Nobel Peace Prize for Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors: What the Mass Media Refuse to Talk About When Reporting on This--Key Truths and the Egalitarian View
Warmongers threaten us today with thermonuclear war so we must overthrow them
“Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group,” is the Guardian’s headline. The article informs us that
Between 60,000 and 80,000 people died instantly after the Enola Gay, a US B-29 bomber, dropped a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on the morning of 6 August 1945, with the death toll rising to 140,000 by the end of the year. Three days later, the Americans dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000.
Today, the number of people officially recognised as having died from the effects of the bombings stands at 344,306 in Hiroshima and 198,785 in Nagasaki. The average age of the 106,000 survivors is almost 86, according to Japan’s health ministry.
Here’s what the article does NOT tell us.
There was no moral justification for the U.S. rulers to have dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan. The purpose was never to end the war (WWII) earlier as is now well-known by those who study such things even if not well-known by the public. The fact is that before those nuclear bombs were dropped, Japan had already agreed to surrender with just one condition, that the emperor be permitted to remain on the thrown. U.S. rulers WANTED the emperor to remain on the throne which is why he did. So there was no need to drop the nuclear bombs to get a quick Japanese surrender.1
The actual reason why U.S. rulers dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan is this: To make the people of the world—the entire world!-tremble in fear of U.S. rulers and be afraid—very afraid!—of standing up against U.S. rulers anywhere in the world.
U.S. rulers today continue to use the threat of nuclear bombs to make people obey them, the only difference between now and August 6 and 9 of 1945 is that U.S. rulers no longer have a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
The Egalitarian Position on Nuclear Weapons (which, of course, the mass media never talk about either)
As I have written earlier elsewhere, "An egalitarian foreign policy would never deliberately direct, or threaten to direct, violence against non-combatants. This means destroying our nuclear bombs unilaterally. It also means never invading other nations to direct violence against non-combatants as the U.S. did in Vietnam and Iraq." I condemn Putin's (and the U.S.'s) threats to use nuclear weapons, no matter what the circumstances; egalitarians everywhere should do likewise.
Are Nuclear Weapons the Only Way to Prevent Being Destroyed by US/NATO the Way Libya (Without Nuclear Weapons) Was, and the Way North Korea (With Nuclear Weapons) Is Not?
There are two things that can make the rulers of the US/NATO fear to attack a nation. The first thing is fear that the nation will counter-attack with nuclear weapons. The second thing (which is not currently a factor, but could be in the future as discussed below) is fear that a US/NATO attack on a nation will strengthen egalitarian revolution and thereby threaten to remove the US/NATO rulers from power.
Russia would not need nuclear weapons to protect itself from the United States if it (Russia) were egalitarian
The reason this second thing (fear of strengthening egalitarian revolution) is not currently a factor in protecting Russia from a U.S. nuclear first strike attack (something some in U.S. government circles have advocated explicitly in the past and which current U.S. missile deployment is aimed to do) is because Russia (obviously! as I show here) is not an egalitarian nation/society and, of course, it is not promoting egalitarian revolution in the rest of the world. But if Russia were an egalitarian society and if it were explicitly and clearly supporting the egalitarians (who are most people!) in the rest of the world--including inside the US/NATO nations--by supporting all of peoples' struggles to make their society more equal and democratic, then the general public in all of these nations would understand, despite the US/NATO propaganda, that an attack on Russia--especially a threatened nuclear attack!--was an attack on them, on egalitarians everywhere in the world. The general public everywhere would be made angry--FURIOUS!--by any attack on Russia, and any such attack or its credible threat would likely increase the general public's efforts to remove US/NATO rulers from power.
But because Russia is not such an egalitarian nation, it is quite easy for US/NATO to enlist the support of the general public in many nations for an attack on Russia. Russian Tsars and subsequently its extremely anti-democratic Marxist rulers in the past attacked good people in other nations and thereby created popular support there for any US/NATO attack on Russia today. Elsewhere, the general public has no particular reason for seeing an attack on Russia as an attack on themselves, since they know that Russian rulers are essentially a plutocracy enriching themselves at the expense of the have-nots; why, they understandably might ask (especially if Russia's rulers are threatening to kill us with nuclear bombs!), should we have-nots anywhere have any sympathy for the Russian rulers when they are attacked by US/NATO?
The reason, therefore, why Russia's rulers today are so reliant on the immoral threat to use nuclear weapons is this: Russia is not an egalitarian society.
