Andrea Mitchell just tweeted: Former President Bush in Shanksville compares Jan 6 insurrectionists to 9/11 hijackers:”in determination to defile our national symbols they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our duty to confront them.”

Well, there went his GOP life membership … Wow.

He's 100% correct. He'll now be blasted by those asshats for supporting Antifa.

"Children of the same foul spirit.. "

That punches.

He was a terrible president with a worse foreign policy. And he bears some responsibility for where his party is now. But he told the truth today.

If the concept of 'twitter' was explained to you 20 years ago and you were told that on the 20th aniv of 911, 'Cheney' would be trending, you probably wouldn't have guessed that the topic wasn't the former VP, it's about his daughter blasting repub leadership for being jerks.

“The terrorists have won, and I like people that don’t lose, OK?” - another former President

My sister in law’s birthday is on 9/11
My birthday is on January 6

Both our birthdays have been forever sullied by people trying to destroy our country.
She and I were discussing it, and she actually thought mine was the more heinous event. I am not sure.

---

Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2021 03:00PM by rgG.

Quote
rgG
My sister in law’s birthday is on 9/11
My birthday is on January 6

Both our birthdays have been forever sullied by people trying to destroy our country.
She and I were discussing it, and she actually thought mine was the more heinous event. I am not sure.

Your birthdays were made to be those dates in order to counter terrorism. That's how special you guys are.

Well, that’s a start on redemption for him.

The worst president in a century (possibly longer), but a decent human being who may understand redemptive statements.

I like to think that all of us are better than we were 20 years ago because we have learned from our experiences.

The entire country was out for blood. He may have blown it in retrospect, but he did have the pressure and largely approval of 300 million citizens behind him demanding justice. Bush was our avatar.

Bush the Lesser was on track to become a one term President at the time. 9/11 not only got him reelected but provided the underpinning for the debacle that was Iraq.

Quote
vision63

Quote
rgG
My sister in law’s birthday is on 9/11
My birthday is on January 6

Both our birthdays have been forever sullied by people trying to destroy our country.
She and I were discussing it, and she actually thought mine was the more heinous event. I am not sure.

Your birthdays were made to be those dates in order to counter terrorism. That's how special you guys are.

How sweet.

A friend has her birthday on December 7 which, before 9/11, was the big tragedy that everyone knew the date it happened.

---

Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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hal
I like to think that all of us are better than we were 20 years ago because we have learned from our experiences.

Apparently millions of Americans have gone 180° in the opposite direction, unfortunately.

---

Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

Quote
mrbigstuff
The worst president in a century (possibly longer)...

I'm pretty sure tRump has taken that trophy with ease.

770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

Bush and Trump rank as the two absolute worst Presidents of my lifetime.

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RgrF
770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

Really??

---

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DeusxMac

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mrbigstuff
The worst president in a century (possibly longer)...

I'm pretty sure tRump has taken that trophy with ease.

That was my thought also.

---

"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

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Sarcany

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RgrF
770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

Really??

From Sarcany’s link.


In the space of, what, 18 months and change? About third of that with him finally out of the way and actual adults trying to reverse the damage he did. Where would we be if he had won and was still propagating his lunacy from a bully pulpit?

---

National Suicide Prevention Hotline tel:1-800-273-8255

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Quote
RgrF
770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

The corrosive effect of tRump is a far greater threat to the United States' survival than Bush's war(s).

People forget, but for reference, the U.S. military deaths from the Viet Nam war were 24 times those from the Afghan war!

- Afghan War 2001-2021 (20 years) - U.S. deaths = 2,420¹

- Viet Nam War 1955²-1975 (20 years) - U.S. deaths = 58,200

But the U.S. government and society as a whole muddled through Viet Nam and its ramifications; it can for Afghanistan as well.

The inner rot to the system caused by tRumpism may well be permanently disabling, if not fatal.


