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Obama in Hiroshima


RavenHawk

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I have not seen anything mentioned about Obama’s visit to Hiroshima?  He promised that he would not go there and apologize for America dropping the atomic bomb.  His speech didn’t include any apparent or obvious apology.  Although, there were a few places he was lying through his teeth.  However, that fact seemed to overshadow the timing of his visit which was Memorial Day weekend.  He still did it.  He found a way to at least symbolically insult America again.

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He also said he wants a nuke free world.

well, START WITH AMERICA. Put your money where your mouth is Obama and disarm America's nuclear arsenal (you can start with the ones you've stored here in Oz). 

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naw, will keep the nukes, Ukraine gave up theirs, it did not turn out good for them. 

otoh he did not promise to get rid of nukes, he only said he wants a nuke free world, a man can have his desires. i want my own space ship\submarine\bicycle. my desire has as much chance of materializing as his.

 

oh, and that is  3 in one, not 3 separate items, i already have 2 bicycles

Edited by aztek
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I do believe that ultimately the bombs saved more lives than they took.  I would be all for both countries hugging it out and apologizing for every regrettable thing perpetrated by both sides in the war and agree that war is a detestable thing.  I truly believe that the the people of the USA and Japan love and respect each other.

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12 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

 

I have not seen anything mentioned about Obama’s visit to Hiroshima?  He promised that he would not go there and apologize for America dropping the atomic bomb.  His speech didn’t include any apparent or obvious apology.  Although, there were a few places he was lying through his teeth.  However, that fact seemed to overshadow the timing of his visit which was Memorial Day weekend.  He still did it.  He found a way to at least symbolically insult America again.

He is absolute scum.

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How did he insult America? He did the right thing. The bomb was part of a war, and did it's job ending it. Did the Japanese aplogize for Pearl Harbor??  No matter what Obama does, there 's always some hater that'll randomly insult him

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36 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I do believe that ultimately the bombs saved more lives than they took.  I would be all for both countries hugging it out and apologizing for every regrettable thing perpetrated by both sides in the war and agree that war is a detestable thing.  I truly believe that the the people of the USA and Japan love and respect each other.

Arguably, they already have, in between MAD preventing WW3 from going from a Cold War and into a Hot one, to nuclear medicine and potentially space exploration.

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His purpose in visiting was NOT to apologize.

He was there for a G7 Summit meeting.  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japan-hosts-42nd-annual-g7-192600114.html

Hiroshima was a side trip.  What he did was the equivalent of laying a wreath on a memorial.  You might think it's a horrible thing for him to "lay a wreath on a memorial to civilians killed in a war" but for just a moment turn the scenario around -- what if the Japanese Prime minister laid a wreath on a WWII memorial in Washington or the German Chancellor laid a wreath on the memorial to the Jews killed by the Holocaust.

How are those shameful acts?

Nobody's apologizing for anything.  They're acknowledging the horrors that others went through.  He's made similar gestures elsewhere and each time we see the same outrage - "how dare he show empathy?"

Perhaps those people being outraged should rethink what it means to be American.  For me, it doesn't mean "being the mean bully."  It means "being the wise one."

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3 hours ago, OverSword said:

I do believe that ultimately the bombs saved more lives than they took.  I would be all for both countries hugging it out and apologizing for every regrettable thing perpetrated by both sides in the war and agree that war is a detestable thing.  I truly believe that the the people of the USA and Japan love and respect each other.

Actually, I think it could be argued that we didn't really need to drop the bombs on them at all.  Russia declared war on Japan, the day after Hiroshima, and was actively moving closer to mainland Japan.

Japan could not stop any of the American's bombing raids.  Japan was all but defeated.  Earlier in that year, Japan offered surrender, but wanted to keep the Emporer intact..  We wanted him removed (and rightly so).  However the crippling effects our naval blockade had on supply lines, money, and the impending Russian threat, they were done.  

What difference would it be to the Japanese at that point, if we could drop one big atomic bomb on a city, or carpet bombing them into dust?

Some even contend that the real reason of dropping the bomb was a show of force to the Soviets, (and the kickoff of the Cold War).

Alot of it, of course, is easy to judge, given that hindsight is always 20/20, but I think it raises enough questions that we, as Americans SHOULD be asking.  A lot of dissent about our using the bombs comes directly from the Military leaders and analysts of the time, so this isn't some sort of 'liberal retelling' of the event.

Anyhow, sorry to hijack your post with this, I've been reading about the topic lately, and it has really captured my attention.

There are lots of articles on it on the web, if anyone is interested.

