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  jordan112 months ago

  "Let all souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.">>>>>

  Moral relativism. Was the murder of thousands of men sleeping on ships in Pearl Harbor not "evil?" Was the Baatan death march not "evil?" Were the people of the Phillipines not crying out for "their mothers to help them"?

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    SonOfTheMask2 months ago

    I wish it hadn't happened, but I agree with you. It is impossible to divorce Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the reality that imperial Japan had waged war against us for several years. These bombings must always be viewed in that context, not as isolated events that somehow reflect "evil" upon the United States.

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      tehranchik2 months ago

      I disagree son---those bombs were pure evil--no matter who used them.

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        SonOfTheMask2 months ago

        We'll have to respectfully disagree with each other. The bombs themselves are not good or evil - they are inanimate. What is good or evil (or somewhere in between) is the use of the bombs. I reject the idea that the use of the bombs is reflective of "pure evil" on the part of the designers, builders, and those that approved their use.

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          tehranchik2 months ago

          I guess what I don't really understand is how someone as intelligent, well read and articulate, as you son, can defend or explain, in the slightest way, the use of these evil creations. How can anyone creating or using these be anything but evil? These devices are not created for anything good--they are created for massive horrible death and destruction.

          You are correct. Anyone who had anything to do with the creation and use of these devices is evil with evil intentions. You have shown, with your comment, the user is the evil.

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            jordan112 months ago

            Why did anyone feel the need in the first place to develop such a mechanism of carnage? What events led up to the unthinkable being developed? Evil begets evil, in the will to survive.

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              Locky122 months ago

              To save the lives of millions who would have died in an invasion of mainland Japan.

              We got a quick surrender that way with the minimum further loss of American life.

              We made Japan surrender before Russia could get involved.

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              Georgia502 months ago

              The US felt the need because, as it turned out, Nazi Germany was within 6 months of their own A bomb. Fortunately we did not have to use the bomb on Germany, but we did not know where Japan's program stood. We did intercept heavy water in a German sub trying to get to Japan after Germany fell.

              There can be no doubting that development of the bomb was prudent and spared millions of would-be Axis victims.

              As to the bomb's use, merely the sortie over Tokyo en route to Nagasaki spared hundreds of thousands of Japanese. A coupe was underway on the Imperial Palace grounds. The approaching bomber triggered an air raid over Tokyo, leading to a blackout. In the confusion caused by the blackout, the coupe ultimately failed.

              Every Japanese victim at Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared other Japanese by an order of magnitude. The provincial officer leading the coupe did not care that the US had 19 aircraft carriers off or approaching Japan when bomb 2 went off.

              Tragic. Necessary.

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                Georgia502 months ago

                Side note: the Japanese officer leading the coupe had put the emperor under house arrest. He then went about the palace grounds looking for the surrender tape to be broadcast by radio to the Japanese people.

                If the sortie approaching Tokyo to drop bomb 2 on Nagasaki had not flown, the coupe might have succeeded. Had it succeeded, there would have been no surrender and Japan would have responded according to the training of its civilian corps: every available person would have been mobilized to oppose any invasion to the death. Those leading the coupe--consistent with Japanese military doctrine--considered death in battle to be honorable.

                The sortie flew. The coupe failed. The bomb was dropped. Japan surrendered. End of story.

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                  blinkers2 months ago

                  The first surrender tape was found, and the Emperor had to make another one, Georgia. The army coup you describe is a little known event and certainly indicates that the country was NOT preparing to surrender, as many many people claim.

                  "We will take to the hills and eat grass, and fight with sharpened bamboo sticks" was a common refrain, and anyone who's spent even an afternoon on the Kyushu or Honshu islands of Japan could readily see that it's excellent topography for defense and a nightmare for any attacker.

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                Georgia502 months ago

                And a less known factoid. More people died in Germany from incendiary bombs than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pictures of Dresden reveal far greater, more complete destruction than in either Japanese city.

                Care to guess how many Japanese living in wood and paper machete houses would have perished in similar bombing?