1. If we include the Iraq War the U.S. total deaths becomes 6,927; Viet Nam had 8 times the casualties of Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
2.The first American military killed in Viet Nam



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2021 07:16PM by DeusxMac.

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DeusxMac

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RgrF
770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

The corrosive effect of tRump is a far greater threat to the United States' survival than Bush's war(s).

The inner rot to the system caused by tRumpism may well be permanently disabling, if not fatal.

No one since the Civil War has poisoned the mental landscapes of our country like Trump has. At no time since the Civil War has our country's very democracy teetered towards a crippling extinction. It's still on the brink. It's "still" on the cusp of fascistic domination.

Presidencies end. When Carter, Clinton and Obama won, a whole new political profile came into being. When Trump lost, the level of resistance from the right threatens to upend Biden and ultimately our future. Trump is way too powerful to dismiss him.

W. Bush was easy to prevent. @#$%& just needed to not vote for Ralph Nader.

Quote
RgrF
770,000-801,000 are the estimated death totals from the wars launched by Bush the Lesser.

Trump may have inflicted lasting damage to our institutions but nothing he did, even the COVID neglect, can compare with what Bush did.

I think over 4,500,000 dead, putting brain deads on the Supreme Court, and a serious attempt to destroy our democracy make Bush's crimes pale in comparison.

---

There was a time when I absolutely agreed that Bush was the worst president ever...until Orange Man came along. But listening to Bush in the last couple of years, he seems almost like a decent human being. It makes you wonder how much of his presidency was really just being a puppet controlled by Cheney and Rove.

---

“Live your life, love your life, don’t regret…live, learn and move forward positively.” – CR Johnson
Loving life in Lake Tahoe, CA

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graylocks

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DeusxMac

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mrbigstuff
The worst president in a century (possibly longer)...

I'm pretty sure tRump has taken that trophy with ease.

That was my thought also.

No. T**** was the worst human to be president, but not the worst president.

And, sorry, this blaming of T**** for all of the covid deaths is juvenile. MA, NY and CA all have "moderate or liberal" governors and those states fared plenty bad. I blame the governors at least as much as the moron.

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mrbigstuff
And, sorry, this blaming of T**** for all of the covid deaths is juvenile. MA, NY and CA all have "moderate or liberal" governors and those states fared plenty bad. I blame the governors at least as much as the moron.

Yeah, that's what it ended up being. But our response didn't have to start the way it did. A president lying about the severity and deadliness of the impending catastrophe is on that guy's lap. Pointing fingers like a baby. He was the president of the country literally blocking our response. No, it's not all on him. It was on his watch.

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vision63

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mrbigstuff
And, sorry, this blaming of T**** for all of the covid deaths is juvenile. MA, NY and CA all have "moderate or liberal" governors and those states fared plenty bad. I blame the governors at least as much as the moron.

Yeah, that's what it ended up being. But our response didn't have to start the way it did. A president lying about the severity and deadliness of the impending catastrophe is on that guy's lap. Pointing fingers like a baby. He was the president of the country literally blocking our response. No, it's not all on him. It was on his watch.

Make no mistake, Trump was the PRIMARY cause of the severity of the pandemic in this country, and, while to a lesser extent, by example as leader of a massively influential super power, emboldened similar behavior around the world.


Trump engaged in and encouraged

• The gross under estimation of the seriousness of the outbreak
• Was a drag on the supply lines for critical PPE for healthcare workers
• Literally suggested it might just ‘go away’
• Undercut the authority and voice of health agencies and even his own appointed experts
• Was the star player in the disruption of the adoption of even simple, but valuable acts such as masking and social distancing. Even going so far, after becoming infected himself, to stage a ridiculous and melodramatic photo op of publicly removing his mask the minute he was back at the White House when released from the hospital.
• Unbelievably held what turned out to be his own official and non official super spreader events
• Propped up unproven and ludicrous treatments and lent authority to literal crackpots contaminating the conversation around the emergency

The list goes on and is both abominably long and shameful. The stench of his time in office still clings to so much around us, let’s not start whitewashing his train wreck of a tenure already.

