Obama Dodges Atomic Bomb Question

[joslar15]

Obama Declines To Defend U.S. Bombing Of Hiroshima, Nagasaki | NewsBusters.org

Obama Declines To Defend U.S. Bombing Of Hiroshima, Nagasaki


By Mark Finkelstein (Bio | Archive)
November 13, 2009 - 08:03 ET

Defending the decision of the United States to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII is not a comfortable thing to do when you're in Japan. But if you're President of the United States, you must do it. Diplomatically, yes. With sympathy for the civilian victims, yes. But you must do it.

But when it came time today for Barack Obama to fulfill that fundamental duty, he failed. The very first reporter [from Fuji TV] called on at the joint press conference with PBO and Japanese PM Hatoyama in Tokyo today put the question to Pres. Obama in blunt and explicit terms:

JAPANESE REPORTER: What is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you think it was the right decision?​

Obama took a deep breath, paused . . . and punted.
PBO gave a halting response that utterly failed to answer the question. The closest he came was to observe that Japan "has a unique perspective on the issue of nuclear weapons as a consequence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I'm sure it helps to motivate the Prime Minister's deep interest in this issue."

The reporter tried again: "do you believe the US dropping of nuclear weapons on --"

Obama cut him off, choosing to answer an unrelated question on the situation in North Korea.

Will the MSM report Obama's duck and cover?

 

[rich8483]

let me answer his question. it was devestating. it was. but it ended a war, abruptly. it SAVED lives by doing so. american and japanese lives. it was the right thing to do. how hard is that to say?

is he now going to appologize for our country again. shouldnt it be a requirement that a presidential candidate be proud of his country and countrymen.

where is his birth certificate. btw?

 

[bigg cheese]

I am thankful that it wasn't my choice to make.

 

[dross]

Do we need him to answer to know what he believes? Of course he doesn't agree with it, he just knows he can't say it without taking a huge political hit.

This is the upside down world we live in, when our press, our academics, and most of our communication sources are all on the same page. Obama can duck, lie, and seek political cover, and he's called courageous. Bush took incredible political heat for the war, yet stood the course, and was never called courageous.

Cowardice is courage, everyone is a hero (so no one is a hero), Islam is the religion of peace, and the religion most responsible for the evils of the world is Christianity.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Having lived in Japan for a couple of years, and speaking the language, I can tell you what the consensus amongst the Japanese was (at least in 86-88 timeframe - and the many that I knew...). There was tremendous respect for guys like Truman and MacArthur that had to make the call. It was a crappy call to have to make, but there seemed to be no question that it saved more lives than it took. Had it not been done - people would have been fighting in the streets, to the last man... Shock and awe was the only way to bring a swift close to the war. And if one studies history, ya gotta know that even that almost didn't do it.

 

[wtfd661]

Of course he stumbled when answering the question, he didn't have a teleprompter to tell him what to say.

 

[Disposable Heart]

Having lived in Japan for a couple of years, and speaking the language, I can tell you what the consensus amongst the Japanese was (at least in 86-88 timeframe - and the many that I knew...). There was tremendous respect for guys like Truman and MacArthur that had to make the call. It was a crappy call to have to make, but there seemed to be no question that it saved more lives than it took. Had it not been done - people would have been fighting in the streets, to the last man... Shock and awe was the only way to bring a swift close to the war. And if one studies history, ya gotta know that even that almost didn't do it.

Still is the sentiment. I visited the sites when I was living over there and many Japanese that I talked to considered it a good action, mainly as their government at the time didn't know what they were doing and would have ruined the nation of Japan with a prolonged (and invasive) war.

One old man, however, chased me with a stick. Jerk.

All in all, nukes and their usage are a terrible burden. The political fallout from it is worse. Hard to dodge and tricky. I agree that Obummer should have said what we and many Japanese think: It was for a common good at the time. Unfortunately, lots of WW2 vets (Japanese mind you) still have a decent voting strength in the Diet. They always rallied behind a candidate (prefectural or larger) and threatened the kids with family dishonor if they didn't think the same way. But, this is turning quick: Westernization is turning Japanese kids into freethinking, well, punks (as a Japanese vet put it once).

 

[jedi]

joslar15,

did you expect anything else from I6BO? Did you see the latest headline from Yahoo! News regarding that I6BO is asking for more options on the afghan front before he makes up his mind. Heck it's been 11 months and he has been given lots of options but I guess his true nature is out and he just can't make up his mind.

 

[dsol]

I am surprised he didn't apologize for it.

 

[indykid]

Maybe obama-messiah would have prefered we fire bombed Hiroshima like we did Tokyo. I believe more people died in the fire bombings than did from "The Bomb".

 

[mettle]

I am surprised he didn't apologize for it.

