Some are terrifed, yes. Some have largely devoted their lives to raising awareness of what the Japanese state and many of its people did.

There might be more had not USA endorsed the Emperor by not putting him on trial in furtherance of their own foreign policy

And a gut feeling which could be pure prejudice on my part says that somewhat more are aware of what their country has done which was wrong in Japan than are aware of what their country has done which was wrong in USA - include UK in that if you want though I think it has been slightly different. But we are in nature no different

The US / UK govts contributed some medical research on the effects of radiation etc And it is entirely appropriate to judge USA policy in 45 in the light of Korea, Vietnam and on. The camp full of kidnapped people in Cuba remains

I do not have sufficient knowledge to evaluate the claims for and against the 1945 use of the bomb to save lives. In a way I mistrust the question because it seems likely to me that it always was going to be used on a real city. I have no paper to prove that. It arises from what I believe I know of human nature. Not for nothing was the first bomb called little boy.

No satisfactory definition of the term, the overused term, terror is being offered anywhere; and it often seems that it can only be defined by knowledge of an unstated datum - whether or not the act is willed by one of _us_ rather than one of _them_

Therefore, I use my own analysos and I find Hiroshima to be an act of terror. As soon as I arrive at that point, training cuts in and I start to see it as the beginning; but of course there were earlier acts of terror... and it goes all the way back. And that leads me to conclude that all violence is terrorism and not a USA invention

It's just the USA's turn to behave differently to all the rest, if it chooses; and like all the rest it chooses not to

Nevertheless, the bombs dropped in August 1945 were kinds of bomb which had not been made before, and that does allow some categorisation. Developed largely in the USA, manufactured in the USA and used only by the USA. The USA's contribution to terrorism. Like most here I have lived all my life with the strangelove threat (and yes it might come from somewhere other than usa); and soon we shall be a planet inhabited entirely by people who have lived under the threat of nuclear destruction. If we survive

And one day it will come. But that's ok cos it won't be our fault - and it aint only the supposed moslem hordes who comfort themselves with the thought of paradise when what they bring on themselves is death

I woke early today and wrote specifically Hiroshima poems. Some reproached human folly, others were more specific in their blame. I decided, however, that it was appropriate to keep them to myself. At least for now. To have expressed my views might be unproductive. I have written a letter, done some housework, visited my neighbour and got on with writing as what I can do. I have managed to get through half a day without only half a million unworthy thoughts. And I have tried to reflect upon the mass murder, justified or not, of Hiroshima

Nevertheless, I thought the posting on Shigemoto was appropriate. I welcomed it; and I regret that us'n'them crudities have been introduced in reply. That's what started it. That's what always starts it.


L


-----Original Message-----
From: Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, August 06, 2005 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: Hiroshima


  And are the Japanese "terrified," now, by the activities of the Imperial 
  Japanese Army in Nanking?  Or those of its "medical researchers" in 
  Manchuria?  Or by the mass-kamikaze exercises they - women, children, 
  civilians of all sorts - underwent in '45 to prepare for an invasion, which 
  could easily have cost 2 million American lives and perhaps 15 million of 
  theirs?