digg

When was the last time you heard an American political figure talk about obliterating another country?

What precisely did Clinton mean when she said, "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran... We would be able to totally obliterate them"?

Obliterate: a: to remove utterly from recognition or memory. b: to remove from existence : destroy utterly all trace, indication, or significance of.

Clinton made her incendiary statement for calculated domestic electoral advantage. In Clinton's case, she was hoping that her statement might add a half a percentage point or so to her total in a single state in a primary election.

So there -- you have it.

Clinton lobbed a time bomb into the Middle East tinderbox, on the off chance that it might win her a half a percentage point or so to her total in a single state in a primary election.

This from a candidate whose mantra for months has been that she, as opposed to her opponent, is experienced in world affairs and is ready to be comander in chief on day one.

Not if we can help it. I, personally, do not want to see Hillary Rodham Clinton anywhere near the nuclear access attack codes.

It is certain that Israel does not need an American "nuclear umbrella" as they have somewhere between 100-400 nukes of their own. The only reason there has not been more outrage expressed concerning Hillary's "obliteration comments" is that everyone knows this is just a bombastic device on her account. She is well known for lying through her teeth, so no one is going to get upset when she tries to pander to her Likud wing supporters.

I find it desperate that anyone is linking these photos (discovered over 10 years ago) to the current campaign. Don't get me wrong, I find Sen. Clinton's tone about Iran extremely disturbing, but using the devastation we inflicted on Japan in 1945 as a way to prove that point is uncouth, cheap propaganda.
If Sen. Clinton said 'I hope we do to Iran what these pictures show we did to Japan' you could have a field BishkekBuddy - but these photos have little to do with the kind of point you are trying to make.
By all means, see the pictures and be a responsible citizen. But don't use this horror as a cheap campaign tactic.

I am not Hillary's biggest fan, but please let's not politicize these photos. These pictures should stand alone as a testament to the sheer horror of war.

Man is capable of this. Let no one have a greater fear than of himself.

"War is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter to kill each other.'' - Niko Bellic

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible tragedies, but necessary acts of war. Don't forget that a conventional invasion of Japan would have cost at least 250,000 American lives (some sources say even more), not to mention countless Japanese lives. The firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were far more terrible in terms of cost of life than the A-bombs as well. Ironically, dropping the A-bomb probably saved far more lives than it took. Conventional warfare can be horrific too.

you guys need to just give the elections a break for a while.

I find it horrifying that so many countries have access to weapons that can do that kind of damage. Makes you miss the times when war was just a bunch of people in bright uniforms marching in a straight line.

Yes war sucks, but that's war. A bomb is a bomb.
The Japanese were ruthless.
Japan allied themselves with Nazi Germany. Japan attacked a US military base.....
Thousands of Chinese and Korean civilians suffered horrible deaths at the hands of Japanese soldiers and through medical experiments in Japanese prison camps. Russia and the US were set to invade Japan towards the end of the war. Millions would have died.

Unconditional surrender was offered to the Japanese...they rejected it. The bombing changed the mind of the God Emperor of Japan , Hirohito. The US occupied Japan and now Japan is one of the top five largest economies in the world.

http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/smalloy/atomic_tragedy ...

That's how dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

They attacked us. Did they think we would not fight back?

Oderint dum metuant - "Let them hate so long as they fear." - Lucius Accius

so horrifying I can't even fully formulate a comment.

let's not make this about clinton, guys. seriously. let's just leave it at horror and a serious desire to make this not happen again.

I went to Hiroshima in March of this year to listen to a survivor who was 12 at the time of the bombing give a talk about her experience. It was really something to hear from someone who firsthand saw and felt the power of a nuclear bomb, and what her feelings are now 63 years later. Regardless of the reason they were dropped, it's hard to deny the devastation and pain they caused.
If anyone is interested in listening, I recorded the speech and put online her account of when the bomb exploded: http://vimeo.com/748115

Why the ***** would you politicize this? "Here's a bomb that went off 60 years ago. In conclusion, don't vote for so and so".

