US bombed Japan to warn Soviet Union: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist in Tampa, to discuss US President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, Japan.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Obama is going to be visiting the Japanese city of Hiroshima as well as to pay tribute to the victims of the nuclear bomb that was dropped on the city. However, no apologies being offered by the US and saying that what Harry Truman did was correct, so that is in a way violating that tribute he wants to pay to the victims now, isn’t it?

Madsen: Yes. It also shows that Obama who received the Nobel Peace Prize for this dubious work he has done to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a complete phony. Obama fancies himself as a constitutional scholar, it is too bad he is not a historical scholar because the two leading American generals in World War II, General Douglas MacArthur who was commander of all allied forces in the war against Japan stated that he was not even aware of the atom bomb and he said it was a mistake to use it on the Japanese. He said all the Japanese wanted to keep was their emperor and they would have surrendered on all other accounts. General Eisenhower who was commander of US forces in Europe and who was also the president, after he succeeded Truman as president, said he was appalled at the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.

So here we have the two leading military generals for the United States in World War II saying that Japan would have unilaterally surrendered with the exception that they kept their emperor. We all know that the Truman administration had been infiltrated by a bunch of right-wing cold warriors after the death of Franklin Roosevelt and President Roosevelt would not have used that bomb on Japan either. They wanted to send a message to Soviet premier Joseph Stalin by using the bombs on Japan to say to the Soviets, ‘hey, we got the bomb now before you and we will use it if we have to.’ Incidentally the Japanese sent feelers through Vatican embassy in Tokyo saying that they would unilaterally surrender before we dropped those bombs. So this was a needless use of atomic weaponry and it was just the US trying to show we have the atom bomb before the Soviet Union. That is the only reason we used those weapons.

Press TV: Well after so much death and destruction coming from those two bombs that were dropped and so many years have passed since then, the US is still not apologizing for it, it is still defending that policy. What does it say then for the US’s policies now specifically with regards to its nuclear weapons arsenal?

Madsen: Well again Obama is a complete phony. While he relishes his Nobel Peace Prize for curtailing nuclear proliferation, he has spent billions of dollars on modernizing the US nuclear weapons arsenal, instead of getting rid of these weapons he is modernizing these weapons which has resulted in a nuclear weapons arms race with countries like Russia and China and others.

So yes, in Japan and Far East apologies carry a lot of weigh. I do not think President Eisenhower would have had any problem apologizing to the Japanese even privately and even President Truman later on regretted the fact that he started this national security state in the United States. He said he was basically led into these decisions because President Roosevelt died suddenly and Truman was not aware of a lot of these secret projects that have been going on, so he was basically misled himself.

I would urge Mr. Obama to brush up on his history. Apparently he reads only historical books that give him foregoing conclusions as far as what his understanding of history is. He ought to read some other history books about what happened at the end of World War II.  

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