When is it right to kill thousands of innocent people? If we act in such barbaric ways who is to say that we won't reap what we sow? The real issue is the lack of moral ethics in a society that cannot determine right from wrong.

VIEWPOINT
INSIGHTEUROPE FORESIGHT
September 11, 2001 was and will be an ongoing tragic catastrophe brought on by the moral and emotional blackmail of the previous U.N. coterie that forced Western Europe and the United States to allow in so many Islamic Trojan horses (fifth columnists) posing as immigrants and refugees fused to destroy modern civilization as they see fit. These are the vanguards of fanatically arrogant and religiously perverted people led by their imperialistic feudal sheikhs and emirs who are bent on imposing Islamic supremacy and fascism, which like nazism will spread amongst the meek, if we let them, the very human contagion that occupied, destroyed and denuded what was left of the real Egypt, North Africa, the Iberian peninsula and now in the process of deceitfully annihilating Israel, undermining the West and surreptitiously invading Australia, Checheno-Ingush (Russia) Jammu & Kashmir (India) and Sinkiang (China). These very slave dealers who are still buying and selling slaves no Arabs to this day considered any more evil than the buying and selling of horses. It is therefore rather ironic that one of the greatest pugilist in history should have changed his name from Cassius Clay to Mohammed Ali, and African Americans becoming Black Muslims when the greatest slavers in the world (Mehemet Ali, 1769-1849, and Mohammed Ahmed Ibn el-Sayyid - the Mahdi, for example) the Muslims have from time immemorial believed that "the end of all efforts" - the bottom line so to speak in today’s lingo - "is to procure Negroes" despite the effort of Britain (ever since general Gordon, Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, Baker, Burton, Kitchener) and France (Schweinfurth, Napoleon, Fourier, Berthollet, Denon, Desaix, Kléber) to end slavery. The reason why the vast majority of crime and violence are commited by Arabs having a field day in Europe and elsewhere is because all Muslims are taught not to rape, steal or kill their own people only in their land of Islam (Dar-al-Islam). However committing crime on anyone anywhere is fair game and open season in the land of the unnecessarily-hard working-instead-of-constantly-praying non-believers outside the Dar-al-Islam.

The Arabs are a very proud people, just as the nazi Germans and Kokuhonsha Japanese were very proud people. It has taken Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring the erstwhile hazardously arrogant population back down to earth. The time has come when the Arabs must rid themselves of their foolish and detrimentally false pride and to take a crash course in humility.

The U. S. should take stock of the present geopolitical situation and try to understand that both China and Russia couldn’t be happier if they whack the Islamist good and proper.

Along with the government of Western Europe, politicians in the United States are totally unaware that the Arabs are using something which is efficaciously more powerful, above and beyond the use of deadly force (which they will continue to use if given the capability to do so) and that is the use of widespread bribery and corruption of the western media, money backed political influence (Halliday and Ritter) and PR onslaught upon the young and naïve.

We must understand that without the genocidal Arab threat from without, Israel may implode from within. Without Israel as their scapegoat, the penny will drop, and the Arab people will wake and uprise against their religious addiction that the ruling class of tyrants and despots wilfully had them hooked on in order to draw their attention away from the wealth these ostensibly educated rulers are unwilling to share and to fairly distribute.

The Arabs are “sweating” themselves and closing ranks to protect Iraq, for if Saddam and the Iraqi leadership were to be captured they will spill the beans and expose the involvement of many supposedly friendly Muslim heads of state in September 11 and plots currently being hatched.

It is neither in their vocabulary to apologize nor in their nature to say sorry however willing the West is at the drop of a hat to forgive.

1919 Treaty of Versailles, the rejection of Wilson’s League of Nations and the suffering of the German people notwithstanding, Europe in the late 1930s did not want war and (Chamberlain) did go as far as kowtowing to Hitler along with the leaders of Europe who went to Berchtesgaden to be humiliated. Had they closed ranks with Germany the Europeans would have been rightly regarded as racists. Conversely, if the Arabs were fair skinned, blond haired and blue-eyed, we would have recognised them to be the racists they truly are.

In order to stop them in their tracks and nip the danger in the bud, we should not beat around the bush but call a spade a spade. We have the power to be honest. We must not prevaricate. We have to raise hell to open the can of worms so that all hell could break loose and have all the hidden agendas come out of the woodworks if the den of iniquity is to be flushed out.

