Lefty Truman grandson visits Hiroshima A-bomb memorial (see comments)
Associated Press ^ | August. 4, 2012 | MARI YAMAGUCHI
TOKYO (AP) -- A grandson of ex-U.S. President Harry Truman, who ordered the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, is in Hiroshima to attend a memorial service for the victims.
Clifton Truman Daniel visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Saturday and laid a wreath for the 140,000 people killed by the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing authorized by his grandfather.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Daniel said in a statement that he decided to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki because he needed to know the consequences of his grandfather's decision as part of his own efforts to help achieve a nuclear-free world.
The invasion of Japan would have been the bloodiest fight in history. Even optimistic estimates placed the American toll at one million lives and likely over a million Japanese lives. Does that completely justify the use of nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I don't really know.
But as the son of a sailor on an LSM waiting in Okinawa for the invasion, had Truman not dropped the bomb, I probably would not have been born. So it is hard for me not to be grateful to Harry Truman.
2 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:02:24 PM by newheart ]
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To: Free ThinkerNY
And I would suppose either before this or after he went and laid a wreath at the U.S.S Arizona memorial?
3 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:03:57 PM by jmacusa
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Mr. Truman should also place wreaths at the former sites of the many Japanese deathcamps that were strewn all over SE Asia.
And please Mr. Truman, while you are on your touchy-feely trip, don’t forget to visit the city of Nanking and learn how its citizens were subjected to the sword, shuffle and bayonet.
Long live Col. Tibbitts and the Enola Gay!
4 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:04:06 PM by 353FMG
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To: Dilbert San Diego
Obviously, a very confused man.
6 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:08:55 PM by Eric in the Ozarks (I didn't post this. Someone else did.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Hey Clifton you silly little boy the Japs asked us to dance we obliged them
7 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:13:12 PM by al baby (“If Barack Obama has a Harvard law degree, he didn’t earn that. Somebody else made that happen.”)
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To: newheart
On V-E Day my Dad was part of the tip of the spear of Patton’s Third Army in Europe. His outfit was already re-equipping for the invasion of the Japan home islands when Truman dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The war ended. I was born in 1948. No regrets about Truman’s action. The guilt tripping since then is appalling.
Have the Japanese ever floated a wreath at the Arizona Memorial? Well, have they?
8 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:21:17 PM by elcid1970 (Nuke Mecca now. Death to Islam means freedom for all mankind. Deus vult!)
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To: newheart
>>>But as the son of a sailor on an LSM waiting in Okinawa for the invasion, had Truman not dropped the bomb, I probably would not have been born. So it is hard for me not to be grateful to Harry Truman. >>>
Dropping the atomic bomb had to be the hardest decision any leader of any country ever had. Truman was right. In the end, while it destroyed many lives it put an end to WWII and saved more lives that it took.
9 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:22:07 PM by kitkat
To: kitkat
The decision probably wasn't that hard. It was war time and at that time people wanted to win and end it. The reason the target wasn’t Tokyo is because it had already been destroyed with fire bombing. More people were killed in Tokyo than Hiroshima.
11 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:27:30 PM by Dan(9698)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
From another source: "My grandfather was horrified by the destruction caused by those weapons and dedicated the rest of his presidency
trying to make sure that it didn't happen again. I hope that I can do the same, to work to hopefully rid the world of nuclear weapons,' he said to AFP."
Contrary to Daniel's statement, publicly available papers from Truman’s presidency indicate he had no regrets .. Soooo, he's little more than another Dem trying to rewrite history.
12 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:27:30 PM by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
That's nice. Did the Japanese recently lay a wreath in Nanking, Bataan, Burma, and all the other atrocity hotspots they liked so much?Piss be on them. My father would not have survived invading their ant hill to root them out. Nuking them was righteous.
13 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:54:35 PM by doorgunner69
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To: newheart
Thank God for the bomb.
14 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:56:52 PM by dfwgator (FUJR (not you, Jim))
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Why did he feel that it was necessary for him to do this? Daniel wasn’t even born yet when the bomb was dropped; but for those of us who were, it brought the war to an abrupt end, saving the lives of many.
This seems like an uneccessary exercise in anti-American propaganda. Give-em-Hell Harry would not be pleased.
15 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:57:36 PM by afraidfortherepublic (ABO)
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To: kitkat
Not only did it save more Japanese lives than American lives, it also saved Japan from being divided into Soviet and American zones, which inevitably would have led to a Korea-like Civil War, a war that most likely we would have been heavily involved in.
16 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 12:58:58 PM by dfwgator (FUJR (not you, Jim))
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To: afraidfortherepublic
I am afraid in a few generations, the only things they will teach about WWII are the Internment Camps, the bombing of Dresden and the Atom Bomb, and will paint the Western Allies in a bad light, and totally ignore the Nazi and Japanese atrocities.
17 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:01:17 PM by dfwgator (FUJR (not you, Jim))
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To: oh8eleven
Who is that a picture of?
18 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:09:51 PM by kitkat
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To: oh8eleven
“My grandfather was horrified by the destruction caused by those weapons and dedicated the rest of his presidency
trying to make sure that it didn’t happen again. I hope that I can do the same, to work to hopefully rid the world of nuclear weapons,’ he said to AFP.”
What his grandfather said that mattered:
“Will it shorten the war? Then DO IT.”
19 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:16:19 PM by M1903A1 ("We shed all that is good and virtuous for that which is shoddy and sleazy... and call it progress")
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To: newheart
My old man was sailing out for the invasion of Japan when the war ended, I was in the oven. The Bomb saved the lives many of my Navy, Marine, and Army relatives.
20 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:33:53 PM by Little Bill
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Little Boy and Fat Man saved the lives of TENS OF MILLIONS of Japanese.
Here’s a description of what an invasion of Japan would likely have entailed:
webwizpro.com
21 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:36:13 PM by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Liberals will never learn. The USA fought the war the way wars should be fought, TO WIN.
Once liberals could control the media and most of the political thinking we have played war by only fighting up to a certain line, then harping everyday how our boys are being slaughtered, then just like the French cheese eating surrender monkeys we give up without a clear victory.
Germany and Japan both defeated soundly by the USA and its allies have become allies of the West as opposed to those more recent wars where no clear victory was achieved.
N. Korea sure comes to mind.
Just like cancer, you cannot leave too many cells laying around to come back and fight you.
22 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:38:07 PM by Wurlitzer (Nothing says "ignorance" like Islam!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Harry said he didn’t waste much time making the decision, and hell, we warned ‘em.
23 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:58:14 PM by 4buttons
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Thank you HST for your decision. You helped save the lives of thousands upon thousands of young Americans lives. You also showed the world what consequences a country might endure as a result of an attack on the USA or any of its bases. Truman’s & Reagan’s don’t come around too often.
24 posted on Saturday, August 04, 2012 1:59:37 PM by kenmcg (t)
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