Critical thinking about the bomb
Since mid July, I have seen several television shows, documentaries, and have read articles and blogs talking about how bad and evil the United States was (and is) for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki . Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs.
Yep it sucks.
But look at it this way...the Japanese military leaders were prepared to fight to the last man. They were arming little kids with pointy sticks and were telling them that the Americans were coming to rape their mothers and eat the children for crissakes!
The proposed allied invasion of Japan had causalty estimates of 250,000 to 1 million Americans (low end) and up to 3 million Japanese.
In actuality the firebombing of Tokyo earlier that year had inflicted more casualties to the tune of 100,000 deaths (more than the Nagasaki bomb) and I don't see anyone bitching and moaning about that.
Even after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Japanese refused to surrender. The military even attempted a coup to prevent the Emperor from admitting defeat and surrendering for them.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone in good conscience can say that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was a bad idea. It saved millions of lives that would have otherwise been wasted..needlessly in a long and bloody campaign.
Thousands more Americans would have lost fathers, brothers and husbands for no good reason other than the insanity and bullheadedness of the Japanese military leadership.
So that's it...all the historical revisionist bullshit out there was getting on my nerves and I needed to speak my mind.
Labels: Politics
posted by Bill Rowland @ August 21, 2008
17 Comments
17 Comments:
You nailed it again. You will, however, probably catch hell for daring to state the facts...
What really gets me is that the US has issued apologies to the Japanese for the bombings, but not a single word has been said from them to us regarding Pearl Harbor.
FETE.
War and death are never pretty, but almost always require the loss of "some" for the life of many. Some day, folks will figure out that if we could just talk and resolve things we would - that isn't how it works - we do what is necessary to protect our country and our way of life.
I agree with you, that it was a terrible necessity. I haven't seen anything about the bomb, but I wonder if it's related to it being an election year, especially with Iraq.
However, I think that we have to fight against revisionist history, otherwise the Holocaust deniers and others like them will prevail.
Yup. And I used to live in Japan, so had some experience with people there who remembered it (I lived there from '68--'71). Hammer, you're on the money. War sucks and its hell and every other cliche in the book, but you're right about the Japanese view of things at that time. They were fully prepared to defend to the last person. Just us invading Okinawa would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives--to say nothing about trying to get a foothold on the mainland.
It is part of the left wing "blame America First" crowd trying to revise history..yet you seldom see them say anything about Stalin systematically starving millions to death in the Ukraine..http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/Ukraine_famine.htm
Approximately 3000 people a day were dying as a direct consequence of the war (figuring 60M dead, war years from 1939 - 1945). That figure of war dead is probably low.
Had Japan not being nuked into submission, and the war continued for another 73 days, the same number of people would have died from other causes.
The Allied invasion of Japan was scheduled for 1946.
Lives, not just American lives, were saved.
It all kind of academic anyways , whats done is done . However your arguement seems to make sense to me.
Everyone else has said it very well so far in their comments. I concur.
But ... But ... It was an ATOMIC bomb! Atomic is BAD ... just because it's ... well ... ATOMIC! And nuclear and all! Bad, I tell you - BAD!
if we hadn't of bombed them, then our flag would look alot different now a days, and we would be put in prison for speaking our opinions.
As always Hammer, you're 100% right.
What snigglefrits said! This has always burned my mother up too...especially since my dad was supposed to go off to the Indochina theatre the day after peace broke out.
Darn right, no apology for Pearl Harbor.
Why is the US always the bad guy, and expected to act more honorably than the micreants, who somehow act justified despite their own actions?
Three words--Bataaan Death March.
Never heard anyone apologize for that one!
As usual, you are spot on. I've pointed this out to many friends who've been taught how bad it was, and it always upsets me that so few people ever think through the consequences of NOT dropping the bombs.
Yeah, shame on the US for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And the Holocaust never happened, either.
*headdesk*
If I ever see anyone try to publicly apologize for a-bombing Japan I will give them a new career as a hood ornament.
tweaker
Tweaker,
So many candidates, so few cars.
Great post.
Four months ago, I stood at the hypocenter in Hiroshima - 1900 feet directly below where Little Boy exploded.
I saw all the memorials, looked at all the exhibits in the museum there. And I have to say, the impression you get is that the event is regarded as a tragedy, but one that the Japanese brought upon themselves.
Nothing I saw changed my mind about the bombing having been necessary to effect the swiftest possible conclusion to the war with the smallest butcher's bill for both the Allies and the Japanese.
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