Posted on 08/06/2015 11:03:58 AM PDT by Biggirl
...The U.S. WAS the most deadly nation. It WAS the “arsenal of democracy.” No longer, unfortunately...
The U.S. was a lot of good things before the fundamental transformation of the last 6 1/2 years.
What you posted is bull.
It actually killed about 80,000, not 150,000 and saved 2,000,000 Japanese and 1,000,000 Americas that would have died in the invasion of the home islands
never mind the fact millions of civilians were spared by the dropping of these bombs...without dropping the bombs a full scale invasion of the Jap mainland was in order- estimates were 750K-to-1 million American/allied soldiers killed and 2mill-to-4mill Jap civilians killed...
many conservatives fought against participation in the WWII until Pearl Harbor...
The A bombs saved an estimated 500,000 American dead and wounded.
Casualties they were expecting were so high that every Purple Heart that has been given to American military dead and wounded since WWII ended is a leftover from those made and expected to have been given out as the result of an invasion of Japan.
Interesting points you make. But what if we are at war, and at war with people who don’t observe the civilized standards you cite? To say that American servicemen committed murder in World War II ignores the fact that legally we were at war.
And don’t forget the Bataan Death March or the horrible experiments the Japanese conducted on American POWs.
My father served in the Pacific (he’s still alive), and he’ll tell you what the Japanese did to the non-combatant natives he encountered on the various Pacific islands where he was stationed. He has no problems with the dropping of the bombs whatsoever.
When you are in a fight and you beat the other person to the ground, you ask them to give up. If they do not, you knock them to the ground again.
Finally if they don’t give up, you make it so they are no longer a threat.
Go back and read the NY Times from the past few weeks (in 1945) it was clear that Japan was beaten. They had been given several ultimatums. They refused to surrender.
If we let them starve, millions would have died and the long term effect would be horrible. By using the bomb we gave the emperor an out. There was no way to defend against its use, therefore no one was to blame for the defeat. Everyone retained face. They could accept peace with honor.
War sucks. But it was a risk management exercise. The cost of maintaining a standing army waiting for millions to starve and then invading versus killing thousands, getting a complete capitulation and a pacified population. Sometimes you have to accept the least bad choice.
God bless Roosevelt, Truman, Tibbets, Oppenheimer, my Uncle and the tens of thousands of others who brought the bomb to fruition. My Dad would have been storming the shores of Japan instead of being a Marine occupying our vanquished foe.
Not that much different.
The Rosenbergs made sure of that.
So if the Japanese hadn't surrendered after Nagasaki, the U.S. would have been justified in bombing every Japanese city to ashes in succession -- until there were no more Japanese people left alive?
What you've presented there is a case of post-factual justification using a rationale that only works in hindsight. Because the Japanese surrendered after two atomic bombs were dropped (as opposed to 50, 100, etc.), we can look back and feel vindicated that what we did was right.
Dunno. Remains to be seen, I guess!
Personally, I don’t think this is a “remains to be seen” scenario here. I think we’re already well on the way.
FDR was a traitor/Marxist who never wanted to fight his socialist pals Hitler and Mussolini but eventually had to pick sides when Hitler attacked the USSR.
Pearl Harbor got us into the Pacific War. But, had Hitler not turned on Stalin, I am sure Roosevelt would have sued for peace with Germany. Europe under National SOCIALIST rule was the Marxist dream come true. But Roosevelt could not allow the Bolshevik “paradise” to be wiped out. Had to save the Land of Lenin.
I must say, you have a novel viewpoint on it.
I’ve never heard before anyone suggest that FDR didn’t want to fight Hitler.
If you prefer some other moral standard, go right ahead. You'll know what you're rejecting.
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