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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/model08082008.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/model08082008.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>August 8, 2008<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>The Legacy of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Instant Genocide
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By DAVID MODEL
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">A</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>s 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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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”.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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”.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>David Model</b> is a Professor of Political Science at Seneca College.
He is the author of
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1434375161/counterpunchmaga">
States of Darkness: US Complicity in Genocides Since 1945</a>. He can be
reached at:
<a href="mailto:david.model@senecac.on.ca">david.model@senecac.on.ca</a>
<br><br>
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