_______________________________________________________________________
Saudi Religious Leaders Forbid Attacks on Non-Muslims.

Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Ulema (Religious Scholars) has issued an
edict condemning attacks and other violence against innocents. The edicts
also convey that it is a crime to randomly judge people as “infidels” and
target them for violence.

This was a press release from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia

ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT IT IS ABOUT TIME ! AND THAT THEY OUGHT TO NOW COME CLEAN AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE KORAN IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED !

Some people are naive and others like yourself are just plain ignorant to the fact that you may not fully understand the massive destruction that occured in 1945 after WWII. I'm sorry that you feel no empathy for the millions of innocent lives that were taken away as well as those who suffered impecable pain. You need to grow up and learn to appreciate history, because of them and many of our fellow Americans have given their life and without them you wouldn't be here today, you need to thank them for saving you.

It is an ironclad premise of moral teaching that you can never --- never --- do evil to accomplish some perceived good. Thus, even though it was "perceived" that we'd save millions of Americans' lives and end the war earlier, the heinous destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese lives by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just that -- evil acts of heinous proportions. God have mercy on any and all directly involved in those bombings and may the Holy Spirit come down on, and truly enlighten the masses who, to this day, continually go on justifying those heinous acts.

It is an ironclad premise of moral teaching that you can never --- never --- do evil to accomplish some perceived good. Thus, even though it was "perceived" that we'd save millions of Americans' lives and end the war earlier, the heinous destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese lives by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just that -- evil acts of heinous proportions. God have mercy on any and all directly involved in those bombings and may the Holy Spirit come down on, and truly enlighten the masses who, to this day, continually go on justifying those heinous acts.

Atombombenauf Washington und NewYork als Vergeltung für die Verbrechen von Hiroshima und Nagasaki. Wann endlich?

I personally hold that in addition to the duty to disobey immoral orders, there exists a duty to rebel against and overthrow a government which issues them--and that the point at which this becomes an imperative had been reached for the Japanese long before atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The civilians there made themselves legal targets by failing to rein in their government.

It is not wrong in and of itself to kill hundreds of thousands of people by fire, blast, and radiation. What would be wrong would be doing it unnecessarily. There can be little doubt that the war ending sooner rather than later saved millions of lives, American and Japanese alike. It seems likely that the millitarists who staged a coup opposing the Japanese surrender which did occur would not have felt they had to had the bombs not fallen--there would have been no surrender. Without the surrender, an invasion as opposed to an occupation would have happened--and this means the dropping of the atom bombs was the most moral option.

The argument has been made that no effective oppostion to an invasion was possible--but making an effective opposition was not the goal of the Japanese millitarists. Instead, they desired a self imposed holocaust that would destroy as many of the Japanese people as possible, they would rather Japan be destroyed than conquered.

A few hundrend thousand civilians dead but the war over is better than a few tens of millions more dead and the war over later in my book.

It's a philosophical error to rest moral teachings on doing no wrong. In a reality of no absolutes, one person's good is another person's evil. Sparing the lives of the thousands who perished (good) brings the concommitant loss of thousands of GIs (evil). Truman did what he believed he had to.

Und Herr Schwinger, essen Sie Scheiße.

"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380



"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."

- Admiral William Leahy (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman), I Was There, pg. 441.


Lamentably, in this kind of “debate”, the words of the Men who won the war are seldom listened…

August 6, 2003
To make it short, the fact of the matter is that the people targeted were civilians. Civilians, woman, children, the sick, and the elderly. A clear violation of the international laws then in effect and a violation of ordinary common decency in the conduct of war. I can go into greater detail but Truman's claim he used the bomb to shorten the war was another of his lies, the fact is the war was lenghtened in order to be able to drop the bomb since the first bomb could not be dropped by any nation, claiming humane priciples in peacetime. Truman used the cover of war to justify the bomb and also as a threat to the Soviet Union.
Ephraim Schulman

See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html
and http://www.rense.com/general29/asdi.htm .

The 500,000 people, many of them civilians, killed in those raids makes the US government's indictment at the Nuremburg Trials' of "crimes against humanity" look like two-faced hypocrisy.

eom

The history of mankind is filled with stories of those who believed that, to tame the grizzly bear, you need only to walk up to it, smile and embrace it. The resulting bear hug they received fortunately brought an end to their ability to continue the mutated genetic traits that produced such flawed logic.

