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| Re: 75 Years Ago Today (1758285) | |||
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Re: 75 Years Ago Today |
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Posted by JayZeeBMT on Fri Aug 7 08:05:08 2020, in response to Re: 75 Years Ago Today, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Thu Aug 6 12:37:42 2020. Here's a little bit of actual history for you on the atomic bomb raids against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, courtesy of historians Kai Bird and Peter Kuznick:"While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: “The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds.” But online the wording has been modified to put the atomic bombings in a more positive light — once again showing how myths can overwhelm historical evidence. Seven of the United States’ eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy’s vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry “Hap” Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both. No one was more impassioned in his condemnation than Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff. He wrote in his memoir “that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender …. In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” MacArthur thought the use of atomic bombs was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Hoover that if Truman had followed Hoover’s “wise and statesmanlike” advice to modify its surrender terms and tell the Japanese they could keep their emperor, “the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt.” Before the bombings, Eisenhower had urged at Potsdam, “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Of course, the Subchat Double Standard of using common words to describe certain things operates as usual. "In anger" is a commonly used way of describing wartime military operations, except when I use it in a sentence. Then I am smeared as being against the use of atomic weapons to end the war, but I'm pretty sure no one will smear Leahy, Eisenhower, King, Nimitz, MacArthur, and the rest of the top brass as "sick" for their opposition to its use. How typical. |
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