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mtgoat666
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Posts: 18145
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Mood: Hot n spicy
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| Quote: | Originally posted by MrBillM
Should be framed in REALITY.
Before Canonizing the Frogs of WWII for their invaluable assistance to US, it is well to note that WE were
Liberating THEIR country along with the rest of Europe.
And, that THEY found it too easy to Forget the DEBT owed to us once they were
safe again.
THEY owe US a LOT MORE than WE owe THEM. |
typical pig-headed gringo know nothing foolishness: "THEY owe US a LOT MORE than WE owe THEM." your sense of american entitlement is folly! OK to
have pride in your country, but when that pride blinds you into thinking you are better than others and your chit does not stink, you are a fool!
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Correcamino
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| Quote: | Originally posted by DENNIS
| Quote: | Originally posted by MrBillM
THEY owe US a LOT MORE than WE owe THEM.
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Could be, but a Baja website seems a strange place to be calling in the markers. |
The French? In Baja? Ah, por cierto Santa Rosalía! Why, without the French we wouldn't have Panadería El Boleo! Vive la France!
Si sirve, sirve.
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Skipjack Joe
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What the French should be grateful for to the Americans is not their liberation from the Germans, but from the Russians. Post WWII Europe would have
looked very different had D Day not taken place.
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Skipjack Joe
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Correcamino
The French? In Baja? Ah, por cierto Santa Rosalía! Why, without the French we wouldn't have Panadería El Boleo! Vive la France!
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Instead of Hollywood Boulevard we'd have Hollywood Carriageway.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Correcamino
The French? In Baja? Ah, por cierto Santa Rosalía! Why, without the French we wouldn't have Panadería El Boleo! Vive la France!
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Well, I was kinda talking about something else, but.......I know. Even Baja was in Napoleon's domain at a time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_intervention_in_Mexico
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vgabndo
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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Maybe we didn't see much on "TV" about Memorial Day because the citizens of this nation are sick to death of being constantly at war. Maybe we finally
got ashamed enough, running our country the way we do, that we couldn't stand to see Omaha Beach replayed again and see men die for a cause a good
deal more noble than oil.
Good men died to leave us a country with the motto: E pluribus unum. Roughly, "out of many, one."
A nation of immigrants had stood shoulder to shoulder and put down the evil governments who would have taken away from their people the rights to be
free from unwarranted search, their right to have their conversations and mail be confidential. They fought for Habius Corpus and the rule of law. Had
the Italians won the war, their form of fascism would have resulted in the corporations and the government hand in hand owning virtually all Italian
wealth. Had the Germans or Japanese won the war, can you not envision them snooping in your mail, listening-in on your telephone, having secret
prisons where you could be held without a trial, waterboarded, and kept in solitary confinement for years.
Today we have allowed America to become very much like the countries the men we memorialize fought against on the battlefield. We gave up many of
those freedoms they fought for with a Patriot Act. Ironic?
Maybe we don't want to look them in the eye on Omaha Beach.
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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DENNIS
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Well said, Perry. Thank you.
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Kgryfon
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My uncle is buried at Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France. His death virtually destroyed my father's Mother and, as a result, his
family. The ripples from his sacrifice impact our family to this day.
http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/no.php
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Skipjack Joe
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Two calendar months later, Aug 6th, we ended the war on the Pacific front. But we don't celebrate that day.
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Correcamino
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IIRC the Japanese surrendered August 15th (in the US). August 6 we bombed Hiroshima, then Nagasaki on August 9.
Si sirve, sirve.
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MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
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Now, THAT is Funny
Sort of.
From VGA:
".......IF the Italians had won the war............"
There's a venture into an alternate-reality fantasy Universe.
In which the Italians could win ANYTHING on their own.
Thuggery, Corruption and Murder aside, THEY make the French look competent.
No mean feat.
BTW, I DO celebrate on August 6th.
A GREAT day that saved a LOT of lives from the planned invasion which would have been the worst of the 3 options.
Speaking of WWII and the heroes, watching a History Channel program celebrating Medal of Honor winners, I was struck by one who
received the medal as a result of his heroism (at 18) in the battle on Okinawa. Speaking of his killing a slew of the enemy until they were piled
high all around him, he said "it didn't mean a thing to me. I figured every one of them I killed was better than me being there on the ground. I've
never had any regrets and never lost any sleep at all over it."
Basically, the same sentiment expressed by Paul Tibbets after turning Hiroshima into a wasteland.
A refreshing change from all the hand-wringers.
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Correcamino
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| Quote: | Originally posted by MrBillM
"it didn't mean a thing to me. I figured every one of them I killed was better than me being there on the ground. I've never had any regrets and
never lost any sleep at all over it."
Basically, the same sentiment expressed by Paul Tibbets after turning Hiroshima into a wasteland. |
A quote from Richard Nelson, Radar Operator of Enola Gay, who was 20 years old when he carried out the Hiroshima mission:
'War is a terrible thing,'' he told The Riverside Press-Enterprise on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. ''It takes and it destroys. Anyone
feels sorry for people who are killed. We are all human beings. But I don't feel sorry I participated in it. If I had known the results of the
mission beforehand, I would have flown it anyway.''
| Quote: | Originally posted by MrBillM
A refreshing change from all the hand-wringers. |
It's hard for us to understand the shocking bitterness and brutality of the last battles of the Pacific War - Iwo Jima, Saipan, Okinawa. Those who
saw these nightmares firsthand - and I've read many accounts - felt that what they had witnessed would not be believed by those who had not seen it.
That's the context of the atomic bombings. The dread of the Japanese home island offensive overshadowed everything.
Si sirve, sirve.
