Posted on 08/12/2009 10:28:04 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Will Obama Apologize for Hiroshima?
A knotty question -- he's due to visit the blast site come November and loves to say "I'm sorry." On the other hand, the twin Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings served as a legitimate conclusion to a war that Japan initiated -- with a recent poll showing that 61% of Americans support Truman's decision to employ the atomic arsenal, an approval rating that soars in the Greatest Generation demographic. Though Obama groveling at ground-zero would undoubtedly draw the ire of most Americans above the age of 65, one WWII vet in particular -- Morris Jepson one of the two surviving members of the Enola Gay and the man who armed the "Little Boy" bomb -- pulls no punches on The One's apology-saturated foreign policy. Check out his interview with Japan's Mainichi Daily News:
Mainichi: If you have a chance to meet Obama, would you advise him not to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
J: I would say that's his business because he is going to do what he wants to do.
Mainichi: You understand what he said about the moral responsibility of using the atomic bombs. If he visits Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he may apologize to Hiroshima's citizens. If he apologizes, what would you feel?
J: I would be indignant.
M: Yes, because it saved a lot of Japanese lives, too. Because the invasion could have killed thousands and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of the Japanese and Americans, and dropping the bomb ended the war. That saved a lot of people. I think the Japanese should realize that, that it saved a lot of them. You know a lot more people were killed with firebombing ... than were killed at Hiroshima. So if you think about that, that bomb was really not so bad. It was just part of the war, right? I mean, that the way we feel about it.
J: No, I think the statement that you quoted from Obama's speech is ... saying that the U.S. is guilty of using those weapons.
Mainichi: Moral responsibility?
J: That's called guilt. Isn't that guilt?
Mainichi: You think the U.S. President should not make such remarks?
J: Definitely not, no.
Will he? Probably. Should he? Hell no!
They threw everything they had at us, and we threw everything we had at them.
Good thing for civilization that our science was more advanced.
As I’ve always said to anyone who has a problem with the bombings: there are penalties for helping guys load Jews into boxcars. Now you know what they are.
Apologize? No.
Blame? Yes.
Should we apologize for rebuilding their country and buying their cars as well?
In what way does this relate to INTENTIONALLY incinerating thousands of Japanese babies, little old ladies, and Christians (Nagakasi was the historic center of Japanese Christianity).
You’re not actually WONDERING about his are you?
Of course he’s going to apologize.
The two things he does best are:
1) Apologize to FOREIGN citizens.
2) Speak and act condescendingly to U.S. citizens.
Many Boomers, myself included, would not be alive today had we not ended the war by use of the bombs. The casualty projections for an invasion of the Home Islands were horrific. My Dad would probably have been in the Pacific, as opposed to Germany, in late 45 and early 46 had the war not ended when it did. He might well not have come home. May God bless Harry Truman for authorizing the use of the bombs. Obama better not apologize.
You really ARE a one trick pony, aren’t you?
I’ll wager you that the bear picture will posted within the next two hours.
This is a false dichotomy. There was a third choice. As Eisenhower, Marshall, Herbert Hoover, and others urged, Truman could have agreed to a conditional surrender allowing the Japanese to keep the emperor thus avoiding both the mass slaughter of Japanese innocents (including babies and civilians in Nagasaki, the center of Japanese Christianity) by agreeing to let the Japanese keep the emperor. In the end, he agreed to this anyway because the Japanese still assisted on this condition despite two bombs!
Does a bear $hit in the woods?
The Japanese considered everyone else to be “not even human”. My father lost most of his friends in WWII because his Army unit was in Battan in 1941. Fortunately, my father was much too old to have been with them. War is hell, and say no more...
Regarding your answer. bttt.
I fully expect Obama not to disappoint us. IOW, he will be apologizing for past US actions that saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of US service men.
The Japanese military were fully aware that the bomb would be dropped if they did not surrender. They had the choice, they doomed their own civilians - not the USA.
The libs go through this navel gazing every August. The only people who think the bombs should not have been dropped did not have family serving in WW II.
Given time, Obama zealots will seek to rewrite history.
I was at sea with a unit that was preparing for the invasion of Japan. I got to see what the Japanese had prepared for that action and I will promise that there would have been horrendous casualties if that invasion had happened.
Truman was a Democrat Pres. and I didn't like much of what he did but he get big credit for having the gutz to drop those bombs.
My grandfather worked on the Manhattan project as a precision machinist who fabricated parts for both those bombs in Chicago. He never knew at the time what he was making, only that it had to be perfection itself when it was done and not to talk to anyone about it.
I’ve always been kind of proud knowing that his craftsmanship helped end that war, no matter what Obama is probably going to say.
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