No More Hiroshimas Anywhere, Ever

bahmad #25

Glad to see you.

My 0.1 cents worth: It may have to be a global socio-economic contract. If formerly antagonistic countries have too much invested in the well-being of the other, possession of nuclear bombs will not make sense anymore.

Sadhana

Beena Sarwar has drawn our attention toward an extremely important matter concerning the humanity. Pakistan and India must denuclearize,though the issue of (de)nuclearization needs to be addressed on a global level in light of a new global social contract. What form should such a global social contract take? What do we need to do for its effective implementation? Any comment?
Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Sorry for this deja vu! :)

Another thing which needs to be stressed is that the Second World War, though dominated by military campaigns, was basically a political war; democracy versus facism versus communism with communism and demcracy joining forces to defeat facism.

Political aims determined the flow of the battles in WWII and influenced military strategy. Also, as Karl von Clusewitz said about wars being the continuation politics by other means, military strategy in WWII has to be understood as it was operating within the political limitations of the time.

Ciao!

Re: Harmonic # 22

Thank you!

If you read one of my earlier posts, I had mentioned that the decision to drop the nuclear weapons on Japan was made on two levels; political and military!

There was a definate need to keep the Russians out (political reason for dropping the bomb)and there was a fear in the US military about the casuality rates (military reason). I think that it would be extremely myopic to underestimate the levels of Japanese resistence to the Americans during the campaign in the Pacific and based on the horror of Iwo Jima, American strategic planners really foresaw a prolonged war to subdue the Japanese.

The estimate on the ability of the Japanese cities to withstand the punishment was correct, but you have to remember that the Japanese government, at the time conducting the war effort, was a military one and not a civilian one and as long as the Japanese war making industrial output remained viable, Japanese armed resistence was to continue at all costs.

Also, this is the perhaps the most salient point to remember about the American decision to drop the bomb on Japan. At the time of the decision, Harry Truman was meeting Winston Churchill and Isoef Stalin in Potsdam, Germany, to decide the future fate of Europe and the Americans and the British were finding that Stalin had his own ideas about Europe and a Russian role in it! It was becoming apprent to the Allies (UK and USA leadership) that their war time alliance with the Soviets was begining to crack and that, this is critical part, there would be a potential for disagreement with the Soviets in Europe and there might even be an armed conflict with the Soviets in Europe. Truman, by dropping the bomb wanted to send Stalin a message: back off!

With this potential conflicting looming in their minds, the Americans wanted to end the war in the Pacific quickly to concentrate their efforts in resisting the Soviets in Europe; hence, Truman`s decision to drop the bomb on Japan!

Nearly a year later, Churchill would deliver his ``Iron Curtain`` speech. Hence, the perceptional conflict with the Soviets was already visable in July 1945 at the time of the Potsdam talks!

Re: Fairdinkum # 20

I agree with you...no leadership...no hope!

Ciao!

harmonic #21

Exactly!
I think Fuzair is busy now…. But don’t worry, he will write a good one soon… It’s always good to disagree with Fuzair; he then comes up with amazing historical facts and research work on all sorts of things…. I am still waiting for a contribution from him on this site…. hope he is listening :)

Ferozk,

As expected, a well thought out, and eloquent reply from you. I don’t think we have slightest of idea about the true meaning of “the mournful mutter of a battle field.” And the devastating effects a war can have on the civilian population. I had the opportunity of working with Bosnian refugees and then later on with refugees from Kosovo. Some of them had lost their entire families…. no amount of counseling ever motivated them to get out of their intense grief and sadness…men (most of them in their sixties or seventies) hardly ever spoke about the atrocities they had gone through or witnessed…. They wouldn’t agree to having an interpreter talk to them about their experiences in front of us… women were more willing to talk…. One woman told us how Serbian soldiers entered her house, drank alcohol in front of them and sketched crucifix on the walls and then started beating her and her family & eventually ordered them out of the house and shot her husband and her two sons (5 & 7) right in front of her…these women narrated some of the most horrific stories I have ever heard… a lot of young women committed suicide after they were gang raped by soldiers… amongst the survivors was an 11 year old girl, she always kept herself wrapped in a blanket kind of cloth, and she never ever spoke to any of us… another young lady told us that she was raped by a group of soldiers in every which way possible… her mother, two brothers and her father were killed by Serbian soldiers in front of her. This is the price civilian population pay for a conflict of this nature.