I am all in favor of letting those who share that genetic flaw to go out and continue to suffer the same fate as their fellow Neanderthals. However, please do not ask those of us who have evolved beyond that idiocy to join you in your self destructive beliefs like so many lemmings.

Can anyone that did not live through World War II understand what the term WORLD WAR means and the pressures and decisions that were brought to bear on those in command. If Truman had let our forces invade Japan and the American public found out that he had a weapon at his disposal that could have made them sue for peace, which incidentally he was forced to use twice (Hiroshima and Nagasake) before the Japanese were ready to talk, what do you think his legacy would be today? We were not the only ones working on A bomb. Does anyone think Germany or Japan would have hesitated to use the Atomic bomb if they had it? And there is convincing proof, found in the book JAPAN'S SECRET WAR by Robert Wilcox that Japan did have one. They had produced it at a factory in North Korea and the bomb and the large plant that produced it which was located near the Chosin Reservoir fell into the hands of the Soviets at the end of the war. Do we really think we have all the facts about those years leaing up to WW II, WW II itself and the Cold War. Much of the history lies buried in the National Archives. The transcripts of Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee closed sessions were only recently unsealed after 50 years. And the Warren Commission has sealed documents until the year 2039. My father, William Lewis Uanna was the Intelligence Officer to Secretary of War Stimson on Tinian Island in the South Pacific and saw to it that Truamn's order to drop the Atomic Bomb was carried out. My web site http://www.securitysuperchief.com explores the allegation made during the movie ENOLA GAY that my father was murdered and that all records relating to his death have dissapeared. In other words, our government, for some reason,is covering up his murder. Viacom, who made the movie said it was the pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that gave them this information, his name is Paul Tibbets. Using my father's personal file, Freedom of Information Act requests and testimony from my father's friends and co-workers I have discovered a much different history than the one most Americans are taught. My father's career in security and intelligence began with the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps when it was stil called the Corps of Intelligence Police just prior to Pearl Harbor. He was the chief securtiy officer on the Manhattan Project. After the war in 1946 when the Atomic Energy Commission was established he set up the clearance procedure, including naming and establishing the criteria for the "Q Clearance" to transfer the Manhattan project civilian and military personnel and industrial contractors to the AEC. He chaired the board which recommended to the AEC commissioners whether clearance be granted or denied. He worked at the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and oversaw the construction of the storage sites for our Atomic arsenal in the late 1940's. At the newly created CIA he wrote the manual for the Office Of Policy Coordination, the covert action branch of our government that was originally under the control of the Departments of State and Defense until Allen Dulles and the CIA got control of it. As the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce as Chief of the Facilities Protection Board and a member of the Industrial Evaluations Board which were part of something called the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security under the National Security Council he wrote "one of the primary manuals on industrial security". And in his final position at the Department of State where he was the Chief of the Division of Physical Security he was in charge fo the securtiy for all State Department personnel, all US foreign Embassies, all embassies of foreign countries in Washington D.C., all visiting foreign dignitaries. What he did for US security puts him on a level with any of the so called heavies of US security, Dulles, Helms, Donovan, Colby etc. But I am convinced that you have not heard of him. He was also portrayed by James Whitmore in the movie ABOVE AND BEYOND and has been featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles. Who did not mention him and how they got around it in their "expert" books and biographies, which in some cases was very difficult, is explored in my web site. I have concluded that his career had to be kept a secret because it would lead to the other secret things that I reveal in my web site, among them new evidence in the Assassination of President Kennedy. Many of the tasks that the Homeland Security Department is facing today have already been addressed back in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. What happened to all those procedures? My father was heavily involved in Civil Defense and Internal Security. What happened to all that information? What kind of guards do we have for our security now? Why the secrecy? Take a look at my site and please help with your comments in the TELL ME section. Thank You. Steven Uanna

How was this response dated so long ago?

Anywho, the author is wrong.

The most important, the pivotal, the fundamental, the overall stench in the Middle East is...

We help prop up the people who oppress them.

Thanks America, supporter of Absolute Monarchy and Tyranny.

