Friends, today residents of Hiroshima are marking 80 years since that city was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb. It's a great opportunity to reflect on the legacy of nuclear weaponry and its ongoing role in...keeping the peace? Yes, nukes put us all at risk of a radioactive apocalypse, but, because of their deterrent power, they have also kept us safe and sound for 80 years and counting. A war between NATO and Russia over Ukraine would be far more likely if nukes weren't keeping both sides minimally "honest" and circumspect. Personally, I believe that nukes will always be with us, and most of the time they serve to make life better (and longer) by preventing war itself. I say "most of the time" because, sooner or later, someone, somewhere will let loose with another nuclear bomb. Let's hope it isn't any time soon.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2v58qrjq0o
In other news, the battle over Texas redistricting is getting uglier and uglier, and Texas Governor Abbott is now threatening to remove "derelict" Dems, who have fled the state to stymie the legislative process, from office. I say: DO IT!!!
In a significant win for our national heritage, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decreed that a Confederate Memorial, which was removed from Arlington Cemetery by the Biden cabal, will be returned to its former location. Who would have thought, several years ago, that we would ever reverse the momentum of wokeness like this? It's a glorious sight to behold!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I was in Japan in U.S. uniform six times approx. 25 years after the bombs were used. I never once perceived any hostility. I went on a tour of Nagasaki conducted by cordial Japanese guides. You would never have known it been ravaged so.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many factors to be considered in "judging" our use of these weapons. The Japanese demonstrated an astonishing indifference to suffering and death , both for their own sakes in their military tactics and in their gratuitously cruel treatment of people who came under their rule, including POWs. The hellish inhumanity of the rape of Nanking beggars description. Had they a free hand in East Asia who knows how far their ambition would have reached? They are an extremely capable and dynamic people. No, I think, they had to be stopped.
The unimaginable fury of the fight for Okinawa, which featured the highly destructive use of human manned missiles which inflicted unprecedented casualties on the U. S. fleet, perhaps made the decision to drop the bomb as fast as possible and in a manner clearly demonstrating its awful potential, unavoidable. A blockade of Japan unto near starvation was proposed : but the Japanese had approx. 2000 Kamikazes ready to assault an blockading fleet. American naval casualties would have been unsupportable. "I have never seen people who fight this way!" commented an American military leader. "Of what might they be capable if we invade", must have been a prevalent thought. Mass civilian suicides on Saipan gave appalling suggestion of how Japanese civilians might have resisted an invasion. We now know some Japanese leaders intended that the entire population fight to the death.
The result was: Japan surrendered immediately and was occupied by the most humane and well intended conquering force which world history records. It was saved , by us, from barbarian Soviet invasion. It was ruled by a monumentally brilliant American , General MacArthur, who earned the reverence of the Japanese for his compassion and his deep understanding of their culture and who guided them in the transformation of their country into one fit to join the family of nations.He opened their theretofore insular culture to the benefits it could and did experience by embracing the "better angels of their nature" in their often very creditable civilization. It swiftly developed into a first world nation enjoying peace and prosperity and threatening no country (though one cannot gainsay the wariness some of East Asia, including China, still harbors for them ).
My experience in Japan was one of a fascinating and very likeable people.
The bombs dropped on the Japanese were firecrackers compared to the thermonuclear monsters developed within 7 years. Their almost unimaginable power prevented the U.S. and the USSR from going to war during the almost catastrophic Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
I fully agree with you. Nuclear weapons have prevented WWIII! BUT: their use in a regional conflict is possible. Iran was certain to use them until we stymied them; Israel would undoubtably use them to prevent another Holocaust; Russia might use them if Nato enters Ukraine and India and Pakistan are often cited as the most probable of nuclear opponents. One hopes that the very thought of a nuke of whatever size impacting one of the teeming cities of S. Asia will prevent such a tragedy.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Huzzas for Secretary Hegseth. I'm a Union Civil War reenactor and I gladly side with those who honor the memory of the Americans who fought to prevent what they understandably saw as a foreign invasion of their southern homeland.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the Union won; slavery condemned the Confederate cause and it was terribly fortunate that a united U.S. was ready to defeat the great totalitarian powers of the 20th century.
But, you cannot gainsay those who value the memory of the Confederacy by dictating the suppression of their monuments. Live and let live , I think is best. The Confederacy was defeated and its land ravaged. That's enough.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think one of the main perceptions driving the "American" far left is that America is far too guilt ridden and apologetic to defend itself from their amoral depredations. That's over!
ReplyDeleteHombre Texas Governor Greg Abbott's justified effort to counter their dishonest and expeditious Congressional districting to satisfy their partisan purposes has them spluttering and fuming . In their high dudgeon they have repaired to one of the most unapologetically gerrymandered states, Illinois, in the U.S. . "Why the very insolence of it ! Like unto the exiled governments of Nazi occupied Europe we stand here in unshakeable defiance".
