View Full Forums : Japanese Defense Minister Forced to Resign for Telling the Truth


Tudamorf
07-03-2007, 12:57 AM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/02/international/i212911D95.DTL<b>Japan Official Resigns Over A-Bomb Quip</b>

(07-02) 21:42 PDT TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's embattled defense minister resigned Tuesday over his comments suggesting the 1945 atomic bombings Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable.

Fumio Kyuma had come under intense criticism from survivors of the bombings, opposition lawmakers and fellow members of the Cabinet following the comments over the weekend.

"I told Prime Minister Abe I would take responsibility and resign. The prime minister said it's a shame ... but said he accepted it," Kyuma told reporters.

Kyuma ignited a political furor less than a month before parliamentary elections when he said on Saturday that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and his native Nagasaki were an inevitable way of ending World War II.

The statement contradicted the Japanese stance, fiercely guarded by survivors and their supporters, that the use of nuclear weapons is never justified. A ban on possession of such weapons is a pillar Japan's postwar pacifist regime.

Earlier Tuesday, Nagasaki's mayor made an official protest in Tokyo.

"That comment tramples on the feelings of the A-bomb victims, and as a target of the bomb, Nagasaki certainly cannot let this go by," Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue wrote in a letter handed over to Kyuma on Tuesday.

"I truly apologize for having troubled and caused worry to the people of Nagasaki," Kyuma said.

The bomb comment from the gaffe-prone Kyuma has hit Abe's increasingly unpopular government at a sensitive time, coming just a few weeks before July 29 elections for the upper house of parliament.

Kyuma's repeated apologies and Abe's reprimand of his defense chief have failed to quell the furor, which on Tuesday sparked further public criticism among Abe's own ministers, several of whom called the comment inexcusable.

The opposition had been preparing to submit a formal request for Kyuma's resignation later on Tuesday, and opposition leaders claimed that Abe shared the blame for the gaffe.

At a speech in Chiba outside of Tokyo on Saturday, Kyuma triggered the scandal by suggesting the bombs were an inevitable way of ending World War II.

"I understand that the bombings ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped," he said.

Kyuma — who represents Nagasaki in the lower house — said the U.S. atomic bombings caused great suffering in the city, but otherwise Japan would have kept fighting and ended up losing a greater part of its northern territory to the Soviet Union, which invaded Manchuria on the day Nagasaki was bombed.

Abe has struggled to control the political damage. He reprimanded Kyuma on Monday and asked him to refrain from making similar remarks in the future, but did not publicly call for Kyuma to resign.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped a bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 people in the world's first atomic bomb attack. Three days later it dropped another atomic bomb, "Fat Man," on Nagasaki where about 74,000 are estimated to have been killed.

Japan, which attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.

In January, Kyuma raised eyebrows in Washington by calling the U.S. decision to invade Iraq a "mistake" because it was based on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Japan and the U.S. are close military allies, and Japan hosts some 50,000 American troops under a security treaty.Of course it was inevitable. I'm surprised that even today they are so afraid of admitting it that this guy had to be pushed out of government.

ToKu
07-03-2007, 02:16 AM
Alot of nations have thier quirks. Its not like the US can really claim innocense there either.

Stormhaven
07-03-2007, 05:29 AM
Why was it inevitable? What reason can you offer that makes using a nuclear weapon in this situation "inevitable" that you could not use in a war since WW2?

Eridalafar
07-03-2007, 11:07 AM
Let see some possible raisons:

On the US side:
- War wariness in the U.S.
- Leader wanting to let the world how destructor is their new toy.
- Unclear translation in the diplomatic channel.
- Wanting to test the new toy in a live situation, and not only in deserted city made of playwood.
- To make sure that the word atomic will be not taken for a mark of thootpast.
- To teach a lesson to Japan.
- Superiority complex

On the Japan side:
- Military that was prefering to die that surender.
- Too many atrocities to be forgetten in they was in Asie.
- Fearless reputation.
- not wanting to lose face.
- Superiority complex

Neither side is blameless in this. But you probably have to admit that other solution will have probably caused a lot more of death that with the bomb, and we will probably have have a completly different geo-politic map in Asie too.

