Free Republic

As the century's greatest thinker, as an immigrant who fled from oppression to freedom, as a political idealist, he best embodies what historians will regard as significant about the 20th century. And as a philosopher with faith both in science and in the beauty of God's handiwork, he personifies the legacy that has been bequeathed to the next century. In a hundred years, as we turn to another new century--nay, ten times a hundred years, when we turn to another new millennium--the name that will prove most enduring from our own amazing era will be that of Albert Einstein: genius,...

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) - Air Force Lt. Col. Daniel A. McGovern, a combat photographer who filmed the aftermath of the atomic bomb detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, has died. He was 96. McGovern died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Laguna Woods. Weeks after the bombs were dropped in August 1945, McGovern began taking photographs that have since appeared in history books, newspapers, television shows and movies. Earlier during the war, McGovern photographed President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. In 1943, McGovern flew missions as a cameraman while stationed in Chelveston, England. He survived two...

Why the Palestinians should be terrified of Iran? Dr. Jack Wheeler* BrookesNews.Com Monday 12 December 2005 The current insult to the Nobel Peace Prize is International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. This week he announced that “the global community is beginning to lose patience” with the Iranian nuclear program. In an interview with the Arabic-language daily al-Hayat published Dec. 7, ElBaradei said the time period in which a solution to the crisis can be found is short, but that “a military solution is not an option.” It’s as if ElBaradei was reading from a script written by South Park...

Iran obtained detailed instructions on how to set up the complicated process of enriching uranium, which can used to make nuclear arms, from the black market network run by a Pakistani scientist, the U.N. atomic monitoring agency said Friday. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran was not giving inspectors access to a sensitive site that could be used to store equipment indicating whether the military is running a secret nuclear program. The five-page report seen by The Associated Press was prepared for Thursday's meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board, which could decide to refer...

March Calls For 'Nuclear-Free' Future By: Cliff Drought Wednesday August 10 2005 SYRACUSE, NY - Ken Howland reached into his pocket Tuesday and took a picture from his wallet. The black and white image was of a man with a shotgun showing his take from a bird-hunting trip. It was taken in 1942 and the man was his father. "He had become a pretty good shot," recalled Howland, pointing to the number of fowl in the picture. The reason for the quick mastery of marksmanship was simple: "If we hadn't used the bomb, he would have had to go over"...

August 6 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the devastating atomic bomb attack against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. For the most part, up until the 1960s the predominant view was that the U.S. was justified in its decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese. There was a general consensus to accept, at face value, that American leaders had determined that Japan would not surrender, and that their determination to fight to the death against an invasion would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands,...

Sixty years ago today, Hiroshima, Japan, became the first target of an atomic bomb, with Nagasaki the second target three days later. Thus, a war that lasted four years was ended in four days. To those who decry the devastation caused by President Truman's decision to develop and detonate this awesome weapon, I remind them of the lives saved, not lost. I'm very proud of the fact that my uncle was not only a member of the Enola Gay that dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, the first atomic bomb in history, but he was actually the bombardier. The bottom line,...

They insist they were ordinary men serving their country. But when the crew members of the Enola Gay arrived on the flight line on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, they knew instantly it wasn’t an ordinary mission... Van Kirk: No one was officially telling anybody else anything about it. And if you figured it out for yourself, you better well keep it quiet... ... When the bomb left the airplane, you’ve got the surge of course of releasing 9,400 pounds right away. Tibbets went into the turn 150 degrees to the right, pushed the nose down, lost about 2,000...

Saturday August 6, the Sundance Cable Channel will be showing "Original Child Bomb". This hour long film is from the top secret compilation of the US Government filmed aftermath of Hiroshima, which was kept out of the public's viewing for decades. "The young soldiers who shot the film in Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month after the dawn of the atomic age were unprepared for what they found." " 'It was to me the most horrendous, terrifying thing that I had ever seen,'camera operator Herbert Sussan, who's now deceased, said in a 1983 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp."...

The mind of the pilot whose B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb often seems more prisoner than resident of his bantamweight body wracked by injury, ailments and 90 years of living. In the months before today’s 60 th anniversary of his mission to Hiroshima, Paul Tibbets was hobbled by a pair of spills that fractured two vertebrae. For a while, his appetite disappeared, his weight dropped alarmingly, and he railed against the fates torturing him in his waning years. "I’ve never been incapacitated a damned day of my life," he groused two months ago, daily downing enough OxyContin to make...

