President Donald Trump seemingly compared his strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. However, users were quick to try to poke holes in Trump’s argument.
The president referred to the devastating bombings on Japan while responding to a question about the U.S. use of bunker-buster bombs on Iran over the weekend during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday.
“That hit ended the 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. That ended that war, this ended that with the war. If we didn’t take that out, they’d be fighting right now,” Trump declared.
Trump appearing to compare his damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities to two nuclear bombs that killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, led to shock online.
As dozens of users noted the general disparity in the destruction caused by the bombings, several also noted that the fighting continued after Trump’s orders.
“Iran bombed Israel after this bombing,” one user said. Another asked, “Didn’t Iran bomb Israel after that?”
“Good, because both of those examples are wrong. Iran bombed our bases since your ‘total annihilation,'” one user quipped.
While users appeared to question the effectiveness of Trump’s strikes, Japan did not officially announce its surrender in WWII until August 15, 1945, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki.
However, Iran did not surrender to Israel or the U.S., as a ceasefire was agreed upon two days after the U.S. bombings. Although Iran and Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposed by the Trump administration, both countries have since accused each other of breaking the deal.
“Donnie, it’s like two days, let’s see how long it is before they are back at fighting each other,” one user jeered. Another declared, “It did nothing.”
The level of destruction caused by Trump’s bombings has been debated. While the president previously declared that the strikes completely “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites, a report by CNN cited sources saying that a Pentagon report indicated that the sites were only damaged, not destroyed.
Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence services reportedly disagree with the results of that report, as their initial evaluation allegedly concluded more damage than the Pentagon’s report.
Getty Images | Gregory Shamus
Originally published on Latin Times
