SEVENTY YEARS AGO TODAY

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 an American military bomber released an Atomic weapon on a civilian population.   The bomb detonated at 1900 feet above Hiroshima, Japan killing 140,000 of the 350,000 inhabitants.

Don't give me any shit a about ending the war early or collateral damage.   War is between military combatants.   An attack aimed at a civilian population is a war crime.  

Winners of wars get to write the history so you will not see this in a high school American or World history book.

A crime against humanity - but begs the question: are humans capable of humanity, or so egocentric that we can justify something as heinous as this.

Have a good day

the Ol'Buzzard

BE ASHAMED - BE VERY ASHAMED!

A WEEK OF INFAMY

This is a week of American shame.    An atrocity committed so heinous it is beyond comprehension.   It falls in the same category as the Jewish Holocaust:

On August 6, 1945 a United States B-29 bomber (the Enola Gay) released an atomic weapon that detonated 1900 feet above Hiroshima, Japan, killing 140,000 of the 350,000 inhabitants and leveling two-thirds of the city.   Less than a week later a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki killing 70,000 of the 270,000 inhabitants: women, children, old men and women – non combatants.  

 

This genocidal attack by the United States killed almost a quarter of a million civilian, and the radiation from this attack caused sickness, casualties and deformities of the population for decades after. 

9-11 will be covered in high school history books; but you will find no mention of this crime against humanity.  

Teach this to your children and grandchildren - otherwise they will never know. 

 the Ol'Buzzard

AUGUST 11, 1945

AMERICA, AMERICA GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE

What does it say about a nation that cold bloodedly murders 140,000 men women and children in one day and then five days later slaughters 70,000 more?  Is this a necessity of war, or genocide?  Was this collateral damage or an act of state sponsored terrorism?   Does it depend on who is doing the slaughter and who is slaughtered?   

After burning 140,000 people in the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 the United States dropped another nuclear bomb on the city of Nagasaki five days later, killing 70,000 of that cities 270,000 population. 

At that moment the United States became the most feared nation in the world.  Not only did it have the technology to slaughter hundreds of thousands of human beings in an instant but it also had the will to do it.

Back in the States the war was over.

  

People celebrated; but no one asked 'what have we done?' 

This does not stand as a condemnation of our nation state, but a condemnation of the human race in general.   The slaughter of civilian populations is not new to our race; it has gone on since the beginning of time.   Our closest kin in the animal kingdom, the chimpanzee, has been known to kill and eat its own kind, to attack other chimpanzee bands and to kill for pleasure or without purpose.   We have these same traits, and this is born out by our history.

I find it hard to believe that after the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of civilians in one bomb blast, that this country would be so callus as to repeat the carnage five days later.   

I do not excuse the United States for the attack on the Japanese cities; I do, however, feel that any other nation with the capacity and the same war mentality would have committed a similar atrocity on its ‘enemy.’  

I do condemn this country for not including this most heinous act in our history, along with condemnation and an apology, in the school books of our children.

We are who we are: not Americans, not Germans, not Japanese, not Russians… – but human beings.  We see what we are capable of - with no regret, so be afraid.  Be very afraid. 

the Ol’Buzzard

A DAY OF INFAMY

JUNE 6,1945

The definition of terrorist is: someone who uses violence, especially bombing, kidnapping and assassination to intimidate others often for political purposes.

I can remember in Vietnam the war cry of ‘Kill-um all and let God sort it out’.    I was outraged when the civilians cried for justice and the government prosecuted the soldiers at My Lai.   To a military man in a war zone the most important thing in the world is your band of brothers – fuck everyone else.  You take fire from a village you ‘kill-um all and let God sort it out’.

An attack on a civilian population is an atrocity.   The military can get bound up in war mania and try to justify the killing of women, children and old people as collateral damage that is the unavoidable result of waging war.   But the intentional targeting of a civilian population for annihilation is, and should be, looked on as a war crime – a crime against humanity.  

We celebrate, in our macabre way, the attack on the World Trade Center on 9-11; and, as a results, we readily condemn an entire race for the killing of three thousand civilians on our hallowed soil.  This will go down in our children’s history books as a shockingly cruel act of wanton violence.   

However, in our children’s history books you will never find the account of the most blatant, heinous assaults ever executed by a nation with the intention of annihilating   a specific civilian population.    The reason for this omission is that the United States of America conducted this assault.

It was eight-o-clock in the morning on August 6, 1945.   Mothers were feeding there children in preparation for school, old people were having their morning tea,  men were leaving for work - while somewhere off the coast a B-29 bomber called The Enola Gay was headed for its target.  

Fifteen minutes later the American Air Crew released the first nuclear bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, which detonated 1900 feet above the city of Hiroshima, Japan.  The blast instantly killed one hundred and forty thousand of the three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, turning two thirds of the city to rubble. 

This act of war against a civilian population - this crime against humanity - was celebrated at the time, but later became a footnote to be omitted from our history.