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Why dropping the bomb 70 years ago was necessary, and why we need to be ready to do it again
The National Post ^ | August 9, 2015 | George Jonas

Posted on 08/09/2015 10:16:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, shortly after 8:00 a.m. local time, a lone American B-29 was conducting what seemed to be a reconnaissance flight at high altitude over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At about 16 minutes after 8:00, the aircraft released an object over the centre of town. Attached to parachutes, the object floated down slowly enough to give the four-engine Boeing Superfortress time to turn and lumber out of the airspace.

The atom bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet above the centre of Hiroshima. The devastation was cataclysmic. Immediate casualties, dead and injured, numbered approximately 115,000. This didn’t include another 60,000 who would succumb within a year to the effects of radiation. Three days later, a second similar device was released over the city of Nagasaki, with only slightly less devastating results.

Seventy years passed since the first and only atomic bombs to be used against human populations had been deployed. It wasn’t a modern-day Napoleon, but U.S. President Harry S. Truman who had the warship Indianapolis load the Hiroshima bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy” (the crew called the Nagasaki bomb “Fat Man”) for delivery to Tinian Island in the northwestern Pacific.

It wasn’t at the command of a megalomaniacal tyrant, but a former small-town shopkeeper, that a weapon capable of wiping out all life on Earth came to be transferred into the bomb-bay of an aircraft whose pilot, Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, named his Superfortress “Enola Gay” after his mother. The most destructive force in human history was first deployed by ordinary people serving the world’s greatest democracy.

It took another week for Japanese Emperor Hirohito to address his loyal subjects in the “Jewell Voice” broadcast of August 15, announcing his country’s acceptance of the Joint Declaration of Potsdam...

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; Japan
KEYWORDS: 1945; 19450819450806; atomicbomb; b29; enolagay; fatman; harrystruman; harrytruman; hiroshima; indianapolis; littleboy; nagasaki; nuclearweapons; pailtibbets; paultibbets; tibbets; tinian; truman; ussindianapolis
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I love how they've built up their victim status since then, as if they didn't start the war.
1 posted on 08/09/2015 10:16:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It would be an act of kindness. The Japanese are the nicest people around now. Very pacifist. They used to be fanatic flaming A-holes.
Im imagining a moslem world post “attitude adjustment”.


2 posted on 08/09/2015 10:23:06 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Us or them. period.


3 posted on 08/09/2015 10:28:50 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Aug 7, 1945 New York Times quoted the Japanese Domei news agency accusing the U.S. Of breaking international warfare law and social injustice. They began playing the victim card immediately after Hiroshima! I was astonished to read that.


4 posted on 08/09/2015 10:28:57 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

As far as I am able to discover, Little Boy (Uranium weapon) did not use “parachutes” to slow its decent ... And Fat Man was in no way “similar” to Little Boy ... Fat Man was a plutonium weapon. The only reason that the destructive power of this plutonium device was not fully realized on Nagasaki was because of the surrounding hills that deflected much of the blast.


5 posted on 08/09/2015 10:30:13 PM PDT by WTFOVR (I find myself exclaiming that expression quite often these days!)
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To: SpaceBar

One of my great uncles was machinegunned over france. Another got a bullet between his eyes in some butt suck south pacific island as a seabee. gfys


6 posted on 08/09/2015 10:32:19 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SpaceBar

And if I had any say in it, I’d let Hitler take it.


7 posted on 08/09/2015 10:34:12 PM PDT by SpaceBar (h)
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To: WTFOVR
The only reason that the destructive power of this plutonium device was not fully realized on Nagasaki was because of the surrounding hills that deflected much of the blast.

I read that too. It was off target, and the blast went up a valley - largely comprised of the largest Christian community in Japan if not Asia.

