FWD: Paul Tibbits, pilot of "Enola Gay", dead at 92

"Johnny Hageyama" wrote in message
oups.com...

What makes you think that all hippies, peacniks, and treehuggers were
against the dropping of the atomic bombs?

Guilt by association.

OM wrote:

Bottom Line: General, on behalf of those of us who didn't have to grow
up speaking Japanese and eating rice and fish heads on a daily basis,
and especially for those of us who happen to actually *be* here
because their fathers and grandfathers weren't killed invading Japan's
home islands, we thank you for your service. The hippies, peaceniks,
treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags may forever curse your
name for simply following orders, but the rest of us know the reality
of the situation, and the necessity of dropping that bomb. The fact
that it took a *second* bomb to wake the Japs up to the need to
surrender before extinction was the clearest possible proof that this
was an enemy too wrapped up in misguided dogmatics to have gotten the
hint through anything negotiable, much less a full-out invasion.

Rest in peace, sir. You have earned it, as well as our undying
gratitude.

Indeed.

I heard Paul Tibbits give a talk at the Virginia Aviation Museum about
10 years ago. The place was packed with over a thousand people
sitting and standing everywhere. Truly an honor to be in the presence
of a true American hero.

OM wrote:


Bottom Line: General, on behalf of those of us who didn't have to grow
up speaking Japanese and eating rice and fish heads on a daily basis,
and especially for those of us who happen to actually *be* here
because their fathers and grandfathers weren't killed invading Japan's
home islands, we thank you for your service. The hippies, peaceniks,
treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags may forever curse your
name for simply following orders, but the rest of us know the reality
of the situation, and the necessity of dropping that bomb.

I don't think there was any opposition of significance to WW2 at the
time. The people who would have been hippies, peaceniks, treehuggers
and other yellow-bellied scumbags all knew that that war had to be
fought and won. Wars like Vietnam, on the other hand...

I'd agree that dropping those two nukes did end WW2, and saved a lot of
lives on both sides. Oh, we'd eventually prevail, but at a huge cost if
we didn't drop those nukes.

As it is today, we really don't like destroying entire enemy cities, we
don't want to stay being enemies forever.

On Nov 3, 11:59 am, robert casey wrote:The
people who would have been hippies, peaceniks, treehuggers and other
yellow-bellied scumbags all knew that that war had to be fought and
won. Wars like Vietnam, on the other hand"


Man you are a joke...

From Johnny Hageyama :
OM wrote:
Bottom Line: General, on behalf of those of us who didn't have to grow
up speaking Japanese and eating rice and fish heads on a daily basis,
and especially for those of us who happen to actually *be* here
because their fathers and grandfathers weren't killed invading Japan's
home islands, we thank you for your service. The hippies, peaceniks,
treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags may forever curse your
name for simply following orders, but the rest of us know the reality
of the situation, and the necessity of dropping that bomb.

What makes you think that all hippies, peacniks, and treehuggers were
against the dropping of the atomic bombs? The ones in my family
weren't, even though they knew that Japan had stopped funding the war
several weeks before the end. They thought the Japanese army would
have sacrificed tens of millions of people if the bombs hadn't been
dropped.

Dropping the bomb was not at all *necessary*. It was an _option_ that
the US chose to exercise. And it completely misses the point to say
that it "saved lives". The point is that there are "rules of war".
And these rules say that it is ok to kill military members, but non-
combatant civilians are off limits. THAT is the atrocity.

Hypothetical: Say that the US knew that the Japanese would surrender
if US GIs would rape 10,000 teenage Japanese girls. Can we then
justify the mass rape by saying, "it saved lives"? And if Tibbets was
the one who did the raping, would we then call him a hero for having
raped all those girls?

(If you think that this is a horrific hypothetical, keep in mind that
if you take all the kids vaporized by that "Little Boy" and you give
their parents the option to have them raped instead of vaporized, it
is to be expected that they would choose the raping.)

To have a meaningful discussion about what Tibbets (and Oppenheimer
and Truman and the others) did, then it is insufficient to simply
weigh in a balance the lives lost against the lives that might have
been lost. The crux of the issue is justification of mass murder.

In the wake of 9/11, we can expect that radical Muslims have many
varied justifications for what was done there. The US continues to
cry "foul". Yet Tibbets is a hero.

....and the WTC site is still referred to as "ground zero", as though
the destruction there is comparable to the destruction of a nuclear
bomb. Those airliners were firecrackers in comparison to what a nuke
could have done.


Another interesting angle for analyzing this is to put yourself in
Tibbets' shoes with the ability to peek into the future. Knowing all
of the positive outcomes of the event (aside from the tragic aspects)
then there are plenty of justifications for pickling off that bomb.

