American Spreads Hiroshima Legacy (traitor barf alert)

AP ^ | 8/4/2007 | CATHY BUSSEWITZ

[enraged]

Sixty-two years later, the memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima still holds such a grip on Japan that its defense minister has had to resign simply for suggesting the attack was "unavoidable."

Now, in a sign of changing times, the task of spreading Hiroshima's message to the world has been entrusted to an American, a citizen of the country that dropped the bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.

[muawiyah]

Remarkably Harry Truman, FDR, and a whole host of Democrats understood the problem with incipient atom bombs.

There's still debate on whether or not the Japanese atom bomb design(s) would have worked although the North Koreans appear to have tried, and failed, to set off a refurbished one last year.

Maybe they don't work even after you reprocess the plutonium cores (and just where in the world the Japanese hid their reactor is unknown to this day although the Chinese finally discovered the old Japanese germ warfare laboratory/factory barely 2 years ago. More surprises await eh).

Anyway, the fact the Japanese had or could have had an atom bomb program equal to our own was well known at the time, and that fact alone was feared. It was already understood that the German program was going nowhere since the Nazis had rejected "Jewish science", per se, as they called nuclear physics and other advanced studies. The Japanese had no problems at all with the Jews or with science.

Iran is not rejecting nuclear physics either and may be further along in developing a working atom bomb than the Japanese, albeit a cheap enriched uranium bomb.

[muawiyah]

I think the poster is referring to the theory ~ and it's just a theory of course ~ that when FDR cut off exports of oil to Japan they were left with only a 60 day supply.

They had a choice of running industry for two more months or invading Indonesia to obtain a new source.

Of note they needed to take Singapore and the American fortifications in the Philippines to secure the oil tanker routes from Indonesia to Japan, Korea and Manchuria.

What would you have done?

[muawiyah]

You read it long. The Japanese knew as much about atom bomb designs as we did. It was well understood that building even one bomb was an incredible undertaking, and that building two of the same kind would be very expensive and take a lot of time in which they could finish up their own bombs. What we did was build two different kinds ~ which meant that we would continue to be coming at them with atom bombs and that TIME WAS UP.

The high command didn't care about the civilians one way or the other, atom bomb or no atom bomb, but a multiplicity of atom bombs would totally destroy their position in their society, and probably them.

[kcvl]

Steve L. Leeper “peacemaker”

http://tinyurl.com/35fwuh

Steven Leeper, an American peace activist

Leeper and his wife, Elizabeth Baldwin, were running a translation business in Hiroshima in the 1980s, and grew closer as Leeper became drawn into the city’s peace movement.

When the American couple moved to Atlanta in 2001, Akiba hired Leeper to lobby at the United Nations on behalf of Mayors for Peace, a group of city leaders from around the world that the Hiroshima mayor wanted to become a lobby with political teeth.

Steven speaks Japanese and has been doing peace activism for a long time

Steven Leeper, an American peace activist recruited to reinvigorate a local peace movement that critics say has failed to sufficiently push the power of Hiroshima’s anti-nuclear message to a global audience.

“I want to generate a global wave of nuclear (weapons) abolition and serve as a bridge to reconcile the victim and victimizer nations,” says Steven Leeper, 59

http://tinyurl.com/37w2xq

[kcvl]

Leeper, who speaks Japanese, said he will also call on the United States to abolish nuclear weapons.

With a view to the U.S. presidential election in 2008, Leeper wants to open A-bomb exhibitions in every U.S. state.

His father, Dean, was a missionary priest who died when the Toya Maru, a Seikan Line ferry connecting Aomori and Hakodate, was shipwrecked in a typhoon in 1954.

Leeper's mother was an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War.

In 1999, he established the Global Peacemakers Association, a peace organization based in Hiroshima

[kcvl]

Steven Leeper

[jamaksin]

Perhaps, ... but to far too many Americans the reasons for Pearl Harbor are too obscure as their classes in history are too vague.

Japan did not invade Manchuria; Japan got access via the Treaty of Portsmouth, a deal that the US brokered. And, Japan got the Mandates for their Naval service in WWI.

Or, the American economic war against Japan ... closing the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping, the freezing of Japanese assets in the US, the failure to renew the US-Japanese Trade Agreement, the licensing of exports to Japan, the oil embargo against Japan (who imported over 70% of their oil products from the US) - and that oil embargo becoming a world wide embargo as the British and Dutch joined in after the Atlantic Charter meeting, ...

Or, when FDR refused to meet with the moderate Japanese Prime Minister Konoye, which resulted directly in the fall of that moderate government.

Or, ...

[The Japanese had about 18 months of oil in reserve at the time of Pearl Harbor, but the demands of the military under full combat operations would cut that reserve very quickly. Aviation grade fuel was a critical logistical issue.]

[Japanese knew that the British naval forces were over extended; in August 1940 they were given the minutes of a British Cabinet meeting saying as much ... the real only issue became the US Pacific Fleet on their flank as they moved South ... ]

But, you are correct ... Japan knowingly chose to commit national suicide rather then submit to the very intentional and sustained pressures from the US.

After, all ... the US just had to get into WWII ... fully.

And, the real winner of WWII was ...? Why?

