Japan on Sunday commemorated the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in the final phase of World War II.
Considering the growing nuclear threat worldwide, the mayor of Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and described the nuclear deterrence policy of G7 as “folly.”
“They must immediately take concrete steps to move us from the dangerous present to our ideal world,” he said as a peace bell rang on Sunday at 8:15 a.m. — exactly when on August 6, 1945, US bomber Enola Gay set off the world’s first atomic bomb dropped on a population center.
This year, the G7 summit took place in Hiroshima, which happens to be Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s home constituency
“Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory,” Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said at the ceremony which was also attended by Kishida.
At the memorial ceremony about 50,000 people, including aging victims who survived the bombing, gathered and observed a moment of silence.
Drums of nuclear war beating again: Antonio Guterres
The anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing was commemorated amid the growing threat of nuclear weapons propelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The issue poses a tricky balancing act for Kishida. Japan is traditionally an advocate of nuclear disarmament, in no small part because of the legacy of the attacks on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki three days later.
However, it also supports the partly nuclear-armed G7’s group stance that members with atomic weapons shall retain them for as long as they’re a necessary deterrent against other nuclear powers.
“World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors, and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament,” he said in remarks read by a UN representative. “More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again.”
The American atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima was nicknamed “Little Boy.” It is thought to have killed as many as 140,000 people by the end of 1945. Three days later, the US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. It is believed to have killed up to 70,000 over the next four months.
A few days after the bombings, on August 15, Japan made an official announcement that it was surrendering. Soon after, on September 2, Japan formally capitulated, bringing an end to World War II in Asia.
Whether using the bombs brought about a speedier, and possibly even more bloodless, end to the war or whether it was an ultimately unnecessary show of force remains a fierce debate among historians almost eight decades on
Went into this below but that is mostly a myth/narrative related to a “good war” coupled with remnants of the idea that these are warriors/knights fighting.
The reality is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki WERE “military” targets in the sense that they were industrial centers. They weren’t where all the troops were stationed. They WERE where all the troops got their guns and equipment from (I forget exactly what the factories were set up to build but it was military supplies). Which was particularly important as Japan was largely on its last legs. Their navy and air force were mostly in tatters and they were frantically trying to rebuild before the Allies defeated them.
And, as mentioned below, these weren’t armies made up of professional soldiers. They weren’t even armies made up of dumbass kids who got tricked into signing paperwork. Every (?) military in WW2 was built around drafted civilians. Maybe peer pressure made you pretend you wanted to go overseas and fight some “Japoteurs” but the reality is that you were sent a letter in the mail saying “get your ass to this bus station or we will arrest you”. The difference between someone sitting in downtown Hiroshima and in a military base in Tokyo mostly boiled down to luck of the draft lottery (and Japan was in the process of MASSIVELY increasing the “eligibility” for the draft).
Which is the true horror of war. It isn’t about two big burly men fighting until one of them has had enough and yields. It is about forcing your enemy to capitulate. That means taking away their ability to fight AND their will to fight. Kill enough soldiers and the morale “back home” breaks down (The US in Vietnam is the quintessential example). Take away their weapons and they are forced to conserve resources and are unable to fight. Destroy their food supplies and they starve. But it is the “civilians” who are suffering because they are losing their family every time you kill a soldier. They are dying in the factories when you bomb them. They are starving a lot sooner than the frontline troops are. And that is also contributing to morale.
Which gets back to what a mess all of this is. Because nobody with even an iota of humanity thinks the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “deserved” this (and I say this as someone whose family directly suffered because of Imperial Japan’s atrocities in China). And, again, at the very least people need to read those accounts. Hearing about children basically having their skin melted off by black rain is horrifying. But what people fail to do is read up about people being raped and tortured by the invading soldiers when “military cities” are attacked. They fail to read up about all the civilians in the logistics train who get killed when “military targets” are attacked. And they are indoctrinated enough into propaganda that they don’t really think about the distinction between dying in bed at home versus dying in bed in a barracks when a five hundred pound bomb is dropped on you. Because people are so fixated on the idea that you lose all right to live the moment your government says “Here is a gun. You can either kill the enemy or go to prison. Also, we might just execute you on the spot rather than deal with shipping you to a jail cell. Remember, your enemies are Other”
But also? Go drive around the nearest military base to where you live. If it is an air force base, there is a good chance it is literally next door to a civilian airport (partially for weather and flight path reasons). Regardless, there are probably a lot of businesses, apartment complexes, hospitals, etc. Because most military bases are small cities unto themselves… and because it ensures that blowing up a military target still has civilian casualties which, if handled correctly, can be spun as indiscriminate murder of civilians and a reason to keep fighting.
To quote Sartre, “When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die”. And while it is important to try to minimize civilian casualties, it is also important to understand… civilian casualties are the point.
And just to contrast this a bit with some OTHER war crimes the US Military did. One of our favorite tactics in Afghanistan and Iraq and all the other fun places we go to murder brown people is to take out “high value targets”. Fire a hellfire missile into someone’s bedroom. Oops, we missed and killed the family next door. Oh well, the people are still demoralized so a win’s a win. Or maybe we didn’t miss and STILL killed the family next door!
My personal ethics regarding this? I think all of this is evil and even the “good” wars like WW2 (saving the victims of the Holocaust and the victims of Imperial Japan) are mostly a case of realizing after the fact that we had a justification for some of the war crimes we did (and if you never want to sleep again? Go read up on what Russia and the US did to the Korean and Chinese victims of Imperial Japan. I’ll give you a hint: White folk are REALLY bad at giving a shit about why your eyes are slanted but they are REALLY good about taking out some aggression on the people they were brainwashed into hating).