Hiroshima mayor educates Trump

(MENAFN) Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui has criticized US President Donald Trump for comparing American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. In comments published by the Japan Times on Wednesday, Matsui said Trump “does not fully grasp the reality” of nuclear bombings, which indiscriminately kill civilians and endanger humanity. He invited the US president to visit Hiroshima to better understand the consequences.

Trump made the controversial comparison last week while defending US military action in support of Israel during a 12-day conflict with Iran. The US reportedly used bunker-buster bombs to hit Iran’s fortified Fordow nuclear site. Trump claimed the strikes "obliterated" Iran’s nuclear program and likened the tactic to the atomic bombings that, he said, “ended that war.”

“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing,” Trump said at a NATO summit in the Netherlands.

While the Western view traditionally holds that the bombings forced Japan’s surrender and saved lives, some historians dispute this. A 1946 US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that Japan likely would have surrendered even without the atomic bombings, Soviet involvement, or a planned invasion.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, and launched a major offensive. The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, and Japan surrendered on August 15. A pro-US government was later installed in postwar Japan.

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