Now, I will repeat, not that most of you don't already know this, that there will be no more wars, not in 20 years, of armies, against the USA, as there has not been in the last 58.

And yet, since 19 out of 19 Saudi citizens don't get a say in US or Saudi foreign policy, they don't have hope. They have no reason to think patience will be effective. Political changes, which they are excluded from influencing directly, do not appear to be rolling their way, the author of the last post must realize that the Koran is as flawed as the Old Testament is as flawed as the New Testament is as the Analects is as the Vedic literature as are the Buddhist beliefs.

All of those people are deceivers, satans, evil, devils, anarchists, pirates, rapists, killers, child molestors and priests.

im back again all you goat smellin people. i still think truman is inocent. if you still disagre you should eat goat children.
Your friend,
JoeyJoJo Shabadu
the goat farmer
P.S. I dont like you

Contact does not work on your web site.

Friend Dan,

As a fellow Catholic, evidently,I am by my faith led to accept what you say about good never deriving from evil. In fact, I do accept this principle. On the other hand, as one who fought, & I mean that literally, in Viet-Nam for twenty-two months, until WIA I learned to appreciate & like nearly anyhing that served to keep my hide in one piece. Nonetheless, honor denies me the option of doing many things on the field of battle that one might do to contribute to keeping oneself alive that I wouldn't,didn't even consider doing. Even so, had I been one of the G.I.s scheduled to invade the Home Islands I would most likely have been giddy with joy at not having to make the invasion.

According to the estimated figures I may or may not correctly recall, something like a quarter of a million GI.s were expected to be KIA and amillion and a half (probably more)WIA in securing the islsnds.

One reason the second bombing sets badly in my craw is that, as you may may be aware, Ground Zero was the Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki. That bomb destroyed a quarter or more of the entire ZCatholic population of Japan. Not good!

Thank you, Tom,for pointing out the difference between unnecessary murder and war dead. I'm whip-sawed. Momoments ago I wasled to agree with Dan, but now I wobble back to your point-of-view. I think. Probably.

Praise be most of us do not have to make Truman's decision. On the other hand it was a repugnance at nuclear weapons that was a major reason I chose to return to Viet-Nam for a second tour. Between my tours in 'Nam I was posted to a Pershing I missile battalion in Germany. The Pershing I had an approximate range of 800 miles. And of course it carried a nuclear warhead. Our missile battalion was situated, for part of my time in Germany, near Mainz. One of our rumored to be targets was Warsaw.

Although I was Armor branch & led the battalion's aviation section (8 CH-34s, a Beaver & an OH-13)I was required by my battalion to get a TS clearnce so that I might serve in the battalio's warroom. It did not make me happy to be in the direct chain of command, for even a few days a month (taking my turn) to potentially set off nukes, upon orders from NATO.

I guess it didn't make sense, I who'd killed in 'Nam & went back to 'Nam again to kill again dreaded terribly having to perhaps break open that safe & to authenicate the order from Brussels turning our missiles loose. Good golly, I'm not equiped emotionally for that job, as I found out. But perhaps insanely, although I never liked killing, it was a hellofa lot easier to wax some Dink close up rather than sitting in that nuclear warroom.

Steve is absolutely correct that Truman's name would be despised, especially by those families which lost loved ones in the storming and pacification of Japan. Moreover, had it been learned that Truman had failed to prevent the loss of those boys lives, no matter how many security guards he had, Truman may well have been lybched.

Eisenhower's words are contradicted by the fact that there is no record of this coversation anwhere else but in his own memory, which is suspect because Stimpson's diary shows the two to have been in seperate places during the time Eisenhower says the conversation took place. More importantly Eisenhower never spoke out publicly or to Truman or anyone else against the bomb before it was used. This quote was written well after the war ended. In addition, Eisenhower's papers show that by his own admission he had limited knowledge of the situation in the Pacific, and a letter to him by an associate suggests that he was, in fact, in support of the decision to use the bomb at the time. This letter is quoted in Weapons for Victory by Robert James Maddox.

Admiral Leahy again wrote this opinion well after the war had ended. At the time he didn't believe the bomb would work but never spoke out against its use. Aircraft from his Navy regularly attacked "women and children" making his claim that he "was not taught to make war in that fashion" hypocritical. He also never objected when plans for a third bomb were suggested - but Truman did.

