Hiroshima and Benghazi

On the way to work, I was listening to my cd of Todd Rundgren and his band Utopia in Japan 1992.  I love the talent and musicianship, but like a lot of songwriters of that generation, we part company on his political ideas.  One song in particular garnered my wrath yesterday.  It is called Hiroshima, and in it Todd posits that the A-bombs were used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because we wanted to teach "the Yellow man" a lesson he would never forget. That we should be ashamed of what we did there. Sound familiar?

I had two reactions to this.  First one, I'd like to take Todd by his scruffy hair to Nanking in 1937.  David Bergamini wrote a book called Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (whose main point was to debunk the myth that Hirohito was an innocent captive of his military during the period) in 1971.  Within this book he gives a vivid account of the Rape of Nanking.  After conquering this city, the Japanese Army sealed it off and began a systematic murdering of the men and raping of the women.  For three days, soldiers at the "command" of their general raped girls as young as 18 months and as old as in their 80's- many so repeatedly that they died during the attacks.  This was neither the work of human beings, nor of brute beasts. It was the work of absolute evil, and was expressed in similar and other ways across China, the Phillipines, Burma.

Second reaction was, I'd like to take him by his scruffy hair to Japan, summer 1946 in a world where the bomb was never dropped.  They weren't going to surrender.  We knew how the fight would turn out from the way it was fought at Tarawa, at Iwo Jima, at Okinawa.  Highball numbers on the casualties in the two cities bombed were under 250,000.  Estimates of the casualties of an invasion of Japan were in the millions JUST FOR OUR SOLDIERS.  Harry Truman did Japan an undeserved kindness by dropping the two bombs.  Japan would have likely lost those people and millions more just from starvation if he hadn't.  So, my advise to Todd is what it is to a lot of liberals-grow up, and LEARN what you are talking about.  Your pronouncements sound pretty and make you look good on paper, but in the cold light of day just point out how much more miserable a world it would have been with you in charge.

So, I flipped the radio on, and listened to Casey Hendrickson on WOWO.  Casey has been a Godsend to WOWO, with more intelligence in his little finger than the departed (for Pittsburgh, I'm told) Gregg Henson had in his whole misanthropic body.  Casey was discussing the Benghazi killing again, this time in light of that new information that the Obama administration (who had "no hard intelligence on terror attacks in the region") ignored the fact that the British ambassador had not one but TWO attempts on his life in the weeks leading up to the 9/11 attack.  And ignored REPEATED warnings from the American head of security in Benghazi that the country wasn't safe, and the Libyan government wasn't strong enough to handle it.  He listed over 200 incidents- murders, bombings, you know, all those things the loveable Muslim extremists enjoy doing- but his requests for tighter security and more manpower didn't get denied- they didn't get responded to!

Now, I can see three ways that the administration can allow something like this to go on.  One, the administration is actually that stupid.  I personally think that Obama's avoiding his national security briefings for a week leading up to the attack was his way of setting up this alibi.  That and preaching to the world for three weeks that it was a Youtube video that caused all this, when video existed that there was NO ONE on the streets of Benghazi AT ALL in the hour before the attack.

Two, the administration allowed this to rid themselves of an ambassador they wanted eliminated.  Since nothing in the way of this has come out yet, I assume it wasn't the case, but you never know.

Three, and the most plausible to me, How many comedy sketches have we seen where the White House in nothing but the spin-doctor capital of the universe, and the president makes all his decisions based on the poll numbers of the day?  SNL used to do them on Reagan, for pete's sake.  Well, now we don't need SNL to see it- we have a President whose every move is based on what needs to be spun that day.  We must show we trust the Libyans, they are our friends.  Otherwise, we were just arming our enemies.  We must show the Arabs we can "get tough" with Israel, because it is much easier to shit on a friend than conquer an enemy.  And because of his spinning, worrying over his Q numbers instead of reality, good men are dead.

So, once again a reminder when you vote.  Is the alleged "attack on woman's rights" a good reason to ignore the death of an American ambassador?  Is "free health care" worth the extermination of an ally?  Is a free "Obamaphone" (which BTW FoxNews exposed that $10 from every phone goes to a company that bankrolls drug cartels) worth border agents getting murdered by guns the ATF gave them?  Is it worth a UN ambassador lying to the entire world to cover the President's ass? Is it worth the Attorney General lying to congress to keep scandal away from its White House source?  WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN?  And how many people have to die before that "free" Obamaphone doesn't look like such a good deal?  Ask yourself now, because on November 7th, it will be too late to look at the consequences.