---

National Suicide Prevention Hotline tel:1-800-273-8255

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Back to Pres. Bush's comment, the excellent writer Spencer Ackerman has published a seering essay in the Times this week on just that theme. Highly recommend.

How Sept. 11 Gave Us Jan. 6 [nyti.ms]

Ackerman's thesis is that 9/11 and the War on Terror accustomed white Americans to viewing themselves as righteous warriors who could not possibly be terrorists, because you know, they're white. And to viewing militant violence as the response to anyone they disagree with.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2021 08:20AM by Lemon Drop.

if one was to compile all the bad presidential moves of our history into one, the orange turd would still be #1 .

in addition to those points previously mentioned, what he and others knew was already happening in late 2019, with regard to Covid. His blatant disregard for humanity other than his daughter.

I think the, liberal govs did a pretty good job considering how much real data was withheld from them until March.

and lets give credit where credit is due with regard to Bush II.
Rummy too. Will we ever know the full involvement of the Saudis.

" The inner rot to the system caused by t****ism may well be permanently disabling, if not fatal. "
exactly.

---

!#$@@$#!

If there are spelling issues, please pardon, Owen the cat is sitting on my keyboard.

Bad presidents, a more expansive view that includes non-white lives.

1. Any president who did not outlaw slavery. That's everybody from Washington on, until Lincoln. Still America's original and worst sin.

2. Any president who allowed genocide of tribal peoples, kidnapping of their children, theft of their lands and resources, and who did not honor our treaties with them. Well this was still going on in the 1970s and hasn't ended yet.

3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

4. Vietnam.

5. Our decades long war against the Muslim world.

6. Mismanagement of the pandemic.

7. Deterioration of our democratic institutions and civil rights. This story is still being written, we'll see how we all respond.

Quote
Lemon Drop
3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

I suspect most folks are unaware that neither of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was the deadliest bombing raid of WWII.

“On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.”

[en.m.wikipedia.org])

Blame 45*

That's not hyperbole or sarcasm, that's the accurate truth.

He created a frankenstein of a rabid distrust of medicine, science, government, and rule of law.

This was no misguided venture, no innocent misstep.

Everything he did that negatively, adversely, horrifically, and tragically affected good decent people (and others) everywhere, was the result of deliberate effort, whether calculated or some tantrum of ignorance.

This was solely to further his various agenda, all to grab power for the sake of power.

It is all on him, all because of him.

He didn't personally put everyone on a ventilator or fill hospitals with dying patients but he built the mechanism, modeled the blueprints, and encouraged its use to such an extent that a frighteningly large part of the population supports him.

But he personally did push the snowball downhill and rallied others to add to it.

Every legislator and government official who followed his lead has carried that vile DNA and spread hate and distrust faster than the spread of the disease he enabled, for absolutely selfish reasons, wanting to rule like a third-world dictator.

He's engendered, awaked, and inflamed distrust among the general public to thee extent they too enable him, as hordes of angry sycophants.

And he hasn't stopped.

No, he is the worst person to be President, and the worst President.

There are several eloquent posts above detailing the how and why,

Frighteningly, democracy, at least democracy as we've known it, is actually in peril.

That's not paranoia or hyperbole.

It will be a very long uphill fight, that could be lost in a moment.

The quote about the price required for freedom, actual freedom, has become far more important than some patriotic aphorism trotted out on Independence Day while swilling alcohol and playing with fireworks.

It's a harbinger of what could easily happen if its truth is not observed and practiced.

---

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody matters or nobody matters.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

Nobody including the Japanese knows how many lives were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the direct attacks and the radiation sickness that followed.

Quote
Fritz
His blatant disregard for humanity other than his daughter.

"A lot of people don't know this, but..." he has a second daughter named Tiffany, and has blatant disregard for her too.

Quote
Lemon Drop
Bad presidents, a more expansive view that includes non-white lives.

