Bay Area nuclear war protesters held their annual rally at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory virtually on Thursday, the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
The rally started at 8 a.m. at https://www.hiroshimanagasaki75.org/events and was part of a national event called “From Hiroshima to a Healthy Tomorrow: Embracing Our Common Humanity,” organized by more than 160 groups.
Virtual programming will also occur on Sunday, the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.
Estimates of the number of people killed in the two explosions range from 110,000 to 210,000, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit organization that sets the hands of the Doomsday Clock, a measure of how close humanity is to destroying itself.
The clock is now set at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to annihilation.
“Every time I get sick, I say maybe this is the end,” said Nagasaki survivor Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, who was an infant when the bomb hit and whose mother and sister died in the attack.
He said he’s been saying that for 75 years and says he’s lucky to still be alive.
Historian Gar Alperovitz, a former special assistant in the U.S. State Department, said the decision to drop the bombs was not made to end the war but rather for diplomacy.
Alperovitz said military officials knew that using the bombs were not necessary. Japan was ready to surrender in two weeks, he said.
Demonstrators say the Livermore Lab is central to the increasing nuclear danger.
How many nuclear bombs have been dropped since Nagasaki?
’nuff said!
Alperovitz is a crack pot.The would have never surrendered their homeland had it not been for the two bombs. They didn’t surrender after the first was dropped !!
Antonius, actually having received the dated ultimatum before the first bomb was dropped, the Japanese had communicated their surrender plans to our Navy and had said there would be a slight delay while the
Emperor sent an ambassador to China to seek their help in making sure whether or not the Emperor would have to commit HaraKiri (sp?) in order for their surrender to be accepted by the US.
Our Navy had forwarded the information to President Truman, who had read it, but who STILL chose to let his order to drop the bombs on a certain date and time STAND.
Try to find a copy of the book “Hiroshima”. The description of wartime events is accurate, and at its conclusion you will find the Navy reports which had been declassified after many years had passed.
In my opinion, our country dropping those bombs on CIVILIAN populations still stands as the single most damning, inhumane, morally vicious military action ever taken on the face of the
Earth. Their people are still suffering the inherited consequences of radioactivity these many generations later!
Truman knew that congress would crucify him for spending all that money on a weapon that was never used. He had to make sure it was used.
So the Japanese offers of surrender were rejected.
The war was extended to allow the bomb to be used. Firstly, just for the sake of using it. Secondly, to scare the Soviets.
So the surrender was rejected and the Battle of Okinawa was fought, when it didn’t have to be. More than 10,000 Americans were killed in that battle. They, also, were victims of the Bomb.
The Soviets, who had agreed to declare war on Japan exactly three months after the Germans surrendered, did so, That was what pushed the Japanese into the final surrender, which the Americans accepted.
After the fire-bombings of so many cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t that big a deal – each was just done with one bomber instead of a thousand. It was the Soviet declaration that pushed the Japanese over the edge.
Actually, the single most damning, inhumane, morally vicious military action ever taken on the face of the Earth was the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
I really like a good conspiracy like the Tonkin Gulf resolution or the Pentagon Papers, but this ain’t it. No, Truman did not drop the bomb because it was budget buster to be justified or to show off his war-making chops. The Japanese military’s idea of surrender was to stop shooting, but to keep its army and government, no foreign troops on its soil, no penalty for war crimes, and to keep ownership of land it had invaded such as Korea. That is not surrender, that is stopping while you are ahead with all the winnings. When Hirohito decided to surrender, there was an attempted military coup that only failed because of the disruption of a blackout caused by a US bombing raid. And in Hirohito’s surrender speech, he said they were surrendering because of the terrible bomb. There’s more, but that’s enough. But yeah, the second Tonkin Gulf incident was faked.
Well, atomic weapons have not been used against any nation since WWII so this is not terribly likely to affect anything. I would suggest that the existence of these weapons has forced, and still forces, nations to step back from all-out war.
As for their use in WWII, a few facts: 1) Thousands of Japanese soldiers were dying of disease and starvation every day at the end of the war because they were not receiving supplies. 2) Contrary to Leftist propaganda, there was no consensus in the Japanese government to surrender before the use of atomic weapons. 3) There was strong opposition in the Japanese government (the Tojo faction) to surrender after the atomic weapons were used. 4) Thousands of civilians in Korea, China, Philippines, etc…were dying every day under Japanese occupation. 5) As happened on some other islands, Japanese civilians on the “Home Islands” were under orders to fight or commit suicide when the invasion happened. 6) Casualties for the invasion (U.S., British, Japanese, etc…) were estimated to exceed 1,000,000 men.
Sorry to melt your snowflakes, but the Atomic Bomb was the best thing for Japan and the U.S.
Thank you for melting snowflakes using historical facts!
Nicely done, sir
yes, my dad was in the camp, Dutch East Indies
good job, chuckie!
Nuclear deterrence works. But if week keep erasing history, people may forget how terrible this weapon is, and then, we will be much, much closer to seeing nuclear weapons used again.
Nuclear deterrence works as long as destruction is mutually assured between states. Not sure how it’ll help if terrorists ever get a hold of nukes or someone figures out a convincing false flag operation. We’ll have far worse weapons someday as biotech tools improve. Hopefully we’ll figure out how to be better humans by then.
