bombing

"Under the new criteria, the government recognizes a person as an atomic bomb disease sufferer if certain conditions are met, including the existence of cancer, leukemia, parathyroid hyperfunction, cataracts, or myocardial infarction, and confirmation that one was exposed to radiation within about 3.5 km of ground zero or entered an area near ground zero within about 100 hours after the bombing. A certified atomic bomb disease sufferer receives medical treatment at public expense and a monthly medical allowance of about ¥137,000."

"Although the current criteria had been eased from the former criteria, so far only about 6,400 atomic bombing survivors have been officially recognized as atomic bomb illness sufferers. They account for only about 3 percent of some 201,800 survivors as of the end of March 2013."

"While an older generation justified the nuclear bombing of Japan because it had shortened the war, the new generation once again, as children, had seen the pictures and they viewed it very differently. They had also seen the mushroom clouds of nuclear explosions on television because the United States still did aboveground testing. Americans and Europeans, both Eastern and Western, grew up with the knowledge that the United States, which was continuing to build bigger and better bombs, was the only country that had actually used one. And it talked about doing it again, all the time―in Korea, in Cuba, in Vietnam. The children born in the 1940s in both superpower blocs grew up practicing covering themselves up in the face of a nuclear attack. Savio recalled being ordered under his desk at school: "I ultimately took degrees in physics so even then I asked myself questions like, 'Will this actually do the job?'""

"Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but he was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

"The Second World War introduced total war — unprincipled in method, unlimited in violence, and indiscriminate in victims. The ovens of Auschwitz and the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki inscribed a still-darker chapter in the chronicle of human brutality."

"The pace of change and the growing lethality of weapons have gone on accelerating ever since. Think of the flimsy, single-engined, unarmed planes which took to the skies in 1914 at the start of the First World War and compare them to the faster and more powerful ones that had emerged by 1918, capable of firing machine guns and dropping heavy bombs on the enemy. By the end of the Second World War aircraft were flying higher, faster, further and carrying much greater loads, and the jet engine was starting to replace propellers. When the American bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the new and terrifying nuclear age was inaugurated. Today new weapons, from fighter planes to aircraft carriers, are often obsolete by the time they are in service. The world’s arsenals are immense: it is estimated that there are over a billion small arms alone in the world and, at the other extreme, nuclear weapons capable of destroying humanity several times over. And serious disarmament measures remain more distant than ever. Yet so many of us, our leaders included, still talk of war as a reasonable and manageable tool."

"The majority of primary data on radiation-induced cancers in humans come predominantly from atomic bomb and nuclear accident survivors, as well as the medically exposed. A number of studies on survivors of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan demonstrated a greatly increased incidence of various cancers among survivors (Folley et al., 1952; Watanabe et al., 1972; Wakabayashi et al., 1983; Carmichael et al., 2003)."

"The purpose of the bomb was to destroy cities, to kill Japanese, and to destroy the Japanese will to continue the war. So long as mass killing was considered necessary, it should not make any difference whether people died from the blast, the heat, and the fires created, or the radiation. War itself is horrible. We wanted to end the war as quickly as possible and minimize the overall casualties, particularly for Americans; at that time we all remembered Pearl Harbor."

"There are many sites around the world that chronicle this war -- memorials that tell stories of courage and heroism; graves and empty camps that echo of unspeakable depravity. Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction; how the very spark that marks us as a species -- our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our tool-making, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will -- those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction."

"Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds; to cure disease and understand the cosmos. But those same discoveries can be turned into ever-more efficient killing machines. The wars of the modern age teach this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution, as well."

"Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off."

"Stillman: There's no need to worry so much. You won't actually be dismantling the bombs. That's not for amateurs. What we'll try here instead is a temporary freezing method. Here, look at this. This is a C4 bomb. It's live, you can see it pulsing. Now you spray this on the sucker and......there we go. Simple, huh? The spray freezes the detonator instantly."

"My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power — not with ground forces."

"I think the issue is not so much incendiary bombs. I think the issue is: in order to win a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? LeMay's answer would be clearly "Yes." "McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing 100,000, burning to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number or none? And then had our soldiers cross the beaches in Tokyo and been slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you're proposing? Is that moral? Is that wise?" Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command."

"Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve. I don't fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.—Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history ? kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time ? and today ? has not really grappled with what are, I'll call it, "the rules of war." Was there a rule then that said you shouldn't bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night? LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

"Bombs have no mothers. That is an insult to mothers."

"The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity. If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every Government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply."

"For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man — when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live — for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live — for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know — fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe."

"And if I had been fully aware how commonly—particularly in the B-29 raids over Japan—we were imitating Nazi terror bombing practices, how would I have reacted? I don’t really know. Perhaps any concerns would have been quieted by the thoughts that they had started the war and the bombing of cities, that retaliation was fair and necessary, and that anything that would help win a war against such atrocious foes was justified. Those same thoughts might have reassured me about the use of atomic bombs on Japan, as they did for most Americans, if it hadn’t been for an unusual classroom experience I had had in the last year of the war."