1. Any president who did not outlaw slavery. That's everybody from Washington on, until Lincoln. Still America's original and worst sin.

2. Any president who allowed genocide of tribal peoples, kidnapping of their children, theft of their lands and resources, and who did not honor our treaties with them. Well this was still going on in the 1970s and hasn't ended yet.

3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

4. Vietnam.

5. Our decades long war against the Muslim world.

6. Mismanagement of the pandemic.

7. Deterioration of our democratic institutions and civil rights. This story is still being written, we'll see how we all respond.

#8 - Any president that sacrificed the environment for short-term economic gains. (Will be on the lis tin 50 years)

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p8712

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Lemon Drop
Bad presidents, a more expansive view that includes non-white lives.

1. Any president who did not outlaw slavery. That's everybody from Washington on, until Lincoln. Still America's original and worst sin.

2. Any president who allowed genocide of tribal peoples, kidnapping of their children, theft of their lands and resources, and who did not honor our treaties with them. Well this was still going on in the 1970s and hasn't ended yet.

3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

4. Vietnam.

5. Our decades long war against the Muslim world.

6. Mismanagement of the pandemic.

7. Deterioration of our democratic institutions and civil rights. This story is still being written, we'll see how we all respond.

#8 - Any president that sacrificed the environment for short-term economic gains. (Will be on the lis tin 50 years)

Yes, must include that.

I wonder if t**** will be (re)written into history as the 1921 Tulsa fire was ... until very recently.

---

!#$@@$#!

If there are spelling issues, please pardon, Owen the cat is sitting on my keyboard.

Wow! Alien reptilians are now replacing Republicans. I wonder what happened to the REAL GW Bush.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2021 11:31AM by S. Pupp.

[jezebel.com]

George W. Bush Is Lying

The former president commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks with a little historical revisionism.

The former president spoke at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylania on Saturday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, The New York Times reports. His remarks are most notable for the ways in which they attempt to revise the historical record of what happened after that day—specifically, the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence in the United States, which he completely left out of his account.

Directly addressing “those too young to recall that clear September day,” per CNN, Bush recalls seeing all Americans, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, come together following the attacks without ever once giving into Islamophobic bigotry...

At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know...

This is not mere nostalgia; it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been—and what we can be again.

This is complete @#$%&. Bush himself responded to the attacks by launching a global “war on terror,” which caused the deaths of at least 897,000 people worldwide and displaced a minimum of 38 million others, Vox reports. Furthermore, non-Muslim Americans didn’t by and large “reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith”; hate crimes against Muslims skyrocketed 500 percent between 2000 and 2009, according to NPR, and Muslims and immigrants of many faiths in the U.S. experienced newfound levels of harassment and social ostracism, as the accounts in this Al Jazeera piece demonstrate. Border policing increased as did mass surveillance. Nearly 40 people are locked up in Guantanamo Bay at present, notes Vox, indefinitely detained with no trial.

---

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Blankity Blank

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vision63

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mrbigstuff
And, sorry, this blaming of T**** for all of the covid deaths is juvenile. MA, NY and CA all have "moderate or liberal" governors and those states fared plenty bad. I blame the governors at least as much as the moron.

Yeah, that's what it ended up being. But our response didn't have to start the way it did. A president lying about the severity and deadliness of the impending catastrophe is on that guy's lap. Pointing fingers like a baby. He was the president of the country literally blocking our response. No, it's not all on him. It was on his watch.

Make no mistake, Trump was the PRIMARY cause of the severity of the pandemic in this country, and, while to a lesser extent, by example as leader of a massively influential super power, emboldened similar behavior around the world.


