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."
#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."
#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
#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.
#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.
#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.
#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.
#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.
#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
#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.
#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.
#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
#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.
#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 ||
01/27/2009 16:29 Comments ||
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#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.
#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 ||
01/27/2009 17:35 Comments ||
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#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 ||
01/27/2009 18:33 Comments ||
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#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.
#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.
#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.
#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.
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.
#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???
#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 ||
01/27/2009 21:09 Comments ||
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Iowahawk gives "carbon footprint" advice to the Beautiful People.
1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when youre hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that if its yellow, let it mellow. Unless youre serving asparagus canapes.
2. Green Begins At Home. Whether you live in East Hampton or Topanga Canyon, there are dozens of little things you can do around your compound to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, tell your groundskeeping crew to plant a tree. Save your leftover foie gras to grow your own homemade organic Botox. Turn off your energy wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM. If you own a vanity cattle ranch in Montana, email the trail boss and tell him/her to add Beano to your herds feed to reduce ozone-depleting methane emissions. . . .
Click through and read the rest.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/27/2009 09:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
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#1
No need. Barry O. will handle everything for them. And they'll be damned grateful...
#3
Technology to replace them all with next-next generation CGI will find its rationale in the offset of the cost in running the computers to the cost of maintaining the life style of Hollyweird.
The Canadian Caper was the unofficial name given to the covert rescue by the Government of Canada of six American diplomats who evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, by Iranian students on November 4, 1979, precipitating the Iran Hostage Crisis. . . .
The operation itself was initiated at great personal risk by then Canadian ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, and Canadian Immigration officer John Sheardown who provided sanctuary for the six endangered American diplomats in their own private residences. Two friendly-country embassy officials assisted as well, and an unoccupied diplomatic residence was used for several weeks.
Ambassador Taylor contacted then Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs, Flora MacDonald and Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark for assistance, who expressed support for the effort. The decision was made to smuggle the six Americans out of Iran on an international flight using Canadian passports. To achieve this, Canada's Parliament convened its first secret session since World War II to grant permission for an Order-in-Council to be made for the issuance of Canadian passports to the American diplomats in Canadian sanctuary. The granted passports, feigning Canadian citizenship and a set of forged Iranian visas prepared by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency would be used to attempt an escape from Iran.
The CIA enlisted its disguise and exfiltration expert, Tony Mendez, to provide a cover story, documents, and appropriate clothing and materials to change their appearance. Mendez worked closely with Canadian government staff in Ottawa, sending as much as he could in the diplomatic pouch, before flying to Tehran with an associate to assist with the rescue. There were alternate passports and identities for a variety of scenarios, but the cover story selected had the six being a Hollywood crew scouting movie locations. The elaborate back-story involved a film named Argo, for a Middle-Eastern feel, and a post office box in Los Angeles for Studio Six, backed by display ads. (The movie scenario was considered one way to get an armed team into Tehran to retake the embassy.) . . .
You can hear an interview with Mr. Mendez here. It's well worth the listen.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/27/2009 07:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
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#1
Thanks Canada! That was a high point in a very low time.
#2
I remember seeing a made-for-TV movie about it, also. And I vaguely remember that a couple of reporters/news outlets doing extensive coverage of the embassy takeover had slowly come to realize that there were six American officials unaccounted for, after the takeover, and realized that those people must therefore be in hiding someplace in Tehran. Can't remember of they voluntarily restrained themselves from doing a story and spilling the beans, or if the State Department quietly asked them to keep their story about it under wraps.
#3
The last I heard -- a few years ago -- Buffalo, NY bars were still accepting Canadian currency at par to thank Canada for this. Buffalo shops did for a number of years as well.
Every president to hold office has espoused some version of Americanism; the truths that we hold self-evident, even when those truths are not always in evidence. But for all their grand rhetoric and mostly good deeds, none was able to seal the deal on the trifecta of equality, plurality and socioeconomic ascendancy. Obama has. Obama is the more perfect union. He is a house united. Obama is the New Generation and the hot light of a dawn that goes way beyond clever talk of morning in America.
