Controversal: What About Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Nothing really? now I think its sad that so many civilians got caught up in that mess, but I don't excatly think think the men and women stationed at pearl harbor were exactly asking for it either.

boy, somebody certainly read a well-censored history book!

But, flipping this, I have commented several times this past week....that I feel the OK Federal Bldg bombing has not received equal media attention....on each anniversary. 9/11 is this generation's Pearl Harbor.

Not a bad thing....just lacking in equality. It's like OK has already been forgotten.

What an incredibly small minded thing to say (the FB post).

This person clearly knows NOTHING about WW2. The Japanese did nothing? Hm...I guess they'd never heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Or the Potsdam Conference.

While many died in the bombings, those same bombings brought about a very quick surrender, thereby saving literally millions of lives (both Japanese and American). If Japan had not surrendered, the subsequent attacks would have been a bloodbath.

My history teacher used to say "98 percent of people are stupid. Please, be part of the 2%."

I've heard people complain "Why did they have to sink the boat?" about the movie Titanic.

I've heard people say brain donor things like "The Japanese did nothing." in regards to WWII

I've heard people say a lot of things.

Stupidity abounds.

I have seen a number of posts that basically detract from this day and these people. It irritates me. Do not dishonor the lives lost in this event by dragging in other events. Do not dishonor the sacrifices made on this day because you did not read your history book or you disagree with politics. Many horrible things happen every day past and present. I blocked someone on my FB wall who insists on dragging up atrocities but only talks about them and does nothing to honor the losses. Just brings them up for instigation's sake, which I think is disrespectful.

The Japanese didn't do anything?
How quickly they forget!
My mother will never forgive the Japanese and will not forget what they did.

During the course of WWII (and Asia was in it a long time before Pearl Harbor brought us into it) "The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that “the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese".

"There were 14,657 deaths among the total 130,895 western civilians interned by the Japanese due to famine and disease".
Pearl Harbor killed roughly 2400 military personnel and about 50 civilian.

How many Americans were killed int he Pacific part of WWII?
106,207 killed, 248,316 wounded and missing.

"For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9."

They were not going to quit and we had to show them we were serious about stopping them.
2 A bombs later, we convinced them.

Sorry, but I can't bring myself to feel sorry for for their losses.
They started it - we finished it.

Aaahhh, yet another fine example showcasing the best of what our educational system has to offer.

I don't exactly understand. Is the question why we don't honor them. No other country honors our dead unless they died on foreign soil.

Whether or not the Japanese did anything who are we to judge their culture?

If the question is should we honor them because they died at our country's hands? We were at war. A lot of innocent people died during war. A lot of our civilians died when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Perhaps a lot more people died in Japan but perhaps Japan should have taken that into consideration before they attacked us.

I feel really stupid right now because I really don't get the idea behind this post. The cold war was actually a good thing. Could you imagine if nuclear power was in the hands of uncontrolled countries? Iran and North Korea come to mind. At least it was two super powers that had more to gain by never using them than using them.

Why is it 'less suffering than ours' when we lost under 4,000 in a single city where as Japan lost TWO ENTIRE CITIES and the surrounding areas... not to mention had radiation poisoning and birth defects for over a decade due to American might?

Yes we should remember our lost citizens, for it was a horrible tragedy, but we should not be commercializing it or having it on every da*n station.

As for the FB post of "The Japanese did nothing!" - - well... they were in a war with us, just as we were waging war (not directly YET) with the Muslim countries. See how horrible 'collateral damage' is when it's done to YOUR family? It is the same when it is to someone else's family in another country!

Um....remember that little thing that happened at Pearl Harbor?

@Cheryl--how exactly is this a "liberal thought"? Just another example of using O.'s personal soapbox to apply it to every possible question and circumstance. Please! Get over yourself and your proverbial bone to pick.

Every year on August 6th, the Japanese hold ceremonies to honor the lives lost @ Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

Someone needs to read a newspaper, or Time, or turn on CNN.

I think it just shows an enormous ignorance in regard to history.

