Pastor Jeremiah Wright in Context...

[Taco John]

I thought this was interesting...

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Amazing how easy it is to pull a few sound bites out of a sermon and twist it to turn a man of peace and faith into an evil America hating racist.

[BroncoBuff]

Interesting to hear more ... he sounds much more like a standard preacher-pacifist now, and I love how he reminds us of the Indian massacres and other of many terrorist and violent excesses of America through history. True Christians could never, ever condone any of that. TRUE Christians could see beyond all the lilly-white, red, white and blue nonsense. And the "chickens come home to roost" was quoting a white guy - an Ambassador Peck on Fox News - He was QUOTING somebody there! Further, he showed great sympathy for the victims of 9-11. I really liked his sermon very much. He so stresses the idea of self-examination, and I am an enormous fan of self-examination in all areas. The examined life is the only spiritual life.

In fact, I must admit - even though I won't make any friends saying this - I agreed with much of even Wright's infamous soundbites from before:
1) "America's chickens have come home to roost." He's 100% correct there, and you should like that Taco John, it's a corollary to the Ron Paul argument against Giuliani. Wright said, "this is a time for self-examination," well that's almost exactly what Ron Paul said when he humiliated Giuliani in that debate. We SHOULD examine what we've done to inspire such hatred. They don't "hate us for our freedom," that is rank foolishness ... OBL loved us in the 80s. They hate us now because we interfere with their internal affairs, stomp on their sovereignty and disrespect their religion.

2) I like how he highlighted Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... that has always been a sticking point for me. We should all be ashamed of that, especially those of us who believe in God. Those innocent Japanese children are no less sacred in the eyes of God ... and Truman couldda done something, anything - sent a communique warning the Japanese, dropping one bomb offshore as an example ... there are a million things we could have done.


SELF-EXAMINATION, indeed.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Interesting to hear more ... he sounds much more like a standard preacher-pacifist now, and I love how he reminds us of the Indian massacres and other of many terrorist and violent excesses of America through history. True Christians could never, ever condone any of that. TRUE Christians could see beyond all the lilly-white, red, white and blue nonsense. And the "chickens come home to roost" was quoting a white guy - an Ambassador Peck on Fox News - He was QUOTING somebody there! Further, he showed great sympathy for the victims of 9-11. I really liked his sermon very much. He so stresses the idea of self-examination, and I am an enormous fan of self-examination in all areas. The examined life is the only spiritual life.

In fact, I must admit - even though I won't make any friends saying this - I agreed with much of even Wright's infamous soundbites from before:
1) "America's chickens have come home to roost." He's 100% correct there, and you should like that Taco John, it's a corollary to the Ron Paul argument against Giuliani. Wright said, "this is a time for self-examination," well that's almost exactly what Ron Paul said when he humiliated Giuliani in that debate. We SHOULD examine what we've done to inspire such hatred. They don't "hate us for our freedom," that is rank foolishness ... OBL loved us in the 80s. They hate us now because we interfere with their internal affairs, stomp on their sovereignty and disrespect their religion.

2) I like how he highlighted Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... that has always been a sticking point for me. We should all be ashamed of that, especially those of us who believe in God. Those innocent Japanese children are no less sacred in the eyes of God ... and Truman couldda done something, anything - sent a communique warning the Japanese, dropping one bomb offshore as an example ... there are a million things we could have done.


SELF-EXAMINATION, indeed.

Post of the month! ^5 :thumbsup:

[Rohirrim]

I don't see any difference. This dude warps history beyond all recognition. And what is with his focus on "black people" jumping from buildings on 911? Was that important? Or "black people" being bombed in Panama? As if America singles out the houses of people of color for specific bombs? I have always said that 911 was born in the prisons of Egypt when the CIA trained Nasser's prison guards to torture the members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, it's true. We live by the sword, we die by the sword. Yes, the chickens do come home to roost. But what is it with the "white man" as leading transgressor in his message? What is it with the "America is the enemy" message? Yes, America has many flaws. But is that the entire picture of America?

