how many castro killed?

[new democracy]

i want a sincere answer to my question: how many castro killed? i dont want to piss anyone of i am just want to know. and when you give me your answer give me the source.

[Moskitto]

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm#Cuba59

[new democracy]

so much executions!!!! this is horrible!!!! how can someone admire that man!?

[Felicia]

Many of the executions were of enemies to the revolution and the people of Cuba. Especially the ones in the late 1950's when Fidel came to power.

(Edited by felicia at 11:37 am on Aug. 28, 2002)

[new democracy]

enemies to the revolution and the people of Cuba? you talk like a stalinist!!!!

[PunkRawker677]

How many people have died at the hands of america since 1950?

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from PunkRawker677 on 6:42 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
How many people have died at the hands of america since 1950?

that was not the question

[PunkRawker677]

did i say it was?

[Capitalist Imperial]

Tell us, Punkrawker, how many deaths can you attribute to the USA directly? (don't count conventional wars)

[mujer revolucionaria]

As if the CIA were to release a file telling the public how many people they kill per year all over the world.

And if you think about Castro, he was at WAR.....he killed the Batista/USA friendly counterrevolutionaries who were holed up in the mountains and scattered about the country. They were a threat to Cuba.

Now, if there were "terroists" holed up in the USA, or hell in the mountains of Afghanistan for that matter .....does the United States kill them? I dont think I have to answer that for you.

(Edited by mujer revolucionaria at 2:31 pm on Aug. 29, 2002)

[mujer revolucionaria]

Here's another question to ponder....how many innocents perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

You want to start a finger pointing contest? As if that accomplishes anything.....

[mujer revolucionaria]

One more point......on that webpage, scroll down and look at the death stats for the Gulf War.....

As most people know, the war was fought because of oil interests, not the rhetoric they handed out of aggression towards an innocent, helpless country......

blood for oil, that SUV you are driving comes at a heavy price eh?

to quote The Big Lebowski - "this aggression will not stand.....man!" haha

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from mujer revolucionaria on 8:33 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
Here's another question to ponder....how many innocents perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?



You want to start a finger pointing contest? As if that accomplishes anything.....

that was a legitimate end to WWII in the pacific, a war that japan started, and if you read your history and understand the circumstances surrounding it, you would understand that the bombings saved more lives than they took

BTW, we offered for japan 2 surrender b4 we dropped the 2nd bobmb, and they refused, with full knowledge of the pending consequences of not succumbing to american power

[Mazdak]

Japan was going to surrender. We dropped the bombs, to scare the Soviets who were probably going to support the invasion and take a chunk of japan for themselves.

[Xvall]

Quote: from Capitalist Imperial on 7:51 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
Tell us, Punkrawker, how many deaths can you attribute to the USA directly? (don't count conventional wars)


Don't count conventional wars? But everything your government does is labelled as a war! Someone can just as well say the Holocaust doesn't count because germany was in a time of war!

[Marxist1848]

"that was a legitimate end to WWII in the pacific, a war that japan started, and if you read your history and understand the circumstances surrounding it, you would understand that the bombings saved more lives than they took

BTW, we offered for japan 2 surrender b4 we dropped the 2nd bobmb, and they refused, with full knowledge of the pending consequences of not succumbing to american power"

Actually, japan knew of an attack...not of a nuclear attack.
They new we were threatening them and that if they didnt surrender that we would attack them. And why would we choose, of all places, to drop this thing on a school?
And right at dissmissal!
parent were getting there kids from the door and putting them into the cars when this huge thing melted them all into the ground. And how many were actually soldier?
NOT MANY!
"you would understand that the bombings saved more lives than they took "
You mean they saved more american lives by taking more japanese lives.
By killing a whole shit load of civilians they prevented the killing of a bunch of american soldiers.

[Felicia]

Quote: from new democracy on 1:22 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
enemies to the revolution and the people of Cuba? you talk like a stalinist!!!!


Maybe I do, what I meant was people from the Batista regime who tortured the Cuban people, many were put on trial and sentenced, some to death.

[Felicia]

Quote: from PunkRawker677 on 2:42 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
How many people have died at the hands of america since 1950?


