8/9/07 +0200, Peter Bossew wrote:
>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.)

         Have you forgotten that Hitler and Stalin were allies for some 
twenty months?  (Remember the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in August, 
1939.)   Stalin was getting rid of a competitor, and was a far worse 
criminal that Hitler ever thought of being.  Not that AH wasn't bad, merely 
that Stalin was far worse.

Steven Dapra

>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.

         The USSR was also criminal and genocidal.  sd

>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.

         I rather doubt that anyone wanted to use a Pu bomb to make the 
Japanese into human guinea pigs, nor do I believe anyone was trying to 
demonstrate US bomb-making capacity to the USSR.  This sounds a little 
far-fetched, if not outright revisionist.  sd


>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