Couldn't we also argue that after the Cheyenne and Arapahoe practiced genocide on the Apache that the Europeans showed up and practiced genocide on them? Couldn't we say that the Aztecs practiced horrific crimes against nature against its neighbors, and the Spanish showed up and practiced those crimes against them? Couldn't we also say that Kaddafi brought down a 747 over Lockerbie, murdering hundreds of innocents, and that crime rebounded against his own family? Couldn't we say the Japanese committed the most unspeakable atrocities against hundreds of thousands of people, crimes of slathering brutality, and those crimes were visited against them at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I notice he didn't mention Rwanda. Live by the sword and die by the sword.

He's right, though. It's time to practice a little "self-examination" all right. Humanity is deeply flawed. All of us. We are far too hostile. We practice war too much. We practice greed too much. Our skin color has nothing to do with it. We must find the path to peace. Together.

[BroncoBuff]

Come on, Roh ... what history did he warp? I didn't like the focus on "the black people" falling from the windows either, but he very accurately points out the A-Bomb atrocities against innocent civilians, the Indian massacres, and our Middle-East policies "coming home to roost." I agree with 99% of what he said. And of course we can't excuse our own atrocities by pointing at the atrocities of others. Our genocide on the Sioux is not mitigated because the Arapahoe committed atrocities ...

I love this topic ... my favorite question to ask Christians has always been, out of the blue: "Do you think Harry Trumen was forgiven by God and allowed into heaven?" Without failure they always reply, "forgiven for what?" ROFL!

[Rohirrim]

Come on, Roh ... what history did he warp? I didn't like the focus on "the black people" falling from the windows either, but he very accurately points out the A-Bomb atrocities against innocent civilians, the Indian massacres, and our Middle-East policies "coming home to roost." I agree with 99% of what he said. And of course we can't excuse our own atrocities by pointing at the atrocities of others. Our genocide on the Sioux is not mitigated because the Arapahoe committed atrocities ...

I love this topic ... my favorite question to ask Christians has always been, out of the blue: "Do you think Harry Trumen was forgiven by God and allowed into heaven?" Without failure they always reply, "forgiven for what?" ROFL!

He gives a version of history without context, always a dangerous indulgence. We now are chastised about using the atom bomb and yet if you asked the average American student to tell you about the Rape of Nanking, they wouldn't even know what you are talking about. Selective history.

The Rape of Nanking is where the Japanese systematically butchered more than 200,000 people. Do you know what the Japanese were doing as we prepared for the final invasion of Japan? They were training thousands of their children to strap bombs to themselves in order to carry out kamikaze attacks against invading American soldiers. So, you get to choose, kid. Atom bomb or self-annihilation. Hell, when I read the modern, PC version of WWII, it makes me feel as though we started it.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

He gives a version of history without context, always a dangerous indulgence. We now are chastised about using the atom bomb and yet if you asked the average American student to tell you about the Rape of Nanking, they wouldn't even know what you are talking about. Selective history.

The Rape of Nanking is where the Japanese systematically butchered more than 200,000 people. Do you know what the Japanese were doing as we prepared for the final invasion of Japan? They were training thousands of their children to strap bombs to themselves in order to carry out kamikaze attacks against invading American soldiers. So, you get to choose, kid. Atom bomb or self-annihilation. Hell, when I read the modern, PC version of WWII, it makes me feel as though we started it.Our using nuclear weapons on Japan (and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians) will always be controversial. Lots of debate on how much longer the war would have lasted (and our casualty count) not using them.

[BroncoInferno]

Ro, I think the point you may be missing, and a point Obama mentions in his speech, is that it is extremely difficult for a person who lived his or her life in a particular time and place to just shake off what happened to them, particularly if it's traumatic. There's no doubt that the younger Wright lived his life in a very different place than we live now. His brand of rhetoric was rampant during his prime, and in the context of history it's kinda hard to blame them.

[baja]

Our using nuclear weapons on Japan (and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians) will always be controversial.<b> Lots of debate on how much longer the war would have lasted (and our casualty count) not using them.</b>

One bomb wasn't enough of a convincer?

[footstepsfrom#27]

Cast against the context...the historical record of Biblical judgement following violence upon the people of God or by the people of God...often generations later, the message makes sense, though I believe he's presuming considerably more than he should with regard to some of the examples he offered. I can't say what was right or wrong about Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and I think we're so far removed from the origins of the country with respect to the way Europeans settlers took it from the Indians, relevance is obviously in doubt.