I've read estmations that suggest millions!!

[PunkRawker677]

I guess I no longer need to answer your question. Seems everyone did it for me while i was at work.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from PunkRawker677 on 12:07 am on Aug. 29, 2002
I guess I no longer need to answer your question. Seems everyone did it for me while i was at work.

yeah, too bad they gave poor, incorrect answers completely out of context, evading the main issue. I will break down the faults of each response

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from mujer revolucionaria on 8:39 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
One more point......on that webpage, scroll down and look at the death stats for the Gulf War.....

As most people know, the war was fought because of oil interests, not the rhetoric they handed out of aggression towards an innocent, helpless country......

blood for oil, that SUV you are driving comes at a heavy price eh?

to quote The Big Lebowski - "this aggression will not stand.....man!" haha


This is merely conjecture, and incorrect at that.

If we wanted to attack Iraq over oil, we would have already done it withoout pretense.

Kuwait was invaded, they asked for our help, so we responded, bottom line. Yes, oil was at stake, but not our major supply. Our major supplier is Saudi Arabia.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from Mazdak on 9:13 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
Japan was going to surrender. We dropped the bombs, to scare the Soviets who were probably going to support the invasion and take a chunk of japan for themselves.


This is a lie, it is just an untrue statement, I can't think of anything else to say.

Oh, except to ask, if they were going to surrender, why were they preparing defenses and a 250,000+ person civilian/military defense force to prepare against an invasion?

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from Drake Dracoli on 9:54 pm on Aug. 28, 2002

Quote: from Capitalist Imperial on 7:51 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
Tell us, Punkrawker, how many deaths can you attribute to the USA directly? (don't count conventional wars)


Don't count conventional wars? But everything your government does is labelled as a war! Someone can just as well say the Holocaust doesn't count because germany was in a time of war!


No that is a holocaust, if the US did anything like that please point it out (the a-bombs are being addressed, so don't use that)

[new democracy]

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=22&topic=889 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=22&topic=889) .

[Nateddi]

(Edited by Nateddi at 12:28 am on Aug. 29, 2002)

[vox]

As I've pointed out on this board before, the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese civilians was certainly not necessary, and we knew it at the time.

Try reading The Bombs of August (http://www.progressive.org/zinn0800.htm) by Howard Zinn for a little history lesson.

vox

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from Marxist1848 on 11:56 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
"that was a legitimate end to WWII in the pacific, a war that japan started, and if you read your history and understand the circumstances surrounding it, you would understand that the bombings saved more lives than they took

BTW, we offered for japan 2 surrender b4 we dropped the 2nd bobmb, and they refused, with full knowledge of the pending consequences of not succumbing to american power"

Actually, japan knew of an attack...not of a nuclear attack.
They new we were threatening them and that if they didnt surrender that we would attack them. And why would we choose, of all places, to drop this thing on a school?
And right at dissmissal!
parent were getting there kids from the door and putting them into the cars when this huge thing melted them all into the ground. And how many were actually soldier?
NOT MANY!
"you would understand that the bombings saved more lives than they took "
You mean they saved more american lives by taking more japanese lives.
By killing a whole shit load of civilians they prevented the killing of a bunch of american soldiers.



You obviously did not read my full post. I said they were offered the opportunity to surrender before the SECOND bomb was dropped.

Are you suggesting that after the most powerful weapon man has ever seen was unleashed on japan, that they didn't understand that it could, and probably would, be used again?

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from felicia on 12:04 am on Aug. 29, 2002

Quote: from PunkRawker677 on 2:42 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
How many people have died at the hands of america since 1950?


I've read estmations that suggest millions!!


translation: I have conjecture and rhetoric

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from new democracy on 12:21 am on Aug. 29, 2002
http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=22&topic=889 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=22&topic=889) .


that was for their protection as well as ours, and they were treated very well, not tortured or killed

BTW, they were internment camps, not concentration camps, there is a difference

[new democracy]

this is a debate about castro!!!!

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from vox on 12:30 am on Aug. 29, 2002
As I've pointed out on this board before, the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese civilians was certainly not necessary, and we knew it at the time.

