(u.s. welcomes japan to the "atomic age")
they're like demonRATS, they don't want the truth in the history books...
Posted on 08/05/2004 5:58:18 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
Friday, August 6, 2004 at 08:51 JST
HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima on Friday morning marked the 59th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city. An estimated 40,000 people attended the ceremony that started at 8 a.m. at the Peace Memorial Park in the downtown part of the western Japan city that was devastated in the world's first nuclear attack Aug 6, 1945, three days before the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
In his peace declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba voiced serious concern over the "egocentric worldview" of the United States and moves in Japan to revise the country's pacifist Constitution.
"The egocentric worldview of the U.S. government is reaching extremes," Akiba said, criticizing the United States for its nuclear policies.
"Ignoring the United Nations and international law, the United States has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable," Akiba said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also attended the memorial service.
Akiba demanded that the United States strive with other nuclear powers toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
In the declaration, he also demanded that the Japanese government reject moves to revise the war-renouncing Constitution.
"The Japanese government, as our representative, should defend the peace Constitution, of which all Japanese should be proud, and work diligently to rectify the trend toward open acceptance of war and nuclear weapons that is increasingly prevalent at home and abroad," he said.
"We demand that our government act on its obligation as the only nation to suffer atomic bombings," he said.
Article 9 of the Constitution stipulates that the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."
The mayor is a former House of Representatives member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, which is against revision of the Constitution as well as Japan's dispatch of troops to Iraq for reconstruction work there after the U.S.-led war on the country.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage reportedly said last month that the article hinders the Japan-U.S. alliance. He apparently backtracked later, however, as the remark drew strong criticism from lawmakers in Japan.
The 59th anniversary comes at a time when concerns over nuclear issues have intensified globally.
Multilateral efforts are under way to deal with North Korea's nuclear ambitions, while Iran has come under pressure from the international community to allow inspections of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
While expressing hope for the success of the 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Hiroshima also expressed its intention of taking the initiative in achieving the complete abolition of nuclear weapons by bringing together cities, citizens and nongovernmental organizations from around the world.
The initiative, called the Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, aims at adopting an action program incorporating an interim goal of "the signing in 2010 of a Nuclear Weapons Convention to serve as the framework for eliminating nuclear weapons by 2020," according to Akiba.
Among those attending the ceremony were Pakistani Ambassador Kamran Niaz and Russian Ambassador Alexander Losyukov.
U.N. Undersecretary General Nobuyasu Abe is also attending on behalf of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The city government of Hiroshima had asked seven nuclear nations — Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States — as well North Korea to send government delegates to the ceremony, but only Pakistan and Russia accepted.
The U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its aftereffects killed an estimated 140,000 people by the end of 1945.
This year, the names of 5,142 more people recognized as atomic-bomb victims by the city since Aug 6 last year were added to a memorial arch, bringing the total to 237,062. (Kyodo News)
My father was a bomber pilot in the South Pacific in World War II. A lot of his comrades survived being shot down only to be tortured and murdered by the Japanese. The Japanese people got only a small dose of what they really deserved.
Don't forget the Nazi-type attrocities committed against our POW's, and the rape of China, which they have yet to acknowledge.
Nope.
The Nanjing Massacre, also known as "The Rape of Nanking," is a rare example of simultaneous gendercides against women and men. It is generally remembered for the invading forces' barbaric treatment of Chinese women. Many thousands of them were killed after gang rape, and tens of thousands of others brutally injured and traumatized. Meanwhile, approximately a quarter of a million defenseless Chinese men were rounded up as prisoners-of-war and murdered en masse, used for bayonet practice, or burned and buried alive.
Japan was working on a "bomb" of their own, without the slightest hesitation they would have used it!
I guess she's entitled to her opinion, but too bad she couldn't defend it better. The dropping of the bombs was not 100% supported even at the time by some of JCS and Cabinet members.
Of course, they wern't the ones who would been killed or wounded in an invasion.
Word to Hizzoner-san: You apologize for Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and Bataan, and then we'll talk. Until then, kindly STFU.
Tortured, murdered and EATEN by the Japanese.
