FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fwd: Hiroshima -- 65 years later--Please circulate this statement

[Robert Tapp (tappx001]

I'm circulating Paul's letter -- at his request

Bob

Begin forwarded message:

> From: PaulKurtz [at] aol.com
> Date: August 7, 2010 1:01:36 PM CDT
> 
> Subject: Re: Hiroshima -- 65 years later--Please circulate this statement
> 
> Dear Robert Tapp and colleagues: On The 65th Anniversary of Hiroshima.
>  
>  I  consider the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  possibly the worst 
> moral crime in US history.  200.000 people killed and countless thousands  
> maimed for life-- the innocent civilian populations of those cities 
> decimated.. 
>  
>  I was on the Western front in the American army of liberation of Europe when 
> the news broke of the bombings,  having witnessed the infamous death camps of 
> the Nazi's and their many crimes first hand.  I literally broke down when I 
> heard about these actions of Truman--while all of my comrades were cheering, 
> I asked what could possibly be the moral justification for these dastard 
> deeds.  That it would shorten the war  we were told and thus save  American 
> lives--hardly a sufficient reason. They  could have detonated the bombs first 
> on uninhabited atols in the Pacific, notifying the Japanese of our new weapon 
> and enabling them to surrender before the bombs were used on entire civilians 
> populations.  These acts were among the most heinous in  human history, by a 
> democracy no less, which believed in human rights. Humanists should mark that 
> event in protest and remorse ....Paul Kurtz
>  
> In a message dated 8/6/2010 6:14:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, tappx001 [at] 
> umn.edu writes:
> This was OUR bomb -- and is coming to be another day that will live in infamy 
> (was it necessary; wasn't surrender already on the table; was it rally 
> important to keep the Russians away from the table; does war work/did it 
> ever?)
> 
> Along with reading Howard Zinn's last book that raises such issues, this ABC 
> video and story might help re-educate ourselves.
> 
>     
> http://abcnews.go.com/International/hibakusha-survived-hiroshima-nagasaki-nuclear-free-world/story?id=11334084&page=1\\
> 
> Must we not stand beside these Hibakusha -- and teach our present world what 
> has become more likely?
> 
> Bob
> 
> (personal admission: One year later, at Bikini in 1946, I was exposed to 
> enough radiation to be recently designated a disabled veteran)