The biggest advantage that I can see from it is that those two bombs
were so horrific that they helped us to avoid ever using them again.
I credit Paul Tibbets for doing a large part toward averting a WWIII.


~ CT

On Nov 2, 10:02 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation
wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:49 pm, "

wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:11 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation

wrote:
On Nov 2, 9:50 am, OM wrote: The hippies,
peaceniks, treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags... Let's
face it: Sometimes you *need* an obnoxious opinion in your day!"

Actually that says it all right there you are obnoxious....

"Obnoxious" and "perfectly factually correct" are not mutually
exclusive. In this particular case, they are the same thing.

Wow, i guess you can rationalize anything then, even the usage of
antagonistic words that are meant to belittle others.

Yes, indeed. Because some people *need* to be berated and belittled.
There's far to much emphasis on "self esteem" in our society, and it's
gotten to the point where many people cannot tolerate being ridiculed
or even disagreed with. The fringe-left is firmly in that group.

your rationalization does not make
things factual and excuse his obnoxious post.

The obnoxiousness of his post is excuded by being both factually
accurate *and* properly demeaning to a bunch of self-important
nobodies who have managed to stifle the progress of western
civilization.

On Nov 3, 3:20 pm, "
wrote:
On Nov 2, 10:02 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation





wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:49 pm, "

wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:11 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation

wrote:
On Nov 2, 9:50 am, OM wrote: The hippies,
peaceniks, treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags... Let's
face it: Sometimes you *need* an obnoxious opinion in your day!"

Actually that says it all right there you are obnoxious....

"Obnoxious" and "perfectly factually correct" are not mutually
exclusive. In this particular case, they are the same thing.

Wow, i guess you can rationalize anything then, even the usage of
antagonistic words that are meant to belittle others.

Yes, indeed. Because some people *need* to be berated and belittled.
There's far to much emphasis on "self esteem" in our society, and it's
gotten to the point where many people cannot tolerate being ridiculed
or even disagreed with. The fringe-left is firmly in that group.

your rationalization does not make
things factual and excuse his obnoxious post.

The obnoxiousness of his post is excuded by being both factually
accurate *and* properly demeaning to a bunch of self-important
nobodies who have managed to stifle the progress of western
civilization.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

laughing, you mean in your opinion, his obnoxious opinion is correct,
but you must understand that just because you stated that something is
factual does not make it so. Your opinion is just that, nothing more
or less important than mine, but your comment on progress in western
society in my view is incorrect.

On Nov 3, 3:20 pm, "
wrote:
On Nov 2, 10:02 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation





wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:49 pm, "

wrote:
On Nov 2, 7:11 pm, columbiaaccidentinvestigation

wrote:
On Nov 2, 9:50 am, OM wrote: The hippies,
peaceniks, treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags... Let's
face it: Sometimes you *need* an obnoxious opinion in your day!"

Actually that says it all right there you are obnoxious....

"Obnoxious" and "perfectly factually correct" are not mutually
exclusive. In this particular case, they are the same thing.

Wow, i guess you can rationalize anything then, even the usage of
antagonistic words that are meant to belittle others.

Yes, indeed. Because some people *need* to be berated and belittled.
There's far to much emphasis on "self esteem" in our society, and it's
gotten to the point where many people cannot tolerate being ridiculed
or even disagreed with. The fringe-left is firmly in that group.

your rationalization does not make
things factual and excuse his obnoxious post.

The obnoxiousness of his post is excuded by being both factually
accurate *and* properly demeaning to a bunch of self-important
nobodies who have managed to stifle the progress of western
civilization.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

secondly, your concept of society is not correct in my opinion
either...(do you view those on the fringe right in the same manner?)

Stuf4 writes:

From Johnny Hageyama :
OM wrote:
Bottom Line: General, on behalf of those of us who didn't have to grow
up speaking Japanese and eating rice and fish heads on a daily basis,
and especially for those of us who happen to actually *be* here
because their fathers and grandfathers weren't killed invading Japan's
home islands, we thank you for your service. The hippies, peaceniks,
treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags may forever curse your
name for simply following orders, but the rest of us know the reality
of the situation, and the necessity of dropping that bomb.

What makes you think that all hippies, peacniks, and treehuggers were
against the dropping of the atomic bombs? The ones in my family
weren't, even though they knew that Japan had stopped funding the war
several weeks before the end. They thought the Japanese army would
have sacrificed tens of millions of people if the bombs hadn't been
dropped.

Dropping the bomb was not at all *necessary*. It was an _option_ that
the US chose to exercise. And it completely misses the point to say
that it "saved lives". The point is that there are "rules of war".
And these rules say that it is ok to kill military members, but non-
combatant civilians are off limits. THAT is the atrocity.