Although it is highly unlikely that Indo-Pak conflicts will ever get to stage where soldiers will have the opportunity to victimize their civilian enemies on such a scale, but war will not bring happiness, and no argument is ever going to convince me that South Asia is safer because of nuclear weapons.

As for your socio-political analysis of South Asia in the context of war / threat of nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, I think your analysis is widely applicable to various other issues in that part of the world. I agree with your diagnosis, and you know that prognosis is not good. It is indeed a frustrating situation. There are more questions than answers…there is no clear vision…no leadership…no nothing… However, I am hopeful. We’ll get there one day!

Dear Ferozk, Fuzair and some others,

Lets just get a few facts out in the open about the summer in 1945.

The US strategic boming survey, set up by the war dept., concluded (after Japan had surrendered) that Japan will surrender definitely prior to Dec 31st and probably prior to Nov. 1st. Could the American leaders have know this in Aug 1945. Of course yes. The Japanese code had been broken and the Japanese messages were intercepted. THey (the Japanese) had intructed their Ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. And it was clear from these messages that Japan was going to surrender any moment as long as the Americans do not insist on unconditional surrender...i.e. if they are willing to accept that the emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place. The US rejected all this and actually dropped the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan. The Russian were due to declare war on Aug 8th. The bomb was dropped to make sure that Japan surrenders to the American, not the Russians and that US would occupy post war Japan. All that stuff about US lives being lost in a ground invasion etc is just what the state`s version of history is.

Fairdinkum # 19

Thanks!

A practical step would be to begin with some basic education as to what a nuclear will really mean, because I am quite certain that most people in South Asia have no concept of what nuclear weapons can really do! As to the mind-set, that is a bit tricky, because anyone over the age of 5 is a lost cause having been already mentally posioned by the hate being preached in our schools! I think that the mind-set is a cultural phenomenon and unless we break out of our glorification of wars, it will be difficult!

How many of the arm chair war mongers in South Asia really know what the reality is on a battlefield? Does any one one in South Asia understand the phrase ``the mournful mutter of the battlefield?``

I think that Beena is on the right track, but people like her need to work their way from the symptoms to the diease and it all boils down to education and educating the people about what war really is and getting away from this childful CNN fairy tale of war as being something seen only on TV without and existing only in TV!

A basic requirement would be to start telling the truth, but since truth is the first causality of South Asian politics and education is baised in South Asia, the options are rather limited. We can start with awareness, what Beena is doing, but the odds are against her, because political awareness is a liablity in our culture. Are we then doomed to reinventing the wheel?

I am afraid that I have more questions than answers, but I know the path we are trodding upon is only going to end in an early grave! Grassroots effort could be undertaken, but it will wither and die once you reach the main stream of our society, because the nuclear weapons have religious context in our socio-political discourse and you are likely to be jailed for thinking un-Islamic thoughts!

There is a possible way out and it is called tolerance! Are we capable of tolerating different opinions and unless we break from the orthodox thought controls, the future is very dim indeed!

I am not a magican who can solve all our problems, but lets all, for starters, agree on the diease and once we do that, the prognosis will be a logical second step!

Re: Urstruly # 17

I thought you knew! (laughing out sinisterly)

Ciao!

Ferozk #17

Excellent post...well said! I appreciate what you are saying. But what do you suggest we do to change our mindset? What is your prescription for the cure of this disease you refer to? What practical steps can be taken?

I agree that Beena is only offering symptomatic treatment, but don`t you think it is better than no treatment at all? Or is this symptomatic treatment more damaging than no treatment at all?