These 2 bombs have permited to the Japan's leadership to be able to say: we are the "final" victims in this war! And be able to totaly forget that they have begin this was and all the atrocities that have done during it.

Eridalafar

Fyyr Lu'Storm
07-03-2007, 11:55 AM
Alot of nations have thier quirks. Its not like the US can really claim innocense there either.

Um,,


Um,,,


Uh,,


who picked the fight in the first place?


Gimme a break, they should be grateful that there were only two.

ToKu
07-03-2007, 01:48 PM
Um,,


Um,,,


Uh,,


who picked the fight in the first place?


Gimme a break, they should be grateful that there were only two.

Dont get me wrong, im not supporting Japans stance on this. Im merely stating that alot of nations have thier own cultural blinders setup. Its not like we can sit there and be shocked and indignant that they'd deny this so blatantly when we do the same thing every day for any number of things.

Should of been more specific about what I was talking about, the cultural blinders and not this specific case.

Stormhaven
07-03-2007, 01:53 PM
All of the reasons given can be used in an argument for any war post-WW2, yet using the bomb wasn't inevitable in those wars.

Tudamorf
07-03-2007, 02:59 PM
All of the reasons given can be used in an argument for any war post-WW2, yet using the bomb wasn't inevitable in those wars.In those wars we weren't in the unique situation of being the only ones on the planet with nukes.

Not to mention, compared to modern, or even 1960s-era nukes, Fat Man and Little Boy were firecrackers, 20 kiloton versus 20 MEGAton and more today.

Stormhaven
07-03-2007, 03:12 PM
So the only thing that made it inevitable is that no one else had equivalent firepower; all the "lives lost" and other "reasoning" is just fluff to make it more morally palatable for the layman.

Tudamorf
07-03-2007, 03:37 PM
So the only thing that made it inevitable is that no one else had equivalent firepower;Of course it made it inevitable. If you had a badass weapon that could win a bloody, drawn out war for you tomorrow, without threat of like retaliation, you'd use it too.

Hitler was lucky he was beaten at the time he was; a few more months and there would have been a Fat Man falling on Berlin.

Anka
07-03-2007, 05:01 PM
It wasn't inevitable but that doesn't mean it was ill considered either. Even from the Japanese side they could have considered peace talks before the US used nuclear force.

I can't remember the history of whether the Japanese government received an ultimatum before the first and second bombs. I'm sure someone can inform us.

Stormhaven
07-03-2007, 05:18 PM
Actually, being Japanese, I'm a bit biased in this I'll fully admit, however I doubt that the nukes would have been used anywhere in Europe. Too many people in the United States had direct relations to people and places in Europe, but Asians were still considered second class citizens. Germans, Italians, Austrians and the rest - start bombing their hometowns and there would have been a ton of negative feedback from the public. Look at how Asians both lived and were portrayed back in the 30's and 40's (and really until the 80's); it was about the same level or worse than African Americans of the same time period. It was alot easier for Americans (including the President and his cabinet) to accept bombing a people that was thought of as inferior. Europe - well that's where Great-Grandma/Pa came from, can't get around the fact that you'll be blowing their old neighborhood to little bitty pieces.

As for the original issue, I don't think it's that odd for the Japanese to be still considering the nuclear weapon use to be unforgivable; hell as far as I know, the Vietnam War is still being taught to kids as something that the righteous United States had to do to keep the evil Communists from spreading. I don’t think the use of the nuclear warhead was inevitable, what was inevitable is that Japan was going to lose the war in the long run with or without the use of nuclear weapons. Japan did not have the resources to continue a sustained war without the aid of Germany. When Germany surrendered, that was the death knell for Japan. The use of nuclear weapons may have “hurried” the result, but it was not inevitable.

Tudamorf
07-03-2007, 06:21 PM
I doubt that the nukes would have been used anywhere in Europe. Too many people in the United States had direct relations to people and places in Europe,Hell, look at what the RAF (with US follow-up) did to Dresden in one day. Practically obliterated the place and everyone there, easily as destructive as a Fat Man.

The only reason they/we didn't nuke Germany back then is because the nukes weren't ready. Germany was the reason we developed nukes in the first place.

