Hiroshima, 6 August 1945

[Cypress]

those bombs saved millions of lives----------Japanese and American. the US was staging for a ground invasion of Japan when Truman called for the bombs.

On Truman, if he was alive today he would not be a democrat, same applies to Kennedy.

I love how Deplorable Republicans try to claim JFK and Truman as one of their own.

Understandable. Outside Ronnie Raygun, there are so few modern era GOP presidents Republicans can feel proud of.

The last three consecutive Republican presidents left office as failures.

 

[moon]

'Moon The Compassionate'.
Let's see?
Hebrews: "Smash the heads of the Babies against the Rocks".
Moon: "Show compassion".

See. This is how the European Jews took Palestine.

News Flash: If you don't fight for it, you lose it.

You're struggling, Jack. You're a tad embarrassing. Go away.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

ending the war and saving lives on both sides was a mistake? I guess you think we should have surrendered and declared defeat as we did in Viet Nam where 58,000 good americans died for nothing.

Try to stay on topic, fish. I was not talking about whatever it is you think you're talking about; I was talking about American history in general and how -- at least when I was in grade school and h.s. -- we were given a sanitized, whitewashed version that left out the ugly parts like the various massacres of the native people, Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Jim Crow laws, some of our misdeeds in various wars, etc.

 

[Cypress]

Ra-men. How can you (as a nation) resolve to never repeat the same mistakes again, if your citizens are unaware that mistakes were made?

I think even ten year olds can process that logic.

To me, self-reflection and introspection are strengths, not weaknesses.

Germany did a reasonably admirable job coming to terms with the Nazi era.

Russia never really came to terms with the gulag. Solzhenitsyn always said there needed to be an accounting for Stalin's crimes. When justice and reconciliation are defered, it can only cause lasting damage.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

I think even ten year olds can process that logic.

To me, self-reflection and introspection are strengths, not weaknesses.

Germany did a reasonably admirable job coming to terms with the Nazi era.

Russia never really came to terms with the gulag. Solzhenitsyn always said there needed to be an accounting for Stalin's crimes. When justice and reconciliation are defered, it can only cause lasting damage.

Very true. It is only the fascist, authoritarian types who want only the State-Approved, sanitized version of the nation's history taught in schools.

 

[moon]

When justice and reconciliation are defered, it can only cause lasting damage.

Whose justice though ? Where in the world is there a national judiciary not wide open to local dogma, political pressures and corruption ? American justice ? I don't think so. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are still screamimg. The US , on account of scurrilous Izraeli skulduggery , doesn't even recognize the International Courts- which represent fair play for everybody.
For sure- we all carry within us a sense of what Justice actually is- but it's so unforthcoming in practice that practically everybody leaves it to some imagined robed and bearded celestial apparition.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

those bombs saved millions of lives----------Japanese and American. the US was staging for a ground invasion of Japan when Truman called for the bombs.

On Truman, if he was alive today he would not be a democrat, same applies to Kennedy.

Agreed.

OTOH, no Republicans from the Reagan era would be a Trump asskisser today. They'd have been labeled RINO's and forced out of the party like Trump did the those remaining in 2018.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Very true. It is only the fascist, authoritarian types who want only the State-Approved, sanitized version of the nation's history taught in schools.

Agreed, but they aren't alone.

The socialist totalitarians want to force their views on the US and have been doing so for quite some time.

One example is below, the forum is full of other examples.

So what do we do? IMO, return to more tolerance, less authoritarian "I know what's best for you" government.

In many ways, I see Trumpism as a reaction to modern American liberalism. Both seek dominance to dictate.

 

[moon]

Iran blasts ‘inhumane’ US on anniversary of Hiroshima bombing, calls for denuclearization of world

The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan three days after dropping one on Hiroshima.

The Iranian government called out the United States in a statement commemorating the 76th anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and called for a world without nuclear weapons.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, declared on Saturday that the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, showed the world that the US “spares no inhumane efforts and acts to achieve its illegitimate and irrational objectives.”

Khatibzadeh said that “the commemoration of the victims of this tragedy reminds the world of the need to seriously pursue and realize the lofty ideal of a world free of nuclear weapons,” before arguing that “the ominous shadow and constant threat of such arms always endanger international peace and security.”

Iran – which does not itself possess nuclear weapons – also criticized the US for “modernizing their weapons and upgrading the status of nuclear arms in their military-security doctrine” instead of attempting to denuclearize.

https://www.rt.com/news/531461-iran-blasts-us-hiroshima/

Doesn't sound like a thermonuclear weapons-hungry state of maniacs to me. How about you, Bubba ? Moishe ?
In fact , viewed like that the West is populated by suicidal crazies.
Izrael, of course, wants the US to wage war for it and regularly fabricates fake casus belli.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

dropping the bombs was the decision of Truman and Truman only with input from Ike and others. It was Truman's call and he made the right one for everyone concerned.

Who is disagreeing with your straw man? Agreed Truman made the right call...twice.

 

[Jack]

You're struggling, Jack. You're a tad embarrassing. Go away.

It's a Politics Forum.

