Bombing Nagasaki-An Act of Barbarism Unbecoming Of "Conservatives"

I was inspired to act after seeing the inspirational piece my friend Tom Woods posted in response to a Catholic organizations endorsement and celebration of today. In part Tom wrote  "I am shocked that this kind of jingoism and raw collectivism would soil the pages (so to speak) of the NCR.  I would expect this in the Weekly Standard.  The use of formulations like Japan started the war helps to evade all the relevant moral questions; if Japan started it, can Japan be laid waste?  Their political class makes an idiotic and suicidal military move, so every single three-year-old in the country becomes subject to bombing, poisoning, being burned or buried alive, etc.?  At what point do we start questioning the logic of this, instead of formulating all our arguments as if this were simply an obvious moral given?"

The show discussion then turned to a caller who did not share Tom or my opinion (contained in the audio file. the caller was especially incensed at Ralph Raico’s remarks "Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.93 The ridiculously inflated figure of a half-million for the potential death toll nearly twice the total of U.S. dead in all theaters in the Second World War is now routinely repeated in high-school and college textbooks and bandied about by ignorant commentators. Unsurprisingly, the prize for sheer fatuousness on this score goes to President George H.W. Bush, who claimed in 1991 that dropping the bomb "spared millions of American lives."94"

Later today I received an e-mail from a listener who was not happy with my performance and let me hear it:

"Your ignorance of the atomic attacks in August 1945 is really stunning. You need to stick to something you understand. The next time before you pick some trash from a professor, you might want to do some homework. Start with these questions: What were our casualty rates on Pelilu, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa? How many Purple hearts were ordered to support Operation Olympic? How many possible landing sites were there on Honshu? Which one did we pick? Which one did the Japanese expect? What is the terrain analysis of Honshu Island. How many tons of supplies per day were needed to sustain the invasion force and how would they get there? What was the threat to our resupply plans? How long would our supply lines be? How long would theirs be? What was the size of the Japanese Army on Honshu? How well were they supplied andequipped? What plans did the Japanese have for their civilians? What was the Japanese defense plan for Honshu? What were the estimated Japanese casualties, if we had invaded? What was the estimated time to take Honshu? What would you do if you were fighting for your home? How could you demonstrate the power of the A-Bomb by bombing an already bombed out city? What were the Soviets plans, if we invaded Japan? Mike, it’s so easy to sit back and bloviate. Leave wars to the professionals. This was not McArthur’s or Eisenhower’s fight. It was Nimitz’s fight. One final question; How many enemy civilians are you willing to kill to save one American? Having commanded infantry troops and having had to look them in the eye in my heart I know my answer."

So, because MacArthur disapproved of the "missions" and did not give the order to drop the bombs then "it wasn’t his fight". All is well, let us drop another A-bomb, perhaps on Kabul this time and ignore any dissenters who didn’t give the orders. This kind of moral relativism is expected from secular-atheist Libtards but coming from "conservatives" one might ask exactly what moral principle they DO find worthy of conserving?

My response to the e-mailer:

Dear Steven,
First of all, I did not rely on "some trash professor" as you insist. The actual history of the Nagasaki bombings is very clear and just because the propaganda arm of the Pentagon and some of academia have won the fight for shelf space (see "Lincoln saved the union" babble for another example) doesn’t make it correct. It is futile to debate over "what could have happened" when it is a historical fact that it did not, thus your "evidence" is nothing more than government propaganda. The contrary evidence of 70,000 killed instantly is not in question, Sir. I have received no prior complaints from you when the sources I am about to cite have either appeared on my show or I have cited their works.

Here they are, very familiar names, and their writings on the atrocity committed at Nagasaki:
Robert Higgs: http://blog.independent.org/2008/08/09/august-9-1945-a-date-that-will-live-in-infamy/
Thomas E. Woods: http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/left-liberal-catholics-yay-for-the-atomic-bombings/
Ralph Raico: http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico22.html
Anthony Gregory: http://www.fff.org/comment/com0408b.asp
Patrick J Buchanan: Right from the Beginning (Regnery, 1988):
Not until the 1986 Economic Summit in Tokyo did I ever visit Japan. Each morning, however, at the magnificent Ohira Hotel, when I came down for coffee and eggs in the nearly empty breakfast room, I was greeted by a pretty Japanese waitress of no more than eighteen. Daily practicing her English on me while I dawdled at the table reading my news summaries, she would suddenly appear and say in her singsong English something like, Take your time, prease. Then she would put her hand over her mouth, giggle, and disappear. The thought washed over me: On the night of March 9, 1945, when I was a boy, hating the Japs and cheering the Americans on, 334 B-29s under the command of General Curtis LeMay appeared low in the skies over this very place, unloaded their incendiary bombs, and burned to death eighty-three thousand old men, women, and children just like this little girl. My father and the Jesuits, who taught me about Saint Augustines requirements for conducting a just war, and the proscription against the direct and wanton killing of innocent civilians, were right. No matter the barbarity, the savagery of the Japanese empire, no matter the justice of Americas cause, we had no moral right to kill like that.

I understand your passion for the subject in light of your dedicated service and thank you for that service, Sir but we must not read from the same hymnal of liberty,
peace and limited government as the gentlemen we call Founders and those who held to their tradition. Truman and Roosevelt were not in that number.

Respectfully,

Mike Church 

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

See Full Bio