Japan minister in atom bomb row (Surprising stance).

BBC ^ | Saturday, June 30, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Hiroshima has preserved some of its ruins from the blast

The nuclear bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945 were the inevitable way to end World War II, Japan's defence minister has said.

"I think it was something that couldn't be helped," said Fumio Kyuma in a speech at a university east of Tokyo.

His comments sparked outrage from survivors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The minister, who represents Nagasaki in parliament, said later that he was expressing the US view of events.

In his speech, he said the US must have thought the bombs "could prompt Japan's surrender, thus preventing the Soviet Union from declaring war against Japan".

Japanese leaders rarely comment on the use of the atom bomb against Japan for fear of damaging ties with the US.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played down Mr Kyuma's speech, saying it bore no effect on "Japan's important role of seeking abolition of nuclear weapons".

See a graphic showing how the Hiroshima attack took place

But Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, 75, said Mr Kyuma's comments were "outrageous".

"He must know hundreds of thousands of people died, and died in terrible agony," she was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

"He is from Nagasaki, and I'm ashamed of him as a person from the same prefecture."

The row comes ahead of upper house elections on 29 July in which Mr Abe's party is facing dwindling public support.

THE ATTACK ON HIROSHIMA 0812 local time, 6 August 1945: 1. American B-29 bomber 'Enola Gay' approaches Hiroshima at an altitude of about 9,357 metres, and begins its bombing run 2. At 0815 it releases the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' 3. The aircraft then performs a sharp, 155 degree right turn and dives an estimated 518 metres 4. At 0816, the bomb explodes with a force of 13 kilotons at a height of approximately 576 metres above the city 5. About a minute later the first shock wave, travelling at about 335 metres per second, hits the aircraft

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[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Headline on the BBC website at the time of posting: “Japan minister in atom bomb row” .

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

ping.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

ping.

[PureSolace]

God Bless America! And Japan Too, who is now our Ally! God Protect the U.K. and all our other Allies... May the rest of the world who seeks our destruction turn over a new leaf and become our ally, or may they be wiped from the Earth! All Glory to God!

[Navy Patriot]

My goodness, a realist.

Truman saved millions on both sides, and administered the necessary object lesson to the Japanese to turn them from a terrorist race with delusions of superiority to a civilized one.

This same object lesson must be delivered to the Islamicists to achieve the same conversion, but America does not appear to be up to the task, this time.

[Greenpees]

If they had it, they would’ve used it. And, probably with less discretion regarding which of our cities to target. At least we avoided thier ancient places and capitol.

[mamelukesabre]

Why is this surprising? Everyone knows that had japan had nukes, they would have used them on The USA. Everyone knows that had we not used nukes on Japan, Japan still would have lost the war eventually. The nukes were used to end the war quickly.

[2ndDivisionVet]

There is a lesson here: Don’t attack the United States of America and you won’t have to worry about being incinerated in a nuclear fireball! Are you listening, Iran?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

It's shocking how many people around the world consider the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being crimes against humanity.

If those bombs were not dropped, and with the information the United States had on Japan at the time, the United States was prepared to invade Japan at a cost of up to the lives of 1,000,000 American soldiers and millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians. Thousands of lives were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that millions were not.

[weegee]

Yes. Better for hundreds of thousands to die falling on swords and bayonets and getting hit by missiles, grenades, and flame throwers. < / s >

As Bill Maher would say “this was a cowardly act”. Did I mention that Maher is a heartless bastard who wouldn’t fight for any cause?

[ketsu]

There is a lesson here: Don’t attack the United States of America and you won’t have to worry about being incinerated in a nuclear fireball! Are you listening, Iran?

Here's a little secret. Roosevelt forced the Japanese to attack. By denying the Japanese their oil imports the Japanese(with no native oil reserves and got their oil from America) he had basically given the Japanese economy a death sentence unless they found another source of oil. Roosevelt *knew* the Japanese would have to attack the US in order to secure the indonesian oil fields.

It's good realpolitik on Roosevelt's part, but don't assume the world is so simple.

