The Nuking of Nagasaki: Even More Immoral and Unnecessary than Hiroshima

[Unkotare]

How old do you think I am?
.....

Too old to possibly teach long enough to mean shit to me.

 

[Unkotare]

Well, I’m off to talk to 5 dozen wounded warriors about ….. WORLD WAR 2…. For the rest of the day, ....

You're not qualified.

 

[Esdraelon]

You're not qualified.

Was my father, his friends and brothers who served at the time? Were they "qualified" to have an opinion? Japan not only started that war with the U.S., they proved through their commission of atrocities WORSE than the Nazis that their ruling system had become evil and needed to be removed as a global threat.

 

[Mac-7]

Illiteracy in America is a big problem. To think you can graduate HS and be essentially illiterate, tells you all you need to know about our educational system. Americans are dumb MFers.

See my thread…
Thread 'America the illiterate'
America the illiterate

Americans kids are not dumb

Our liberal/progressive public education system only makes them appear that way

 

[Mac-7]

This is a national disgrace, yet no one in authority says a word. Apparently they want a dumb populace. Who benefits? The MIC certainly benefits.

Public teachers have a powerful union that prevents democrat party politicians from criticizing them

 

[Unkotare]

Was my father, his friends and brothers who served at the time?....

Qualified to teach? Kinda seems like a separate question.

 

[P@triot]

How long have you taught history? More than an hour?

Those who can…do. Those who can’t…teach (propaganda)

 

[mikegriffith1]

I wonder how many conservatives who endorse Truman's nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki realize that General MacArthur and General Eisenhower, among many other senior officers, said it was unnecessary.

Part of the problem is that the Japanese army was a monstrous evil, and that most people project the army's awful conduct onto all of Japan. They assume that all Japanese were vicious and cruel. In actuality, most of Japan's civilian leaders despised the militarists, never wanted war with the U.S. in the first place, and were willing to surrender weeks before Hiroshima.

 

[Mac-7]

I wonder how many conservatives who endorse Truman's nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki realize that General MacArthur and General Eisenhower, among many other senior officers, said it was unnecessary.

Part of the problem is that the Japanese army was a monstrous evil, and that most people project the army's awful conduct onto all of Japan. They assume that all Japanese were vicious and cruel. In actuality, most of Japan's civilian leaders despised the militarists, never wanted war with the U.S. in the first place, and were willing to surrender weeks before Hiroshima.

Both macArthur and eisenhower were planning to run for president so their opinion was politically tainted

 

[Unkotare]

Those who can…do. Those who can’t…teach (propaganda)

Those who do ANYTHING were taught.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Both macArthur and eisenhower were planning to run for president so their opinion was politically tainted

Grant Also Retroactively Opposed the Mexican War on Political Party Pretexts

There is a logical disconnect between the claim that Mac the Knife opposed bombing Nagasaki and his own equally victory-focused desire to nuke the Chinese army getting ready to reinforce its invasion of Korea.

 

[Mushroom]

I wonder how many conservatives who endorse Truman's nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki realize that General MacArthur and General Eisenhower, among many other senior officers, said it was unnecessary.

Only years later.

Ike was not even in the theater, so in reality he has nothing to add to the topic. No more than those of say a British or French General.

And Mac was a glory hound. He also fabricated a hell of a lot, so anything he says is generally buried deep behind a mask of politics.

And that is painfully obvious when he also wanted to use between 30 and 50 nukes on North Korea, nuking every military base in the country, as well as every rail line and road that could provide access from North to South Korea.

So logically, we are to believe that he was against two nukes in Japan, a country that had attacked the US without warning. Yet, he supported using dozens of them again a country that had not actually attacked the US in any way? Even going so far as suggesting that a miles wide belt of radioactive cobalt be scattered along the border to prevent another invasion.

That makes absolutely no logical sense at all. We are to believe a man who seems to have hated the use in one war, then advocated using from 30 to 50 in a smaller regional war. Then in later life he told people he thought they should never have been used or invented.

One thing about Mac, he was never really consistent in what he said. He would constantly make a statement to one person, then a completely different statement to another. Largely based on what he thought they wanted to hear.

 

[Mushroom]

Both macArthur and eisenhower were planning to run for president so their opinion was politically tainted

Mac has long been recognized as the most political General ever in the US. Almost nothing he ever said was not clouded with politics.

And he very clearly said many things over the years about nukes. One of the most striking was a 1954 interview with respected journalists Jim Lucas and Bob Considine.

