Obama’s pastor: “God damn America!”
I love it so much it hurts:
Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.”
…Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
…An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.
“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.
Wow. Clearly this guy didn’t major in history. I’m going to assume everyone reading this already knows that any reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in this context is complete and utter bullshit. You already know that, in fact, plenty of people definitely “batted an eye” back then, and that if those bombs hadn’t been dropped, a whole HELL of a lot more people would have died, particularly a hell of a lot more Japanese people. Not to mention a hell of a lot more American soldiers, and not to mention the fact that America didn’t start that godforsaken war.
Besides, you know what? Those bushido-lovin’ psychos deserved those bombs. They did. Read a history book.
You can say America deserved 9/11 all you want, and even if the reasons you give had some basis in truth, they’d still never EVER be remotely in the same ballpark of how bad Japan deserved getting those nukes. For one thing, we were in open declared war with Japan, which like I said, they started. Second, they were offered surrender. The terms weren’t good enough and the Japanese repeatedly refused. They were willing to sacrifice their citizens to improve the terms, so that they’d be able to rebuild and eventually take over the Pacific. Even after the first A-bomb was dropped, they refused to surrender. The entire nation, including “civilians”, were preparing for ground combat with Allied troops.
Japan as it exists today would not BE if it weren’t for our restraint and our money. If any other superpower in the history of the planet had had to go to such lengths to get an enemy to just fucking STOP IT, they would have obliterated that enemy into the dust. I’m talking what the Romans did to Carthage. Dust.
But whatever. When a racemonger is on a roll, it’s best to just sit back and enjoy. Because I think the real point of this is that Obama’s mentor, the pastor who married him and baptized his children, is a flaming dickhead. Which should and does reflect extremely poorly upon Obama.
Which means everyone wins.
ABC News? Obviously you can’t be referring to that ABC news. Is there a new ABC news out there? Can you clear this up please.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:02 pmFunny how the MSM’s own voting preferences are coming out.
I don’t see this expose, for all its worth, as being “hey, just trying to be fair and balanced and show each candidate’s strong and weak points.” Nope, it is more like, “what dirt can we scoop onto Obama so Hill gets the nod?’
Irony is delicious.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:10 pmYou have such a totally on spot way of saying things. Bravo.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:10 pmFlaming dickhead, indeed. Well said.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:16 pmIt’s funny how the people who think we shouldn’t have nuked Hiroshima or Nagasaki never seem to be veterans of the Pacific theater.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:17 pmSing it, Sistah.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:20 pmThe next thing you know, Obama supports will be saying “The pastor’s right! That’s why Obama has to CHANGE the country.” Moment of full, national polarization yet to come.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:29 pmso you actually can find it in you to twist logic and STATE that the atomic bomb was a good thing?! I pity you.
This is my last post here. I’ll never be back. You are one sick person.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:35 pmNot only was the atomic bomb a good thing, it’s kept the peace for 63 years and saved us from anarchy, bunny. (Sorry, couldn’t help it, Rachel.)
March 13th, 2008 at 5:43 pmDon’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Because Rachl Lukis doesn’t like ass-prints on her door.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:48 pmPut your case of the vapors on pause, because I’ll do one better. If we had to drop ten instead of two, I’d still say it was a good thing.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:51 pmthis guy makes me disgusted. i can round up a bunch of korean and chinese people who swear that japan occupied both countries and beat the shit out of the people there and didn’t give one crap about how they treated us and made koreans and chinese speak their goddamn language. and they still haven’t apologized to this day and i hear that japan doesn’t even teach about the “bad stuff” in their schools, so all the japanese school kids come out with less than accurate depictions of the usa and the extent of their occupation in korea and china. and this guy is saying we shouldn’t have bombed the fuck out of japan? the japanese were f*cking ruthless in the battle of midway and what they did to humans made nazi experiments look tame.
ok, so i have an agenda, that’s clear. and i’m interested in world war II.
and no i don’t hate the japanese. but saying that we shouldn’t have bombed japan is a stupid, moronic statement and that advisor should be skinned to see how he likes how the japanese treated POWs. i bet he wouldn’t have minded an atomic bomb then. f*cking ignoramus.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:06 pmHey, anarchybunny, before you scurry off. Consider that the world offers us good choices, bad choices, and sometimes the worst of all: terrible necessities. I won’t speak for Rachel, but it’s clear to most history students that the bomb for all its cruelty put an end to the war. The legacy is also quite clear. Doug MacArthur was sent to Japan as military governor. He gave the Japanese a constitution (he wrote himself), emancipated Japan’s women, and taught the populace how to be good world citizens. A few little tricks, you see, that provide for material abundance and personal liberty. Works every time. Not unlike what we’re doing today in Iraq. God, I love my country! God Bless America!