Try reading The Bombs of August (http://www.progressive.org/zinn0800.htm) by Howard Zinn for a little history lesson.

vox


Yeah, nothing in life is necessary except occupying space. The alternative was to risk hundreds of thousands of american and japaneze lives (including forced civilian militia), many more than were killed in the bombings, in a conventional invasion of mainland japan.

Japan started WWII in the pacific, and they are ultimately responsible for the outcome.

[new democracy]

they didn't treated well!!!!! you are a fucking moron that justify all the actions of your government without thinking!!!! just for justify it you should be ban!!!!!

[vox]

"Kuwait was invaded, they asked for our help, so we responded, bottom line."

That's the simplistic, corporate-media provided and right-winger approved version of what happened, anyway.

Here's some slightly more indepth coverage:

19 July: Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney stated that the
American commitment made during the Iran-Iraq war to come to
Kuwait's defense if it were attacked was still valid. The same
point was made by Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy, at a private luncheon with Arab ambassadors.
(Ironically, Kuwait had been allied with Iraq and feared an
attack from Iran.) Later, Cheney's remark was downplayed by his
own spokesman, Pete Williams, who explained that the secretary
had spoken with "some degree of liberty". Cheney was then told
by the White House: "You're committing us to war we might not
want to fight", and advised pointedly that from then on,
statements on Iraq would be made by the White House and State
Department.{8}
24 July: State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutweiler, in
response to a question, responded: "We do not have any defense
treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense or
security commitments to Kuwait." Asked whether the United States
would help Kuwait if it were attacked, she said: "We also remain
strongly committed to supporting the individual and collective
self-defense of our friends in the gulf with whom we have deep
and longstanding ties" -- a statement that some Kuwaiti officials
said privately was too weak.{9}
24 July: The US staged an unscheduled and rare military
exercise with the United Arab Emirates, and the same Pete
Williams then announced: "We remain strongly committed to
supporting the individual and collective self-defense of our
friends in the gulf with whom we have deep and longstanding
ties." And the White House declared: "We're concerned about the
troop buildup by the Iraqis. We ask that all parties strive to
avoid violence."{10}
25 July: Saddam Hussein was personally told by the US
ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, in a now-famous remark, that
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait." But she then went on to tell the
Iraqi leader that she was concerned about his massive troop
deployment on the Kuwaiti border in the context of his
government's having branded Kuwait's actions as "parallel to
military aggression".{11}
25 July: John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern and South Asian Affairs, killed a planned Voice of
America broadcast that would have warned Iraq with the identical
party-line words used by Tutweiler and Williams.{12} Hussein may
not have known of this incident, although in April he had been
personally assured by visiting Senate Minority Leader Robert
Dole, speaking in behalf of the president, that the Bush
administration dissociated itself from a Voice of America
broadcast critical of Iraq's human-rights abuses and also opposed
a congressional move for economic sanctions against Iraq.{13}
27 July: The House and Senate each voted to impose economic
sanctions against Iraq because of its human-rights violations.
However, the Bush administration immediately reiterated its
opposition to the measure.{14}
28 July: Bush sent a personal message to Hussein (apparently
after receiving Glaspie's report of her meeting with the Iraqi
leader) cautioning him against the use of force, without
referring directly to Kuwait.{15}
31 July: Kelly told Congress: "We have no defense treaty
relationship with any Gulf country. That is clear. ... We have
historically avoided taking a position on border disputes or on
internal OPEC deliberations."
Rep. Lee Hamilton asked if it would be correct to say that
if Iraq "charged across the border into Kuwait" the United States
did "not have a treaty commitment which would obligate us to
engage U.S. forces" there.
"That is correct," Kelly responded.{16}
The next day (Washington time), Iraqi troops led by tanks
charged across the Kuwaiti border, and the United States
instantly threw itself into unmitigated opposition.
Official statements notwithstanding, it appears that the
United States did indeed have an official position on the Iraq-Kuwait
border dispute. After the invasion, one of the documents the Iraqis
found in a Kuwaiti intelligence file was a memorandum concerning a
November 1989 meeting between the head of Kuwaiti state security and
CIA Director William Webster, which included the following:

We agreed with the American side that it was important to take
advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq
in order to put pressure on that country's government to
delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency
gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that
broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition
that such activities be coordinated at a high level.