8 posted on 08/09/2015 10:36:28 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Art of War is quite educational:

“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”


9 posted on 08/09/2015 10:38:48 PM PDT by Up Yours Marxists
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The article didn’t go into any details of how we would do it again, let alone be ready to do it again. Dropping it on Teheran or a couple cities in Iran won’t do it to stop Islamic fanatics. They’re like an infestation everywhere in the Middle East and elsewhere. The analogy of using nuclear bombs doesn’t fit against Islamic terror.


10 posted on 08/09/2015 10:39:58 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: roadcat

Bummer.


11 posted on 08/09/2015 10:41:41 PM PDT by eddie willers
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To: roadcat

Yes, and conspiracy nutjobs are fond of asserting that such outcome was purposefully designed by the “masonic jooooooos” - so to get rid of all the Japanese Catholics ... to which I typically reply (after the standard eye roll) “Oh please, get a life!”


12 posted on 08/09/2015 11:07:00 PM PDT by WTFOVR (I find myself exclaiming that expression quite often these days!)
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To: roadcat

The Japanese fanatics infested every inch of the pacific and the Japanese islands. You have to go to the Islamic world and utterly break their hearts.
It can be done. But they correctly perceive that we do not have the will.


13 posted on 08/09/2015 11:08:54 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office)
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To: DesertRhino
You have to go to the Islamic world and utterly break their hearts.

My point is that using nukes to combat Islamic terrorism is a fail. Muslims are everywhere in the world, and it won't stop them. Personally, I think the solution is to expose their religion for what it is, a culture of death. Then we take out their places of worship in the Middle East. Start with Mecca, and lesser places of worship. Do it with non-nuclear tactics, using our military and those of our allies. Break the radical leaders ability to lead. Ramp it up. Once we do that, the moderate muslims will step in and rein in the radicals. Of course, we have to remove Obama and his cohorts first in order to have the will to win. Plus getting our "leaders" to acknowledge that Islamic terror is a problem. A daunting task at the moment. Taking out Teheran with a nuke won't help. Taking out their religious underpinnings will.

14 posted on 08/09/2015 11:46:33 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: DesertRhino

At least that is what they want you to think....


15 posted on 08/09/2015 11:59:05 PM PDT by GeronL (Cruz is for real, 100%)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Japan routinely carried out atrocities for a decade and then cry foul when the nukes dropped.


16 posted on 08/09/2015 11:59:53 PM PDT by GeronL (Cruz is for real, 100%)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Japanese should use the anniversary to apologize to the U.S. (And the world) for starting the war.

And they need to do it every year.

If the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor, the atomic bomb may never have been created.


17 posted on 08/10/2015 12:15:18 AM PDT by Cowboy Bob (Isn't it funny that Socialists never want to share their own money?)
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To: roadcat
The article didn’t go into any details of how we would do it again, let alone be ready to do it again.

It is an easy couple of sentences to overlook but I think they are the most profound in the article.

The result of nations agreeing to actually abide by a ban-the-bomb treaty would lead to no nuclear weapons in the hands of any but rogue nations, such as North Korea. It’s unnecessary to spell out what that would mean. The law is a great instrument to use against the law-abiding. Using it against the lawless works only in conjunction with force, which is what you give up when you disarm yourself hoping that the lawless will follow suit.

He is saying if we want the lawless states to follow the law we have to be ready to use force (the Bomb).

He is also saying that if we unilaterally disarm (nuclear) we give up that ability to persuade states like Iran that we will use the bomb against them if they acquire nuclear weapons.

I wish Obama could spend a little time with the author. But even if he did this fellow would have work really hard I think to come down to Obama’s intellectual level.

18 posted on 08/10/2015 12:34:48 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: DesertRhino
It would be an act of kindness. The Japanese are the nicest people around now. Very pacifist. They used to be fanatic flaming A-holes.

When I was stationed in Germany, I thought the Germans were quite pacifist as well. Two world wars can do that to them.

19 posted on 08/10/2015 2:18:27 AM PDT by Mark17 (How could anyone suspend himself upon a cross and die for me, die willingly, to set us free.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Tactical nuclear weapons or the really BIG ones?


20 posted on 08/10/2015 2:24:23 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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