Tag: nuclear weapons

Disinformation & The Dropping Of The Atomic Bombs

Legitimate disagreement about the wisdom of dropping two bombs on Japan to end World War II in 1945 persists even 80 years later, as reflected in discussions this past week.

But recently, there has often been no real effort even to present the facts, much less to consider the lose-lose choices involved in using such destructive weapons. In an age of revisionist history—when Churchill is deemed a “terrorist,” Germany did not really mean to starve millions of Jews and Ukrainians in summer and fall 1941, the British forced Hitler to continue the war, and World War II was not worth the cost—so too are Hiroshima and Nagasaki judged as either war crimes or colossal and unnecessary follies.

For today’s generation, it seems so easy to declare one’s 21st-century moral superiority over our ancestors. So we damn them as war criminals, given that they supposedly dropped the bombs without legitimate cause or reason.

What follows are some of the most common critiques of President Truman’s decision to use two nuclear weapons against wartime Japan, with an explanation of why his decision to use the bombs proved, at the time and in hindsight, the correct one.

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ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 80: The Mystery of the Nagasaki Bomb

“The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are debatable,” Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, once said, “but I have never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki” — which he labeled a war crime.

In his 2011 book Atomic Cover-Up, Greg Mitchell says, “If Hiroshima suggests how cheap life had become in the atomic age, Nagasaki shows that it could be judged to have no value whatsoever.” Mitchell notes that the U.S. writer Dwight MacDonald cited in 1945 America’s “decline to barbarism” for dropping “half-understood poisons” on a civilian population.

The New York Herald Tribune editorialized there was “no satisfaction in the thought that an American air crew had produced what must without doubt be the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind.”

Mitchell reports that the novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — who experienced the firebombing of Dresden first hand and described it in Slaughterhouse Five — said, “The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki.”

On Aug. 17, 1945, David Lawrence, the conservative columnist and editor of US News, put it this way:

“Last week we destroyed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japanese cities with the new atomic bomb. We shall not soon purge ourselves of the feeling of guilt. We did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children. Surely we cannot be proud of what we have done. If we state our inner thoughts honestly, we are ashamed of it.”

If shame is the natural response to Hiroshima, how is one to respond to Nagasaki, especially in view of all the declassified government papers on the subject? According to Dr. Joseph Gerson’s With Hiroshima Eye, some 74,000 were killed instantly at Nagasaki, another 75,000 were injured and 120,000 were poisoned.

If Hiroshima was unnecessary, how to justify Nagasaki?

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ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 80: The Very Un-Christian Nagasaki Bomb

Eighty years ago today, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped “Fat Man,” a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki, Japan, instantly annihilating tens of thousands of innocent civilians, a disproportionate number of them Japanese Christians, and wounding uncountable numbers of others.

For targeting purposes, the bombing crew used St. Mary’s Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in East Asia. At 11:02 a.m., on Aug. 9, 1945, when the bomb was dropped over the cathedral, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan.

At the time, the United States was arguably the most Christian nation in the world (that is, if you can label as Christian a nation whose churches overwhelmingly have failed to sincerely teach or adhere to the peaceful ethics of Jesus as taught in the Sermon on the Mount).

The baptized and confirmed Christian airmen, following their wartime orders to the letter, did their job efficiently, and they accomplished the mission with military pride, albeit with a number of near-fatal glitches.

Most Americans in 1945 would have done exactly the same if they had been in the shoes of the Bock’s Car crew, and there would have been very little mental anguish later if they had also been treated as heroes.

Nevertheless, the use of that monstrous weapon of mass destruction to destroy a mainly civilian city like Nagasaki was an international war crime and a crime against humanity as defined later by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Of course, there was no way that the crew members could have known that at the time. Some of the crew did admit that they had had some doubts about what they had participated in when the bomb actually detonated. Of course, none of them actually saw the horrific suffering of the victims up close and personal.

“Orders are orders” and, in wartime, disobedience can be, and has been, legally punishable by summary execution of the soldier who might have had a conscience strong enough to convince him that killing another human, especially an unarmed one, was morally wrong.