The CIA called the document a "total fabrication". However,
as the Los Angeles Times pointed out, "The memo is not an obvious
forgery, particularly since if Iraqi officials had written it
themselves, they almost certainly would have made it far more
damaging to U.S. and Kuwaiti credibility."{17} It was apparently
real enough and damaging enough to the Kuwaiti foreign minister
-- he fainted when confronted with the document by his Iraqi
counterpart at an Arab summit meeting in mid-August.{18}
When the Iraqi ambassador in Washington was asked why the
document seemed to contradict US Ambassador Glaspie's avowal of
neutrality on the issue, he replied that her remark was "part and
parcel of the setup".{19}
Was Iraq set up by the United States and Kuwait? Was Saddam
provoked into his invasion -- with the conspirators' expectation
perhaps that it would not extend beyond the border area -- so he
could be cut down to the size both countries wanted?
In February 1990, Hussein made a speech before an Arab
summit which could certainly have incited, or added impetus to,
such a plot. In it he condemned the continuous American military
presence in the Persian Gulf waters and warned that "If the Gulf
people and the rest of the Arabs along with them fail to take
heed, the Arab Gulf region will be ruled by American will."
Further, that the US would dictate the production, distribution
and price of oil, "all on the basis of a special outlook which
has to do solely with U.S. interests and in which no
consideration is given to the interests of others."{20}
In examining whether there was a conspiracy against Iraq and
Saddam Hussein, we must consider, in addition to the indications
mentioned above, the following:
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat has
asserted that Washington thwarted the chance for a peaceful
resolution of the differences between Kuwait and Iraq at an Arab
summit in May, after Saddam had offered to negotiate a mutually
acceptable border with Kuwait. "The US was encouraging Kuwait
not to offer any compromise," said Arafat, "which meant there
could be no negotiated solution to avoid the Gulf crisis."
Kuwait, he said, was led to believe it could rely on the force of
US arms instead.{21}
Similarly, King Hussein of Jordan revealed that just before
the Iraqi invasion the Kuwaiti foreign minister stated: "We are
not going to respond to [Iraq] ... if they don't like it, let
them occupy our territory ... we are going to bring in the
Americans." And that the Kuwaiti emir told his military officers
that in the event of an invasion, their duty was to hold off the
Iraqis for 24 hours; by then "American and foreign forces would
land in Kuwait and expel them." King Hussein expressed the
opinion that Arab understanding was that Saddam had been goaded
into invading, thereby stepping into a noose prepared for
him.{22}
The emir refused to accede to Iraq's financial demands,
instead offering an insulting half-million dollars to Baghdad. A
note from him to his prime minister before the invasion speaks of
support of this policy from Egypt, Washington and London. "Be
unwavering in your discussions," the emir writes. "We are
stronger than they [the Iraqis] think."{23}
After the war, the Kuwaiti Minister of Oil and Finance
acknowledged:

But we knew that the United States would not let us be overrun.
I spent too much time in Washington to make that mistake, and
received a constant stream of visitors here. The American
policy was clear. Only Saddam didn't understand it.{24}

