Skip to main content

Replies sorted oldest to newest

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ne...oshima/#.V0hk6o5jZsn

U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Hiroshima on Friday, as transcribed by The Japan Times:

Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

Why do we come to this place? To Hiroshima?

We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children; thousands of Koreans; a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.

It is not the fact of war that sets Hiroshima apart. Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors, having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood, used these tools not just for hunting, but against their own kind. On every continent the history of civilization is filled with war, whether driven by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold, compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal, empires have risen and fallen, peoples have been subjugated and liberated, and at each juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time.

The world war that reached its brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought among the wealthiest and most powerful of nations. Their civilizations had given the world great cities and magnificent art, their thinkers had advanced ideas of justice and harmony and truth. And yet, the war grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes. An old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints. In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die. Men, women and children, no different than us, shot, beaten, marched, bombed, jailed, starved, gassed to death.

There are many sites around the war that chronicle this war, memorials that tell of stories of courage and heroism, graves in empty camps that echo of unspeakable depravity. Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction, how the very spark that marks us as a species — our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our tool-making, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will — those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction.

How often does material advancement or social innovation blind us to this truth? How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause.

Every great religion promises us a pathway to love and peace and righteousness and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed that their faith is a license to kill. Nations arise telling a story that binds people together in sacrifice and cooperation, allowing for remarkable feats, but those same stories have so often been used to oppress and dehumanize those who are different.

Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds, to cure disease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into ever-more efficient killing machines.

The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth.

Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well.

That is why we come to this place. We stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry.

We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering, but we have a shared responsibility to look into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.

Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness, but the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change. And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope.

The United States and Japan forged not only an alliance but a friendship that has won far more for our people than we could ever claim through war. The nations of Europe built a union that replaced battlefields with bonds of commerce and democracy. Oppressed peoples and nations won liberation. And an international community established institutions and treaties that work to avoid war and inspire to constrict and roll back and ultimately eliminate the existence of nuclear weapons.

Still, every act of aggression between nations — every act of terror and corruption, and cruelty and oppression that we see around the world — shows our work is never done. We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil, so nations and the alliances we have formed must possess the means to defend ourselves.

But among the nations, like my own, that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them. We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe.

We can chart a course that leads to getting rid of these stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new nations and secure deadly materials from fanatics.

And yet that is not enough. For we see around the world today how even the crudest rifles and barrel bombs can serve up violence on a terrible scale. We must change our mindset about war itself to prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun. To see our growing interdependence as a cause for peaceful cooperation and not violent competition, to define our nations not by our capacity to destroy but by what we build.

And perhaps above all we must re-imagine our connection to one another as members of one human race.

For this too is what makes our species unique. We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story, one that describes a common humanity, one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted.

We see these stories in the hibukasha. The woman who forgave the pilot who flew the plane that dropped the atomic bomb because she recognized that what she really hated was war itself. The man who sought out families of Americans killed here because he believed that their loss was equal to his own.

My own nation’s story began with simple words: All men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Realizing that ideal has never been easy, even within our own borders, even among our own citizens. But staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that extends across continents and across oceans, the irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious, the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family. That is the story that we all must tell.

That is why we come to Hiroshima, so that we might think of people we love, the first smile from our children in the morning, the gentle touch from a spouse over the kitchen table, the comforting embrace of a parent.

We can think of those things and know that those same precious moments took place here 71 years ago.

Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it.

When the choice is made by nations, when the choice is made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.

The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child.

That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but as the start of our own moral awakening.

Mr. Hooberbloob posted:

Reading thru that speech, I can't help but think about abortion.  How many Hiroshima populations have been lost over the past 40 years alone?

From his speech:  "the insistence that every life is precious"

I say to BO, prove it!

Don't hold your breath!   Those who want and support Abortion (or sanctioned murder of the most innocent and helpless) do so by not considering a fetus as being alive or viable.  They don't believe that it's life until it takes a breath on it's own.  They don't consider it life while it's being supported by the mother's life.  That's how I see it, I mean because I can't rationalize it any other way. 

The hypocrisy in it though is some of these same people, who promote abortion, are animal rights people and go insane when they sense animals are abused or if eggs of some bird or reptile are taken and broken open, thus killing the fetus inside.  In other words they give more concern to animals then they do to humans.