Hypothetical: Say that the US knew that the Japanese would surrender
if US GIs would rape 10,000 teenage Japanese girls. Can we then
justify the mass rape by saying, "it saved lives"? And if Tibbets was
the one who did the raping, would we then call him a hero for having
raped all those girls?

Your comparison is quite laughable. 10000 rapes would not even budge
the current statistics. No, I think you are merely arguing against the
idea of war in a general sense---war is not an individual matter, it
is defined as one nation against another, and the entire part of a
nation faces destruction, not the military only. It's too bad that
"innocents" get killed, but humans get over it eventually.
--
Gernot Hassenpflug

Stuf4 wrote:
From Johnny Hageyama :
OM wrote:
Bottom Line: General, on behalf of those of us who didn't have to grow
up speaking Japanese and eating rice and fish heads on a daily basis,
and especially for those of us who happen to actually *be* here
because their fathers and grandfathers weren't killed invading Japan's
home islands, we thank you for your service. The hippies, peaceniks,
treehuggers and other yellow-bellied scumbags may forever curse your
name for simply following orders, but the rest of us know the reality
of the situation, and the necessity of dropping that bomb.

What makes you think that all hippies, peacniks, and treehuggers were
against the dropping of the atomic bombs? The ones in my family
weren't, even though they knew that Japan had stopped funding the war
several weeks before the end. They thought the Japanese army would
have sacrificed tens of millions of people if the bombs hadn't been
dropped.

Dropping the bomb was not at all *necessary*. It was an _option_ that
the US chose to exercise. And it completely misses the point to say
that it "saved lives". The point is that there are "rules of war".
And these rules say that it is ok to kill military members, but non-
combatant civilians are off limits. THAT is the atrocity.

OK, let's assume the atomic bombs were not dropped. Were conventional
bombing methods available at the time any better? The fact remains many
military targets were in populated areas. Take a look at the nearest
military base or factory to where you live. How would you take out that
target with the capabilities the Allies had in 1945? By that time a
great many small factories were family businesses in their own
communities. Are you suggesting not taking them out? Suppose you were
making parts for rifles in your yard would you expect to be left alone
just because you live in a residential area?


Hypothetical: Say that the US knew that the Japanese would surrender
if US GIs would rape 10,000 teenage Japanese girls. Can we then
justify the mass rape by saying, "it saved lives"? And if Tibbets was
the one who did the raping, would we then call him a hero for having
raped all those girls?

Try coming up with a hypothetical based in reality.


(If you think that this is a horrific hypothetical, keep in mind that
if you take all the kids vaporized by that "Little Boy" and you give
their parents the option to have them raped instead of vaporized, it
is to be expected that they would choose the raping.)

How many of those same children would have died anyway in
conventional bombing when the valid military targets near them were
taken out? A great many had already died that way. How many of those
same children would have died of malnutrition or starvation? A great
many civilians were already dying that way. How many of those same
children would have been murdered by their own mothers during an Allied
invasion? It happened in Okinawa.

As for "choosing the raping," I just have to ask. You don't have a
sister or daughter, do you? In many cultures, I'm not sure about Japan,
death is preferable to rape. Have you ever heard of "honour killings?"



To have a meaningful discussion about what Tibbets (and Oppenheimer
and Truman and the others) did, then it is insufficient to simply
weigh in a balance the lives lost against the lives that might have
been lost. The crux of the issue is justification of mass murder.

Or justification of stopping mass murder. Are you aware the Japanese
army had orders to slaughter POWs as well as slave labour and were still
butchering civilians en masse?

In the wake of 9/11, we can expect that radical Muslims have many
varied justifications for what was done there. The US continues to
cry "foul". Yet Tibbets is a hero.

There's one minor difference. The Enola Gay targetted valid military
targets in Hiroshima. WTC was not a valid military target.

...and the WTC site is still referred to as "ground zero", as though
the destruction there is comparable to the destruction of a nuclear
bomb. Those airliners were firecrackers in comparison to what a nuke
could have done.

Ground zero means nuclear attack site? Since when?



Another interesting angle for analyzing this is to put yourself in
Tibbets' shoes with the ability to peek into the future. Knowing all
of the positive outcomes of the event (aside from the tragic aspects)
then there are plenty of justifications for pickling off that bomb.

OK, you agree they needed to be dropped.


The biggest advantage that I can see from it is that those two bombs
were so horrific that they helped us to avoid ever using them again.
I credit Paul Tibbets for doing a large part toward averting a WWIII.


You don't really understand why WW 3 never happened, do you? Have
you ever heard of mutually assured destruction? That's just one of the
reasons.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired