Did we promise never to forget?

[Stoo82]

64 years ago yesterday the USA bombed Hiroshima and I dont recall any news angency reporting on it. I may well have missed it and I oplogise if I did.

How very sad though that we will forget the 250 thousand people who died a most horible death - including many years after.

At least there is another day in 3 days time with which hopfuly someone might remember the dead.

 

[Pot noodles for everyone]

I may have promised. I can't recall

 

[Gritt23]

It always seems wrong to me that the US always seem to believe THEY should decide which countries around the World should and shouldn't be armed with nuclear weapons when they remain the only country to have ever used them in warfare.

How can they really say "YOU can't have nuclear weapons, you just can't be trusted with them etc etc."

250,000 deaths, that really is horrific beyond all comprehension.

 

[vulture]

saved millons of us and british lives

 

[Stoo82]

Oh im not questioning the use, the Japanese at the time would never had surrenderd. They never did before. Im just saying I dont see it rported anywhere. I mean, surely Japan is remebering, can we not be arsed to have a 5 minuet report about it, 1 minute even.

 

[Pot noodles for everyone]

Was it not adequately reported at the time, in your opinion then?

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

It always seems wrong to me that the US always seem to believe THEY should decide which countries around the World should and shouldn't be armed with nuclear weapons when they remain the only country to have ever used them in warfare.

How can they really say "YOU can't have nuclear weapons, you just can't be trusted with them etc etc."

250,000 deaths, that really is horrific beyond all comprehension.

THEY dont - the 160 odd countries around the world who are signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty decide who should and shouldnt have nuclear weapons.

 

[Stoo82]

I dont know. You tell me as I was not born yet.

Just forget it.

 

[Pot noodles for everyone]

Forget what?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Hiroshima mayor backs Obama's call for an end to nuclear weapons

Tadatoshi Akiba says 'we have the power and the responsibility' as Japanese city marks 64th anniversary of atomic bombing

The mayor of Hiroshima today backed Barack Obama's call for the abolition of nuclear weapons when he spoke at a ceremony to mark the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city.

Tadatoshi Akiba said he was speaking for the global "Obamajority" in calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020.

"We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority," he said, also invoking the US president's "Yes, we can" campaign soundbite.

In a speech in Prague earlier this year, Obama said the US, as the only country to have used nuclear weapons, had a "moral responsibility" to bring about their abolition.

About 50,000 people, including survivors and foreign dignitaries, gathered in Hiroshima's peace memorial park to remember the moment, at 8.15am on 6 August 1945, when a B-29 bomber dropped "Little Boy" on the city, reducing it to rubble.

The blast killed 80,000 people instantly, with the death toll rising to an estimated 140,000 by the end of the year.

The Japanese prime minister, Taro Aso, repeated his commitment to Japan's non-nuclear principles – to never build, or possess, nuclear weapons, or allow them on the country's soil.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said complete nuclear disarmament should no longer be dismissed as a pacifist fantasy.

"I call on humanity to support this sensible and achievable goal," he said. "Let us each do our part in this common journey, and thereby ensure that there will be no more victims such as those we honour today."

According to the government, there were more than 235,000 A-bomb survivors in Japan in March this year – about 8,000 fewer than last year – with an average age of 75.

On 9 August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered less than a week later.

More than six decades on, the bombings continue to divide opinion among Japanese and US citizens.

In a poll published earlier this week, nearly two-thirds of Americans said the US had been right to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Only 22% of respondents to a poll by Quinnipiac University believed the then US president, Harry Truman, had been wrong to order the cities' destruction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/06/hiroshima-mayor-nuclear-weapons-abolition

 

[auschr]

Surely it would have been more helpful to bomb military bases instead of wiping out huge numbers of civilians.. if I was killed because of the actions of Brown or Bush, I would be a little peeved. Though with the Japanese internment camps in America and the bombing of Hiroshimo and Nagasaki, I guess that explains why America went pretty easy on Japan and ignored any of their human rights violations after the war. " Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way "

 

[sten_super]

I simply can't see a time when we have abolished nuclear weapons. I would absolutely love it to happen, but how do you stop (for example) an extreme North Korean government NEVER to restart it's nuclear programme? And what happens if they do start, if the rest of us don't have any nuclear weapons?

 

[sten_super]

Surely it would have been more helpful to bomb military bases instead of wiping out huge numbers of civilians.. if I was killed because of the actions of Brown or Bush, I would be a little peeved. Though with the Japanese internment camps in America and the bombing of Hiroshimo and Nagasaki, I guess that explains why America went pretty easy on Japan and ignored any of their human rights violations. " Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way "

My (EXTREMEMLY limited) understanding is that it was thought that the Japanese would fight on and would deal with any military defeats or military casualties. The only way to beat Japan was the break its people, and to break its will to fight, which it was thought was only doable by targetting large numbers of civilians.

 

[Pot noodles for everyone]

Surely it would have been more helpful to bomb military bases instead of wiping out huge numbers of civilians.. if I was killed because of the actions of Brown or Bush, I would be a little peeved. Though with the Japanese internment camps in America and the bombing of Hiroshimo and Nagasaki, I guess that explains why America went pretty easy on Japan and ignored any of their human rights violations. " Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way "

You would be a little peeved if you had been killed?

Blimey. You take a lot of things in your stride, don't you?

 

[Storer68]

"We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority," he said, also invoking the US president's "Yes, we can" campaign soundbite.

Actually he is invoking Abraham lincoln,speech to the annual address to the US congress in MAy 1862,

“We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.”

 

[itszamora]

I reported it!

 

[drew]

Not much but it was mentioned on Ceefax page 'On This Day'. Suspect most missed it.

However, just because it was not reported as an anniversary today doesn't mean everyone has suddenly forgotten about it.