What's not in doubt is that his world view sees America through the lens of the man who lived through horrendous abuses of power perpetrated against his people. Why we as white people expect those who experienced these events to ignore the pain and scars they left behind in terms of how they see this country has always been a mystery to me. Rather than focusing on criticism of these feelings, we ought to ask how we can bring about resolution and healing sooner rather than later. We need to be wise to the manipulative efforts of media and political ax-grinders alike so we can move forward with the promise of what the country was intended to be in the first place. At the end of the day, this was never about Wright, but rather about skewing the thinking process voters go through in evaluating a black candidate for the office of President. Whether it was hatched in some smoke filled room of Hillary's campaign or elsewhere is irrelevant now. I'm less interested in what his preacher thinks than what he thinks, and how he intends to solve the enormous problems we're facing now. To that end, I rely on the actions he's demonstrated over time instead of these sound bites that offer only a tarnishing brush of guilt by association.

[Rohirrim]

Ro, I think the point you may be missing, and a point Obama mentions in his speech, is that it is extremely difficult for a person who lived his or her life in a particular time and place to just shake off what happened to them, particularly if it's traumatic. There's no doubt that the younger Wright lived his life in a very different place than we live now. His brand of rhetoric was rampant during his prime, and in the context of history it's kinda hard to blame them.

No. I brought that up in the other thread on this topic. It is generational. That was one of Obama's main points. We can't just toss over the old folks because they see the world in different terms. But I also feel we should always be on guard to combat the cherry picking of our history for ulterior motives. Or insidious generalizations like the "white man" is responsible for this and that.

Yes, America is the country where Emmit Till was brutalized, but it was also the country where King's "I have a dream" speech was shown on television. It's the place where the bombing of a Birmingham church killed four little girls and it's the place where President Kennedy sent troops to desegregate the UofA against the wishes of that state's governor. We need to remember that when three kids were killed by the KKK and buried in a dike because they were registering black voters, two of those kids were white. Some of those people on that bridge in Selma getting bricks in the head were white. Many who funded King's efforts were white. The same time that you had white men putting on their KKK hoods, you had white men in law enforcement dedicating their lives to fighting them. During the Civil War, the abolition movement, and those who risked their lives operating the underground railroad were predominantly white. Thousands of white people joined the Union Army and gave their lives specifically to end slavery. You can read their letters.

America is a complex country whose history is still being written. I have always found the manipulation of history for political purposes to be an odious practice. I won't abide it. ;D

[Rohirrim]

</b>

One bomb wasn't enough of a convincer?

I don't know why we dropped those two bombs on those innocent Japanese people. It's simply horrible. An act of terrorism. We had no cause to do such a thing. The Japanese were peaceful people sitting around folding little paper cranes and making tofu. Why would we do such a thing? We should be filled with shame.

That's pretty much the message of every Japanese war memorial. Now that message is crossing the ocean and seeping into our young people's minds. "Oh, the horrible white barbarians of the U.S." I am convinced that in a few generations, the U.S. will be the criminals who instigated WWII. The Japanese have found a very effective way to deal with guilt. First, they admit nothing. Second, they simply rewrite history so they are not guilty of anything. Works great.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is in collective psycho-analysis.

[baja]

I don't know why we dropped those two bombs on those innocent Japanese people. It's simply horrible. An act of terrorism. We had no cause to do such a thing. The Japanese were peaceful people sitting around folding little paper cranes and making tofu. Why would we do such a thing? We should be filled with shame.

That's pretty much the message of every Japanese war memorial. Now that message is crossing the ocean and seeping into our young people's minds. "Oh, the horrible white barbarians of the U.S." I am convinced that in a few generations, the U.S. will be the criminals who instigated WWII. The Japanese have found a very effective way to deal with guilt. First, they admit nothing. Second, they simply rewrite history so they are not guilty of anything. Works great.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is in collective psycho-analysis.

You're an interesting fellow Ro. You have both the best post of the month and the worse post of the month all in one day.

Just because The Japanese were a barbaric lot during WWII does not mean we had to respond in kind. There were other ways to show the invincibility of the atom bomb without dropping it on civilian targets, twice.

[Rohirrim]

You're an interesting fellow Ro. You have both the best post of the month and the worse post of the month all in one day.