Of all the campaigns of my life, 20 major ones to be exact, [Korea was] the one I felt most sure of was the one I was deprived of waging. I could have won the war in Korea in a maximum of 10 days.... I would have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs on his air bases and other depots strung across the neck of Manchuria.... It was my plan as our amphibious forces moved south to spread behind us—from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea—a belt of radioactive cobalt. It could have been spread from wagons, carts, trucks and planes.... For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the north. The enemy could not have marched across that radiated belt.

Now think on that for a bit. This was one of the recommendations that actually led to his relief as it was things like this that caused a lot in the Pentagon and ultimately the White House to question his grasp on reality. The use of a few bombs on key targets is one thing. But from 30 to 50, and then poisoning an area purposefully with radioactive contamination? And it is known as a fact that Mac tried to get the President multiple times to release authorization for the use of nukes directly to him, and the President refused to ever do that.

Then years later, President Nixon revealed a discussion with the General shortly before Mac died.

MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy the bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants... MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off, which I think speaks well of him.

Since the General died in 1964, that would place it most likely during the Kennedy or Truman administrations. And Nixon even then was widely known to be anti-nuclear. SALT he always thought was a keystone to his administration, and was the first treaty to limit several categories of weapons. Also the ABM treaty, the Treaty of Tlatelolco (which prohibited nukes in Latin America and the Caribbean), the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (which limited all tests to 150 kt or less), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), and the Seabed Treaty. It was known even when he was VP that he was against nukes, so it was no real surprise that Mac would tell him what he wanted to hear.

There is a reason why I have long said that any statements by General MacArthur have to be taken with a grain of salt. A grain of salt larger than Mt. McKinley.

 

[Mac-7]

Mac has long been recognized as the most political General ever in the US. Almost nothing he ever said was not clouded with politics.

And he very clearly said many things over the years about nukes. One of the most striking was a 1954 interview with respected journalists Jim Lucas and Bob Considine.



Now think on that for a bit. This was one of the recommendations that actually led to his relief as it was things like this that caused a lot in the Pentagon and ultimately the White House to question his grasp on reality. The use of a few bombs on key targets is one thing. But from 30 to 50, and then poisoning an area purposefully with radioactive contamination? And it is known as a fact that Mac tried to get the President multiple times to release authorization for the use of nukes directly to him, and the President refused to ever do that.

Then years later, President Nixon revealed a discussion with the General shortly before Mac died.



Since the General died in 1964, that would place it most likely during the Kennedy or Truman administrations. And Nixon even then was widely known to be anti-nuclear. SALT he always thought was a keystone to his administration, and was the first treaty to limit several categories of weapons. Also the ABM treaty, the Treaty of Tlatelolco (which prohibited nukes in Latin America and the Caribbean), the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (which limited all tests to 150 kt or less), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), and the Seabed Treaty. It was known even when he was VP that he was against nukes, so it was no real surprise that Mac would tell him what he wanted to hear.

There is a reason why I have long said that any statements by General MacArthur have to be taken with a grain of salt. A grain of salt larger than Mt. McKinley.

Korea was the first modern limited war

And it followed our experience of total war in WWII where anything except chemical and biological weapons were on the table

I’m sure Truman made decisions that were politically harmful to him but nevertheless best for America

I respect MacArthur

but he made a lot of mistakes along with his successes

 

[Mushroom]

I respect MacArthur

but he made a lot of mistakes along with his successes

I have never said I do not respect him. I simply recognize that almost everything he ever said or did was politically motivated. And he often would simply tell people what they wanted to hear. Even if he told two people two completely different things. And his almost constant contradictory statements of the decades kind of prove that. And even though that was the "Wilderness Years" for Nixon, he had still been Vice President, and was an influential Republican, and largely the unofficial leader of the "Liberal Wing" of the party.

So when speaking to a Politician, he would resort to what he knew best. Say to them what they want to hear. Just as he did to Commander Lyndon Johnson (member of the US House of Representatives from Texas) when he was in the theater on a fact finding tour for President Roosevelt. He told him what he wanted him and ultimately the President to hear, and gave him a medal in the hopes it would help influence him to tell things to the President as he wanted.

Generally, Generals do not go around recommending Silver Star awards for Navy Commanders that are not even attached to them but on a mission for the President. But being a political general, that is the kind of thing he would do in the hopes that the Congressman would be more supportive of him.

 

[P@triot]

Those who do ANYTHING were taught.

By those who weren't capable to actually do...

 

[Unkotare]

By those who weren't capable to actually do...

Capable of doing something. Think about it.