As for nuclear bombing of Japan, I still believe that it was unnecessary... Historical facts now available (after the end of cold war) clearly point to the fact that there was no need to use those bombs...It actually suits Japan to highlight the use of nuclear bombs because for them it ends the war on a US atrocity....It suits US to say that it would have cost tens of thousands of more US casualties if we hadn`t used the bombs.....One reinforces the other. But in my view it was a human tragedy which could have been avoided if US had not made the decision to drop the bombs no matter what.

In fact, there was a race amongsts the inventors/developers/makers of bombs to use it before the end of war...they were afraid that war might be over before they can finish their job.....They were very keen to use those bombs for their scientific studies....I can provide you with historical facts if you like....

This reminds me of RMS Azam`s article in which he described how keen the two groups of Pakistani nuclear scientiests (one of the groups is headed by Dr. Qadir who stole a lot of stuff from his employer in Holland and ran away..he now claims to be the Guru of nuclear science in Pakistan) were to be the first to perform nulear tests...I reckon they`d be even keener to use nuclear weapons and then study their effects on living beings (provided they themselves survive to see the effects).... Indians are even worese than Pakistanis...An extreme right wing party is ruling the country...And with people like L K Advani at the heart of its policy formulation and decision making, anthing can happen.

RE: Ferozk# 17

Too late Mr., now we know you are as psychotic as the rest of us ;)

This is a minor clarification to a few of my early posts!

Having re-read most of my posts, I can see where the misunderstandings might arise from. I agree with Sigalph that no sane person can justify the use of nuclear weapons and no sane person will hope that nuclear weapons are utilized for any reasons. I will be the first one to admit, on this forum, that my own perceptions of the Second World and use of nuclear weapons on Japan have been greatly influenced in my talks with veterans; those that were earmarked for the invasion of Japan and those who were fighting in the western front and were to shipped east once the European war was over. There is a lack of a general misunderstanding and people, living nearly half a century, after the Second World underestimate the brutality with which the Second World War was fought and fail to realize that it was the planet’s greatest industrialized effort ever at war never since equaled or surpassed.

The day on which this article by Beena Sarwar appeared on Chowk was also the 86th Anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War – August 4, 1914. The devastation wrought by that war on the European continent had not been seen since days of the Black Death and even today in a demographic sense; the birth rate of France has not recovered since the end of the war, when millions of young men were killed at Marne and Verdun. Even in most European nations today there is dissimilarity in the ratio of males and females, with the females in a slightly higher percentile bracket, because of the number of males killed in that war, which the present birth rates are incapable of addressing!

In many ways, the world is still recovering from the sheer destruction of the First World War and the Second World and in many ways the last century, in a symbolic sense, began on April 12, 1912 when the Titanic sank and with it sunk a way of life which was truly representative of the ancien regime. If the sinking of the Titanic was the death-knell, then the First World War was the final nail in the coffin of 19th century world and the beginning of the Twentieth Century; a century of horrors, death and misery unexcelled in human affairs!

The last century was a century of war and it began with wars in the Balkans, the wars of national liberation against the Ottoman Turkish Empire, threatening a European peace and it ended with a Balkan war, the NATO led war against Serbia-Yugoslavia, which was fought to preserve a European peace! Wars were the defining characteristic of the Twentieth Century and the past century will always be a metaphor for war. In the destructive aftermath of the First World War, humanity’s perceptions on the nature of wars changed from the romantic idealized verses of Rudyard Kipling extolling the virtues of war to the bitter poems of Siegfried Sasson and Winfred Owens lamenting the sheer futility of wars as a human endeavor.

To prevent wars one has to understand why wars break out and why the periods of peace have been euphemistically been described as “temporary absence of war”. There are a host of reasons why wars are propagated and fought and these reasons can range from nationalism to religion or to whims of personal glory. Still, wars are not naturally occurring phenomena and all the wars, as their source, originate in the tangled web of the human mind itself. To understand wars one has to understand the men who wage it.

