The Nagasaki principle - James Carroll - Boston Globe

[Mass]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/07/the_nagasaki_principle/

JAMES CARROLL
The Nagasaki principle

By James Carroll | August 7, 2006

Today is the anniversary of what did not happen. Sixty-one years ago yesterday, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The scale of nuclear devastation was apparent at once. The next day, no decision was made to call off the bombing of Nagasaki. Why? Historians debate the justification of the Hiroshima attack, but there is consensus that Nagasaki, coming less than three days later, was tragically unnecessary. President Harry Truman's one order to use the atomic bomb, given on July 25, established a momentum that was not stopped.

...

The Nagasaki principle comes in two parts. It can operate at the level of close combat, driving fighters to commit atrocities that, in normal conditions, they would abhor. It operates equally at the level of the commanders, leading them to order strikes out of desperation, frustration, or merely for the sake of ``doing something." Such strikes draw equivalent responses from the other side until the destruction is complete. After the fact, massive carnage can seem to have been an act for which no one is responsible, like the result of a natural disaster.

That's when a second aspect of the Nagasaki principle comes into play -- the refusal to undertake a moral reckoning with what has been done.

...

Our unconscious shame was superseded by an overt sense of victimhood. We launched a war whose momentum has carried the world into the unwilled and unforeseen catastrophe that unfolds today. Our denial of nuclear responsibility, meanwhile, embodied in our permanent nuclear arsenal, licenses other nations that aim to match us -- notably Iran. Momentum and denial combined to destroy Nagasaki, which was, alas, not the end, but the beginning.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

[Artdyst]

1. Isn't there also consensus that by not surrendering after the bombing of

Hiroshima, Japan fully intended to fight until the end and therefore even more pressure was needed to be brought, hence the decision to bomb Nagasaki?

[Bucky]

3. Despite both sides of the debate, A-bombs were not decisive in ending WW2

What really got the Japanese to surrender after the Nagasaki bombing wasn't Nagasaki. What scared the diehard warhawks running Japan into surrendering to the Americans was the sudden Soviet surge in Manchuria in the days between the bombings. They don't get credit for such, but the Japanese regime throughout the war was basically a fascist government. Armed thugs crushed dissenters at the behest of the government; racial minorities were oppressed, enslaved, or exterminated on grounds of "inferiority"; and doctrinal allegience to the state was emphasized to the point of fanaticism.

But the most defining characterstic of fascism is an instintive hatred of communism. One reason American and British industrialists loved the Japanese in the 30s is that their military incursion into China was seen as a bulwark against the spread of communism into that part of Asia. The Japanese loathed and feared Stalin. They were willing to hesitate when atom bombs flattened whole cities. When the Russians rolled up the Kuomintang army in Manchuria in a matter of days, that's when they hit the panic button. Better to surrender to the Americans now rather than wait a couple more weeks and see the commies cut in on the occupying power.

Their fears were justified, by the way. Stalin had in the works a plan to invade Japan by late September--about six weeks ahead of the more carefully planned American invasion.

[rinsd]

4. The Soviets role is underestimated in most accounts

But at the same time it is usally over estimated by people trying to prove tha barbarity of the bomb.

The surrender was a culmination of events including the defeat at Okinawa, the entrance of the Soviets, the bombings (not just atomic) etc.

[Bucky]

5. Good point. More were killed by the big Tokyo bombing than both A-bombs

One night in Tokyo, our bombers killed more than the number of civilians killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. The scale of that war is really beyond anything our generation has seen or could understand. The whole country went to war, not just the army. But my conclusion that the Soviets were the critical deciding factor is based on translations of primary source documents from people in the decision making chain, not based on anti-Bomb reinterpretations of the war's ending.

[OzarkDem]

10. It was Japan's choice, not Truman's

They could have surrendered, but chose not to. How do you explain that?

[welshTerrier2]

2. on this dark day ...

one might stop to reflect on the dangers of nuclear weapons AND nuclear energy ...

one might fear the zeitgeist that whispers so cunningly that we will need all energy sources if we are to survive as if nuclear technology will ever be safe ...

one might look to our political infrastructure hoping to find one or more voices to help chart a saner course that would ban all nuclear technology forever although few such voices exist and those that do have neither power nor prominence ...

and one might read this: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__060807_comments_on_helen_ca.htm

k&r ...

[megatherium]

6. The bomb will not go away.

The fact that the US and other industrial countries possess nuclear weapons shouldn't affect our decision to use nuclear power, because regardless of whether we use nuclear power, we will still have nuclear weapons.

Thus we should argue nuclear power on its own merits, or lack thereof. The arguments against nuclear power are of course: nuclear waste, safety and availability of fuel. Proponents of nuclear power argue that the waste and safety issues can be dealt with by careful engineering, and that there is enough fuel (and that "breeder reactors" can create an abundant supply of fuel, if a shortage of fuel ever made this difficult and expensive technology economic). The argument over nuclear power should include consideration of the enormous danger of global warming: currently there is a large amount of construction of coal power stations, which will cause severe damage to the global environment.

