Ravenwood - 08/09/05 08:30 AM
It's the 60th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and the historical revisionists are up to their usual bag o' tricks.
In Nagasaki, more names were added to the list of 'victims':
On Tuesday, the names of 2,748 additional A-bomb victims were added to a register of people who have died in the year up to the end of July.This is from three years ago:Members of bereaved families and high school students made token offerings of water to the 137,339 people killed in the bombing.
Today's Best of the Web reports on Tuesday's annual memorial service held in Hiroshima, Japan for those who died as a result of the WWII bombing. Apparently lists of names of the 226,870 people who died as a result of the 1945 atomic bombing, included 4,977 people who died in the past year.Maybe we should have continued to add to the death toll from the Pearl Harbor attacks. About 3,000 died on that day, but in the nearly 64 years since, that number could have reached tens of thousands."It sounds as though the Japanese are blaming America when bombing 'victims' die of old age," remarked the WSJ.
At the risk of seeming insensitive and as the grandson, son and nephew of veterans whom served with distinction -- better their names on the list of dead than ours.
Posted by: Sam Pierce at August 9, 2005 8:18 AMAt the risk of being called reality-based, anyone who survived the blast for more than 2 years is not a victim.
Posted by: Drew at August 9, 2005 11:24 AMAudio (in English) of a Hiroshima Ceremony from 2003, saved for its high lugubriousness score, http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/japancut.hiroshima.ram , which includes the annual addition to the list.
The Japanese use it as a way of forgetting what led to the blast, treating it as a tragedy, like really bad weather. It has, in particular, no moral cause; so it's never seen as the determined use of American power to put an end to something. It's a highly successful move. The official culture is full of these things, these forgettings.
The rest of the world should be cautious. The US has bombs that will allow to live a long and happy life and just when you least expect it [BAM!] It kills you decades later, and from seemingly natural causes. Ha Ha Ha.
Posted by: Matt Groom at August 10, 2005 1:03 AMThere's something bothering me about these two quotes. If you look at the one from three years ago it lists 226,870 dead. Yet this latest quote lists only 137,339 dead from the bombing. What's happened over the last three years? Did Japanese scientits discover how to raise the dead?
Posted by: Ralph Gizzip at August 14, 2005 10:49 AMRalph,
One figure is from Hiroshima, the other is from Nagasaki.
Posted by: Ravenwood at August 14, 2005 11:12 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