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                  blinkers2 months ago

                  Georgia, partially correct. The Tokyo firebombing took more lives -- at the time -- than the atomic attack on Hiroshima, but the city authorities in the latter city have been adding names to the list of casualties ever since the time the bomb was dropped. Thousands of names have been added as the years passed and people continue(d) to die of the effects of radiation. Hiroshima is now the single most deadly bomb attack of any kind.

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            SonOfTheMask2 months ago

            As I said, I think this is a topic where we will respectfully disagree. My position is that the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not an act of "pure evil" and neither was the design and development of the weapon in the first place. Your position is that they were. I don't see any common ground.

            I appreciate the complimentary remarks and return them in full. And, despite our lack of agreement here, at least we share an appreciation for science fiction movies.

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            DropkickaLib2 months ago

            Save that speech for Ahmadinejad.

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            HannibalBarca2 months ago

            tchik: I find this a hard subject to define.

            One reason that Albert E. was not on the Manhattan Project was his views on the bomb.

            But at the same time the Manhattan Project was not the only research on atomic weapons, if the enemy had them first I am sure they would have used them; not that this is an excuse, just a grim reality.

            Secondly, no one really knew what they were really dealing with, there were no studies on the after effects, as I am sure the US Army would not have used their soldiers as test subjects if they knew.

            Is it evil though? probably, as is the machine gun which has killed more than those bombs did, WW! showed that.

            But man has always been warlike.

            In fact the most soldiers killed in one day of battle happened in 216 BC (read it somewhere)at Cannae where Hannibal destroyed the Roman army, and this was with swords.

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              Endoscopy2 months ago

              The big reason that Einstein was not involved is because of security considerations. He was German. However he was consulted several times by those doing the work and helped the project from a distance.

              This story does not tell a true story. We were going to invade Japan. The name of the operation was "downfall". There was a book by that title that took the American and Japanese plans and wrote a book based on them and the way the Okinawa battle went. Keep in mind that at that time the Japanese believed they would win in the end.

              The Japanese guessed correctly where we were going to invade. The first months of battle were guessed by that book to have about 300,000 Japanese military and civilians casualties at over 300,000 and the US military to have over 45,000 casualties. That is as far as the battle was covered in the book. As in Okinawa the Japanese civilians became combatants using anything at hand.

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                Endoscopy2 months ago

                Military experts estimated that it would cost the Japanese over 1,000,000 casualties and the military over 100,000 casualties. This is what dropping the bombs saved the Japanese and us.

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                  RickyDawkins2 months ago

                  Other experts cite MUCH lower figures.

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                    Endoscopy2 months ago

                    Are you talking about those who deny what was found in Japan after the war?

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                      HannibalBarca2 months ago

                      No, just a different point from what he has learned.

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              richtech2 months ago

              For HannibalBarca - Here's the info on 216 BC Hannibal defeats a Roman force of 70,000

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/216_BC

              The Carthaginian general, Hannibal, moves his forces southward through Italy and seizes the large army supply depot at Cannae on the Aufidus River.

              2 August â;; The Battle of Cannae (east of Naples) ends in victory for Hannibal whose 40,000-man army defeats a Roman force of 70,000 led by consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus (who is killed in the battle) and Gaius Terentius Varro.

              So, you like the name Hannibal?

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            cloud152 months ago

            tehranchik,

            While you may view these weapons as "evil" after it was all said and done they actually saved lives, time and money,

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              RickyDawkins2 months ago

              it MAY have saved lives.

              not "actually".

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            kobzikov2 months ago

            "You are correct. Anyone who had anything to do with the creation and use of these devices is evil with evil intentions."

            It is hard not to resort to emotional arguments on the subject matter, but I would say that Leo Szilard, the man directly responsible for creation of atom bomb was not evil.

            He and a lot of other scientists who worked on the bomb tried to stop US from using it on Japan.

            Leo Szilard was a genius, a visionary, and a humanitarian.

            "We turned the switch, we saw the flashes, we watched them for about ten minutes â;; and then we switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow..."

            -Leo Szilard

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              kobzikov2 months ago

              "Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"

              "But, again, don't misunderstand me. The only conclusion we can draw is that governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect."

