Obama goes to Hiroshima, and naturally, screws it up

[Jim in CT]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-rea...072104282.html


"Let the world say, 'Here is the fruit of the genocide of untold millions of Chinese, Singaporeans, Filipinos, Koreans, and countless others.' Let history say, 'Here is where that genocide was dealt a mortal blow." -What the President DIDN'T say when he visited Hiroshima yesterday.

What fell from the sky wasn't "death." It was what STOPPED death, in the form of the genocide which had been so savagely inflicted upon an entire continent by the perpetrators of the only atrocity in history which is perfectly analogous to what the Nazis did in Europe. The bombing ended the most catastrophic war in human history. What fell from the sky brought "peace." And the people that benefited the most from that bombing were the Japanese themselves. Because the alternative was an invasion of the mainland, and if that happened, they might have died to the last child. An invasion would have hurt the Japanese far more than it would have hurt America.

So we can add 'historian' to the long list of thing Obama sucks at. It's on the list just after 'Cuban tango dancer', maybe the last thing I would have assumed he'd be good at.

I'm not saying you go over there thumping your chest and doing a touchdown dance. But we are not to blame for this, their previous leaders are to blame.

It's a somber moment. But to fail to remember it accurately, is to invite it to happen again.

[spence]

Your hate has no limits.

[Jim in CT]

I keep focusing on his word 'evil'?

What does Obama think the intent was of dropping the bomb? And what was the result?

We told Japan we had the bomb, and told them to surrender. They said "no thanks, we would prefer to continue to cccupy most of this continent, so that we can continue to enslave, rape, murder, and eat, millions more".

The alternative was invading Japan. Wpould Japan be bette roff, or worse off, had we done that.

If I am asked to write Obama's epitaph, it would be thus...

President Obama...always wrong, yet somehow, never in doubt. Where does that arrogance come from, when everything you touch turns into vomit?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Your hate Obama's incompetence has no limits.

Fixed it for ya. You're welcome.

I can't stand the guy, Spence, I don't deny it. But as always, you insult me, but don't bother to point out where I'm wrong.

Do us a favor read 'Thje Rape Of Nanking', you can get the Cliffs Notes somewhere, then get back to me, and tell me it was 'evil' of us to take steps to end that war.

If what we did was evil, how would Obama describe what the Japanese had done? I don't think there's a worse word in our lnguage, so it's clear to me he's making a moral equivalence between what we did to end the war, and everything th eJapanese did during the war. If I am wrong on that score, I'd just love for you to explain how.

What we did was awful, it was beyond terrible. But given the circumstances, it wasn't even close to being 'evil'.

[Fly Rod]

no apology needed...the imperial japanese brought it on them self's....they never apologized for the attack on pearl harbor killing over 2000 americans...they slaugtered 90 plus civilians at wake island....they slaugtered many on the bataan death march....they slaugtered civilian philippians and bayoneted their babies....the dropping of little boy & fat man is estimated at saving a million american servicemen......so I say, "who owes an apology?....obama did not apologize.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

....obama did not apologize.

I missed the apology in the speech.....

I'd also argue that keeping Japan, S. Korea and Vietnam on our side is a good hedge against the Chinese and N. Koreans....

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

I missed the apology in the speech.....

I'd also argue that keeping Japan, S. Korea and Vietnam on our side is a good hedge against the Chinese and N. Koreans....

I didn't say he apologized.

Rockhound, was it 'evil' for the US to drop the bomb on Japan, at that time, with the hope of avoiding the invasion? Do you really htink 'evil' is the way to describe our actions?

I don't get it, and I will say it again...there is nothing that unites liberals and conservatives anymore, and it's mostly (not all) because liberals have really said 'adios' to reality and common sense. On economic issues, liberals pretend that arithmetic does not exist, and that observeable evidence of liberal policies is to be ignored. On moral issues, it's bordering on the satanic. According to liberalism, it was evil to end WWII. Also, it's OK for Abu Mumia Jamal to give a college commencement address, but not Condaleeza Rice. Is that about right? What the hell is in that Kool Aid, anyway?