"Oh, ok" says Gov. Abbott, the law will be enforced (period).
A vindictive reaction from NY, Kalifornia, Illinois and their ilk has a long way to go. They will have to manipulate even their Constitutions and then actually win elections they presume their's.
Yeah, the Texas GOP will have to win elections too but somehow, I think, the vaunted progress of Texas into a "purple state" has been enabled by Dem electoral chicanery. Texas redistricting will probably manifest Texas's true nature, that of an American stalwart.
Dr. Waddy from Jack Lots of interesting commentary in your last Newsmaker broadcast:
ReplyDeleteRe the present wounded state of the dem party: you maintained that the dems are far from finished. A commentator on FOX agreed but drew a comparison of current dems to the GOP in 1933: "down but not, as it went, out".
I see some similarities: like the GOP in '33, the dems are dealing with an astonishingly formidable, very decisive President opposing them. Likewise he stands in sharp, telling contrast to his widely perceived incompetent predecessor. Trump, like FDR, is widely held to be "doing something " about an unendurable problem which has festered unaddressed for years. Granted, FDR faced a catastrophe exceeding that of illegal immigration and the incipient totalitarian disloyalty of one of the two major national parties but Trump is responding forcefully and faithfully to the existential threat from the far left which has manifested a level of political antipathy and bitter division perhaps unseen since the 1850s.
The GOP lost every Presidential election from 1932 through 1948. In 1936, they selected Alf Landon, Governor of Kansas who had once identified as a Progressive in 1922 and was considered a moderate to liberal tax cutter , BUT, he opposed Social Security. In doing so he represented the tradition in rural America that the Grandparents were honored by welcomed residence in their childrens' home (often the family farm). But that view no longer sat well with an increasingly industrialized and urban population which was crowded into tenements sometimes far away from the old home. So, to whom might we compare Landon today? Perhaps Cuomo, who disingenuously seeks the "moderate "dem mantle.
That is doubly bad news for the dems. If "Democratic" (my eye!) Socialist Mamdani is elected Mayor of America's perceived world class city and goes on an expected far left rampage, as you have predicted, he may make election of dems a very hard sell. And if the "moderates" somehow succeed in stemming the developing far left tsunami in their benighted party and let's say Cuomo gets the nomination, he would easily be discredited on his New Yawk record of contempt for the 2nd Amendment , his dictatorial and ignorant misuse of Covid authority which killed myriad senior citizens and his touching compassion for violent criminals (not to mention his "cavalier" attitude toward attractive subordinates, something of a custom among dem executives of that era it seems) Besides, his pedantic and imperious manner of histrionic preaching would alienate the majority of Americans between Binghamton and Bakersfield.
Who else do they have on the not as crazy side? Fetterman? Shapiro: he hasn't been tested nationally. I agree, the dems are probably going to stick around but perhaps they are headed for an eclipse approximating the GOP 1932-1948 sojourne (without the benefit of a World War ).
Its possible that the existential conflict between America and its prodigal and bizarre far left appendage is in the process of final resolution. The dems' prospects don't look so good now . An extended period of relegation to the "back benches" , given their emotional instability, may confirm their permanent marginalization.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: JFK richly deserved his heroic reputation. So also did Truman, Bush I and Bob Dole. Its a real shame that the latter two were defeated by a draft dodger.
ReplyDeleteThe German Navy in WWI. Much frustration and dejection was felt among the crews of surface warships from inactivity and at the fact that the Kaiser would not turn them loose to break the very effective British blockade. And that made them vulnerable to Marxist subversives. In the event,as you noted, post war Germany had a run in with radicals in the "Spartacist" power grab in, I believe, 1919.
The massive prewar German building program of (yes, very well built) battleships was futile. The mauling some elements of the British fleet took at the Battle of Jutland notwithstanding , the Germans could never have out produced British shipyards.But had they devoted the resources they wasted on battleships to submarines, they might have starved Britain out. Of course few anticipated the astonishing effectiveness the Uboats demonstrated. The German battle fleet was the childish Kaiser's plaything ; he wanted to outdo his imperial cousins in England and Russia at "show and tell"and he couldn't stand it when a few of his toys got broken in the war he helped to bring on with his "showmanship".
Jack, I couldn't agree more that, as horrific as the effects of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, probably humanity as a whole benefitted enormously (and in myriad ways) from their use. Many of the positive ramifications weren't even intended, but they aren't any less real for that.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I can think of one big difference between now and 1933: the media environment. FDR was mostly beloved by the Fourth Estate, and his poll numbers showed it. Trump is still denigrated by most media outlets, and to some degree his poll numbers show it too. The Dems will always have a path back to relevance unless and until the MSM is defanged.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Good point on the '30s. FDR was despised by a certain element which held that he had betrayed his class but he was not subjected to the extensive reflexive and vicious excoriation which Nixon and Trump endure(d) in our far left intimidated MSM.
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