"The men who won the war" were unanimously in support of the use of the bomb and there are endless quotes to prove it. After the bomb was used, many were shocked by its power and had second thoughts about its use.

The people targeted were the soldiers of a Japanese Army headquarters in Hiroshima and the factories in this city and Nagasaki devoted to war production. The claim that Truman deliberately lengthened the war in order to use the bomb is laughable and without any support in the historical record, beyond what a few writers have fabricated with the selective use of source materials. The methods these writers use are identical to those of the Holocaust revisionists, who claim that the camps were meant for relocation not extermination of their residents.

If we can never do evil to accomplish good you either have to define Hiroshima and Nagsaki as good or have to throw the concept of a just war out the window. If there is no such thing as a just war then we have no right to fight under any circumstances, which is obviously an absurd conclusion.

The Nuremberg trials included genocide and the waging of aggressive war as crimes, not the use of strategic bombing campaigns. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were part of such a campaign. The Germans bombed "open cities" with the sole purpose of terrorizing their inhabitants. The allies attempted to destroy the war making capability of the cities they bombed. The civilian casualties were unavoidable, although the U.S. choose to bomb in daylight in part to try to avoid non-combantant deaths. Any comparison to Axis war crimes here is ridiculous.

Those who believe Truman is a war criminal buy into a convoluted theory claiming that Japan was about to surrender but Truman wouldn't let them because he wanted an opportunity to demonstrate the bomb's power to the Soviets. They support this laughable claim by misusing the historical record. Intelligence intercepts of Japanese diplomatic discussions about a possible peace settlement are used selectively and inflated to the level of a waving white flag. The Japanese hadn't even opened diplomatic contact with the U.S., much less officially endorsed any sort of negotiations before the bombs were dropped. Some also claim, with a straight face, that Truman wanted to show the world that he had a big %$^#. With conspiracy theories like this, and plenty of cretins who believe them, who needs the truth?

It's never right to kill thousands of people, but sometimes it's necessary as in the case of Hiroshima. No one said the people were innocent. They were willing participants in a genocidal war of conquest, and many civilians, including women and children, were being trained to launch suicidal attacks against the expected American invasion.

1) Advocates of an infinitely flexible morality (and history) might save time by simply invoking the TOG Rule ("They were only Gooks" )
2)General Curtis LeMay never was in doubt about the nature of the war he was waging. He once noted: "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side."
See http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey03052003.html

See, for example, the minutes to this meeting on target selection for initial use of the Atomic Bomb:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html

A short excerpt re the criteria guiding target selection:
---------------------------
"7. Psychological Factors in Target Selection

A. It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.

B. In this respect Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed. The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.

8. Use Against "Military" Objectives

A. It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.

9. Radiological Effect

A. Dr. Oppenheimer presented a memo he had prepared on the radiological effects of the gadget. This memo will not be repeated in this summary but it is being sent to General Groves as a separate exhibit. The basic recommendations of this memo are (1) for radiological reasons no aircraft should be closer than 2-1/2 miles to the point of detonation (for blast reasons the distance should be greater) and (2) aircraft must avoid the cloud of radio-active materials. If other aircraft are to conduct missions shortly after the detonation a monitoring plane should determine the areas to be avoided.

10. Coordinated Air Operations

A. The feasibility of following the raid by an incendiary mission was discussed. This has the great advantage that the enemies' fire fighting ability will probably be paralyzed by the gadget so that a very serious conflagration should be capable of being started. However, until more is learned about the phenomena associated with a detonation of the gadget, such as the extent to which there will be radio-active clouds, an incendiary mission immediately after the delivery of the gadget should be avoided. A coordinated incendiary raid should be feasible on the following day at which time the fire raid should still be quite effective. By delaying the coordinated raid to the following day, the scheduling of our already contemplated operations will not be made even more difficult, photo reconnaissance of the actual damage directly caused by our device can be obtained without confusion from the subsequent fire raid, and dangers from radio-active clouds can be avoided. "
------------

The plan was clearly to exterminate as many civilians as possible. After all, the US government knew from it's long experience in the Indian Wars that the way to break the spirit and courage of warriors is to show that you can massacre their women and children

In April 1945, a young Georgia National Guard private was posted at the bottom of the stairs leading to the veranda of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Warm Springs, Georgia home.

