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Because the servants have taken over the master's manor. And it looks (I hope) like The Law of Unintended Consequences is taking hold of PO'd Americans, with a passion. Ironically, the red-loving president may be the best thing that happened for freedom in a long time.
This isn't the place for politics. One reason we get along pretty well here is that we discuss history not modern politics.
So while, 65 years after the fact, we're all debating the niceties of whether or not atomic weapons should have used or not, I'm personally glad we flattened two Japanese cities if it ended the war. It ultimately saved more lives than an invasion would have, one of whom was my father whose unit was slated to be one of the first ashore.
My dad was scheduled to go to fight in Japan also. Thank God that Truman dropped the bombs. I might not have been here today.
My dad was scheduled to go to fight in Japan also. Thank God that Truman dropped the bombs. I might not have been here today.
I agree! I don't think it was decided lightly, to drop 100% of our nuclear arsonal on Japan. If we had a fourth bomb, we would have used it too! We shouldn't try to apply our 2009 standards in a 1940's world.
I agree! I don't think it was decided lightly, to drop 100% of our nuclear arsonal on Japan. If we had a fourth bomb, we would have used it too! We shouldn't try to apply our 2009 standards in a 1940's world.
I agree 100%. Could you imagine the outrage if we bombed Iraq the same way we bombed the Germans and the Japanese. Some have a lack of what the definition of what war is. A concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious. Bottom line, you kill more of your enemy than they kill of your own.
I'm rather two faced on this issue. On one hand, if Japan hadn't started the war, there wouldn't have been a need to drop the bomb in the first place, so tough.
On the other...
~~~DWIGHT EISENHOWER
"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
My Dad always said the atomic bombings weren't just to end the war with Japan. It was a message to the world (Soviets): Don't mess with us or this is your fate.
If that was the case why did we occupy them for at around ten years, and STILL have military bases in their territories?
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