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Canada’s Contribution to Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Eighty years ago today the US Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima resulting in 140,000 deaths. Three days later they dropped a different type of nuclear weapon on another Japanese city. 40,000 were killed immediately in Nagasaki and tens of thousands more died in the aftermath.

Those who justify the bombings claim it saved US lives by quickly ending the war. But, Tokyo had already been devastated and had delivered multiple pleas for a surrender agreement. The bombings were largely a warning to the Soviet Union about US military capabilities amidst post-war negotiations.

Canada was not an innocent bystander in the nuclear bombing. Uranium from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories was used in the bombs and Canada spent millions of dollars (tens of millions in today’s money) to help research the bombs’ development. Immediately after successfully developing the technology, the US submitted its proposal to drop the bomb on Japan to the tri-state World War II Combined Policy Committee meeting, which included powerful Canadian minister C.D. Howe and a British official. Apparently, Howe supported the US proposal. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Howe immediately praised the military action. “It is a distinct pleasure for me to announce that Canadian scientists have played an intimate part, and have been associated in an effective way with this great scientific development,” he told the press. (Reflecting the racism in Canadian governing circles, in his (uncensored) diary King wrote: “It is fortunate that the use of the bomb should have been upon the Japanese rather than upon the white races of Europe.”)

Only a few years after the first atomic bomb was built Ottawa allowed the US to station nuclear weapons in Canada. According to John Clearwater in Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal, the first “nuclear weapons came to Canada as early as September 1950, when the USAF [US Air Force] temporarily stationed eleven ‘Fat Man’- style atomic bombs at Goose Bay Newfoundland.”

Canadian territory has also been used to test US nuclear weapons. Beginning in 1952 Ottawa agreed to let the US Strategic Air Command use Canadian air space for training flights of nuclear-armed aircraft. At the same time, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission conducted military tests in Canada to circumvent oversight by American “watchdog committees.” As part of the agreement Ottawa committed to prevent any investigation into the military aspects of nuclear research in Canada.

Canadian Forces also carried nukes on foreign-stationed aircraft. At the height of Canadian nuclear deployments in the late 1960s the government had between 250 and 450 atomic bombs at its disposal in Europe. Based in Germany, the CF-104 Starfighter, for instance, operated without a gun and carried nothing but a thermal nuclear weapon.

During the past 80 years Canada has often been the world’s largest producer of uranium. Ottawa has sold dozens of nuclear reactors to foreign countries, which have often been financed with aid dollars.

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ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 80: Truman’s ‘Human Sacrifice’ to Subdue Moscow

Sumiteru Taniguchi was one of the “lucky” ones. He lived a long and productive life. He married and fathered two healthy children who gave him four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He had a long career in Japan’s postal and telegraph services. As a leader in Japan’s anti-nuclear movement, he addressed thousands of audiences and hundreds of thousands of people. He traveled to at least 23 countries. The organizations in which he played a prominent role were nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many of the more than 250,000 who lived in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, were not so lucky. Tens of thousands were killed instantly by the plutonium core atomic bomb the U.S. dropped that day from the B29 Bockscar, captained by Major Charles Sweeney.

The bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” exploded with a force equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT and wiped out an area that covered three square miles, shattering windows eleven miles away. Some 74,000 were dead by the end of the year. The death toll reached 140,000 by 1950. Included among the victims were thousands of Korean slave laborers, who toiled in Japanese mines, fields, and factories. Since then, atomic bomb-related injuries and illnesses have claimed thousands more victims and caused immense suffering to many of the survivors.

The scene of death and destruction defied description. Corpses, many of which had been charred by the blast, lay everywhere. Susan Southard, in her groundbreaking book Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, describes the scene that U.S. occupation troops encountered when they landed on September 23, 1945: “The Urakami Valley had vanished from existence, corpses were burning on cremation pyres, skulls and bones were piled on the ground, and people were walking through the ruins with beleaguered and empty expressions.”

Among the troops was Keith Lynch, a sailor from Nebraska. Lynch wrote to his parents that he had just seen

“a sight I hope my children, if I am so fortunate, will never have to see, hear of, or ever think of. It was horrible and when you get to thinking, unbelieveable….Such a thing as I saw yesterday cannot be described in words. You have to see it and I hope no one ever has to see such a thing again.”