 

[Cypress]

Whose justice though ? Where in the world is there a national judiciary not wide open to local dogma, political pressures and corruption ? American justice ? I don't think so. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are still screamimg. The US , on account of scurrilous Izraeli skulduggery , doesn't even recognize the International Courts- which represent fair play for everybody.
For sure- we all carry within us a sense of what Justice actually is- but it's so unforthcoming in practice that practically everybody leaves it to some imagined robed and bearded celestial apparition.

I am not necessarily talking about the Nuremberg or Tokyo war crimes trials.

I am talking about an internal, domestic dialogue. Germany itself seems to have practiced some reasonable self-reflection and acknowledgment of the Nazi crimes.

Japan may be a different story. To this day, I believe they largely downplay the crimes committed against Chinese and Korean citizens, as well as POWs.

 

[Carmine]

Camp Fuji for a week. Iwakuni for a month. Matsushima for 10 days. The last one was in winter and I froze my ass off.

That's like my asking if you've been to New York, and you replied that your were at Ft. Hamilton.
"No" would have been quicker.

That's OK, though. Everybody isn't into urban night life.
I might enjoy Tokyo night life, even at my age, but I wouldn't enjoy the flight from Boston.

 

[Nordberg]

Only one nation ever used nukes on civilians and they did it twice.
I am older than most on this board and I accepted the explanation of ending the war quickly and saving soldiers lives. It was much later when I read about Ike and other generals being against its use. I also learned that Japan was deep into negotiations to end the war with a pact. The firebombing of over 60 Japanese cities broke them. The emperor was seeking the best deal he could get.
The fact that we kept some cities free of the firebombing shows there was a plan to use the bombs. Hiroishima and Nagasaki were bomb experiments. They wanted to see how much damage could be done in a pristine city.
I am by nature a skeptic. But it took a while for me to accept the truth. This was huge and reprehensible.

 

[moon]

I am not necessarily talking about the Nuremberg or Tokyo war crimes trials.

I am talking about an internal, domestic dialogue. Germany itself seems to have practiced some reasonable self-reflection and acknowledgment of the Nazi crimes.

Japan may be a different story. To this day, I believe they largely downplay the crimes committed against Chinese and Korean citizens, as well as POWs.

No- you were talking about ' justice ' in relation to Stalin. I was talking about ' justice ' as an imprecise concept.

 

[Bulletbob]

Only one nation ever used nukes on civilians and they did it twice.
I am older than most on this board and I accepted the explanation of ending the war quickly and saving soldiers lives. It was much later when I read about Ike and other generals being against its use. I also learned that Japan was deep into negotiations to end the war with a pact. The firebombing of over 60 Japanese cities broke them. The emperor was seeking the best deal he could get.
The fact that we kept some cities free of the firebombing shows there was a plan to use the bombs. Hiroishima and Nagasaki were bomb experiments. They wanted to see how much damage could be done in a pristine city.
I am by nature a skeptic. But it took a while for me to accept the truth. This was huge and reprehensible.

yes it would of been so much better for us to have to go in and bayonett the old men women and kids that would have been fighting estimates were we would have to kill a millionor more of them. that would of been so much better would have it.

We didnt start ww2 japan and Germany did for the most part and when you loose a war by what ever reason or means its generally bloody

 

[Cypress]

No- you were talking about ' justice ' in relation to Stalin. I was talking about ' justice ' as an imprecise concept.

Any concept like justice, temperance, ethics are imprecise. But as rational humans, we have the ability to reach, or at least attempt to reach, an approximation of true justice.

It does not matter how imprecise our language is, or how many opinions people hold. Stalin's Great Terror, the Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, the USA incarceration of citizens of Japanese decent were fundamentally counter to all principles of natural law and natural rights. Irrespective of what the Japanese government wants taught in their elementary schools.

 

[moon]

Any concept like justice, temperance, ethics are imprecise. But as rational humans, we have the ability to reach, or at least attempt to reach, an approximation of true justice.

It does not matter how imprecise our language is, or how many opinions people hold. Stalin's Great Terror, the Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, the USA incarceration of citizens of Japanese decent were fundamentally counter to all principles of natural law and natural rights. Irrespective of what the Japanese government wants taught in their elementary schools.

True enough. Out of interest- which authority would you have looked to for ' justice ' in relation to Stalin ? He did defeat Nazi Germany after all.

 

[moon]

We didnt start ww2 japan and Germany did

Not exactly. The British declared war on Germany because Germany invaded Poland. If invasion denotes who is responsible for a war then you must hold the Zionists responsible for all the wars Israel has fought.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I think even ten year olds can process that logic.

To me, self-reflection and introspection are strengths, not weaknesses.

Germany did a reasonably admirable job coming to terms with the Nazi era.

Russia never really came to terms with the gulag. Solzhenitsyn always said there needed to be an accounting for Stalin's crimes. When justice and reconciliation are defered, it can only cause lasting damage.

The difference between acceptance and denial. Russia is still in denial. The Turks are still in denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide....and the Armenians are still pissed about it.

Wounds can't heal if they are festering because of denial there's even a wound.