jawa.mee.nu

August 06, 2006

When Wars Were Fought Like War

August 6, 1945, the United States of America uses a nuclear weapon on Japan for the first time.

I, for one, feel no guilt on my country's behalf over the act.

Thanks to PTG for the reminder.

Image from here, but via Google image search. I don't hang out at UN websites.

Posted by: Vinnie at 11:25 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 58 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Hey....where are the added plumes of smoke?

Where the hell is Godzilla?

Posted by: mrclark at August 06, 2006 11:47 PM (ZOpWg)

2 right on!

Posted by: reliapundit at August 07, 2006 12:01 AM (tVv2P)

3 "I, for one, feel no guilt on my country's behalf over the act."

And nor should you feel any guilt.
Had the Japanese developed nuclear weapons before the U.S. did, do you suppose they would've hesitated to use them? I don't think they would.

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at August 07, 2006 12:12 AM (Bp6wV)

4 I have been to Peace Park in Hiroshima and visited the museum there. It is a severely biased propagand mechanism which portrays the Japanese as innocent victims of an American atrocity. I found myself more angry after seeing the exibits than I was before entering the building. In one exhibit, the Koreans in Hiroshima were described as innocent people and victims of the bomb. What is not mentioned is the Koreans were slave labor. There are repeated refrences to the innocent school children who were killed and the simple and good natured japanese people who only wished to go about their daily lives.

No mention of the atrocities perpetrated against prisoners of war or little things like Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march or cuplability.

They got what they deserved.

Posted by: Cmunk at August 07, 2006 08:35 AM (7teJ9)

5 Cmunk, Japan wants to be the victim of WWII. They play it that way. They deny any atrocities they committed and say the US started it. There's a huge ultra-nationalist movement going on that needs to be stopped. They have not yet paid reperations for the damage they did to China, Korea, the Phillipines, etc. Did you know that Japan killed 35 million innocent Chinese people when they invaded in 1937 and left in 1945? They even left a contingent of 800 soldiers in China to fight with this Nationalist warlord against Mao and Chiang-Kai Shek so when they came back they would have an easier time. Let's tackle ultra-nationalism!

Posted by: Some Dude at August 07, 2006 08:54 AM (llVQM)

6 They called the tune at Nanking & Pearl Harbor, so they don't get to kvetch about dancing to it at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. End of story.

Posted by: Cybrludite at August 07, 2006 09:12 AM (nWKBU)

7 i posted sumpin on this last week:

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2006/08/recruiting-power-of-hitler-and-nazism.html

Posted by: reliapundit at August 07, 2006 12:59 PM (Ws7lc)

8 Reliapundit,

I read your bit. I liked it too. Just want to offer a quick clarification. The war for Germany ended after the Soviets took Berlin. Hitlers bunker was never bombed. He committed suicide the day before the Ruskies took the city.

One more thingy, Hitler wanted the a-bomb as well. He could have had one except for one simple reason: his scientists understood the implications of Hitler having a weapon of this type in his arsenal. So they stalled, comisserated, and delayed the project at great peril to themselves and their families. They denied Hitler access to the power of nukes. They are heroes.

Posted by: Cmunk at August 07, 2006 01:35 PM (7teJ9)

9 Im getting tired of the liberals who are trying to make us look like war crinimals for dropping the A bomb of HIROSHIMA after all those liberal whiing idiots should remember who stared it at PEARL HARBOR and THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH and shove the 70s chicken footprint peace symbols no know where

Posted by: sandpiper at August 07, 2006 02:40 PM (b1Fi6)

10 Next time those little nipper heads want to fight to the death, well, they just might get the big one. Does anyone remember the islands the Marines had to take at great cost. Now you know why Japan got the bomb.

Their lucky they only got two.

Posted by: Leatherneck at August 07, 2006 03:39 PM (D2g/j)

11 "little nipper heads."

Lovely.

I've been to Nagasaki. I didn't feel guilty. Sorry that war happened, that it exacts such great costs. I think more people died at the firebombing of Tokyo and Nagoya. Regardless, I'm with Paul Fussell: "Thank God For the Atomic Bomb." He was stationed on a ship waiting to mount the invasion of the main islands of Japan. He knew what happened at Okinawa. He knew what the likelihood of survival was if we had been forced to invade.

But is the message of this thread that we should be contemplating using nukes against...who, exactly? Iraq? Iran? Lebanon? Syria? I don't get it.

Posted by: jd at August 07, 2006 05:09 PM (DQYHA)

12 My father was in the Bataan Death March as well as a Japanese POW for three and a half years.
He and all the others were brutalized each and every day. Even our own government does not want to hear about the atrocities. My dad died an early death in 1959, and I feel like I lost out on having him around. So, as far as I am concerned, the Japanese war machine got what was needed to stop their abuse of the system.

Posted by: Mike Foster at August 07, 2006 07:51 PM (VvWir)

13 My father was in the Bataan Death March as well as a Japanese POW for three and a half years.
He and all the others were brutalized each and every day. Even our own government does not want to hear about the atrocities. My dad died an early death in 1959, and I feel like I lost out on having him around. So, as far as I am concerned, the Japanese war machine got what was needed to stop their abuse of the system.

Posted by: Mike Foster at August 07, 2006 07:54 PM (VvWir)

The Pacific War was fought with extreme brutality, and the Japanese resolutely refused to abide the Geneva rules. The Nazis, by contrast, largely obeyed them in regards to Brit and US prisoners, with notable exceptions, and treated the Russians with subhuman ferocity which was returned in spades.

We sometimes violated them against the Japanese, but on the whole we observed them, even as they did the unspeakable like Bataan. It took nobility and honor and courage to do this, to treat Japanese POWs much better than they treated our boys (and girls). But we did it because that is who we are. It also helped make Japan a better nation postwar. If we had tortured them, humiliated them, and executed them capriciously, they would not be the nation they are today, they would not be our firm ally, and the tensions in the pacific would be high, even today.

Why don't we learn from that?

Posted by: jd at August 08, 2006 03:45 PM (NL1A+)

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