The Americans, who dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57 years ago and started the nuclear arms race, are now urging other nations not to produce nuclear weapons. They believe that weapons of mass destruction would not be safe anywhere in the world except in the United States!
IN the first week of August, 1945, Harry S. Truman, who had succeeded President Roosevelt just four months ago as Supreme Commander of US Armed Forces, ordered the dropping of atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “to shorten the duration of World War II”.
In his judgment, the use of atom bombs as a weapon would save more lives than would have been lost in forcing the Japanese to lay down their arms in a war fought with conventional weapons. He argued that the atom-bombing of two Japanese cities and the destruction it would cause to life and property would force the Japanese armed forces to stop putting up resistance against the imminent invasion of the Tokyo Bay by US Marines and GIs.
Parenthetically, the first ever atom bomb produced at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the cloak of Manhattan Project was exploded at Alamogordo, New Medico on July 16, 1945. It was the culmination of research and experiments conducted in the United States by American and European scientists, who either migrated to the United States on their own or were lured into “the land of plenty and prosperity” by the United States government.
With the successful explosion of an atomic devise, the American defence scientists and the government thought that their country had become invincible. They were itching for an opportunity to demonstrate their military might to the world, especially Soviet Union, which they apprehended would give them tough time after the end of World War II.
When the American planes dropped atom bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, the end of World War II was already in sight. The Japanese army had been beaten and was retreating from all fronts, and it was a matter of only a few weeks before they would formally lay down arms. The destruction caused by atom bombs was so colossal and frightening that the Japanese sued for peace sooner than expected and their government decided to surrender on August 14. It finally ordered its armed forces to lay down arms on September 2, 1945, unconditionally. Earlier, on May 7, Nazi Germany had already surrendered and the Allied Powers had declared May 8 as V-E Day.
The argument that the dropping of atom bombs on Japanese cities would shorten the duration of War failed in convincing the people the world over as it was not reflective of realities. During July 1945, American B-29 Super-fortresses aircraft from the Mariana flew 1200 sorties-a-week against the Japanese homeland, reducing most of its cities and their industrial infrastructures to junkyards. Other US warplanes from Okinawa and Iwo Jima, which had earlier been secured by the American forces, joined in the aerial assault. Meanwhile, the US Third Fleet sailed boldly into the Japanese coastal waters and hammered targets with its guns and planes. In one of the massive air raids, the US armed forces succeeded in destroying Tokyo’s central business district almost completely.
On January 9, 1945, General Krueger’s Sixth Army landed at Lingayen Guld. The Eighth Army, led by General Robert L. Eichelberger, landed at Subic Bay on January 29, and at Bantangas two days later. These attacks trapped the Japanese in a giant pincers, but they fought back savagely in Manila, at Balete Pass, and in the Cagayan Valley. Organized Japanese resistance came to an end on June 28, but large pockets of the enemy held out for many months.
American marines invaded Iwo Jima on February 9, 1945. It was conquered after desperate fighting on March 16. In this invasion, the American losses were 4,189 killed, 15,3008 wounded and 441 missing. Japanese losses, according to an American reckoning, were 22,000 killed and captured. General Simon Buckner’s Tenth Army landed along the western coast of Okinawa on April 1, 1945. This Army-Marine force fought 79 days to advance only 14 miles. Japanese resistance ended on June 21, when they lost 109,629 men. American casualties in the assault were 39,000, which included 10,000 naval personnel of the supporting Fifth Fleet, which was attacked by Japanese Kamikaze planes.
Analysing the situation and the conditions in which the Japanese resistance was tottering in the year 1945, one comes to the inescapable conclusion that there was no need for the Americans to destroy two Japanese cities along with its population, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties among the civilian population and many more due to radiation afterwards. It was the most savage war crime ever committed against one country by the other. In the estimation of President Truman, American lives were much more precious than the Japanese. And if two hundred thousands or more Japanese were killed while saving a few hundred American lives, it was not a bad bargain.
The fact remains that the American leaders were not sure about the post-World War II conduct of the Soviet Union in international interactions. The Communist army had already occupied Hungary and Rumania by the middle of 1945 and the Americans were pretty sure that the Soviet Union would not withdraw its forces from these European countries. Revelling in euphoric, almost fiendish delight after the explosion of the first ever nuclear device in the desert of New Mexico, the Americans thought they could impress the Communist Soviet Union only by the use of atom bombs against their Japanese foes. Little did they realize that by the dropping of atom bombs, the American would trigger off a nuclear arms race between them and the Soviets.
By a supreme irony, the same American leaders, who dropped atom bombs on innocent Japanese civilians in August 1945, have now assumed the role of a pontiff and are urging other nations not to produce nuclear weapons. Fifty-seven years after the massive killing of unarmed Japanese civilians by atom bombs (in two Japanese cities in violation of Geneva Convention), the US Administration is trying to convince the people of the world that weapons of mass destruction would not be safe anywhere in world except in the United States. They argue that no country has the right to produce or possess atomic weapons, not even as a deterrent to keep its enemies away from its borders. Not only that, the American leaders have arrogated the right to attack those countries which, in their perceptions, are engaged in producing weapons of mass destruction. At a Pentagon Press conference he addressed on July 23, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even went to the extent of asserting that “a US military strike on Iraq or any other country developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would essentially be ‘in self-defence’”.
While on the one hand, US leaders continued the production of weapons of mass destruction, on the other, they have never expressed even an iota of remorse or a sense of collective guilt after killing so many innocent Japanese civilians. The dropping of atom bombs on civilian population and the destruction of two Japanese cities in its wake were crimes against humanity, which should have been taken cognizance by international community. As a nation, the United States should have been tried in International Court of Justice, or in a special war tribunal created by the United Nations for committing such horrendous crime against humanity.
The Americans, who dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57 years ago and started the nuclear arms race, are now urging other nations not to produce nuclear weapons. They believe that weapons of mass destruction would not be safe anywhere in the world except in the United States! 