.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

I didn't say he apologized.

Rockhound, was it 'evil' for the US to drop the bomb on Japan, at that time, with the hope of avoiding the invasion? Do you really htink 'evil' is the way to describe our actions?



.

“Death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Obama said, “The flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”

Where did he decry it as evil?? I didn't see the whole speech but read two different articles about it...

Evil, no. At the time, probably the best action to end the war.

[spence]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Where did he decry it as evil?? I didn't see the whole speech but read two different articles about it...

Rock, remember that Jim doesn't do well with broad or abstract concepts. Like the notion that the decision to drop the bomb wasn't evil but that nuclear weapons are.

[JohnR]

And Obama does not do well with conventional history. Perhaps there is a reason that a sitting American president has not gone to Hiroshima until now.

But he did not say evil, though he did say morals need to develop in conjunction with scientific advances. Sadly, the way morals have developed in the 7 decades following the Greatest Generation, a liberation of Europe or Asia would probably not take place today if history would repeat.

So as America turns its cheek and wanes both in capability and in responsibility, others will happily occupy our absence in that role. China and Russia in particular are salivating at the demise of the USA as a force generally for good, generally for peace. Our kids and grandkids will sadly pay that bill. What is old is new again.

[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Perhaps there is a reason that a sitting American president has not gone to Hiroshima until now.

Because they can't handle difficult subjects?

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

Because they can't handle difficult subjects?

Like affordable healthcare and fixing the deficit?
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[Fly Rod]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

I missed the apology in the speech.....

I'd also argue that keeping Japan, S. Korea and Vietnam on our side is a good hedge against the Chinese and N. Koreans....

I agree with U 100%....we R obligated to protect japan and south korea....we may need them deep water ports in vietnam

[Nebe]

jim. Could you do a better job?
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

jim. Could you do a better job?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I believe you could do a better job !
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[Nebe]

Originally Posted by buckman

I believe you could do a better job !
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Well that is quite a compliment ! I will name you secretary of fermented affairs. 😅😂
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Well that is quite a compliment ! I will name you secretary of fermented affairs. 😅😂
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🍻
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[wdmso]

we dropped the bomb on Japan because we did not see them as we saw our European brothers we saw them as inferior .. we interned fellow americans because of their yellow skin and to show the russian's

who declared war on japan August 8, 1945, be dropped the last bomb August 9, the U.S. dropped a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki. and uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy)


think what you want this was a field test

[spence]

Originally Posted by wdmso

we dropped the bomb on Japan because we did not see them as we saw our European brothers we saw them as inferior .. we interned fellow americans because of their yellow skin and to show the russian's

That doesn't explain Dresden...

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

“Death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Obama said, “The flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”

Where did he decry it as evil?? I didn't see the whole speech but read two different articles about it...

Evil, no. At the time, probably the best action to end the war.

Sorry..."we shall not repeat the evil"

"death fell from the sky and the world was changed,”

True. The world enjoyed peace for the first time in a decade. Thanks to that bomb, people all over occupied Asia were free of their chains. To Obama, those are trivial details.

http://gephardtdaily.com/national-in...clear-bombing/

"At the time, probably the best action to end the war"

Not probably. And what made it the best alternative was nothing coming from our side...it was the fanaticism of the Japanese...

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by wdmso

we dropped the bomb on Japan because we did not see them as we saw our European brothers we saw them as inferior .. we interned fellow americans because of their yellow skin and to show the russian's

who declared war on japan August 8, 1945, be dropped the last bomb August 9, the U.S. dropped a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki. and uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy)


think what you want this was a field test

"we dropped the bomb on Japan because we did not see them as we saw our European brothers "

That could be. Or it could be (and in fact it is) that we bombed Japan, and not Germany...because when we bombed Hiroshima in August 1945, Germany had already surrendered (in May 1945). In fact, the surrender of Germany happened before we even tested the bomb in New Mexico (July 1945), so there was no reason to bomb Germany in August 1945?