According to a book I read, the Japanese surrendered because the Russians were crossing China with intention of invading Japan. As far as they were concerned they would be better off occupied by the Americans rather than the Russians. Apparently, the Japanese did not mind losing two cities but the U.S. had a third bomb ready to go. But that bomb was never used because the Japanese did surrender.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was most certainly to end the war. It was either drop the bomb or invade Japan. It was estimated that an invasion would have caused over a million American and Japanese casualties.
The Japanese government and military was pretty ruthless during the war, and they had no intention of surrendering, we did the right thing.
Harry S. Truman said the decision to drop the bomb was the hardest decision he ever had to make. He also gave his reason for making such a tough decision, “I decided that the bomb should be used in order to end the war quickly and save countless lives, Japanese as well as American.”
“It was either drop the bomb or invade Japan.” Well, that’s what those who dropped the bomb said after the fact, but it seems like an oversimplification to me. I found this piece helpful and non-polemical for just adding in some of the complexity of the situation:
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/
You can’t hug your children with nuclear arms
““Every time I get sick, I say maybe this is the end,” said Nagasaki survivor Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka”….
Perhaps, if YOUR Country wouldn’t have traveled half way across the WORLD to come attack us it would not have been required! Just saying…
I celebrate the event as saving several thousands of AMERICAN lives…
How many young people would blindly accept, views of a supposed historian, without doing their own research.
How many times a day are warped versions of history presented as factual ?
How interesting, from Wikipedia page on Gar Alperovitz.
Second entry under contents is,
“Leading Cold War revisionist historian”
He claims “…using the bombs were not necessary.”
Been pushing his alternate views since 1965.
Operation Downfall was plan for invasion of Japan home islands. One estimate was 1.7–4 million American casualties and between 5 to 10 million Japanese if conventional warfare had been employed. Using nukes saved millions of lives.
When price of aggression is too terrible to risk, there is Peace.
After we nuked Hiroshima, there is evidence that Japan tested their own atomic warhead in Korea. Within a couple of days, the Russians overran the area.
Sure, we will get rid of ours as soon as all those other countries get rid of their’s! Not to mention the countries like Iran and North Korea who are still trying to develop these weapons so that they can attack the United States and the other countries surrounding them!
We didn’t ask for Pearl Harbor to be destroyed and all the service men to die.Japan started a war and we ended it.Don’t mess with America.
I can’t imagine having to make that decision, and it is hard to say I would have chosen differently in Truman’s situation. But it was still wrong to do it.
Let’s not forget the Soviets declared war on Japan in the days just before the atomic bomb attacks,so that they could invade the north and divide Japan as happened in Germany.Korea and Vietnam. Divide and conquer, remember?
There’s is no question lives were saved on both sides as the Japanese were
not ready to lay their arms down-they were going to fight down to the last woman or child.We would have been victorious, but at tremendous cost.
Let’s not forget that the cold war remained cold for the most part(excepting
Korea and Viet Nam), based on the premise of Mutually Assured Destruction that likely wouldn’t have been avoided unless there was an example of nuclear war.
The Japanese had camps in Indonesia and the men in the camps were soon to be executed, If it was not for the bombs I would not be alive. They were vicious, yes, there were citizens that victims of it. One thing my dad said was that many of the guards in the camps had been the grocers and barbers so they were there gathering intel.
Bombing Japan probably saved a hundred thousand American soldiers. Mutual destruction is saving millions. However we should be at a place in history were wars could end. Maybe Trump will try in the next administration.
Peace through superior firepower……..
LOL!!
as soon as kim, russia and iran do, we can talk about it.
get real!
LOL
Protest Calls For Nuclear War in 2020 On 75th Anniversary Of Hiroshima Bombing To End COVID19
Those folks are simple and fools.
Please read my reply to Antonius way far above. (I meant to post it in regular comment order so that perhaps it would stand a chance before the Friday rollover.)
All of the main Axis members (Germany, Italy and Japan) were evil. However, Japan was the only country to attack American territory, encouraged suicide attacks, took delight in torturing and executing captured Americans, considered the emperor to be a God and never had any internal coup attempt(s). We saved millions of lives by defeating them when we did and how we did.
Good luck getting the toothpaste back in the tube.
AD
What’s so crazy, is all of this concern and talk of the nukes used, rather than the atrocities and crazy, aggressive & belligerent behavior of Germany & Japan for startling WWII in the first frikkin’ place…
THAT should always be the focus…
Not to mention firebombing campaign killed WAY more than the two bombs in Japan. Dropping the nukes scared the living s*** out of Japan and they knew it was time to throw in the towel, without the nukes a land invasion would have been likely necessary and the deaths could have tallied in the millions for the allied armies.
Cool, great idea, now get China, Russia, PAKISTAN (For God’s sake!), and all the other insanely dangerous nations out there to give them up first.
Israel has a secret, illegal arsenal of atomic weapons created mostly through espionage of the United States, they’ll never give those up.
Nukes are the only thing keeping large scale conflict from happening. Nukes keep everyone relatively well-behaved, at least publicly. Wars between real nations are now shadow wars.
Without nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would have probably just kept chugging west after WW2 ended and most of Europe would be a series of Communist vassal states.