Memorial Day Hiroshima And Obama
6th of June 1945, The world has been rocked by a global conflict since 1940. Millions in the military as well as innocent civilians have perished with millions more expected to die as the US armed forces contemplate the invasion of the Japanese mainland. A million Allied casualties are projected in the taking of the nation responsible for bombing Pearl Harbor in an unprovoked sneak attack, invading American occupied island chains and decimating the British Navy and Army in the Philippines and Burma. Within 6 months in the early stages of World War II Japan made frightening progress in capturing most of Asia along with huge swatches of Pacific Island groups in the vast southern seas.
Deadly Preparations
US Marines were already training for the assault on Japan on recaptured Guam knowing that many of them would never make it back. Japan was in the process of relocating its army back from Manchuria where it had been attacking since 1932 in anticipation of a fanatical defense of their homeland and a massive amphibious invasion by the combined forces of America, Australia, and Great Britain. From the stunning resistance displayed by Japanese fighters in bloody battles such as Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa, and Saipan to name a few of the costly recapturing campaigns that comprised the grim island hopping operations undertaken by the US Pacific Fleet under Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Grim contemplation
With Germany and Italy defeated in Europe only Japan remained. American military intelligence estimated a long drawn out struggle where civilians as well as combatants would defend their homeland and only create more death and destruction if a quick strike could not be readied in time to convince the Japanese that resistance was useless. Once Robert Oppenheimer’s research group in Los Alamos, New Mexico had perfected their secret weapon and the successful atomic bomb test at the Trinity site had detonated, the quest to put a swift end to the war was now poised to be initiated. Despite moral arguments made by scientists such as Albert Einstein and others, military planners were quick to propose an alternative to prolonging the war.
Incompetent Commander in Chief
President Obama recently visited Hiroshima, Japan to make one of his long winded speeches and under pressure not to apologize for the use of the first nuclear device in a war still made enough generalizations and platitudes that he might as well have. He once made a remark some time ago that it was wrong for the US to have made Emperor, Hiro Hito, appear in front of his people and announce that Japan had lost the war and to publicly acknowledge unconditional surrender to the United States. Such ambivalent observations toward America’s actions in world history mark the kind of mentality that characterizes a president who released 5 major terrorist commanders from Gitmo in exchange for a single US Army deserter, Bowe Bergdahl. President Obama, who has refused to utter the word “terrorist” if at all possible when referring to Islamic radical attacks, could be expected to show empathy for our enemies.
Ignoring reality
The lessons of history are easily forgotten over the mist of time and it is typical of ignorant and leftist factions to denounce America for having ended the war with Japan using nuclear warfare, but President Harry Truman made a bold decision that saved lives despite the horrors of an atomic bomb blast upon its victims. World War II featured the massive loss of lives among civilian populations over the largest cities in the west. Cities such as Dresden, London, Berlin, Warsaw, and many more saw bombings that amounted to the slaughter of the innocent. Quite ironically it was conventional warfare deployed against Japanese cities such as Tokyo that caused more fatalities than even “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” the names of the two nuclear devices used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the US Air Force under General Curtis Le May tried to force the Japanese to surrender by breaking them morally while destroying their infrastructure. One hundred thousand Japanese were killed in a single incendiary bombing that wiped out huge sections of Tokyo while broiling and frying the citizens who dwelled there.
In Part II we will discuss the atrocities committed by Japan during WWII that necessitated the US military’s decision to accelerate the end to hostilities with 2 swift and terrible strokes that today’s laymen attempt to demonize because they weren’t there to experience and suffer through the ravages of a war Japan started with savage ferocity.
