Hiroshima AND Nagasaki: The Inside Story

    At 8:16 on the morning of August 6, 1945, the world got a glimpse of its own mortality. At that moment, the city of Hiroshima was obliterated by a fireball that sent waves of searing heat, then a deafening concussion, across the landscape. Three days later, a second bomb hit Nagasaki. … [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower said in 1963 "It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
    … Besides the Manhattan Project’s internal momentum was an external motive. Its leaders had to justify the $2 billion ($26 billion in today’s dollars) expense to Congress and the public… Byrnes…warned Roosevelt that political scandal would follow if it [the atomic bomb] was not used. … "How would you get Congress to appropriate money for atomic energy research [after the war] if you do not show results for the money which has been spent already?" …the U.S. had produced two types of bombs–one using uranium, the other plutonium. Whenever anyone suggested that the moment the bomb was dropped the war would be over, [bureaucrat] Groves countered, "Not until we drop two bombs on Japan." As [historian] Goldberg explains… "One bomb justified Oak Ridge, the second justified Hanford." Hiroshima was hit with the uranium bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy"; the plutonium bomb, "Fat Man," was used against Nagasaki.

From Why We Dropped The Bomb By William Lanouette, CIVILIZATION, The Magazine of the Library of Congress, January/February 1995

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ADDENDUM (After 32 comments):

It’s hard for Americans who identify with the U.S. Government to accept the idea that that organization could have engaged in such horrendous acts — twice in three days — without pristine motives.

Here’s what Vietnam era U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara — who was part of Gen. Curtis LeMay’s command when the bombs were dropped — thought about it:

McNamara: “He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals.

Some Reward

John Bolton’s mustache is twitching:

The Obama administration is rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior by sending ex-president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to win the release of two US journalists, the former US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday.

Let me get this straight: two innocent people who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor are now free and safe, and all we, the people of the United States, had to sacrifice was Bill Clinton’s company for a day? No one tell Kim Jong-il I said this, but sucker!

‘Which country is more open and transparent?’

Via John McGlynn comes this exchange at the State Department press briefing on Monday:

MR. KELLY: Good afternoon. Let me start off by just kind of updating you where we are today in terms of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which you all know started today. The Secretary hosted a dinner last night for Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo. They discussed the agenda for today. And as you know, this dialogue is being co-hosted with the Department of Treasury. …

The Secretary will hold a private meeting with State Councilor Dai tonight, following the conclusion of today, the first day of the S&ED.

And this meeting, again, will allow them to review the day’s discussions, today’s discussions, and look ahead to the work tomorrow.

I think, as you also know, we’re going to arrange a conference call with a few officials from State and Treasury. That’ll be at 4:45. I think you’ve gotten that – the details on how to sign on and participate in that call.

QUESTION: That call is on the record?

MR. KELLY: That call, I believe, is on background.

QUESTION: Just a point of order here: The Chinese officials who are briefing
are briefing on the record.

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Which country is more open and transparent? (Laughter.)

MR. KELLY: I take your concerns on board and I’ll see what we can do.

QUESTION: I hope you do, because I think you should be embarrassed, actually.

MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t know if we’re embarrassed, but I do take your concerns very seriously. And with that, I’ll – I will answer your questions seriously.

Those who make up America’s imperial court are so routine in their habits now, they apparently don’t even know how crooked they appear.

We’ve Always Been at War With… Line, Please

Poor John Cornyn. It’s tough to keep track of all the people we may have to murder indiscriminately.

A key US Senator who has extensively supported India, including the passage of the nuclear deal, stunned his Indian and Indian-American supporters this weekend when he identified India as a US national security threat and clubbed it with North Korea and Iran, while arguing for continuing the F-22 fighter jet programme, which would keep up to 100,000 jobs going in the US.

”It (the F-22 program) is important to our national security because we’re not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Texas’ Republican Senator John Cornyn said in a TV interview. “We’re fighting – we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of their military power; Russia; Iran, that’s threatening to build a nuclear weapon; with North Korea, shooting intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of hitting American soil.”

Turns out the Senator had a ‘slip of the tongue.’

”Senator Cornyn misspoke saying ‘India’ when he meant to say ‘China.’ As Founder and Co-chairman of the Senate India Caucus, no Senator has greater respect or admiration for India or values our relationship with them more. Sen. Cornyn regrets the mistake and apologizes for any misunderstanding this may have caused,” his spokesman Kevin McLaughlin clarified after the remarks were brought to his notice.

Well, let’s not be so hasty. After we go to war with China (yes, that really was the soothing clarification), we’ll have to stop the Indians from supplying the insurgents across the border.

Why Are British Troops in Afghanistan?

So, more British soldiers have now been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Why are British troops in Afghanistan? We know why American forces are in Afghanistan–to fight the Taliban terrorists “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here,” to find Osama bin Laden, to avenge the 9/11 attacks, and to defend our freedoms, or at least these are things that many Americans think. But why are British troops in Afghanistan? Britain had no 9/11. But Britain is our ally. Well, Israel is our ally. Japan is our ally. Germany is our ally (in this war). How many soldiers from Israel, Japan, and Germany are in Afghanistan? I wonder how many Americans would support U.S. troops in Afghanistan if things were just the opposite and it was Britain that was waging a war on terror because of a 9/11 attack? If I lived in Britain, I would be even more outraged than I am as an American because of American troops in Afghanistan.

Ron Paul on the War Funding Bill

On June 15, Rep. Ron Paul gave the following speech in opposition to the Democrats’ new $106 Billion war funding bill, after it was sent back to the House from the conference committee. (The bill passed Tuesday evening.):

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this conference report on the War Supplemental Appropriations. I wonder what happened to all of my colleagues who said they were opposed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder what happened to my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration. It seems, with very few exceptions, they have changed their position on the war now that the White House has changed hands. I find this troubling. As I have said while opposing previous war funding requests, a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse.

This conference report, being a Washington-style compromise, reflects one thing Congress agrees on: spending money we do not have. So this “compromise” bill spends 15 percent more than the president requested, which is $9 billion more than in the original House bill and $14.6 billion more than the original Senate version. Included in this final version — in addition to the $106 billion to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — is a $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund, allowing that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt elites and promote harmful economic policies overseas.

As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends billions of dollars overseas as foreign aid. Included in this appropriation is $660 million for Gaza, $555 million for Israel, $310 million for Egypt, $300 million for Jordan, and $420 million for Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for “peacekeeping” missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders and nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a “potential pandemic flu.”

Mr. Speaker, I continue to believe that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home from Iraq and Afghanistan. If one looks at the original authorization for the use of force in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ongoing and expanding nation-building mission there has nothing to do with our goal of capturing and bringing to justice those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact it undermines our national security. I urge my colleagues to defeat this reckless conference report.