              -Leo Szilard

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                RickyDawkins2 months ago

                and if both sides had developed the bomb at the same time?

                we'd all probably be extinct.

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                  xlegultx2 months ago

                  Germany couldn't deliver it unless they bomb themselves.

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              tehranchik2 months ago

              kobzikov---I'll give you genius and visionary, humanitarian--no. What humanitarian would create such destruction? Then try to stop the people he was working for from using it? I've found from wikipedia a meaning of humanitarianism. Building weapons of mass destruction isn't included in the description.

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                tehranchik2 months ago

                wikipedia:

                Humanitarianism is based on a view that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such. Therefore, humanitarians work towards advancing the well-being of humanity as a whole. It is the antithesis of the "us vs. them" mentality that characterizes tribalism and ethnic nationalism. Humanitarians abhor slavery, violation of basic and human rights, and discrimination on the basis of features such as colour of skin, religion, ancestry, place of birth, etc. Humanitarianism drives people to save lives, alleviate suffering and promote human dignity in the middle of man-made or natural disasters. Humanitarianism is embraced by movements and people across the political spectrum. The informal ideology can be summed up by a quote from Albert Schweitzer: "Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose."

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                kobzikov2 months ago

                "What humanitarian would create such destruction? Then try to stop the people he was working for from using it?"

                First of all, Szilard did not create the destruction wrought by the atom bombs, he tried to stop it. As far as I know human beings aren't perfect; we all make mistakes, even humanitarians. Szilard spend the rest of his life trying to turn the doomsday clock backward and stop the arms race.

                Before passing judgment for the mistake that he tried to correct could you at least read the chronological biography of his life:

                http://www.dannen.com/chronbio.html

                If you still think he is evil, then I have a couple of questions that I'd like to ask you.

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                memestryker2 months ago

                tehranchik,

                There is always competition for more advanced weaponry, because ruthless tyrants and wannabe ruthless tyrants are an unfortunate fact of life, just like school bullies.

                Also, no one really knew what bombs of that power would actually do, including the designers--it was mostly theoretical and studies had been smaller scale.

                The fact is that heads of nations aren't always humanitarians, or even if they believe they are, their methods might not look that way to others.

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          RickyDawkins2 months ago

          Have you read Hiroshima, by John Hersey?

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(book)

          I highly recommend it.

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            SonOfTheMask2 months ago

            I have not. Thanks for the recommendation.

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              RickyDawkins2 months ago

              another recommendation:

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_M...

              (experiences in a Nazi concentration camp)

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                Endoscopy2 months ago

                I got to listen to a first hand account of the Death March of Bataan and what happened to the prisoners there. I worked with a survivor.

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                gamahuche2 months ago

                Great book, R.

                Re Hiroshima the book which really got me was Robert Jungk's "Brighter than a Thousand Suns".

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          mark-stevens2 months ago

          The fire raids on Tokyo killed more then either a-bomb

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        DropkickaLib2 months ago

        Operation Olympic, the planned invasion of Japan had estimated U.S. casualties of one million. We're actually still using that supply of Purple Heart Medals. Japanese casualties would have been infinitely higher, particularly now that we know that the Japanese were planning a suicidal last ditch defense involving poorly armed civilians. The Japanese had collected thousands of suicide boats and aircraft in caves in anticipation of this attack. The atom bombs signalled the futility of continued resistance to the Emperor, who finally and barely reigned in the militarists.

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          blinkers2 months ago

          You're spot on with that Dropk. Operation Olympic, the American plan to invade Kyushu would have been horrendous with valley-by-valley battles, pockets of defenders everywhere, and resistance to the last man, the norm. I've heard of estimates of a 5-year campaign.

          One interesting side point (from the Pulitzer prize-winning study by Herbert Blix -- "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan"), is that it might have been the growing signs that his people were turning against him, rather than the atomic attack (or the Soviets entering the war against Japan) that convinced the Emperor to surrender. I find that a chilling thought.

