The infamous anniversary of US' dropping the A-Bomb

The anniversary of the August 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. One might think that by now historians would agree on all the fundamental issues. The reality, however, is just the opposite: All the major issues involved in the decision are still very much a matter of dispute among experts. An obvious question is why this should be so after so many years.

Did the atomic bomb, in fact, cause Japan to surrender? Most Americans think the answer is self-evident. However, many historical studies--including new publications by two highly regarded scholars--challenge the conventional understanding. In a recently released Harvard University Press volume drawing upon the latest Japanese sources, for instance, Professor Tsuyohsi Hasegawa concludes that the traditional "myth cannot be supported by historical facts." By far the most important factor forcing the decision, his research indicates, was the Soviet declaration of war against Japan on August 8, 1945, just after the Hiroshima bombing.

Similarly, Professor Herbert Bix--whose biography of Hirohito won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction--also writes in a recent article that "the Soviet factor carried greater weight in the eyes of the emperor and most military leaders."

Many Japanese historians have long judged the Soviet declaration of war to have been the straw that broke the camels back--mainly because the Japanese military feared the Red Army more than the loss of another city by aerial bombardment. (They had already shown themselves willing to sacrifice many, many cities to conventional bombing!)

An intimately related question is whether the bomb was in any event still necessary to force a surrender before an invasion. Again, most Americans believe the answer obvious--as, of course, do many historians. However, a very substantial number also disagree with this view. One of the most respected, Stanford University Professor Barton Bernstein, judges that all things considered it seems "quite probable--indeed, far more likely than not--that Japan would have surrendered before November" (when the first landing in Japan was scheduled.)

Many years ago Harvard historian Ernest R. May also concluded that the surrender decision probably resulted from the Russian attack, and that "it could not in any event been long in coming." In his new book Hasegawa goes further: "There were alternatives to the use of the bomb, alternatives that the Truman Administration for reasons of its own declined to pursue."

READ MORE HERE: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0803-26.htm

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• hiroshima
• A-Bomb
• Japan
• nuclear

[killinfocash]

oh my god. i know it was crucial to win the war but ... who could do that

[MrSalamander7]

Why did we need to invade at all? Noam Chomsky brings this up in his book Class Warfare. He argues that the fact that they bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which wasn't even a state, it was a colony, isn't a legitimate reason for us to occupy them.

[breetskeet]

@MrSalamander7 a colony of who? americans. idiot.

[RPenta]

Just another day, just another war crime.

[blankprobe1pt4]

Months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan had allready been destroyed by thousands of US bombers. A nuclear bomb test outside japanese coast, would have been quite effective to end the war with, if diplomacy had been applied simultaneously. Diplomacy has allways been underestimated. People arent that different.

[Zerosupersayan]

ask kids here in america, we are taught that the bomb brought the end quicker to an end. It did, but in such an inhumane way.

[uglymoon78]

WHY THE HELL THEY DROPPED A A-BOMB ON HIROSHIMA? AND WHY HIROSHIMA

[ZAQXSWVFE]

@MrSalamander7 bending over and taking it is the only thing you're good at !

[MrSalamander7]

@ZAQXSWVFE lol. ok you silly fucking troll you. Shall I take my victory bow?

[ZAQXSWVFE]

@MrSalamander7 to your "calim" . Ha, ha, ha, F'n moron!!!

[MrSalamander7]

@ZAQXSWVFE LOL. Thanks for adding evidence to my calim that you're incoherent. I didn't say you were incoherent for fucking up your turn in this argument, I said you were incoherent for responding to a past comment instead of the present one. Oh yeah, and you're right you didn't say I was comparable to Hitler, you just said I I eat his shit which means I buy into his theory which means I'm comparable to him. Try deduction sometime, it works wonders. And when are you gonna man up for plagiarism?