Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki Racist Acts?

International Business Times ^ | August 5, 2011 | Palash Ghosh

[right-wing agnostic]

Saturday marks the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima – devastating acts that helped bring World War Two to a close. (Three days after Hiroshima, Nagasaki was similarly battered).

The attacks – the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used in world history to date – killed tens of thousands of people and shocked the planet with the scale of their destruction.

There has been much controversy over the decision to bomb Japan and some speculation that it might have been racially motivated (given that the U.S. military did not drop such weapons on European civilian targets).

Anti-Japanese discrimination was widespread in the United States long before the war, as exemplified by immigration restrictions the government imposed upon the Japanese (as well as other Asians).

However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii by the Imperial Japanese military threw that animosity into overdrive that lasted well after the second world war.

About 120,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up into internment camps during the war, while propaganda was mass- produced that depicted the Japanese as subhuman and extremely cruel and depraved.

[right-wing agnostic]

The author regurgitates the ahistorical bull $hit pushed by the late Howard Zinn and like-minded historians that the United States only dropped the atomic bombs on Japan because they were predominately a white (read: racist) culture in 1945. The author does note, seemingly dismissively, that Germany had surrendered before we tested the first atomic bomb at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. My pet peeve, other than the United States being considered a racist country for using the atomic bombs on Japan, is that they are often referred to as "nuclear" bombs. But we did not test our first thermonuclear bomb until November 1, 1952 when President Harry Truman ordered the hydrogen bomb, "Ivy Mike", to be tested on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific./rwa

[Organic Panic]

The fact stood right out that we didn’t have a nuke to drop on Berlin. If we did, we would have used it. We did a terrific amount of damage on German targets much worse than the two nukes we dropped on Japan. Dresden comes to mind. Along with the red army invasion of Berlin.

And this isiot author makes no mention of Japanese belief in their superior race. Chinese weren’t even thought of as human beings when the imperial army marched through Shanghai and Nanking.

[RC one]

there have been a lot of arguments made about this. My feeling is that it was absolutely necessary to end the war decisively and on America's terms. In the absence of such a decisive American victory, the war would have continued and the resulting reality would almost certainly have been less favorable for America. So, I don't think it was racist at all, it was a final chess move designed to place America squarely and undeniably at the top of the global food chain. And here we are. still.

[PastorBooks]

From three days ago:

Dropping Atomic Bombs on Japan Was Imperative

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3189617/posts

[cynwoody]

I always thought it was a shame that the Gadget wasn’t ready in time for the European Theater.

[RC one]

Incidentally, my grandfather was stationed on Guam in the Army Air Corps. His job was to load bombs onto trucks and ships. He always claimed that he was twice tasked with driving a truck loaded with the A-Bombs down a long pier to waiting ships. He claimed he had no idea what the first one was other than "the biggest GD bomb I had ever seen" but he knew what was in the back of his truck the second time. Apparently a major storm was throwing waves over the pier the second time as he drove down it with a giant atomic bomb in the back of his truck.

That was his story anyways.

Grandma, bless her heart, was a nurse stationed at Pearl Harbor and then later at Saipan. She had some good stories too.

A toast to all WW2 vets. America's finest generation.

[wardaddy]

No but they were effective

[2ndDivisionVet]

Nuclear = “A-Bomb” and Thermonuclear = “H-Bomb” IIRC. BTW, I believe the “trigger” on an “H-Bomb” that gets the ball rolling is a built-in “A-Bomb” inside. Any physicists here can confirm that or correct me.

[cynwoody]

BTW, I believe the “trigger” on an “H-Bomb” that gets the ball rolling is a built-in “A-Bomb” inside.

Yep.

The X-ray and gamma ray pulse from the primary compresses the secondary, initiating a fusion reaction, which amplifies the yield considerably.

[Vendome]

Racist?

Which side was yellow?

[john mirse]

i have an uncle---who is still alive---who said that he was in a ship in the waters near Japan and getting ready to be among the first troops to invade Japan when the bombs fell. He may have died a very young man if the bombs were not dropped and he had to fight his way into Japan. The bombs may have saved his life.

So I agree completely with the decision to drop the two bombs.

He spent a few quiet months in Japan soon after the surrender.

[nickcarraway]

Did anyone point out that Germany is not an island? Germany was being invaded on two fronts, and there was no way Germany could have held out, like Japan possibly could have.

[nickcarraway]

Did anyone point out that Germany is not an island? Germany was being invaded on two fronts, and there was no way Germany could have held out, like Japan possibly could have.

[2ndDivisionVet]

And each single ICBM or SLBM holds about eight of those in a MIRV configuration, meaning eight separate targets (bases, ports, cities, industrial complexes or what have you) can be targeted and utterly destroyed, IIRC.

[monocle]

Was the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor racist? Was the war in the Pacific racist?

[FreedomStar3028]

No, we are not on top anymore. Came and went. We have allowed political correctness to trump all else: survival, jobs, safety, economy, and our very existence. All the 70s hippies and celebrities cost us dearly, like ripples through a pond we have all allowed a small majority to dictate what is right and wrong. We could have won Vietnam decisively, the Gulf War, and now Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam we should have burnt those jungles to the ground and scoured every last vestige of NLF out and beaten them so badly into submission that they would not threaten anyone for a thousand years. The Gulf was fine, but the second time around we should have given the Kurds authority and let them rule. In Afghanistan we should have reduced those mountains to rubble and trapped all the cockroaches inside, burnt the poppy fields and scoured the earth so that none could ever grow there again. We should have let Israel go into Gaza and utterly obliterated anyone even thinking of taking up arms against the Jewish people.

But nope, a few celebrities and political figures changed the way one generation thought and now they are all grown up.

[2ndDivisionVet]

My late father was sitting on Okinawa with a few other guys preparing to invade. He was sent to Tsingtao, China to pacify the place instead.

[IChing]

So what if they were? What is wrong with protecting one’s extended family?

[9YearLurker]

I believe nuclear is a fair term for an atomic, or fission, bomb.

[RWB Patriot]

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2005/08/the-morality-of-dropping-the-atomic-bomb-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

And the stay-at-homers can whine all they want, but the fact remains that the bombs were dropped and the US won the war. I don’t see them getting this case sent to any court, so it’s all just hot air.