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            DropkickaLib2 months ago

            There's no doubt that there was discontent in the Home Islands but the Japanese military secret police would have kept that in check. By 1945, we had largely destroyed the Japanese merchant fleet and there were shortages of everything, particularly food. The atom bomb was a tremendous shock for an already war weary nation. Japan did, however, have the resources and the determination for a final last ditch stand.

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        Lincoln852 months ago

        those bombs were pure evil no matter who used them? even in self defense?..even Jesus unleashed some righteous anger in the temple and chased the evil one's out. Oh yea..I did go there..I used His name. Jesus believed in peace but wrath was also brought upon evil ones. The philosophy of liberal men and women is further evidence of the pussification of America. I have used the term before...but do not feel like giving it up quite yet. In the concentration camps...liberals would have been the one telling the nazis who is planning to escape for the extra piece of bread...disgusting. Can't wait for your votes on this one.

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        BigBadJohn6662 months ago

        I disagree son---those bombs were pure evil--no matter who used them.

        Yes, we shouldn't have used them. We should have let the Japanese people of that era rule the world. We wouldn't have the population problem of today because they would have killed most of the world's population just like the evil islamamadans would do if they ever get control of the world. Come on ahmadineajad, lets get those bombs ready so you can rid the earth of us infidels and make these brainless socialist lefties happy.

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      RickyDawkins2 months ago

      Truman's Chief of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, wrote,

      "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.. 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."

      In a post-war interview, Eisenhower told a journalist, "..the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

      General Henry Arnold, Commanding General of the Air Force during World War II, wrote "It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."

      http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2003/08/01_...

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        DropkickaLib2 months ago

        Immediately following the war, U.S. leaders weren't aware of the extensive preparations that the Japanese military made for a suicidal last stand. The Japanese has suffered numerous defeats prior to the bombing but the Emperor needed something shocking and unpredicted like this to trump the militarists who had hijacked control of the government.

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          DropkickaLib2 months ago

          Subsequent scholarship has uncovered many facts unknown during and shortly after WWII.

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            blinkers2 months ago

            You're correct again, with these comments, Dropk. Eisenhower's claim that the Japanese were ready to surrender was inaccurate. There was far more fighting capability in the country than ther Aliies suspected, at the time.

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        Mdiar2 months ago

        They were, actually. But prior to the use of the atomic bomb the Allied powers offered terms of surrender to Japan. Japan refused. It was the pride of Japan that led to the bombs being use; eventually the terms of surrender they accepted were the same ones offered prior to the use of the bombs. Japan was told they would suffer destruction if they did not except the terms the first time. In fact evidence exists that Japan's original strategy with the war against the United States was a brief conflict that they fight to a draw or loss, a fast peace treaty and that they keep some of there gains.

        Of course, two sides exist to this issue. I don't condone the use of the nuclear weaponry; I simply state that it is not the grand evil of the United States people make it out to be. The weapons were used as a demoralizing agent against the Japanese and a way of demonstrating the strength of them to the world. This show of strength, arguably, led to years of relative peace.

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        Endoscopy2 months ago

        The ones that were saying the Japanese were on the verge of collapse were mistaken. After the surrender we had their plans to defend the Japanese Islands. It was as if they read our minds and defended where Operation Downfall was going to hit. Keep in mind that the Japanese were in just as bad of a situation a couple of times before but they won out. One time a storm sunk an invading fleet. Here is a book that looks at what would have happened if no bombs had been dropped.

        http://www.amazon.com/Downfall-End-Imperial-Jap...

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      mark-stevens2 months ago

      The fire raids on Tokyo killed more then either a-bomb.

      Killing is killing

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    cowboygrandpa2 months ago

    jordan11:

    Exactly!!! How many of us wouldn't be here today if the bombs hadn't been dropped.

    The militarist generals and admirals in Japan wanted to fight until all were dead.

    I'm sorry for the people who were killed.

    Blame their government. They attacked us and we fought back hard. They wouldn't accept the terms of surrender. They paid the price of their foolishness.

    They were given ample chances and warnings and chose to ignore it.

    Yeah revisionist history. Doesn't work for me.

    The lives we saved world wide compared to the lives taken.

