MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
|
|
|
From the Readers
- barefooted 10 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 12 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
Creative corner
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
From the Dagbloggers
- Michael Wolraich 1 year 3 weeks ago
- Danny Cardwell 3 years 3 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 3 weeks ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 2 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 2 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 2 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 2 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 3 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 4 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 4 months ago
Hits of the Day
Going to Hiroshima is the right call!
By HSG on Wed, 05/11/2016 - 3:16pm |But still no apology for Nagasaki.
URL:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/10/politics/obama-hiroshima-visit-japan/
- Add new comment
- 3677 reads
Comments
An apology for Nagasaki, at least, would be a good thing. I can't say whether the U.S. should apologize for Hiroshima. I blame Truman for not trying other options first(like dropping the thing on a military target). But we'll never know if the other options would have worked.
by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Thu, 05/12/2016 - 6:47pm
Wow. We have so many apologies to make...truly. Has anyone (any country) ever apologized to us? Ever?
BTW, if we could figure out a way to apologize to the world for our nuclear program, I would be all for it.
by CVille Dem on Thu, 05/12/2016 - 8:48pm
Thanks CVille. The only country that definitely owes us an apology for anything in my view is Japan for Pearl Harbor. As far as I can tell, it has never issued a formal apology for the unprovoked attack. One could argue I suppose Great Britain should apologize for the War of 1812 but the Brits would probably claim we attacked them in Canada and their Native American allies first.
Both the House and Senate have apologized to African Americans for slavery and Jim Crow. We have also apologized to Native Americans and Hawaiian Americans for stealing their land and killing them.
We have paid reparations to Japanese Americans whom we imprisoned based on their ancestry during World War II. All of our actions in this vein appear to have been ethically mandated although belated and insufficient.
Regarding Nagasaki, we bombed it only three days after Hiroshima. I have never read or heard any plausible justification for killing over 100,000 civilians at that moment. I believe we should formally apologize while there are still some survivors left, although I recognize it might well be seen as a hollow meaningless gesture.
by HSG on Thu, 05/12/2016 - 9:46pm
Pearl Harbor wasn't attacked "unprovoked" despite our propaganda. We gave Japan the Hull Ultimatum in which "Hull made a 3-month counterproposal agreement [modus vivendi], which he expected the Japanese to reject, so he could blame them for the war". Additionally, "on November 27 General MacArthur, in the Philippines, received permission to attack the Japanese at his discretion." 10 days before Japan attacked. Effectively, negotiations had failed, and the Japanese could not continue without the oil we'd embargoed, so we knew war was coming even without the intercepted message saying something drastic would happen after Nov 29.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/13/2016 - 12:55am
I have only the usual layman´s knowledge which includes the fact that a Japanese delegation was in Washington negotiating at the time.
A family member was in Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 and he was certainly taken by surprise.
Another in- law , on the Naval Academy faculty on that day , occasionally repeated the widely shared (in the Navy ) nonsense that FDR had advance knowledge of the attack and decided not to provide that information to the commander in Hawaii so we would have a plausible excuse for declaring War.
I suppose that the Hull ultimatum could be described as a provocation but I consider that being ¨wise after the event¨. And I´ m dimly aware of the warning message sent to Pearl Harbor through normal Western Union facilities. Yawn.
FDR was hated, the 1941 Navy was far less competent than it became during the War itself, and the ¨conspiracy " to conceal the advance information about the coming attack is about as credible as Hillary ´s murder of Vince Foster.
by Flavius on Fri, 05/13/2016 - 7:10am
Rising Sun by Toland is a good read.
The point is we gave the Japanes conditions we knew would push them to war and we knew the timeframe. They were out of oil and we said hands off Indonesia or war. We gave MacArthurthe go-ahead to attack in Nov 28, so if the Japanese didnt do it first we would have. Of course we wouldnt put that on the NY Times front page, especially not ahead of time. And in the end it's better to act wronged than complicit in getting young men to sign up. "Day of infamy" indeed. (Hitler & Stalin didnt pre-announce splitting Poland in 2, and Hitler didnt warn of Operation Barbarossa either)
In any case, Japanese expansion in Asia had to be stopped. We did it. Re: the surrender, I still think it had more to do with the Russian entry into the war and hopping 2000km in 2 weeks plus being a few miles by sea from Hokkaido. The Japanese got that "whoa shit" feeling. They could hide elsewhere from atom bombs; not from Ivan.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/13/2016 - 7:30am
Meyer's citation doesn't support his claim that MacArthur was authorized to attack the Japanese. Yeah, we "provoked" Japan by refusing to lift the embargo unless they ended the aggression against China. I guess in the old days South Africa could have attacked America or Europe and claim that they were provoked by sanctions.
by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 05/13/2016 - 3:13pm
Anyway, when did Roosevelt say "hands off or war"? I haven't yet come across an account that says FDR threatened Japan with war--although I admit I haven't done an exhaustive search.
by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 05/13/2016 - 3:17pm