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Skipjack Joe
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The dropping of the bomb was one of the greatest acts of terrorism in the history of mankind. It ranks up there with the holocaust or the bombing of
Dresden. It's not a matter of saving this amount of lives versus that amount of lives. It was dropped on a population of civilians at their most
vulnerable hour: when workers and children were exposed by going to work and to school. On people who are not professional soldiers. This one act will
(and has) sullied the reputation of the US for a very long time. The act was so horrific that it changed the history of warfare. Einstein's greatest
regret in life was the recommendation to FDR that this bomb could be built. I supposed someone had to do it because you don't know what the limits are
until you experience them.
Actually there is little to be proud from either side. The Brits had been bombing civilians for years. The German rockets burned down half of London.
The Allies' inferno at Dresden fried anyone who escaped the blasts. The Soviets raped 2 million German women. The Germans incinerated 5 million Jews
and other nationalities. Even the Croats took advantage of the situation and killed 250,000 Serb civilians in concentration camps. And that's just the
European 'theater'.
Unbelievable numbers. Horrific. Nothing comes close. Not the Black Plague. Not the Napoleonic Wars. Not Genghiz Khan. Not the Roman legions. The world
will never see anything like it again. Our fathers lived through a rare time in history.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64759
Registered: 8-30-2002
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I think anyone who attacks the United States (or any other freedom loving people) should have the fear of such magnitude to deter them from ever
getting any ideas to attack us.
Our current method of wanting everyone to like us, as we kiss their a**es, to show our compassion for their murderous beliefs, isn't doing so well.
The atom bomb was so horrible, that 56 years passed before our soil was the scene of a foreign attack, and not by any one aggressor nation, but by a
religious group.
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TMW
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From Wikipedia:
The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 bomber plane, which had an operational range of 3,250 nautical miles (6,019 km) and was
capable of attacking at high altitude above 30,000 feet (9 km) where enemy defenses were very weak. Almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home
islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. Once Allied ground forces had captured islands sufficiently close to Japan, airfields were
built on those islands (particularly Saipan and Tinian) and B-29s could reach Japan for bombing missions.
The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command, but
these could not reach Tokyo. Operations from the Northern Mariana Islands commenced in November 1944 after the XXI Bomber Command was activated
there.[5] The B-29s of XX Bomber Command were transferred to XXI Bomber Command in the spring of 1945 and based on Guam.[citation needed]
The high altitude bombing attacks using general purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders. Changing their tactics to expand the
coverage and increase the damage, Curtis LeMay ordered the bombers to fly lower (4,500–8,000 ft, 1,400–2,400 m) and drop incendiary bombs to burn
Japan's vulnerable wood-and-paper buildings.[6] The first such raid was in February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of
Tokyo. The next month, 334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March ("Operation Meetinghouse"),[7] with 279 of them dropping around 1,700
tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost.[8] Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to
have died in the resulting firestorm, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[9][10] 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
124,711 casualties including both killed and wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Richard Rhodes, historian, put deaths at over 100,000,
injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million.[11] These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus:
The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the
death toll, seems to me arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants
per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any
industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on
a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people
lived in the burned out areas.[12]
The destruction and damage were greatest in the parts of the city to the east of the Imperial Palace.[citation needed] Over 50% of Tokyo was destroyed
by the end of World War II.[citation needed] The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest
air raid of World War II;[2] greater than Dresden,[13] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.[14][15]
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
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More from Wikipedia:
Militarily unnecessary
Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
In 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. 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."[100]
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur,[101][102] Fleet Admiral
William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted
Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of
Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.[93]
The use of [the atomic bombs] 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." Fleet Admiral
William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.[103]
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bajaguy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9247
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Mood: must be 5 O'clock somewhere in Baja
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Since this post degenerated from remembering June 6, 1944 and honoring those of the Greatest Generation to the uncalled for remarks regarding our
actions to end the war in the Pacific I am adding the following........
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bajadogs
Super Nomad
Posts: 1064
Registered: 8-28-2006
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| Quote: | Originally posted by David K
I think anyone who attacks the United States (or any other freedom loving people) should have the fear of such magnitude to deter them from ever
getting any ideas to attack us. |
I'm pretty sure that is how most countries feel. Especially Iraq, when we invaded when there was no threat. Hmmm...
Shock and Awe = terrorism by definition
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MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 21656
Registered: 8-20-2003
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Mood: It's a Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Day
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Opinions are Like ......................
Well, you KNOW.
There are as many (and more) contemporary authoritative opinions favoring the Atomic solution and it's a long done deal.
ANYBODY who wants to feel bad about it is free and welcome to do so.
As others (like me) can think of them as whimpering nincompoops.
That's one of the GREAT things about the Greatest country EVER.
BTW, Curtis LeMay can be added to those who didn't favor the Nuclear option.
Of course, HE championed the idea of continued Fire-Bombing until nothing but ashes and crispy-critters were left on the Japanese mainland.
Which was rejected as too costly and lengthy.
The A-Bomb was the most cost-effective in every way.
PERFECT for the land of Capitalism and Free-Enterprise.
A Look at the Lighter side (courtesy of Perry Como):
"..........Well, a hubba, hubba, hubba, I just got back
Well, a hubba, hubba, hubba, let’s shoot some breeze
Say, whatever happened to the Japanese.
Hmm, a hubba, hubba, hubba, haven’t you heard?
A hubba, hubba, hubba, slip me the word
I got it from a guy who was in the kno’
It was mighty smoky over Tokyo
A friend of mine in a B-29 dropped another load for luck
As he flew away, he was heard to say
A hubba, hubba, hubba, yuk, yuk ............"
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