    Although cold blooded, well worth the terribleness of it.

    That is why we haven't had a major World War since.

    For those who think we were wrong.

    Go fight in a bloody war and see if you don't want to have your leaders do what they must to win.

    We were facing killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, plus losing over a hundred thousand or more of our men.

    Japan made the wrong choice.

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      RickyDawkins2 months ago

      I recommend you read Hiroshima, by John Hersey

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(book)

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        cowboygrandpa2 months ago

        RD:

        Read it years ago. I reccomend you read. Pappy Boyingtons book. It has some details of being a POW under the Japanese.

        Also read Ghost Soldiers. About the soldiers captured in the Phillipines and how they were treated and murdered by their Japanese captors.

        You also might try talking to some of the vets who fought the Japanese in WWII before they are all gone.

        They were not a nation of lovable people looking for justice. They murdered how many in the Rape and pillaging of Nanking?

        Please do not try to place the dropping of the atomic bombs on the scale of the horrible atrocities that led to the decision having to be made.

        How about the women they forced to serve as sexual slaves for the troops during the war?

        Or the many murdered for their refusal to bow down to the Imperial highness?

        There is so much more to the war than the atomic bombs.

        I don't hate America I love her!!!!!

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          RickyDawkins2 months ago

          "Please do not try to place the dropping of the atomic bombs on the scale of the horrible atrocities that led to the decision having to be made."

          Pile of bologna, pops.

          One hundred thousand innocent civilians, dying slowly in agony over 3 weeks time because they have no skin left. They never even knew what hit them.

          That is right up there with any atrocity in history you can name.

          http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace/voices/en-...

          "While I was with the unit, a rumor went around that dysentery was rampant in Nagasaki and a patient would die soon after passing bloody feces. I suspect this was not dysentery but rather a symptom of the most seriously ill. Around the time that I arrived there, people who until then had seemed to have nothing wrong were now showing symptoms such as hair loss, the light purple patches on the skin caused by bleeding, sores in the mouth, bleeding from the gums, and then they would develop a high fever and die within a few days."

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            DropkickaLib2 months ago

            The Japanese had large reserves in the Home Islands and planned a suicidal last ditch defense. There was an excellent article in Military History Quarterly a couple of years ago that provided the historical background to the planned Operation Olympic, including the extensive Japanese military preparations.

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            SonOfTheMask2 months ago

            I refer you to the Nanking Massacre:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

            I understand that one atrocity does not justify another atrocity. However, I ask that you compare the actions of Imperial Japan in its systematic massacre of Nanking over a month, including the rape of women and girls, to the use of the atomic bombs. The vast majority of Americans, including the military, had no knowledge of the atomic bombs. Compare that to the Japanese military forces that were in Nanking. I believe the # of deaths in Nanking were comparable to Hiroshima, but I may be mistaken.

            In any case, I assert that the Japanese rape of Nanking was far more evil than the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

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              RickyDawkins2 months ago

              "I assert that the Japanese rape of Nanking was far more evil than the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima."

              See the movie "Hotel Rwanda".

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

              Then you may resume ranking the evilness of various atrocities, if you still feel it necessary.

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                blinkers2 months ago

                I have seen the A-Bomb dome in Hiroshima and visited its peace museum on a number of occasions, RD. It is one of the starkest most hideous museums imaginable, awful suffering and horrors are depicted with typical Japanese thoroghness. When I first visited, in 1982, there was absolutely NO MENTION of any wartime context. It was intended to promote, exclusively, a notion of victimhood, on the part of the Japanese, and yes, the uninformed visitor could easily come away thinking "What kind of people could do this?" The results of the bombing were successfully divorced from any cause and effect relationship.

                It is only during the last 10 years or so, that a small but expanding corner of the museum has displayed maps and photos indicating Japan's Pacific war, providing visitors with a proper perspective.

                Having rampaged across much of China, S.E.Asia and the Pacific, butchering over 20 million, it could be said that Japan's casualties, c3 million, were comparatively light.

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            jordan112 months ago

            Pile of bologna, pops.