It's amazing to listen to the words of Obama when comparing them to other Presidents such as Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy or Regan.  Victory isn't something to be sorry about or to apologize for.  Victory is something to be proud over.  We didn't make a mistake in WWII what we did do was respond to an unprovoked attack, at Pearl Harbor.  What we did was save Europe from becoming annexed by Hitler and becoming a new Germany.  WE have nothing to apologize for.  While the nuclear bombs dropped did kill an enormous number of kids and innocent people it also saved the lives of countless of others. 

If not for the Japaneese Emperor the war would have continued and another bomb would have needed to be dropped.  There were some in Japan that felt that EVERY life, innocent included, should be given in defense of Japan and the Emperor, whom they considered as God.  Dictators such as Hitler care for themselves and care not for anyone else and use their citizens as pawns in order to serve and meet their own selfish needs and desires. 

Regarding the bombing of these cities most of those who died did so in a blink of an eye and while yes there was some that suffered greatly most of those killed most likely never knew what happened and it was over in a second.  Most also don't think that these weapons would not have been used or necessary if it wasn't for dictators who would eliminate whole groups of people or a whole nation of people and are uncaring about what pain and torment they would unleash upon people. 

Far more destructive and horrible were the incendiary bombs which were dropped on other Japaneese cities that killed by fire and heat and sucking oxygen out of the air.  At least for most the atomic weapons killed instantly.  Today what is sobering is that the weapons we have are so much more powerful and destructive and there are so many more of them.  The problem is that war is horrible and a necessary evil at times and when you go to war you don't go to be friendly or compationate but you are compationate by  getting it over as fast and as strongly as possible. 

You don't prevent wars by being weak but you prevent wars by being the most powerful player to where no one would dare to confront you.  Weakness prompts wars.  There are always (have been and will be) idiots and insane people that seek domination and care little about others but want total power.  You don't dissuade people by being friendly or weak but rather with overwhelming power and dominance.   Of course, as with everything, that is my own opinion.

 

gbrk posted:
Mr. Hooberbloob posted:

Reading thru that speech, I can't help but think about abortion.  How many Hiroshima populations have been lost over the past 40 years alone?

From his speech:  "the insistence that every life is precious"

I say to BO, prove it!

Don't hold your breath!   Those who want and support Abortion (or sanctioned murder of the most innocent and helpless) do so by not considering a fetus as being alive or viable.  They don't believe that it's life until it takes a breath on it's own.  They don't consider it life while it's being supported by the mother's life.  That's how I see it, I mean because I can't rationalize it any other way. 

The hypocrisy in it though is some of these same people, who promote abortion, are animal rights people and go insane when they sense animals are abused or if eggs of some bird or reptile are taken and broken open, thus killing the fetus inside.  In other words they give more concern to animals then they do to humans.


...and same people to promote gun control on law abiding citizens.  Nothing but hypocrites and elitists.

My, how we stray from the original topic.  But here we are.

Anyway, If Liberals outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.  Right?  But there will still be guns.  Right?

Conversely, if Conservatives outlaw abortions, then only outlaws will have abortions?  Right?  But there will still be abortions.  Right?

OldSalt posted:

My, how we stray from the original topic.  But here we are.

Anyway, If Liberals outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.  Right?  But there will still be guns.  Right?

Conversely, if Conservatives outlaw abortions, then only outlaws will have abortions?  Right?  But there will still be abortions.  Right?

Normal discussions have a way of going in different directions, and some are more prone to do that than others. A president, on an apology tour, spouting hypocritical leftist mush, would be one subject ripe for discussion on the said hypocrisy of his and his party's.

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...roshima_and_Nagasaki

On the night of 9–10 March ("Operation Meetinghouse"),[12] 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries was also dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses.[13] The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo's densely populated working class district near the docks in both Koto and Chuo city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration, which would have been classified as a firestorm but for prevailing winds gusting at 17 to 28 mph (27 to 45 km/h).[14] Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of the city was destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died.[15][16] A grand total of 282 of the 339 B-29s launched for "Meetinghouse" made it to the target, 27 of which failed to return due to enemy action, mechanical failure, or being caught in updrafts caused by the massive fires.[17]

The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed.[20] Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million.[21] These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus:

In his 1968 book, reprinted in 1990, historian Gabriel Kolko cited a figure of 125,000 deaths.[22] Elise K. Tipton, professor of Japan studies, arrived at a rough range of 75,000 to 200,000 deaths.[23] Donald L. Miller, citing Knox Burger, stated that there were "at least 100,000" Japanese deaths and "about one million" injured.[24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

 

 

Margaret Thatcher probably had it right during her time when she said,"A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us". Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, and probably other despots would have used their expendable populations to expand their borders and power and with the increased lethality of newer "conventional weapons", there would be fewer of us on this forum. As to crazy Muslim leaders with nukes Thatcher would have it wrong; Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) might be what they want to create their end times scenarios. 

