They might as well have sent the office boy!
Friends, for the first time, the U.S. has sent a representative to the Hiroshima memorial service held for the 140,000+ civilians killed when the world’s first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city in 1945.
They sent the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, John Roos, who, in the political hierarchy of America, is a minor player. The photograph shows him, in his ill-fitting suit, standing alone among the Japanese. He looks like an undertaker.
65 years have passed and, scandalously, those who developed and dropped the bomb have hitherto refused to acknowledge their terrible deed and its ramifications.
Ironically, in a few days time, another service will be held for those who died in Nagasaki when another atomic bomb, one using a different mechanism which the military was anxious to test, was dropped there. Over 60,000+ died in that attack (although accurate figures, as with Hiroshima, are difficult to find given that many people were vaporized).
Of course, those who were killed initially do not take into account those who died later from burns or radioactivity and it takes no account of the deformed births that resulted from the twin bombings decades later.
“For the sake of future generations, we must continue to work together to realize a world without nuclear weapons,” U.S. Ambassador John Roos said in a bland statement.
His statement seems rather hollow, even hypocritical, given that it was America that introduced nuclear weapons into armed conflict.
And it is America that has the world’s largest stockpile of nukes, the world’s biggest army, the world’s largest number of military bases, the world’s biggest navy, and has its missiles spread all around the world either on warships or in silos.
America, despite its token gesture in Hiroshima, is hooked on killing. It happily uses horrific weapons that use depleted uranium. It happily attacks sovereign countries and occupies them with little regard for civilian deaths. It is currently considering using nukes on Iran.
John Roos stands alone. And so does his bloodthirsty, greedy country!
Yeah, Obama and his spokespeople make noises as if they were decent people, but their actions belie their words.
65 years is a long time, but the US continues to wreak havoc onto the world.
I linked to this website on my latest post-
http://uruknet.info/index.php?p=m58926&hd=&size=1&l=e
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David G Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 7:37 am
Wreaking havoc comes naturally to the leaders of America, Wagelaborer. Whether the slaughtering of the Red Indians began their downward spiral I do not know but something has predisposed them towards endless killing and violence.
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The appearance of John Roos is nothing but a sick joke.
I have read recently that the after effects of the depleted uranium used in Iraq are worse than what the victims in Japan suffered!
That any US government official can stand up and make a statement like the one Roos did is beyond belief.
The US government is some kind of insane monster running wild, destroying everything it touches.
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Yes it is always nothing but hollow lies from the greatest “peace loving nation on earth”well like your previous article headline The Beat Goes On ,it sure does . Corporate Kingdom /empire as blood is exchanged for dollars .The hand of their god is on the nuclear trigger .
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One of the truly horrific things about the U.S. nuclear weapons programs was the insistence on building the H-bomb. Part of this came from the brilliant but zealous Edward Teller who argued before various agencies that it was a necessity. Only 7 years after we exterminated so many innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki we detonated the first H-bomb which was the equivalent of 20 megatons of TNT or 1,000 TIMES more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The A-bomb could be called a weapon of deterrence but the large H-bomb is a weapon of extreme mass destruction that dwarfs any other weapon we have. It does not prevent war but increases the likelihood of total war if it is used.
Another fact that just floored me – from 1940 until 1996 the United States spent almost 6 TRILLION dollars on nuclear weapons. I am staggered to think of the kind of country we could have created with that kind of money being used wisely. The tragic irony is that we could have had a country that others would have wanted to emulate instead of being forced to do so by economic sanctions and/or military incursions. I am deeply ashamed that my country adopted the policies of imperialism with the result that literally millions of innocent people have died due to our expansion of empire.
