Except From Herbert Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed,” on Dropping the Atomic Bomb

Excerpt from Herbert Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed.” This is from chapter 83 (Aftermath of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan), 566-568.

“The use of the Atomic bomb on Japan has continued to stir the American conscience as well as the conscience of thinking people elsewhere in the world. Attempts have been made to justify the use of this terrible weapon. However, American military men and statesmen have repeatedly stated its use was not necessary to bring the war to an end. Quotes from some of these statements follow,

On August 29, 1945 the AP reported,

‘Secretary of State … Byrnes challenged today Japan’s argument that the atomic bomb had knocked her out of the war.

He cited what he called Russian proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Foreign Commissar Vyacheslaff M. Molotov informed the American and British at the Postsdam conference, Mr. Byrnes said, that the Japanese had asked to send a delegation to Moscow to seek Russian mediation of the end of the war — an act that  Mr. Byrnes interpreted as proof of the enemies defeat.’

On September 20, 1945, Major General Curtis Lemay, who directed the air attack on Japan, stated to the AP,

‘The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war … The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians coming in and without the atomic bomb.’

There was present at this interview two American Generals who were engaged in action against Japan — General Barney Giles, and Brigadier General Emmett O’Donnell — both of who agreed with Lemay.

In an AP interview in Washington on October 5, 1945, Admiral Chester Nimitz said he was convinced that the end of the war would have been the same without the atomic bomb or the entry of Russia into the war. He re-emphasized this in an address to Congress the same day saying:

‘The atomic bomb did not win the war against Japan. The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war….’

In an interview with Newsweek, November 11, 1963, former President Eisenhower declared,

‘that he had opposed dropping the bomb for two reasons: First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country to be the first to use such a weapon.’

Admiral William D. Leahy, in his book says,

‘…. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagaski was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

It was my reaction that the scientists and others wanted to make this test because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project…’

It is desirable for the record also to call attention to the observations on the dropping of the bomb by other leaders at the time. Lord Hankey, a member of the British War Cabinet states:

‘… The leaders of the Western Allies decided at Potsdam in July, 1945, to resort to the ultimate expedient of the Atom bomb. It was a strange and risky decision. They knew that the bomb was the most cruel and deadly weapon that had ever been produced, and that it effects would fall indiscriminately on civilian and military targets. They knew that Japan had already approached Russia with a view to peace discussions. They knew that Russia was on the point of declaring war on Japan. Yet in this fatuous fight for a phrase, they would not pause to seek some more normal means of obtaining the terms they needed, nor would they wait to learn the effect of the Russian declaration of war.

   There is no published evidence to show that they even inquired  whether the use of the bomb was consistent with international law…. 

    … If the enemy had solved the atomic problem and used the bomb first, its employment would have been included in the allied list of war crimes, and those who took the decision or who prepared and used the bomb, would have been condemned and hanged.'”

 

 

Reading List in Preparation for Memorial Day 2016

A reading list to get you ready to celebrate Memorial Day, 2016.

Read these 11 books by Memorial Day 2016 and you’ll never celebrate Memorial day again in quite the same way.

In a loosely chronological order.

11.) Lincoln’s Little War: How His Carefully Crafted Plans Went Astray — Webb Garrison

10.) Lincoln the Man — Edgar Masters

9.) Wilson’s War — Jim Powell

8.) War is a Racket — Smedley Butler

7.) The Unnecessary War — Pat Buchanan

6.) Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution — Anthony C. Sutton

5.) Naked Capitalist — W. Cleon Skousen

4.) Freedom Betrayed — Herbert Hoover

3.)  FDR goes to War — Burton Folsom

2.) Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government — M. Stanton Evans

1.) Blacklisted by History — M. Stanton Evans

 

Quotes Demonstrating FDR as Court Jester

“I think the Russians are perfectly friendly. They aren’t trying to gobble up all the rest of Europe. They haven’t got any ideas of conquest. These fears that have been expressed by a lot of people here that the Russians are going to try and dominate Europe, I personally don’t think there is anything in it … ”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
08 March, 1944
3 Months after Tehran conference

“I am absolutely certain the Russians didn’t do this.”

FDR
Responding to an observation by former Pennsylvania Dem. Gov. Georg Earle that he (Earle) had hard evidence indicting Russia for the Katyn Forest Massacre.

We now know, as they knew then, that the Bolshevik Communists in Russia were guilty of the Katyn forest massacre.

Will the Real Michael Horton Please Stand Up

“Nothing in the 2K view entails that Christians do not, then, pursue their vocation in a ‘distinctively Christian way’ or that neither the church nor individual Christians should be in the business of changing the world or society.” Michael Horton,
December 2011

______________________________

“It is certainly true that America is not a Christian nation and in any case Christians should not seek to promote distinctively Christian doctrines or practices through the properly coercive power of the state.”Michael Horton,
May 2011

Here we have Horton telling us that Christians can 

 

First Horton says that, “Nothing in the 2K view entails that Christians do not, then, pursue their vocation in a ‘distinctively Christian way’ …” and then he turns around and says that, “Christians should not promote distinctively Christian doctrines or practices through the properly coercive power of the state.” 

