U.S. INCINERATES HIROSHIMA AUGUST 6, 1945

Today, August 6th, is the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima that killed over 100,000 people.

I find the argument of those American militarists ludicrous and illogical who argue that dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified becaause it brought the war to an early close and, by doing so, saved thousands of lives of U.S. soldiers.

Has anyone ever told these guys that the laws of war absolutely prevent a combatant from targeting civilians? The people whom the American nuclear devices incinerated were ordinary civilians, albeit Japanese, residents of the city of Hiroshima, men, women, children. There was no justification for the U.S. to drop a nuclear bomb on them . The only reason why Harry S. Truman was not indicted as an out-and-out war criminal for ordering the bombing and charged with crimes against humanity was that the U.S. was victorious.

Consider the Serbians Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadcic. They have been indicted for crimes against humanity on the principal charge of killing and murdering over 3,000 men and boys at Srebenica.

Contrast Truman to these thugs. They killed a few thousand by shooting. Truman killed over 100,000 by incinerating, yet he got away free and clear.

The U.S. has a lot to answer for with regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention Dresden and Hamburg. This is a stain that will not easily disappear.

DOCTOR ATOMIC REMINDS THAT ONLY U.S. HAS USED ATOMIC WEAPONS AGAINST CITIES AND CIVILIANS

This afternoon I listened to a WFMT broadcast of Doctor Atomic, Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of the opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars.

Doctor Atomic tells the story of the development of nuclear weapons by a team of American scientists, principally Robert Oppenheimer, in the early 1940s.

The opera ends seconds before the first bomb is exploded in the Nevada deserts in the summer of 1945. Overtones of Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki burned from the nuclear bombs sounds in the background together with electronic noise from the count-downs.

The United States likes to say that it is the home of the free and the land of democracy. Americans think that their country is exceptional, the beacon to the rest of the world.

Yet the dropping of nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in start contrast to the American sense of "manifest destiny" and purity of purpose. No other country has used an atomic weapon against civilians or against populated cities. Each bomb took 100,000 lives, women, children, men, elderly, boys, girls.

No wonder Americans hardly remember in their collective historical consciousness what happened in 1945. No one talks about how president Harry Truman proved himself to be a war criminal, using weapons of war, in this first case of nuclear weapons, against civilians and cities. If the definition of a war crime par excellence is killing civilians indiscriminately, Truman's order to drop the bombs cannot be justified.

HILLARY CLINTON WILLING TO "OBLITERATE" IRAN - THIS LADY HAS NO MORALS

The more I consider Hillary Clinton's reckless and obscene words toward what she would do if president in the case of an Iranian attack against Israel, the less I think of her as a person and as a stateman. That she would say that the U.S. would obliterate Iran shows that this lady has no ethics or morals when it comes to using America's military force.

To obliterate Iran would be to kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent Iranian civilians. And Clinton facilely says she is prepared to do this.

• Is Hillary Clinton thus any better than George Bush who has caused the death of over 600,000 Iraqi civilians by his reckless invasion and war?
• Is she any better than Joe Lieberman who is itching to start a war with Iran on behalf of Israel?
• Is she morally superior in any way to Harry Truman who opted to drop a nuclear bomb on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus causing over 200,000 human beings to be incinerated?

The answer is, Hillary Clinton is no better than those war criminals when it comes to willingness to bomb and kill civilians in the interests of American foreign policy. This lady should not be president. Or else we doomed to continue the cycle of endless war against anyone or any country that someone like George Bush or Hillary Clinton considers the "enemy."

HARRY TRUMAN ORDERS PAUL TIBBETS TO DROP ATOMIC BOMB ON HIROSHIMA KILLING OVER 100,000

Bob Greene writes an op-ed in today's The New York Times on Paul Tibbets who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima resulting in the fiery deaths of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Tibbets recently passed away.

Greene expresses no revulsion with Tibbetts or his actions. He writes that Harry Truman met with Tibbets at the White House and asked him if he got any criticism for dropping the bomb on innocent civilians. Just tell anybody who objects that I was the one who sent you, Truman reportedly said.

Greene writes Tibbets had peace of mind:

"It was reported that he claimed never to have lost a night’s sleep after the mission, and some saw this as a show of indifference. It was the opposite. He slept well, he told me, because “we stopped the killing.” He was at peace, he said, because “I know how many people got to live full lives because of what we did.”"

Harry Truman should have been tried as a war criminal. He claimed he ordered the bomb dropped in order to shorten the war and save American lives. Nice sentiment, but you are not allowed to kill civilians intentionally, no matter how noble the ends. And Bob Greene needs to get his values in right order. Instead of lionizing the late Paul Tibbets, he should think carefully about the 100,000 Japanese civilians, men, women, children, young, old, who Harry Truman through Paul Tibbets incinerated that terrible morning in August some 63 years ago.