As far as I am concerned, a major nuclear effort (involving hundreds of new power stations), fueling a shift from petroleum to electric-powered transportation systems, would make environmental and economic sense. But it is unlikely that such a thing will ever be done. Building a few dozen new nuclear power stations, which is what is more likely, won't affect global warming, and wouldn't be worth the expense and risk. An aggressive move to conservation and renewables would make far more sense.

But I'm pessimistic we will avoid increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Unless something drastic is done in the next couple of decades, we can expect atmospheric carbon dioxide to rise well above 500 ppm, at which level we risk irreversible and catastrophic climate changes. (E.g., the oceans will become too acidic for species that make shells.)

[welshTerrier2]

7. "environmental and economic sense"???

please read the article I linked to in my previous post ... among its many critically important points, is this one:

Chapter 1 - The Energetic Costs of Nuclear Power - It Takes Fossil Fuel Burning Power to Produce Nuclear Energy

The American nuclear industry's task of selling its technology to the public is the responsibilithy of its trade association - the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). They do it through a false and misleading campaign of deception to convince the public that nuclear energy is "cleaner and greener" than conventional sources of generating electricity. The truth, however, is quite different. Although a nuclear power plant releases no carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere causing global warming, it requires a vast infrastructure, called the nuclear fuel cycle, which uses huge and rapidly growing amounts of fossil fuels. Each stage of the cycle contributes to the problem starting with the largest and unavoidable energy cost to mine and mill uranium fuel which requires fossil fuel to do it. It continues with the problem of what to do with the mill tailings produced in the uranium extraction process that require great amounts of these greenhouse emitting fuels to remediate when this process is undertaken as it always should be. Other steps in the nuclear fuel cycle also require the use of fossil fuels including the conversion of uranium to hexafluoride gas prior to enrichment, the enrichment process, and the conversion of enriched uranium hexafluoride gas to fuel pellets. In addition, nuclear power plant construction, dismantling and cleanup at the end of their useful life require large amounts of energy. But the process and problems don't end there. The contaminated water that cools the reactor core must be dealt with, and the enormous problem of radioactive nuclear waste handling, transportation and disposal/storage remains unresolved.

[megatherium]

8. You can make the exact same argument against all forms of renewable

energy, because they too require mining of raw materials, transporation, etc.

I believe the problems of nuclear can be solved with careful engineering, and nuclear is capable of meeting all of our energy needs with minimal release of greenhouse gasses, were we to commit to nuclear at a sufficient scale. (My background: 26 credit hours of physics at the only undergraduate college in the US with its own operating nuclear reactor, and a PhD in mathematics. I feel I have read enough about nuclear power to have reasonable confidence that it can be done properly.)

But again, I think we won't opt for that level of nuclear. We will instead need to go with renewables and conservation. We will have to hope and pray that solar gets cheap enough to compete on its own merits. Otherwise, it's coal, which will lead to outcomes at least as deadly as Chernobyl, but affecting the entire planet. As I mentioned in my previous post, the world is already building many new large coal plants. We are in trouble.

[welshTerrier2]

9. just a humble DU'er, I ...

well, i do not have 26 credit hours of physics and a PhD in mathematics ...

but i offer the author's credentials for your consideration: http://www.helencaldicott.com/cv.htm and also http://www.helencaldicott.com/about.htm

Dr. Caldicott is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on the subject ...

[megatherium]

11. Sorry to try to pull rank on you;

I was just trying to explain why I'm not that worried by nuclear energy. (Claiming any credential or other isn't really fair; it's just an appeal to authority and doesn't really advance the argument.)

Dr. Caldicott is well-regarded in some circles, but I get the sharp impression she's not so well-regarded in pro-nuclear circles. I don't recall the specific complaints against her, but I know some of her assertions have been challenged. (Reading the piece in your link, some of the assertions raised my own eyebrows, such as her claim that nuclear reactors in normal operation release significant amounts of radiation into the environment. I have trouble buying that.)

Actually, this topic has been argued back and forth in great detail in the Environment/Energy forum. If you can find these threads, you might be impressed with the arguments on both sides. I'm not really the one to argue for nuclear power, since I'm not particularly enthusiastic about it.

on edit: typo

[Tesha]

12. We wanted a field-test of the plutonium implosion bomb.

We had already tested (first test-ever!) the uranium "gun-type"
bomb on the citizens of Hiroshima, but we also wanted a field-test
of the plutonium implosion bomb (which had been tested as a prototype
in the "Trinity" blast).

There was no way on Earth that we were NOT going to nuke Nagasaki.

Tesha