Egalitarians should not support Russia's current policy of using nuclear weapons only in retaliation after a first nuclear attack on itself (even though Russia's current invasion into Ukraine is for a just cause of defending Russian-speaking people against Nazi oppression) because if nuclear weapons are used 90% or more of the world's population (almost all good and decent innocent people) will be killed! We should work to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement everywhere, and defend all just struggles but without using nuclear weapons. In doing this we have no guarantee of success; but in resorting to using nuclear weapons we guarantee the worst possible failure.
Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to remove the rich from power and ensure there will not be thermonuclear war.
The following is from my online book (pg. 155-7) with all the footnoted sources there:
Did Dropping The Atom Bomb On Japan Save American Lives?
U.S. leaders told Americans that the massive killing ofJapanese civilians was necessary to force them to surrender and thus avoid tremendous American casualties in a land invasion. This was a lie. Major General Curtis LeMay, commander of the Twenty-First Bomber Command responsible for destroying Japan’s military targets, gave an interview after the war explaining why he knew, in the spring of 1945, that the war would end before the scheduled November 1945 landing could begin:
General Arnold made a visit to our headquarters in the late spring of 1945 and he asked that question: When is the war going to end?...We went back to some of the charts we had been showing him showing the rate of activity, the targets we were hitting, and it was completely evident that we were running out of targets along in September and by October there wouldn’t really be much to work on, except probably railroads or something ofthat sort. So we felt that ifthere were no targets left inJapan, certainly there probably wouldn’t be much war left.5
General Henry (“Hap”) Arnold, Commander of the Army Air Forces, wrote of this event in his diary, in June 1945:
LeMay's staff showed how Japan’s industrial facilities would be completely destroyed by October 1". 30 large and small cities, all to go, then Japan will have none ofthe things needed to supply an Army, Navy or Air Force. She cannot continue her fighting after her reserve supplies are gone. October 1“—we will see.6
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area (including Japan) during the war, stated in a press conference in 1963:
“We did not need the atomic bomb against Japan.”7
MacArthur later wrote that by June 1945:
My staff was unanimous in believing Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender. I even directed that plans be drawn ‘for a peaceful occupation ofJapan’ without further military operations.8
This opinion was not merely held by Army/Air Forces commanders. Admiral William Leahy in 1950 made the following statement:
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 because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons....My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians ofthe Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.9
In 1963, Dwight Eisenhower wrote about the moment when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:
During his recitation ofthe relevant facts I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis ofmy beliefthatJapan 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 beliefthatJapan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’10
Some have argued that top American leaders ignored military leaders and used the atomic bombs in order to obtain a Japanese surrender before the Soviet Union had time to enter the war againstJapan and win occupation rights after the war. But if a quick surrender were the goal, the U.S. would have dropped the unconditional surrender policy and made it clear to the Japanese rulers that the Emperor would be allowed to remain on the throne, since everyone knew this was the only thing left that prevented the Japanese rulers from surrendering. In fact, the U.S. insisted on unconditional surrender and thereby delayed the eventual surrender which, in the end, did keep the Emperor on the throne.11 To understand why the civilian leaders of the U.S., President Truman and Secretary ofState James Byrnes in particular (who would later run for governor of South Carolina on a “segregationist, anti-civil rights platform"12), would use atomic bombs when their military leaders felt it was not militarily necessary, we need to look at things from a working class point of view, and start by asking a question that is seldom asked. Were the civilians targeted by these bombs (both the atom bombs and the earlier incendiary bombs) Fascists or anti-Fascists? And why didn’t American rulers seem to care?
PLEASE READ MY BOOK’S NEXT SECTION TO SEE HOW THE JAPANESE CIVILIANS WERE ANTI-FASCISTS.
Thanks John. If only people would realise that corrupt governments don't represent the common man in any nation and try and influence us to hate each other.
While it is true that Russia is a class society it does not follow that US workers should feel justified for their government to strike Russia with nuclear weapons, even if the Russian government threatens to use nuclear weapons in its defense. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate anti-working class military weapon, threatening the lives of all, military or not, who cannot afford the extraordinary cost of sophisticated bunkers. Inherently the working class should not support their use. However, when threatened with extinction by a foreign oligarchical ruling class who has used such weapons for their political purposes, what choice do the Russian workers have? If they were to unilaterally disarm themselves of nuclear weapons they would almost certainly be attacked by NATO/US with a nuclear attack if they did not submit to increasingly belligerent threats (and probably nuclear bomb demonstrations by NATO/US on Russian soil or in one of the proxy war theaters). It is a terrible choice they are facing but in my opinion, at least, the best of the terrible choices available would be to retain those weapons and the ability to retaliate, including the threat to use them as specifically as possible against the ruling elite of the aggressors, while at the same time agitating for bilateral nuclear disarmament as part of a step toward full disarmament of all anti-working class weapons.