raisethefist

raisethefist




post comment

FEATURE THIS
Good war? : Indybay

by indybay.org
Thu Dec 6 23:20:54 PST 201







On July 16, 1945, the United States of America detonated the first atomic bomb in the barren desert of New Mexico. Less than a month after this first explosion, the U.S. dropped two atom bombs on the heavily populated cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. This first usage of the horror bomb indiscriminately wiped out over 100,000 civilian woman, children and old people--and condemned many others to a very slow and painful death.







Contrary to what's taught in schools across the country, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were militarily unnecessary and morally indefensible. That's the origin myths of this. Every school kid is still learning this: We dropped the bomb because we had to, because the Japanese resistance was fanatic, and we would have lost many American lives taking Japan. This is one there's no alternative to that story. The bomb did not have to be dropped for strategic reasons and also because it was morally reprehensible. But strategically, it made no sense.

It made no sense because the Japanese were already defeated. The Japanese emperor asking for peace. It was not the bombing. Generations of Americans have been taught that the United States reluctantly dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men poised to die in an invasion of Japan. Many Americans view World War II nostalgically as the "Good" War in which the United States. By the time it was over, 60 to 65 million people lay dead, including an estimated 27 million Soviets.

Ted Rudow III, MA