Reuters reports: “As the world prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the 1st atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes between the suppression of images of death and destruction then, and coverage of the war in Iraq today.” Reuters cites an article in Editor & Publisher by Greg Mitchell, claiming American officials seized film after the “atomic attacks” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prevent us from seeing the devastation. Mitchell compares this to Iraq: “The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version August 05, 2005, 7:14 a.m. 60 Years Later Considering Hiroshima. For 60 years the United States has agonized over its unleashing of the world’s first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima on August 6, 2005. President Harry Truman’s decision to explode an atomic bomb over an ostensible military target — the headquarters of the crack Japanese 2nd Army — led to well over 100,000 fatalities, the vast majority of them civilians. Critics immediately argued that we should have first targeted the bomb on an uninhabited area as a warning for the Japanese...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

The 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, has not so far provoked the kind of anguished debate that accompanied the 50th anniversary. The lack of controversy is fitting because there wasn't much soul-searching at the time. In 1945, 85% of Americans approved of a step deemed necessary to end the war and head off a costly invasion of Japan. Only with the Axis threat long vanquished have numerous historians and philosophers come forward to claim that the use of the A-bomb was unnecessary and an atrocity that blemishes American honor.

In August 1945, two atomic bombs fell on Japan, killing tens of thousands of people instantly. Yet all 24 Australian POWs in Nagasaki - close to ground zero - survived. Patrick Carlyon reports. The August sun hangs like a red balloon. Smoke smudges the sky, as it has since the American planes began dropping bombs. The Japanese expansion had spread like an angry tumour across Asia and the Pacific. Now, after 14 years, the aggressors are losing. An Allied invasion appears certain. In the hills of Nakama, a small Japanese mining town, Australian prisoners-of-war dig pits to store potatoes. They...

AT LEAST God told Moses the truth. Before laying on him the requirements of a monotheistic faith that would immediately cause violent conflict with idol-worshipers, God said, ''It is a terrible thing that I will do with you." And so it was. The statement comes in the very verses of Exodus that define the covenant God makes with Moses and his harried people. ''I shall do marvels," God promises. But it is the certainty of ''the terrible thing" that defines this relationship going forward. The terrible thing, first, of permanent war against the Amorites, the Canaanites, and their eternal successors....

How many nations could genuinely say that they had the real potential to conquer the world or destroy it? How many nations had an arsenal capable of obliterating any other nation without risking retaliation? How many nations, with an army and navy superior to any others, an industry and economy capable of producing more weapons and material than any other, with forces already deployed for conquest, how many nations would try to conquer the world while they had such advantages? Sixty years ago, this was exactly situation in which the United States of America found itself. American military forces were...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki While most may not remember the details, they do know about that famous B-29 bomber which dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan, for all practical purposes ending World War Two. The Smithsonian has completed a cosmetic restoration of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bombs, and is now on display. As expected, a large sized hullabaloo has arisen over the way Harry Truman decided to end the war. Various old saws are paraded about, such as the hackneyed and untrue one that, "The Japanese had already sued for peace," "Atomic weapons shouldn't...

OSLO (Reuters) - Sixty years after the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, guardians of the Nobel Peace Prize could confirm a once-a-decade trend in 2005 by honoring work to prevent nuclear Armageddon. The five-member awards committee, which will hold several meetings before announcing the winner of what many see as the world's top accolade in October from a field of 199 candidates, declines even to give out names on its short-list. Yet if history is a guide, the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and of Nagasaki on Aug. 9 may help decide the winner. About 200,000...

Citizen Soldiers for the Atomic Bomb Needs you to show your support for the veterans and a strong national defense at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee Y-12 Plant on August 6. For the past 20+/- years, OREPA has openly committed treason and mockery of our veterans and country at the entrance of the plant which manufactured the uranium that fueled 'little boy' who was dropped on Hiroshima. The peaceniks are hoping to close the plant via INTERNATIONAL LAW and leave US defenseless in a world dominated by terrorism and Communism. It will do your patriotic soul good to come out and...