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-Lurid Crime Tales-
U.S. should review justification of atomic bombings of Japan (wretched tool preaches revision)
2009-01-27
Here in the States, this has in fact been under review continuously since 1945. Perhaps this is news to the average Japanese, just like the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking.
Former President George W. Bush said during an ABC interview aired in December that the "biggest regret" of his presidency was the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for which the U.S. waged the war. His statement virtually acknowledges it was a war without a cause.
Strawman, but we shall proceed:
It's too late for regrets, but what about Japan? The Japanese government did support the U.S.-led war on Iraq, but it has now fallen silent as if the war is someone else's affair. Are we simply going to evade the issue by saying it was a decision by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi?

If we are to maintain such an ambiguous attitude, we might as well accept the rise of people in the future who would say it was right for Japan to support the Iraq War. It is extremely important to determine how we perceive history.
You could start by telling your school kids the simple truth about World War 2 and the avanlanche of barbarism the Japanese militarists unleashed on the people of east Asia.
Turning to President Barack Obama, I admire him for aiming to abolish nuclear weapons as the ultimate global goal, and I expect a lot from him. Because of this respect, I want him to change the U.S. belief that justifies the atomic bombings of Japan, which has been upheld by successive U.S. presidents.
Barack can spout all the lefty talking points he likes, but he has no control over "American belief."
Atomic bombs are not conventional weapons. Radioactive substances that penetrate into human bodies harm tissue cells. Damaged cells keep making damaged copies. Atomic bombs bring fear to numerous generations to follow.
Bayonets and swords that penetrate into human calls also harm tissue cells, lots of them. Just ask the folk in Nanking.
Atomic bombs are diabolic weapons that should never have been used. I will keep saying this even after I go to the next world. Because they should not be used, they obviously should not be possessed in the first place.
See if you can persuade your friends in Tehran and Beijing, then we'll talk.
If President Obama is to make a step forward over a mere "change" in the presidency, and is willing to push for nuclear abolition, he should first review the justification of the atomic bombings. (By Chikahiro Hiroiwa, Expert Senior Writer, Mainichi Shimbun)
In the best Rantburg tradition, what is a serious subject like this without a little joke?

A tenth grade history teacher is frustrated with her apathetic class. She decides to turn it into a game.

"Ok, class, I am going to give you a quote from history; you give me a name and a year for it. Ok? Ready?" The class stares blankly at her.

"First one is 'Give me liberty or give me death!'"

All the kids sit there glassy-eyed except this little Japanese boy sitting right at the front of the class. He raises his hand and snaps, "Patrick Henry, 1771!."
"Good, excellent," says the teacher. "The next one is 'I have not yet begun to fight.' Who said that and when did he say it?"
Again, the American kids are clueless, but the Japanese youngster pipes right up, "John Paul Jones, 1778!"

This goes on for a while and the exasperated teacher gives up, but not without a lecture, "You know, I'm ashamed of you young people who were born here. We have this young man from Japan, I happen to know he's only lived here six months, and he literally knows more about your history than all of you put together!"

She turns to write something on the board and someone at the back of the room grumbles, "Just fuck them Japanese anyway!"

Enraged, the teacher spins around and demands, "Who said that? WHO SAID THAT!?"

An American kid calmly raises his hand and says, "Harry Truman, 1945."
Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy

#26  My Dad was in the Marines on Okinawa. He related the awful carnage on both sides. Including civilians. After the fighting, we were stockpiling and staging literally miles of rows of equipment. All the survivors in Dad's outfit felt that if they went in on the invasion, their number would be up.

My step-father was an officer in charge of arming aerially placed mines from B-29s. Japan was getting choked.

Despite howls from revisionists, the 2 atomic bombs were the shock that finally brought Japan to its senses, and saved millions of lives on both sides.

Japan has never really apologized to its victims for its agressive war and the victims. In the United States, for all our warts, we do mea culpa big time, and some even make money on it.

We rebuilt Japan and made it into the world's economic powerhouse. If the Soviets took over Japan, they would have done things far differently. See what they did to Paulus' army at Stalingrad after the war.

