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Anu maheshwari
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Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 05:23 AM
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[link="http://www.counterpunch.org/krieger07092003.html"]
Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
1. Nuclear weapons were needed to defeat Japan in World War II
2. Nuclear weapons prevented a war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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4. The United States needs nuclear weapons for its national security
5. Nuclear weapons make a country safer
6. No leader would be crazy enough to actually use nuclear weapons.
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9. The United States is working to fulfill its nuclear disarmament obligations
10. Nuclear weapons are needed to combat threats from terrorists and "rogue states."
.............. and so on with counter arguments.............
Time and again we use these arguments to justify the arsenal of Nucelar weapons in the world ....
All means to justify selfish ends !!! 
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Robert Margolis
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 07:18 AM
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I am not sure the first one is TOTAL myth. Even with the debate on Russian entry into the Pacific War, it is likely that the nuclear bomb helped force the Russians to act. In addition, the Emperor intervened with his war cabinet after the bombing of Nagasaki and not after Russsian entry into the war.
While the classic history of the bomb ending the war by itself is being challenged, I have not heard a majority of scholars disputing it having a significant part of the surrender.
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Arslan Jumaniyazov
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 11:59 AM
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Robert,
It is a good thing that it is being debated. One, of course, it totally entitled to a personal opinion, but the major military leaders at the time were against it. General Leahy and General Eisenhower, and even Curtis LeMay--the one who boasted that in the Tokyo firebombing, they "baked, cooked, and boiled" Japanese civilians to death--stated that it was militarily unnecessary (LeMay was not consulted though).
Arslan
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 12:22 PM
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we are not talking about intensive bombing of military targets here....we are talking of a situation where.....
"Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death"
...!
What if the bombs were not dropped ???
what was the worse that could have happened ???
would it have been worse than what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...?
Would it have been better to warn Japan in advance so that they had a chance to surrender?
check out this article...
Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki
By David Krieger
In the minds of many, if not most US citizens, the atomic bombs saved the lives of perhaps a million US soldiers, and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is seen as a small price to pay to save so many lives and bring a terrible war to an end. This view leaves the impression that bombing these cities with atomic weapons was useful, fruitful and an occasion to be celebrated.
The problem with this rendition of history is that the need for dropping the bombs to end the war has been widely challenged by historians. Many scholars, including Lifton and Mitchell, have questioned the official US account of the bombings. These critics have variously pointed out that Japan was attempting to surrender at the time the bombs were dropped, that the US Army Strategic Survey calculated far fewer US casualties from an invasion of Japan, and that there were other ways to end the war without using the atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities.
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 12:23 PM
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Among the critics of the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leading US military figures. General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, described his reaction upon having been told by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson that atomic bombs would be used on Japanese cities:
“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, attempting to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. . . .”
In a post-war interview, Eisenhower told a journalist, “…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
General Henry “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces during World War II, wrote, “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”
Truman’s Chief of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, wrote,
“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children….”
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 12:24 PM
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Despite these powerful statements of dissent from US World War II military leaders, there is still a strong sense in the United States and among its allies that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified by the war. There is insufficient recognition that the victims of the bombings were largely civilians, that those closest to the epicenters of the explosions were incinerated, while those further away were exposed to radiation poisoning, that many suffered excruciatingly painful deaths, and that even today, more than five decades after the bombings, survivors continue to suffer from the effects of the radiation exposure.
................... The great French existential writer, Albert Camus, wrote in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima:
“Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.”
To rely upon nuclear weapons for security is to put the future of our species and most of life at risk of annihilation. Humanity is faced with a choice: Eliminate nuclear weapons or continue to run the risk of them eliminating us. Unless we recognize this choice and act upon it, we face the possibility of a global Hiroshima
read more.........
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Peace2Peace
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 02:30 PM
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Thank you for posting this. Our WORLD is too fragile and nuclear weapons do not help to save it.
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al-kafir
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 20, 2007 - 07:33 PM
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anuriandima84 wrote:
What if the bombs were not dropped ???
what was the worse that could have happened ???
would it have been worse than what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...?
Would it have been better to warn Japan in advance so that they had a chance to surrender?.
There are many different opinions about the use of atomic bombs and for some, selective quote mining can certainly give the impression that there was opposition to the bombing. Unfortunately, none of these “top military brass” so quoted were in a position to back up these opinions. Eisenhower’s recollection in his memoirs is a perfect example. He expressed his opinions of a theatre of the war in which he was not even involved, and which (in retrospect) turned out to have been in error. Not only was Japan not ready to surrender, even after the 2d bomb was dropped the Japanese military attempted a coupe to overthrow the Emperor so that there would be no surrender and the war could continue.
Consider:
1. Japan's home Islands were bracing themselves against an invasion, and Japan still had thousand of obsolete planes at their disposal to use as kamikazes against the U.S. landing fleet.
2. The Japanese military operated on the code of Bushido, which strictly forbids surrender, you fight to the last man, this was evidenced in all the battles in the Pacific.
There are typically vast amounts of after the fact speculation on this issue, none of which could have been any use to the people who actually had to make the hard decision with the facts at hand. Those facts included the recent invasion of Okinawa in which 150,000 Japanese civilians had died, and it was only one tiny island. Scale that up to the Japanese Home Islands and we are potentially talking millions.
Further, there is a lack of understanding that conventional bombing would somehow be preferable to or less costly in civilian lives than nuclear bombing, when in fact conventional bombing of Tokyo had already killed 73,000 in a single raid. Long term conventional bombing would have continued to kill multiple times more Japanese than the atomic bombing did.
This is the brutal calculus of a war that the Japanese had brought on themselves. I for one am grateful that there are people who rose to the task of making those decisions, as awful as they are.