Trump engaged in and encouraged

• The gross under estimation of the seriousness of the outbreak
• Was a drag on the supply lines for critical PPE for healthcare workers
• Literally suggested it might just ‘go away’
• Undercut the authority and voice of health agencies and even his own appointed experts
• Was the star player in the disruption of the adoption of even simple, but valuable acts such as masking and social distancing. Even going so far, after becoming infected himself, to stage a ridiculous and melodramatic photo op of publicly removing his mask the minute he was back at the White House when released from the hospital.
• Unbelievably held what turned out to be his own official and non official super spreader events
• Propped up unproven and ludicrous treatments and lent authority to literal crackpots contaminating the conversation around the emergency

The list goes on and is both abominably long and shameful. The stench of his time in office still clings to so much around us, let’s not start whitewashing his train wreck of a tenure already.

No doubt that those statements are all true, but it wouldn't have had ANY demonstrable effect on the death toll early on. None. Because nearly all of the early deaths occurred in places primarily controlled by state regulators and subject to laws overseen by state bureaucracies. The governors chose to either ignore what was occurring or simply threw up their hands instead of acting. While the feds could have offered aid in the way of funding, they could not have done anything on the ground. Eventually, governors used the National Guard, but it was too late to address the worst of it.

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DeusxMac

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Lemon Drop
3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

I suspect most folks are unaware that neither of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was the deadliest bombing raid of WWII.

“On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.”

[en.m.wikipedia.org])

The fire storms from bombings of Dresden and other German cities resulted in similar numbers of casualties, so they were not exempt as "Europeans".

And the atomic bombs were planned for use over Europe against Germany, they just were not ready soon enough. By the time they were ready, any need for them being used was already considered unnecessary due to the success of the D-Day invasion and other military actions including the air war. The Soviet forces on the East were also advancing quite steadily and quickly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2021 12:29PM by JoeH.

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JoeH

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DeusxMac

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Lemon Drop
3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

I suspect most folks are unaware that neither of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was the deadliest bombing raid of WWII.

“On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.”

[en.m.wikipedia.org])

The fire storms from bombings of Dresden and other German cities resulted in similar numbers of casualties, so they were not exempt as "Europeans".

And the atomic bombs were planned for use over Europe against Germany, they just were not ready soon enough. By the time they were ready, any need for them being used was already considered unnecessary due to the success of the D-Day invasion and other military actions including the air war. The Soviet forces on the East were also advancing quite steadil

y and quickly.

I am only speaking about atomic weapons. I'm pretty sure we all know about Dresden.

Germany was never going to be the target of the new experimental weapon. As confirmed by the Secretary of War.

Leslie R. Groves, “Memorandum to the Secretary of War,” April 23, 1945, Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1948, Record Group 77, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 

"Our previous hopes that an implosion type of bomb might be developed in the late spring of 1945 have now been dissipated by scientific difficulties. . . .

“While our plan of operations is based on the more certain, more powerful, gun type bomb, it also provides for the use of the implosion type bombs as soon as they become available. The target is and was always expected to be Japan. A composite group of the 20th Air Force has been organized and specially trained and equipped.” 

Leslie R. Groves, Memorandum, “Military Policy Committee,” Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942–1948, Record Group 77, National Archives, Washington, D.C. “MPC Minutes, 5 May 43 mtg”  

"The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk [in the Pacific, north of New Guinea]. General Styer suggested Tokio but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans.” 

I don’t think we have the time to fully debate the morality of the A bombs.

But it’s not accurate to say that they did not impact Europe. Once the US demonstrated not one but two such horrors, the assumption was number 3 and 4 etc were ready to go to end WWII wherever the US had troops in the field.

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sekker
I don’t think we have the time to fully debate the morality of the A bombs.

But it’s not accurate to say that they did not impact Europe. Once the US demonstrated not one but two such horrors, the assumption was number 3 and 4 etc were ready to go to end WWII wherever the US had troops in the field.

Nobody here said they didn't impact Europe. The ushering in of the nuclear weapons era changed the entire world. What I said is that the military leaders of the Manhattan Project , namely Leslie Groves, had no plan to use it on Germany, for a number of reasons.

"Debating the morality of the A bombs" can be pretty succinct for me.