An elderly black man was rocking in a chair, tears streaming down his face, when all of a sudden, in his grief he stated, "The Master's gone, the Master done shot hisself."

With that, the FBI and Secret Service agents grabbed the old black man and removed him from the area, never to be seen again.

The President had a decision to make. To drop or not to drop the bomb on civilian targets in Japan. He also had other things on his mind; his wife Elenore, his mistriss, his pain from polio, but weighing heavily was the matter of the bomb. Truman was not even aware of the Manhattan Project while FDR was alive.

There was no autopsy conducted on the President.

Russia, then our ally, strongly suggested to Kermit Roosevelt, then an Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, relayed the information to his mother, Elenore. There was no autopsy.

The elderly black man was the President's piano player. He was also blind. But, not deaf. He had heard a gunshot from within the house.

The funeral was conducted with a closed casket. The official reason for death was given as a massive stroke.

The Russians thought FDR had been poisoned, most probably by the English, as FDR had dealt Churchill a slap in the face at the end of WWII.

But who pulled the trigger and why? Murder or suicide?

Fast foward to December 1961, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. The same 17 year old Georgia National Guard private is now a guard at the Federal Prison. His job is to read the incoming mail on inmates, one of whom is Russian KGB Colonel Rudolph Abel. A letter to Rudolph explains he is being traded for CIA U2 pilot Gary Powers in a spy exchange to be held in February, 1962. The letter is signed, "love, Elenore".

"It is dangerous to be right when your government is wrong." -Voltaire

Bests,
John

The plan presented by these documents differs little from that of many other strategic bombing raids carried out during World War II. Everyone knew that civilians would be killed because they lived close to the factories. The war related work these people performed in the factories made them less than innocent bystanders. The targets themselves were of strategic importance and there is no evidence that killing the highest number of non-combatants possible was the goal. The plan was obviously to convince the Japanese leadership to accept the Potdsam terms. The atomic bombing's objective was accomplished in this regard.

World War II was a total war in which the entire war making capacity of nations was targeted. This is why neither Germany or Japan were indicted for their own strategic bombing campaigns during the war crimes trials. Both sides engaged in strategic bombing campaigns, just as both sides engage in a lot of destructive activity in any war.

The question of who was wearing the black hats is not a difficult one to figure out. Just read any basic history of the Second World War and the answer will be clear.

On most issues my neighbors (albeit in Cobb County Georgia) consider me a screaming liberal. On the use of "The Bomb" however...
Many have already mentioned the fireraids that had only just begun, killing 80,000 people per night...
I haven't read yet any reviews of the Battle of Okinawa and the savagery and the suicides of perhaps thousands of civilians...
I haven't read yet about Robert Oppenheimer's estimate to Truman that the bomb would kill "20,000" in Hiroshima...
And (of course) there were the estimates of US deaths in an invasion of Japan that ranged from a quarter million to a full million.
The Bomb saved lives -- and more Japanese lives than American. If Truman hadn't used it, he would have been impeached, convicted and justifiably vilified for the rest of history.
Richard Croker
"To Make Men Free"
www.rcroker.com

Mr. Williams:

Thank you for your comments. Indeed, the few massive raids on the largely wooden workers' neighborhoods in Tokyo sucked the very air from people lungs, more powerfully (in the aggregate) than the A-bombs.

It is less frequently discussed that the same thing happened in Germany, with the Brits doing most of the dirty work. From the very first raid, in the Ruhr, the target was civilians. This took place before the blitz, and indeed may have led to the blitz. The Germans has an expression "Vergeltungsunternaemungen," or "revenge operations", to characterize and justify what we called the blitz.

"Bomber Harris," who was probably less responsible for this policy than was Churchill, stated that his goal was the "unhousing of the German proletariat." Perhaps "unlifing" is more correct.

British tactics specified dropping small expolsive bombs to blow off roofing tiles, then incendiaries to burn the houses, and create a firestorm. Hamburg downtown was totally burned, with six figures of men women and children killed in 1942 alone.

There is no ethically clean side in WW II. Certainly HST, FDR, or WC, despite our propaganda, are not clean, in terms of attacking civilians.

My history class will be commenting on this trial within the next week, and I wanted to check the posting system. Thanks.