March 13th, 2008 at 6:16 pmObama’s pastor is the black Fred Phelps (of the obscene Westboro “God-Hates-America” Cult).
March 13th, 2008 at 6:16 pmWow, a poster of this blog has left in disgust at Rachel’s statement that dropping the A-bombs in WWII was a good thing because it prevented further death of people on both sides.
I get it, AnarchyBunny is an Anarchist, therefore, she would prefer that the bombs did not stop WWII, rather, a longer, more savage war would have been theresult, possibly sending the world into a state of…………
wait for it…………..
Anarchy!
Makes sense to me. Have a miserable life, toots. ( obviously, that’s what you anarchists want anyway, right? Misery?)
March 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pmoh my fucking gawd… i was reading through the comments and my jaw dropped when i got to that slime spewed forth from anarchybunny… WHY I’m still so shocked and awed by the ignorance and stupidity of people out there is beyond me, god knows I’m exposed to piles of it every day living here in The People’s Republic of Portland. Hiroshima… Nagasaki… i hear it all the time, how EVIL we are for dropping the A bomb on them. I point out that we HAD TO FUCKING DO IT TWICE!!!! for those fanatical, suicidal assholes over there to surrender. I point out how many Americans and Japanese DIED taking Okinawa (50 THOUSAND americans killed and wounded, 100 THOUSAND Japanese soldiers and another 100 THOUSAND civilians) and that was just a tiny fly speck on the map of an island. The A bomb SAVED lives, you common sense-impaired Liberal ASSHOLES. Can ya do the math? Aren’t liberals supposed to be… educated or something? Over 200 THOUSAND dead Japanese (which is similar to what the fatalities of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together is) just for Okinawa.
WTF is wrong with people? Seriously.. I really want to know.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:25 pmFeel the love!
That’s why we love you, Rakle.
.
.
.
Oh, and bunny?
You’re a pussy.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:28 pmI think the bit about the CIA spreading crack cocaine to the black community was debunked a long time ago, but no black seperatists/liberals really cared about the truth on that one because the fiction fit their worldview so well.
But that little detail doesn’t matter. *If* the CIA really did spread crack, was the CIA also responsible for making those black people buying the crack, loading it in the crackpipes, and smoking it?
And please, the gvt. is building bigger prisons because too many people are committing crimes, not because they hate black people. And they started the 3-strikes laws because too many criminals were getting out of jail and committing more crimes. And IIRC, the US also had plenty of economic embargos against the racist republic of South Africa when it was committing apatheid against the blacks. But hey, Mr. Preacherman, we won’t let actual history get in the way of a good soundbite.
History repeats itself because people are stupid.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:32 pmmy bad, japan seems to have apologized, but there’s something in this article that’s just too funny. the liberal democratic party of korea didn’t think japan needed to apologize. wow. just wow. (actually, i’m trying to laugh, but i get angry at them and want to rip their throats out for siding with the japanese over a time where koreans would DIE due to too much forced labor, where hundreds of thousands of women were forced to be “comfort women” to the japanese military, where people were shot at just because the japanese “wanted to.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E4DA133BF93AA35753C1A96E958260
those people need to get sent to north korea where they can starve under communist rule.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:33 pmDropping those bombs had to be done, and as has been pointed out doing so saved lives, not just by ending that war but by keeping the world in check all through the cold war.
And to add to the emotional side of a discussion that could be kept to logic and numbers…………
My Father-in-Law was in the Tennessee berthed beside the Arizona on 7 Dec 41, (his survival ensured my having grandchildren all these many moons later)
March 13th, 2008 at 6:42 pmmy Brother-in-Law’s Uncle ’survived’ the Bataan Death March only to be so traumatized for years later that he tried to kill his wife in his sleep and then committed suicide.