If you criticize the use of A-bombs on Japan you will usually get a response from an apologist that those bombs brought the war to a close and “saved the lives of 250,000 to 500,000 American soldiers.” That number has never been corroborated. In fact, the initial estimate of lives lost during an invasion of Japan was about 25,000. Someone took the original estimate and multiplied it by ten or more and it has remained part of the general interpretation ever since. In fact, Japan had made signals that it was ready to surrender if only the Emperor was allowed to remain but the U.S. said that was unacceptable. Even with that it was only a matter of time before Japan surrendered out of necessity. By May 1945 85% of it’s manufacturing base had been destroyed and it’s people were suffering from great shortages. Numerous high-ranking officers in the Japanese armed forces were also calling for surrender. It’s Navy was largely destroyed, it’s Air Force was so depleted that in the last months of the war B-29s were able to conduct firebombing missions (in my opinion, another war crime) over many cities without worrying about Japanese fighters.
There was also the possibility of conducting a demonstration on an offshore island to show the Japanese what we could do. That was not adopted. I believe that there were other reasons that the bomb was used. I think that we had to show the Soviets that if they had a policy of expansionism in Europe and elsewhere after the war that they would come up against our atomic deterrence. I also can’t help but believe that we used the bomb on the Japanese when we might have been more reluctant to use it on the Germans. The level of racism levelled against even Japanese people who were born in the U.S. was extreme. I saw an article from an old LIFE magazine which purported to show how you could tell the difference between a Japanese person and a Chinese person and the “differences” were exaggerated in order to make it seem as if the Chinese were good people and the Japanese were bad and could not be trusted.
Whatever the reasons, the U.S. dropped two relatively crude atomic bombs and killed at least 200,000 people and changed the world forever. I am old enough to remember Duck and Cover when I was a kid and living with the knowledge that I could be incinerated any minute by those evil Commies. We had no idea what insanity we were dealing with. My hero, Albert Einstein, said it well – “World War III will be fought with nuclear weapons and World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
As we remember the multitudes of innocents who died 65 years ago in Japan let us resolve to do what we can to eliminate nuclear weapons from the Earth.
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Jeannie, your final sentence tells it as it really is. American leaders have become deranged by their military power. They are now psychopaths.
Jeff, the blood being exchanged for dollars is, in the main, someone else’s blood!
Bruce, thanks for your informative comment. I would like to add that we should be getting rid of ALL weapons from the earth. Weapons are for savages!
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“1945-1998″ by Isao Hashimoto (Japan, © 2003)
http://blip.tv/file/1662914/
Click on it to go to full screen.
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Very well said by David and other respected commentators.
There is no more to add, except that I think USA after making those two types of A-bombs (the enriched Uranium type and the Plutonium type), they wanted to test it on human beings and as fast as possible before they miss the chance and the war ends.
American Logo “In nukes we trust”
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And I think, USA from the time they made the first H-bomb, their policy makers and the pentagon are praying day and night to get the chance to test the H-Bomb on human flesh.
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Magda, thanks for the link. I’ve tried several times to downloads it without success.
Helmy, I’m sure they did want to try it out. Those responsible probably became multi-orgasmic when they saw the power they had.
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Magda Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 1:27 am
Oh bugger. It works for me. Here it is again in case I copied and pasted wonky
http://blip.tv/file/1662914/ It is a multimedia show of every nuclear explosion since 1945 to 1998. Quite amazing to see.
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Magda Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Just wanted to add that I think your comment “Those responsible probably became multi-orgasmic when they saw the power they had.” is spot on. I’m sure Freud has covered it all. I suspect that men’s attitudes to sex and sexual impotence has a lot to do with all of this. Starting with the whole shape of missiles and bombs, explosions/climax. But instead of creating life and giving birth they take life and destroy. Finally the blood sacrifice to the gods of war instead of the making room for new life of menstruation. I find even the whole military dress dress code with the anal obsession with neatness, with medals and brass instead of jewelery, the choreography of the parade drill instead of a waltz, and the only acceptable emotion is that for one’s ‘mates’ and fellow soldiers who suffer in battle as if no one else does or that their suffering is of a higher nature. It is all highly suspect and ludicrous in my eyes.
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David G Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 4:27 am
Magda, men, I’m sure, spend much of their time feeling inferior to women and sexually inadequate.
Let’s face it, their role in reproduction in minuscule, their penis compared to a woman’s vagina, etc, is laughably inadequate, and women are capable of multiple orgasms and they aren’t.
Is it any wonder they seek power from other sources!
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