As much as the world would hope that the US had the sense to act responsibly, you do have a history of bad military decisions that reduces that trust. There really was no point to the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, or dropping atomic bombs on Japan. Somehow American leaders made those immoral decisions.
You take comments too seriously. While Vietnam was a mistake, it was because the US was fighting a Cold War against the soviets. The first Iraq war was completely justified. Second clearly a mistake. Historians believe that millions of lives and hundreds of thousands of American lives were saved by the atomic bombs. The Japanese weren't going to surrender without a fight until they could see the real risk that their homeland was going to be completely destroyed. And you are ignoring the air strikes on Yugoslavia and the Korean War. When you are the world leader (and not just part of the entourage), you will have to make bold decisions and sometimes they will be wrong. Unfortunately our current administration doesn't take the "world leader" thing seriously.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...899906-450a-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html Truman was right to use the bomb on Japan By Richard Cohen Opinion writer August 17, 2015 Should the United States apologize for the nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of World War II? The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 70 years ago this month, killed as many as 250,000 people, most of them civilians. For many of the victims, it was a horrible, excruciating death, and for many others, the effects of burns and radiation, although not immediately lethal, produced years of agony. Should we say we’re sorry? My answer is no, but I do not dismiss the question out of hand. It is, after all, naggingly relevant, raising issues of proportion, race and culture. A recent article on the Web site of the decidedly liberal magazine the Nation makes three points. The bombings were animated by racial animus, they were disproportionate to the number of U.S. deaths that might have resulted from an invasion of the Japanese mainland and the bombs amounted to wretched excess: Japan was ready to surrender anyway. Maybe so. But an imminent Japanese surrender was hardly apparent at the time. Instead, even as the war was ending, the Japanese fought nearly to the last man on Iwo Jima, a month-long battle in which almost 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on the island, only about 200 were taken prisoner. Some held out for weeks in caves. Still later in 1945, the Japanese fought tenaciously until mid-June to hold Okinawa. That battle cost 14,000 American lives. The story must be told. Your subscription supports journalism that matters. Try 1 month for 99¢ There was reason to believe that Japan would never surrender and that an invasion of the main Japanese islands would result in staggering U.S. casualties. If that was the case, then any weapon that saved American lives would be considered justified. The author of the article in the Nation, Christian Appy, states, however, that the casualty projections were always exaggerated. Whatever the figure, a commander in chief has the responsibility to husband American lives. What about racism? “American wartime culture had for years drawn on a long history of ‘yellow peril’ racism to paint the Japanese not just as inhuman, but as subhuman,” Appy writes. Yes, indeed. But at the same time, the Japanese were doing their level best to prove that the bigots were right. They had abused and murdered prisoners of war, they had massacred civilian populations and — no small matter this — they were flying their own airplanes into U.S. fighting ships. The famous kamikaze attacks cost the Japanese almost 4,000 pilots and killed almost 5,000 American sailors . Americans had to wonder: What kind of people would sacrifice their own in pursuit of what, by then, was a losing cause? Little wonder we thought of the Japanese then as we now think of the Islamic State. Play Video 4:45 Footage from the Enola Gay and Hiroshima Archive footage from the plane that dropped ‘Little Boy’ on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and the aftermath of that detonation. (Internet Archive) American abhorrence of Japanese military culture was hardly standard racism. Sure, racism was present — but so was barbaric behavior on the part of the enemy. The same could be said about the Nazis. After all, the A-bomb was first intended for Germany, but Berlin surrendered before it could be used. Harry S. Truman was characteristically terse and not particularly introspective about his decision to use the bomb. But it is clear from his diary — cited by Appy — that he loathed the Japanese, who, after all, had drawn the United States into the war with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The president was a product of his time, and terrible times they were. Three major powers had emerged that did not hesitate to slaughter innocent people — Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan. As for the United States and its allies, they had already firebombed Dresden and Hamburg and incinerated many of the major cities of Japan. The writer L.P. Hartley said that “The past is a foreign country.” The past of 1945 was a world steeped in blood. Could a “demonstration” bomb have gotten Japan to surrender? Who knows? Was Truman intent on accelerating the surrender so as to keep the Soviets out of Japan? Maybe. Was the loss of Japanese civilian life out of proportion to the projected loss of American life? Probably. These questions are well worth pondering, but so is this one: What could Truman have said to Americans who lost a loved one in an invasion of the Japanese home islands if they knew he had a weapon that could have ended the war and not used it? What, in the dead of night when sleep did not come and he stared at the ceiling, could he have said to the American dead? I chose Japanese lives over yours? Truman did what he had to do. No apology is needed. Read more from Richard Cohen’s archive.
And we lost over 14,000 men taking Okinawa so the estimate was that it would have taken the loss of over a million taking their homeland with a ground invasion. Think of all the Canadian soldiers who would have been lost fighting along side the Americans as they did in the rest of the South Pacific. Wait, nevermind.
We will let nine_ender tell us about the 1982 Constitution Act and other compromises that has allowed Quebec to remain part of Canada for a few more years. We will let him tell us about how Ottawa basically bribed Quebec with increased benefits taken from the pockets of others so they would not leave Canada -- of course this left the other Canadian provinces and territories pissed with most people having a "F the french" attitude.
Quite so indeed. Dead-Ender can make quips about California seceding the United States based some hippies in California but which country- America or Canada- had to roll out the tanks in Montreal in relatively recent history to quell its own people from separating. That would be Justin's father Pierre who did that. Despite all the red state - blue state issues and friction with Washington, which country has a second-largest population state/province that does not even recognize their official country? Think that is California? Think again. You have Canadians telling Americans what Canadians are really like. What they mean is "their Canada." versus Quebec. And these guys have the balls to to chide Americans about political divisions. In case you were thinking Ottawa was the capital of Canada.
You are ignorant. The FLQ situation was entirely about terrorism including the kidnapping of government officials. The US would have done no differently in the exact same situation. More recently, Canada allowed Quebec to vote on separatism. They turned it down. Since that vote, the numbers of Quebec people who want to stay in Canada has increased substantially, so much so that the idea of another vote never comes up. Myself, I'd welcome Quebec separating, if they want it.
Canada was an active member of the Allied forces in WW2 long before the US even entered the war. Your ignorance knows no ends in seems, just some dumb fuck American on the internet.
He's probably hinting to Canada bailing in the Pacific theater. I don't know enough or care enough to google if true or not, just remember the Aussies and Kiwis lending a hand.