Unreleased photos of Hiroshima

And I was taught in school that I should be proud of this as an American. Well I'm not.

Our children are being taught today to be proud of what we are doing in Iraq. Wait till the pictures are shown from Iraq. People will be shocked. Maybe? People will feel shame? I doubt it! Pride has done away with shame. It’s the new America. No accountability, no shame, just pride!

Modern television and movies have desensitized us. I don’t know if Americans will ever feel shame for what we have done, because television leads people to think it’s okay. It’s just another movie?

We are programmed for pride, not shame!

I hope CURRENT is brave enough to play these photos on tv. People must see this.
I feel it is better for people to be disturbed by the truth rather than pacified by the media's version of the truth.
Let the Deprogramming begin!

the a-bomb being dropped was pretty cold.most likely the war would have been over in a couple weeks.

Had the A-bomb not been dropped, it's likely that millions more would have died than did.
But even so, I've been to Hiroshima, and when you're standing there, it's really difficult to not be overcome by the gravity of what happened there.

America's all worried about other countries trying to get nuclear weapons, maybe the reason they feel they need them is because they've seen what we've done with a couple of ours.

This sort of thing used to disgust us - now it's accepted. My Republican friend doesn't even flinch about the loss of Iraqi lives. Instead, he refocuses the issue to dispute the number of dead - rather than whether they should be dead or not, the injustice of it.

I was never taught to be proud, just that it was a tough choice that saved lives of US troops.

I very much doubt that the Japanese would've surrended in a couple of weeks when they had been fighting for every inch. It is a shame that all those people had to die for their leaders.

The author of the book that these images came from has this to say "Atomic Tragedy offers a unique perspective on one of the most important events of the twentieth century.

As secretary of war during World War II, Henry L. Stimson (1867–1950) oversaw the American nuclear weapons program. In a book about how an experienced, principled man faltered when confronted by the tremendous challenge posed by the intersection of war, diplomacy, and technology,

Sean L. Malloy examines Stimson's struggle to reconcile his responsibility for “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history” with his long-standing convictions about war and morality.

Ultimately, Stimson's story is one of failure; despite his beliefs, Stimson reluctantly acquiesced in the use of the atomic bomb against heavily populated Japanese cities in August 1945.

This is the first biography of Stimson to benefit from extensive use of papers relating to the Manhattan Project; Malloy has also uncovered evidence illustrating the origins of Stimson's commitment to eliminating or refining the conduct of war against civilians, information that makes clear the agony of Stimson's dilemma."

After all this time it's unfair to compare it to Iraq when the attitudes are completely different, and the people who are making the decisions now radically changed.

i doubt that america would have dropped the a-bomb on the japanese if they would have looked like us.in the past america has a tendency to view different cultures as savage. what better answer than to wipe a whole culture off the face of the earth.

I am not sure that Americans should feel shame for what we were forced to do in August 1945. From the start of the conflict you had Japan attacking perl harbor. In the end the men in charge did what they had to do to stop WW2, millions of more lives would have been lost if we were forced to land in japan, it would have been a brutal struggle that would have devestated both Japan and American lives, many many lives were saved by dropping the bombs. Not just American lives were saved but innocent Japanese lives who would have been killed unneccesarily in the collateral damage of warfare carrying on in their close proximity.

In world war 2 we did have something to lose, we had an enemey that wanted to control the pacific, and would have tried to take over the world if they could have.

In the end, the Japanese threatened our freedoms and our way of life. I doubt that the leaders who commanded WW2 wanted to commite genocide on the Janpanees just becuase they could have with these bombs.

I hope no one takes this the wrong way, I am not happy that we had to drop bombs that in a flash, that were able do destroy a whole city, but at the time there was an enemy the likes that most of us have not seen in our life times.

Did anybody read the nature of the comments following the photos? They totally epitomise whats wrong with the world and why, unfortunately, we will probably never have world peace.

The US was in no way forced to nuke innocent civilians. Not only was this a horrific act of terrorism by the United States, it was militarily unnecessary.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." -Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." -Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

we had to drop two bombs. one wasn't enough. even after that, there were military commanders in japan that invaded the emperors palace to keep him from transmiting the unconditional surrender. they wanted to continue the war. those bombs saved lives on both sides

Even though it was an horrible thing, Those bombs saved a lot more lives than it took away.

Im proud to be an american for sure because we have the right to bitch about how "crappy" it is.

this was just a bad time what a hard choice it would have to be either kill innocent people or send in troop to have them slaughterd...I do not envoy president Truman...we do not fully understand what was happing at that time or the scope of death that was present everyday...this picture sums the whole war up in one frame

The claim that those two bombs saved a lot more lives than they took away is pure conjecture and wishful thinking - there is absolutely no way of knowing how many lives were saved, if any at all.

If you go and look at the events of WWII then you'll see what I mean. Its true we'll never really know though.

Oh please, all this is so easy to look back on and put moral judgement on these acts. The fact of the matter is that Iraq and the Pacific theatre can't even be compared. Yes, we've been in Iraq for 5 years and it is a tragedy, but all loss of life is a tragedy. Almost the entire world was at war for six years with MILLIONS of casualties. Whether things could have been done diplomatically is almost irrelevant as those bombs DID end the war for better or worse.

These photos really make you look at the bombing in a whole new light.

