[News] The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/model08082008.html

August 8, 2008


The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki


Instant Genocide

By DAVID MODEL

As we commemorate the deaths of those who died in Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki, feelings will cover the gamut of emotions from remorse to 
anger.  I am horrified by the events of August 6, 1945 and August 9, 
1945 for several reasons.  All the people who died were innocent 
civilians who were not involved in the war.  As well, Japan was 
already defeated and was desperately trying to surrender on any 
terms.  Then there is the evil in humankind that can murder so many 
people just to demonstrate to your post-war enemy, as a form of 
blackmail, that you have a powerful new weapon.  In addition, careful 
study of the facts reveals that the U.S. leadership was guilty of 
genocide for bombing these two cities.

It is important to realize that Japan was completely defeated by the 
time the decision was made to drop the nuclear weapons.  As the 
allies marched relentlessly toward mainland Japan, they crippled the 
Japanese war machine.  In the battle of the Philippine Sea and 
Marianas, the Japanese decided to throw everything they had at the 
American fleet in one final desperate attempt to destroy the American 
Pacific Fleet.  Both the air and naval battles were decisive as Japan 
lost 476 planes and two carriers.  Japan would never recover from the 
crippling blow to its air power.

As early as 1943, the U.S. was destroying unprotected merchant 
vessels with attacks by submarines.  By the end of 1944, the U.S. had 
sunk half of Japan's merchant fleet.  The loss of its merchant 
vessels had severely diminished Japan's supply of natural resources, 
food, and oil, and by the summer of 1945, American submarines had a 
choke hold on the traffic of merchant vessels serving Japan.  The 
lack of incoming supplies was causing starvation among the Japanese people.

To execute the coup de grace, the U.S. airforce fire-bombed Tokyo, 
Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki gutting over 40 percent 
of these urban areas.  At this point in the war, Japan's cities had 
been severely damaged, the industrial base virtually destroyed, the 
navy and airforce rendered useless, and the people suffering from starvation.

One of the major issues to be considered was whether an invasion of 
Japan would cost substantially less lives than dropping the 
bomb.  This is one of the mythical justifications to support the use 
of nuclear weapons because the President did not have any serious 
discussions with the military about the potential loss of lives and 
in addition, most military leaders rejected the use of the 
bombs.  For example, Fleet Admiral William D. Leay, Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that, "The use of this barbarous weapon 
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war 
against Japan".

Japan had been sending out peace feelers to a number of embassies 
including the ones in the Soviet Union, Portugal, and Germany.  The 
German Ambassador to Tokyo sent a cable reporting that the Japanese 
would surrender even if the terms were hard.  When the Potsdam Papers 
were published four years after the war, it became very clear that 
Truman was well aware of these peace feelers through intercepts of 
Japanese communications.

Before assessing whether dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 
were genocide, it is important to determine when a legitimate 
military action crosses over the line into war crimes.  Given that 
the Japanese military machine had been crushed, defense industries 
had been destroyed, major cities had been fire-bombed, and the 
embargo was depriving the Japanese of vital supplies in conjunction 
with the fact that the two bombed cities were not in any sense 
military targets, it is safe to conclude that using the bombs was not 
a legitimate action.

In Article ii of the Genocide Convention, it states that "Genocide 
means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in 
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group 
such as: 1. Killing members of the group."

The group in this case is a part of a national group, namely the 
Japanese people.  There are many precedents to show that the "in 
part" in this case meets the criteria of the Convention.  For 
example, the International Criminal for the former Yugoslavia 
concluded that "The killing of members of part of a group as such 
located in this small geographical area".

To prove intent, it is only necessary to show that Truman knew that 
Japan was defeated and was desperately seeking to surrender and at 
the same time, he did not consult his military commanders.  He also 
postponed the Potsdam meeting, much to Churchill's chagrin, until 
after the bomb was successfully tested.

The bombing of these two Japanese cities meets the criteria of the 
Genocide Convention and therefore constitutes genocide.  It was a 
horrific, unconscionable act that stands as the first use of a weapon 
capable of destroying life on this planet and as an example of the 
depths of evil to which we can sink.

David Model is a Professor of Political Science at Seneca College. He 
is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1434375161/counterpunchmaga>States 
of Darkness: US Complicity in Genocides Since 1945. He can be reached 
at: <mailto:david.model at senecac.on.ca>david.model at senecac.on.ca




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