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Hiroshima & Nagasaki Days

By VVAW

On August 6, 1945 the United States Air Force dropped the first atomic bomb, in wartime use, on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9th, the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima resulted in the immediate death of approximately 66,000 people and the injured numbered near 69,000. Ninety-eight percent of all the buildings in the city were destroyed. In Nagasaki, 39,000 were killed and 25,000 injured.

After the second bomb fell the Japanese government announced that it would surrender to the American forces. Thus, ended the second World War. Military officials in the United States agreed that the Japanese would have surrendered by the end of 1945, had the bombs not been dropped. Why then were the bombs used? It was done in order to test the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings. One official stated that the effects were greater than expected.

Since that time, thousands of Japanese have been used as guinea pigs for research teams studying the results of weapons. To this day, people are dying because of the bombs.

Nuclear weapons remain the prime strategy of the American military. The results of the research have bettered the development of nuclear weapons.

In the Indochina war, again the US military tested its weapons at the expense of the Vietnamese, the Laotians and the Cambodians. As was the case in Japan the US continues to kill and exploit the people of the world for the advancement of American business.

On August 6th and August 9th we should stop and think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and we should realize that as long as the United States continues its foreign policy as it has since the bombing of Hiroshima, that there will continue to be wars and there will continue to be human guinea pigs in preparation for the next one.