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WaPo: In Japan and America, more and more people think Hiroshima bombing was wrong
Washington Post ^ | May 10, 2016 | Adam Taylor

Posted on 05/10/2016 9:34:31 AM PDT by Zakeet

This month, President Obama will become the first incumbent American president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.

That bomb - and a second atomic blast on Nagasaki on Aug. 9 - effectively ended World War II; Japan surrendered six days after the Hiroshima bombing. However, the human costs were huge. Estimates of those killed go as high as 150,000, and even for those who survived, it was a hellish, life-altering experience.

[Snip]

In the first Gallup poll from 1945 just after the bombings, a huge 85 percent of Americans approved the bombings. However, figures from 2005 show a significant decline to 57 percent. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in the United States and Japan in 1991 found that 63 percent of Americans thought that the bombings were justified in a bid to end the war, while just 29 percent of Japanese did.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abomb; hiroshima; japan; obama; wp; wwii; yadayadayada
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To: armydawg505

You are absolutely correct.


141 posted on 05/10/2016 11:27:46 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Williams

As far as I am concerned; if Hiroshima was wrong, then so was Pearl Harbor and I don’t recall them apologizing for that.


142 posted on 05/10/2016 11:30:01 AM PDT by Jean2 (ox)
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To: Ouderkirk

It’s amazing when we consider Truman didn’t even know the bomb existed. He was kept out of the “know.” Only found out after Roosevelt died. The bomb was originally intended for Nazi Germany. Fortunately, they surrendered in May.


143 posted on 05/10/2016 11:32:45 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Don’t forget Reagan also invented crack cocaine and the aids virus /s


144 posted on 05/10/2016 11:35:19 AM PDT by Hyman Roth
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To: Zakeet

Does the Washington Post think the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was “wrong” ?


145 posted on 05/10/2016 11:36:09 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: Zakeet

WaPo: In Japan and America, more and more mind-numbed leftwing robots think Hiroshima bombing was wrong


146 posted on 05/10/2016 11:37:37 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: Mouton
"I wonder why one never asks the question why Hirohito did not give up earlier faced with a losing position. In fact, even after two cities were vaporized, he was still reluctant to give up. Fortunately he did. We had no ability to conduct many more A bomb raids and most of the other high value city targets had already been reduced to ashes."

Not true, a third atomic bomb was being transported from th US for use against Japan. After that there would have been a pause until October for the next series of a-bombs. Projections for war-time use were around ten bombs a month at first. End of the war cut production until 1946.

dvwjr

147 posted on 05/10/2016 11:39:02 AM PDT by dvwjr
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To: Paladin2

But...but...but...you’re just a hater...

Do I need a /s???


148 posted on 05/10/2016 11:39:32 AM PDT by 22202NOVA (Baseball: it's all about the fun. Duh. Mentals.)
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To: BigEdLB

One think that doesn’t get emphasized. Uncle John was a toddler Fred 11 when their father died. The widow Trump put food on the table by flipping houses. She put Fred in trade school while young (he attended high school at the same time ). She signed the paper work and young Fred did the plumbing, electricity and labor to improve the houses. The widow Trump wanted John to be an architect He wanted to be an engineer and went to big brother Fred who told John he would pay for what ever education he wanted if he worked hard and got good grades. Donald John Trump was always a great admirer of. his uncle. The man was a true Genious and Hero All DJT says. Is he was a prof at MIT. (Very little. Just like he makes nothing of his single grand mother who started the housing empire-— The American Dream On Steroids!


149 posted on 05/10/2016 11:41:58 AM PDT by hoosiermama (W1240 (a couple extra to boot) Under budget. Ahead of schedule! Go TRUMP)
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To: BluH2o

Lucky you. Tibbets flew Mark Clark and his small group to Gibraltar, landing his bomber, the Red Gremlin, on the short Gibraltar airfield. It had never been done before. Clark set out by submarine on a secret mission in the runup to Operation Torch. Tibbets then flew Eisenhower to Gibraltar just before the landings of operation Torch which opened America’s participation in the European theater of Operations, November 1942.


