posted on July 17, 2005 03:18:03 AM new
I'm trying to remember the EXACT ratio, but it's something shocking like:
99% of AMERICAN POWS in GERMAN CAPTIVITY survived...
...while ONLY 50% in JAPANESE CAPTIVITY survived!
Course, the poor guys at Malmedy didn't even get to a camp...
"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me."—Guess Who? Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
I'm not saying that the Japanese war machine wasn't horrible. It was. Just as, if not more than, the Vietnamese. They didn't get all they deserved, IMO. But, what did the women and children in those two towns have to do with it? Why drop the bomb on them and not on some military camp or building? I'm not understanding the hip-hip-hurrah that women and children were incinerated. Were they somehow running the war from the Japanese end? Or, as I suspect most will say, were they collateral damage? Would you prefer the bomb be dropped on Washington DC or on Miami or L.A. or some other place heavily populated by civilians?
posted on July 17, 2005 05:11:40 AM new
Methinks they be apples and oranges...
VIET NAM (as far as I was concerned) was an INDEPENDENCE WAR fought for 60 years...Ole Uncle Ho came to US (his allies during WWII) for help keeping the FRENCH out...
JAPAN: nobody forced them to invade Manchuria! Nobody forced them to invade CHINA!
They have NO natural resources...SO, they decided to MURDER & SLAUGHTER their way to AUSTRALIA...
MILLIONS were MURDERED by these ANIMALS...
FACT: ain't many tears being shed in the PHILLIPPINES, nor KOREA, nor CHINA about THE BOMB!
"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me."—Guess Who? Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
posted on July 17, 2005 05:24:42 AM new
I don't know, Tom, maybe I'm just a tad bit jaded because I have friends who are Japanese and I collect Japanese art. I just can't fathom those who create such beautiful objects being so cruel. At least, not all of them.
posted on July 17, 2005 05:33:03 AM new
Of course, NOT ALL!
BUT, the GOVERNMENT (including the EMPEROR, it is now becoming clear) and the MILITARY, and the VAST MAJORITY of the population believed in their DIVINE RIGHT to slaughter & murder millions...
THEY GOT OFF EASY!
Ask the THOUSANDS of KOREAN GIRLS stolen for the COMFORT of the JAP SOLDIERS...
Ask the THOUSANDS of BABIES bayonetted in CHINA...
ASK the thousands TORTURED in MANILLA...
ASK the CHINESE POWs who were MURDERED during MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS...
ASK any AMERICAN POW unlucky enough to have been captured by that scum...
THEY GOT OFF EASY!
"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me."—Guess Who? Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
TWAS TRULY the GREATEST ERA when we all were saved by THE GREATEST GENERATION...
What they survived I cannot even imagine living thru...
My uncle was a 16yo marine who spent 1 week on Guadelcanal before having a leg blown off...
BUT, all these kids were involved in a SUPREME STRUGGLE between (yes) GOOD vs EVIL...
The whole WORLD came VERY CLOSE to the END of all goodness...
A few kids flying Spitfires...
A stunning victory at MIDWAY...
IT ALL COULD HAVE JUST AS EASILY GONE THE OTHER WAY!
"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me."—Guess Who? Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
posted on July 17, 2005 06:52:49 AM new
Maybe we should celebrate because ever since that day the world has been filled with peace and love, no more wars, no more hate, a real Garden of Eden.
posted on July 17, 2005 07:22:34 AM new
Do people even READ history anymore?
Whaddya think? The NAZIS were sitting around baking strudl & building cookoo clocks?
The scientists who worked on the bomb were convinced they were in a race against the Germans, who had the greatest nuclear arms genius in Heisenburg (I think that was his name??) -- they were in a race to prevent the FINISH OF CIVILIZATION as we knew it!
Turns out that the German nuclear program was pretty flimsy -- BUT NOBODY KNEW IT AT THE TIME!
Once built & tested at Almadordo (TRINITY), Truman was given the wonderful ability to END THE WAR in a BLINK.
Who knows how many hundreds of thousands AMERICAN lives, ntm probably 1 MILLION Japanese lives were saved by ENDING THE WAR immediately.
posted on July 17, 2005 11:41:44 AM new
AND the only reason it was flimsy was:
1) We bombed their Norwegian factory for heavy water extraction and
2) They didn't have the resources we did.
And in the factory towns (yes Nagasaki and Hiroshima were "military" targets, not resorts) women reported to military training before and or after their shifts at the plants. Children also. No different than Germany.
