wApr 22, 2004




hem

Today is Earth Day. Amelia is one today! My sister has told us that lately when they give Amelia a saltine cracker, she'll cry until they give her a graham cracker. Hahaha, I thought it was funny, :P I was all excited because the Catholic newspaper comes out today, but my letter to the editor wasn't in it, so I was disappointed. There were a ton of small letters, though.....so maybe mine will be in next time? Hopefully.

Today in AP History, we watched a movie that totally changed my mind about dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I guess that after the 20th Century History class, I'd always felt that there was no other choice and that ultimately, it saved a lot of lives by preventing a land invasion. However, the movie presented a lot of information that hadn't been presented to us as sophomores. Like the fact that the Japanese were trying to negotiate peace through the Soviet Union (the only major power not technically at war with the Japanese). The Japanese were ready for war to end. We just wanted unconditional surrender - so for example, they couldn't keep their emporer. Everyone except Byrnes (an advisor to Truman) told Truman that dropping the atomic bomb was unnecessary. But he did it anyway, mostly because he'd heard rumors that he shouldn't trust the Soviets and that he needed to put on a show of force. Rather than wait to give warning, or drop the bomb in an uninhabited area, it was dropped on a city, instantly killing 130,000 people, mostly women and children. Then the Soviets decided they wanted in - they invaded some Japanese-held territory, and the Japanese surrendered. The guys supporting Truman on the tape said something like they "hadn't heard" anything about the Japanese wanting to surrender to us, so then they dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. With the deaths from radiation and the blasts, about 300,000 people died. How many died in Pearl Harbor, 3,000? I think something like that. Totally unproportionate and unnecessary. The descriptions of carnage from survivors didn't sicken me half as much as a veteran pilot talking about how after dropping the bomb, they went home and ate a good meal and smoked some cigars. Ugh. I think Chad said that the movie was biased. Maybe it was. But there were a lot of facts told by people who were part of the decisions that were made. So.....yeah. I have no clue. Sometimes I'm ashamed of my country. But now I need to go do my homework.
scribbled mystickeeper at 3:51 PM
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