Anarchybunny, yes, the bombings were terrible terrible things - but let’s put the blame on the ones responsible for it, shall we? You can lay the blame squarely in front of Japan. It was a neccessary evil foisted on us by the Japanese. Cause and effect, baby - its’ a bitch.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:45 pmAnd….since the atomic bomb and whether we should have dropped it is not really the point of this post…..
Great post Rachel!!
March 13th, 2008 at 6:45 pmWhy is it that whenever you beat the shit out of an Anarchist, the first thing they do is call the police?
March 13th, 2008 at 6:47 pmOh hell yes. For anyone who thought Japan didn’t deserve it, ask them if they know anything about the Rape of Nanking. As rosie would say, Google it! Then remind them that happened early on during the war, and it only got worse from there.
I had a long and spirited debate with an enlightened liberal who declared that a million people killed by an atomic bomb is somehow worse than a million people shot in the head or skewered on bayonets. Because the creation of the bomb was just bad karma, dude. But when I asked what if the creation of the bomb stopped a million people from being shot or skewered? Silence.
As for Obama’s pastor, I hope McCain is taking notes and collecting quotes.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:47 pmNylecoj - oops, sorry - you are right of course, but damn, what a dumb bunny! Back to Obama’s pastor…good to know this stuff - it will help me build a better bomb to drop on the Nagasaki sized ignorance of some of my liberal friends.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:47 pmMarla,
March 13th, 2008 at 6:56 pmNo ‘oops’ necessary. As you can see I first posted about dropping the bomb as well.
We can blame anarchybunny for the direction this thread took
I was stunned when I heard on teh news today, before Rachel’s post, that he said Clinton did to us what he did to Monica Lewinsky, and then, I was even more stunned when I heard Shepard Smith on FOX news say Obama had repudiated the remark when all he actually said was that comments like that do not belong in politics whether from a candidate or the pulpit. In my opinion that means just don’t say it out loud.
I should look for the quote in print in case I have paraphrased wrong and am maligning his character, but apaprently I am being paid to work and not post.
and while I am being not paid to post I am apparently being not paid to proof read.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:58 pmWhat is a little scary is that Obama has said (I saw a video going around) he doesn’t think his pastor is “all that radical”. What?? He’s been listening to this clown for 20 years. No wonder Michelle is an America Hater.
Remember Japan produced a version of the suicide bomber called the kamakaze. They were expected to die during the mission for their country. That is the mentality that made the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki inevitable.
Rachel, Brian Breitbart(sp) was guest hosting for Dennis Miller’s radio show on Monday and had Bill Whittle as one of his guests. As you can imagine, he was as interesting and intelligent as his essays.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:02 pmWe all know anarchybunny will in fact be back, to see what has been said about him/her.
Everyone feel free, but here’s what I have to say:
It’s debatable, bunny. I think a thorough examination of what the Japanese had done, were doing, and planned on doing would benefit you and possibly inform your opinion like it has mine. I minored in WWII history, by the way.
You might read “The Rape of Nanking” for a nice start.
I didn’t state it was a “good thing” we dropped the bombs. I said they deserved it. There is a distinction. Sometimes Sunny deserves my foot in her ass; I wouldn’t call that a “good thing”.
What’s “sick” is what the Japanese culture at that time was all about. Every man, woman, and child was expected to fight, and they planned to, to the death. Again, you can read about this in many scholarly books.
There is disagreement by historians about whether or not the bombs were necessary to stop the war, and how many lives were actually saved by the act. But five out of five of my university history professors, one of whom was a cravenly liberal East German and one who was a peace activist, believed and lectured that the bombs were necessary and prevented a bloodbath on a far grander scale than the bombs themselves caused. Your mileage may vary.
In any case, the Japanese knew we had a weapon like that when they repeatedly refused surrender. They saw what the first one did and they STILL wouldn’t give up. They needed to give up. They were fighting the bad fight, and that is a fact.
And the U.S. showed mercy to them after the fact like the world has never known. Honestly, it’s true. Look it up. In the meantime, don’t put words in my mouth. It doesn’t help your case.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:07 pmthat is some seriously funny shit… I’d pay good money for that to be printed on a t-shirt
March 13th, 2008 at 7:07 pmWell, it only took the MSM about three months longer than all the emails and other blogs blogging about B.O.’s pastor. Now if we could just get Cronkite to finally report that the Tet Offensive was a victory in ‘Nam, the MSM could get caught up on a bit more of 20th century history.