"we saw them as inferior"

Because they were inferior. Vastly, vastly inferior. Read the Rape Of Nanking. Or Flyboys.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Because they can't handle difficult subjects?

And there is liberalism! I could not pick a better example of the elitism and arrogance.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Rock, remember that Jim doesn't do well with broad or abstract concepts. Like the notion that the decision to drop the bomb wasn't evil but that nuclear weapons are.

I fully concede that nukes are bad, and that the bombing of Japan was terrible.

I'll ask you pal...was the bombing of Japan 'evil' in your mind? Why? What was our intent, do you think? Was the bombing of Japan, any kind or moral equivalent, with what Japan had done?

Obama didn't just say that nukes are evil. He said that what happened at Hiroshima was evil. He is saying that what we did, was evil.

It's bullsh*t. It's not abstract. We stopped the rape of China. Is that an abstraction? Why is it that I understand that, and you (and Obama) can't? Seems to me, that you two are the dummies who can't see what's going on.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

But he did not say evil, .

Yes he did.

"for we shall not repeat the evil"

http://gephardtdaily.com/national-in...clear-bombing/


We dropped the bomb to end the war. The war that Japan started and refused to stop. And the atrocities they committed, stupefy the human mind. And the bomb was also a Godsend for Japan, because the alternative was all-out invasion. That would have been far worse for Japan.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

jim. Could you do a better job?
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Than Obama? Nebe, my flat-coated retriever could do a better job. Every person on this forum could do a better job.

[Jim in CT]

And it wasn't merely "death" that fell from the sky. To the brutalized slaves of Japanese-occupied lands, what fell from the sky was hope, peace, and freedom. It was the answer to their fervent, frantic, desperate prayers, that somewhere in this world, someone gave a sh*t about what was happening to them. Paul Tibbets got in his plane for them. And if he was shot down, he would not have been given a parade in Tokyo. But he risked getting tortured and eaten, he took that risk because the strong have an obligation to help the weak. What happened at Hiroshima, is that genocide was brought to its knees. By the most generous, free country that the world has ever known.

Obama calls that evil, and Spence says that I am unable to grasp the subtle abstractions which dictate that it was the opposite of what I claim. I think the two of them are completely fuc*ed in the head, but that could be the few beers I had earlier.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

That could be. Or it could be (and in fact it is) that we bombed Japan, and not Germany...because when we bombed Hiroshima in August 1945, Germany had already surrendered (in May 1945). In fact, the surrender of Germany happened before we even tested the bomb in New Mexico (July 1945), so there was no reason to bomb Germany in August 1945?.

Damn those blasted timelines......
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[scottw]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

Damn those blasted timelines......
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who needs timelines when you have a narrative?

[wdmso]

Originally Posted by spence

That doesn't explain Dresden...

the intent of bombing dresden wasn't to test a new weapon ..


The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed over 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre.[2] An estimated 22,700[3] to 25,000[4] people were killed.


67 Japanese Cities Firebombed in World War II

http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html
Name of Japanese
city firebombed Percentage of the
city destroyed Equivalent in size to
the following American city

Yokohama 58 Cleveland
Tokyo 51 New York
Toyama 99 Chattanooga
Nagoya 40 Los Angeles
Osaka 35.1 Chicago
Nishinomiya 11.9 Cambridge
Siumonoseki 37.6 San Diego
Kure 41.9 Toledo

[scottw]

Originally Posted by wdmso

we dropped the bomb on Japan because we did not see them as we saw our European brothers we saw them as inferior .. we interned fellow americans because of their yellow skin and to show the russian's

think what you want this was a field test

sounds like Spence thinks we dropped evil with the best of intentions and you think we dropped evil with bad intentions and racist, bigoted motivations...you two should discuss proper use of evil...