History’s Greatest Terrorist: Harry Truman
History’s Greatest Terrorist: Harry Truman
By Steve Fake – August 10, 2012 – FPIP – Cross-posted from Scramble for Africa.
The motives for dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were political, the targets civilian — a textbook case of terrorism.
Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson in the lull between the storms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson in the lull between the storms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Terrorism, despite continual abuse, is a word like any other. It has an actual definition: violence against a civilian target undertaken to send a political message. It is not merely a slur to be affixed willy-nilly to whomever, as geopolitical needs dictate.
On August 6th 1945 Washington dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. One hundred fifty thousand civilians were incinerated or condemned to slow and terrible deaths by radiation exposure (as immortalized in the Japanese manga and animated film Barefoot Gen). On August 9th, the Truman Administration released a plutonium core atomic bomb over Nagasaki, killing an additional 75,000 people.
A justifying mythology was immediately crafted and remains firmly lodged in popular understanding — at least in the U.S. The bombs were dropped, reluctantly, to save the lives of U.S. servicemen fighting Japan. Perhaps a half million (Truman’s claim) would have died before Japan would have unconditionally surrendered had the U.S. not deployed the bombs. The story has long been debunked, but with little popularization. If fact, Japan was already prepared to surrender, having only a few (trivial next to hundreds of thousands of lives) conditions. The actual reasons the bomb was dropped, included, as Gar Alperovitz has long argued, intimidating Russia and to demonstrate U.S. power on the world stage. Any street gangster would recognize the dynamic. There was also a concern to forestall any further Soviet influence in Asia. Thus the motive was political and the target was civilian. It is a textbook case of terrorism. Perhaps the preeminent example.
Truman’s successor continued developing the arsenal. In 1954, the federal government, in a secret test, detonated a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb — the most powerful device the country ever exploded — on the Bikini Atoll island range in the Pacific Ocean. Rongelap Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, was downwind. The people were temporarily relocated, only to be sent back a few years later to their now radioactive homelands. …more
1 comment
So, I’ve read through a few of your essays and have, on the overall, came to an essential conclusion, the Truman essay cementing it for me.
Now, I am not part of the UN biased thetoric you like to rail on about, so my view about the middle east is not sancioned by the US, fortunately for your interests.
My view being in a nutshell that the Middle East is a big problem, just like Japan was a big problem, when Japan chose to launch a cowardly surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Myself, I blame factions, if you will, of the Middle East for the Twin Towers which forever has changed the way Americans do anything anymore, especially airline travel. I’m sure many Americans feel (and rightly so) that their inalienable rights have been forever violated because of the TSA and other facets of The Department Of Homeland Security, who came into being because of what happened to us as a result of the Middle East legions and concurrent sympathizers (such as yourself).
Your essays go on to strongly infer that the US Government, itself, propagates what is now defined and indentified as Terrorism and unfairly attributes it to areas, organizations and peoples of The Middle East.
Now, I am not a politician (and you aren’t either) but I can tell you most certainly that Al Queda is an abomination, that Osama Bin Laden did not suffer enough for what he has wrought, that many of your peoples of The Middle East were and are active sympathizers and maintain your vendetta against the US.
Now, regarding Harry Truman and his use of the Bomb. You can say what you want, and many have and do amidst the climate of this current state of gloom and pallor that Terrorism, wrought of your regions, of which your regions and sympathizers are in turn responsible for, and in many ways, just as responsible as the Terrorist organizations the Middle East region supports yet, indirectly and clandestinely.
I personally think now, and did then, that when the Twin Towers came down, that it was a cowardly act that was even worse than Pearl Harbor (since you had your essay rant against Harry Truman).
I often wish there has been a scenario where the US had retaliated immediately with deadly nuclear force against the Middle East regions deemed to be hiding Bin Laden and who were supporters and pro-active sympathizers of Al Queda.
You may say my views are driven by American propaganda. Fine, say what you want, but I assure you, if the US answered terrorist activities against us the way Harry Truman answered Japan for Pearl Harbor, that the personal day to day lives of Americans would not be infringed upon the way they are. As because of The Middle East and the united network of hatred against the United States, we now live with the fact that our day to day freedoms have been changed because of the need to “be vigilant” and protect ourselves against zealots.
I assure you, or anyone, that had the US immediately responded on 9/11 with deadly Nuclear force and made it clear that any further terrorist acts against the US would immediately be answered by the same deadly nuclear force, and in fact executed by an absolutely zero tolerance policy, that these terrorist groups would stop. They would stop because their countries would be annihilated off the map.
So when you talk about “the cowardice” of Harry Truman, others of us, yet today, would say he is a hero for ending the war and avenging Pearl Harbor to the degree that it would not happen again by that Nation.
I don’t like it, you don’t like it, and no one likes it, but I quite assure you, Americans are tired of being afraid of what insane people have propagated in terrorist acts.
The upheaval in Egypt against Americans caught there during the uprising that occurred and the associated rioting and attacks were concurrently, and once again, the actions of peoples who are so zealot driven that they are criminally insane by mine and many other’s standards.
Leave a Comment