The first was not needed to end the war with Japan. They were ready to end the war. The second was a war crime.

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Lemon Drop

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sekker
I don’t think we have the time to fully debate the morality of the A bombs.

But it’s not accurate to say that they did not impact Europe. Once the US demonstrated not one but two such horrors, the assumption was number 3 and 4 etc were ready to go to end WWII wherever the US had troops in the field.

Nobody here said they didn't impact Europe. The ushering in of the nuclear weapons era changed the entire world. What I said is that the military leaders of the Manhattan Project , namely Leslie Groves, had no plan to use it on Germany, for a number of reasons.

"Debating the morality of the A bombs" can be pretty succinct for me.

The first was not needed to end the war with Japan. They were ready to end the war. The second was a war crime.

I have mixed feelings about the A bombs. I most likely would not be here if they had not been deployed, as my dad was in the navy stationed at Pearl Harbor. He was an 18 year old Fireman First Class, which means he worked below decks keeping the engines running. Just before they dropped the bombs, he was issued a weapon. He said they were being prepped as cannon fodder for what they all assumed was to be the imminent invasion of Japan.

I do believe that Japan would have been defeated without the A bombs, but I also think many more America lives, probably my dad's included, would have been lost. War is a nasty business with lots of decisions that I don’t think I could make.

---

Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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Lemon Drop

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JoeH

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DeusxMac

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Lemon Drop
3. Dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese. A military science experiment that never would have been done to Europeans. At the end of a war we were going to win.

I suspect most folks are unaware that neither of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was the deadliest bombing raid of WWII.

“On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.”

[en.m.wikipedia.org])

The fire storms from bombings of Dresden and other German cities resulted in similar numbers of casualties, so they were not exempt as "Europeans".

And the atomic bombs were planned for use over Europe against Germany, they just were not ready soon enough. By the time they were ready, any need for them being used was already considered unnecessary due to the success of the D-Day invasion and other military actions including the air war. The Soviet forces on the East were also advancing quite steadil

y and quickly.

I am only speaking about atomic weapons. I'm pretty sure we all know about Dresden.

Germany was never going to be the target of the new experimental weapon. As confirmed by the Secretary of War.

Leslie R. Groves, “Memorandum to the Secretary of War,” April 23, 1945, Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1948, Record Group 77, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 

"Our previous hopes that an implosion type of bomb might be developed in the late spring of 1945 have now been dissipated by scientific difficulties. . . .

“While our plan of operations is based on the more certain, more powerful, gun type bomb, it also provides for the use of the implosion type bombs as soon as they become available. The target is and was always expected to be Japan. A composite group of the 20th Air Force has been organized and specially trained and equipped.” 

Leslie R. Groves, Memorandum, “Military Policy Committee,” Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942–1948, Record Group 77, National Archives, Washington, D.C. “MPC Minutes, 5 May 43 mtg”  

"The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk [in the Pacific, north of New Guinea]. General Styer suggested Tokio but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans.” 

By that point in the war there was no need for the bomb in Europe, and they knew that by Summer/Fall of 1944. Your quote is a single source with after the fact rationalizations included. Historians have uncovered older memos during the earlier stages of the project that included targeting of sites in Germany and the issues connected with that. For starters that included the US not having a bomber that could carry the bombs, the B-29 development was not far enough along. They would have needed to acquire Avro Lancaster bombers from the British. There were still development problems with the B-29 into 1944, the Silverplate models to carry the A-bombs did not start being produced until Fall 1944.

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rgG

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Lemon Drop

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sekker
I don’t think we have the time to fully debate the morality of the A bombs.

But it’s not accurate to say that they did not impact Europe. Once the US demonstrated not one but two such horrors, the assumption was number 3 and 4 etc were ready to go to end WWII wherever the US had troops in the field.

Nobody here said they didn't impact Europe. The ushering in of the nuclear weapons era changed the entire world. What I said is that the military leaders of the Manhattan Project , namely Leslie Groves, had no plan to use it on Germany, for a number of reasons.