1. I didn't really know much about this trial until I read the article and listened to the presentations. However, my initial reaction to this trial was that I didn't think Harry S. Truman was guilty for the war crimes he was accused of. I knew he dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but if he hadn't dropped them, the war probably would have lasted longer and caused more casualties.

2. I would say Harry Truman is NOT guilty . The dropping of the atomic bombs ended the war quickly and saved many American lives as well as the Japanese lives. Also, unlike Nazis, Truman didn't use the atomic bomb to wipe out specific crowd for self-benefit, but he used the bombs for everyone's well-being. I think he made the right choice, and many people at the time supported his idea. Therefore, I believe that Harry Truman is not guilty.

1. My initial reaction to the "Truman Trial" was 'why'?? Why have a mock trial for a president who dropped an atomic bomb on Japan more than fifty years ago? Didn't some sort of trial like this come up before now? My initial verdict though was undecided. I don't think I knew enough about the issue to make a desision before our mock trials.

2. After our mock trials in class I believe that Truman is not guilty of the war crimes some accused him of. Japan most likely would have fought unitl the last soldier, resulting in many more casualties to both the Japanease and Americans. I believe that Truman did not drop the atomic bombs with the mindset of killing innocent people, he just wanted to end the war. His tactics proved successful.

Initally, i really didnt understand what made this whole truman trial so interesting.. it really didnt make any sense to me because i had no idea what it was at first. i learned that "wanton" means "inhumane" and it made me wonder what "inhumane" things truman really did, and why it (whatever he did) had such a huge impact on this war.

After reading richard jensons article, i completely agree with him. truman is NOT GUILTY. not only did he warn the people in japan that they should leave the cities he planned on using the A-bomb on, but he saved millions more peoples lives by using the A-bomb than the normal bombs, seizing the war more quickly. (**note my huge run-on sentence there:) ) in jensons article, it states that Nobile (the dude who accused/prosecuted truman) criticizes truman for rejecting the advice of most of his generals/admirals, which is sort of funny, because what his superiors wanted was to perform a total blockade of the islands, cauising massive starvation and many millions MORE casualties... im pretty sure that truman did the right thing. not only did he prevent these millions of casualties, but he ended the war. truman is innocent. period. :)

1. My inital reaction was that I feel it was right to put him on trial it was a hasty move that caused a lot of deaths.

2. I say he was guilty. there is only speculated evidence saying that the war would have gone on and that more people would have been killed but no real proof. I think it was a hasty and irresponsable move on his part to not let teh war play out a bit more to see what would happen.

My initial reaction is that Truman should not have been put on trial for war crimes. He was doing what he had to do in order to protect our country. In war we should be able to defend our country any way we know how. Truman was trying to end the war to so that more deaths would not take place.

My personal opinion is that Truman is not guilty. If he had not dropped the bombs on Japan, we would have had many more deaths on both sides. Japan was ready to fight until the last man. They only way to end the war was to drop the bomb. If Japan had had atomic technology they would have dropped the bomb on us. Truman was protecting his country.

1. I was surprised that someone would even think about putting President Truman on trial. At first I didn't realize the purpose of putting Truman on trial. I always viewed the act of dropping the atomic bombs as an act of defense. I never viewed this act as a crime. Before this mock trial was mentioned I never even questioned that the bombs were in some way an act of wrong doing.
2. I would have to say Truman was not guilty. I do not see how dropping the atomic bombs were a criminal act in anyway. It was an act of defense the saved lives. Not only did it save American lives, it also saved Japanese lives. The war could have continued for months or even years if Truman did not decide to drop the atomic bombs. You never know, Truman's decision could have saved the lives of millions. This is why I would have to say that President Truman is not guilty and there is no purpose for even having a mock trial.

My initial reaction was that Truman shouldn't have been accused for such things because I didn't think what he did was wrong, and was also probably necessary and supported by most at the time.

My personal opinion stays the same as my initial reaction. I would declare Truman not guilty because I think dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was necessary to ending the war. And in the end, potentially saved more lives than it took because if the bomb wasn't dropped, the war wouldnt come to and end and many other casualities would have occurred by other bombings or in combat. War results in bloodshed and death. But by dropping the bomb, it ended the war, and ended the potential for more casualties, even though that was the result of the bomb. Truman had more reasons to drop it than to not drop it. Japan refused the Allied demand for surrender. Therefore, it was Truman's right to follow national policy and drop the bomb on Japan.

