

"Last Train from Hiroshima" author says he was duped - ilamont
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/books/21hiroshima.html?ref=todayspaper

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patio11
_“This book is a Toyota,” said Robert S. Norris, the author of “Racing for the
Bomb” and an atomic historian. “The publisher should recall it, issue an
apology and fix the parts that endanger the historical record.”_

Some people in my neighborhood are going to get dragged over the coals
tomorrow morning (again) for the first five words of this quote.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I was going to comment on that line, too.

However! This kind of coinage dates quickly. In 2000-2001, people started
using "Nasdaqed" as a verb for "dropped precipitously."
([http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002/msg00256....](http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002/msg00256.htm)).
It died after a while, even though the Nasdaq is still below where it was when
people started using the term.

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eli
Wow, that's some surprisingly shoddy fact checking. And how do you miss
running this past a group of veterans from the unit that dropped the bombs
when they're even putting out a regular newsletter?

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nazgulnarsil
_Thank God he’s not alive. He was so proud._

I often hear that, regardless of whether or not I agree with any particular
war, the world needs more men willing to "stand up for freedom". I think the
world needs less men who are willing to kill just because someone else told
them it was for freedom.

~~~
hga
How are you so sure he was unaware of, for example, how murderously brutal the
Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere was? Right up to the surrender
Imperial Japan was killing six figures worth of people every month.

There are rather a lot of Chinese and Koreans who are alive today because we
ended that regime as quickly and decisively as we could. Granted, we did that
mostly to save the lives of our own people and so we wouldn't have to do it
again, but that doesn't diminish the overall set of benefits.

~~~
cma
>There are rather a lot of Chinese and Koreans who are alive today because we
ended that regime as quickly and decisively as we could.

Didn't we keep supplying oil (something like 70-80%) and steel to Japan
throughout the first half of their China campaign?

~~~
hga
Yes, and we stopped specifically because of their China campaign, which then
precipitated the greater war.

What point are you trying to make?

~~~
cma
That it took 3 or 4 years to do so. That the "thankful" Chinese might have
several caveats. Especially since "and we stopped specifically because of
their China campaign" isn't exactly true, since in actuality we waited until
they attacked a French colony before we put up the embargo.

~~~
hga
Who's this "we" you're referring to?

"We" aren't a dictatorship, "we" don't turn on a dime and immediately decide
to destroy another country. "We" tend to try diplomacy first, "we" had to
learn that lessor measures wouldn't work (e.g. the Flying Tigers) and that
Japan's behavior towards adversaries had changed since WWI or perhaps was
different than it had been with Western ones (e.g. Russia), "we" also included
the U.K. and Netherlands (other majors sources of steel and oil).

You're trying to create a moral equivalency that I can't quite figure out this
early in the morning but that doesn't make any sense to me, so for now I'll
just point out that you want perfection, you're not going to find it in
international diplomacy and war.

ADDED: Ah, are you trying to say that because our behavior prior to the war
was imperfect, we didn't then have the moral standing to end it in a way that
ensured we would be able to make sure it didn't continue in due course, as
with WWI -> WII?

FURTHER ADDED: Also remember that at the time we the US were responsible for
the defense and general well being of the Philippines and that the costs of
any war our action provoked with the regional power would inevitably fall more
heavily on its inhabitants.

Our reaction to Imperial Japan's aggression was necessarily not a simple
thing.

~~~
cma
>Our reaction to Imperial Japan's aggression was necessarily not a simple
thing.

You might even say full, unabashed praise of it isn't possible without several
caveats, while still praising it on the whole.

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mronge
That is a pretty significant error. It puts the whole book's accuracy into
question because clearly the author didn't do his research thoroughly.

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teeja
Typical. 70,000 killed and people get upset about who was on the plane.

Ah, Bartleby.