Is there something incomprehensible to you people about a society pledged to total war??
A woman or a 12 yr old can stick you with a bayonet just as well as a soldier. They just wear cuter kimonos. Many a Russian tank was taken out by a 12yr old and his trusty Panzerschreck.
You should stop comparing your affluent western leftist little brains to other cultures-you'll live longer. Either that or read more history, less philosophy.
posted on July 17, 2005 01:53:42 PM new
My two cents worth and I can speak with a little experience here. My dad was in charge of the road construction and maintenance at Camp Fannin, an army infantry training camp near my home town. I was 11 year old when WWII ended. I used to go to work with him during school break in the summer. Camp Fannin had a German POW camp and we worked the Germans on the road crews. They lived in nice barracks, had daily recreation breaks, and had their own swimming pool. They could buy their own candy and cigaretts with a payment that the US made to them. Yes, I'm not kidding. Three of these POW's even moved back to our area after being repatriated and raised their families here.
Compare that to the torture, unspeakable acts and starvation that my uncle went through for fours years as a Japanese POW. A bit of difference in our two countries and cultures don't you think! And some of the board members stoop to put down our country's actions and our way of government. Not me.
The Japanese Government handed weapons to children. They taught young men that it was an honor to crash a plane into our ships. Not too different in what we are going through now. A couple of bombs stopped that in an instant and turned a warlike population into one that denies war and the military in their constitution. Think about it.
[ edited by etexbill on Jul 17, 2005 01:55 PM ]
posted on July 17, 2005 02:23:41 PM new
etexbill - Don't let the 'blame American first' leftie group here discourage you. They are such a small minority in the US, thank heaven. In their minds, it's always OUR fault....no matter the war/conflict.
And our schools are failing to teach much US history to our children/grandchildren....and I believe that's why so many American's don't have a clue as to what we are now facing with the Muslim radicals. They just don't 'get' it. They seem to think if we just 'admit defeat', pull out and stop fighting .... all will be just fine...we'll be left alone. Thank heaven again, they aren't in control.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on July 17, 2005 02:50:01 PM new
And the neocon righties think if we just "nuke 'em" everything will be better. But they can't seem to ever say just who and where we should drop the bombs ????
posted on July 17, 2005 03:14:50 PM new
Tex.. I can feel your pain and frustration along with Tom's and other's who feel like it's a slap in the face of America from those who denounce the use of the Atom bomb against the Japanese. Reading your's and Tom's passionate responses made me step back and reflect awhile.
I must admit that I am guilty as charged...my gut reaction to Ron's original post was outrage..outrage at the idea that we could celebrate something so horrific as the birth of a weapon of mass destruction..one that changed the world and put fear in the lives of mankind forever more.
Then..I spent the rest of the night reading about the bombings and the purpose of the bombings and the arguments pro and con..I was stricken by how little I really knew and how little we were taught.
Many of us have not experienced evil on such a personal level as other's have, those who have fought a war, lost loved ones, seen the brutality first hand and we therefore have retained our innocence or naivete wanting to believe that evil can be conquered by compassion...I am now finally seeing the truth, ugly as it may be..that brutal force sometimes is the only response we can use against those who will respect nothing less.
So..I'm sorry if my knee-jerk response to the OP.. offended anyone..take it for what it was..a nurturer at heart..with contempt for anything evil, material or living.. Boldly Going Nowhere
posted on July 17, 2005 04:02:11 PM new
Thank you maggie. I can understand the views of the other side also, but I lived thru an era where kids saved aluminum foil from gum wrappers, bought War stamps till we had enough for a War Effort bond, women built ships and planes while their husbands and sons were fighting to protect our country, everything was rationed, tires, gasoline, sugar, butter,and you had to save ration coupons to have enough gasoline and tires to get to work.
Everyone pulled together. There was no such thing as bad mouthing our country and its goals, because we all had the same goals. To come to where we are today with nothing good to say about our country or our president. It is just hard for me to imagine such a turnaround in my lifetime.
World War II was a terrible time and we are lucky to have come through it with our freedom. I just wish our people had more of an idea where we came from and what we went through so that some could find and say nothing good about the USA.
posted on July 17, 2005 04:47:59 PM new
etexbill--Everyone pulled together. There was no such thing as bad mouthing our country and its goals, because we all had the same goals. To come to where we are today with nothing good to say about our country or our president. It is just hard for me to imagine such a turnaround in my lifetime.