No war waged by man has ever been justified, just conveyed convincingly enough to gain support. They had no reason to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki other than to test the effectiveness of the two bombs and effects on nuclear bombs on a city-wide area.

Nobody forced America to drop atomic weapons. the firebombing of Tokyo and several other cities had already decimated Japan. America just wanted to test the technology and flex its muscles to ward off any future competitors. The "we were forced to" argument just doesn't fly.

"No war waged by man has ever been justified"

better to ignore people like Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? Genghis Khan? should we turn away from Darfur?

The Japanese Already Surrendered!!!

We need to end this myth that we needed to drop the bombs to save lives.

from the Institute for Historical Review:

In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

See also:

On October 5, 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war."

from http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html
Can't attest to the veracity of the writer of this quote, but the quote itself is common knowledge. I just wanted to add a little more complimentary evidence.

Thanks, kaffkaesque, great find. I've known about this for over ten years, but I didn't have any links.

Pretty easy to ignore all historical circumstance huh future?

Let's not forget that Hitler was a result of WWI, and that the majority of his defeat was _because_ of Stalin. If tyranny and violence were the only qualifiers for invasions of foreign nations, then we should invade half the nations on this planet. While you're at it, you might not want to forget that America has also qualified for some pretty terrible deeds done to citizens abroad and at home.

The bombs were dropped because we wanted to show off the power of nukes to other nations, especially Russia. We did it to let everyone know who was the new boss after WWII. Yes the bombs ensured we didn't have to invade, a far more costly affair. But, as glenobo provided, high-ups in the American military knew better.

Im proud to be an american for sure because we have the right to bitch about how "crappy" it is.
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Other people do the same, you know.

this picture is quite disturbing

i love being an american because i feel so damned cool,and i cant help it. i got my number one stunnaz on.wearin my tapout. chillin in lake tahoe. unaffected. welcome to america.

I wonder if people who feel the atomic bomb at hiroshima was justified feel the same way about nagasaki which happened, i think, just 4 days later, while the japanese government/leadership was still reeling and after russia had just declared war on japan. obviously, at that time the u.s., or the majority of its civilians had absolutely no respect for innocent japanese life, not to say the japanese population had any respect for innocent chinese/other asian life that it decimated. i know kyoto was also considered for the bombing but some high up had visited there with his wife and said it was just too pretty too completely obliterate.

the most barbaric cultures, in my opinion, are the ones that consider the lives of children in their country much more valuable then say children in africa or saudi arabia. we are all related, regardless of what the media shoves down our throat everyone wants to see everybody else happy, you would think we would have the political intelligence (because we definitely have the money and manpower) to create a peaceful, prosperous world.

I cannot bare to see anymore...My Word.

The theory was (supposedly) that a huge bomb like that would shock the Japanese into surrender and 'save more lives'. Talk about Oxy Morons.

yes, i believe it was most recently termed "shock and awe".. same old tricks from a different group of dogs..

true that japanese killed innocents.. as did everyone else back then.. but never before in history was there such an enormous loss of life and catastrophe as the result of something so easy as pushing a button.. an action which has been poisoning future generations to this day..

anyone who thinks the bombings were appropriate is simply ignorant of the magnitude of death and destruction they were responsible for..

forget military strategy and tactical advantages.. the big boys wanted to play with their new toy.. simple as that.. not only did they want to experiment on live subjects, but they also wanted to send a message loud and clear that the game had changed and america was playing by its own rules.. rules which only took into account american lives.. not human life..

anyone who disagrees can simply do a little reading on all the wars and conflicts that have taken place since..

these images are evidence of the absolute worst that mankind is capable of.. a shameful distinction that america alone carries with it..

If you want a good look at a first hand struggle of the effects I suggest looking into a book series called Barefoot Gen. I can't feel anything like that can be justified.

i couldn't care less. they dropped the first bombs, we dropped bigger ones. we win.

i agree with glenobo.....the comments on the link are disgusting....no wonder when i go out of the country i am first greeted with animosity and then when people talk to me wonder how many other americans are like me.....

W A R ......Those 3 little letters has always been an ever elusive symbolism in itself. We being born in the free states of America have the dubious honor of being kept sheltered and oblivious to the true meaning of what war really is. We cheer our servicemen and revel in the fact that we are on the road to right the wrong of the evildoers of the world and landblast any and all that get in our way......well.....the truth is.......war sucks! always has , always will! You can armchair it all you want, debate it til your lounges fail to hold breath again and you can dissect down to the last consonant, vowel and sound. But in the end, just like the begining you will have war between two sources who wants to overrun the other. war... more than a word....less than an understanding, but still a taker and decimater of life. Nothing is pretty about war and no movie, parade, or glamourization will ever cover its true meaning.
War will always be done by the men and women of a small minority that can and will do it. Like myself who have served proudly in many campaigns, I am besieged on occassions that I should NOT be fighting for a country that doesnt recognize you. I say I do what I do because I still believe in this country and because even with its faults, its STILL the greatest country in the world but mostly I tell others that the reason I put the uniform on and go out to risk life and limb for others who would not even piss on me if I was on fire ......... is so that YOU dont have too.!

diode how can you say that? People with the same exact mentality as you are the reason why the bombs where dropped in the first place, this isn't about who can drop the biggest bomb this is about mass amounts of innocent lives lost, i can only wish for a world where there where no bombs or guns or any weapons, we are all humans, how hard is it too live together in peace? Are we really all that different?