The death toll was even higher and the destruction greater in Hiroshima, which the U.S. had obliterated three days earlier with a uranium core atomic bomb. There, some 200,000 were dead by 1950. The Nagasaki bomb was more powerful than the one that leveled Hiroshima, but damage was limited by the fact that the bomb missed its target and that the mountains surrounding Nagasaki, which is located in a valley, contained the blast. However, in Urakami Valley, where the bomb landed, nearly 70 percent of the population perished.

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Cold War 2.0 Heats Up

Last week the nuclear rhetoric between the US and Russia made some of us feel like we were transported back to 1962. Back then, Soviet moves to place nuclear-capable missiles 90 miles off our coast in Cuba led to the greatest crisis of the Cold War. The United States and its president, John F. Kennedy, could not tolerate such weapons placed by a hostile power on its doorstep and the world only knew years later how close we were to nuclear war.

Thankfully both Khrushchev and Kennedy backed down – with the Soviet leader removing the missiles from Cuba and the US president agreeing to remove some missiles from Turkey. Both men realized the folly of playing with “mutually assured destruction,” and this compromise likely paved the way to further US/Soviet dialogue from Nixon to President Reagan and finally to the end of the Cold War.

Fast forward more than 60 years later and we have a US president, Donald Trump, who last week stated that he had “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions,” meaning nearer to Russia.

Had Russia attacked the US or an ally? Threatened to do so? No. The supposed re-positioning of US strategic military assets was in response to a sharp series of posts made by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on social media that irritated President Trump.

The war of words started earlier, when neocon US Senator Lindsey Graham’s endless threats against Russia received a response – and a warning – from Medvedev. Graham, who seems to love war more than anything else, posted “To those in Russia who believe that President Trump is not serious about ending the bloodbath between Russia and Ukraine… You will also soon see that Joe Biden is no longer president. Get to the peace table.”

Medvedev responded, “It’s not for you or Trump to dictate when to ‘get at the peace table’. Negotiations will end when all the objectives of our military operation have been achieved. Work on America first, gramps!”

That was enough for Trump to join in to defend his ill-chosen ally Graham and ended with Medvedev alluding to Soviet nuclear doctrine which provided for an automatic nuclear response to any first strike on the USSR by US or NATO weapons.

The message from the Russian politician was clear: back off. It was hardly Khruschev banging his shoe at the UN screaming “we will bury you,” but it was enough for Trump to make a rare public pronouncement about the movement of US nuclear submarines.

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China-Linked Hackers Breach US Nuclear Weapons Agency In Sophisticated Operation

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been hit by a sophisticated cyberattack that exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint, and is being widely described by one of the most serious breaches of US defense infrastructure this year. Fingers in the West are pointing to Beijing.

Hackers believed linked to the Chinese government used a zero-day exploit targeting on-premises versions of SharePoint to infiltrate over 50 organizations, including the agency responsible for the Navy’s nuclear submarine reactors. China is vehemently denying the charge.

The NNSA oversees both the production of nuclear reactors for submarines and the maintenance of the US nuclear arsenal. Cybersecurity experts are currently describing what’s known as an advanced remote code execution (RCE) attack.

The vulnerability reportedly affected SharePoint Server 2019 and the Subscription Edition, which allowed attackers to bypass security protocols and execute arbitrary commands on targeted systems, as described in Bloomberg.

The US Department of Energy is well-known to use Microsoft 365 cloud systems for a lot of its SharePoint work. “The department was minimally impacted due to its widespread use of the Microsoft M365 cloud and very capable cybersecurity systems,” a Department of Energy spokesperson conveyed in a statement to Bloomberg. “A very small number of systems were impacted. All impacted systems are being restored.”

It’s believed the hackers were able to gain unauthorized access, steal data, collect login credentials, and potentially move deeper into connected networks; however, the Department of Energy has claimed no classified or sensitive nuclear data was compromised in the breach.

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Russia reaffirms nuclear doctrine amid U.S.-Ukraine weapons speculation

Kremlin reaffirmed Russia’s nuclear doctrine on Wednesday, July 16. This announcement comes amid rumors that the United States might supply Ukraine with longer-range weapons capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized the continued validity of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, stating, “The nuclear doctrine remains in force, and consequently, all its provisions apply.”