There is nothing moral or justifiable about wars and if wars are to be eradicated as a scourge from this world and the future generations inoculated against its evil, then wars have to be studied dispassionately, as a human phenomenon, without attributing any moral value to them. To attribute a moral equation to the fighting of the wars is to legitimize its purpose and to differentiate between good and bad wars. That is a mistake, because no war is good just as no peace can be bad! To prevent the potential outbreak of wars forever, it is simply not enough to clamor for disarmament treaties or no-war pacts, or nuclear free zones because wars do happen simply because you are in the possession of a weapon, but because of your willingness to use that weapon for your own reasons and interests, whatever those mitigating considerations maybe!

To prevent wars, we have to, as humanity, disassociate our indoctrination of the past millenniums, which have sought to glorify the profession of arms and those who belong to it and re-educate ourselves that wars, regardless of their cause celebré, kill human beings. Unless we a people are willing to learn this truism without sugar coating it in economic, political, historical or religious terms and not allowing and appeasing those who seek to wage wars, wars will continue to happen and people will continue to die and no peace marches or disarmament pacts will stop the menace of wars from stalking our future prosperity.

If we want to stop wars, we have to change ourselves and until we change our mind-sets into hating wars and not tolerating them, there is no hope for us as a people to ever escape from its deathly grip. In this sense, and I humbly beg to differ with you Beena, but your idea of a peace march against the nuclearization of South Asia and your support for its intentions, though laudatory, is merely an attempt at curing the symptom instead of the disease!

The disease resides in our brains and it is rotting away our hopes of survival and unless we attack it at its source and not at its outward manifestations, we will continue to lose in our attempts to stop and banish the specter of war from this world!

Dear Beena,

India made a mistake by exploding the nuclear bombs and forcing Pakistan into the game. In this regard Pakistan`s explosion can be justified, but that certainly doesn`t mean we should be euphoric over our Pakistani or Islamic bomb and start making replicas of Chaghi hills and Ghauri missiles in our cities. There is no such thing as Islamic bomb, a nuclear bomb targets innocent civilians and is used to create terror in the population which is against the teachings of Islam.

In a newspaper someone said that he was proud of Pakistan because of two reasons, construction of motorway and exploding of nuclear bombs. It seems there are psychological reasons for bragging about our atom bomb, there is literally nothing else in Pakistan to brag about, economy of the country is in shambles, govt institutions have almost collapsed and in this scenario nuclear bombs provide a good diversion, masses are made to shake their heads emphatically over speeches by demagogues. It is time to teach sanity to the people, war is not solution to our problems, lets initiate the dialogue. The peace banner campaign is a good initiative, someone said that first India or USA be forced to withdraw their nuclear arsenals, well demonstration against Hiroshima incident is infact a protest against US nukes, so instead of fussing join hands in that campaign. Their are civilian organizations in USA and India doing that job, in Pakistan even to say anything against the bomb or friendly ties with India makes you a RAW agent or threat to national security. So keep up the good job Beena, my prays are with you.

PS Urstruly, I agree mostly with your previous article, but your reply in ``Facts O level...`` left too much to clarify. I hope we will interact later, but please in the meantime study about sufism and its dominant role in the spread of Islam.

Dear Beena,

India made a mistake by exploding the nuclear bombs and forcing Pakistan into the game. In this regard Pakistan`s explosion can be justified, but that certainly doesn`t mean we should be euphoric over our Pakistani or Islamic bomb and start making replicas of Chaghi hills and Ghauri missiles in our cities. There is no such thing as Islamic bomb, a nuclear bomb targets innocent civilians and is used to create terror in the population which is against the teachings of Islam.