World War II was a terrible time and we are lucky to have come through it with our freedom.---
The freedom to speak out as we please.
You're right, some of us have much different goals.
Yes, there was a turnaround but why blame the critics? Why not blame the people who gave us so much to criticize ?
posted on July 17, 2005 04:59:05 PM new
I gave you some answers, like you're a neocon because when you lose an argument you want to kill the other poster, violence is the way of neocons and terrorists, one and the same.
posted on July 17, 2005 05:04:50 PM new
Hiroshima: City of peace
Angela Bianchi, CBC News Online | August 5, 2004
Apart from the skeletal Atomic Bomb Dome and a few disfigured citizens, there are few visible scars left in Hiroshima to remind us of the early morning bombing that took place Aug. 6, 1945, a day that saw the birth of the atomic age and a city of 200,000 razed by a single bomb.
Roads that once made temporary mortuaries for the countless bodies roasted by intense thermal rays have been paved over, along with the human shadows imprinted on the asphalt by the heat of the atomic bomb.
Fifty-nine years later most bombing victims have died or remain institutionalized, but for those who luckily escaped the fallout, memories of the 8:15 a.m. bombing have not faded.
Lest we forget, Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum, built in 1955 as a testimony to the horrors of atomic war, continues to educate, horrify and sensitize curious visitors.
Inside are photographs of victims grotesquely scarred, of bodies burned beyond recognition, and countless black-and-white photos of school children draped with tattered clothing, with skin peeling off their faces.
posted on July 17, 2005 10:57:23 PM new
Yeah and we have the Arizona memorial to incinerated sailors. The Chinese the dead baby exhibit in Shanghai. Etc, etc, etc
Still doesn't change the fact that powers around the world throughout time would gladly accept horrific causualties to further their goals, and postponing the inevitable only increases the body count.
Imbeciles like mingotree are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in the 20th century. As time goes on the story is always the same, just the body count increases.
"Liebensraum", "Bushido", or "Jihad", it's all the same bs, and always has the same end.
So whether Helen or mingotree et al continue with the 1,703, 1,704, 1,705 posts, only force of arms maintains peace, not good intentions.
posted on July 18, 2005 06:01:24 AM new
Desquirrel says,
--Imbeciles like mingotree are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in the 20th century. As time goes on the story is always the same, just the body count increases.
So whether Helen or mingotree et al continue with the 1,703, 1,704, 1,705 posts, only force of arms """"maintains peace,"""" not good intentions.--
--
I'm so sorry about your stroke desquirrel, the one leaving you brain dead. In case you haven't noticed
peace has NOT been maintained ....a teeny FACT that you chose not to see....pretty stupid to miss that.
posted on July 18, 2005 08:55:56 AM new
Quote": "I gave you some answers, like you're a neocon because when you lose an argument you want to kill the other poster, violence is the way of neocons and terrorists, one and the same."
No, I'm sorry you didn't and you can't. I asked for a definition of "neocon" and you answer by calling me a neocon again. No definition. Then you call desquirrel "brain dead".
If I were you, I would not post mingotree as every time you do, you bring a bad name on you and your friends here.
I have explained to you about my thoughts and the reason for them. Maggie took the time to read and study them and came away with an understanding of where we are coming from. You and your ilk, on the other hand, are so bent on putting down our nation and our officials no matter what they do, that you refuse to do anything but run off at the mouth and you do so without an intelligent thought or explanation.
You proclaim yourself the "winner" of arguments when you can't debate your way out a paper bag. The "winner" is not for the debaters to decide.
So, I will continue to be the "Founder of the Nuke mingotree Committee".
[ edited by etexbill on Jul 18, 2005 08:56 AM ]
[ edited by etexbill on Jul 18, 2005 08:57 AM ]
posted on July 18, 2005 09:14:57 AM new
With your neocon attitude, Etexbill, you must've missed the "Imbeciles like mingotree "
from desquirel.
Why is that acceptable to you?..because you agree with him , right?
So get off my back about name calling, it's just an excuse to use against a poster when YOU have been proven wrong. I have been called many names since I've been posting and have never cried and pouted about it.
I have given you several definitions of neocon in different places. Too bad you choose not to read them...not my fault YOU don't read.
And here is YOUR "intelligent " "thought"...death to the opposition...where's the debate in that?
. I get your point.