And Hog hWitman is the shit!. Hehee!
March 13th, 2008 at 7:21 pmTime for NRO to run another one of these. It’s like Obama is working for Karl Rove.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pmIf I were Obama, I think I’d start claiming to be a Muslim, after all.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:36 pmRachel,
As someone who also minored in WWII history, I can vouch for everything you have said with regard to the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. What most people don’t know is that by the time the bombs were dropped we were already capable of destroying most any Japanese city at will. The virtual total destruction of Japanese air power by early 1945, along with the development of the B-29 and the change from high explosive iron bombs to incendiary bombs, resulted in massive damage to Tokyo the night of Feb. 24/25, 1945. Sixteen square miles of the city were incinerated and about 100,000 people were killed outright (compared to 80,000 in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki who were killed outright by the nukes).
Granted, it took a force of 279 B-29’s dropping 3,400,000 lbs. of incendiary bombs to accomplish the task, but the huge raids could have gone on forever at that point because we had the aircraft, and they did not. The psychological effect of destroying a city with one plane and one bomb each, got the Emperor’s attention in a way that 300 plane raids and millions of pounds of bombs could not, because the Japanese military understood the latter but were shocked by the former.
Besides the horrendous cost in lives of a ground invasion, the death toll from continued massive air raids on Japanese cities in preparation for that invasion would have been staggering compared to the losses from the two nukes that got the emperor to stand up against the military and go directly to the people about surrendering.
anarchybunny, facts are a strange thing to you, I’m sure, but they are what they are, and they have to be viewed in context. Otherwise you just prove what an ignorant ass you are.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:03 pmGive me a fucking break. Did the candyassbunny ever hear of The Bataan Death March? Or Nanking like rachel said, or what happened to the Chinese girls they kept? Or God alone knows how many other war crimes.
The bombs stopped the war. A lesser nation would have kept pounding them. We didn’t. We built them up, and made them what they are. Anyone who thinks different is just too fucking stupid to think for 2 minutes. If they fought to the last on flyshit islands what do they think would have happened on mainland Japan?
March 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pmIt’s often said to justify the atomic bombs that they saved many thousands of American lives.
What is not said very often is that they saved literally MILLIONS of Japanese lives.
An invasion of the Japanese home islands would have made D-Day look like a freaking children’s birthday party. You name it: Soldiers fighting to the death, civilians hiding hand grenades, IEDs, suicide bombers, booby traps, the whole nine yards. We would have been fighting in Japan for years, and let me tell you, the Japanese people would have gotten the worst of it. Particularly because a) we were in no mood to put up with that shit, and b) we had overwhelming air superiority and were not at all shy about using it.
I don’t think there would have been any attempt to win Japanese hearts and minds. Given the mood of the times, I think we would have adopted a scorched-earth policy to force them to surrender.
No doubt about it, bringing the war to a swift end with atomic bombs was the better option, and it actually saved lives on both sides.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:22 pmrev wright also had the balls to proclaim that HIV was a white mans plot against the blacks!–if obama is going to give this idiots ramblings credence by calling him his (obamas) pastor, i guess we’ve found out all we need to know about mr. obama!(wasn’t going to vote for him anyway. but it helps confirm my choice!)
March 13th, 2008 at 10:31 pmSince I’ve been doing a little research on Hiroshima + Nagasaki for my US History class, I feel like contributing.
Mightysamurai:
Generals Nimitz, Eisenhower and MacArthur all opposed the bombing because they believed Japan was already ready to surrender. Now, I couldn’t find any objective evidence backing this claim up, since the military held most of the government power and was determined to fight to the last man, but we still have at least one veteran of the Pacific theater in opposition here.
Rachel:
Actually, before the Hiroshima bombing there was no direct warning of “surrender or we use the atomic bomb.” Both the Potsdam Declaration and the earlier Cairo Declaration merely said that if Japan didn’t unconditionally surrender it would face “prompt and utter destruction” - since the Japanese undoubtedly felt they were already facing that, it’s slightly disingenuous to claim that we warned them about the bomb. I agree with the rest of what you said, though.
Anyway, ending the war even a month early was worth it, as one statistic currently kicking around the Internet says that 200,000 civilians were dying every month in East Asia. We’re not even talking about Okinawa-style battles here - add those in and it’s plain which side the numbers support. Besides, if we didn’t use the nukes we would have used firebombs, and the Tokyo firebombing makes it plain that the destruction would have been about equivalent (though less immediate).
