I discovered the big fuss in these two threads several weeks after it had blown over. My remark, “Well, I guess there’s always a downside” (above, timestamped “December 26, 2006 at 10:23 PM”) was a tart remark. Tartness is something I think HotAir readers and hosts understand. If Bryan and “dalewalt” aren’t sure, I know a half-Italian, proudly beta male in Queens who will provide fresh examples.

So, yes, as I said, there’s always a downside, even to nuclear explosions, which sometimes have the unfortunate effect of saving lives. One ought not imagine I was thinking of Hiroshimans; I’m not fighting the last war. Nor should one imagine I think it’s good in warfare to kill more people than, well, than it’s good to kill. One should always aim at the good. Quite enough people died in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I think; the Americans need not wish for more.

But surely what I said meant something? Yes, it did. I had in mind that it’s worse than evil, it’s bad, to make death-minimization an absolute or ruling principle of warfare, as the Americans have done in the years since their Viet Nam War. Anything I say about war has special application to the greatest war, the present war. The war against Islamic global conquest is part of the war I’m presently trying to guide. As of February 26, 2007, not enough muslims have died. I’ll know when enough muslims have died, when the the power and spirit of the remainder are crushed. That’s how the Americans knew they had killed enough Japanese in 1945.

It is also part of why the North Koreans are so determined to get a nuke of their own – again.

Some of you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

bryan, thank you. this could just as easily be about “muzzies” or similar, and its unacceptable.

i wish charles at lgf took similar responsibility. there are commenters there who attack the demagogues on their own, but it means much much more when the authors lay down the law.

This reminds us how much suffering and heartache are brought upon innocent people by the evils, follies or even honest mistakes of their leaders. Wise policy is not that which eliminates suffering (as such is impossible) but which minimizes it. And then we feel compassion for our fellow men (our enemies) and remorse for the wrongness of things.

This also reminds us, as does so much else, that, while we do what we think best while in this world, we must look for our ultimate felicity in the world that transcends this one.

Every point but the last is supported by scholarly history – specifically, Richard Franks Downfall, or John Skates The Invasion of Japan.

Lehuster on December 27, 2006 at 9:11 AM

100,000 troops in Hiroshima is about ten times the estimates I have seen in historical references. If one point is incorrect then all are suspect.

Apparently the left wingers aren’t the only people fond of rewriting history to buttress their opinion….

Every point but the last is supported by scholarly history – specifically, Richard Franks Downfall, or John Skates The Invasion of Japan.

Proof please for each point you made – otherwise it is just a lot of bs.

Bradky on December 26, 2006 at 11:30 PM

You’re a big boy. Google it yourself. At least get your mouse off its arse and check out Wikipedia. If you’re too lazy to read the whole thing, at least start with the sentence that begins “At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable industrial and military significance.”

Oh, and apologize to William Amos for calling his post BS.

60 Years Later: Considering Hiroshima

G-d curse the Japanese at those times who gave America no choice.

G-d bless the descendants of all these people who wish to live in harmony together, along with the rest of civilized mankind.

G-d curse Ahmadinejad and those people that support and approve of him. May he meet his fate before he can harm a single hair on any of his potential victims.

Does it mention that Hiroshima was the HQ of the entire Japanese southern defense force and that an estimated 100,000 Japanese soldiers were there in Hiroshima ?

Or that Japan was training its civilians on how to attack US soldiers ? That even their schools were running training exersises on how to stab US soldiers when they land ?

Or that Japan didnt even surrender after the first nuke but said that they would continue the war ?

Or that Japan with Germany’s help was trying to build its own nuclear bomb ?

William Amos on December 26, 2006 at 1:44 PM

Proof please for each point you made – otherwise it is just a lot of bs.

As for the other posters who jumped at the chance to use the term “Japs” it is laughable how often you gravitate to the narrow mindedness David Dukes of the world share.
And anyone who gets as much of a hard on as about the incineration of a half million people including women and children that a few posters seem to are beneath contempt. Your rationalizations sound very similar to UBL’s observations about innocents killed in the global Jihad.

Go ahead and flame away but the simple fact is that political analysis aside, too many people gleefully rub their hands together and really hope for another nuclear solution….

lemmings I tell you

That bomb and it’s sister saved thousands of American
GI’s and possibly hundreds of thousands Chinese civilians.

It also saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians, too, who would have almost certainly died during an allied conventional invasion of Japan.

My Pop was training for the invasion when they dropped it. He was Army Signal Corps, and was supposed to go ashore right behind the Marines to establish comm for the “big” push of infantry exploiting the beachheads. The bomb is the reason I’m here, and my kids are here, as he didn’t expect to survive the landing and/or aftermath.

Lesson: don’t screw with our naval bases.

…I’m convinced bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more lives than they took.

dalewalt on December 26, 2006 at 1:32 PM

Well, I guess there’s always a downside.

Bravo Harry Truman.