Harry Truman

Why did the US Incinerate Japanese Cities in 1945?

Seventy years ago, the atomic bombs known as Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima about 90,000 people were killed immediately; another 40,000 were injured, many of whom died in protracted agony from radiation sickness. Three days later, a second atomic strike on the city of Nagasaki killed some 37,000 people and injured another 43,000. Together the two bombs eventually killed an estimated 200,000 Japanese civilians. Was there really a need to create this nightmare? Did this nuclear onslaught really oblige Japan to surrender?

Unmasking the Politics of Commemoration

In the beginning of May, depending on which precise date your country was liberated from Nazi rule, Europeans commemorate the victims of WW2. I did, however, not commemorate the dead that day, nor did I celebrate my freedom the next. I cannot participate in a mass ritual that desecrates the memories of all the martyrs of WW2 by turning them into mere tokens of Anglo-American chauvinism.
Who defeated the Nazis?

Modern Day America: One Step Away from the Third Reich

Unbeknownst to most Americans the United States is presently under thirty presidential declared states of emergency. They confer vast powers on the Executive Branch including the ability to financially incapacitate any person or organization in the United States, seize control of the nation’s communications infrastructure, mobilize military forces, expand the permissible size of the military without congressional authorization, and extend tours of duty without consent from service personnel.

Dropping the Bomb: A Historiographical Review of the Most Destructive Decision in Human History

By Derek Ide | The Hampton Institute | June 19, 2014 The historiography of the atomic bomb can be roughly categorized into three camps: traditionalists, revisionists, and middle-ground “consensus” historians. [1] Traditionalists, also referred to as orthodox[2] historians and post-revisionists, studying the atomic bomb generally accept the view posited by the Truman administration and articulated […]

Dropping the Bomb: A Historiographical Review of the Most Destructive Decision in Human History

By Derek Ide | The Hampton Institute | June 19, 2014 The historiography of the atomic bomb can be roughly categorized into three camps: traditionalists, revisionists, and middle-ground “consensus” historians. [1] Traditionalists, also referred to as orthodox[2] historians and post-revisionists, studying the atomic bomb generally accept the view posited by the Truman administration and articulated […]

The Origins of the Israel Lobby in the US

By Alison Weir | CounterPunch | March 21, 2014

The immediate precursor to today’s pro-Israel lobby began in 1939[i] under the leadership of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, originally from Lithuania. He created the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), which by 1943 had acquired a budget of half a million dollars at a time when a nickel bought a loaf of bread.[ii]

Understanding Modern Israel

Nothing that Israel does in its affairs would be of quite such great concern to the world were it not for the fact that Israel drags along, willy-nilly, the world’s greatest power, much like some impressive-looking but feeble-willed, dazed parent stumbling along behind a screaming toddler demanding yet another goody. The threat of serious wars has grown exponentially in recent decades precisely owing to this fact, and not just wars but wars reflecting neither justice nor principle, the aggressive reordering of other people’s affairs by sweeping them into the pit of hell.