(u.s. welcomes japan to the "atomic age")
they're like demonRATS, they don't want the truth in the history books...
Many thanks for your service to our country.
Americans and Japanese weren't the only ones, of course, who were spared by what one observer has aptly called a " miracle of deliverance", the atomic bombs.
My dad, God rest his soul, was RAF aircrew, and had survived his 30 mission tour on Lancasters (one of the few to do so).
On 6 August 1945, he was preparing to move with his squadron to the Far East, as part of the UK's "Tiger Force", a heavy bomber element that was supposed to join the war against Japan. Their initial base would have been in India and they had just re-equipped with the Avro Lincoln (a kind of souped-up Lancaster, a good plane but still primitive compared to the B-29).
He and his mates knew that they had beaten the odds once and they were apprehensive about their chances of doing it again, even though Japanese defenses were said to be weaker than those of the Luftwaffe.
He actually knew a little about nuclear energy, having been a science fiction fan before and sometimes during the war. He had read HG Wells' "The World Set Free," in which Wells had coined the actual term "atomic bomb." He was therefore not as surprised or as incredulous as some. His first reaction upon hearing about the bomb was simply to reassure his mates that, yes, it was possible and that it was probably everything the BBC said it was. "Even the bloody Japs can't stand against that," he told them, "the Yanks have called the match and we're on the winning team."
Dad died peacefully in 2001 at the age of 83, he had been an American citizen for 18 years by then.
Ping!
I don't suppose the mayor got out his thinking cap and calculated the Japanese lives that were saved by the atomic bombs. Well, don't let the facts get in the way, my friend.
oh, shut up Mayor - nuking your gramps saved all y'all from having the third US/USSR Asian proxy war on your precious home islands, so cry me a damned river.
before my time?
I woulda liked to have been in on that one.
This is what you get for allowing your government to drift into anarchy. General Douglas MacArthur was the best thing that ever happened to your Emperor worshipping society. The worm has turned already just be glad you picked on a benevolent forgiving society who shows restraint even in the worse case senario. It could have been a whole lot worse and you know this to be true. Teach future generations the simple truth of minding your own business and let God sort out the really bad guys. You should have learned this while you were occupied by us so shut up and count your blessings!
Perhaps two months ago, I can't recall. Definitely this summer.
> 2) Was the Japanese leadership ignorant of the American atom bomb's > existence? No! In fact, an Axis spy incorrectly reported as fact the false rumors heard in the American Southwest of a successful American test of an atom bomb in "1943"! However, most Japanese officers believed the Americans would be unable to build the atomic bomb for several more years. This belief was due in part to the fact the Japanese research and development began many years earlier than the American projects. The Japanese didn't believe the Americans could overtake the Japanese lead in the research. The Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy were in a race to be the first to develop the Japanese atomic bomb. Both of these research and development programs and a world renowned Japanese physicist, Dr. Nishina, relied upon uranium mines and hydroelectric power facilities in Korea to provide the necessary infrastructure for their projects. These are some of the same facilities North Korea uses for its own nuclear weapons research and development in the present day. Although conventional reports claim the Japanese nuclear weapons research was primitive and not close to completing an atomic bomb, there are other reports that dispute such claims. A contemporary reporter from the Atlanta Constitution interviewed a Japanese officer who reported he witnessed a Japanese test of its first atomic bomb off the coast of Korea at the end of the war while he was the project's security officer. One book author has traced the American post-war investigations of the Japanese nuclear research, and he reports on evidence indicating the Japanese were no more than a matter of weeks or a few months behind the Americans in producing their own atomic bombs for use against the Allies. Such reports are vigorously denied and disputed by other authorities.
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The Japs exploded an atomic bomb shortly after the Nagasaki attack. The device was in a barge tied up to some little islet in the Sea of Japan safely out ot range of US recon aircraft. If we had continued with the invasion plans they may have gotten one or two more ready in time to hit the invasion fleet.
hrmn.
either I missed it, or all the trollslaying lately has my memory burned out.
JR rarely bloodies his knuckles, and I'd have liked to have seen it.
durn.
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