The usual Open Thread rules apply. Be concise, be charitable and, above all, be amusing. (You knew I had to do something for the annual August Bomb Follies didn’t you, although this is an Open Thread and not topic restricted.)
God Bless Harry Truman Open Thread
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
3,2,1, . . .Marx Che et al commence the annual hue and cry damning America for dropping the bomb.
Coincidentally, I am reading an interesting book on the US Civil War. One thing it posits is that after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, it was clear the CSA could not win the and the US was not going to allow it to continue as an independent country. And, yet the bloodshed dragged on and many thousands died. Similarly, the Japanese military refused to see the futility until Truman (D) dropped the bomb.
My uncle (RIP) always said he survived the war because of the bombs. a
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Of course the South did not have to defeat the North, but merely outlast it. The Confederates came close to doing so. In August 1864 Lincoln thought he was headed for defeat in November, and he was, if the election had been held in August rather than in November after a series of Union victories.
My usual rule of thumb for hue-and-cry is in play, this year:
when one side consistently ignores relevant facts (the entire population of all targeted cities were warned, with enough time to leave in a safe manner; the Japanese public assertion, and observed practice, that everybody would fight or they would die at the hands of their own people.)
(Foxfier will forget to finish her sentence due to modifiers. wait, that’s a universal rule…)
I get that you like to poke the left. Good. I’m pretty far right. You probably wont listen but FWIW, this isn’t really worth splitting your forces over. A lot of folks on the right think rhe Japanese nukes and Dreden, etc, wwre awful things and not justified. So in the name of consolidating the right and fighting the real bad guys, NOW, namely the Progressive left, can you find other ways to have fun?
My views on the morality of the atomic bombings has been repeated on this blog since 2008, and before that on other blogs. I have no difficulty in regard to people agreeing with me on some issues and disagreeing with me on others. Reasoned debate is one of the hallmarks of this blog since its inception.
I think the best arguments for the bombings are better than the best arguments against them. You’ve got the double effect, a just war argument, et cetera. But I mostly hear bad arguments for the bombings, and the arguments against them are usually just arguments against America in general.
Disputes about history can be frustrating that way. There are some things you can get a better perspective on when you’re further away, but as a field, historians seem to swing wildly with the popular trends. (Not you, Don. The other ones.) It really makes me question the value of studying history. PJ O’Rourke said that seriousness is stupidity sent to college. Learning, even historical learning, doesn’t necessarily aid a person’s thinking.
I’ve watched many of the Military History Visualized videos on YouTube. In addition to the one you have in the article there are:
The Invasion of Japan – Operation Olympic / Downfall
Why not blockade Japan into Surrender? (feat. D.M. Giangreco)
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I’ve also seen several documentaries about the early days of the American occupation of Japan. They all say that the early days of the occupation were a very tense period.
So in the name of consolidating the right and fighting the real bad guys, NOW, namely the Progressive left, can you find other ways to have fun?
Not really for fun, even if there is some dark amusement to it.
Disagreeing is fine; disagreeing for bad reasons may come back around and bite me, and disagreeing but they don’t know I disagree and instead assume that I agree with their bad logic will, from past examples, come back to bite me– so no, I don’t want to go along to get along with someone who does not recognize that I do not ignore the “and what you have failed to do” part of “forgive me for what I have done, and what I have failed to do.”
If they cannot deal with that, and decide to interpret not agreeing with them as an attack, then they’d do exactly the same as an “ally” but I would already be counting on them to work with me. From past evidence, they’re prone to flipping entirely and destroying me as a traitor because they assumed on agreed with them in all things.
I’ve also seen several documentaries about the early days of the American occupation of Japan. They all say that the early days of the occupation were a very tense period.
The country was going to starve unless they got a ton of food, they knew how they had treated prisoners of the very folks now occupying them, and the philosophical objections to surrender were of the “and I die fighting them, taking basically everybody in the area along with me” color.
I bet it was quite tense.
Among my dearest friends was a man who had occupation duty in Japan from September to December of 1945. His account did not report much tension. IIRC what he said, some segments of the population were more at ease with American soldiers than others (women and older men, I think he said).
One of my friends, a Methodist minister who has since passed on, was among the first occupation troops, he helped set up a medical treatment center in Hiroshima, and he said that the Japanese he encountered were quite friendly. They had been told during the war that Americans were cannibals and were relieved when they learned that was not the case. They also told him they would have fought to the death for the Emperor, but when he said surrender that was it as far as they were concerned,
Tim H. wrote: “A lot of folks on the right think rhe Japanese nukes and Dreden, etc, wwre awful things and not justified.”
Exactly. I would not be shocked if conservative Catholics are about evenly split on this. I’m fairly conservative. And I understand the self-justifications for dropping the bombs. I do. I used to agree with them. And, for that reason, I do not condemn Harry Truman for what must have been an agonizing decision. But I believe that using atomic weapons of mass destruction on civilian population centers — not once, but twice — was unjust.
And lest anyone want to lump me in with the likes of Shea and his cohort of leftist degenerate hangers on, just recall that it was I who first coined the sobriquet “Marx Che” …
“Do not cite the Deep Magic to me… I was there when it was written.”
😉
The blog is for debate as all the regulars know. I am proud that we have never imposed ideological litmus tests like the heresy hunters of the contemporary Left.
Apropos of everything and nothing, I find it theologically significant that it took the shedding of innocent Christian blood (Nagasaki being the “heart” of Christianity in Japan) to bring the War to an end.
Sadly that gets lost in debates over “lesser evils” and “viable alternatives.” Or so it seems to me.