Thursday, May 26, 2016

On Hiroshima and Apologies for the A-bomb

With Barack Obama traveling to Hiroshima, there has been media talk over whether he'll apologize for dropping the atomic bombs.


Why should we apologize for Hiroshima? Even with two A-bombs dropped, many in the Japanese hierarchy still didn't want to surrender. Those that did want to surrender, never wanted war in the first place, such as Prime Minister Suzuki and Admiral Yonai. There is no way the militarists would have surrendered without the intensive bombing. We had 100,000 causalities in Okinawa. How many would there be in a Japanese invasion – 1,000,000 was estimated by the War Department, and I believe that is a fair assessment


Of the POWs not already executed or starved to death, more would have been killed. Many were on the brink of death when they were rescued. How many POWs would have met the fate of Jimmy Dye or Floyd Hall… POWs who were bayoneted, beheaded, and then EATEN by their Japanese captors. War is a terrible thing and almost all of the Japanese who suffered due to the atomic bombs were not part the decisions to go to war or to violate the Geneva conventions.  However, the alternative was more American dead. How many America lives would have you been willing to sacrifice? What if it was YOUR family?

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