As far as the lefty revisionists go, they can FOAD. The fact of the matter is that you can unilaterally disarm, but you can be subject to nuclear blackmail if your buddies in Russia, Pakistan, and China do not play fair.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2009-01-27 21:09  

#25  To rebuild any post-Invasion, destroyed JAPAN, infrastructure to population, MACARTHUR or other would likely had supported the importation of many millions of CHINESE + OTHER ASIAN LABORERS, OFFERING BOTH WORK AND RESIDENCY [ read, LEGAL INTER-ETHNIC MARRIAGE + PROPERTY OWNERSHIP]

IOW, JAPAN COULD BE PART OF "CHINA", ETC. NOW - NO LONGER "JAPANESE", OR IN THE ALTERN SURVIVING ETHNIC JAPANESE COULD BE A [weak/declining?] MINORITY IN THEIR OWN ANCESTRAL HOMELAND???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2009-01-27 19:47  

#24  P.S.

The order of battle above is only for the first Japanese Island of Kyushu 14,000 Sq miles.

After Kyushu there would be potential invasions of Shikoku, Hokkaido and the big island of Honshu. Not to mention some 3,000 smaller islands, all in all a total size a little less than California.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2009-01-27 19:42  

#23  ah...to quit sending...
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-01-27 19:38  

#22  Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2,500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks.

The Japanese command had finally been convince in the latter stages of Okinawa that for the defense of the home islands, to quite sending the Kamikazes after the capital and other combat ships and instead concentrate on the troop ships. Imagine the hike in that death rate when whole shiploads of troops in a liberty ship took a single hit.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-01-27 19:37  

#21  US military casualties would've been in the few Milyuhns, wid deaths in 00,000's - THE RISK WAS VERY REAL, HOWEVER, THAT JAPAN AS A PEOPLE COULD'VE BEEN ALL BUT EXTERMINATED FIGHTING A US INVASION.

The atomic bombings not only saved American lives, but Japan as well.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2009-01-27 19:35  

#20  Okinawa 922 Square Miles
Japanese troops est 85,000 plus Okinawan conscripts.

US casulties 48,000 including 12,000 KIA.
Japanese Military 127,000 KIA.
Okinawan civilians est over 100,000 killed.
248 Allied ships were damaged while another 36 were sunk.
Combat Fatigue was the highest rate of the war (48%). 14,000 were retired as unfit for further duty.

Japan 143,619 Sq Miles
Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2,500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks. In August 1945, however, unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese still had 5,651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types.

On Kyushu the odds would be 3 to 2 in favor of the Japanese, with 790,000 enemy defenders against 550,000 Americans. This time the bulk of the Japanese defenders would not be the poorly trained and ill-equipped labor battalions that the Americans had faced in the earlier campaigns.

You do the math.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2009-01-27 19:20  

#19  The Japanese have a huge amount of respect and affection for MacArthur. Also, he wrote the constitution for their post-War government, which has served them well over the past 60+ years.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder   2009-01-27 19:15  

#18  My Dad always said the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more Japanese than it killed.

He was an officer in the Navy.

He was told at some briefings that they expected the US to have over 1.5 million casualties in the Operation Cornet invasion.

He was also told that every man woman and child was armed with spears, old guns, swords, knives, etc. and were prepared to fight us. The Imperial Army had pulled their best troops out of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and were holding them for the invasion. The Japanese also had something like 1700 aircraft of various types to use as kamakazis.

He was told the Japanese casualties would be horrific and would be over ten million killed and wounded. The US forces were being told they would have to shoot women and children who were fighting them.

It was going to be a blood bath more like the siege of Constantanople than anything in modern warfare.

The liberals and the hate america types in the universities always want to paint the A-bombings of Japan as either Racist or Genocide. It was neither. What would have been genocide was the ten million dead japanese and the 1.5 million dead US soldiers if Operation Cornet had been required.

Posted by: James Carville   2009-01-27 18:33  

#17  I used to be ambivalent about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then I read Downfall by Richard B. Frank. He explains the events leading up to the bombings, the preparations that the Japanese were making for the invasion, and so on. He also points out, as others have done here, that if we had not used the bombs, or if the Japanese had not surrendered, our next targets would have included the railroads that brought rice to the cities. This would have led to mass starvation.
After the surrender, General MacArthur ordered food to be brought in and distributed. When he was asked why we didn't just let them starve, he said "We are better than that." This is one of the reasons that MacArthur was known as a bushido - a warrior with wisdom.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2009-01-27 17:35  

#16  The Nanking Massacre, 1937

Firebombing of Tokyo

Manila Massacre


Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-01-27 16:53  

#15  Curtis LeMay grew up in Columbus, Ohio, 30 miles northwest of Lancaster, Ohio, where William Tecumseh Sherman grew up. Must be the water or the schools.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2009-01-27 16:38  

#14  Point 5,
It would not have been in short order (more like a year later). Japanese civilians weren't able to buy shoes after 1943, and were running out of clothes.