"My eventual participation is especially ironic in view of my own earliest attitudes toward bombing and my unusual introduction to the nuclear age. An intense abhorrence of both population bombing and nuclear weapons went back to my childhood during World War II. A year before Pearl Harbor, when I was nine years old, newsreels of the London Blitz impressed me with the incomprehensible cruelty of the Nazis. The demolition and burning of cities filled with people of all ages seemed to express their demonic character. In grade school after Pearl Harbor, we had air raid drills. One day my teacher handed out a model of a short, slim silver-colored incendiary bomb, which was used to spread fires. We were told it was a magnesium bomb, whose blaze couldn’t be extinguished by water. You had to cover it with sand to keep oxygen from feeding the flames. In every room in our school there was a large bucket filled with sand for this purpose. I take it that this was a way of making us identify with the war effort, the likelihood of German or Japanese bombers penetrating as far as Detroit being quite small in retrospect. But the notion of the magnesium bomb made a strong impression on me. It was uncanny to think of humans designing and dropping on other humans a flaming substance that couldn’t easily be extinguished, a particle of which, we were told, would burn through flesh to the bone and wouldn’t stop burning even then. It was hard for me to understand people who were willing to burn children like that. Later newsreels showed American and British bombers bravely flying through flak to drop their loads on targets in Germany. I believed what we were told—that our daylight precision bombing was aimed only at war factories and military targets (even if, regrettably, some civilians were also hit by accident)."

"Now just hold on," Said the little bomb, "If you were just to hold my hands Then time would stop The plot would flop And jumbo would be safe to land"

"The first step for Democrats was embracing violence as a tool of positive social change. In 1965, liberals viewed the bombing of North Vietnam as a moral atrocity. Thirty years later, they applauded Bill Clinton’s bombing of Bosnia as a means of protecting the rights of a vulnerable minority group, the local Muslim population. Liberals discovered that war was an expedient form of social engineering, not to mention politically popular. Want to save children? Bomb their country. Head Start suddenly seemed like a tepid half measure compared to the swift compassion of air strikes. How often do bombings actually improve people’s lives? Do children on the ground really like them? Who knows? Follow-up stories on the aftermath of cruise missile attacks are notably rare in American media. The practical effects of the policies are less interesting to policy makers in Washington than the spirit in which they’re intended. When you’re pulling the trigger, the spirit is always pure. Liberals believed that Curtis LeMay dropped bombs because he was a crazed warmonger who took pleasure in hurting people. Liberals believe they bomb countries for the same reason they once opposed bombing countries, because they want to make the world a better place. Intent is what matters."

""Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age" was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals... But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age."

"Their antiwar movement] mantra was: "Afghanistan, where the world's richest country rains bombs on the world's poorest country." Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at this game. What about, "Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one"? "Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women." "Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones." "Where the largest number of poor people applaud the bombing of their own regime." I could go on. (I think No. 4 may need a little work.) But there are some suggested contrasts for the "doves" to paste into their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their scrapbooks they will be able to reread themselves saying things like, "The bombing of Kosovo is driving the Serbs into the arms of Milosevic.""

"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."

"“These are unsubstantiated threats,” Fontes said. “We have no reason to believe that any of our voters or any of our polling places are in any sort of jeopardy.”"

"It is now apparently part of the normal doctrine of those who advocate this system that no distinction can be made between combatants and non-combatants, and that a perfectly legitimate and indeed necessary method of warfare will be the wholesale destruction of unfortified cities and their inhabitants. No doubt there will be countervailing efforts to prevent such things happening; but there is, at any rate, one section of military thought which believes that the only way to stop the bombardment of the cities belonging to one belligerent will be the bombardment of the cities belonging to the other."

"Último aviso: he decidido terminar rápidamente la guerra en el Norte de España. Quienes no sean autores de asesinatos y depongan las armas o se entreguen serán respetados en vidas y haciendas. Si vuestra sumisión no es inmediata arrasaré Vizcaya empezando por las industrias de guerra. Tengo medios sobrados para ello."

"Aguirre miente. Nosotros hemos respetado Guernica, como respetamos todo lo español."

"Ante Dios y ante la Historia que a todos nos ha de juzgar, afirmo que durante tres horas y media los aviones alemanes bombardearon con saña desconocida la población civil indefensa de la histórica villa de Gernika reduciéndola a cenizas, persiguiendo con el fuego de ametralladora a mujeres y niños, que han perecido en gran número huyendo los demás alocados por el terror."

"Guernica fue Punto Hoy no es más que brasa cenizas Punto En este momento arde todavía pueblo tres horas bombardeo intensísimo bombas incendiarias lo han destrozado totalmente Punto Aldasoro, Torre, yo llegamos allí espantados Punto Diez mil mujeres niños huyen carreteras temiendo ser ametrallados por aviación mañana al amanecer como lo fueron esta tarde Punto Ante esta catástrofe con amenaza hecha hoy mismo destrozar incendiar Bilbao esta semana sólo suplicamos háganse cargo situación angustiosa"

"The Islamic Circle of North America released a statement saying, "The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is shocked and horrified at the several attacks on the people of London during the rush hour mass transit. We join everyone in condemning such acts of terror and senseless violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones at this tragic moment. We trust that the authorities will determine those responsible for these barbaric acts and bring them to justice quickly." ."