Of course Horton must be assuming here that it is impossible for Christians to pursue their vocation in a distinctively Christian way if their vocation is law or politics. After all, the vocation of Christian law and Christian politics is all about the attempt to  promote distinctively Christian doctrines and practices (i.e. — the implementation of Legislation) through the properly coercive power of the state.  Legislation, when properly passed, is never ever anything except the promotion of doctrines and practices through the properly coercive power of the state.  So, is Michael telling us here that there is indeed something in R2K which forbids Christian political activists or legislators from changing the world or society in a Christian direction?

Putting the concern in the paragraph above as succinctly and as pithily as possible we ask, how would a Christian Magistrate pursue his “vocation in a distinctively Christian way” (Horton quote #1) and still “not seek to promote distinctively Christian doctrines or practices through the properly coercive power of the state” (Horton quote #2)?
The second quote from Horton is quite breathtaking and convinces me that Michael is just confused and doesn’t really mean what he is saying. Keep in mind that the properly coercive power of the state is always properly coercive in keeping with some religion. Proper coerciveness is never employed without that coerciveness as being derivative of and a reflection of, some religion. So, given that is true, what is wrong with Christianity changing the world via the properly coercive power of the state? The problem here of course is that Michael continues to think that the state can be neutral or common ( largely synonymous ideas). In Michael’s Libertarian world the state is unbiased and is not to be captured for the usage of anyone or any religion, except for the religion that insists that Christianity has nothing to do with the public square. In Michael’s R2K social order the state is set free from all the gods and so rules as god over all the gods to determine how far their adherents can go in the common square. For Michael it is, in the state we live and move and have our being.

That there is the non-Van Tillian idea of neutrality leaking in his thinking is seen by Michael’s call for Christians not to seek distinctly Christian doctrines. Very well then Mike, if Christians are not to seek distinctly Christian doctrines then what is left for them to seek? Non distinctly Christian doctrines? Distinctly non Christian doctrines? Non distinctly non Christian doctrines? Mike is implicitly giving us the idea that we can have neutrality in our public square. We can have laws that come from nowhere, religiously speaking.

In terms of quote #1 above, keep in mind though, that per R2K and Horton any changing of the world or society that might happen will not and can not make the society more “Christian” since it is not possible for society to be Christian. Societies, cultures and social orders, like horses, whales, and bumblebees can not be Christian. To speak of a Christian society for R2K is a confusion of categories. It is to speak an absurdity.And finally, Horton’s 1st quote just is not true. There is plenty that has been published by R2K chaps that forbids the Church from changing the world or society.

 

The Liar FDR & His Shaping of the World at Tehran

At the Tehran conference FDR, agreed with Churchill, that Stalin should have 15 nations that would serve as a buffer zone against the West. Some of those nations would be  satellite states of the USSR while some of them would be constituted as “Soviet friendly” nation states. This is bad enough but when you compound it with the reasons given by FDR for the war (Atlantic Charter) wherein it was said that the war was being fought for self determination for peoples (a residual hangover from Wilsonian “reasoning” from WW I) the consequence of this turning over to Stalin of millions of people is incredible incredulity at the brazen and outrageous hypocrisy of FDR and his administration. This decision was a decision to be an accomplice to  mass murder.

The Atlantic Charter, which FDR was forever thumping as the reason the USA was fighting WW II, guaranteed, as the ideal goals of the war among other things,

1.) No territorial aggrandizement
2.) No territorial changes made against the wishes of the people
3.) Restoration of self-government to those deprived of it
4.) Global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all
5.) Freedom from fear and want (This one is a real Utopian Hoot)
6.) Abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations.

In the giving of 15 nations and millions of people to the blood thirsty Stalin, FDR violated every one of his putative cherished principles. In doing this FDR proved himself a liar and a mountebank. He is to be despised as a criminal President. 

In these action one can only conclude one of two thing. Either FDR was a Communist himself (goodness knows many of his close advisers were later found out to be) and so desired the ascendancy of Communism or he was even then working to set up a bi-polar Statist global hegemony arrangement (USA vs. USSR) that would satisfy the requirements for citizens all over the globe, to need the Mega-Government States which were the USA and the USSR. In brief, FDR was organizing job security for Government by dividing the world in two.

Celebrate Presidents Day? Memorial Day? Independence Day? I curse those days.

Inspired by reading from

Freedom Betrrayed
Herbert Hoover
Chapters on the Tehran conference