            One hundred thousand innocent civilians, dying slowly in agony over 3 weeks time because they have no skin left. >>>>

            Are you saying no one died slowly at the hands of the Japanese? Why are you refusing to acknowledge what they did? I grew up with girls whose mother was from the Philippines, & their father an American serviceman who married her after the war. She had a child, and was lined up by Japanese soldiers with the people of her village. A Japanese soldier walked up to her, feigning to admire her baby. He took the little boy, a few months old, threw him into the air and the child came down on the end of the bastards knife. Took him a while to die. It's a horrible shame about the Japanese children who died from the bomb. It's a horrible shame what the Japanese people did to the children of the Philippines & the children of China, & throughout Asia. Yes, it's all a shame, that could have been avoided. The Japanese need to admit how

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              RickyDawkins2 months ago

              I said that the atrocities are comparable.

              Are you saying that they are not?

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                Endoscopy2 months ago

                Absolutely not.

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                jordan112 months ago

                I'm saying that we had to stop that war. I'm saying there would have been no bomb dropped on Japan if Japan hadn't attacked a huge portion of the world. I'm saying the bomb wouldn't have been dropped if hundreds of thousands of people hadn't died at the hands of the Japanese. Of course the bomb was an atrocity by its measure. But I'm sorry, in my world of reality, there is no way I can access the bomb without consideration of why it was done in the first place. And what I find particularly disheartening about this story, is that the Japanese have yet to take responsibility for their hand in pushing the buttons that led us to this form of self defense. The alternative would have been to let them continue slaughtering and murdering and raping & torturing tens of thousands more. Sorry, I can't go along with that.

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                  Mdiar2 months ago

                  It wasn't the fault of the people of Japan. It was the fault of the nationalistic leaders, if blame must be assigned. I think a clear distinction must be made here.

                  I prefer to believe blame in such events should not be assigned.

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                    Endoscopy2 months ago

                    Unfortunately you don't understand the Japanese mindset at that time. The Emperor was the God King. He was worshiped. Whatever he said was done. The problem was he was surrounded by the military people who spoke for him. They believed that they would win in the end because that had happened every time before. Kamikaze means Divine Wind. It was the name they gave a storm that sunk an invading fleet. Therefore they knew they could not lose. All Japanese believed that. They believed if they fought hard enough they would win. After all their God was in the flesh with them.

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                      Mdiar2 months ago

                      I still assert the blame should not be placed on the people of Japan. The blame should go to those who rejected the generous terms of surrender that the allies offered and were brainwashing the people into believing the things that you just stated as well as the Americans being monsters. I really don't believe blame should be assigned, but if it must go anywhere, it should go there.

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                      blinkers2 months ago

                      Endo, I'm invariably on the other side to you, of any argument, but you're correct on this. The Emperor was a puppet in the hands of the military, but still could have spoken if he did not agree with one action or another (this happened once, before WW2). He was clearly satisfied with the advance into China and the ocupation of Manchuria.

                      The citizenry, devoutly nationalist, generally believed that whatever was done in the name of the Emperor must be correct. In the martial climate of the 1930s, war was always going to be likely.

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                    jordan112 months ago

                    It wasn't the fault of the people of Japan. It was the fault of the nationalistic leaders, if blame must be assigned. I think a clear distinction must be made here.>>>>

                    Is there no responsibility owned for what a country's government does? Is it reasonable to say that to stop the atrocities of one government over another country's people, the offending country's people are 'off limits?; Was it evil then, that we bombed Germany & killed thousands of civilians?

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                      Mdiar2 months ago

                      I'm not saying they are off limits. You misunderstand me. I am stating that it is not the fault of the people of Japan what the government did. A distinction should be made, as far as responsibility goes, between the leaders and the people. However, all the Japanese civilian deaths are the responsibility of regime who put them in that situation in the first place.

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                        jordan112 months ago

                        You're right. I misunderstood you, & my apologies.

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                          Mdiar2 months ago

                          Don't worry, it happens.

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                  RickyDawkins2 months ago

                  They were willing to die for their country.

