72nd Anniversary of Hiroshima’s Gratuitous Mass Murder

The US Was Committing War Crimes While the US Tried Surviving Nazis for War Crimes at Nuremberg
72nd Anniversary of Hiroshima’s Gratuitous Mass Murder
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
War in the Pacific was won months before Franklin Roosevelt’s April 12, 1945 death.
He declined to accept the Japanese offer of surrender. So did Harry Truman when he became president.
War continued for months unnecessarily, countless more casualties inflicted, mainly Japanese civilians – notably from fire-bombing Toyko in March 1945, an estimated 100,000 perishing in the firestorm, many more injured, over a million left homeless.
Around the same time, five dozen other Japanese cities were fire-bombed. Most structures in the country were wooden and easily consumed.
The attacks amounting to war crimes achieved no strategic advantage. In early 1945, Japan offered to surrender. In February, Douglas McArthur sent Roosevelt a 40-page summary of its terms.
They were nearly unconditional. The Japanese would accept an occupation, would cease hostilities, surrender its arms, remove all troops from occupied territories, submit to criminal war trials, and allow its industries to be regulated. In return, they asked only that their emperor be retained in an honorable capacity.

This post was published at Paul Craig Roberts on August 6, 2017.