Posted on 08/05/2007 7:44:36 AM PDT by enraged
Sixty-two years later, the memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima still holds such a grip on Japan that its defense minister has had to resign simply for suggesting the attack was "unavoidable."
Now, in a sign of changing times, the task of spreading Hiroshima's message to the world has been entrusted to an American, a citizen of the country that dropped the bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.
(Excerpt) Read more at comcast.net ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“We killed far, far more people and destroyed more cities during the fire bombings earlier that year (Mar-April) yet the two a-bombing are the ones that still upset them the most.”
Same thing with Germany. “Nuke” is just a trigger word. Those folks in Dresden are just as dead as the ones in Hiroshima.
And the author of this piece is engaged in highly questionable "journalism", because her very broad assertion about "most Japanese" has absolutely no supporting evidence.
It seems almost inevitable to find that she is a recent graduate Berkeley's journalism program.
How theoretical nuclear weapons would be had they not been used in combat.
In the liberal mind one death caused by a nuclear bomb is worse than 100,000 killed by conventional bombing.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Imagine how many lives in Europe would have been saved if we had the A-bomb a year earlier?
Leeper shares the view of most Japanese: that Japan had already lost the war and that the bombing of Hiroshima, and of Nagasaki three days later, was wrong and unnecessary."Everybody knows on the left and the right that Japan was finished at the time the bomb was dropped," Leeper said.
Bull! 'Everybody knew' the Japs were finished when we hit Okinawa too. Look what the (blank) occurred there.
Over 250,000 people lost their lives. Approximately 150,000 Okinawans, about a third of the population, perished. At the battle's end, somewhere between a third and half of all surviving civilians were wounded. No battle during the Second World War, except Stalingrad, had as massive a loss of civilian life. The stakes were high. The Japanese, determined to fight to the last man, almost achieved their objective, but in defeat 100,000 Japanese combatants died rather than surrender. In the end, fewer than 10,000 of General Mitsuri Ushijimas's Thirty-Second Army were taken prisoner.United States loss of life was staggering as well. The United States Navy sustained the largest loss of ships in its history with thirty-six lost and 368 damaged. The Navy also sustained the largest loss of life in a single battle with almost 5,000 killed and an equal number wounded. At Okinawa, the United States Tenth Army would incur its greatest losses in any campaign against the Japanese. The Tenth Army, which initially was made up of 183,000 army, navy, and marine personnel. During those eighty-two days, the Tenth Army would lose 7,613 men and over 30,000 men would be evacuated from the front lines for a minimum of a week due to wounds. Moreover, the largest numbers of U.S. combat fatigue cases ever recorded would occur on Okinawa.
The invasion of the mainland would have been Okinawa 10x you moron.
Guess these moonbats (including Miss Bussewitz) haven’t read the details of Operation Olympic/Operation Downfall, especially so soon after the bloodbaths at Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
The Americans anticipated so many casualties, every Purple Heart given out in every single conflict was actually made for the anticipated invasion of the Japanese home islands. Some 120K are still available, and some units in Afghanistand and Iraq have these on hand for immediate award.
http://hnn.us/articles/1801.html
It is easy to construct some alternative history long after the events.
Perhaps it would have been better to drop the first bomb on Mount Fuji, as a demonstration for the Japanese.
However, those who made the decision were under pressures that, as time passes, become less easy to understand, but they made the best and most benevolent decision that they could under the circumstances.
What future generations must remember is how horrible nuclear weapons are.
To remember this is a powerful force for peace and love.
For example: it prevented the Cold War from deteriorating into all-out war, and it finally ended it.
My father's wise, decent, and supremely benevolent brother--a highly successful man, in business and in every other phase of his life--once told me:
This is wise advice on a personal or an international level. In fact, this very principle guided American leaders in their behavior toward Japan.
One of the first divisions to land on Kyushu was only projected to fight for three days. It was assumed after that they’d be all but destroyed.
I wish the libs would read up on their history, especially when they start braying about 4000 men and women killed (not all by combat) in Iraq and Afghanistan. Look at the numbers for 82 days of fighting in Okinawa, or for the first 60 days after D-Day.
Nah, they’ll never get it.
Ah, Bezerkly. That fits.
Interesting screen name.
Why?
One of my brothers was in the Pacific, cranking up his LST for the coming murderous invasion of the Japanese homeland; and both my other brother and I -- fresh from fighting one war in Europe -- were on orders to the Pacific to join in the fun.
So those gutless wonders who cry over whether or not dropping those wt bombs was necessary have nothing coming from me but utter contempt.
Heck a lot of them think we suffered more casualties in Vietnam than WWII.
Yes, and "everyone" also seems to have forgotten just what led the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor.
The Political Left really is the Hive of Hypocrisy.
Still more proof that liberalism is a dark theology focused on America’s “sins”
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