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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3502)	9/12/2001 12:27:56 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Hey, not only has Bin Laden (most likely the perpetrator) killed thousands of innocents civilians, as you say, but he has called for my death! He has called for the death to all Americans. He has killed a friend of mine on Wall Street. I wholeheartedly support a large-scale response against him. However, I do not support dropping neutron bombs on the entire Middle East, a suggestion which received remarkably little backlash. Hiroshima/Nagasaki - members.aol.com <<< Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was frantically trying to end the war, that President Truman and his hardline secretary of state, James Byrnes, included the term "unconditional surrender" in the July 26 Potsdam Declaration. This "final warning" and expression of surrender terms to Japan was in any case a charade. The day before it was issued, Harry Truman had approved the order to release a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. >>> <<< Finally, we have Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's account of a conversation with Stimson in which he told the secretary of war that: "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. ... I thought 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, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions. >>> <<< Winston Churchill, who had known about the weapon before Truman, applauded and understood its use: "Here then was a speedy end to the Second World War," he said about the bomb, and added, thinking of Russian advances into Europe, "and perhaps to much else besides. ... We now had something in our hands which would redress the balance with the Russians." >>> <<< After the Enola Gay released its cargo on Hiroshima, common sense -- common decency wouldn't apply here -- would have dictated a pause long enough to allow Japanese officials to travel to the city, confirm the extent of the destruction, and respond before the U.S. dropped a second bomb. At 11 o'clock in the morning of August 9, Prime Minister Kintaro Suzuki addressed the Japanese Cabinet: "Under the present circumstances I have concluded that our only alternative is to accept the Potsdam Proclamation and terminate the war." Moments later, the second bomb fell on Nagasaki. Some hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians died in the two attacks; many more suffered terrible injury and permanent genetic damage. >>>

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3502)	9/12/2001 1:20:24 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

One outstanding part of the Chomsky documentary was what he called the "controlled experiment" in media manipulation, which occurred in the 1970s. Simultaneously, there were two equally brutal genocides occurring in Southeast Asia. One was orchestrated by Communists. The other, Indonesia's genocide in East Timor, was orchestrated by capitalists. It was funded and armed by the U.S., for the benefit of Freeport McMoran. As the killing reached its peak in the late 1970s, and the Indonesians were running out of ammo because they were killing so many people, Jimmy Carter authorized an increase in the already significant arms sales to Indonesia. What was the media coverage of these two events? Pol Pot, of course, became a much publicized ogre in the American mass media, whereas the Indonesian genocide was almost completely unreported. It is no mystery why the average American thinks people around the world who hate us are motivated simply by jealousy. That is the notion we are spoon-fed by the media. Tom