An Example of why America May Never Win Another War
Below is a letter to the editor that appeared in the New Hampshire Union Leader on Friday, August 10th:
Selective memory
To the editors: Selctive memory is a wonderful thing and so patriotic.
We remember the Alamo, we remember the Maine, we remember Pearl Harbor,and most of all we remember 9/11.
Yet nobody cares to remember that on Aug. 6, 1945, our nation dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima killing over 100,000 Japanese civilians. And nobody cares to remember that on Aug. 9, 1945, our nation dropped a second atomic bomb, this one on the city of Nagasaki, killing over 70,000 Japanese civilians.
As a Christian nation we are always ready to forget and forgive our trespasses, but we will never forget, nor forgive, those who trespass against us. Makes me so proud to be an American.
That letter is just one example of why America may never win abother war again. Not because we can’t militarily, but because of the mindset of an ever growing amount of the population. It is this same mindset that has prevented us form winning the Iraq war. We could have wiped Iraq of the face of the earth, but we have tried to fight a war that would be more humane, if you can use that word when talking about war, to appease the type of person who wrote the letter above. If America is not willing to fight a war with all of her might we are doomed to failure. al-Qaeda knows this, as does Osama bin Laden, he has even said as much (thank you, BIll Clinton).
Imagine the hate you feel for your country when all you see is negativity for it all the time? Imagine feeling remorse for the enemy of WWII, the enemy that attacked us unprovoked, and not caring about when America was attacked. People like this believe that America deserves what it gets when it gets it, that all of our transgretions along the way lead us into being attacked. It is very sad.
It is this mindset that will be our downfall. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made and you need strong leaders to do so. People like this believe that if we just mind our own buisness our enemies will go away. The world will be full of flowers and candy.
I, for one, do remember Aug. 6th, and Augyst. 9th. 1945, and I say thank you President Truman. Who knows how many American (and Japanese) lives Truman saved in the long run by bringing a swift end to the war?
America's Watchtower 
People like to forget the less than pleasant aspects of just about every par of American history. I think this is why we’re starting to repeat some of the uglier things these days, even though we should have left them behind decades ago. Things like racial inequality and congressional mismanagement of war (Vietnam/Iraq) are rearing their heads all over in one for or another despite the fact we have been through it once already and should have learned a thing or two.
As far as the a-bombs go, so many people are blinded by the horror that they fail to see the benefits. Sure, it wasn’t something to be “proud” of, but when you weigh all the options and nuking two cities is the bets option, just imagine what the other options were! I don’t think Truman dropped the bombs with a big grin on his face. I’m sure it was the hardest decision a man has ever had to make throughout history. After all, what single action in man’s history was responsible for so many deaths in a single moment? Declaring and fighting a war results in death, but dropping a nuke is a whole different ball game. But again, when the options were weighed, Truman took the best route available to him. Like it or not, Americans need to remember that…
Of course, as you point out, it’s not working that way. The best options are not always the most pretty options and so the public protests and complains and drives the US government to make the wrong decisions which result is far worse situations. People wonder why we’re in the situation we’re in over in Iraq, but fail to realize that it’s because they have so severely tied the hands of the military that a bad outcome was inevitable.
I hope some day that people will learn from these sorts of mistakes, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
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What bothers me, is not necessarily that type of opinion. But rather the self-righteous attitude for which that type of opinion is presented.
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Sometimes defending freedom means making very difficult decisions, and this had to be one hardest decisions a president has ever made, but in the long run it was the right one.
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