We have seen perhaps ample reason why Saddam would fail to
understand.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz declared that a sharp drop
in the price of oil was something the Kuwaitis, with their vast
investment holdings in the West, could easily afford, but which
undercut the oil revenues essential to a cash-hungry Baghdad.
"It was inconceivable," said Aziz, that Kuwait "could risk
engaging in a conspiracy of such magnitude against a large,
strong country such as Iraq, if it were not being supported and
protected by a great power; and that power was the United States
of America."{25} There is, in fact, no public indication that
the United States, despite its very close financial ties, tried
to persuade Kuwait to cease any of its provocative actions
against Iraq.
And neither Washington nor Kuwait seemed terribly concerned
about heading off an invasion. In the week prior to the Iraqi
attack, intelligence experts were telling the Bush administration
with increasing urgency that an invasion of at least a part of
Kuwait was likely. These forecasts "appear to have evoked little
response from Government agencies."{26} During this period Bush
was personally briefed and told the same by CIA Director William
Webster, who showed the president satellite photos of the Iraqi
troops massed near the Kuwaiti border. Bush, reportedly, showed
little interest.{27} On 1 August, the CIA's National
Intelligence Officer for Warning (sic) walked into the offices of
the National Security Council's Middle East Staff and announced:
"This is your final warning." Iraq, he said, would invade Kuwait
by day's end, which they did. This, too, did not produce a rush
to action.{28} Lastly, a Kuwaiti diplomat stationed in Iraq
before the invasion sent many reports back to his own government
warning of an Iraqi invasion; these were ignored as well. His
last warning had specified the exact date (Kuwaiti time) of 2
August. After the war, when the diplomat held a press conference
in Kuwait to discuss the government's ignoring of his warnings,
it was broken up by a government minister and several army
officers.{29}
In July, while all these warnings were ostensibly being
ignored, the Pentagon was busy running its computerized command
post exercise (CPX), initiated in late 1989 specifically to
explore possible responses to "the Iraqi threat" -- which, in the
new war plan 1002-90, had replaced "the Soviet threat" -- the
exercise dealing with an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia
or both.{30} At a war-games exercise at the Naval War College in
Newport, R.I., participants were also being asked to determine
the most effective American response to a hypothetical invasion
of Kuwait by Iraq.{31} While at Shaw Air Force Base in South
Carolina, another war "game" involved identifying bombing targets
in Iraq.{32}
And during May and June, the Pentagon, Congress and defense
contractors had been extensively briefed by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University on a
study of the future of conventional warfare, which concluded that
the most likely war to erupt requiring an American military
response was between Iraq and Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.{33}
Another person who seems to have known something in advance
was George Shultz, who was Reagan's Secretary of State and then
returned to the Bechtel Corp., the multinational construction
giant. In the spring of 1990, Shultz convinced the company to
withdraw from a petrochemicals project in Iraq. "I said
something is going to go very wrong in Iraq and blow up and if
Bechtel were there it would get blown up too. So I told them to
get out."{34}
Finally, there was this disclosure in the Washington Post:

Since the invasion, highly classified U.S. intelligence
assessments have determined that Saddam took U.S. statements
of neutrality ... as a green light from the Bush administration
for an invasion. One senior Iraqi military official ... has
told the agency [CIA] that Saddam seemed to be sincerely
surprised by the subsequent bellicose reaction.{35}

On the other hand we have the statement from Iraqi Foreign
Minister Aziz, who was present at the Glaspie-Hussein meeting.

She didn't give a green light, and she didn't mention a red
light because the question of our presence in Kuwait was not
raised. ... And we didn't take it as a green light ... that
if we intervened militarily in Kuwait, the Americans would not
react. That was not true. We were expecting an American
attack on the morning of the second of August.{36}

But one must be skeptical about so casual an attitude toward
an American attack. And these remarks, in effect denying that
Iraq was played for a sucker, must be considered in light of the
Iraqi government's stubborn refusal for some time to admit the
harm done to the country by US bombing, and to downplay the
number of their casualties.
The Bush administration's position was that Iraq's Arab
neighbors, particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, had urged
the United States all along not to say or do anything that might
provoke Saddam. Moreover, as Ambassador Glaspie emphasized, no
one expected Hussein to take "all" of Kuwait, at most the parts
he already claimed: the islands and the oilfield.
But, of course, Iraq had claimed "all" of Kuwait for a
century.

Sources:

8. Murray Waas, "Who Lost Kuwait? How the Bush Administration
Bungled its Way to War in the Gulf", The Village Voice (New
York), 22 January 1991, p. 35; New York Times, 23 September 1990.

9. New York Times, 23 September 1990.

10. Ibid., 25 July 1990, pp. 1, 8.

11. Ibid., 23 September 1990.

12. Ibid., 17 September 1990, p. 23, column by William Safire.

13. Waas, p. 31.

14. New York Times, 28 July 1990, p. 5.

15. Los Angeles Times, 21 October 1992, p. 8.

16. "Developments in the Middle East", p. 14, Hearing before the
Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs, 31 July 1990.