One other angle, which I think few notice: Russia entered the war on August 8th, two days after Hiroshima and less than a week before Japan’s surrender. By ending the war quickly, we kept Russia from making significant territorial advances in East Asia to complement its advances in Eastern Europe at the end of WWII. Since these territorial advances in Eastern Europe were the basis for the descent of the Iron Curtain in that area, our action in ending the war directly prevented the extension of the Iron Curtain to East Asia. Now, one could argue that this didn’t make much difference to the scores of millions of people who died during Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but one of the saving graces of the Cold War was that China and Russia weren’t exactly best buddies, just people who shared a common enemy (us). If Russia had exercised direct authority over China as a result of territorial gains in the last part of WWII, the Cold War may have turned out quite differently. So by this measure, the bombs helped us win the Cold War as well as WWII.
One last point: What do you guys think would have happened if Truman had decided to demonstrate the bomb on an uninhabited part of Japan? Would that have been practical? Would it have had the same effect as what actually happened? Because that alternative means 250,000 fewer dead Japanese civilians, which I view as generally a good thing. Thoughts?
March 13th, 2008 at 11:10 pmAnarchybunny needs to do a little reading. After the Japanese lost on Gudalcanal they never won another major battle. But they dug in like ticks on Bougainville, Peleliu, Tarawa and all the rest, all the way to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Every battle was longer and exponentially worse than the one before. Okinawa was horrible beyond belief and that was just a satellite island. The Allied Command were scared shitless of the inevitable invasion of the Japanese homeland. Dear God, it doesn’t take a genius to see that the lesser of two evils took place in August of 1945. I wonder if any Commander in Chief today would have the courage Truman did. What an awful decision to make, but it was the right one.
Think about it, anarchybunny…
March 13th, 2008 at 11:17 pmSee ya, don’t let the door hit ya on the ass, on the way out.
I got news for the liberal twats that read here. Them fucking gooks got what was coming to them.
I’m just fucking sorry, we didn’t drop more than two, by rights, we should have dropped one for every fucking solider that was killed at Pearl Harbor!
I may be in my mid 30’s, but I haven’t forgotten what those fucking bastards did, and NO, I haven’t forgiven them. I think, we should, just for kicks, drop a few more in fucking Japan, just to let them know we’re still fucking here!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
March 13th, 2008 at 11:30 pmDearRachel-
I wonder if, given the way obamassiah savaged Romney about his religion, if it is now open season on hussein’s? bho accused Romney of not being able to leave his religious beliefs out of the politics of his leadership. Will bho be able to leave the past twenty years of vitriol, biblical misinterpretation and sanctioned racism out of HIS governing policies? Or are we (the people) just supposed to ignore all of that just as we are commanded to never mention bho’s middle name? It’s certainly getting confusing out there in Cloud Cookoo Land.
anarchyBUNNY — That sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 amApropos the atomic bomb topic, I highly recommend two books.
The first is 1945 by Robert Conroy. Subtitle: What if Japan hadn’t surrendered in World War II? It’s a wonderful alternative history novel.
The second is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, which won every imaginable award including the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. It is — by a wide margin — the best book I have ever read, on any subject, bar none. Rhodes begins not with the Manhattan Project, but with the state of physics and chemistry in about 1850. He covers the entire century of discovery that ultimately made the A-bomb possible. But it is very approachable, and deeply human. He gives you such a sense of the team at Cavendish, for example, that when Ernest Rutherford died I was literally in tears. God, I’m choking up again now just remembering that chapter. It is also an incredibly urgent narrative, a real page-turner.
If you read no other book between now and the grave, The Making of the Atomic Bomb should be it. It really is… the bomb.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:15 amEw!
Ow!
March 14th, 2008 at 1:27 amMath_Mage: the idea of hosting a demo was vigorously debated. I won’t recapitulate all the arguments, which are covered well in both of the books I mentioned previously. But the decision seems vindicated by the fact that even after using the bomb for real on Hiroshima, that still wasn’t enough to induce surrender. Neither was Nagasaki. It was only our threat that we could and would sustain that rate of bombing (one every three days) that made them fold.
