Quote:You really have no idea do you?

 

How about picking up a book that describes what the Japanese did to POW's?

 

In Albuquerque, there used to be a hospital named Bataan.  Where did that name come from?

 

As always, there are two sides to every story.  So why the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  How many mothers and daughters were slaughtered during the attack on Perl Harbor?

 

68 non-combatant civilians were killed in Pearl Harbor. 2403 total fatalities occurred there.

 

By contrast, between Hiroshima and Nagasaki approximately 175,000 people died, and many more several years later due to issues caused by radiation.

 

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were strategic military targets.  Hiroshima was the command center for the southern half of Japan's military, and Nagasaki was the primary port used for shipping arms to soldiers.  But they were also cities where people were working and going to school and just sitting at home when a bomb just vaporized them.

 

Maybe it saved a lot of casualties, because the samurai "death before dishonor" mindset was still firmly entrenched in the Japanese military.  But thousands of INNOCENT people died for that cause; people who were just living life, who I refuse to believe were just "evil" due to their birthplace and nationality.

 

I personally see a huge disparity between military casualties and civilian ones--not that their lives matter more, but at least soldiers know what they're getting into.  Those women and children didn't declare war.  They didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.  They didn't refuse to surrender.  They might have just been sitting on an Internet message board discussing sports teams had they lived today.

 

I totally understand the rationale for the bombings and I think that it had to be done.  But it doesn't mean that I can't mourn the fact that it was so awful.

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