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 ...
BTW, I was thinking Joe Stalin just as I said "fascists" ~ how silly.
That is what Grew told Hull.
The Japanese held the opinion that the FDR administration wanted peace far too long.
No doubt the various naval force level agreements had served to remove the Brits from an effective position in the Pacific while elevating the Japanese and their American ally to an unassailable supremacy.
The Japanese had a firm position on the Eur-Asian landmass and definitely were positioned to defeat any Soviet incursion into our (and the Japanese) sphere of influence.
Then the Japanese did something very stupid ~ they invaded China ~ which ended up costing them a lot more than they gained, and that was just in the first few months.
I'm not absolutely sure what you mean by "if Japan had defeated the United States." There was no possibility of that in August of 1945. I assume you mean if Japan had repelled the invasion by the United States, which was certainly a possibility
I would go further than you. If the USA had successfully invaded Japan, the American casualties would have been so high that the rebuilding of Japan would never have occurred; the American people would not have allowed it.
Thank you for doing the research on Mr. Leeper. I could see from the original article's quotes that he was on the loony left, but it appears from this gem about seven Pakistani and Indian schoolchildren "studying peace" that he is also just a loon.
It is amazing to me that any news editor would let this kind of baldly biased type of "journalism" through.
What is really risible is that there isn't even a pretense at presenting any other view than the silly leftist swill in this article. Whenever any vaguely centrist or conservative opinion is mentioned in an article by the MSM, you can guarantee that an opposing leftist opinion will be produced for the sake of "fairness." But here it is all left-wing gospel and thus needs no "balance."
If Japan had defeated the U.S., the Japanese would have shown none of the forbearance, kindness, benevolence, and mercy toward the conquered Americans.
In fact--American forbearance, kindness, mercy, and benevolence shocked the conquered Japanese, who fully expected the cruelest possible brutality--which is exactly what they would have shown had they been victorious and which is why they were so shocked at American forbearance, kindness, benevolence, and mercy.
The Rape of Nanking would have been an afternoon tea party compared to what they would have done to the Americans,
And the Japanese knew it. That's why they were so pleasantly surprised at the Americans' treatment of them.
In your post #31, however, I thought you were talking about the decision to use the bomb on Japan, which decision was, of course, made in 1945. By that time the defeat of Japan was inevitable, although the terms were certainly still fluid.
I support the decision to use the atomic bomb for three reasons:
One, it saved many lives, both American and Japanese. An invasion of Japan would have been bloody far beyond anything we, or they, had seen up to that point.
Two, it allowed for the rebuilding of Japan after the war, whereas the bloodbath that would have followed an invasion would have embittered the American public to the point where massive help for Japan would have been politically impossible.
Three, you have to judge people according to their Zeitgeist. At the time the decision to use the bomb was made, no one, except perhaps some of the scientists who had worked on it, had any reason to view it as anything except a bigger and better bomb. We had been building bigger and better weapons of war for the last four years. This was no different, right? Wrong! It was different, but until we, and the rest of the world, got to see the results of these weapons, no one really understood that. We were setting foot in a new land, a qualitatively different world of the strong nuclear force, orders of magnitude more energetically dense that the forces of the electron shell.
As a side benefit, we kept the Soviets out of Japan by ending the war when it did.
Made in America. Tested in Japan.
Remember Manila
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