My initial reaction to putting Harry Truman on trial for war crimes was that it was a joke. I could not believe that it could even be considered that Harry Truman was a war criminal for dropping the Atomic Bomb. However, after hearing the arguments I can see why some people may think he is a war criminal. My personal opinion still is that he is not guilty. If he had just let the war keep on going without dropping the A-bomb there probably would have been more and more casualty and probably more than dropping the A-bomb. The A-bomb was a quick way to end the war, even if there were a lot of casualties. The bottom line is that a lot of innocent people were killed in order to create peace in the world, and the plan succeeded so therefore it was not a crime. Truman had the intent of creating peace in the Pacific, not slaughtering thousands of people. You can only be a war criminal if you actually did something in order to kill people, he did not drop the bomb in order to kill innocent people. That was not his objective, therefore, he is not guilty.

My inital reaction to putting Truman on trial is that it suprises me. It's not like he acted solely alone with no one giving him input. Because at the time he made the decision to drop the bomb, he was supported by many Americans.
If I were a juror on trial I would have voted him not guilty. If he wouldn't haved drop the bomb on Japan the war would have contuniued. Also he had to either sacrifice some lives by dropping the bomb, or continually lose more as the war continued. If Japan would have had a bomb in their possession they would have used it, therefore we used ours before they could come up with that technology. So in dropping the bomb Truman ended the war which was good for everyone.

Initially I felt that the trial simulation for Harry S. Truman committing war crimes was ridiculous. I do not think that he should be blamed for the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman was not at fault for the wanton destruction that these two A-bombs created. R. John Pritchard stated that the Nuremburg War Crimes were not applicable to Truman because they were intended to convict European officers. Pritchard, Richard Jensen and Oscar B. Chamberlain referred to the A-bombs as a military necessity. In Robert James Maddox's article he says that one general even recommended a third bomb to be dropped on another Japanese city. I think that Truman is not guilty. He was taking the necessary measurements to end the war with as little United States casualties as possible. If he had not dropped the bombs, any alternatives would have been just as devastating or even more devastating than to continue fighting as stated in the article by Maddox.

I first felt that Truman should not have been accused for the dropping of the bombs on the two cities in Japan. I think that he has no reason to be blamed because this was a war, and bombs do get dropped in war. I feel that he was also helping in saving lives by dropping the bombs because in helped to end the war.
In the article i had read, Asado had noted that Japan was buisy trying to perfect its own atomic bomb, and had it succeeded, "there is no doubt that the Japanese military would not have hesitated to use the atomic bomb."

Truman is not at all guilty in my mind. I know that the bombs killed many innocent people, but it helped all of us in a way.

I dont really see how you could've put Harry Truman on trail for the Atomic Bomb. Yes what WE (the united states) did killed people, whats done is done. It was the president who put the final desicion, yes. But we must also think about it was not only him who decided this. The United States Goverment also had a say in what happened.
I feel that it was un-necessary to go through all of this trouble, due to the A-Bomb drop. If we would've have done anything, then it's said that more losses would've happened. If they would've attacked us first, then we would of had a real problem on our hands.
I think that he had the right to drop the A-bomb. Yes I'm sure you will disagree, but that is your choice. We need to take into account that a possible attack could've come to us, or possibly had a massive full scale assualt, with many more lives lost. What we did, is regretable, but it's not going to go away.

Haha..Thats funny..Since when was every civilian in agreement with what their government was doing? You said 'many' civilians..Do you have a percentage?

Its not enough to justify the murder of THOUSANDS of people...

My initial reaction toward putting a formar US president on trial is, that he deserved it. He killed thousands of innocent people. I also see the point as a juror that his options were limited. It was either invade japan and take so many more lives or flex or muscles and bring down the big beast without that much of a fight. His gamble payed off.

My initial reasction is that Truman is not guilty. He did what he felt was best for our country. The deaths of casualties is a known part of war, and it is inevitable. If we were to continue just fireboming Japan then there would have been a lot more deaths of casualties, American soldiers, and Japaneese soldiers over time. The bomb just seems worse because it killed so many people at once. I think that Truman was in no way guilty because he had a good intent, and was trying to prevent a lot of American soldiers from dying.