Quite simply, quite plainly, just by virtue his being, Obama is America. The first true American to lead our nation. Someone's channeling Rudolf Heß...
#6
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt.
Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,
Marschier'n im Geist in uns'ren Reihen mit.
#7
Despite all his lofty and high-minded praise, Mr. Ridley doesn't forego the opportunity to take a little snipe at the outgoing President with his "buying him a baseball team" comment.
#13
Jim, unfortunately, he has. He has ordered Gitmo to be closed within a year (hopefully by then we will have figured out what to do with the terrorists there.)
He has restored funding for abortions outside the US.
He has granted an interview to an enemy propaganda network where he told the enemy that America is not the enemy of Islam.
So don't say he hasn't done anything.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/27/2009 21:33 Comments ||
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Obama faced an early test last week, when, in the midst of the debate over economic stimulus, Democrats worked to shut Republicans out of the policy process, then behaved boorishly when Republicans complained.
Democratic leaders responded with the political equivalent of a sack dance in football. If its passed with 63 votes or 73 votes, history wont remember it, said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.
Yes We Did
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added to the mood by saying, Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.
There is still time for Obama to object to such behavior. If he wants to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric, he should take Pelosi to the woodshed and insist that she include Republicans, collegially, in the process. He should stand up to his party and threaten to veto a bill if it fails to make reasonable concessions to his friends across the aisle. He should advise his own staff to begin returning the phone calls of senior Republican aides.
If he fails to do that, there can be little doubt that government will fail to change and will continue to fail us. When times are good, one might be able to survive with a pitiful government. Today, we might not be so lucky. We are living in a fleeting moment where real change is possible. Aristotle is watching.
#4
"If it's passed with 63 votes or 73 votes, history won't remember it," said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.
True, Senator. What history will remember is that it was a Democratic initiative, leaving the Democrats completely responsible for the results. Good luck in 2010.
I'm not a member of any other blog and don't have a Facebook page. I wrote this and am sending it to a large number of my email contacts. I'm sharing in the hope that we can all make an impact on this. I am very concerned about the submissive tone I hear from Republicans/Conservatives that 'hope the President succeeds', while abandoning their principles.
I'd appreciate feedback on this, as it's in my draft folder awaiting being sent.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's a toned-down call-to-arms so-to-speak from a die-hard Conservative:
#1
Not to worry. The "stimulus" package won't work. Republicans know it and the Obamanation knows it.
Were you to candidly ask a democrat if they know the stimulus package won't work and they will not only admit it won't work, they will then admit whole point is to expand the powerful and size of the federal government and their very political influence.
#2
You see the aging elder population problem and all the fiscal collapse they will bring will be solved by Universal Health Care(tm) as it will be rationed for those over 65 sufficiently enough to start the big drop in life expectancy and with it the grand entitlement expenses [usual liberal inner party suspects exempted of course]. With Universal Health Care(tm) the Health Care Crisis(tm) will magically disappear down the memory hole* of our MSM with life expectancy as quickly disappearing from official government statistics.
#3
That's probably not satire, Pro2k., and it is indeed likely to show up here soon. Britain has for a long time rationed care such as hemodialysis, major surgery etc. based on age. Those who want us to emulate the NHS will no doubt adopt similar policies.
#4
I recall that for the average person 2/3 of all medical expenses are incurred in the last 2 years of life. The deal has been that we're prepared to spend that money for the last two years of the lives of the Greatest Generation, so many of whom only got to live the first 20 in the Great Depression and WWII. Some how I would not be surprised if that deal were revised for the Boomers who lost our first war and lived it up for the next 40 years.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when youre hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that if its yellow, let it mellow. Unless youre serving asparagus canapes.
The Canadian Caper was the unofficial name given to the covert rescue by the Government of Canada of six American diplomats who evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, by Iranian students on November 4, 1979, precipitating the Iran Hostage Crisis. . . .
Obama faced an early test last week, when, in the midst of the debate over economic stimulus, Democrats worked to shut Republicans out of the policy process, then behaved boorishly when Republicans complained. 