Ok if you think thats bad you should see the footage of the Raping of Nanking, helps put that image in perspective.
You should look into the atrocities the Japanese committed in WWII before you start viewing them as the victims of that war as their state history is being told now

This is horrific, but... WWII was brutal. The destruction of innocent cities and civilians came from both sides. Everyone remembers Hiroshima and forgets Dresden.
Aside from that, the issue of whether or not the bomb should have been used is extremely complex.
That's not excusing this at all. This should never happen again (and it shouldn't have happened a second time, at Nagasaki, which was absolutely gratuitous).

Compelling post.

WRONG TOPIC.

This doesn't get to be "2008 Election" related just because you hate Hillary Clinton. I wish people would stop using the descriptive paragraph of their posts to write political ads for Barack Obama, just so it gets to the front page.

It's difficult to judge history not having endured the suffering that pearl harbor and the long war in the pacific caused. But if the rationale behind dropping the bomb was to make the enemy surrender, wouldn't it have been just as effective to drop the bomb off the coast of Tokyo? Show the generals and the emperor what was about to happen to them if they didn't quit. I feel that killing all those children was unnecessary. Of course, if they kept going...then the nuking would have been a sad necessity.

Man, we are so bad, the Japanese would NEVER have done this to us. We know this because they treated the Chinese so damn well, especially their females. Matter of fact, the Chinese still love the Japanese to this day for their benevolence. Down with American imperialism...errr up with Japanese imperialism. /Sarcasm
Moronic bed wetting leftists.

Anyone get a mirror?

I'm 84. I'm a WWII vet. I was slated to go to mainland Japan in 3 weeks when the A bombs were used. It was expected that 1 million GIs would have dies on the shores of Japan. There is nothing that can make this an acceptable situation on any sides part, however, what this generation needs to understand is the context and history of what lead to this action. You need to do your homework on the horrors of the Japan front before passing judgment. As terrible as these picture are, they are NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT JAPAN WAS DOING to GIs, Chinese, and their own citizens. They ( different than todays fine Japanese ) were a horrible, brutal and inhumane people.

I grew up in western PA. In those days the entire high school school went to war together. Out of 175 men from my HS class, only 33 returned. All the others died in fighting in AP theater. Many died on Japan prison camps. Horrible deaths.

Please do your homework on real history before shooting off your mouths with naive uneducated theoretical views... the world isn't as simple and nice as you all believe it is..!

PS: It's about as low as you can go using WWII A bomb as a 2008 campaign card.... Huffingpost shame on you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&res ...


http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/

I wonder how many people would like to look at the pictures of the destruction that would have been caused had the bomb NOT been dropped. Its easy to sit back 50 years later and say...'why did you do that'. But what would you think if it were your brothers, friends, and fathers that had to go over their and die to invade and occupy Japan.
Bottom line: you have too look at things for what they were, not just look at the aftermath. The death toll and the destruction would have been orders of magnitude higher if we had to invade japan city by city inch by inch. Just landing on japan would have probably killed more people that dropping one of the bombs.
Extra Credit: Compare the death toll on D-Day and Pearl Harbor (either combined or not) to the death toll at Hiroshima. Then extrapolate for what all the people that would have died invading Japan; both Japanese and American.

1. Mirror?
2. WWII was abominable in more ways than just the A-Bomb, which became a major political/propaganda tool. No mention for example on the incendiary bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, which were all made of *wood*.
3. Stop politicising! This is history, and much as i personally dislike Clinton, i fail to see how WWII can be pinned to her.

Next time it happens we will be told of "limited" "bunker busters" and of course the press won't be there to see the carnage...
Bomb Bomb Bomb - Bomb Bomb Iran...

Looks like someone... NUKED the server! HAHAHA!

Ok, seriously, mirror?

This is what war is supposed to be like. And why it should be a last resort.

I live in Nagasaki...

Screw the finger pointing. 1940's: When the world went insane.

Remember folks, this saved more lives than it took.
My Grandfather would of been one of the first to hit the beaches in Japan if it weren't for the bomb. He would've surely died.

why didn't you like to the pictures instead of giving free traffic to the hopo?

War.
War never changes.

- Fallout 3