THIS IS THE BEST STATEMENT, that clearly defines the fool to a 'T'. He is an embarrassment to everyone, including his own party...

I think his father forgot to give him a set of balls and his mother forgot to give him even the slightest amount of analytical thought...

he's a pathetic disgrace to whatever color and religion he chooses to be at the moment...

 

[hookedonjeep]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were absolutely necessary, and I believe that we already made all the apologies we needed to when we rebuilt their cities, and gave them a technological jump on the rest of the world. We kicked their arses - then helped them up. 'Nuff said.

 

[joslar15]

joslar15,

did you expect anything else from I6BO? Did you see the latest headline from Yahoo! News regarding that I6BO is asking for more options on the afghan front before he makes up his mind. Heck it's been 11 months and he has been given lots of options but I guess his true nature is out and he just can't make up his mind.

Actually, I'm surprised he didn't say we should have just pulled out because the war was too long and cost in terms of life and capital was too great.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dsol
I am surprised he didn't apologize for it.


THIS IS THE BEST STATEMENT, that clearly defines the fool to a 'T'. He is an embarrassment to everyone, including his own party...

I think his father forgot to give him a set of balls and his mother forgot to give him even the slightest amount of analytical thought...

he's a pathetic disgrace to whatever color and religion he chooses to be at the moment...

I'm sure he wanted to!

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

In regards: What is likely to be an un-popular polemic concerning nuclear war

Despite what you might think, there were many ways we could have ended Japanese involvement in World War II - and anyone who's going to play this hypothetical game of "oh, we saved lives" - you better have a damned good answer as to precisely how many, especially compared to the number of civilians we killed outright in the thermal-blast, or worse, condemned to die slowly and horribly due to radiation sickness or to live deformed. I've a big believer in that all actions during a war must be limited to the war at hand, else there's no point of living under the "peace" which such inability to delineate an end would bring... and the mutations which are prevalent in those areas, even now, are a continuation of a war that is long-over, and that is non-defensible, moreso that it was a civilian area. I repeat, to ANYONE who claims that we saved lives in the world's first nuclear attack - which only fissioned about 1% and 3% of their uranium and plutonium, respectively (imagine a detonation two orders of magnitude greater than what we saw in those detonations and you'll be getting close to their true potential) - under what reasoning you can even make the claim, and how many lives you can estimate to have been saved - otherwise, you have no ground to stand on and need to stop spouting off nonsense responses like that.

I am a firm believer in just war, war against the members of the fighting body of a nation in conflict with that nation... but this notion of total war isn't just in opposition to international law - to hell with international law - it's in violation of human decency. As I've said before, it's one thing to pick up an M4A1 and some body armor and to march against armed men to fight for your country: it's quite another to bomb innocent civilians as a science experiment to see how powerful our new toy of war was - civilians who have not taken up arms in that fight, and no amount of jingoistic flag-waving or feigned patriotism will make that right. It is a far greater service to our nation to recognize our own misdeeds so that others will not exaggerate or underestimate them, or our power. There never was nor remains any sufficient reason to harm that many people for as insufficient and unproven a hypothesis as the possible attempt of "saving lives." There is just war, and there is unjust war, and with them, sidled in the middle, are unjust acts of war... and our decision to destroy two civilian populations with no direct threat to our civilian citizenry remains immutably immoral.

I love this country, but I'm not so blind with fervor as to not call out bad decisions when they happen - and as with any Republic, they are bound to occur: we are all flawed, we are all human. But turning a blind eye to the slow, suffering, and most importantly - needless - deaths of non-combatant civilians of an enemy population, or trying to justify what is unjustifiable, merely causes harm to the integrity and honesty of our Republic.

To anyone who still wishes to make the claim that our actions were just: in defense of that without defense stand you.

Long live these United States of America.
Long live our ability to be open and honest about our government's policies, to praise them when they be wise, and to denigrate them when they be damning.

 

[confused89]

So what your saying was that it was worse to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan rather than to keep fire bombing their cities? The fire bombing raids killed many more people than both nuclear attacks combined as was stated earlier. For the record the armed serviced estimated that dropping those two bombs saved more than 1.3 million lives from continued fighting on both sides combined. Should we ever use nuclear bombs again? I hope that we should not. Now you said something about the killing of civilians being unjustifiable. Tell that to the civilans that were on Midway Island that were killed execution style by the Japenese. I am in no way saying a eye for an eye on this issue, but both sides did partake in this.

 

[mainjet]

I would have answered it like this -

Let me answer your question with a question, do you think that your country should have attacked us? Once you attack the United States the measures that we choose to stop the resulting war is out if your hands.

Having said that, I am very sorry that a tremendous loss of life resulted from your countires decision to invade ours.

