August 6, 1965 Voting Rights Act of 1965, abolishing literacy tests and other measures devised by Democrats to prevent African-Americans from voting, signed into law; higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats vote in favor August 6, 1945 Democrat President Harry Truman's administration drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing 140,000 people. Attack is followed three days later by atomic bombing of Nagasaki, killing 80,000
Since the nuking of Japan was top secret, Republicans did not have the opportunity to tell Truman what an insane act that would be. But conservatives certainly didn't hesitate to condemn it days and years after the fact. On August 8, 1945, two days after the bombing, former Republican President Herbert Hoover wrote to a friend that "[t]he use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." Days later, David Lawrence, the conservative owner and editor of U.S. News (now U.S. News & World Report), argued that Japan's surrender had been inevitable without the atomic bomb. He added that justifications of "military necessity" will "never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations . . . did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children." Just weeks after Japan's surrender, an article published in the conservative magazine Human Events contended that America's atomic destruction of Hiroshima might be morally "more shameful" and "more degrading" than Japan's "indefensible and infamous act of aggression" at Pearl Harbor. Such scathing criticism on the part of leading American conservatives continued well after 1945. A 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of "crimes against humanity" for "the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese." In 1948, Henry Luce, the conservative owner of Time, Life, and Fortune, stated that "[i]f, instead of our doctrine of 'unconditional surrender,' we had all along made our conditions clear, I have little doubt that the war with Japan would have ended soon without the bomb explosion which so jarred the Christian conscience." A steady drumbeat of conservative criticism continued throughout the 1950s. A 1958 editorial in William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review took former President Truman to task for his then-current explanation of why he had decided to drop an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The editors asked the question that "ought to haunt Harry Truman: 'Was it really necessary?'" Could a demonstration of the bomb and an ultimatum have ended the war? The editors challenged Truman to provide a satisfactory answer. Six weeks later the magazine published an article harshly critical of Truman's atomic bomb decision. Two years later, David Lawrence informed his magazine's readers that it was "not too late to confess our guilt and to ask God and all the world to forgive our error" of having used atomic weapons against civilians. As a 1959 National Review article matter-of-factly stated: "The indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed." This is another case of Democrats making horrid decisions and then fleeing the scene of the crime. Looking back on American history, just as with slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans, there is not a Democrat on the horizon. Once again, it's America's fault.
5 comments:
There's one problem with this, even before the use of the nuke we were firebombing Toykeo, Dresdan and a few other population centers.
During our own civil war the north targeted civilians, and during the Indian wars we attacked civilians (while the Nations didn't descriminate between civilian and soldier depending on the tribe it is my contention that you have to fight with the same tactics that your enemies do [well I do lean towards Machevelli more than a normal Christian])
Anyway the problem I was talking about is the tactic of targeting civilians happened even before the decision to use the nukes. I might have made the same decision, and morally I might be wrong with it but I could have lived with the decision if it kept millions of American Soldiers from being killed.
Guess it's just part of the curse of living without the fear of my own mortality thanks to that alcky
Well, here's the deal Ranger: If The Bomb shortened the war so much as to save ONE American sailor or ONE American soldier from harm, then it was well justified a hundred times over. Japan started that war, and their prosecution of it was without honor, at least in terms of their treatment of our POW's.. Any blame for casualties they may have suffered as a result of their attempt to expand their territory at the expense of their neighbors must be bourne by their leaders and ultimately the Japanese people, not Truman and the democrats. This was too much of a stretch, Lone. Can't come down on your side on this one.
Here's the problem with that deal. We don't know IF the bombings saved American soldiers, but we do know they DID kill some.
For instance, 11 American POWs were being held at Chugoku Military Police Headquarters in the center of Hiroshima about 1,300 feet from ground zero. All were members of Air Force B-24 or Navy dive-bomber crews who had been captured when their planes were shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire on July 28. One of them, 19-year-old Normand Brissette, and another man, Army Air Force Sergeant Ralph Neal, didn't die at once. They suffered severe radiation burns and were somehow moved to a different location, where other American POWs futilely tried to look after them. Brissette and Neal survived in torment for 13 days and died on Aug. 19.
There were almost certainly additional American POWs killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of Allied POWs from Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Japanese-Americans trapped in Japan by the war were killed. Thousands of slave laborers from China, Manchuria, the Philippines, and conquered European colonies in South Asia were killed. About 30,000 Korean slave laborers were killed.
And the international community has rubbed our noses in it every year since then. Here are some examples from today's news.
HIROSHIMA, Japan, Aug 6, 2006 (AFP) - The Japanese city of Hiroshima marked the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic attack on Sunday with renewed calls for a nuclear-free world. Government officials and foreign guests from 35 countries laid wreaths before a memorial to the dead against the backdrop of the famous A-bomb dome, a former exhibition hall burned to a skeleton by the bomb's heat.
SYDNEY, Aug 6, 2006 (AFP) - Some 3,000 protesters rallied in Sydney on Sunday to mark the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic attack, calling for a nuclear-free world and peace in the Middle East.
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- The mayor of Hiroshima called Sunday for the elimination of all nuclear weapons as he marked the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, which killed more than 140,000 people in the Japanese city. Expressing concerns over the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged the government of Japan -- the only nation to suffer atomic bomb attacks -- to take a leading role in the effort to eliminate nuclear arsenals.
HIROSHIMA, Aug 6 (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people
from around the world gathered in Hiroshima on Sunday to pray for peace and urge the world to abandon nuclear weapons on the 61st anniversary of the first atomic bombing.
Sure, we firebombed and carpetbombed entire cities, but that was the nature of war back then. Then came the atomic bombs and the rules instantly changed.
Those bombings left a blot on our country's honor that will never be erased -- until someone else pushes a button.
I was living in Japan in 2000 and was there in Hiroshima on Auguat 6th. It was something.
It was such a solemn thing to walk through the museum [no one talked]and at the time it was packed like Disneyland with Japanese people (of course) and very odd to be the only white couple in there.
What I remember is the pictures of the devastation years later. children born years after...still had problems...it even affected the genes of these people...they had chairs for the survivors who were still alive and their children some with handicaps.
Could there ever be a good reason to ever do this to anyone? As much as I want to end the Middle East crisis...it frightens me to think that our technology has allowed us to lose our humanity and bombs like this seem the only way out of our quagmire.
This is one where both sides can be right, since there's no way to replay history in a different way. Someday, there will be a computer powerful enough to see how events could have been different if certain things had been done differently. The first thing I'd want to know is how this country would be different if Thomas Jefferson had not written his infamous "separation of church and state" letter.
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