Posted on 08/07/2005 5:40:42 AM PDT by Boston Blackie
THE 60TH anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has arrived with little of the fury that accompanied the 50th. A decade ago, a bruising battle broke out over the Smithsonian Institution's plan for an exhibit suggesting that the American use of atomic weapons had been a racist war crime and served no legitimate military aim.
With a restored Enola Gay -- the B-29 that delivered the first bomb on Aug. 6, 1945 -- as a centerpiece, the Smithsonian's curators had intended to tell a story of American brutality and Japanese victimhood. ''For most Americans," their original script declared, ''this war was fundamentally different from the one waged against Germany and Italy -- it was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism." Such slanted revisionism pervaded the text, which The Washington Post rightly summed up as ''incredibly propagandistic and intellectually shabby."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
The left is unhappy about it, because it thwarted Soviet expansion. The Soviet Union never got to take over any of the Japanese islands. The US monopoly of the atomic bomb through the late '40s and overwhelming nuclear superiority in the '50s allowed the US to check any further Soviet expansion into western Europe without the US and western Europeans having to maintain conventional military expenditures and mobiliztion on the level of WWII.
Stalin wanted Soviet troops on Japan ASAP.
Perhaps Survivor can set up a camp so that leftists can experience the fruits of that "unique culture" first hand.
The feminists wouldn't last one day.
This day is a reason for th eAmerican People to CELEBRATE the bombing of th ecities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I believe it was 1968 and my ship the USS Hamner, DD719 pulled into Nagasaki, Japan. I believe we were the first US Ship in there since WWII, not sure. We were overwhelmed with Japanese schoolchildren wanting topractice English. In uniform we made our way to "Ground Zero" and the museum there.
We got some hard stares and foul looks from the locals. One of my Shipmates just looked back at them and told them "You started It, we finished it - You start it again, we will finish it again!" They all acted kind of startled and pretended that they didn't understand what had been said.
With the emphasis that they had placed on knowing English a reflection of which was evidenced by the number of their children swamping us at the pier. THEY UNDERSTOOD !!
PAYBACKS ARE A BITCH!!!
I fully support Atomic bombing of Japan!
I have alwayd done that and always clashed with people over it.
I remember hearing an interview of an Iranian soldier serving in US Army on Voice of America, couple of yrs ago.
He has lived in the states for 70 yrs.
He said, the Atomic raid on Japan saved his and his comrades' lives since they were preparing to land in Japan
Let us not forget the brutal and inhuman medical experiments carried out by Unit 731.
My Dad was a Marine preparing for a big Japan D-day Invasion in 1945. Chances are that my brothers and sisters, not to mention myself, would not be here today if it wasn't for the Bomb.
I would also like to mention, that the Japanese along with the Koreans and Vietnamese were Far more brutal to American POW's that the hated Nazi's that we hear so much about these days.
Germany was a signatory to Geneva convention, Japan wasn't!
It would have been criminal if he hadn't used the bomb.
I also agree the Japanese have no reason to complain as their barbarity was pretty much off the scale, especially to American POW's.
Still when I see pictures of dead or dying children, I wonder if a better target could not have been chosen.
Too many of those doctors got away scott free.
Emperor's palace?
As far as I'm concerned, the Bomb WAS a last resort!
Millions more Japanese civilians would have died if the invasion had gone forward. Opponents of the bomb have no idea what a nightmare the fighting on the home islands would have been like.
Fine with me but I was thinking of the Japanese equivalent of the Pentagon.
Jim Lehrer wrote it a few years ago.
Japanese prison brutality, a fascinating plot, a red headed American bomber pilot POW.
A great book.
Nah. We needed the "living god" to tell his people that it was over.
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