[Peace-discuss] Truman and Hiroshima

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Notice of this poll was sent to me with the note, "No wonder there's no 
uprising in this country against the war crimes perpetrated in Iraq and 
Afghanistan..." --CGE]

	64 Years Later, US Support for Hiroshima Nuking Lingers
	Killing of 140,000 Less Palatable Among Young, Poll Finds
	by Jason Ditz, August 05, 2009

64 years ago on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the 
Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 70,000 Japanese (the vast 
majority of them civilians) and killing tens of thousands of others in the years 
that followed, with the final toll estimated at 140,000. It was the first of 
only two uses of nuclear weapons in human history (the second was three days 
later in Nagasaki) and the deadliest.

Today, a poll by Quinnipiac University found that 61% of Americans felt the 
attack was “the right thing” while only 22% believe it was wrong. Somewhat 
encouraging, however, was that the willingness to question the attack was 
significantly larger among younger people, with people between the ages of 18-34 
split roughly down the middle about whether the killings were acceptable.

In the US, it is still common for school children to be taught that the nuclear 
attack saved millions of lives, and the poll shows that the belief that the 
attack was immoral is very much a minority opinion. It was not always the case, 
however.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower said he believed the attack was “completely 
unneccesary,” adding that “Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to 
surrender.” President Truman’s Military Chief of Staff Admiral William Leahy 
said “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no 
material assistance in our war against Japan,” Admiral Leahy also said “my own 
feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical 
standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war 
in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/05/64-years-later-us-support-for-hiroshima-nuking-lingers/

Brussel Morton K. wrote:
> We should not forget. Useful reminders by Ralph Raico:
> 
> http://original.antiwar.com/Ralph-2/2009/08/05/hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
> 
> /"The most spectacular episode of Truman’s presidency will never be 
> forgotten, but will be forever linked to his name: the atomic bombings 
> of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and of Nagasaki three days later. 
> Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks 
> and through radiation poisoning; the vast majority were civilians, 
> including several thousand Korean workers. Twelve U.S. Navy fliers 
> incarcerated in a Hiroshima jail were also among the dead.//…"/
> 
> Raico concludes:
> 
> /"Leo Szilard was the world-renowned physicist who drafted the original 
> letter to Roosevelt that Einstein signed, instigating the Manhattan 
> Project. In 1960, shortly before his death, Szilard stated another 
> obvious truth:/
> 
> /If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we 
> would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war 
> crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this 
> crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them./
> 
> /The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime worse than 
> any that Japanese generals were executed for in Tokyo and Manila. If 
> Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then no one ever was."/
> 
> Of course, Truman is only one noteworthy example of those "leaders" who 
> take nations to war and are ready and willing to sacrifice innocents. 
>  They are with us today, and may rightly be called war criminals. --mkb
> 
> 
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