Pen-Elayne on the Web

Of Necessities and Surrender

Today marks the 58th anniversary of the second time in three days that the United States committed a barbarism almost beyond imagining, as it exploded an atomic bomb over the civilian population of Nagasaki, killing 40,000 people instantly - all during a time when the Japanese were negotiating surrender, and had been for weeks, the only sticking point being whether or not the Emperor could retain his godlike status (which is why they'd originally decided to mokatsu the portion of the Potsdam Declaration defining terms for their surrender in the first place). The US finally agreed to this on August 11, and the surrender became official the next day. Essentially, the bombs were dropped because neither city had been bombed before which made it easier to assess the damage and as a big "nyah nyah" to the Soviet Union as we geared up for the Cold War once the unpleasantness of having to work with Commies against Fascists came to a close. This history is, sadly, not widely understood by most people, for whom the myth still persists that the bombs were a necessary evil that hastened the end of WWII and therefore prevented more deaths than they caused. 'Cause, you know, heaven forfend we're ever the bad guys. More here (from the Truman Presidential Museum & Library site) and here (lots of scientists trying to deter the US military's unwise decisions). Here is the text of Nagasaki mayor Iccho Itoh's Peace Declaration for this year.