[kcvl]

Steven Leeper, the American who was recently appointed to run the Hiroshima Peace Museum, is trying to find people across the U.S. to help him display photos, artifacts, and so forth in an effort to remind people just how nasty nuclear weapons really are.

‘Like CNN, Hiroshima can set up a global television network, Hiroshima Peace Network, specializing in war and peace issues, gathering news on the world’s trouble spots and broadcast in English,’’ Leeper, president of the Global Peacemakers Association (GPA), said, speaking in Japanese.

‘’Hiroshima can also set up an international radio station, Voice of Hiroshima, and publish an English-language bimonthly magazine, Hiroshima Report, to report on issues such as conflicts in Indonesia and the Middle East and the suffering of American Indians and Australia’s Aborigines,’’ he said.

Leeper, 53, criticized the Japanese and Hiroshima city governments for spending huge sums on decorating the city through massive public works projects. They would gain far more benefits in the long run if they invest in projects to prevent violence, resolve conflicts and solve problems between rivaling parties in the international arena, he argued.

Hiroshima has also failed to unite a large number of peace activists and groups in the city that remain at odds due to differences in ideology and approaches to achieve peace. ‘’They’ve had so much talks on peace, but they have established little political clout to influence world opinions,’’ he said.

The businessman-turned peace activist, who has lived in Hiroshima since 1984, formed the GPA in 1999 hoping to train people from Japan, especially those from Hiroshima, to speak about peace and nuclear affairs, including the tragedy of Hiroshima, in English.

The Hiroshima-based group is currently hosting in Hiroshima seven school children from nuclear powers India and Pakistan to study peace and the A-bombing of the city.

Moreover, Leeper has started extending support for a plan by U.S. peace activist Tom Dostou, a Native American, to walk across the United States from January to call for peace and racial harmony.

http://tinyurl.com/2zqaqk

[Maeve]

Yes, and "everyone" also seems to have forgotten just what led the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor.

Shall we name names? I'll start with the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt toward the Japanese Empire long before Pearl Harbor... Your turn.

[lookihaveaswordinmybelly]

That is strange, as a Pre-AP Reading assignment over the summer I have been required to read a book title, “Hiroshima” in which the author has chosen around 6 survivors of the attack and written down their experiences on that day. Mainly it was a pity story for them, and yet I have not been handed a book on Pearl Harbor or anything about Americans and their experiences through such things....

[jamaksin]

Well ... these types of actions against Japan began with Stimson.

When he was Sec. of State under Hoover; there he got no where; Hoover - US would not go to war over China.

In 1933 Stimson had a meeting with FDR and discusses his "Stimson Doctrine" - nonrecognition of Japan, economic pressure, ...

When Stimson joins the FDR Cabinet as the Sec. of War, the "War Cabinet" start to move in the direction to probe Japanese ...

Your turn ... suggest expanding to role of other beyond US ...

[GATOR NAVY]

They had a choice of running industry for two more months or invading Indonesia to obtain a new source.

Or withdrawing from China, the whole reason fro the embargo in the first place.

[dfwgator]

Imagine if Poland had allowed a Pole to be hired by factions in Germany after the war to argue that what Germany had done to Poland in 1939 was actually a good thing? In my universe, he would have been found torn limb from limb very shortly after the fact.

And rightfully so. Ditto for any Pole who would do the same for Russia.

[Maeve]

Honestly, you’ve stumped me on that one, but it must have something to do with the British Empire... maybe?

[GATOR NAVY]

Japan did not invade Manchuria; Japan got access via the Treaty of Portsmouth, a deal that the US brokered.

The Japanese in Manchuria was never an issue. It was when the Japanese invaded China proper from Manchuria that U.S. opposition appeared.

[jamaksin]

Um ... recall that thingy called the "China Incident" ... and just whose concessions were involved?

And, lest we forget ... China had two factions ... US supported one, USSR the other.

Who, just who fired the first shot at the bridge; or was the "bathroom" break a ruse? And an "extended war" - say the US did not provide aid - helped who?

And, remember that the US was a neutral ... and providing financial (esp. silver reserves) and military aid to China.

Several funny "thingies" about China ... For example, who lost China - kinda' like who was the winner in WWII?

[jamaksin]

And what did Konoye signal?

And what did Grew confirm?

And what did Hull and FDR reject?

And why was that?

[jamaksin]

So many Americans are saddled to Prange and associates ... but some may profit by looking into, say Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-41 by Antony Best.

This presents a series of three-month glimpses into the foreign "affairs" of the prinicpals and their rationale/irrationale.

[muawiyah]

That was just a pretext. With the Nationalists allied with the fascists and the other guys well within the commie orbit, having the Japanese (only recently allies) pull out of China probably wasn't FDR's real aim.

I'd suggest far more modest ambitions on his part.

No idea what they might have been, but something short of a full Japanese pullout.

[jamaksin]

FYI:

In the Spring of 1943, under the Lend-Lease Program, the US shipped to the USSR tens of tons of nuclear materials - including enriched uranium.

Recall that the Lend-Lease director at the time was one Harry "The Hop" Hopkins. "The Hop" was FDR's alter ego. He, also via the VENONA Project, was Soviet agent "No. 19."

The "Trintiy Shot" was when?

Reference:

The Dark Sun - The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-684-80400-X, Chapter 5, "Super Lend-Lease" pages 94-102.