In truth, that threat was the mother of all bluffs. At best we could have produced about one a month, powered alternately by U-235 extracted from the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge and Pu-239 created in reactors at Hanford. We just didn’t have that much fissionable material. If the Japanese had known that, they probably would have concluded that they could absorb the occasional blows. Hard to imagine, today. Thankfully.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:05 amI hope Hussein says “God damn America” that would end his campaign in a real hurry!
March 14th, 2008 at 2:13 amFrom what I’ve gathered, Hiroshima was a message to Japan - we can destroy one of your cities with one plane and one bomb. Nagasaki was a message to the world - we can destroy one city with one bomb each week… and if we were able to roll out our new toy once every week or two now, how much longer until we were able to roll out 279 B-29s full of those things and decimate an entire country? It’s one thing to drop one atomic bomb… I mean, how much did those things cost back then? Did anybody know at the time? Maybe we got lucky… but two… that’s not luck. That’s not luck at all.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:27 amActually, it was — and it was one of the best-kept secrets of the A-bomb project. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were based on very different technology. One was based on uranium, the other on plutonium. This is no minor detail.
Uranium bombs can use a so-called gun-type design, meaning that you fire a uranium slug into a barely-subcritical uranium target, which then becomes barely supercritical, and boom. Ordinary gun velocities suffice to make this work.
Plutonium is much harder to make into a bomb because it fissions much faster, so the gun design wouldn’t work — as the plutonium ‘bullet’ approached, the neutron flux would increase, and the plutonium core would simply heat up and evaporate before it could produce a nuclear explosion. Instead, plutonium bombs use an implosion design. A subcritical solid sphere of plutonium is blanketed by conventional high explosives, which all detonate at the same time to compress the plutonium sphere to higher density; this makes it supercritical, and boom. The trick is getting the implosion wave to be near-perfectly symmetrical; otherwise the plutonium just squirts out and the bomb fizzles. That failure mode is the most likely explanation of the North Korean dud a few years ago, and it is why Iran so desperately wants uranium instead.
The Trinity test in New Mexico was a plutonium bomb. That test was deemed necessary because the physics and engineering of the bomb were so complex. By contrast, because uranium was so scarce, and the design was so comparatively simple, the first-ever test of a gun-type uranium bomb was over the skies of Hiroshima.
It was lucky indeed that we also had a plutonium bomb ready to go. Because that’s all we had — one of each. But to the Japanese, it seemed like two of the same thing, so they believed — erroneously — that we could crank them out at will. Like I said: the mother of all bluffs.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:54 amAlot of our agricultural scientists visit China and not one visit go by where at least one Chinese goes up to our scientist and said the U.S should have dropped more atomic bombs on Japan. Let China remind the rest of the world why the atomic bombs were used in the first place since the United States stop defending itself for using the bombs a long time ago. For the most part a billion Chinese were left alone by radical Islam, even though the Chinese were secularists and ruthless to their own Uighur Muslim minorities. Had bin Laden issued a fatwa against Beijing and slammed an airliner into a skyscraper in Shanghai, there is no telling what a nuclear China might have done.
Oh, and that pastor …. ug, whatever, total moron.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:51 amIf the bleeding heart liberals have their way, we will be over-run by our enemies. In WWII it was Japan and Germany. Without military, we would have been dead meat! And so would the rest of the world! Our military is solely responsible for freedom throughout the world!
March 14th, 2008 at 7:53 amSo, when someone says to me that these are different times and we don’t need to spend money on weapons, we don’t need a military, we don’t need nukes; I beg to differ! The only way to have peace is to be able to protect yourself! PERIOD!!!
Ahem, that’s Admiral.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:53 amDearRachel,
Some helpful additions to the “atomic bomb Japan” discussion:
1. All three of my kids went through public high school in Virginia and got the “nuking Japan was bad” argument handed to them. All three were required to read a book by a Japanese doctor detailing the aftermath of Hiroshima (I dont know the title and dont care to Google it). In the class discussion, all three were engaged in discussions about the morality of it, and came home and told me about it. All three teachers were otherwise nice people, so I didnt want to engage in a hostile manner. So I told all three kids to go back to school and ask the teacher “why do so many people talk about it being immoral to drop an atomic weapon on Hiroshima but are silent about firebombing Tokyo or Dresden, which killed more people?” Every time, the teacher did not have a response and stopped the discussion about Hiroshima.
