Monday, October 22, 2012

Justice Denied II: Hiroshima Revisited

Many of PNG's readers probably received the same indoctrination that US Person did about America's use of atomic weapons against Japan in World War II. We were taught in school that President Truman decided to bomb a prostrate Japan with the newly developed nuclear device in order to prevent as many as a million allied casualties and perhaps even more civilian casualties in an invasion of the Japanese homeland. That official dogma is no longer unquestioningly accepted by historians who have researched declassified documents and cables from the end of the war. Those documents reveal many high ranking American military and political leaders thought the use of an atomic bomb not necessary to eventually convince Japan to surrender, or if additional motivation was needed, a demonstration should be made first in the interest of humanity.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower in his memoir, Mandate for Change, recalled he told Secretary of War Stimson during his visit to the General's European headquarters he had "grave misgivings" about dropping the bomb since Japan was already defeated and using it to save American lives was no longer mandatory. He further believed that Japan would surrender shortly if a way was found to allow Japan "to surrender with a minimum loss of face". Eisenhower felt the Secretary was deeply perturbed by his opinion. Eisenhower's view was shared by the highest ranking Navy man at the time, Admiral William Leahy, who wrote the "barbarous weapon used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan." He thought the use of conventional weapons, i.e. the B-29 incendiary raids that killed more Japanese than the two atomic attacks combined and a complete naval blockade, were sufficient to bring Japan to the brink of surrender. Leahy wrote after the fact that using the weapon brought America's ethical standards down to those of the Dark Ages. Theater commander General Douglas MacArthur, who was not consulted about the atomic weapon, pointed out if Japan had been given the opportunity to retain their emperor as part of the Potsdam declaration instead of the rubric of "unconditional surrender" which resonated with the American public, the war would have ended weeks before the attack on Hiroshima. In any event, the surrender was conditional, the emperor allowed to retain his throne despite the Potsdam ultimatum which Japan rejected. He sits on the throne of Japan to this day. MacCarthy believed, rightly, for the Japanese people to submit to American occupation, the Emperor was needed as a cooperative figurehead leader. General Curtis LeMay, who commanded the devastating incendiary bomb raids over Japan's cities, agreed the atomic bomb had nothing to do with wining the war against Japan.

Intelligence estimates at the time of the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 show President Truman was advised by American and British intelligence that Japan was actively seeking a peace settlement with Russia, then neutral towards Japan, acting as a mediator. Intelligence officials estimated when Russia entered the Pacific War on August 8th as planned by invading Manchuria, Japan's last hope for a negotiated peace would be gone. Interestingly, America's atomic attacks on cities not strategically worthy of destruction by conventional bombing raids on August 6th and 9th coincided with Russia's scheduled entry into the war. The American-British homeland invasion was not to occur until November 1st, 1945 allowing more than enough time to drop atomic bombs if the invasion of Manchuria, the last stronghold of the Japanese Imperial Army, was insufficient to make Japan surrender. General Carter Clarke, the military intelligence officer responsible for summarizing the decoding of Japanese cables for Truman said, "we didn't need to do it, and when we knew we didn't need to do it....we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs." Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, Ellis Zacharias wrote, "I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds." Apparently very little thought was given by political leaders to warning the Japanese the US possessed atomic weapons, and then demonstrating the bomb's potential lethality by dropping it in Tokyo Bay near shore, for example. The US had already successfully tested the uranium bomb at Alamagordo, and several more atomic bombs in were in production. Therefore, the chance of an unsuccessful demonstration was small.

So why was the bomb used, and used twice, if it was not a military necessity? The consequences of the decision to deploy atomic weapons in wartime has been America's exclusive provenance. The decision has been fraught with unintended consequences ever since. There is a consensus among scholars that the bomb was not needed to end the war, and that clear alternatives were known to our political leaders at the time. The decision cannot not be put down to scientific hubris since most scientists including those at the Manhattan Project opposed the bomb's use. Manhattan scientists wrote directly to the Secretary of Defense in 1945 saying the early use of the weapon was "inadvisable" and would "precipitate the race of armaments and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons." If the bomb were to be deployed, the scientists recommended a demonstration on an unpopulated area. So much for good advice. Newer historical studies based on archival research by Kuznick, Selden, Bernstein, Hasegawa and others offer the explanation that the decision to drop atomic weapons on a defeated enemy was a political one intended to impress upon the communist Soviet Union, the only other major power emerging from the destruction of World War II, the United State's military might and resolve going forward. American leaders preferred to end the war with American technology rather than communist tanks. Bombing with atomic weapons in August 1945 was the therefore the first blow of the Cold War. General Leslie Groves, director of the bomb project testified, "There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis." The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman expressed his satisfaction with "the overwhelming success" of "the experiment".

The United State's modus operandi of employing devastating advanced weapons to achieve desired geopolitical goals regardless of the human cost or moral consequences did not end in the radioactive ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki over sixty years ago. The carpet bombing of North Vietnam and the use of chemical defoliants in South Vietnam are later examples. A new report from Stanford and NYU Schools of Law, "Living Under the Drones", is based on interviews with more than 130 victims and witnesses of the drone war in northwest Pakistan. Drone strikes have not suppressed terrorism, but are enraging Pakistanis. Seventy-four percent of Pakistanis now consider the United States to be an enemy. Despite official claims of "surgical strikes" the best estimate of civilian deaths is anywhere from 474 to 884, and a thousand or more injuries, contrary to official claims of "single digit" civilian deaths. Kills of top level militants make the corporate mass media headlines, but they represent less than 2% of deaths by drone. The drone war is America's technological version of terrorism in which villagers live in constant fear of sudden death from the sky. It has altered the behavior of innocent people who are powerless to protect themselves from sudden attack. The specter of Hiroshima has returned.