This statement was made in response to a question about whether the doctrine’s provision, which considers any attack by a non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack, was still in effect.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered last year to revise the doctrine in response to the U.S. allowing Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles, with a range of about 190 miles, against Russian targets. The amendments expanded the scope of countries and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence and broadened the list of military threats. The doctrine now classifies any attack by a non-nuclear state, backed by a nuclear power, as a joint attack. This change reflects Russia’s growing concern over the involvement of Western nations in the Ukraine conflict. (Related: Putin revises nuclear doctrine, making it easier for Russia to target Ukraine with nukes.)

The situation took a dramatic turn when reports emerged that President Donald Trump had privately encouraged Ukraine to intensify its strikes on Russian territory. According to sources briefed on the discussions, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if his forces could hit Moscow or St. Petersburg if the U.S. provided longer-range weapons. Although Trump later denied considering such a move, the conversation highlighted his frustration with Putin’s reluctance to engage in ceasefire talks.

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Area 51 staff ‘killed by invisible enemy’ while working on top-secret projects

A group of US Air Force veterans has gone public with their story about how an ‘invisible enemy’ at the top-secret base Area 51 left them with cancer.

The former security guards at the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), a classified site that houses Area 51, have claimed that the US government betrayed them and essentially handed them a death sentence without their knowledge.

Their claims stemmed from the revelation that NTTR was built in the 1970s on an area of land that was found to be contaminated with radiation from years of nuclear testing in the area.

However, that 1975 report from the US Energy Research and Development Administration also said it would ‘be against the national interest’ to stop the military’s secret projects at the site.

David Crete, a former Air Force Sergeant who worked at NTTR from 1983 through 1987, said that over 490 of his fellow workers have died of severe illnesses since being stationed at the secret facility.

Making matters worse, the US Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to cover their medical care because none of the surviving veterans can prove they were exposed to radiation near Area 51.

That’s because their work was so top secret, all records of their activities have been marked as ‘data masked.’

‘I have brain atrophy. The left side of my brain is shrinking and dying. That’s not too bad. I’m one of the healthy ones,’ Crete told the House Veterans Affairs Committee in April while lobbying for legislation to support the Area 51 veterans.

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Hiroshima at 80: Setting the Abhorrent Precedent

August 6th marks the 80th anniversary of mankind’s most cataclysmic and ignominious achievement: The first weaponized use of an atomic bomb. At approximately 8:15 in the morning, the bomb “Little Boy” detonated over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. While estimates have varied between 70,000 and 140,000 dead, the sheer magnitude of devastation caused to a largely civilian population cannot be understated. To this day, much debate rages on regarding the necessity of such weapons in the closing chapter of the Second World War.

The current orthodoxy of American military history, however, stands firmly entrenched that the usage of this bomb (and a subsequent one in Nagasaki three days later) was critical to ending the war quickly and saving the lives of countless Americans and even Japanese civilians who would have assuredly died in the ensuing operation to seize the entirety of mainland Japan. But how vital was the atomic bombing truly to ending the war? A deeper dive into contemporary sources reveals that the bombing was needless, cruel, and firmly established an abhorrent precedent for a newly established global hegemon.

Operation Downfall

Modern military historians desperately cling to the notion set forth by former War Secretary Henry Stimson, as articulated in the February 1947 issue of Harper’s Magazine, that, if forced to carry a ground invasion of Japan to conclusion, it would “cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone.” This invasion, dubbed “Operation Downfall,” was estimated by Stimson’s calculations to last well into 1946 and would have entailed that “additional losses might be expected among our allies” and that “enemy casualties would be much larger than our own.”

And while a large preponderance of scholarship on the matter seeks to reaffirm these claims, it was a dubious metric even at the time. As Barton J. Bernstein wrote in a 1999 issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies, no pre-Hiroshima literature can be found that would back up these claims. It appears to be a postwar invention by Stimson, Truman, et al., to justify the decision. This is an important distinction, as the bulk of pro-atomic weapon usage advocates rely heavily on this claim. However, perhaps surprisingly to some, the decision was questioned by many senior military leaders within the United States military even at the time.

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