17. Kuwaiti document: Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1990, p. 14.

18. Washington Post, 19 August 1990, p. 29.

19. Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1990, p. 14.

20. Schoenman, pp. 11-12; New York Review of Books, 16 January
1992, p. 51.

21. Christian Science Monitor, 5 February 1991, p. 1.

22. Michael Emery, "How Mr. Bush Got His War" in Greg Ruggiero
and Stuart Sahulka, eds., Open Fire (The New Press, New York,
1993), pp. 39, 40, 52, based on Emery's interview of King
Hussein, 19 February 1991 in Jordan. (Revised version of article
in the Village Voice, 5 March 1991).

23. Ibid., p. 42; "they" also referred to the Saudis, for reasons
not pertinent to this discussion.

24. Milton Viorst, "A Reporter At Large: After the Liberation",
The New Yorker, 30 September 1991, p. 66.

25. Schoenman, pp. 12-13, from a letter sent by the Iraqi Foreign
Minister to the Secretary-General of the UN, 4 September 1990;
Emery, pp. 32-3.

26. New York Times, 5 August 1990, p. 12.

27. Waas, pp. 30 and 38.

28. New York Times, 24 January 1991, p. D22.

29. Washington Post, 8 March 1991, p. A26.

30. a) Major James Blackwell, US Army Ret., Thunder in the
Desert: The Strategy and Tactics of the Persian Gulf War (Bantam
Books, New York, 1991), pp. 85-6.
B) Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian
Gulf War (U.S. News and World Report/Times Books, 1992) pp. 29-30.
c) AIR FORCE Magazine (Arlington, Va.), March 1991, p. 82.
d) Newsweek, 28 January 1991, p. 61.

31. Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1990, p. 1.

32. Washington Post, 23 June 1991, p. A16.

33. Blackwell, pp. 86-7.

34. Financial Times (London), 21 February 1991, p. 3.

35. Waas, p. 30.

36. New York Times, 31 May 1991.

vox

[Capitalist Imperial]

Let me guess, vox, you cut and pasted that from that "progressive" website of yours.

Whiile I appreciate the comprehensiveness of this story, it merely corroborates what I said.

[vox]

"The alternative was to risk hundreds of thousands of american and japaneze lives (including forced civilian militia), many more than were killed in the bombings, in a conventional invasion of mainland japan."

Since CI seems incapable of reading the article for himself, I'll paste the relevant portions here:

The principal justification for obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that it "saved lives" because otherwise a planned U.S. invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point used the figure "a half million lives," and Churchill "a million lives," but these were figures pulled out of the air to calm troubled consciences; even official projections for the number of casualties in an invasion did not go beyond 46,000.

In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that. General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use of the bomb, told him that "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."

After the bombing, Admiral William D. Leary, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the atomic bomb "a barbarous weapon," also noting that: "The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."

The Japanese had begun to move to end the war after the U.S. victory on Okinawa, in May of 1945, in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. After the middle of June, six members of the Japanese Supreme War Council authorized Foreign Minister Togo to approach the Soviet Union, which was not at war with Japan, to mediate an end to the war "if possible by September."

Togo sent Ambassador Sato to Moscow to feel out the possibility of a negotiated surrender. On July 13, four days before Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met in Potsdam to prepare for the end of the war (Germany had surrendered two months earlier), Togo sent a telegram to Sato: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. It is his Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war."

The United States knew about that telegram because it had broken the Japanese code early in the war. American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader. Former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew and others who knew something about Japanese society had suggested that allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would save countless lives by bringing an early end to the war.

Yet Truman would not relent, and the Potsdam conference agreed to insist on "unconditional surrender." This ensured that the bombs would fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs.

But why? Gar Alperovitz, whose research on that question is unmatched (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Knopf, 1995), concluded, based on the papers of Truman, his chief adviser James Byrnes, and others, that the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union. Byrnes advised Truman that the bomb "could let us dictate the terms of ending the war." The British scientist P.M.S. Blackett, one of Churchill's advisers, wrote after the war that dropping the atomic bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia."

