[lbo-talk] Hiroshima bomb may have carried hidden agenda (kickstart a cold war)

[Mycos]

Leigh Meyers wrote:
> I'm not sure this is news to anyone, but it's significance
> might lie in the fact that NewScientist published it.
> (as a reminder to scientists, perhaps?)
> 
> Hiroshima bomb may have carried hidden agenda 
> 
> 13:46 21 July 2005 
> NewScientist.com news service 
> Rob Edwards 
> 
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7706&print=true
> 
> The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.
> 
> Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.
> 

In all fairness Leigh, that's not exactly new. Back in the 80's my 
history prof (SFU) presented us with much the same story.

To wit; ;-) The Japanese codes had long been broken ("purple" even 
prior to the war). The Allied commanders knew full well that Japan 
was looking for an "honorable" way to surrender before they dropped 
the bomb(s). That is, except for a few Japanese nationalist wingnuts 
whom US historians like to trot out as proof of the stubborn 
resistance  that made it necessary to make the logic for "dropping 
the bombs in order to save lives".(ahem....)

Oh no. Russia, after their conquest of half of Europe, was now 
looming on a severely weakened Japan's northern frontier. Oh Shit! 
(a phrase I'm sure was heard frequently at the time) This presented 
US commanders with the possibility of Stalin having even more 
"communist" leverage than he already had with his conquest of 
Eastern Europe up to Berlin.

It was Roosevelt's intention to send a very clear, very stark 
message to Stalin. "We will nuke you too. We will burn you and your 
cities alive if you go any further!".

  History records that it worked. Mainstream history books however 
have somehow forgotten ".....the rest of the story"

Gary


> "He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species," says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. "It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."
> 
> According to the official US version of history, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, to force Japan to surrender. The destruction was necessary to bring a rapid end to the war without the need for a costly US invasion.
> 
> But this is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US. They are presenting their evidence at a meeting in London on Thursday organised by Greenpeace and others to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the bombings.
snipped

-- 

Gary Williams

Prohibition Funds Terrorism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  http://mycos.blogspot.com

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