Japan Official Resigns Over A-Bomb Quip

AP via ABC News ^ | Jul 3, 2007

[james500]

Japan's embattled defense minister resigned Tuesday over his comments suggesting the 1945 atomic bombings Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable, news reports said. Fumio Kyuma had come under intense criticism from survivors of the bombing following the comments made over the weekend. He had apologized.

Broadcaster NHK and NTV carried news of the resignation.

[Constantine XI Palaeologus]

“I was shocked to learn that Japan had gotten so far as to detonate their own A bomb in a test in North Korea when we dropped two on them...”

Really? That’s news to me. Figures with all the sorts of junk they were trying to throw at us in those last days of the the war that they’d at least try and use it against us. Is there some website that I can go to to get more info on this?

[E.Allen]

IIRC
The full quote was: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve.”

[onedoug]

On the way back to Vietnam a few years ago, we flew over Hiroshima at about 2am local time. Looking down at her lights I said a short prayer for the innocents who had died or lost family there, though still in my realization of how inevitable and necessary it had been.

[BigCinBigD]

Bull Halsey was right.

[chuckles]

When you go to war with a country, no one is innocent. This PC war fighting started with Viet Nam. When my father dropped bombs on Germans, he didn't care if it was a school, hospital, or ammo dump, they were Germans and would kill him if given the chance. Many of his buddies bailed out and were killed by housewives with butcher knives and children with pitch forks.

If America is attacked, I will be as dangerous as any military unit to the invader. I don't really believe the throat cutters will give me or my family quarter because we are "innocent". It should teach us that we are responsible for our leaders actions. If Hugo Chavez wants to take on the US, are we going to fret every time we have to drop a bomb? That's why we haven't won a war since WWII. Look at Korea. We are still having problems with them because we didn't fight an unlimited war until they said "uncle".

[onedoug]

You’re absolutely right. Though what’s belief worth if it isn’t still hard to think of frying children.

[jws3sticks]

Very well said - full stop!!

[BushMeister]

Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

[DTogo]

Gotta keep the war victim/peace daze mentality going...

日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)

[miliantnutcase]

Just in the nick of time because #3 AKA “Fat bastard” was it’s way. ;-)

[caveat emptor]

He had also spent years in the United States and Britain as part of the delegations at the Washington and London Naval Talks. These years had given him a firsthand look at American industrial might and moral character, and was convinced to the very center of his being that the only way to possibly win the war he was ordered to prosecute was by a gamble.

An all-out air raid on the American naval headquarters in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor. Win in the first 24 hours, then negotiate a settlement favorable to Japan while the US was weak. At this, even, he was dubious. Asked by the Crown Prince to assess the odds of winning the war, he replied, "If necessary, I can run wild for the first six months. Beyond that I have no hope."

As the success of the Pearl Harbor Raid became clear on December 7th, 1941, his staff congratulated him. Yamamoto was on the Combined Fleet flagship, the battleship Nagato, sitting silently with eyes closed along the wall. He rose and said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Then he excused himself and walked out on to the deck of the Nagato, where he stared out at the sea.

Source.

So sorry. Nothing from the archives of the Japanese Imperial Navy. The bold section is widely quoted, but may be fictitious.

[chuckles]

I don't think any "human" desires to harm anyone. Sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done. War is one of those things that, IMHO, needs to be as horrible as possible, as quickly as possible, to end it sooner. Sterile wars tend to last forever. I'm waiting for the "final solution" for the Jews. One day the Rags will push too far and someone like Netenyahu will push the bastards into the sea and dare anyone to say anything about it.

Try to imagine American politicians that are attacked every day minding their own business and the restraint Israel has shown. No US pol could survive if they didn't eventually wipe them off the map.

Iraq would have been over a long time ago if we lined the bastids up against a wall and started shooting until someone named some names. Now we have the name( Mookie Sadr), and he still breathes. If we don't kill him and his followers, the 3500 dead will mean nothing when we turn Iraq over to the Iranians. When we publicly shoot Sadr, we need to shoot every bastard that even coughs when we feed his carcass to the swine. That is called "pacification".

[rlmorel]

No, I think you are correct, george76.

[rlmorel]

"...I was shocked to learn that Japan had gotten so far as to detonate their own A bomb in a test in North Korea when we dropped two on them..."

No, there is no truth to that. Where did you hear that, dogbert41?

[snowsislander]

Bluntness is not particularly valued in Japan.

Kyuma using a very blunt "shogunai" was perhaps too much for Japanese sensibilities; however, I am a little surprised about the lady that they have chosen for the next defense minister.

While Koike doesn't seem to be a Tanaka-san (I mean the daughter, not the prime minister), it seems odd to me that she went to the University of Cairo of all places.

[Quiller]

I think Seppuku is also illegal in Japan.

What's the penalty -- imprisonment or death?

[vetvetdoug]

Where is the Japanese outrage from all of the radiation clouds from all of the Chinese and Soviet Nuclear bomb testing? I lived in Japan from 1959-1963 and there was one week we couldn't even go outside because of the high amount of radiation coming from one of the Soviet detonations. My father was in the USAF and his unit monitored the radiation and he told me it was dangerously high several times.

The Japanese are hypocrites.

[monday]

“I was shocked to learn that Japan had gotten so far as to detonate their own A bomb in a test in North Korea when we dropped two on them...”

Oh yeah? Just where did you learn that? In any case they were lying to you. Germany was closer to having a nuclear bomb than Japan was, but neither ever got close to testing one.

[BlueStateRefugee]

Imprisonment, then death.

[RJS1950]

Just remember, if you don’t fry theirs and stop them they will surely fry you and yours.