YOU WON’T FIND THIS IN A HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY BOOK

 

NAGASAKI, JAPAN, AUGUST 9, 1945

Eighty years ago today, August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the civilian population of Nagasaki, Japan. 

Three days earlier, on August 6, the U.S. had bombed the civilian population of Hiroshima, instantly killing 70,000 of the civilian population of 255,000.

The second bomb was unnecessary, as the Japanese had already signaled their intention to surrender.  (Read American Prometheus Oppenheimer.) 

 

The bomb over Nagasaki detonated 1,600 feet above the city, with the force of 21,000 tons of TNT, instantly disintegrating or burning to death 40,000 of the 195,00 population. With 100,000 deaths estimated by the end of the year. 

The eventual death toll of the two bombs could range as high as one-quarter of a million men, women, children, and the elderly.

Birth defects in Japan as a result of radiation continued for generations. 

(Too disturbing to show.)

When you win a war, you can delete any history that is disturbing.

"Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past." 

1984 by George Orwell

the Ol'Buzzard

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

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.