Thursday, May 26, 2016

Thoughts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

As we enter another Memorial Day weekend, I just wanted to share one of my first posts from our original site from 2009 - Commentarama. I had the distinct pleasure of being asked to join this blog in 2009 at the request of Andrew and our dearly departed Larry Hawk. One of my first posts was on Memorial Day on May 24, 2009 about my uncle who served in WWII as POW in a Japanese prison camp...In Memoriam.

In 1996, I had the opportunity to work in Japan which just happen to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of when the U.S. dropped the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The only time in human history that a nuclear devise was detonated in an aggressive act of war. As I was bold enough at the time, I asked my young translator what the young Japanese thought about this. Her response was astounding. She said that it was a good thing. She openingly stated that if not for the dropping of these bombs, the aggression of the Japanese would not have ended, the war would have continued, and many more millions of lives would have been lost.

As President Obama visits Hiroshima and Nagasagi in his long-standing "apology tour", let us not forget that President Harry Truman made a heart-wretching decision that brought an abrupt end to devasting world war and thereby saved millions of lives. We have nothing to apologize for. It was a decision made to save lives, millions of lives.

Also, let's celebrate another anniversary! Commentarama along with our present site - CommentaramPolitics and CommentaramaFilm - are entering our 7-year mark (and counting) of fun, frustration, and shear madness! Pat yourselves on the back, Commentarama-ians! We couldn't do it without you! And you know who you are! Thank you for the continued support and dedication to civil and reasoned discourse.

And yes, I still miss LawHawkSF...

9 comments:

Allena-C said...

I agree wholeheartedly, Bev!
If Germany or Japan had created nuclear weapons first, they would have annihilated us instead of just using it once. And they certainly wouldn't have warned us before hand so we could evacuate the target sites.
The US did what it had to do to stop evil, defend Liberty, and save millions of lives on both sides.
God bless all of our men and women who lost their lives protecting our freedoms, defending us and even defending civilians in the countries we fight in.
And their families and loved ones who must carry on without them.

Allena-C said...

I miss LawHawk too...

Critch said...

I built nuclear weapons for the USAF. I saw tons of training films on those drops with statistics...We saved probably millions of lives by dropping those bombs. The Imperial Army was training women and children with spears and knives to kill at least Allied soldier. Tojo went so far as to try to kill the Emperor to keep him from surrendering...I have no sympathy for the Japanese of that time...they didn't shed tears over Nanking, or Bataan, or countless other places they butchered civilians and POWs. The same with Germany.

Kit said...

Agree on everything except one correction for Critch: It was not Hideki Tojo who launched the coup, that was launched by a Major in the Japanese Imperial Army named Kenji Hatanaka.

Tojo was now out of politics, having been forced to resign after the fall of Saipan.

Critch said...

You're right Kit....I keep forgetting that detail...

Kit said...

I'll be posting something tomorrow afternoon, hopefully on Venezuela.

Anthony said...

Great article. America did what it had to to win and preserve the lives of its soldiers and has nothing to apologize for.

Lawhawk is missed.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I remember that! Nice article! And I too miss Lawhawk. He was very bright, funny and a very decent person. I miss his insight.

AndrewPrice said...

On the atomic bombs, I dismiss the attack out of hand. When you start a war and especially when you wage it so atrociously as the Axis powers did, you have NO right to complain about what the other side did to you in fighting back. You are the mugger who has lost any right to complain about what your victim did to you to defend themselves.

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