[dasboot]

Here's a little secret. Roosevelt forced the Japanese to attack. By denying the Japanese their oil imports the Japanese(with no native oil reserves and got their oil from America) he had basically given the Japanese economy a death sentence unless they found another source of oil.

So, like, why would he do a nasty thing like that?

[ketsu]

So, like, why would he do a nasty thing like that?

Because he was a democrat?

[dasboot]

OH! I figgered it musta had something to do with China, and their military buildup, and some pretty good reckonin’ that they were figgerin’ they were gonna be the Empire of the Sun ..or some such.

[dasboot]

I mean...I’d kinda feel bad fueling a machine like that.

[DB]

Japan was being denied their oil imports because they were killing people in mass in China.

Not that complicated.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

The United States was far from neutral before entering the war, but they were still very much an enemy. They attacked Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack (though this is debated) and were very cruel to prisoners of war and civilians in conquered lands.

[ketsu]

OH! I figgered it musta had something to do with China, and their military buildup, and some pretty good reckonin’ that they were figgerin’ they were gonna be the Empire of the Sun ..or some such.

Points? Follow them much?

[ketsu]

The United States was far from neutral before entering the war, but they were still very much an enemy. They attacked Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack (though this is debated) and were very cruel to prisoners of war and civilians in conquered lands.

Japan was heavily conflicted about involving the US. The neo-cons of their day were all for total war. But the smarter and more rational Japanese leaders including Admiral Yamamoto thought that war with the US was suicide.

[Cricket24]

I may not be alive today had the US not used those bombs as my Dad was on a ship off the coast of Japan getting ready to invade Japan to end the war that THEY started.
My Dad believed until his very last breath that he and many others would probably not have survived that invasion. Therefore, it saved American lives incuding my Dad’s.
People still live in those cities. I thought that people couldn’t live where there was radioactivity and that it would be a wasteland. Just curious as to the level of that radioactivity today.

[TalBlack]

“He must know hundreds of thousands of people died, and died in terrible agony,”

I wonder if this guy ever got all worked up over the people enslaved and slaughtered (slaughtered in such a variety of sadistically agonizing ways)by the Jap military?

[fieldmarshaldj]

And if the Soviets had come in as “backup” for us in the ‘War for Japan’, they surely, too, would’ve demanded a big piece of the action (a la Germany being partioned). Imagine a Soviet Japan. Indeed, those bombs saved countless lives and that potential political tyranny.

[Bernard]

With all the noise level being generated on this, I expect to see people start thinking Harry Truman was a Republican, much the same way people are surprised to find out that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

So many stories, so little context.

[TalBlack]

“Roosevelt *knew* the Japanese would have to attack the US in order to secure the indonesian oil fields.”

Guess he ALSO knew they would bungle the attack to the degree that it would not only fail to force The USN back to California but leave enough Naval elements and repair/refuel capability to kick the living shit out of the Japanese Navy VERY shortly thereafter?

Wow. What a prescient guy Roosevelt was

[endthematrix]

"Better for hundreds of thousands to die falling on swords and bayonets and getting hit by missiles, grenades, and flame throwers. < / s >

As Bill Maher would say “this was a cowardly act”. "

As Archie Bunker in a pro-RKBA retort, "Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?"

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

“Here’s a little secret. Roosevelt forced the Japanese to attack. By denying the Japanese their oil imports the Japanese(with no native oil reserves and got their oil from America) he had basically given the Japanese economy a death sentence unless they found another source of oil. Roosevelt *knew* the Japanese would have to attack the US in order to secure the indonesian oil fields.”

Not a secret and also not true.

The Japanese had invaded China, Korea, and most of the rest of the Pac Rim and were on their way to conquering the rest - they did it for the raw materials.

The Japanese needed the oil for their war machine, which was to say they didn’t need it at all.

Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack US territories eventually no matter what he did.

[ishabibble]

The MSM hyped-up outrage over this Japanese minister’s remarks is just that, hype. It is far more likely that this man was overtly putting a nuclear strike on Iran squarely back on the table. The Japanese have always been astonishingly ruthless when it comes to war. Maybe they are much more amenable to this hard decision than the crybaby people around the world.