 

[Goodcat]

I am thankful that it wasn't my choice to make.

Amen.

 

[Cygnus]

I would have answered it like this -

Let me answer your question with a question, do you think that your country should have attacked us? Once you attack the United States the measures that we choose to stop the resulting war is out if your hands.

Having said that, I am very sorry that a tremendous loss of life resulted from your countires decision to invade ours.

Mainjet,

Dude we should not be flip about nuking someone. It was a lesser of evils for sure. But being callous to a current ally does no good.
and dude read some history....The US was not invaded in WW2. Hell Hawaii was a sovereign nation when Pearl Harbor was bombed IIRC.

 

[Cygnus]

Despite what you might think, there were many ways we could have ended Japanese involvement in World War II - and anyone who's going to play this hypothetical game of "oh, we saved lives" - you better have a damned good answer as to precisely how many, especially compared to the number of civilians we killed outright in the thermal-blast, or worse, condemned to die slowly and horribly due to radiation sickness or to live deformed. I've a big believer in that all actions during a war must be limited to the war at hand, else there's no point of living under the "peace" which such inability to delineate an end would bring... and the mutations which are prevalent in those areas, even now, are a continuation of a war that is long-over, and that is non-defensible, moreso that it was a civilian area. I repeat, to ANYONE who claims that we saved lives in the world's first nuclear attack - which only fissioned about 1% and 3% of their uranium and plutonium, respectively (imagine a detonation two orders of magnitude greater than what we saw in those detonations and you'll be getting close to their true potential) - under what reasoning you can even make the claim, and how many lives you can estimate to have been saved - otherwise, you have no ground to stand on and need to stop spouting off nonsense responses like that.

I am a firm believer in just war, war against the members of the fighting body of a nation in conflict with that nation... but this notion of total war isn't just in opposition to international law - to hell with international law - it's in violation of human decency. As I've said before, it's one thing to pick up an M4A1 and some body armor and to march against armed men to fight for your country: it's quite another to bomb innocent civilians as a science experiment to see how powerful our new toy of war was - civilians who have not taken up arms in that fight, and no amount of jingoistic flag-waving or feigned patriotism will make that right. It is a far greater service to our nation to recognize our own misdeeds so that others will not exaggerate or underestimate them, or our power. There never was nor remains any sufficient reason to harm that many people for as insufficient and unproven a hypothesis as the possible attempt of "saving lives." There is just war, and there is unjust war, and with them, sidled in the middle, are unjust acts of war... and our decision to destroy two civilian populations with no direct threat to our civilian citizenry remains immutably immoral.

I love this country, but I'm not so blind with fervor as to not call out bad decisions when they happen - and as with any Republic, they are bound to occur: we are all flawed, we are all human. But turning a blind eye to the slow, suffering, and most importantly - needless - deaths of non-combatant civilians of an enemy population, or trying to justify what is unjustifiable, merely causes harm to the integrity and honesty of our Republic.

To anyone who still wishes to make the claim that our actions were just: in defense of that without defense stand you.

Long live these United States of America.
Long live our ability to be open and honest about our government's policies, to praise them when they be wise, and to denigrate them when they be damning.

EvilThompsonGunner:
Look. I'm one who agrees that the bombings were a horrible but neded action. And that they saved lives on bith sides. Here's my defense that you say isn't there. Please research what I say and see if I'm wrong:
I can only go with the experts of the day who predicted 1 million casualties from an invasion of mainland Japan. I don't know all the methods. But they did base it on extrapolating the invasion of Okinowa.
The Japanese government was warned of the bombings. They chose to not surrender after the first one.

Also look at German U-Boat 234. This was carrying uranium to Japan to help them finish their Nuke for the West coast. It was stopped when Germany surrendered. (Well the captain took a little convincing...)

Link: A story about U-boat U-234


I think they'd have targeted the higher density cities.....If we had wanted to use humans as test subjects I think we'd hit Tokyo.....

Also the Germans were fast at work on nukes. We kept bombing there reactor during the war. The Germans plan was to nuke Washington and/or NewYork. Their other plan was to drop "dirty bombs" (yes they had the radioactive pellets to do so) from long range bombers and missles (V-3 ) they had in development.

So what I'mmsaying is WW2 was ending with atomic blasts either way you cut it. I think the side with the more restrained hand was thankfully the one who got there first.

 

[BloodEclipse]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were absolutely necessary, and I believe that we already made all the apologies we needed to when we rebuilt their cities, and gave them a technological jump on the rest of the world. We kicked their arses - then helped them up. 'Nuff said.

What you mean we didn't take their land and subject them to taxes for our EMPIRE?
Please tell me we don't have a history of this type of ACT.
I don't give a what others think.
America is the greatest, most compassionate nation in the world.