Just because The Japanese were a barbaric lot during WWII does not mean we had to respond in kind. There were other ways to show the invincibility of the atom bomb without dropping it on civilian targets, twice.

My point is that "we," meaning the people of today, did not do this. The people of 1945 did it. The question is, how did they see their world, not how do we see it now, looking back on it from our comfy armchairs and completely different sensibilities. How did they see the Japanese? After all, they had been in mortal combat with the Japanese for four years. They knew the enemy very well.

What they were looking at was an enemy who would commit national, collective hari kari before he would surrender. He had been doing that exact thing on island after island. They would fight to the last man or commit suicide, or both. Remember the films from Okinawa? Women with children in their arms, leaping from cliffs rather than surrender? Read about the Japanese in Attu. We had intel in Japan. We knew they were turning Japan into one big suicide bomb in anticipation of an invasion. Women and children would be strapped with bombs. The entire country would be mined and booby trapped. A rabid, imperialist, militaristic movement was still in control of the emperor.

Our military leaders came into the Oval Office and told Truman that an invasion would cost a million lives and extend the war for another year, or more. Then they said, we have a new weapon that we think can end this thing without an invasion.

What would you have done?

[TDmvp]

the bomb was the most humane thing we could have done for Japan , the invasion plan for Japan if we do not use the bomb kills 4 times the civians , not to count inlisted deaths for both armys ... like Japan is some fair nation that we just used this sick weapon on injustly .... ask someone who remembers the Bataan Death March how humane the Japs was at the time ... or do a little reading on the Rape of Nanking ... I keep heaering people include this scam of a Rev , Rev Wright name all these misdeads we have done never listing the cause of our action .... so killing Americas or other innocents by another counrty is fine , but by god we Americans best not respond ...

Rev. Wright is uneducated trash , nothing more ... and i feel sorry for anyone who has been tricked / conned into thinking the things he says are relevant or even factual ... cause fact is not this guys MO ... hate maybe ... fact not even close ...

[Smiling Assassin27]

Rev. Wright is uneducated trash , nothing more ... and i feel sorry for anyone who has been tricked / conned into thinking the things he says are relevant or even factual ... cause fact is not this guys MO ... hate maybe ... fact not even close ...


it has nothing to do with education, it has to do with character. he's a walking contradiction and portrait of half baked theology, illogical political ideology, and represents all that is wrong with the African American community because he rationalizes its problems via racist rants instead of rolling up his sleeves and holding up a mirror to his flock.

Considering that Obama is part of said flock, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Barack may have seen the problems in his own racial backyard community, but never really understood them. The guy is hailed as 'different', but in reality, he's as calculated and two faced as any other fool running for president. If the 'context' of Wright's comments is benign and completely fine, then Obama should be defending the guy to the hilt. Instead, he either a)thinks deep down that Wright's remarks really are wrong--which would be honorable and ok with me (except for the fact that it took the dude 20 years to realize this), or b) he is throwing his own convictions (agreeing with Wright) under the bus, which is sad, pathetic, and disingenuine.

[TheDave]

Just so that i can get the rules straight here...

A preacher who blames huricane Katrina on Homosexuals, and supports republicans = No Problem

A preacher who blames 9/11 on our adhearance to Roe v. Wade and supports Republicans = No Problem

A preacher who adopts an unpopular historical perspective and supports Democrats = Pathetic


Is that about right?

[footstepsfrom#27]

Just so that i can get the rules straight here...

A preacher who blames huricane Katrina on Homosexuals, and supports republicans = No Problem

A preacher who blames 9/11 on our adhearance to Roe v. Wade and supports Republicans = No Problem

A preacher who adopts an unpopular historical perspective and supports Democrats = Pathetic


Is that about right?
I made the same point, but you said it better. :thumbsup:

[Rohirrim]

Hope you're not lumping in me in with that crap. I don't support the GOP and I don't support religion.

[TheDave]

Hope you're not lumping in me in with that crap. I don't support the GOP and I don't support religion.

