Remembering Hiroshima

Gaer said:
This has haunted me my whole life. Everyone I've asked, who were adult at the time, told me it was necessary and ended the war. In fact, They were COMEPLETELY for it! "The best thing that could have happened!"
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Some US government officials (alive at that time) openly stated (as their personal opinion) "That the atom bombs dropped on Japan were revenge for Pearl Harbor." My parents were alive in World War II. My dad was a copilot on a B-24 bomber and a German POW prisoner after his plane was shot down over Czechoslovakia. The pilot of his plane and all but one crewmember were killed. Of the Germans, my dad said he was treated better than what American propaganda had led him to believe would be the case. The POW camps were rigidly controlled, but not brutal - at least in the one where he was held prisoner.

Anyway, he told me years later that when he'd heard Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been nuked everyone cheered. The time was August,1945 and the war in Europe had ended, leaving him no longer a POW. Not being attached to an army unit due to his pilot status, he was free to roam around Germany and then France for several months. He saw some things happen too, like American GI's robbing bombed out German banks by blowing their vaults. But they weren't after the worthless German Reichsmarks either, he said, but after safe deposit boxes holding jewels and gold. He also witnessed several US soldiers drag a German into an alleyway and shoot him; he never knew the reason why. So the nuking of Japan was welcomed by most after all the years of war.

Was the nuking of Japan necessary? Depends on who you ask. Did we save more lives by taking out Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The US military seems to think so. But take a moment and read this:

HOW MANY DIED? NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS FAR HIGHER NUMBERS FOR THE VICTIMS OF MAO ZEDONG'S ERA (Washington Post - 1994)
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"While it is hardly any comfort to their victims, the two people most associated with mass deaths in this bloodiest of human centuries -- Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin -- were likely surpassed by a third, China's Mao Zedong. Mao launched more than a dozen campaigns during his rule, which began when he founded Communist China in 1949 and ended with his death in 1976. Some are well known while others, such as a bloody campaign to "purify class ranks" in the late 1960s, which involved army units, have received little publicity. While most scholars are reluctant to estimate a total number of "unnatural deaths" in China under Mao, evidence shows he was in some way responsible for at least 40 million deaths and perhaps 80 million or more."
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Could the US have prevented the estimated 80 million that China is alleged to have murdered? And the millions more that the USSR is said to have committed in the post-World War II era? In fact, it is widely believed that the USSR and China exterminated at least 100 million people - and possibly more. Could America have stopped communism in the USSR in, say, 1946 or 1947 by nuking Moscow and taking out their leaders and government so that they could not carry out their widespread "social cleansing"? And then do it again by hitting China with the same nukes? Could killing 10 or even 20 million in that region of the world have saved upwards of 60 to 80 million lives in the long run? In the end, could America's nuclear bombs have prevented all the deaths that eventually followed? Were our nuclear weapons actually life-givers rather than life-takers?

We'll never know.

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Was the act of FDR's internment of Japanese on American soil justified? What did they do to be kidnapped under the rules of engagement/war? Nothing.
 
Murrmurr said:
The Japanese army was absolutely merciless. The atrocities they committed and their complete disregard for human life; men, women, and children; is equal only to the Nazi's (in recent history, that is). They were hell-bent on building an Empire by destroying everything in their path, and they were unstoppable until Aug 6, 1945.

The grotesque, disturbing photos I've seen of what they did to families, to women and babies, to the elderly, and to American soldiers are indelibly stuck in my brain. My dad served in the Pacific and I'm still haunted by the stories he told me.

I hated the Japanese for a long time. I'm over it, and I'm really glad that the US and Japan are now allies and friends.
And, btw; Cheers to Japan for sticking up for Taiwan at the Olympics!
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I'd heard many of the same things, including what the Japanese were doing in the countries they were attacking. Even now, some of the Korean "comfort women" the Japanese took for sex slaves are still trying to get at least an acknowledgment from Japan of what happened, but such has not been forthcoming all these years later. Sad.

I'm over it, too, and I'm glad the U.S. and Japan are now friends. But let's not pretend that all we had to do back then was to "be nice" and all would have been well. Let's not forget that Japan attacked us, among others.
 

Devi said:
I'd heard many of the same things, including what the Japanese were doing in the countries they were attacking. Even now, some of the Korean "comfort women" the Japanese took for sex slaves are still trying to get at least an acknowledgment of what happened, but such has not been forthcoming all these years later. Sad.

I'm over it, too. But let's not pretend that all we had to do was to "be nice" and all would have been well. Let's not forget that Japan attacked us, among others.
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The Comfort Women were finally recognized. It was verbal recognition in a speech given by I Don't Remember Who about 5 or 6 years ago, maybe? Some of their children and grandchildren feel a verbal nod wasn't enough. They're asking for financial compensation, but as far as I know, that request is still being denied. And some of the surviving Comfort Women are ok with that. They were just happy to be honored verbally.
 
ohioboy said:
"Was it murder or justifiable homicide?"
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That question set my mind spinning, then sent me down the tech rabbit hole double checking things

Would only the man who gave the order be judged regarding it or also the ones who carried it out since military personnel can refuse illegal OR immoral orders?