 

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Historians continue to wrestle what the bigger factor in hastening the end of the war, the dropping of the Atomic bombs, or the Soviet entry into the war.   Both were catastrophies.   The Soviet entry into the war, it is believed in consensus, was a factor in the decision to drop the bomb.  If the US could end the war quickly, they would minimize Soviet influence in Asia.  It would make Zhukov and his Iosef Stalin tanks smashing Japanese forces stationed in Manchuria a moot point, and it accomplished this to a large degree.  It's arguable it saved a lot of lives in mainland Asia, not just American lives and Japanese lives. 

If I lived from 1941 to 1945 I'm sure it would have been difficult to oppose the atomic bombs and the end of WW2.   USAF was already strategic bombing (that's carpet bombing for you Republican kids) even larger Japanese cities and turning them into ruins.  Already killing many more civilians than the A-bombs initially would.  The atomic bombs were as much the first shots fired in the Cold War as they were among the last of WW2.  

Of course the toxicity of the blasts would continue to destroy the health and lives of people who lived in the area.  

 

 

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4 hours ago, RavenHawk said:

 

I have not seen anything mentioned about Obama’s visit to Hiroshima?  He promised that he would not go there and apologize for America dropping the atomic bomb.  His speech didn’t include any apparent or obvious apology.  Although, there were a few places he was lying through his teeth.  However, that fact seemed to overshadow the timing of his visit which was Memorial Day weekend.  He still did it.  He found a way to at least symbolically insult America again.

There's nothing out of order there dude.  Obama's fine.   But what is it with this hypersensitivity towards Japan?   We won, dude.  In fact, it's the last war we did win.  You're still bent out of shape about winning, but you're totally on board for the interventionist foreign policy that hasn't won a war since.    Winning makes you mad, and losing encourages you.

Now we're discussing the 3rd battle for Fallujah.   In which you should really be.   It doesn't matter if you're too old for the military, go over there with some supplies you bought online and fight the war yourself.  There will surely be a wonderful group of guys over there to receive you, the ones you've been supporting for all these years that you can fight together with.   You could give speeches in south Saudi Arabia about all the great reason to smash Yemen.  You could stand on the street corner of east Jerusalem and encourage someone else's kids to smash Gaza and the West Bank.   You don't even have to buy guns and ammo, just posters, pens and audio equipment.  Stop patronizing the world and treating our "allies" like children and go try your narrative out on them.

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Well we did kill hundreds of thousands of civilians during the nuclear blast, then afterwards many more thousands died from radiation sickness. This is for those civilians, not the army that we fought against.

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Why should we apologize for anything?

They ATTACKED us, as I recall.

 

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18 minutes ago, pallidin said:

Why should we apologize for anything?

They ATTACKED us, as I recall.

 

He didn't apologize.

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51 minutes ago, Uncle Sam said:

Well we did kill hundreds of thousands of civilians during the nuclear blast, then afterwards many more thousands died from radiation sickness. This is for those civilians, not the army that we fought against.

Sorry, no difference.  We were at war with Japan.  All of Japan, just as they were at war with all of us.  Japan treated civilians and soldiers exactly the same way.  The use of atomic weapons was the right call and saved many more lives.  Besides, if Japan didn't want to be bombed, then they shouldn't have started a war with the rest of the world in the first place.

 

And as for the subject of this thread, Obummer didn't apologize.  He shouldn't apologize.  No apology should ever be offered by anyone for this.

Edited by Thorvir Hrothgaard
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Didn't apologize.  Didn't say anything unreasonable either.   So yeah it's not much of a bucket list item at all.

 

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6 hours ago, Yamato said:

Didn't apologize.  Didn't say anything unreasonable either.   So yeah it's not much of a bucket list item at all.

 

In fact, handled himself gracefully and very presidentially, as he almost always does...yet the blind hate for him continues....

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4 minutes ago, supervike said:

In fact, handled himself gracefully and very presidentially, as he almost always does...yet the blind hate for him continues....

What did you expect?

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I find this to be no big deal.    It would have been nice for him to visit Pearl Harbor before or after this, but no big deal.  

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13 hours ago, supervike said:

Actually, I think it could be argued that we didn't really need to drop the bombs on them at all.  Russia declared war on Japan, the day after Hiroshima, and was actively moving closer to mainland Japan.

Japan could not stop any of the American's bombing raids.  Japan was all but defeated.  Earlier in that year, Japan offered surrender, but wanted to keep the Emporer intact..  We wanted him removed (and rightly so).  However the crippling effects our naval blockade had on supply lines, money, and the impending Russian threat, they were done.  

What difference would it be to the Japanese at that point, if we could drop one big atomic bomb on a city, or carpet bombing them into dust?

Some even contend that the real reason of dropping the bomb was a show of force to the Soviets, (and the kickoff of the Cold War).

Alot of it, of course, is easy to judge, given that hindsight is always 20/20, but I think it raises enough questions that we, as Americans SHOULD be asking.  A lot of dissent about our using the bombs comes directly from the Military leaders and analysts of the time, so this isn't some sort of 'liberal retelling' of the event.