There was enough food for 1 year provided they ate all their seed kernals instead of saving them to plant. This would have resulted in Japan running out of food in late summer of 1946.
Posted by: Frozen Al   2009-01-27 16:29  

#13  If the Japneese hadn't surrendered they were staring down the barrel of an host to gawd genocide via starvation. B-29 minning of the home iland inland waterways was going to end the war in short order, but at a horrific cost.
Posted by: .5MT   2009-01-27 14:29  

#12  "Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier." Curtis Lemay

"If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting."
Curtis Lemay

"There are no innocent civilians. I have tried at all times to slaughter as few civilians as possible." Curtis Lemay


"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal."
Curtis Lemay

Tokyo after the Lamay treatment.


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2009-01-27 14:14  

#11  The entire nation of Japan was prepared to commit suicide or die defending the homeland. The race would be dead. Only the shock of the bombs convinced some in authority of the madness and gave them some kind of face-saving way out.

I wonder if the Japanese learn about Nazi atrocities or if they only have a blind spot for the Pacific theater.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2009-01-27 13:32  

#10  I'm sure Obama will apologize to Japan. Probably apologize to Canada for 1775 too.
Posted by: DMFD   2009-01-27 12:48  

#9  My dad was slated to be part of the ground invasion of the Japanese home islands. I may well owe my existence to the 2 nukes dropped on Japan 18 months before I was born.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2009-01-27 11:53  

#8  Apologies for those who attacked us by surprise using their own Navy?! Perhaps the little nipper should rethink his history, picture the EMPORER of NIPPON signing away his little country on board the MISSOURI because he and his countrymen made a very BAD decision one day and thought they were actually the divine children of GOD, what a bunch of maroons
Posted by: Supressed Laughter   2009-01-27 11:51  

#7  Tell me about. My brother bought a Toyota and all dad said when he saw it was, "There's blood on that car". Wouldn't even sit in it.
I waited until he was gone to buy my Honda.
Posted by: tu3031   2009-01-27 10:45  

#6  My old man was a Seabee and he never talked about the war until one night when after bowling, in 1974 only 5 years before he died, we were in the bar and he let a few things slip.

Let's just say that the cleanup of Saipan was something that you don't want to have experienced. Bulldozers and bodies and gasoline don't combine to form a pleasant picture, or smell.

It explained a lot about his reserve and his aversion to all things Japanese.
Posted by: AlanC   2009-01-27 10:32  

#5  Well I guess ya should've surrendered before we had to drop them, huh, Chikahiro? Go to Hirohito's grave and whine at him.
My dad made Okinawa. 110% casualty rate in his company. He figured he ran through all his luck there, and had no chance of getting through an invasion of Japan. So he lived, (and so did I when you think about it) because they dropped those things. And, as much as he probably hates to admit it, so did Hiroiwa-san.
Posted by: tu3031   2009-01-27 10:31  

#4  Every month the Japanese killed as many Chinese as people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Add over a hundred thousand a month in other occupied countries. In other words and even if we forget about American and Japanese casualties in the taking of Japan proper, the bombings saved much more Chinese than they killed Japanese.
Posted by: JFM   2009-01-27 10:20  

#3  I was just talking about this with my Dad last week. He was a Navy corpsman with the Marines in WWII. His group missed going into Okinawa by a week and began to train for the invasion of the home islands. They were damn glad to hear of the atomic bombings. Olympic/Coronet would have been a blood-bath.
BTW, he also complained about the lack of additional medical training he received after his initial "A" school. He wondered if he'd remember enough to do any good.
Posted by: Spot   2009-01-27 10:17  

#2  Yeah, they forget their concern about civilians in American territories they occupied. That little affair in Manila in '45 too. Of course, they won't mention that their own Imperial Command authority directed their own civilians to commit suicide rather than be captured at Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. Or that they had organized their own civilian population to resist the invasion of the home islands with human wave attacks. All in the name of the Emperor [which was a cover for the senior military leadership protecting their necks to the last civilian].

Oh, and on the matter of WMD, they don't count if they don't support the myth that none existed. What's 500 plus warheads of mustard or sarin gas unless you find out they want to store it in your community, right? /sarcasm off
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-01-27 09:59  

#1  Atomic bombs are diabolic weapons that should never have been used. I will keep saying this even after I go to the next world.
"Damn, it's hot down here, and atomic bombs are diabolic weapons that should never have been used."
Posted by: Darrell   2009-01-27 09:18  

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