THE WISDOM OF GEORGE SANTAYANA

  The following is an exchange between myself and a British Facebook Friend that deserves more exposure. He was taking me to task for a post regarding Obama's perceived apology tour. As hard as it is to believe there are far too many people around the world, and in this country, of the mentality that helped to bring WW2 on in the first place. The mentality of appeasement. George Santayana is famous for his quote Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I also like one of his other quotes that is not so well known, "A child educated only at school is an uneducated child".

FB Friend:

As someone who states regularly that you served in the forces for your country, I find these posts retarded. For a start pearl harbour , whilst a surprise attack, it was an attack by military forces which presented the opposite side (yourselves) an opportunity to return fire. Dropping an A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an attack on a civilian city with no warning or possibility to return fire. Pearl harbour occurred in 1941 (if I remember correctly) you have remembrance, survivors, and in some cases of the history...glory. Nagasaki and Hiroshima had 2 CIVILIAN cities wasted to the ground with repercussions of that event still existing today in the form of mutations and various other things. Your own president at the time iirc said he wished he'd never given the order after seeing the devastation left in the bombs wake. The fact of the matter is, Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never have happened, they were the results of desperate men at desperate times and hopefully that mistake will never again be done! "I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in the same manner.

"For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the 'pigheadedness' of the leaders of a nation and, for your information, I am not going to do it until it is absolutely necessary...

"My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan." (Barton Bernstein, Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory, Diplomatic History, Spring 1995, material quoted from pg. 267-268).

My response to him: I have edited it some.

You could use a little more study on the subject. "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold."

("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 197).

On Aug. 9, after Nagasaki was a-bombed, Truman made another public statement on why the atomic bombs were used:

"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans." 

("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 212). 

The A- Bombs saved at least one millian American lives and it also saved millions of Japanese lives. The Japanese were prepared to fight to the death. Study the casualties rates of the Island hopping campaigns leading up to the dropping of the atomic bombs. Because of indoctrination the civilian population was also prepared to fight to the death. Even after the bombs were dropped the Japanese military did not want to surrender. It was Hirohito that made the decision to surrender only because he knew that if he didn't there would be no Japan left to surrender. The Russians were invading from the north. America was temporarily out of nukes but we had the capability to build more. The Japanese didn't know this however. The fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, by thousands of American B-29 bombers, killed as many Japanese as the A-bombs did. The Americans in Europe tried to save civilians lives by using daylight pin point bombing, using the Norden bomb sight. We suffered tremendous casualties in doing this. The British on the other hand led by Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris bombed at night when it was safer for his air crews. He bombed German cities indiscriminately, causing tremendous casualties. The Americans made the mistake of joining the British in the fire bombing of Dresden in a vain effort at ending the European war quicker. This raid produced nearly as many casualties as the Hiroshima bomb. The Americans under General Curtis Lemay tried to use pinpoint bombing in Japan early on. This was an attempt to put Japanese industry out of action and to limit civilian casualties. Lemay had to revert to fire bombing because of the crosswinds over Japan. These winds made our bombing very ineffective. We had to change our tactics to low level incendiary bombing out of necessity. The incendiary bombs easily set the Japanese paper and wood structures on fire which caused firestorms as happened in Dresden. It is because I am a military man, and that I worked at NORAD at the height of the Cold War, I understand that peace comes through strength. The only reason that America and the Soviet Union never went to war was because of MAD or Mutual Assured Destruction. In addition we were always a step ahead of the Russians. America forced Russia to pull it's missiles out of Cuba in 1962 because we had a 16 to 1 nuclear superiority over them. Contrary to what Obama was sanctimoniously preaching in Hiroshima. The best way to achieve peace is to be prepared for war. Reagan brought down the Soviet Union by pursuing this strategy.It was British and French appeasement of Hitler in the 1930's and America's unpreparedness for war before Pearl Harbor that led to WW2. The worst war in world history. It is estimated that anywhere from 60 to 80 million people died in that war because of our unwillingness to stop the Germans and the Japanese when we had the chance to minimize casualties. Because of Obama, America's military is the weakest that it has been since before WW2. If it were up to him he would totally do away with our nuclear capability. I love you brother but you would be wise to remove your head from the sand.