Posted on 10/11/2009 9:12:32 AM PDT by traumer
TOKYO – Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the victims of the only atomic bombings in history, are teaming up to try to bring the Olympics to Japan in 2020, the cities' mayors said Sunday.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue told a press conference they will establish a joint committee to work on a proposal based on world peace.
Both men are founding members of the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign, which advocates for a global ban on nuclear arms. In a speech last month in Mexico City, Akiba said he firmly believed the world could abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 and suggested holding the Olympics that year in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to celebrate.
The Olympics announcement comes a little more than a week after Tokyo lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will be in Rio de Janeiro.
Tokyo organizers have not said whether they plan to try again. Only one city per country is allowed to submit a bid.
Other cities that have expressed interest in the 2020 Olympics include Istanbul, Budapest and Delhi. A host city is expected to be named in 2013.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara made headlines last week when he blamed his city's failure on behind-the-scenes deals, saying Japanese sports officials must become more adept in maneuvering the inner workings of the International Olympic Committee. Officials from Rio's bid described Ishihara's comments as "inappropriate."
Tokyo spent 15 billion yen ($166 million) promoting itself for the games.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
20,000 US casualties, and who knows how many Japanese?
The morality of whether to drop the A-bombs or not is something we agonise over now, but it was an irrelevent argument at the time. After six years of war, and millions upon millions of casualties, the world was traumatised and innured to suffering.
Truman's decision to drop the two atomic weapons was largely based on this information.
Truman was not locked into this false dichotmy. There was always a third choice: a conditional surrender. The chief sticking point from beginning to end was the Japanese insistence that they keep the emperor. Prior to the dropping of the bombs, however, the Truman administration summarily rejected pursuing that option. Even after the dropping of the second bomb, the Japanese STILL insisted on this condition.
Finally after Nagaskaki, Truman overrode his bitter end New Deal advisors who wanted an unconditional surrender, and agreed to accept the Japanese condition. Thus the final surrender was NOT unconditional. Had he pursued the option of a conditional at the beginning, he could have avoided both the mass slaughter of innocents AND an invasion.
Even if we assume that you are right, however, dropping the bombs would still be evil. Under the long established rules of war it is immoral to INTENTIONALLY target babies, little old ladies, and other non-combatants. Collateral damange is unavoidable but intentional targeting is beyond the rules of war. If an enemy did it to us or our allies during war. we would not hesitate to later prosecute them for war crimes.
As a sidelight, let me point out the Nagasaki was the heart of traditional Japanese Christianity. The Christians had held on to their faith despite tremdendous pressure for hundreds of years....only to be slaughtered by fellow Christians.
Sounds like “Da Bomb”!
The rules of just war were well established in 1945. Under those rules, it is immoral to INTENTIONALLY target civilians for slaugther.
Oh, great. Another opportunity for Lord Obama to apologize for the USA.
Your statement was total ignorance. If you even studied history you would had known that.....
1. Japan would not conceed to unconditional surrender. The military cliques were running the show and preferred suicide to surrender. Only when the Emperor ordered surrender talks did the military leaders conceed. Even then, junior officers staged a failed coup to prevent the Emporer from broadcasting his nation’s surrender.
2. Most of Japans’s cities were bombed, burned and blockaded with disease & starvation rampant.
3. Japan’s government and miliatary adopted the policy of “Ketsu Go”...to use the population in human wave attacks and suicide bombings. Women where issued bamboo spears while children were issued suicide backpacks to crawl under American tanks. The whole country devised various suicide traps, kamikazi vehicles and human wave battalions.
4. Five days before Hiroshima, US bombers dropped leaflets WARNING the Japanese populace that certain cities needed to be evacuated.
5. The invasion of Japan would had involved the Russians reusulting in a communist NORTH and allied SOUTH Japans.
6. Allies, in preparation for Operation Olympic, would had stockpiled its nukes (and thousands of tons of chemical munitions) for an all-out assault on the landing beachheads and key urban centers. The result (in addition to starvation, cold, and disease) would had killed millions and millions of Japanese civillians.
7. Hiroshima and Nagaski were legitament targets as both housed important munitions plants. Hiroshima was also home of the Japanese 3rd Army Group...a key command post which coordianted Japanese defensive operations in the southern island of Kyushu.
FYI: 3rd Army Group parade grounds was the target point (ground zero) for the Hiroshima Bomb.
Great post! I’ve always pointed out to the Kum-ba-ya crowd that dropping the A-bomb on two cities actually SAVED Japanese lives.
PS: More people died in the Tokyo fire bombings that in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That used conventional muntions...does that make you feed better Captain Kirk???
It didn’t save a single life. An invasion could have been avoided agreed to let the Japanese keep the emperor.
And your conclusion from this is....what? That it should be acceptable for our enemies to use a similar strategy of terror against our civilian population.
I will double check, but I think that is way off to the low side.
I thought the number was in the 100’s of thousands just on our side.
that is a non sequitor.....emporer was a non issue and is a red herring. The military cliques were running the show. Not until the Emporer read the damage reports did he overrule the miliatry leaders. He embraced Ketsu Go as well as numerous attrocities.
Japan’s pride and arrogance caught up to them. After years of slaughter, fanatical resistance.
READ KETSU-GO !!!!
You didn't read my post. I pointed out that even after Nagasaki that the Japanese STILL did not accept the demand for unconditional surrender. In the end, Truman overrode his New Deal advisors who wanted to totally destroy the imperial regime and agreed to the Japanese condition. Hence, the final surrender was NOT unconditional. Hence, Truman could have avoided both an invasion and the a bombs had he purused this option at the outset.
Which will be a big plus for them.
The emperor was very much an issue. To New Deal hardliners, he (and all he represented) the main source of the problem and had to be totally destroyed. If it was really a “non-issue” the U.S. would have agreed at the outset to a conditional surrender.
READ “KETSU GO”
YOU’RE REVISONIST HISTORY IS SICKENING.
13:40 of the video sums it up!!!!!
Thanks to those who had the fortitude to use these weapons and save lives.
As I said the other day; Harry Truman really should have won a Nobel prize for making this decision.
Eh, beats the hell out of losing a couple thousand (or tens of thousands) of American troops trying to quell an insurgency. What angers me much moreso than nuking Japan is FDR’s not-so-secret interventionism prior to Pearl Harbor which basically begged the Japanese to attack because the socialist left desperately wanted to go to war while the conservatives and most Americans wanted nothing to do with another (at the time) regionalized conflict.
Naturally, the American plan considered Japanese resistance. It noted the possibility that the invasion "will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population", which would result in high casualties. In a study done by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in Apr 1945, at least 456,000 casualties were to be expected for Operation Olympic alone. Some other evaluations were also done, and their casualty estimates ranged anywhere from 30,000 to 1,000,000. In preparation, the United States manufactured 500,000 Purple Heart medals to award to those injured in combat.
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