150 posted on 05/10/2016 11:51:41 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: rightwingcrazy
rightwingcrazy: "Estimated war dead World War II
Note that the 'winners' lost many times more lives than the 'losers'."

Thanks for the link, but your listing seems incomplete.
It doesn't show, for examples, the Philippines lost half a million, today's Indonesia three million and Indo-China (Vietnam etc.) at least another million.

Here is another way to visualize Allied vs. Axis country deaths:


151 posted on 05/10/2016 11:54:41 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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To: frog in a pot

Trump will start with destroying Common Core and abolishing the Federal Education System. He will put the Education System back into the States where the Constitution had put it.


152 posted on 05/10/2016 11:56:29 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: KeyLargo

The Enola Gay was named for his mother.


153 posted on 05/10/2016 11:59:08 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Mr. K

That’s a meaningless statement. If it wasn’t right, then it was evil, and nothing evil can be necessary.

If you say an action was necessary, then you are saying it was right.


154 posted on 05/10/2016 12:01:25 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: Salvey

Me too.


155 posted on 05/10/2016 12:04:38 PM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Zakeet

Who the heck worries about this stuff? Why waste one minute of your life worrying about whether events that probably happened before you were born, events that you had nothing to do with, were right or wrong?


156 posted on 05/10/2016 12:12:54 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Zakeet

Horse crap.
Should have used one on Russia in 45 too.


157 posted on 05/10/2016 12:13:58 PM PDT by Joe Boucher (500 years ago we had Shakesphere, obammys people live in mud huts still. Go figure)
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To: WKUHilltopper
Yep, and as soon as they face a real imminent threat, they'll probably change their tune to this:


158 posted on 05/10/2016 12:14:20 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: quesney
"...kamikazes on every street corner."

In 1960, I was stationed about 40 kilometers south of Hiroshima at MCAF Iwakuni and became good friends with many Japanese whose memory of the war was still very clear. They told me that just before Hiroshima was bombed, the Japanese government had issued every Japanese woman an child an artillery shell and a hammer with instructions to hide and wait until invading Americans approached to within 25 meters before they struck the artillery shell's fuse with the hammer.

These surviving Japanese felt sorry for the people in Hiroshima, but they were thankful that they along with millions of other Japanese were never called on to commit suicide with their artillery shells.

...and sometimes I wonder whatever became of Masako, the girl I left behind.

159 posted on 05/10/2016 12:18:30 PM PDT by DJ Taylor (Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)
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To: Zakeet
They ought to poll those who suffered under Japanese occupation.

Some bleeding hearts tried that ca 1950 and the most popular answer was "Why did you drop only two?"

In reading some of the many WWII books I found out:
1) After the war, an American diplomat was talking to one of his Japanese counterparts about the atomic bombings. The Japanese guy said that they had to give up as they didn't want us to drop any more. When the American told him that that was all we had, the reply was "If we knew you only had two . . ." and then thought better of it and clammed up.
2) A Japanese general on the mainland was giving a pep talk to his troops that went something like this: "Yes, things look bad now, but if we we redouble our efforts, we can still win the war." This was AFTER Nagasaki.
3) It was found that the Japanese prison camp commander were told that when the heard that the mainland was invaded, they were to "take care" of all allied prisoners in any way they deemed best. (Think Palawan, Philippine Islands).
4) Allied prisoners were dying at the rate of 1,000 a day. I defy anyone who says that we should have starved Japan into surrender to get before an audience of families who had relatives in the war and explain to them why they should be sacrificed because the Bomb was inhumane. A corollary of that is to ask them how long Truman/Democrats would have lasted if it was known we had a way to quickly end the war and didn't use the Bomb for that same reason.

[sidebar] Some years back, The Seattle Times had a boo-hoo article about the dedication of a park monument in honor of a six-year-old girl who died at Hiroshima. I wrote the reporter and asked her when they would dedicate a monument to a six-year-old girl who died in the Pearl harbor bombing. She wrote back that she wasn't aware that they were civilian casualties there.

160 posted on 05/10/2016 12:20:06 PM PDT by Oatka (Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.)
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