You know me better than that Roh... If i was lumping you into that group i would of made a special effort to drag Ron Paul through the mud ;D

[BroncoBuff]

I don't know why we dropped those two bombs on those innocent Japanese people. It's simply horrible. An act of terrorism. We had no cause to do such a thing. The Japanese were peaceful people sitting around folding little paper cranes and making tofu. Why would we do such a thing? We should be filled with shame.

That's pretty much the message of every Japanese war memorial. Now that message is crossing the ocean and seeping into our young people's minds. "Oh, the horrible white barbarians of the U.S." I am convinced that in a few generations, the U.S. will be the criminals who instigated WWII. The Japanese have found a very effective way to deal with guilt. First, they admit nothing. Second, they simply rewrite history so they are not guilty of anything. Works great.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is in collective psycho-analysis.
Nothing but straw-men, Roh ... nobody's saying any of that, and your sarcasm is directed toward positions nobody seems to be taking. All I'm saying is that there were alternatives to wiping out innocent children and civilians ... alteranatives that did not necessarily include more American casualties. After Okinawa finally ended, the Japanese were in full retreat to the mainland ... we could've easily held our positions, warned them of the bomb, demonstrated one of the bombs (we only had two) within visual range, and threatened to drop another on Tokyo if they did not surrender. They would've surrendered.

I'm struck the past couple days that you keep pointing to other group's atrocities as mitigation/excuse for our atrocities. It doesn't work that way, and you know it. If everybody rationalized like that, we'd still be cavemen.

[loborugger]

Talk about taking things out of context...

Lets analyze what Truman was looking at in 1945 when the option to drop the bomb was given to him.

First off, he had knew he was fighting a barbaric enemy. This enemy had tortured and murdered Chinese civilians by the thousands. Their march into the city of Nanking - now known as the Rape of Nanking - was so vile and vulgar that Nazi doctors in Nanking were disguisted by it and worked to save hundreds of Chinese civilians. Further, the Japanese also used germ warfare on Japanese Civilians and in general tried to eliminate as many civilians as possible as easily as possible.

However, this enemy was more than just barbaric. This enemy also showed no signs of surrender. Their soldiers were trained and preferred death to surrender. Throughout the Pacific Campaign there were suicide attacks on land (bonzai charges), in the air (Kamikaze raids), and at sea (the Battleship Yamamoto and suicide subs). These were not limited attacks but a general part of the overall Japanese strategy. Further, the first time US soldiers encountered Japanese Civilians was on the island of Saipan. As the US pinned the Japanese into the northern corner of the island, they saw the Japanese women throw their children off the cliff to their deaths before they jumped. These families preferred death to capture.

So, we have a barbaric enemy that refused surrender. In the spring of 45, just months before the dropping of the bomb, the US invaded Iwo Jima. Of the 21,000 plus Japanese soldiers, only 216 surrendered -and that was an unusually high number. The rest died, including commanders.

Come the summer of 45, US intelligence estimates indicated that an attack on the home islands would prolong the war a year, and would cost approx 1 million Japanese lives and 500,000 US lives. To put that number in context, the US lost less that 500,000 lives fighting the whole war.

Meanwhile, he is told that he has a miracle weapon that might end the war quickly and with less loss of life. However, no one knew exactly how well this would work, how many deaths it would cause, or how long the damage would prolong. It was an unknown commodity.

As for dropping a bomb near their island? Well, there are were 2 problems with that. First off, there was no way to be sure that the bomb would actually work. Nothing like whipping out your johnson just to go limp. Secondly, the US did drop a bomb on their city - and they didnt give up. It took a second bomb 3 days later to before they gave up.

Why, from any of the things that Truman and his staff had seen in the last 14 years (1931 is when the conquest of China began) would Truman have any reason to believe that the Japanese would give up? They viewed their enemies as less than human and saw their destiny as divine. A review of just 1945 would show the following... The island had been deprived sufficient food and they fought on. Their cities had been fire bombed, and they fought on. Their fleet and army had been decimated, and they fought on. Far from ready to give up, in the summer of 45, the Japanese were stockpiling kamikaze planes in caves to launch at the assault crafts and were training grandmothers and children to fight with pikes.

Its always fun to second guess folks without taking into account all the facts, and the bomb droppings have always been a favorite of the "blame America firsters", but an examination of the facts just doesnt hold water.

[TDmvp]

Talk about taking things out of context...