2. Isnt it strange that everyone talks about Hiroshima and nobody talks about Nagasaki? I wonder why?
3. Of the two of them, Hiroshima was a more legitimate military target. The Japanese Naval Headquarters was in Hiroshima and it was a major Fleet anchorage.
mike
March 14th, 2008 at 7:57 amI don’t have anything to contribute to the “Should we have used the bomb” argument. Me trying to argue that would be like me trying to argue about the mating habits of penguins; I know very little about it, and anything I would add would be little more than just guesswork.
But I have noticed in the comments of the last few posts something I find quite curious: it would seem anarchists are considered liberals. I would label myself anarchist - anarcho-capitalist, more accurately - and I am FAR from a liberal. But even if you try to follow the logical reasoning, the anarchists = liberals argument doesn’t pan out. Liberals, in general, want a stronger central government to dictate to everyone how they should live their life and to enforce “equality”, be it social or economic. How is it then that an anarchist - who wants NO government - could be a liberal - who wants LARGE government?
(The problem with the argument, of course, is that people are trying to fit all political beliefs on a one-dimensional line, in which there is only a left or a right. You can certainly be liberal and anarchist, as I’ve heard of “anarchist socialists” who, unlike anarcho-capitalists, don’t believe in private property rights. Noam Chomsky, who makes me want to punch babies at times, considers himself an anarchist socialist.)
Just food for thought. Just because someone’s anarchist doesn’t mean they also like to wear their tie-dye shirt when they go to the local organic food market.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:40 amJeff, Thanks for the education. I’ll be looking for that book.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:52 amAaaaand…BAM.
Thanks everyone for helping educate the poor bunny.
I love my commenters.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:55 amI read a biography on Truman, and the generals presented him with a plan to invade the Japanese mainland. They estimated that the invasion would have killed 1,000,000 Allied/American lives, who knows how many Japanese. And since my father was going to go to the Japanese theater when he recovered from his wounds in Europe, I have to thank the atomic bomb for me being here.
Moronic bunny. My real bunny has more sense.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:23 amI studied the Pacific war in college extensively. (I also studied the run-up to it; my concentration in graduate school was American-Japanese relations in the 1930s.)
I’ve been convinced all my life that dropping those bombs on Japan was perhaps not what Japan deserved — who really deserves flaming atomic death (well, other than most of the Middle East, but I digress) — but certainly was what it needed. We’d already tried carpet-bombing them back into the Stone Age and that didn’t work. It was clear that only something as horrific as the atomic bomb, which could have completely obliterated Japan if we’d dropped maybe a total of 10 (as armyofdog suggested above) on the major cities, was going to make the Japanese war cabinet come to its senses.
And at that, two atomic bombs almost didn’t suffice.
My dad never had a problem with the atomic bombing, either. He was in Austria in the summer of 1945, waiting to be shipped to the Pacific for the big Home Islands offensive that in the event wasn’t needed.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:14 amwhoa, what an education this Rachl Lukis site provides. I’m in awe. I’m also ordering The Making of the Atomic Bomb, thanks to Jeff.
Jeff Bonwick, you should think about writing a book yourself. Bill Whittle started here at Rachl’s blog, you know. Just saying…
March 14th, 2008 at 10:55 amThe LLL seems to think that when the barbarians finally storm the gates, that THEIR necks will not be cut. I can’t wait for irony of their final moment of horror when they realize what they’ve done. I’ll be in New Zealand.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:57 amDearRachel,
as someone else posted, it’s surprising (since I still expect that SOME history is taught in government schools) how the anti-nuke freaks forget or ignore Dresden or Tokyo. The reports on the firestorms are incredibly horrible. And the death toll was enormous.
But all that is irrelevant because the real point of this post is another scumbag black whiny America hating conman (my preferred word for “pastor”)
I have only one comment to make about any of these “god DAMN America” assholes that infest our country. Get the F*CK out! Go live in that continent you admire as your homeland, and don’t EVER come back. Just think how that unselfish act, especially if all you slimebuckets would do so, would improve this country - politically, racially, and socially.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:00 amLate to the thread again, I see.
My $.02:
In early 1945, Japan was importing as much as 90% of its’ food from the Chinese mainland.