Anyhow, sorry to hijack your post with this, I've been reading about the topic lately, and it has really captured my attention.

There are lots of articles on it on the web, if anyone is interested.

 

Because Japan would have fought fanatically house to house in every city.  In the long run this would have cost more lives on both sides.  Also if we're mentioning hindsight what would have happened had the soviets landed in Japan?  A second wall in Tokyo? 

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17 hours ago, OverSword said:

I do believe that ultimately the bombs saved more lives than they took.  I would be all for both countries hugging it out and apologizing for every regrettable thing perpetrated by both sides in the war and agree that war is a detestable thing.  I truly believe that the the people of the USA and Japan love and respect each other.

You are correct! The nukes dropped on Japan actually saved lives and the tenacity of Japanese soldiers to fight to the death and the kamikaze attacks played much into the decision to use the atomic bombs. However, the most destructive air raid in history was the incendiary bomb attack under. "Operation Meetinghouse."

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31 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Because Japan would have fought fanatically house to house in every city.  In the long run this would have cost more lives on both sides.  Also if we're mentioning hindsight what would have happened had the soviets landed in Japan?  A second wall in Tokyo? 

Japan was almost certainly ready to surrender, and probably would have already done if it hadn't been for the Allies' vindictive demands for "unconditional Surrender", which they felt would have meant a demand for the Emperor to stand down. It was almost certainly purely a political gesture, aimed mainly at Joe Stalin.

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33 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Because Japan would have fought fanatically house to house in every city.  In the long run this would have cost more lives on both sides.  Also if we're mentioning hindsight what would have happened had the soviets landed in Japan?  A second wall in Tokyo? 

I have heard that the atomic bombs would have saved over 1 million lives. Had we invaded Japan the death toll would have been huge. I don't like nukes and there were cases where the world came to within a very short period of time of  experiencing a full-blown nuclear war and even to this day, many people are unaware of what occurred in the past. 

September 26th, 1983: The day the world almost died

Except then, suddenly, it did. A warning light flashed up, screaming red letters on a white background - 'LAUNCH. LAUNCH'. Deafening sirens wailed. The computer was telling him that the U.S. had just gone to war.

The blood drained from his face. He broke out in a cold sweat. But he kept his nerve. The computer had detected missiles being fired but the hazy screens were showing nothing untoward at all, no tell-tale flash of an missile roaring out of its silo into the sky. Could this be a computer glitch rather than Armageddon?

 

Instead of calling an alert that within minutes would have had Soviet missiles launched in a retaliatory strike, Petrov decided to wait. The warning light flashed again - a second missile was, apparently, in the air. And then a third. Now the computer had stepped up the warning: 'Missile attack imminent!'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-505009/September-26th-1983-The-day-world-died.html

 

5 Cold War Close Calls

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls

It is time to get rid of the nukes. 

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14 hours ago, Uncle Sam said:

Well we did kill hundreds of thousands of civilians during the nuclear blast, then afterwards many more thousands died from radiation sickness. This is for those civilians, not the army that we fought against.

Japan started the war with the United States and it paid a heavy price. 

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18 hours ago, Vlawde said:

Quote

How did he insult America? He did the right thing. The bomb was part of a war, and did it's job ending it. Did the Japanese aplogize for Pearl Harbor??  No matter what Obama does, there 's always some hater that'll randomly insult him

 

16 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Quote

 

His purpose in visiting was NOT to apologize.

He was there for a G7 Summit meeting.  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japan-hosts-42nd-annual-g7-192600114.html

Hiroshima was a side trip.  What he did was the equivalent of laying a wreath on a memorial.  You might think it's a horrible thing for him to "lay a wreath on a memorial to civilians killed in a war" but for just a moment turn the scenario around -- what if the Japanese Prime minister laid a wreath on a WWII memorial in Washington or the German Chancellor laid a wreath on the memorial to the Jews killed by the Holocaust.

How are those shameful acts?

Nobody's apologizing for anything.  They're acknowledging the horrors that others went through.  He's made similar gestures elsewhere and each time we see the same outrage - "how dare he show empathy?"

Perhaps those people being outraged should rethink what it means to be American.  For me, it doesn't mean "being the mean bully."  It means "being the wise one."

 

 

It seems that some people were not paying attention.  He didn’t apologize, just as he promised.  But he visited Hiroshima on the weekend he should have been honoring America’s dead.  I.e. no one else’s.  This degrades our Memorial Day.  It’s all symbolic.  It’s just another way to stick it to America.  It was just another way for him to tell us that we didn’t build it.  He has been to Japan 4 times, he didn’t have to pay respects on this last trip.  He should have made a trip for 6 Aug (or at some other time which isn’t a major reflection of our honored dead).  This is how this guy works.

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