In a newspaper someone said that he was proud of Pakistan because of two reasons, construction of motorway and exploding of nuclear bombs. It seems there are psychological reasons for bragging about our atom bomb, there is literally nothing else in Pakistan to brag about, economy of the country is in shambles, govt institutions have almost collapsed and in this scenario nuclear bombs provide a good diversion, masses are made to shake their heads emphatically over speeches by demagogues. It is time to teach sanity to the people, war is not solution to our problems, lets initiate the dialogue. The peace banner campaign is a good initiative, someone said that first India or USA be forced to withdraw their nuclear arsenals, well demonstration against Hiroshima incident is infact a protest against US nukes, so instead of fussing join hands in that campaign. Their are civilian organizations in USA and India doing that job, in Pakistan even to say anything against the bomb or friendly ties with India makes you a RAW agent or threat to national security. So keep up the good job Beena, my prays are with you.

PS Urstruly, I agree with your previous article, but your reply in ``Facts O level...`` left too much to clarify. I hope we will interact later, but please in the meantime study about sufism and its dominant role in the spread of Islam.

FerozeK

post#12

That was an excellent reply.

The only good thing about nuclear weapons is that it has made humanity realise & understand WAR for what it is, what is was & what it has always been--pure evil.

In history, soldiers have romanticised war. In fact, theyve made it a quasi-religion. The movie Patton showed how he viewed war:a glorious endevor, an adventure where good conquers evil, an enterprise of honor,discipline & patriotism.

In hindu mythology, war is glorified in both the Ramayana & Mahabharat. Both epics, conclude that war ultimately causes more harm than good. War can resolve some problems, but new ones come up to take their place, that leads humanity to call for arms again--& the cycle continues.

If the atom bomb wasnt discovered, NATO & the Warsaw Pact would have probably gone to war. Since conventional weapons are able to kill more efficiently & quickly, there would have been more casualties than WW2.

It was the bomb that prevented the cold war from warming up. The prospect of nuclear war forces humanity to look at war for what it always has been--murderous, destructive, unjust; an embodiment of evil.

A nuclear war will not resolve the Indo-Pak problem. It will wipe out civilisation in the subcontinent. There is no such thing as a ``limited`` nuclear war. What good is Kashmir then to anyone?

Sometimes I feel the way we are behaving makes God feel we of the subcontinent deserve to be annihilated from the face of the earth.

The thrust of the essay is something few rational people would object to loudly. I would recommend caution is wholesale condemnation of the August 1945 attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Let`s not forget that those bombs, as grisly as they were, ended a world war far more quickly and with less human deaths than would have been the case otherwise. I wasn`t there in the jungles of Malaya and the mountains of Burma fighting an enemy who was brutal and uncompromising. My ancestors were. Like most WWII vets they were glad that the war was over thanks to the A-bomb.

The argument can be made for nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. It was these nukes which kept it a ``cold`` war as opposed to a ``hot`` war in which the numercially far superior Russians would have marched and gobbled up the rest of Europe.

Criticism of nuclear weapons is okay but let us not forget that perhaps these very nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to voice criticism so loudly. Or else some of us would be parroting the patriotic lines in Japanese while others singing the Communist Internationale.

Re:Krashid # 11

I think that whole situation was different...

Still the dropping of the bomb was decided on two levels; political and military and both did not complement each other!

Am justifying the use of nuclear weapons on Japan as you seem to suggest? The answer is yes and no! Yes, in the political sense and no in the military sense. You have understand the geo-politics of the time and that is the key, you have to understand the issues as they were debated in 1945 without any hindsight or morality of 2000.

Nuclear weapons are just another weapon and the fact that they are efficient in killing more people does not lessen the fact they are just another weapon! Wars kill people! There is no morality in wars or in killing people and it is wrong to impose a false set of morality on something, which is nothing more than murder writ large!

Ciao!

FerozK!

Your point of Justifying the American dropping of bomb on Japan does not make sense.

As a people, what is in the best interest of people is Nuclear free world. No question about that.

The interest of Capital determine that war should be imposed and won to perpetuate their profits. It is as simple as that.

I as a person can tell you that there is no animosity between people, unless it is created at superhuman level, like religion, nationalism etc etc.

Pakistan is destined to pursue a nuclear deterrence course as long as India does pursue. It is not right. But it is compulsion.

Simply put there should be a movement for Nuclear free world. Multilateral disarmament, not unilateral disarmament.