Japan had a rail network, but it did not have a lot of excess rail capacity or redundancy (to reroute around damaged areas); in fact, there were only a handful of railroad bridges that connected the Home Islands.
This railroad was used to distribute food, but in the event of an invasion, would have been used to transport military supplies. Therefore, prior to an invasion, the Allies planned to utterly destroy the railroads from the air in order to hamper the Japanese defense.
The first part of the invasion (”Operation Olympic”) was scheduled for September 1945, with the second phase (”Operation Coronet”) to follow in November.
I ask anyone who thinks the nukes shouldn’t have been used; that we should have invaded the old-fashioned way: With Japan under a naval blockade and almost no food coming into the country, the food the distribution system destroyed and the Allied forces too focused on defeating the Japanese military to worry very much about civilian relief, how many Japanese would have starved to death in the winter of 1945-46?
(Hint: After the unconditional surrender, with the full cooperation of the Japanese and the full logistical capacity of the Allies in use, food rations for Japanese adults amounted to 1200 calories a day for a year after the surrender…)
March 14th, 2008 at 11:06 amPat
We would be downwind of the fallout from 2,600+ nukes. Less than a 100 nukes would be okay by me.
Nathan
10? 10? Your killing me.
In the 80’s a Japanese couple reviewed what their country did during the war through many interviews. One of the interesting stories is the tradition in the armies in China to ‘blood’ their new officiers by having them cut a civilian’s head off. What a crummy culture they had. They deserved nuking.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:01 pmI left Catholicism because of MT 23:9 and a few other blatant hypocrisies (in my mind, ok?) that I just couldn’t get around.
Like Hal says http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58868 there are PLENTY of places he could go besides the one church he PICKED and STAYED with for 20 + years.
I disagreed with a couple things and left a Church. Really a GREAT church. I see red-letter issues that some people easily dismiss, it just isn’t for me. I felt compelled to leave it. But this asshole wears his membership to this FUCKED UP church on his sleeve and could be the democrat nominee for President? He says he disagrees with many things? Like what, specifically? And he still goes there? Leave. Read MT 15:14. Or explain yourself, asshole.
Thank God we are a Federal Constitutional Republic.
It amazes me that more and more people think America is a Democracy. And they propagate that lie. I read that there is a movement to go to a popular vote?
Eschatologically speaking, trying to consider everything, this is scary. Rev 13:11.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:00 pmJust the type. And people fawn. Not that Oblahblah is the asshole referenced to what was seen, this campaign is evidence of how EASILY it will be done by the one who IS that tyrant yet to come.
John Dower’s Embracing Defeat includes some interesting details about the mindset of the Japanese military, as revealed during the post-war occupation. Two points stand out.
First, a faction of the military attempted a coup to prevent the surrender, after the bombing of Nagasaki; they sent in troops to try to prevent the Emperor’s recorded announcement from being broadcast, while they tried to change his mind. Apparently, they thought we were bluffing about having more a-bombs…
Second, the interim government was so concerned about mass rape by occupying US GIs that they recruited young women from all over Japan to become whores, sacrificing their chastity for the sake of the country. They set up regional comfort centers, with different locations serving officers, white enlisted, and black enlisted, for $1 a throw, and made sure the GIs knew where to find them.
-j
March 14th, 2008 at 6:40 pmBonnie — thank you. Unfortunately, if I ever do write a book, it will be about the design of the ZFS file system. I say unfortunately because it is my life’s work, and there’s probably not a single soul here in Rachel’s World who has any idea what it is.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:34 amI’m struck by how similar Obama’s pastor’s sermons are to the radical Islamists - WWII Atom bombs, HIV and all. The discussion of whether Obama is or is not an Islamist is moot - the opinions are the same - Death to the Great Satan (and little satan) - I can’t believe this guy could be Commander in Chief - I share in Rachel’s Obamaphobia!
March 15th, 2008 at 4:57 amJeff, you’d be surprised what we’re into. I used to run a farm of 24 NetApp Filers, so I know exactly how cool ZFS is.
-j
March 15th, 2008 at 9:10 pmYou’re an idiot Rachel. Everybody knows the 9/11 hijackers were a bunch of Japanese guys pissed off about Hiroshima. Only fools believe Bush’s lie about “Al-Qaeda” being responsbile.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:53 pmJ Greely: Wow, small world. I stand happily corrected.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:20 pm