TheWiseOldFart

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart One year before my mother gave birth to me, Japan surrendered and WWII came to an end. President Harry Truman knew that the war was won, but to prevent the loss of more American lives. he made the most controversial decision in the history of the world. Truman ordered the murder of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children. It was of no interest to many of our nation’s leaders because they were Japanese. On August 6, 1945, 80 years ago today, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and on August 9, 1945, another weapon of mass destruction leveled the city of Nagasaki. [The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed an estimated 100,000 to 146,000 people by the end of 1945, with Hiroshima accounting for roughly 66,000 to 140,000 deaths, and Nagasaki for approximately 39,000 to 70,000. Many more deaths occurred in the following years due to radiation-related illnesses like cancer, leading to combined total death tolls of over 200,000, wi...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart First and foremost, the people of any country involved in a military conflict never “win a war.” Only military leaders and politicians discuss winning wars, and they, and only they profit from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. What has never been discussed since WWII is the fact that America’s government nor its military leaders have “won” a single war. Our military left in disgrace from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and eventually, Afghanistan. However, the people living in those countries, and of their adversary, the United States of America, lost brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, husbands, and wives. People who can never be replaced. Being an original “baby boomer,” I often think of the tens of thousands of lives taken by the decision of one man in August of 1945. On August 6 and August 9, atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A total of approximately 120,000 Japanese citizens were killed...