The Stats Don't Lie!!!!!

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Robert McNamara was a very well educated Statesman and a patriot. During his military years and years as Secretary of Defense he had an extraordinary ability to quantify everything through statistics. When faced with tough decisions he would turn to the numbers and charts. His critics would say that he was evil for looking at people as numbers, but this was his method. His ability to draw on math to make calculated decisions without incorporating human emotions does seem cold, but rational. I support what McNamara did for the United States.

In his later years, which always seems to be the case, McNamara reflected on the decisions he had made for the defense of our country and felt he had to explain is rational for vindication. After I watched the Fog of War, I felt that he was not a cold man. I concluded that he was a brilliant mathematician that had a talent for saving American lives.   

   





The Hiroshima Suckfest!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%22Avenge_December_7%22_-_NARA_-_513580.jpg

 

As I stated in class on Wednesday, “the book Hiroshima made me very angry.” There is no doubt in my mind that it was a well written piece of literature, from the enemy’s perspective. What angered me about the book was the sense of guilt that it made me feel and the feeling of sympathy for the Japanese civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As I read about the suffering of the people, the censorship of the American and Japanese governments I felt bad. This feeling of guilt and sympathy quickly subsided and I grew angry at myself. They were not victims they were the aggressors, I have stated that before. If I were looking to feel bad I would think about the families of the 2,402 Americans killed on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese should not be pitied for the bombings. We were at war, people die. That is war!

 



Mission First!!!

 

On August 6, 1945 the crew of a B-29 bomber the Enola Gay had a mission to accomplish and they executed it with professionalism, courage and precision. At 8:15 in the morning, Hiroshima time their mission introduced the world to nuclear weapons and the devastating power they unleash.  As airmen, the crew was flying thousands of feet over the target they were tasked to destroy, which removed the “personal element” of killing the enemy. In Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, he describes how distance from your enemy plays a role in coping mentally with what you have done. According to Grossman’s theory, the further you are from seeing the enemy die, the less personal the act is, the easier it is to cope.

 

 

On May 11, 1955, This is Your Life, a live broadcasted television program, introduced the co-pilot of the Enola Gay Robert L. Lewis to a survivor from Hiroshima, Kiyoshi Tanimoto. Lewis was an emotional wreck, the comfort of distance was removed and it is apparent when you view the show that he is horrified by what he participated in. Lewis’ emotional statement, “My God, what have we done?” demonstrates the amount of remorse that man was living with. I would never have agreed to go on that show. I hope Lewis gained some sense of comfort from that experience.   

 

youtube.com

 

 

War is Hell!!!

 

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levine/bombing.htm

 

In John Hersey’s Hiroshima he starts out being very specific to the location and the actions of the six main characters on the morning of August 6. The story continues with what the characters experienced the day of the bombings and what they lost after the bombing. The story “humanizes” the Japanese and gives the reader a sense of sympathy for what the people endured.

After I read Hiroshima I did feel bad, briefly for the Japanese and what they went through, but that subsided quickly when I remembered that they were our enemy and they attacked the United States first. People can make the argument that the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent civilians; in war there is no such thing. If they pay taxes and support the warring government they are directly or indirectly supporting their nation’s war effort. Carl Von Clausewitz the author of On War describes how in order to defeat an enemy you need to break their will to fight. This is ultimately achieved by bombing cities and destroying infrastructure, while causing mass casualties.  



Justified!!

 

Harry Truman had a very tough decision to make when deploying the nuclear weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Truman made the right decision to use these weapons on Japan for two reasons. First, the Japanese declared war and attacked the United States without provocation. Second, the Japanese culture and mentality does not allow them to surrender; the act is considered a disgrace. To the Japanese, honor is everything and they would rather die than be dishonored. With this mindset, if the allies had invaded the Island of Japan, there would have been ally casualties. The United States had a weapon and chose to use it, thus ending the war.

In the very beginning of Our Cities Must Fight there is a page with the words, “The enemy will have no trouble winning the next war. Too many Americans will desert their cities at the first sign of danger.” I completely agree with this statement. The short movie discusses what Americans should do in the case of an attack. Americans would have to develop a sense of “Social Responsibility,” which unfortunately Americans do not possess.  

I have no comment for Duck and Cover. The idea of surviving an atomic blast by ducking and covering is absurd.

This film was more accurate about an atomic attack.

 

 

Was 9/11 a Conspiracy?

Image compliments of Google Images

 

After reading the New York Times article in class and discussing it, I was not surprised by what the article was saying: “The Bush Administration had warnings months in advance of the attacks on 9/11.” To defend President Bush, the information that we know the President was getting was vague and did not specify locations and times. The CIA brief only said that Al-Qaeda was planning an attack that would have “dramatic consequences.” We have to take into consideration the amount of information of this nature the President gets daily. If the President were to act on all the threats the United States receives every day, our society would be in a constant state of Marshall Law.

There is a small group of people out there called "Truthers." These people have a strong belief that the events of September 11, 2001 were staged by the United States government to implement new laws that would restrict our freedoms (The Patriot Act) and justify the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (the War on Terror). They do present a very strong case for their argument and the actions taken by the government after the attacks do raise serious questions. One of the most popular documentaries by a group of Truthers is called, Loose Change, which can be found on Youtube.com.

 

 

 



I would like to think that the government had nothing to do with the attacks and the attacks were committed by a group of terrorists that object to the American way of life. The suspicious aspects of my personality tell me that there is more to the story than what we are told.



The Nuclear Playground

 

05SEP12

A Child Is Crying and Atomic Attack made me curious about the movie I had missed, Original Child Bomb, so I did a search on Youtube and found this:

After watching this clip and thinking about the material we covered in class I had an epiphany: the individuals that are responsible for making wars and developing these weapons are like small children and the world is their play ground. These people, “War Mongers,” develop a weapon (toy) and they look for an excuse to play with their toy (deploy the new weapon) anywhere they can on their playground. As with a child, the War Mongers have no regard for the consequences of their actions. It is almost as if at the War College, Field Grade Officers that “advise” the President and Congress only learn to take into account the short-term results without considering the long-term effects.