We are going to have to deal with Iran’s nuclear capabilities soon. The minister just seems to be saying, “Look at the bigger picture, look at the reasons and the consequences”. I don’t think Japan will be too surprised if we take out Iran. Bear in mind that North Korea is far more reckless and right next door to Japan.

[Brian Mosely]

Thousands of lives were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that millions were not.

The strange thing is, you always hear about the two atomic attacks, but hardly anything about the firebombing raids on dozens of Japanese cities in March-April of 1945, with death tolls that were in the millions. To me, that would be more horrible. A slow, inescapable death from a massive firestorm, rather than instant nuclear obliteration.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You have to look at Japan’s war making from their perspective; they had whipped the Russians, held much of China & Korea and had sized up the Dutch and Brit holdings in SE Asia. They thought they were invincible. Trouble was, they’d learned the wrong lesson from 1905...

[woofer]

I wonder if this guy ever got all worked up over the people enslaved and slaughtered (slaughtered in such a variety of sadistically agonizing ways)by the Jap military?

All his life he has been told how Japan's desire in the Thirties was to throw off the white colonialists and imperialists from East Asia and creat the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

You see, the Imperial Japanese and sons of Nippon were helping all those Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians and Filopinos while taking all of their resources and women for use in Japan and by the japanese Army.

The lousy Americans ruined their plans by fighting an offensive war, using every resource available to crush them and their plans for Asia.

I still believe the Japanese were lucky that the emperor had finally seen the light and turned to surrender, after Nagasaki. He and the War cabinet still thought they could negotiate terms after Hiroshima.

[snowsislander]

But Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, 75, said Mr Kyuma's comments were "outrageous".

And in fine journalistic tradition of giving "balance" to reports, the BBC finds someone who might represent the views of a small percentage of people in Japan (notice that Mr. Tanaka is not even listed as the spokesman for any group, just some random person that the BBC managed found that trumpeted an opposite opinion --- and one that I suspect is far more in sympathy with the reporter's own position.)

As I remarked yesterday on a similar article yesterday, it's almost as if some foreign reporter decided that every time that Queen of England received some sort of press coverage in the U.S. that the report would feel compelled to find a LaRouchite to give "balance" to his reporting.

It's not illegitimate to occasionally mention minority opinions, but treating them as if they were so representative that they should be included in every journalistic endeavor I think is misleading --- and not exactly cricket when these opinions happen to be more in accord with the journalists' own biases.

[DTogo]

Had an invasion of Japan taken place, the death toll and carnage would have been much worse, more widespread, and who knows how post WWII Japan would have looked. We might have needed the Soviets help, and they might have taken all of Hokkaido....

日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

An invasion would’ve been impossible without more fire bombing and/or more nukes. Anyone who has seen pictures of Tokyo/Yokohama in July of 1945 should know how horrible this would have been for Japan.

[Raymann]

You’re forgetting one other thing: If the US had to invade so would have the Soviets. All of Korea would be the PROK and Hokkaido and perhaps half of Honshu would have been the People’s Republic of Japan. Imagine a DMZ running just north of Tokyo and tell me those bombs weren’t justified.

[WalterSkinner]

Enola Gay and Bock's Car Bump

My late father was with the forces in Southeast China in 1945 and would have no doubt been part of the invasion of Japan--I may have never been born...

[Max in Utah]

My father was on Okinawa in 1945. He figured he would have been in the second wave of a land invasion.

Use of the atomic bombs was unfortunately necessary and probably saved many lives on both sides.

[GATOR NAVY]

Japan was heavily conflicted about involving the US.

It was all about saving face in China. Japan could have avoided war with the US and the West by withdrawing from China in the face of the economic embargoes. But that would have been a humiliation, so they chose war with West in order to continue their war in China. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[GATOR NAVY]

Roosevelt *knew* the Japanese would have to attack the US in order to secure the indonesian oil fields.