There is also evidence that domestic politics played an important role in the decision. In his recent book, Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999), David Kennedy quotes Secretary of State Cordell Hull advising Byrnes, before the Potsdam conference, that "terrible political repercussions would follow in the U.S." if the unconditional surrender principle would be abandoned. The President would be "crucified" if he did that, Byrnes said. Kennedy reports that "Byrnes accordingly repudiated the suggestions of Leahy, McCloy, Grew, and Stimson," all of whom were willing to relax the "unconditional surrender" demand just enough to permit the Japanese their face-saving requirement for ending the war.

Can we believe that our political leaders would consign hundreds of thousands of people to death or lifelong suffering because of "political repercussions" at home?

The idea is horrifying, yet we can see in history a pattern of Presidential behavior that placed personal ambition high above human life. The tapes of John F. Kennedy reveal him weighing withdrawal from Vietnam against the upcoming election. Transcripts of Lyndon Johnson's White House conversations show him agonizing over Vietnam ("I don't think it's worth fighting for. . . .") but deciding that he could not withdraw because: "They'd impeach a President--wouldn't they?"

Did millions die in Southeast Asia because American Presidents wanted to stay in office?

Just before the Gulf War, President Bush's aide John Sununu was reported "telling people that a short successful war would be pure political gold for the President and would guarantee his reelection." And is not the Clinton-Gore support for the "Star Wars" anti-missile program (against all scientific evidence or common sense) prompted by their desire to be seen by the voters as tough guys?

Of course, political ambition was not the only reason for Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the other horrors of our time. There was tin, rubber, oil, corporate profit, imperial arrogance. There was a cluster of factors, none of them, despite the claims of our leaders, having to do with human rights, human life.

vox


(Edited by vox at 7:57 pm on Aug. 28, 2002)

[vox]

No, CI, what I posted doesn't really back up what you said at all.

vox

[Capitalist Imperial]

Here is a different perspective:

www.childrenofthemanhattanproject.org/LC/I-002.htm

[Xvall]

No that is a holocaust, if the US did anything like that please point it out (the a-bombs are being addressed, so don't use that)

Well, a holocaust is a mass killing of people of a specific ethnicity/race or whatever the hell you want to call it. So, the death of the indians, although not nececarilly intentional, would be considered genocide; and the persecution of black (I'm not talking about slavery, I'm talking about when they used to have civil rights marches and police would come in with night sticks and bash people's skulls in.) people in america, although not genocide, is similar to the persecution inflicted upon the Jewish people of Europe.

(Edited by Drake Dracoli at 10:18 pm on Aug. 29, 2002)

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from Drake Dracoli on 10:15 pm on Aug. 29, 2002
No that is a holocaust, if the US did anything like that please point it out (the a-bombs are being addressed, so don't use that)

Well, a holocaust is a mass killing of people of a specific ethnicity/race or whatever the hell you want to call it. So, the death of the indians, although not nececarilly intentional, would be considered genocide; and the persecution of black (I'm not talking about slavery, I'm talking about when they used to have civil rights marches and police would come in with night sticks and bash people's skulls in.) people in america, although not genocide, is similar to the persecution inflicted upon the Jewish people of Europe.

(Edited by Drake Dracoli at 10:18 pm on Aug. 29, 2002)


I am not trying to dismiss what we did to american natives or civil rights violations.

I agree that those actions were wrong. I agree that those were dark chapters, but our country is young, and has experienced "growing pains" in the past, which we have learned from..

Contemporary america is making strides as the world leader in progressive thinking and cultural innovation.

[Mazdak]

Quote: from Capitalist Imperial on 12:16 am on Aug. 29, 2002

Quote: from Mazdak on 9:13 pm on Aug. 28, 2002
Japan was going to surrender. We dropped the bombs, to scare the Soviets who were probably going to support the invasion and take a chunk of japan for themselves.


This is a lie, it is just an untrue statement, I can't think of anything else to say.

Oh, except to ask, if they were going to surrender, why were they preparing defenses and a 250,000+ person civilian/military defense force to prepare against an invasion?



Capitalist imperial- it was 25 million people (that is what i heard on PBS. They were to be armed with bamboo.

well, that was before they let the uS know they would surrender. but that wasn't enough.