"Debating the morality of the A bombs" can be pretty succinct for me.

The first was not needed to end the war with Japan. They were ready to end the war. The second was a war crime.

I have mixed feelings about the A bombs. I most likely would not be here if they had not been deployed, as my dad was in the navy stationed at Pearl Harbor. He was an 18 year old Fireman First Class, which means he worked below decks keeping the engines running. Just before they dropped the bombs, he was issued a weapon. He said they were being prepped as cannon fodder for what they all assumed was to be the imminent invasion of Japan.

I do believe that Japan would have been defeated without the A bombs, but I also think many more America lives, probably my dad's included, would have been lost. War is a nasty business with lots of decisions that I don’t think I could make.

I appreciate your Dad's service and bravery at the young age of 18, I'm thankful he made it home safely.
My grandfather also served in Europe and his 2 brothers were in the Pacific theater. My mom was born just after her Dad deployed, so she met him for the first time at age 3.

Intellectually incurious and morally bankrupt Trump didn't initiate the virus. Had there been a way to grift a solution, he'd have been on it.

Intellectually incurious Bush the Lesser did actively initiate war(s) that led to somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000 dead. He turned to his grifter Vice President to oversee details and between them they drained somewhere around 8-10 TRILLION dollars from our treasury.

Because of Bush's actions, since 2011the United States has launched two wars, engaged in military conflict in dozens of countries, gutted civil liberties at home and abroad, spent more than $8 trillion, killed more than 900,000 people, engaged in torture, and imprisoned tens of thousands of people without a hint of due process.

Seems to me the Trump outrages are just too recent for some to put in perspective.

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RgrF
Intellectually incurious and morally bankrupt Trump didn't initiate the virus. Had there been a way to grift a solution, he'd have been on it.

I'm sure that he would have if he could have, and undoubtedly he's skimmed what he could, but he's not very smart, and he's managed to alienate or incriminate in a state/federal criminal investigation pretty much everyone in his immediate vicinity with any intelligence or talent to exploit the situation.

Others in his administration outside of his immediate sphere -- notably his "vaccine czar" Moncef Slaoui who refused to take a formal government job and worked as a contractor because to be a formal employee would subject him to ethical constraints and public disclosures -- undoubtedly made many millions off of the pandemic. And think of all of the appointees handing out no-bid PPE contracts to "donors."

The scope of the grift is undoubtedly beyond imagination. But there was little room in it for losers like Drumpf.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2021 11:06PM by Sarcany.

Matt Taibbi says it better than I can:

Former president and onetime ultimate blue-party villain George W. Bush gave a speech Saturday, commemorating 9/11 at the crash site of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Much of what he said was tonally quite like the speeches of his presidency, denouncing the evildoers, praising American resilience, calling for pride in “our wounded nation.” Then he shifted gears.

“We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within,” he said, adding, in a passage that sent tents a-pitching across Washington:

"There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them."

A few years ago, George W. Bush was on track to be remembered as one of the worst presidents of all time, if not the worst. He was both more disdainful and more ignorant of the law than Nixon, his arsonist economic stewardship was rivaled only by Hoover, and intellectwise he made Chester A. Arthur look like Copernicus. He was also a worse and more destructive president than Donald Trump, and it wasn’t close. Trump talked big, but it was Bush who actually smashed norms on a grand scale, from international law to human rights to adherence to the most basic constitutional principles, in pursuit of policies that Brown University just estimated cost $8 trillion and led to 900,000 deaths.

Yet Bush just bought himself piles of sunny write-ups in future history books with this past weekend’s speech. The cost turned out to be minimal, as is often the case in politics: he did modern Democrats one rhetorical solid, essentially comparing 9/11 to the events of January 6th, implying that the al-Qaeda hijackers to the rioters of January 6th are “children of the same foul spirit.” Blue-party pols and their pals in the press gushed with admiration for Bush’s “beautiful and poignant” turns of phrase: