Well said. I'm not a WWII expert by any means, but when your secular leader is also your religious leader, populations will do all kinds of crazy things and there were many Japanese that would have been perfectly happy to fight to the last human against the Western invaders. In some sense, it's not that much different than some strains of Islam in that the secular and the sacred are mixed. Well in the case of the Japanese they actually though he not only represented God, that he WAS a god, I just don't see any good or easy solutions coming to anything when that's your starting point.
Debates on use of the atomic bomb have gone on since Truman's decision. In some sense, someone had to drop an atomic bomb at some point in time to display its terrible power in real terms. It just happened to be us being the dropper and Japan being the dropee. Yeah, I just think the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan as being a bit overblown as far as importance, both for them and us. I don't see us being any more "to blame" for dropping that bomb, which was a terrible thing to be sure, than the big bomber raids over Tokyo the month before we hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We should also talk about the big bombing raids on German cities like Dresden which had little or no strategic value, but just another city to destroy to damage their "will to fight". Those raids actually killed more people and caused more damage than Fat Man or Little Boy, it's just that the death and destruction were done by dropping one bomb at a time as opposed to hundreds/thousands in one big thread. And of course the lingering radiation stuff which I think is a more legitimate claim than the other stuff. Plus the big ominous mushroom cloud.
As per the whole war question, I hate war period. But when we are in a war, I think the talents of professional soldiers should be appreciated. For some of us who are older and had to live through the draft, it can probably be viewed through a slightly different prism. I had friends who were drafted and they told me that the first day of basic training, the DI would tell them "In 30 days, I will have you prepared to kill another human being." One particular friend who relayed that story to me told me that he laughed under his breath and thought "Yeah right" when the DI said that. But sure enough, 30 days later he was ready to put his life on the line and do what was deemed necessary. He didn't say how the Army got him to that point and he stressed that after being out of the service for a couple of years, he was back to where he was mentally prior to his induction into the Army. But I always have found that interesting. I don't think Americans should WANT to kill people, in war you have to do stuff like that, it's absolutely inevitable, but I don't think a total disdain for human life should be something we aspire to, otherwise we should get the swastika tattoos and be done with it. War is terrible, it needs to be terrible. It has to be terrible and we should not ever go into one unless we have to. Then if and when we have to go to war we should strive to do such a good, thorough and utter "ass kicking" that nobody else should ever be stupid enough to provoke us again To me that sort of thing will come a lot closer to producing a lasting peace than all the big talk and "3 Stooges/Marx Brothers planning and execution skills" in the world. TR said it best I think, speak softly and carry a big stick. Most big talkers only talk big because their stick is tiny. I am essentially a pacifist, a "live and let live" kind of guy, if you'll let me be. If you push me to that point where I can't be a pacifist anymore I basically become a "kill 'em all and let God sort them out" kind of guy.
I don't praise Chris Kyle. I don't necessarily praise what he did or who he was. But war is messy and the talents of Chris Kyle and others are necessary if a country is to be successful in war. It pretty much ends there for me in terms of combat. I've heard a lot of stuff about Kyle, his story, etc., I don't know the whole story and don't really plan on reading about it. I don't know why everybody seems to have to over think the whole thing anyway. He was a sniper, he had a story, they made it into a movie. If you don't like those kinds of movies don't go, if you do, go and watch the movie and judge the movie for what it is/isn't. If Kyle turns out to be a great big fraud or whatever he sure wouldn't be the first one not will he be the last one, if they movie mirrors his life fine, if it doesn't that sure isn't the first or last time Hollywood smeared the lines on that sort of thing either. I honor Kyle's service just as I honor all of our brave servicemen's service. As for Michael Moore, if I understand his actual story correctly, he said his uncle was killed by a sniper in WW2 and that his dad hated the sniper who killed his brother and called that man a "coward". Is that pretty close? If so I don't blame Michael Moore's dad for feeling that way, I don't agree with him, but if I had a brother killed, even in war I'd probably have hard feelings. If some of those criticizing him weren't getting political brownie points for criticizing him changes are most of them wouldn't be doing it, because if Moore wasn't a good target because of his politics (does his size not make him enough of a target for you people) then they wouldn't even know or care who he was or what he or his father thought. To me, just this past 2 or 3 sentences is actually more coverage than Moore deserves in any given year.
