Posted on 09/03/2009 8:24:02 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
In this war, the belligerents plumbed new depths of depravity: operation of mass-destruction death camps, tortune of every conceivable kind, terror bombing and other attacks systematically aimed at civilian populations, crowned by the gratuitous atomic bombing of two large, defenseless cities. I am aware that some people still defend some of these heinous actions, but in my mind nothing the war achieved can justify them. Indeed, I seriously doubt that anything can justify them. Yet such wanton, barbaric cruelties were deeply woven into the fabric of the war’s conduct from its earliest days. One is scarcely engaging in moral equivalence if one concludes that neither side represented “the good guys.” There was plenty of evil to go around.
I have been combatting for decades the widely believed notion that the war got the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. For readers who still labor under this misconception, I recommend the first five chapters of a book called Depression, War, and Cold War.
Finally, the idea that the war left the world a better place seems to me unacceptable as a flat, unqualified statement. Yes, the defeat of Hitler’s regime was an excellent outcome — may such utter beastliness never dare to show its face again. But over large parts of the territory where Hitler’s troops had reigned supreme in the early 1940s, Stalin’s troops reigned supreme from 1945 to 1989. It is difficult to count Stalin as anything less than first-rate in the category of monstrous tyrants. Yet, if the war had a clear political winner, it was he. Moreover, he and the evil Soviet regime that carried on after his death wreaked massive human and material destruction over a wide swath.
(Excerpt) Read more at hnn.us ...
Gratuitous?
Saved the lives of tens of millions of Japanese and this guy has the gall to call it "gratuitous"?
Doom on him.
Well, some people believe that we should’ve invaded Japan at a cost of 500 thousand to perhaps more than one million American and Allied lives. I happen not to believe that and, instead, believe that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced the desired results - that of capitulation. No big tears being cried here.
As Lort Moutbatten said, the bombings were done in a total war context and history has never viewed it that way since.
I was at the Air & Space Museum branch located at Dulles this past weekend. They have the Enola Gay there and it just so happened there was a group of WWII fighter pilots visiting that day. I wondered how many of them wouldn’t have made it back from the war if that bomb hadn’t been dropped.
“Defenseless”? Hiroshima was the home base of the Pearl Harbor task force.
Progressivism murdered a couple hundred MILLION people..
AND made several hundred MILLION MORE miserable..
If that was not enough URP fell TO socialism right after the war.. COMPLETELY.. Even during the cold war URP was become SOCIALIST COUNTRYS.. FDR already "GAVE" Russia the eastern block countrys.. He GAVE them to the Stalin like he OWNED THEM..
“Gratuitous”
Gratuitous????????
How enlightened of him, not mention how intellectual. What an idiot! Easy to say when is #@$ is 70 years away from having his family members destroyed or having to carry a rifle into fire. I’m sick of these loud mouth cowards who sit back and “ponder” their enlightened “thoughts” away from any risk of harm.
And it was all Bush’s fault.
I really enjoy self-contradiction. In one breath this cretin says that defeating Hitler did not leave the world a better place, then says that defeating Hitler was an excellent outcome - implying that the world was better off.
Did this person pay attention in class?
We visited last year.The size of the space shuttle was amazing. This is a must see for anyone going to D.C.
If you thought the Korean War was bad, imagine if Japan was also divided into North and South, after the war (and it would have been had we not dropped the bombs).
What appalling revisionism.
These days we can afford to be picky: our technology is surgical and even our pulled blows are devastating.
But the Second World War wasn’t like that. Night bombers couldn’t reliably hit a city. Day bombers were far more precise but took fearful casualties.
Mass bombing wasn’t evil. For long periods of the war it was all that was possible.
“Doom on him.”
Indeed. Most of these critics are just that - critics. They can find reasons and angles to hate America, but they can’t say how things would have been better had we not done what we HAD to do.
Japan was warned before the first bomb. And after the first bomb. It took their leaders two times to believe us. That’s not our fault.
Due to it’s greater size it has much more to offer than it’s counterpart on the mall.
Not to mention the Red Army smashing into Manchuria.
The two bombs that were dropped on Japan also showed Russia what would happen if they attempted to take over all of Europe.
In that scenario there's probably a good chance there wouldn't have even been a divided Korea.
Quite correct.
The largest difference is that the Nazi system was apparently quite efficient economically, and therefore represented in the long run a much greater threat than the economically utterly inefficient Communist system. With this system in control of all of Europe, North Africa and Middle East they would have been difficult for even the USA to stop.
It is of course quite possible that had he won the war Hitler would have destroyed his own economic system in the same way Stalin did in order to finally express his socialist leanings.
With all the horror of the Communist system, they were still the lesser of two weevils in WWII. And an alliance or at least co-belligerrency with Stalin was absolutely essential to destroying Hitler.
I heard a theory that the devastating strategic bombing of sites close to the advancing Red Army - e.g. Dresden - were not only to take out massive road junctions, but also to warn off the Russians.
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