"Leading Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim scholar Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah stated, "These crimes are not accepted by any religion. It is a barbarism wholly rejected by Islam.""

"25px|Vatican City Vatican City Pope Benedict XVI has called the attacks "inhuman" and "barbaric acts against humanity"."

"Queen Elizabeth II issued an official statement, saying "I know I speak for the whole nation in expressing my sympathy to all those affected and the relatives of the killed and injured. I have nothing but admiration for the emergency services as they go about their work." On July 8, the Queen visited the Royal London Hospital, near Liverpool Street, where she visited some of the victims of the attacks, and emergency staff who responded to the attacks. She later made a speech described by the BBC as "unusually forthright", in which she called the bombings an outrage, and said that "those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4665537.stm On July 10, the Queen again commented on the attacks, during the UK's commemoration services for the 60th anniversary of World War II. The Queen also ordered that the Union Flag on Buckingham Palace fly at half-mast."

"Mayor of Toronto David Miller stated, "residents of Toronto stand in solidarity with people around the world in their condemnation of this and every act of terror.""

"Bertrand Delanoë, mayor of Paris: "Today, we're all Londoners"."

"When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You've just been told you've got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT! And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That's for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out."

"Moussa Abu Marzouk, a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas, has condemned the bombings, saying "Targeting civilians in their transport means and lives is denounced and rejected."."

"- The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited St Mary's Hospital in Paddington on July 8. The Prince said "It's been one of the things that many of us have dreaded for a long time and now they have finally got through," and added, "What I can never get over is the incredible resilience of the British people who have set us all a fantastic example of how to react to these kinds of tragedies." The Duchess also commented "It makes me very proud to be British" in response to the efforts of the emergency services."

"30px - Prince William of Wales, on tour in New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions said, "At this time I'm sure that I'm joined by New Zealanders and Lions supporters alike in extending to the families and loved ones of all those directly involved, my heartfelt sympathies.""

"30px - Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (then the Duke of York) visited the Transport for London staff and the Metropolitan Police at CentreComm, the London Buses Command and Control Complex in Buckingham Palace Road on July 8. The Duke met staff who co-ordinated the transport network in London following the attacks, and praised Londoners for their reactions, saying "The way that Londoners pulled together yesterday was quite extraordinary.""

"30px - The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester visited the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on July 9 to meet victims of the attack and to thank staff."

"30px - The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was at the G8 summit in Glenagles, Scotland on the morning of the attacks. He described the attacks as “barbaric.” “Our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism upon the world,” he said. The Prime Minister left the G8 summit in Gleneagles despite Downing Street initially suggesting that reports he would return to London were false [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/07/07/explosions_plunge_london_into_chaos.html. He arrived back in London to consult with emergency services. The summit continued in his absence and he returned to Gleneagles in the evening. ."

"30px - The leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard: "We express our deepest sympathy to the families and friends of those who have lost lives and those who have been injured. We express our thanks and admiration for the heroic work of the emergency services and we fully support the Prime Minister in what he has said about our determination to defend and to protect our way of life" ."

"30px - The leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, Charles Kennedy: "These bombs have exploded as world leaders meet at Gleneagles. The moral contrast between those who seek to disrupt and destroy and those who are trying to build for the future could not be more stark. The terrorists must not prevail" ."

"30px - MP George Galloway said that the attacks were linked to Britain's involvement in the war on Iraq. "We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings." Other MPs refrained from linking Blair's actions in the Middle East with the bombing."

"30px - Mayor Ken Livingstone, speaking from Singapore, where he had been promoting the city's Olympic bid, called it a “cowardly attack”. Using the media to speak directly to the bombers, he said "In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people … will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, … because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail." "I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners — black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old — indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for caste, for religion or whatever. That isn't an ideology, that isn't even a perverted faith. It is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder.""

"30px - The Lord Mayor of the City of London, Michael Savory, was also in Singapore, and issued a statement urging Londoners to be defiant, saying, "“I am sure that on Monday at 7.00am the City will be humming as usual to prove that Londoners just get on with it. That’s our best answer to terrorist bullies. I certainly shall be at my desk, opposite the Bank of England, working as I have done for 40 years. Terrorists have not won, cannot win and will not win.""

"30px - Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell issued a statement in behalf of the Scottish Executive saying, "I had planned today (Thursday) to have a conversation with Mayor Ken Livingston to congratulate him on the success for London yesterday in Singapore in winning the Olympic Games for 2012. Instead I have sent a message of condolence on behalf of the people of Scotland to the people of London and the families of those who have been injured or deceased in the terrorist atrocities that were seen in different locations in central London today.""