62 Years After The Bomb - Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
Sixty-two years ago today, on August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, This was the first time that a nuclear weapon was used as an act of warfare.
The United States estimates that the death toll from the blast was roughly 70,000, with many thousands of additional deaths in the weeks, months and years after the explosion.
Everything changed on that day.
From that day on, mankind has had the weapons necessary to destroy civilization on this planet and kill literally billions of human beings. Everything changed on August 6th, 1945.
If the community of nations that inhabit this planet, cannot find ways to resolve our disputes and conflicts in a less primitive manner, then there is always the possiblity that nuclear conflict could occur again. We must never allow nuclear weapons to be used as a political or military solution ever again!
The human race has survived 62 years without using nuclear weapons as an act of war. It is worth commmemorating this as an accomplishment.
And yet, even here in Canada we have persons who are so politically deranged and morally depraved, that they demand the use of nuclear weapons! To call for the use of nuclear weapons is clearly insanity - it should be a crime!
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There is increasing evidence to suggest that the Japanese were trying to negotiate a surrender at the time, under the same terms as the 'de facto' terms if the unconditional surrender. The tragedy could have been prevented.
Sadly also on 8/6 (1971), GW Bush received a daily briefing with all the information he should have needed to prevent 9/11. Think how much different the world would be, had the US had a real president that day.
Posted by TomCat | 2:28 pm, August 06, 2007
America never forgave Truman for the bombing mistakes. America will never forgive Bush jr. for his squandered legacy.
Posted by Anonymous | 3:09 pm, August 06, 2007
It is amazing to me to read "knowledgeable" posts on the very false premise that the U.S. was wrong about killing so many civilians to end Japanese savagery. Here's a blog to bring some reality to this discussion: http://querkeyturkey.blogspot.com/search/label/Nagasaki.
And as much as I like Tomcat, this "increasing evidence" ignores the fact that the Japanese military was ready to assassinate the Emperor should he release his surrender to the Japanese radio stations and press. In fact, an underling was only prevented from carrying out his death by the fact that the signed draft could not be found by the cabal.
There was much hiding and secreting of the Emperor's order of surrender and only the bravery of a single loyal Japanese prevented the tragedy that would have accompanied an invasion.
My personal belief is that "everything changed" on the day Japanese soldiers raped Nanking and killed an estimated one million Chinese civilians.
Posted by Catmoves | 8:27 pm, August 10, 2007