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                    Endoscopy2 months ago

                    No!!! They were willing to die for their Emperor. He was their God. Their belief was that it was very dishonorable if they were captured so they committed suicide many times by doing a suicide attack when they were facing defeat. Since it was dishonorable to be captured they treated anybody they captured with disdain for dishonorable scum. That is why they treated the prisoners and captured territory that way. They felt these people were less than human. This is the people some say were just going to surrender without either the bomb or invasion.

                    They are still one of the most prejudices people about mixed marriages.

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                      RickyDawkins2 months ago

                      It was one and the same to them, obviously.

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                      blinkers2 months ago

                      Again mostly true, Endo. But another point about the Japanese fighting man during the Pacific war, he simply did not know HOW to surrender, the term (and the concept) did not exist in military training.

                      (By the way, the number of mixed marriages is soaring -- mostly Japanese women marrying foreign men).

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            Endoscopy2 months ago

            Compare that to the over 1,000,000 estimated Japanese casualties if we had invaded.

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          DropkickaLib2 months ago

          Wow, cowboygrandpa. I'm impressed. I completely agree with you on this issue. I wanted to make sure that you knew that since I've sparred with you enough at other times.

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    DropkickaLib2 months ago

    jordan11...what's this? I completely agree with you!

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    Codi69342 months ago

    You forgot what the Japanese did to Naking, China.

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  Spadecaller2 months ago

  Horrors of such proportions like Hiroshima and Nagasaki leave me speechless and feeling helpless to communicate.

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    Endoscopy2 months ago

    What about the worse horrors if we had not dropped the bombs and instead invaded. Estimated 1,000,000 Japanese casualties. Which is worse.

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      Spadecaller2 months ago

      Endo:

      Exactly what aspect of my comment do you disagree with?

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  tehranchik2 months ago

  This is a time that we all need to FEEL the past.

  Very nice RickyD.

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    DropkickaLib2 months ago

    Feel the Rape of Nanking and understand why the Japanese had to be stopped.

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      tehranchik2 months ago

      The Japanese are responsible for their actions as we are responsible for our own actions. Hiroshima didn't have to happen to stop the Japanese.

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        DropkickaLib2 months ago

        A million surviving U.S. veterans of the war say that you're wrong. In any case, more people died in incendiary raids on Tokyo than in the atomic bomb attacks. Would it have been better to continue those? I don't think so. Read about the Japanese preparations for a final stand that have come to light since the war. Extensive scholarship has documented massive preparations for large scale suicide attacks against the U.S. invasion force. Need I remind you that a military coup nearly derailed the Emperor's surrender decision at the last minute?

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  jimdoze2 months ago

  All the more reason to stop Iran in its tracks.

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  Charlson2 months ago

  I hope we never have another Hiroshima or Nagasaki but I feel that the next WMD will be detonated by terrorists.

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  Destry2 months ago

  Yes, atomic weapons are hideous but in the case involving Japan this weapon saved millions of lives. The japs were NOT ready to surrender, study their history, they were willing to fight to the death. It is a shame the war had to be ended in this matter but absolutely necessary. I too hope nobody has to resort to using such weapons in the future, but I believe it is just a matter of time until someone does.

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    RickyDawkins2 months ago

    Many myths have grown up around the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that have the effect of making the use of nuclear weapons more palatable. One such myth is that there was no choice but to use nuclear weapons on these cities. Another is that doing so saved the lives of in excess of one million US soldiers. Underlying these myths is a more general myth that US leaders can be expected to do what is right and moral. To conclude that our leaders did the wrong thing by acting immorally at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, slaughtering civilian populations, flies in the face of this widespread understanding of who we are as a people. To maintain our sense of our own decency, reflected by the actions of our leaders, may require us to bend the facts to fit our myths.

    Because of our myths about the benefits of using nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is a tendency to view nuclear weapons in a positive light.

    http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2003/08/01_...

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      DropkickaLib2 months ago

      Not a myth. Japanese plans to suicidally defend the Home Islands are well documented, including the hording of thousands of Kamakaze aircraft and suicide boats in caves. This revisionist history is a myth.

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