We always feel like we're supposed to apologize for winning conflicts. Bollocks. We saved millions of lives and years of hell by ending the war with two strikes. The weapon was horrific, and as with all war, the innocent suffered as well. But we ended it as cleanly as we could, and what's more, we rebuilt them. To steal from an unknown quotable, the U.S. is the only nation on earth that, by conquering in war, rebuilds and revitalizes the losing side to a better standard of living. They should've dropped them on December 7, 1942, and saved that many more lives and years.

I'd be for dropping one each in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, except that it wouldn't really alter the landscape that much, and the targets would be strapping on firecrackers and hitching planes to New York before the mushroom cloud had cleared.

I think a 'scorched earth' policy was a little extreme, though. Followed by a corruption-plagued rebuilding.....

Hey! I'm seeing some parallels here.

1. They weren't trying to go for the rapid version of urban renewal.

2. It's Philadelphia. of course it was corruption plagued. There would have been something wrong had that not been the case.

Or by Philly standards, something very very weird.

After treating the Allied POW's the way they did, (or any others that were caught, i.e. most of China), Japan deserved everything they got and more. People can argue that "that was their way of thinking" all they want, but it was still barbaric. another 2 or 3 bombs would have REALLY taught them a lesson. I don't think any apology is necessary, nor shame. Allied soldiers were already on the home islands performing slave labour, so a prolonged military assault would have reduced their chance of recovery to nil.

Today Belmont Club points out the forgotten event of 100,000 Filipino civilians killed by retreating Japanese troops in Manila.

"The 100,000 civilians who died in the largest urban battle of the Pacific War -- more than at Hiroshima -- are not remembered in beautiful candles floating down darkened rivers or in flights of doves soaring into the blue sky; there is no anti-American significance to their deaths."

I can't really stomach all of this second-guessing. As our vetereans of the conflict die off, so do our memories, apparently.

Japan was no Iraq. We were *attacked* without provocation. There was no ambiguity, no oil to be had. Whatever they got was whatever they got. An apology would be completely out of line, unless it was something like "We're sorry your leaders were stupid enough to attack us, so we had to kick your asses."

Right on Elspode. :thumb: I talked and listened to literally hundreds of those vets coming back from WWII and they weren't the least bit sorry.

That we were attacked again without provocation (despite the fact that the attacking parties can in either case point to something they will call a provocation) puts us in the identical moral position in the War On Terror as in WW2. Iraq is but one campaign in the WOT, and inseparable from it if we want Islamoterrorism to go extinct. I certainly do, but I do wonder about some of those who take exception to my views. Now why is it that I should be obliged to wonder, eh?? Terror's breeding ground is extremist social orders, and what are nondemocracies but extremist societies? Democracies never feel like they need terrorists to push out the bad and bring in the good; they aren't that rigidly structured. This is why democracies tend to view terrorist cells as criminal gangs and treat them so -- and there is much justice in that view.

It's when the cells metastasize into mass movements that one has to shift to the war paradigm. Even more so when they get used as a means of proxy war.

Which is why we felt the need to attack Iraq without provocation, or, more correctly, with fictitious provocation.

BS, Rich. It's quite like the North African Campaign, right down to being sandy and the locals speaking Arabic and some of them being less than sympathetic.

You should remember just how harsh I am on anti-American viewpoints, and how much I believe America should win her wars. The we-shouldn't-win-this view is incomprehensible and reprehensible.

You really should not beat yourself up so much.

TW, as usual you are perfection in wrongness. I am pro-American, far more than you can manage to be if your posts accurately reflect your beliefs. I mean, dear boy, you're a leftist! Half-bright, at best. Me, I don't adhere to ideologies that make me stupid. Consequently, my kind of thinking is better than yours any day of the week, and twice over on Sundays and holidays.

"Beat yourself up," quotha!

What you didn't mention is that Japan offered the U.S. peace terms in July 1945 on almost exactly the same terms that eventually were accepted. The hold-up? They wanted an assurance that we weren't going to hang their Emperor.

We didn't end up hanging him anyway, of course, but in order to prove the point that we could if we wanted (i.e., "unconditional surrender"), we killed an extra 120,000 people.

Don't take my word for any of this...look it up yourself.