We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York....jeremiah wright. <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_rHrV2QhArA&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_rHrV2QhArA&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> Photos of Hiroshima from the Robert L. Capp Collection The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008. Three of these photographs are reproduced in Atomic Tragedy with the permission of the Capp family. Now that the restriction is no longer in force, the entire set is available below. Please contact Sean L. Malloy (smalloy@ucmerced.edu) if you have any information that might help identify the original photographer.
It's incomprehensible what we do to one another. My father's adoptive father was on a boat to the mainland of Japan when word came that the Japanese were surrendering. He said he fully expected to be dead after a mainland invasion. We dropped firebombs over Japan for months before we dropped nuclear weapons...setting whole cities and their populations ablaze. Remember that the United States was attacked by the Japanese by surprise. The cost of life on both sides in the war was overwhelming. To lose to the Axis powers in WWII would have produced a world almost beyond comprehension today. I'm not saying that to justify anything. I am saying it is far easier to judge the decisions of others 60 years later than it is to have made those decisions not knowing the outcome later.
That was war. Who started the war? Which country invaded all its neighbors and slaughtered millions of innocent civilians in most cruel manner?
japan has killed FAR more innocent civilians. there is no need for guilt, my friend. you guys saved far more lives than killed. i salute to yall. i'm not going to say whether it was right or wrong to drop those bombs, but the result is, less people died. a lot people are living today because of that.
This is what you are too ignorant to realize. Just because someone is critical of the government, it does not mean they hate America. How could Jeremiah Wright hate America when he is a former marine? I posted a picture of what we did to some of the innocent women and children in that region, and now I'm all of a sudden I hate America? Look, the Japanese bombed our military which was dirty, and we had every right to retaliate…but ask your self this: How would you feel, if you where sitting in your house with your wife and kids, and some country (Iran) dropped a nuke, and wiped out you and your whole family? You were living your life going to work and doing all the things you were suppose to, but because of something the “government” did that you had no control over? YOU GOT KILLED! It’s too sides to every story and that could easily happen to us. I didn’t really care about those people until I started looking more into it, but when I did I begun to care more.
You have every right to feel that way, but that’s you. I’m not going to go to Washington and protest this, but what I’m saying we probably could have handled it better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties look at the civilians killed. china and soviet has the 2 highest civilian death. guess who caused half of those? look at japan, they suffered way less civilian death. how would you feel if your entire family got murdered? no one likes war, but if i have to pick a side to pity, i wouldn't pick the aggressor who started it.
like i said, dropping the bombs, i'm not going to judge whether that's right/wrong. but, the longer it takes, millions more people would have died. so really, what is the best result? a "proper" invasion that would have lasted longer and caused more death? i guess i don't agree with using nuclear weapon, but what other choices were there? i don't have to gut to make that decision, but someone else did make that decision.
The Hiroshima argument is tired. The world had been in all out warfare for years. The Axis Powers sought world domination and were responsible for the brutal extermination of tens of millions. The Japanese had refused surrender without maintaining the Emperor and Generals power. The estimates of casualties in the invasion of Japan was up to 1,000,000 Americans. I've argued the targeting but you had to cause enough shock but not eliminate the civil structure or there would be no power structure to surrender; and it worked. There was also a power struggle going on for the post war world that could be influenced by a demonstration of power. My dad who serve 3 1/2 years in the Pacific without ever getting any R&R closer to home than Australia hated the Japanese race till the day he died, and it was understandable. Grow up
I think that the claim that the Nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives is dubious, but bombing an enemy's industrial centers in a war that they started is not terrorism by any accepted definition. Jeremiah Wright is dead wrong on this count.
Why is the saved lives argument dubious? How many Japanese and Allied lives would have been lost with a full scale invasion?
While the bombings are an incomprehensible tragedy, I always ask myself how it was that the 2nd bomb became necessary under any circumstances. I always understood this to be because of Japan's refusal to surrender and to acknowledge their own defeat amongst themselves after the first bomb...almost like it couldn't happen again. I mean...they all followed their emperor. But, if you look at how devastating the first bombing was, then how can you even leave open any semblance of a chance of being bombed again? Maybe we should have allowed more time before the 1st and 2nd bombing...given how devastating each was? I know some will say that in that time...many other people are dying fighting the war. I still believe to this day the 2nd bombing should not have happened and could have been avoided. But, it wasn't and that...in itself...is its own tragedy. As crummy as it may sound, isn't the 2nd bomb all on them? Japan's government knew what they were in for at that point. Did they somehow think it could not happen again? Japan was really their own worst enemy during that time.
I think a bloody ground offensive, city to city, village to village, on the Japanese mainland until surrender or annihilation of the Japanese population, with millions of Allied and Japanese troops dead, as well as several million Japanese civilians dead, as well as the infrastructure totally destroyed and a drawn out 3-4 year offensive would have been much more preferable to dropping two bombs that ended the war in a month.
And this is relevant because? I’m not in here to change anyone’s mind, as a matter of fact; when I post I just ask that people try to have an open mind and give their opinion. It seems to me that someone will always get there feelings hurt. If you believed that we handled it right then fine! If you believed it wasn’t the best approach like me, then that’s great also.
I agree Wright is wrong...I'm no historian, but the knowledge I have leads me to believe the bombings were the best decision. But, I still feel remorse for the innocent children who died...regardless of where they lived. I think you can look at these pictures, not as a condemnation of the USAs actions in WWII, but as a condemnation of war. And just because you disagree with something that the US did, doesn't mean you hate America. It means you disagree with an action. Expressing a dissenting opinion is a first amendment right. Expressing an opposing viewpoint celebrates the freedom that we are guaranteed. It celebrates America.
not the 3 year olds around the world who die in wars started over things they can't comprehend... Yes, in this world, sometimes war is inevitable. Yes, innocent people die in war. Yes, sometimes the best thing involves killing people. and those things are sad realities. It doesn't mean I would never support a war.
the US made the right choice in using the bombs. look what happened when the US invaded Okinawa. The japanese government handed out grenades and encouraged civilians to commit suicide. entire villages threw themselves from cliffs because the government told them that Americans would do unspeakable things to them (which is quite ironic considering the behavior of the japanese government towards the countries they invaded and occupied...) today, the local government of Okinawa is protesting the japanese government because they decided to use history textbooks that dont mention the governments actions against its own citizens in okinawa. during ww2 the japanese gov was bonkers. i dont doubt for a second that millions of more people would have died had the US decided on traditional invasion.
