Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Yesterday, my wife and son went to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum where I saw for the first time, the Enola Gay -- the plane that dropped the nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.

This got me to reading up on the history of the war with Japan and the dropping of the only nuclear weapons in history. The Hiroshima bomb immediately killed 70,000 people -- just 70,000, poof!, gone in a minute. What is even more chilling is the statement released by Harry Truman the day after:

"If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth."

Fucking hell, man. I had forgotten that basically, the United States had planned to drop nuclear bombs on Japanese cities continuously until they surrendered. If that meant killing every human in Japan, so be it. From wikipedia:

"The U.S. expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October."

Five days after the Nagasaki bombing, Emperor Hirohito announced:

"The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

Then the war ended.

Damn, Democrats sure were hawks back then, eh? I support the nuclear bombing of Japan. I've read estimates that a ground war would have cost up to a million US casualties with MULTIPLE millions of Japanese lives lost. Incredible, that a US president made such a major decision. Words fail me.