Lets analyze what Truman was looking at in 1945 when the option to drop the bomb was given to him.

First off, he had knew he was fighting a barbaric enemy. This enemy had tortured and murdered Chinese civilians by the thousands. Their march into the city of Nanking - now known as the Rape of Nanking - was so vile and vulgar that Nazi doctors in Nanking were disguisted by it and worked to save hundreds of Chinese civilians. Further, the Japanese also used germ warfare on Japanese Civilians and in general tried to eliminate as many civilians as possible as easily as possible.

However, this enemy was more than just barbaric. This enemy also showed no signs of surrender. Their soldiers were trained and preferred death to surrender. Throughout the Pacific Campaign there were suicide attacks on land (bonzai charges), in the air (Kamikaze raids), and at sea (the Battleship Yamamoto and suicide subs). These were not limited attacks but a general part of the overall Japanese strategy. Further, the first time US soldiers encountered Japanese Civilians was on the island of Saipan. As the US pinned the Japanese into the northern corner of the island, they saw the Japanese women throw their children off the cliff to their deaths before they jumped. These families preferred death to capture.

So, we have a barbaric enemy that refused surrender. In the spring of 45, just months before the dropping of the bomb, the US invaded Iwo Jima. Of the 21,000 plus Japanese soldiers, only 216 surrendered -and that was an unusually high number. The rest died, including commanders.

Come the summer of 45, US intelligence estimates indicated that an attack on the home islands would prolong the war a year, and would cost approx 1 million Japanese lives and 500,000 US lives. To put that number in context, the US lost less that 500,000 lives fighting the whole war.

Meanwhile, he is told that he has a miracle weapon that might end the war quickly and with less loss of life. However, no one knew exactly how well this would work, how many deaths it would cause, or how long the damage would prolong. It was an unknown commodity.

As for dropping a bomb near their island? Well, there are were 2 problems with that. First off, there was no way to be sure that the bomb would actually work. Nothing like whipping out your johnson just to go limp. Secondly, the US did drop a bomb on their city - and they didnt give up. It took a second bomb 3 days later to before they gave up.

Why, from any of the things that Truman and his staff had seen in the last 14 years (1931 is when the conquest of China began) would Truman have any reason to believe that the Japanese would give up? They viewed their enemies as less than human and saw their destiny as divine. A review of just 1945 would show the following... The island had been deprived sufficient food and they fought on. Their cities had been fire bombed, and they fought on. Their fleet and army had been decimated, and they fought on. Far from ready to give up, in the summer of 45, the Japanese were stockpiling kamikaze planes in caves to launch at the assault crafts and were training grandmothers and children to fight with pikes.

Its always fun to second guess folks without taking into account all the facts, and the bomb droppings have always been a favorite of the "blame America firsters", but an examination of the facts just doesnt hold water.

great post .....



now change this heheh

Walker, Marshall & Smith

The new Three Amigos

:O) i so wanted the walker thing to work btw ...

[loborugger]

With Avatars gone, I havent had a good reason to change it... That and I just aint creative enough to come up with something worth hangin there.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Talk about taking things out of context...
Lets analyze what Truman was looking at in 1945 when the option to drop the bomb was given to him.
Like I said, there is room for plenty of debate on unleashing nuclear weapons on Japan.

---------------------------------------------------------------
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm)

