31 July 14

Benjamin Netanyahu and Harry Truman

Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the last living member of Enola Gay’s crew, just died at the age of ninety-three. “Enola Gay” was the nickname of the American B29 bomber, commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbits, that delivered the atomic bomb (code named “Little Boy”) to the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. On 9 Aug 45, a second atomic bomb was successfully dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

The two bombs, three days apart, finally broke the will of the Imperial Japanese government, and the Pacific Campaign of WWII came to an end. A full-scale land invasion of Japan was thus rendered unnecessary.

American President Harry Truman has been severely criticized ever since, but the truth is that the atomic bomb actually preserved Japan, as a nation. Were it not for the atomic bomb, there would be no Japan today! Critics forget that we never did receive an apology for Pearl Harbor, nor for the Bataan Death March, nor for a thousand other Japanese atrocities!

In a 2005 interview, Van Kirk said:

“You fight a war to win. There were over one-hundred numbered military targets within the city of Hiroshima. It wasn’t a matter of going up there and dropping it on the city and killing people. It was destroying military targets in the city of Hiroshima, the most important of which was the army headquarters charged with the defense of Japan in event of invasion. That had to be destroyed.”

He added:

“It’s too bad that there were so many casualties, but if you tell me how to fight a war without killing people, then I’m going to be the happiest man in the world,”

I’m sure he would have said the same thing about the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and the merciless American and British (conventional) bombing of the German city of Dresden in February of 1945!

Oh that we had a shadow of the leadership today that we, as a nation and a civilization, had then!

In 2014, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu faces a similar situation to Harry Truman’s.

In order to wipe-out the ability of Islamic terrorists (currently organized under the name “Hamas”), to wholesale murder his follow citizens and ultimately demolish the nation of Israel (as they have openly sworn to do. It is not conjecture!), Netanyahu knows he has to destroy a virtually endless labyrinth of underground tunnels used by Hamas to store military supplies and smuggle teams of murdering terrorists into Israel. Netanyahu also knows that these storage places have been deliberately co-located with schools, hospitals, and religious sites. Hamas doesn’t care. They use photos of dead children as a propaganda tool, and the Western Press is only too happy to accommodate them!

Netanyahu knows, full well, that he will be roundly criticized in Europe and the USA as casualties inevitably pile up, just as Truman was Even now, we see a blossoming of vulgar anti-Jewish sentiment across Europe and even in some US Cities. Chicago is one.

But, as with Truman, what choice does he have?

When the job is not completed, another campaign will be necessary, probably in less than a year. When the job is completed, to the degree it can be, another campaign won’t be necessary for several years.

Being an Israeli Prime Minister has never been much fun. Being a American president isn’t either, unless of course, you abdicate your leadership role!

“A doctor can bury his mistakes. An architect can only advise his clients to plant vines!”

Frank Lloyd Wright

/John