Posted on 12/18/2006 3:03:14 PM PST by sushiman
Indeed my FREEPER friend indeed.
Geeeeez!
Are those crybaby Frenchmen whining AGAIN?
"Looking at it realistically, the A-bomb did not produce that much more in the way of death and devastation the the Tokyo Fire Raids or the Dresden bombings."
True, and it's something you almost never hear about.
I was surprised to learn that over 100,000 Japanese civilians died after incendiary bombs were dropped over Tokyo.
You are right that the loss of life would have been MUCH greater on both sides had we been forced to invade t he Japanese homeland.
Historical perspective is SO easily lost when one doesn't know any history, or is taught revisionist history.
GM owns 20% of Subaru. The remaining 80% is owned by Fuji Heavy Industries, builder of Nakajima Aircraft torpedo attack bombers and fighters that sank many US Navy craft in the South Pacific. Personally I don't feel much better that some of the money spent on Jap cars stays here in some assembly-line worker's and car salesman's pocket. All the profits go to Tokyo.
He'd have preferred one at a time, with a rusty axe? We wasted enough American life [including one of my uncles] on those bastards. They got to choose how, and where, it started. We got to choose how, and where, it finished. Karma, you know.
The figures are: Rate of death in German hands for U.S POWs: 3-4%. Rate of death of U.S POWs in Japanese hands:37-40%.
Hey, Nakagawa. Can you say "Unit 731"?
My Dad, a WW II vet, was always firmly convinced that he survived the war because America dropped the bomb and shortened the war. That was the general consensus of "The Greatest Generation".
December 7, 1941. America united against a common enemy -- we didn't pretend that all cultures were "equal" back then.
My pet theory on WWII is that we were allied with Uncle Joe and his commie ideals so the left at that time was fighting not for the stars and stripes but for the hammer and sickle which explains the political unity at home. Barbarossa kicked off on June 22, 1941 so by the time Pearl Harbor occurs all the good little commies were anxious to take some heat off of their hero, Stalin. I think people often pay tool little attention to this history.
Before Barbarossa the left was solidly against intervening but after the invasion of Russia, the left turned their opinions on a dime at the direction of their puppet masters.
Their slogan then was "Golden Gate in '48" --in '45 they expected that they'd be fighting three more years.
US troops fighting then fully expected to die, or be landing on the beaches of Kyuushyu, then Honshyu, then slowly and bloodily northward, killing and burning everything in their way, fighting from building to building, block to block in Tokyo, all the way to the Imperial Palace.
Indeed, some Japanese fighter units took off and continued engaging B-29's AFTER they heard the Emperor's voice, and that their side had surrendured. Some buried tanks and fighters, intending to later fight as rebels.
Many radical factions of the army simply said the Emperor had been "kidnapped" and held hostage, forced to make his broadcast. Some raced around Tokyo, trying to intercept and prevent the broadcast, which they learned had been recorded.
The idea that Japanese people would not have fought until the bitter end is ridiculous.
The A-bombing helped bring about the surrender, but the most compelling event was the entry of Stalin into the war. Without that, we would have a "North Japan" and "South Japan" as today we observe in Korea.
He would have preferred we fire-bombed all the Japanese Islands?
As I said at the beginning of this thread , I truely believe that there are a lot of LDP members who think just as Nakagawa does . I realize the Japanese are now our allies , but I've been here long enough to know that they are a people of many faces , one of which we , the Chinese and the Koreans saw in WW2 . I'm not as happy as some Freepers to see the govt. ordering patriotism be taught in schools , and becoming a nuclear power . Bottom line ; I don't trust them .
Hopefully we have enough ties with the Japanese that they won't be launching nukes at us.
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