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Robert Margolis
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 07:44 AM
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Gen George Marshall (Eisenhower's boss) backed the use of the bomb. In fact, when there was a delay in the Japanese response, he was worried that there would need to be an invasion WITH more nuclear bombs used in support.
If you look at the situation in 1945, the US was desperate to end the war and was reaching for anything that appeared to help.
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Luke Lieberman
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 10:36 AM
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It is a debate whether the bomb on Japan was neccisarry.
I don't think there is any way to "warn" them Anu, so they could surrender in advance - because - why would they believe you?
For one thiing you would give them an opportunity to prepare a defense, and for another - they would likely think you were bluffing because weapons of that magnitude had never been seen before.
Without the bombing we probably would have had to invade Japan - which would have cost hundreds of thousands of Japanese and American lives.
I certainly do think that the Nukes prevented convential war between the US and Russia - of course it also led the world to the brink of catstrophy - but there is NO QUESTION Russia and the US would have fought a war if not for M.A.D.
I think it would be foolhardy for the US to completely disarm all its nuclear arsinal because it obviously enahnces our national security.
That said we clearly have more then we need.
and lastly Anu I would remind you that your country - India - developed a nuclear arsinal in violation of the NPT.
so - I really don't think many of those things you listed were myths.
This post was edited on: 2007-11-21 at 10:37 AM by: Luke Lieberman
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Arslan Jumaniyazov
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 12:33 PM
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It is a very harsh reality but I have to agree with Luke that a war between the Soviet Union and the United States would have probably taken place without MAD.
As for the use of nuclear weapons in Japan, I do not expect a final conclusion on that. The debate will go on and on. Personally, while I may disagree in principle with the use of it, I can see the American logic behind dropping one on Hiroshima while I cannot see any logic behind dropping the second on Nagasaki without waiting and seeing what the reaction would be for a couple of weeks.
As much as the argument that an invasion would have taken much more lives is very debatable, the invasion would NOT have taken place for TWO months in any case. It is clear that there was a rush to use them when the Soviets were about to enter the scene. Stalin promised to enter the war three months after the end of war in Europe, and that's actually what happened.
Another thing to consider is that the Japanese had only one condition to accept the surrender; they just wanted to keep the Emperor because it had a symbolic meaning for them. Two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, the Soviets entered the war, there was final showdown by the US Air Force, but after the Japanese surrender the Emperor was kept anyway. Why Americans insisted on unconditional surrender if they were to meet that condition anyway seems to me to be problematic.
Arslan
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 01:39 PM
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luke wrote:
and lastly Anu I would remind you that your country - India - developed a nuclear arsinal in violation of the NPT.
This post was edited on: 2007-11-21 at 10:37 AM by: Luke Lieberman
India is not a signatory to NPT so it never violated anything !
India doesnt sign NPT precisely because
NPT is a big joke !
When a nuclear non proliferation treaty has nothing to do with non- proliferation ...then it becomes a big joke !
Why would India need nukes if USA and China (both signatories to NPT) didnt keep on upgrading Pakistan's WMD arsenal ???
[ looking at Pakistan's volatile security situation ...what is the guarantee that their nuclear arsenal is safe? of course now USA is secretly spending millions of dollars to help the military regime secure the weapons]
The second pillar of NPT is disarmament ...surely disarmament is far from happening !!!
US military budget is ten times the next military budget and USA is clearly leaving behind every other country in the world in manufacturing and selling weapons across the world ...(legally and illegally) Infact US is even working on putting weapons in space.... !!!
India is committed to no first use of nukes...and for that matter India has never ever ever attacked any nation ... but India has time and again needed to defend herself from attacks from neighbours( China and Pakistan ...both having nuclear weapons)
When India and Pakistan are trying to have peace talks why does US offers to sell F16s to Pakistan
and then read more...
First, right after President Bush told the Pakistanis that the sale was on, he called the Indians to assure them he would take a well-disposed look at their weapons wish lists to redress the resulting imbalance. The unfolding dynamic is thus predictable: Pakistan orders still more weapons to compensate for India's new purchase; India buys more to match the ante; and on the ratcheting goes, the tinderbox swelling.
If the P5 commit to disarmament ...there would be no excuse left for any other country in the world not to follow suit !
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 01:53 PM
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All said and done...we are most often defending our own country's perspective....
Because of our conditioning ...it is very difficult to take an objective perspective on such matters...
Nevertheless....if we dont try ...who will???
it shouldnt be too late to do anything !!!
We have to not only oppose arms proliferation (nuclear or otherwise) .but also work effectively on disarmament.....we need to be more vocal ...
I guess it wouldnt hurt to be a little idealistic here and think of a better scenario ...when we can have more Nuclear Weapons Free Zones in the world .....
This post was edited on: 2007-11-21 at 01:55 PM by: Anu maheshwari
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Robert Margolis
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 02:25 PM
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In answer to Arslanik's question, the Nagasaki bomb was dropped because the US mistakenly thought the lack of response from the Japanese was intransigence. Actually, it took the Japanese a while to realize what happened.
I don't think I am idealizing the use of the bomb. By late 1945, the US public really wanted out and high level leaders such as Gen Marshall thought that, even with the Soviets, some kind of US invasion might still be needed even after two bombs. Desperation often causes such desperate actions.
This post was edited on: 2007-11-21 at 02:26 PM by: Robert Margolis
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Luke Lieberman
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Re: Ten Myths About Nuclear Weapons
November 21, 2007 - 02:57 PM
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I agree with Arslan that Japan should have been given the explicit opportunity to surrender before the second bomb was dropped.
something along the lines of "there is more where that came from, surrender or we'll hit you again"
after 1 bomb the situation should have been fairly obvious.
And Anu - I am simply wondering why all the focus on in this article is on the US -
Russia and China have lots of em to - so does your country.
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