1) It is possible that the deaths of any combatants would be judged normal result of war, while the civilian deaths might be called murder.
2) Thinking in terms of Biblical lore (things not strictly scriptural but widely accepted): Who would St. Peter consult with, or would God and the ArchAngels have sent him a list of who to hold responsible?

Then i wanted to check which Commandment # would apply. Can any one tell me when #6 became "Thou shalt not murder" ? I remember it from early religious instruction (in the late 1940s early 1950's) and i believe my old King James Version said: Thou shalt not kill. A lot of the results on 10 Commandments search listed it as 'murder'.
 
feywon said:
Then i wanted to check which Commandment # would apply. Can any one tell me when #6 became "Thou shalt not murder" ? I remember it from early religious instruction (in the late 1940s early 1950's) and i believe my old King James Version said: Thou shalt not kill.
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Death by soldiers of Israel in war was not considered murder.
 
That's the crux, "Though shall not kill", which means murder. Was the bombing forgivable killing or unforgivable murder?
 
ohioboy said:
Was the act of FDR's internment of Japanese on American soil justified?
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No. It was not only unjustified, it was completely illegal.

One of the internees was a man who had a farm near my grandparents. When the man and his family were taken, my grandfather and other neighboring farmers kept the man's farm going, and banked his profits. They didn't pay themselves, only the man's farmhands. His family was able to return to their farm and pick up where they left off, but they gave a chunk of their farm to everyone who helped and moved to San Fransisco.
 
Pepper said:
Death by soldiers of Israel in war was not considered murder.
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Doesn't answer my question. i learned that commandment as 'Thou shalt not kill.' Not followed by a list of exceptions. When did sources replace kill with murder which implies their are justified homicides is what i want to know.
 
Ohio murder and kill are not strictly speaking synonymous:
To kill is to 'end a life'.
To murder is to unlawfully kill (with the presumption that combatants in war are, at least as far as their own governments judge, lawfully killing. An 'exception' to original commandment, which is why i wondered when supposedly religious sources started to use the more nuanced word: Murder.
 
I agree with Truman. The war had to be stopped and ended. Too many lives were lost and too much money was spent. The U.S. got into the war to aid our allies, but then Japan decided it was a good time to take out the U.S. and own the Pacific. That just couldn’t be allowed to happen.

The Japanese didn’t cut any POW’s some slack. Some were used for target practice, some for medical experiments and others made to suffer without food and water. My dad was a career Army man and served in three different wars. He told some pretty gruesome stories of WWII. My dad fought in France and England. He liked Eisenhower the best.

In any war, there is going to be collateral damage. Same in Vietnam. We killed innocent villagers because we couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. My Lai is an example. Killing innocent people, young children and babies is sometimes unavoidable.

My POD (problems of democracy) teacher was on the maintenance crew on Tinian Island with the Enola Gay. He had a picture of the crew, including Paul Tibbets hanging on the wall in the classroom. My dad came to school and spoke about the war. The kids enjoyed his presentation and the teacher asked more questions than my classmates.
 
oldman said:
I agree with Truman. The war had to be stopped and ended. Too many lives were lost and too much money was spent. The U.S. got into the war to aid our allies, but then Japan decided it was a good time to take out the U.S. and own the Pacific. That just couldn’t be allowed to happen.

The Japanese didn’t cut any POW’s some slack. Some were used for target practice, some for medical experiments and others made to suffer without food and water. My dad was a career Army man and served in three different wars. He told some pretty gruesome stories of WWII. My dad fought in France and England. He liked Eisenhower the best.

In any war, there is going to be collateral damage. Same in Vietnam. We killed innocent villagers because we couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. My Lai is an example. Killing innocent people, young children and babies is sometimes unavoidable.

My POD (problems of democracy) teacher was on the maintenance crew on Tinian Island with the Enola Gay. He had a picture of the crew, including Paul Tibbets hanging on the wall in the classroom. My dad came to school and spoke about the war. The kids enjoyed his presentation and the teacher asked more questions than my classmates.
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I worked with a few guys that were in the Pacific Theater....... including one that survived the Battan death march . They all praised Truman for dropping the bomb.
 
feywon said:
Doesn't answer my question. i learned that commandment as 'Thou shalt not kill.' Not followed by a list of exceptions. When did sources replace kill with murder which implies their are justified homicides is what i want to know.
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You did not learn from the original Jewish texts, but more importantly, how they were reasoned and explained. Whole bunch of idea rabbis with scribes. The original interpretations discuss this.
 
The Japanese during WWII were afflicted by mass psychosis, as were Germans. They weren't innocent victims of the bombings; they were criminally insane.

“The phenomenon we have witnessed in Germany was nothing less than [an] outbreak of epidemic insanity. . . No one knew what was happening to him, least of all of the Germans, who allowed themselves to be driven to the slaughterhouse by their leading psychopaths like hypnotized sheep.”​
— Carl Jung, After the Catastrophe​

We're seeing some of the same behavior around the world right now. People are going nuts, rioting because they have to wear facemasks, and believing things that have no basis in reality, simply because that's what they're told to believe. It could be foreshadowing the imminent collapse of society.
 
einstein was a very very smart man. of all his theories none has ever been proven wrong. one of his last quotes is ' I dont know what will be used for weapons in wwiii but wwiv will be fought with sticks and stone"...now you stop, read that quote and think about it for a minute!
 

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