As to Obama, if he regrets the use of nuclear bombs on Japan, that would also mean he regrets that the Japanese still exist. If we invaded or just blockaded Japan and let Curtis LeMay dump conventional bombs on the Japanese, it would have been genocide. And again, there would be fewer of us on this forum because we wouldn't have been born.

 

This "bowing" thing

https://www.google.com/webhp?h...ing+to+world+leaders

would be okay if that was the protocol amongst world leaders, but its not.

Those who bow to Saudi Princes and "set up" emperors like Japan are their subjects.  The subjects of royal family of Great Britain bow to them, but HRM is perfectly comfortable with a handshake from the POTUS.   And they have been our staunch allies for a century.

Until the end of WWII, the Japanese emperor was considered a deity by the Japanese people.  As a condition of  their surrender, the Japanese were allowed to keep their emperor  but no longer consider him a god.  And the chrysanthemums were immediately ground off the Arisaka's.  So what's up with this bowing BS?

Why not look a man or woman in their eye and shake their hands?

It's because of liberal apologist like Obama who, if it were the protocol of grand poobahs of countries such as B*u*m*e*f*f*e*g*y*p*t to have their subjects kiss a goat's ass while they watched, the Obamas of this world would line up to do it.

All so they wouldn't have to look poohah in the eye.

  

Last edited by budsfarm
Screw the Japs, they attacked American soil first while we were
protecting them as well as the world itself. A sucker punch from
the back in a most cowardly socialist act. And then cry like a dam
baby when smoked in defeat. Remember, they were developing
a nuke themselves and would have used it if we weren't the first.
 
Would they apologize to us if the table was turned? Hell no,
would they cry like a snot nose spineless soros mercenary
coward mobuma ? Nope.....
 
Besides, it took an inadvertent comment from a US Naval officer
to supply them with the plan of attack overheard by a Jap spy.   
They were working on a plan of attack for many years but never
considered the US mainland itself because they knew every
household had guns and millions would fight.
 
And the most ignorant beast Hillary wants to delete the
2nd Amendment, just another commie pos.    
OldSalt posted:

My, how we stray from the original topic.  But here we are.

Anyway, If Liberals outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.  Right?  But there will still be guns.  Right?

Conversely, if Conservatives outlaw abortions, then only outlaws will have abortions?  Right?  But there will still be abortions.  Right?

By your logic, why have laws at all if they are going to be broken anyway?

Jack Flash posted:
Screw the Japs, they attacked American soil first while we were
protecting them as well as the world itself. A sucker punch from
the back in a most cowardly socialist act. And then cry like a dam
baby when smoked in defeat. Remember, they were developing
a nuke themselves and would have used it if we weren't the first.
 
Would they apologize to us if the table was turned? Hell no,
would they cry like a snot nose spineless soros mercenary
coward mobuma ? Nope.....
 
Besides, it took an inadvertent comment from a US Naval officer
to supply them with the plan of attack overheard by a Jap spy.   
They were working on a plan of attack for many years but never
considered the US mainland itself because they knew every
household had guns and millions would fight.
 
And the most ignorant beast Hillary wants to delete the
2nd Amendment, just another commie pos.    

Remember, they were developing

a nuke themselves and would have used it if we weren't the first.
 
Would they apologize to us if the table was turned? Hell no,
would they cry like a snot nose spineless soros mercenary
coward mobuma ? Nope.....
 
Besides, it took an inadvertent comment from a US Naval officer
to supply them with the plan of attack overheard by a Jap spy.   
They were working on a plan of attack for many years but never
considered the US mainland itself because they knew every
household had guns and millions would fight.
 
=======================
The subject is about Americans apologizing, how about Japan, where can we read their apology to the US? And let us ask, have the muzzies apologized for 9/11?
 
 
 

Add Reply

Post

Untitled Document
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×