Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The Killing Didn't End With Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Before U.S. officials dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they fire bombed Japanese cities. But what few people know is that AFTER the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. officials carried out even more fire bombing of several Japanese cities.

Incredibly, there was a "1000-plane raid five days after Nagasaki on what remained of major Japanese cities, a triumph of military management skills designed to be "as big a finale as possible," the official Air Force history relates; even Stormin' Norman would have been impressed. Thousands of civilians were killed, while amidst the bombs, leaflets fluttered down proclaiming: "Your Government has surrendered. The war is over." General Spaatz wanted to use the third atom bomb on Tokyo for this grand finale, but concluded that further devastation of the "battered city" would not make the intended point. Tokyo had been removed from the first list of targets for the same reason: it was "practically rubble," analysts determined, so that the power of the bomb would not be adequately revealed. The final 1000-plane raid was therefore dispersed to seven targets, the Air Force history adds." p 238 Year 501 Noam Chomsky

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