I don't think so. The East Asian colonial powers were in chaos due to the war in Europe. We had no treaties of mutual defense with the Dutch, or the Vichy French or even the British. I think Roosevelt's nightmare would have been what if the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies without attacking the US? Remember how strong the isolationist faction was in the US at that time. Do you think they would have supported going to war without an attack on us? I doubt it. If they Japanese had better understood US domestic politics they could have really screwed up FDR's "plan". Just as Hitler could have by not declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor.

[jamaksin]

Lest we forget there were some treaties of which Japan was a party. For example, the way she gained territorial rights (viz., Pacific islands formerly recognized as being German - the so-called Mandates), Northern China, ...):

Some instances: Treaty of Portsmouth, Root-Takahire Agreement, Treaty of Versailles, Olney Corollary (of the Monroe Doctrine) comparative to Stimson Doctrine, ... etc.

Your source of FDR "knowing" Japan would attack US terriories eventually is where?

FDR instructing Hull to replace the modus vevendi with the ten-point ultimatum ... bad move.

[Candor7]

Japan is full of liberal socialist polktically correct polls. There also is and was a continuous reaction of the Japanese peopel against the military, because of the fascist regime , in effect a military hunta/shogunate, which controlled the Emperor, who for his own survival, and the survival of his family, had to go along with the militarization of Japan. This dynamic was also driven my population demographics, a fascist bent on return to a culture of Bushido. 1) After Iwo Jima ( see the recently DVD released movies : Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima, which together give an accurate history, thanks to Clint Eastwood)the projected casualties for Allied Forces in the Pacific for the conquest of Japan was over 1 million. 2) The USA had to demonstrate to the USSR and China, that the West was drawing the line to totalitarion communist expansion into the Pacific Rim nations.( They suceeded)

Today, China conducts a continuous campaign at the UN and inside Japan, to fan the flames of anti-militarism. Japan by necessity must re-arm to become an effective military ally of the USA in continuing to prevent China's absoute control of the Pacific Rim, including Taiwan and Japan and South Korea. China wants all of Asia under its " hegemony."

With Japanese and South Korea's miltary help, we can succeed. Smart Japanese politicians know and understand this fact, while the maudlin Japanese public generally does not.

The West has helped Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to become powerful econimic engines through trade and joint research in technological fields. Now these nations have to anti-up for their own defence. Without that, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will become communist totalitarian states within another generation.

[jamaksin]

And, lest we forget:

FDR had committed the US to the "armed support" of British and Dutch terrority if the Japanese crossed several "deadlines" - i.e., Morgenstern's Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War, page 336,

The tale of the three "tettered goats" - Admiral Tolley's story of the USS Lanikai, ...

PURPLE message of 29 November 1941, " ... He (sic RIBBENTROP) also said that if JAPAN were to go to war with AMERICA, GERMANY would of course, join in immediately, and HITLER's intention was that there should be absolutely no question of GERMANY making a separate peace with ENGLAND. [Clausen and Lee, Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement, Da Capo Press, Appendix, page 367] N.B., Churchill highlighted this paragraph in red ink.

[jamaksin]

Recall that Japanese Prime Minister Konoye (known as a moderate) who wanted to meet face-to-face with FDR?

Recall what was "signalled" as "on the table" and open for discussion?

Recall what happened?,

And, for example, the comments of US Ambassador in Japan and UK Ambassador in Japan on that result?

[Navy Patriot]

Imagine a Soviet Japan. Indeed, those bombs saved countless lives and that potential political tyranny.

Roosevelt was a communist sympathizer, and gave away several perks to Stalin. FDR coddling extended the life of the Evil Empire, and made them more powerful after WWII. Fortunately, Truman was not so inclined, and FDR was dead before the final showdown with Japan, or your observation might be history. FDR was developing the bomb in a race with Germany, not Japan. Germans were the original motivation and target, who knows what FDR would have ordered.

[tetuhe1898]

Sequential info: Mr. Kyuma’s speech has brought about strong public resentment in Japan followed by his resignation. His words have cost him his carrier, and he is no longer a defense minister of Japan.

[tetuhe1898]

carrier=career