It seems like the source of the question found on facebook that T. S. has referred to may be the one who is unaware of history and not necessarily T.. If the person writing in was of Japanese descent, the person may be well unaware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese during WWII, for not all of the facts appear in Japanese history textbooks. Subsequently, after the war, the Japanese as a people in general have supported the peace movement in a genuine manner, having sustained the destruction of two of their major cities.

Long lasting peace to anyone who has died as a result of violence.

Well, many many innocent lives were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not to mention the trampling death of thousands, including babies and children during a bomb scare and the air raid attacks the American did on civilian ground which claimed more lives than the bomb. The Japanese bombed an American military base.. not civilian cities.

While in that vain, let's not forget the thousands of Native Americans the white people screwed over and massacred, they don't teach about THAT in schools either. Just look up the Battle of Wounded Knee, or the Sand Creek Massacre, or Crow Creek... White soldiers cut off women's genetailia and stretched them over their hats and laughed, mutilated children.

It's very sad, war is terrible, but we never want to think, "not our guys!". Men our wicked and power hungry. Terrorism is alive and always will be, from every nation, even from within nations. That said, my friend lost his father today from cancer. When he posted it on facebook, people reminded him that today was the 9/11 anniversary and honor goes to them today.

Breast cancer and AIDS gets all the celebrity fundraising, but my dad with Leukemia died alone. You know, death happens to everyone. But only people who die in approved events get awareness. I'm not at all saying 9/11 wasn't terrible. I certainly DO think that we should remember them. I remember that day extremely clearly. My employer's aunt was on one of the planes. My friend's father worked at the Pentagon. I remember watching the second plane hit on live television and shaking in horror. I also remember a man whose wife went missing that same day in NY. He had her poster put up on the walls looking for victims. When they found out his wife wasn't a 9/11 victim, he got austricized and had to remove his missing wife's photo.

I think we'd be horrified at what happened there if we really knew. They were civilians also, and though I realize it ended the war earlier, it was a horror beyond what we can comprehend. If you hear stories about it, people were literally MELTING and jumping into rivers to try to stop the pain. Body shapes were burned into buildings like permanent shadows.

But we don't honor them because it wasn't our country. I get what she means, but the Japanese honor their dead, we honor ours, etc. It's an understandable question, but it kinda doesn't make sense if you think about it - we honor the dead on our soil.

Without getting into a debate about war itself or lives loss during, acts of war is NOT the same as acts of terrorism. Acts of war between militaries is just that...soldiers who have signed up to defend their country and now find themselves in combat situation. Acts of terrorism (such as 9/11/01) is not necessarily against military nor during time of war. In this case, it was sneak attack carried out against innocent civilians ON American soil. It would be like the US going to Iraq or Afgahnistan and attacking their civilians just because of Sadam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden's connection to their country.

Different societies and religions look at death differently. In many societies death is not seen as the end but as a transition. At death you stop living as a physical being but continue life as a spiritual being. In other words we don't actually die, the body dies but the spririt lives on.

The girl should probably go back to History class since she's decided to ignore that the Japanese did bomb Pearl Harbor . . . and the Japanese honor those lost in that attack.

Let me ask my (now dead) uncle who was on one of the ships in Pearl Harbor and see if he can remember anything the Japanese did.

Well, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were the aggressor (granted, in response to the war Japan had declared on us when they bombed Pearl Harbor.

For 9/11, there was no formal war declared... it was, in a way, a random act of terrorism that another country had declared on us.

We still remember and memorialize December 7, 1941 as a special day, since that is the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

I'm not sure we need to memorialize Hiroshima or Nagasaki... I believe the United States has taken part in ceremonies (long ago), celebrating the peace that was found after so many years.

And... I honor in my heart and in my actions the lives and sacrifices so many men and women have made to keep our nation free, both as civilians and as people in uniform.

Chalk it up to ignorance. The Japanese empire was as evil as it gets. Pearl Harbor even pales in comparison to some of the other atrocities committed.