Posted on 08/07/2004 7:41:33 AM PDT by em2vn
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on TaipeiTimes http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/08/07/2003182057
At Hiroshima's anniversary, US stands criticized
ATOMIC BOMB: The mayor of the city that suffered the world's first nuclear attack wondered why there is any need for new generations of such horrific weapons
AP , HIROSHIMA, JAPAN Saturday, Aug 07, 2004,Page 5
Demonstrators wearing hats that say ``peace'' stage a ``die-in'' in front of the gutted A-bomb dome in Hiroshima, Japan, yesterday. PHOTO: REUTERS
The mayor of Hiroshima marked the anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack yesterday by lashing out at the US for its pursuit of next-generation nuclear weapons, and called on a global ban on all nuclear arms by 2020.
Denouncing US President George W. Bush's administration for its "egocentric" view of the world, Tadatoshi Akiba said Washington had turned its back on other nations.
"Ignoring the UN and international law, the US has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more `usable,'" he said at the 59th annual ceremony in the western city's Peace Memorial Park.
In June, the US Senate approved spending for the Bush administration's research into -- but not development of -- new nuclear "bunker buster" and "mini-nuke" warheads.
The nuclear bunker buster would be designed to hit targets deep underground, such as subterranean military command centers that are beyond the reach of conventional arms.
The mini-nukes would have the explosive power of less than 5,000 tonnes of TNT -- one-fourth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Supporters of the new weapons say they would cause less damage and fewer deaths in the area around a target.
The US has had a self-imposed ban on nuclear testing since 1992.
But Akiba said the world needs to dismantle and ban all weapons like the US atomic bomb that killed or injured 160,000 people on Aug. 6, 1945.
He called on nations to attend a nuclear nonproliferation meeting, to be held in May next year in New York, and sign a treaty that would eventually abolish nuclear arms by 2020.
He also branded North Korea's development of nuclear weapons a "worthless policy of `nuclear insurance.'" Japan, the US and four other nations have been engaged in recent talks to pressure the isolated communist regime to scrap its weapons program.
Before Akiba spoke, a bell pealed at 8:15am -- marking the time when the US A-bomb leveled this city, 687km southwest of Tokyo. Tens of thousands of survivors, residents, visitors and officials from around the world remembered the bombing victims by observing a minute of silence.
Afterward, 1,000 doves were released.
In brief remarks, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reaffirmed Japan's policy banning the production, possession and transport of nuclear weapons within its borders.
Hiroshima city added to a list -- encased in a stone cenotaph -- 5,142 names of those who have died from cancer and other long-term ailments over the past year, raising the toll to 237,062, city official Niroaki Narukawa said.
Among those added in recent years were seven American POWs who perished in the explosion. Some of those Americans were from the crews of three aircraft -- two B-24 bombers and a Helldiver dive bomber -- shot down near Hiroshima on July 28, 1945 after a raid on Japanese warships in nearby Kure.
Others were prisoners who had been killed elsewhere in grisly experiments that the Japanese military apparently wanted to hide.
One American, US Army Air Force Corporal John Long, was newly incorporated earlier this year into a memorial hall in the peace park.
The park opened in 2002 and displays photographs and biographical notes about 9,000 bomb victims.
Ceremonies will be held Saturday on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, on the southernmost main island of Kyushu.
About 70,000 people were killed by an atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki from a US aircraft, three days after the one that hit Hiroshima.
On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan's surrender ended World War II.
Oh yes. It would have been much better to let the war drag on, more innocents killed. More of our soldiers killed. I'm sure the leftists would prefer that. Absolutely certain they would prefer that.
Don't bomb Pearl Harbor. Don't march our soldiers to death at Bataan.
So9
Damn, ya beat me to it.
Hey Butterheads, ya started it, ya lost, get over it!
Wonderful memorial service at the Covington Cathedral Basilica here yesterday. The Sakura Ladies Chorus performed " Hirosima Peace Song" and "Furusato" ( My Country Home). Thats the news from middle Americas alternate universe.
Dropping the bomb to end the war, support ping.
Naturally, Leftist history revisionists refuse to recognize this simple fact.
"When can we have that bomb?”
Extract from, "The Last Great Victory" (Book, p. 653 Hardcover Edition), 1991, Stanley Weintraub
It was the afternoon of August 5, 1945. To a group of six hundred army officers assigned to the Hiroshima garrison, Professor Yoshitaka Mimura of Hiroshima Bunri University, a theoretical physicist, was explaining the scientific possibilities of new weapons which might reverse the tide of war. Japan had little Navy or Air Force left. Within months a massive invasion of the home islands seemed likely. “Could you tell us, sir”, a young lieutenant colonel asked, “what an atomic bomb is? Is there any possibility that the bomb will be deployed by the end of this war?”
Mimura chalked a rough sketch on the blackboard to illustrate the [nuclear] reactions required. Scientists at Tokyo University, he explained, have “theoretically penetrated” the secrets of nuclear fission. If they could apply their theories practically, an atomic bomb “could be smaller than a piece of caramel candy, but, if exploded five hundred meters above a populated city, it could destroy 200,000 lives.”
“When can we have that bomb?” “Well, it is difficult to say”, Mimura answered, knowing nothing of any Japanese enterprise to apply fission theory to bomb-making. “But I can tell you this much: not before the end of this war.”
Yup. Payback can be a real b%tch! They started the war, we ended it. With an exclamation point.
THE hisory channel had a documentary on why we did what we did ,the japanese would not have surrendered ,and if we were to invade tokyo and other parts of japan, they were waiting and training all the peole there for suicide missions, you cant fight an mindset like that with conventional weapons, after all the rotten things the japanese did to our soldiers we still allowed them to save face we rebuit that country .
Hmmm...two, three generations after the fact and they're still yelling "peace". I'd say the bomb was pretty effective.
According to the revisionist historians, the US dropped the A-bomb on innocent Japanese civilians purely out of racism. Perhaps the good mayor of Hiroshima should visit Pearl Harbor, talk to the survivors of Japanese concentration camps and especially read the accounts of the Japanese occupation of Nanking.
Dear Japan: Pearl Harbor has been annihilated by you. Paybacks are a b****.
Keep in mind the vast majority of the populace has either been brainwashed by the education system ( I've seen my daughter's history book ...Jap involvement glossed over with sweet cream on top ) or through ignorance is happily unaware of what really went down . The average Nippo knows virtually nothing about WW2 unless it involves HITLER .
I would like to ask the mayor what he thinks about the dirty bomb attack on San Francisco the Japanese had planned for Aug. 17, 1945.
It seems this man has a selective memory. Pearl Harbor attacked December 7, 1941 by none other than JAPAN!
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