Fyyr Lu'Storm
07-05-2007, 02:26 AM
I have never had any ambivalence about blowing the crap out of German, even Dresden. And Slaughterhouse 5 is one of my favorite novels.

From my memory of history, the Bombs were developed for Germany. But they surrendered before the bombs were hot.

Thus used on Japan(because it hadn't).

With the Bushido Code firmly entrenched in the military class, I don't doubt that they would have fought to near the very last man(woman and child if it came to that). And I certainly don't doubt that their American contemporaries honestly believed that as well.

The Japanese tenacity, I don't have a doubt about either. The stories about elderly Japanese soldiers coming out of the mountains, thinking the war was still on, in Guam, Philippines, whatever were true. Maybe they were just deserters, I dunno. But I doubt it.

Of those WW2 veterans who I have spoke with, the ones in the Pacific theater all seem to have(or have had) a greater respect(fear) for their enemy, than those in the European. I don't think for an instant, that American troops or generals at the time, EVER thought that their Japanese enemies were inferior militarily; that they were pussies or pushovers.

B_Delacroix
07-05-2007, 10:05 AM
Say what you might but I firmly believe that because those two bombs were dropped went a great deal toward never using them again.

Aidon
07-16-2007, 01:52 PM
Nothing in history is inevitable...but the war between Japan and the US during WWII, along with its eventual nuclear conclusion come very close.

A study of the historical causes of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are not nearly as cut and dry as our historical beliefs would indicate. Through a myriad of actions and influences, Japan and the US were almost inexorably drawn to conflict. To be fair, neither one was truly "at fault".

War was coming because Industrialization in Japan created an absolute necessity for Japanese expansion in Asia. In the West, Industrialization demanded keeping the Asian markets open, which precluded any formation of an Asian hegemony under Japanese control. There was little which could be done to prevent war between Japan and the US once Japan and Germany aligned themselves (without going into detail, it had to do with US and British embargo of fuel and steel to Japan, creating a situation where Japan had to take the Dutch East Indies for their oil..which they knew would create an untenable situation and most liikely draw the US into the war...as a result of the Spanish-American War and other happenings, US Pacific holdings created a situation where they could have rapidly encircled Japanese forces. Further, Yamamoto understood that Japan could only prove victorious in a war against the US if it could win the war within six months, thus the attack on Pearl Harbor in an attempt to knock the Pacific fleet out quick and fast. The Battle of Midway ended almost exactly six months after Pearl Harbor on June 7, and was the turning point from which Japan inexorably fell to American and ANZAC forces).

Those who fault the US for using nuclear weapons are foolish. An invasion of Japan would have caused casualties on par with the Nazi's Russian campaign, millions of Japanese and Americans would have died and Japan would have been completely devastated. America saw, in the atomic bomb, the ability to bring a greater level of destruction, in one bomb, than repeated air raids over Europe and been able to bring to bear. The immediate destructive ability of the bombs were known...but noone at the time was truly aware of the long term health effects it would have. Gamma rays, themselves, had only been discovered shortly after the turn of the century and while physicists were aware of the difficulty in shielding gamma rays, noone had any real idea the health effects gamma radiation could have on humans. The immediate casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are estimated to have been a little over 200,000 people.

Hiroshima was a target of military and industrial significance, Nagasaki was of lesser significance. Kyoto was one of the original pool of potential targets, but taken off the list because of its cultural significance in Japan. The goal for dropping these weapons was to demonstrate America's ability to affect the sudden and immediate destruction of Japanese cities and to create such a shock that even the fierce Japanese could not ignore the danger and must surrender, rather than continue to drag the war out and require a full invasion of Japan.

All of that being said...I do not find it unreasonable for that Minister to have been fired. While the US should not be held at fault for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor should it be expected that the Japanese government in any way even hint at suggesting it was acceptable or that Japan had brought it upon themselves.

The Japanese are a, rightfully, proud people. I've never heard a suggestion from Japan that the US had committed any atrocity in dropping the bombs (though plenty of Americans like to claim so), I do not expect them to debase themselves with any suggestion that they brought it upon themselves. It was merely the confluence of a series of unfortunate events, in the end.