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

HERBERT HOOVER

On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."


~~~GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

[Bronco Jamus]

Just so that i can get the rules straight here...

A preacher who blames huricane Katrina on Homosexuals, and supports republicans = No Problem

A preacher who blames 9/11 on our adhearance to Roe v. Wade and supports Republicans = No Problem

A preacher who adopts an unpopular historical perspective and supports Democrats = Pathetic


Is that about right?


Most would agree they are all pathetic.

[loborugger]

Big Mac - who rode in an open top vehicle thru Japan days after surrender while Japanese soldiers acted as an honor guard - certainly understood the Japanese better than anyone, no doubt. But, even in your quote it states, "might not have been necessary."

Besides, no matter how you spin it, grind it, or rethink the facts, it took not one but two bombs to get them to cry uncle. And still, they werent ready to lay down arms unless they got to keep their emperor. Doesnt seem to me like an unconditional surrender. Had we said no to the Emperor, would they have fought on? Who knows. Oh, and we were outta bombs at that point.

Again, the bombing is just a magnet for criticism for those who have little knowledge of the war and its events outside of the big ones... Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the bombs. The firebombing of Dresden was pretty ugly. As was the firebombing of most Japanese cities. Hell, those Japanese cities were made of wood. I bet more Japanese were vaporized in places like Tokyo from the firebombings that took place there than in a few moments in Nag and Hir. Few talk about those events... and why? Cuz they just dont know about them. Their interest isnt in knowing history but in using tidbits of history to tell us all how evil, vile, and nasty the US is.

Those weapons were ugly, no doubt. But here is the thing. We managed to accomplish something in WWII that we havent accomplished since. We took war to two aggressor nations - Germany and Japan - and made it so ugly, so painful, and so undesireable, that two nations that embraced martial vigor and were bullies on the block, and we knocked all their desire and love of war out of them. Look at Germany and Japan in the post war eras. Peaceful nations. Not bad when you look at their mentality and love of all things military prior to 1930. In the hundred years before 1945, Germany marched into France three times (pushing in their stool all three times, might I add). Now, the two nations have an open border.

Its a fair statement to say that the A bombs were part of this total war package, as was Sherman's burning of Atlanta.

[Rohirrim]

Nothing but straw-men, Roh ... nobody's saying any of that, and your sarcasm is directed toward positions nobody seems to be taking. All I'm saying is that there were alternatives to wiping out innocent children and civilians ... alteranatives that did not necessarily include more American casualties. After Okinawa finally ended, the Japanese were in full retreat to the mainland ... we could've easily held our positions, warned them of the bomb, demonstrated one of the bombs (we only had two) within visual range, and threatened to drop another on Tokyo if they did not surrender. They would've surrendered.

I'm struck the past couple days that you keep pointing to other group's atrocities as mitigation/excuse for our atrocities. It doesn't work that way, and you know it. If everybody rationalized like that, we'd still be cavemen.

No. I'm not using those examples for mitigation. I'm using them to destroy the Reverend's implication that black culture is somehow more "moral" than white culture. It's a very popular mythology, that "our" culture is somehow superior to others. My sarcasm above is directed at the post-war stance of the Japanese that theirs is a more "moral" culture, ergo, they could not have committed any of the war crimes that barbarians in the West accuse them of. Very similar to when archeological evidence pointed to the possibility (now accepted fact) that the Anazasi terrorized other groups using cannibalism. People had mythologized the Anazasi into some kind of uber-hippies. We are homo infestus, hostile man. It's our trademark. Regardless of skin color.

Oh, and I can think of no reason to assume the Japanese would have surrendered short of the threat of annihilation, which is what it took. They had never surrendered before. What had changed to alter that fact?

[Rohirrim]

America, like a Greek melodrama, needed a deus ex machina to solve its insoluble dilemma on open display before the Japanese. Enemy intelligence stated that partial demobilization and industrial reconversion already aroused U.S. optimism "for an early termination of the war." On the other hand, a protracting list of casualties would contribute "to decreased fighting morale among the [American] people and the military." With U.S. resolve so brittle, the Japanese Army reasoned that a climactic battle on the beaches would force America to make a compromise peace. That was the strategic setting on 6 August, when one specially modified B-29 took off from the Marianas to test the JCS assumption that, individuals notwithstanding, Japan "as a whole is not pre-disposed toward national suicide." The plane dropped a weapon on Hiroshima that, according to Japanese newspapers, "ignored basic human principles."5
On 10 August, after America dropped the only other atomic bomb in its arsenal-but warned of "a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth" - the emperor overruled the Imperial Japanese Army. The Japanese Army still had 2.35 million men under arms inside Japan, not having suffered the massive devastation that had been inflicted on the Japanese Air Force and Navy. In fact, the Japanese sneered at their erstwhile Axis ally for surrendering when only some 2.5 million Russians had fought their way through Berlin. The Germans lacked the "Bushido" tradition, commented the Japanese press. Now, the imperial armed forces pleaded for the chance to "find life in death ... .. If we are prepared to sacrifice 20,000,000 Japanese lives in a special attack [kamikaze] effort, victory shall be ours!"58

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Pearlman/pearlman.asp