Jon Stewart had on his program Cliff May, president of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, last week. Stewart did a by-the-book job bringing up most of the anti-“torture” talking points; and May did an even better bang up job with “pro”-torture arguments (Cliff May is anti-torture the way Cheney and Condi are).
The man who wants to export human rights and also torture prisoners in the US tangled with Jon Stewart last night. Their conversation went far beyond the edited show, and you can watch the video of it here. I should repeat that I long admired Cliff’s defense of American and Western values and find his current position – that America should retain the right to torture with the same techniques as the Khmer Rouge and the Gestapo – as demoralizing as it is abhorrent.
Stewart’s liberalism is encapsulated in his views on the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and thinking Harry S Truman should have been tried as a war criminal.
Bill Whittle takes Jon Stewart through a history lesson you’ll not want to miss.
After viewing it, please realize:
Who is Jon Stewart? Jon is a self-deprecating 43-year-old New York native who grew up in New Jersey. Dad was a physicist and mom a teacher, so education was valued in his childhood home.
More like “liberal indoctrination was valued in his childhood home.”
Also blogging:
wizbang
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
can seem to find the video on Whittle….it says “stream not found”
Try refreshing your browser. I got that on two occasions, as well.
It’s an excellent smackdown!
Found it!!!! I will share with friends.
Lets not forget that the US was also stockpiling chemical weapons for the use of Operation Olympic. It would had killed countless Japanese civilians.
Tim, my heart bleeds for them…not at all. Bad things happen in war. AFAIC, the lives of my countrymen are worth more than theirs.
Oh BTW, there was a Japanese civilian army pledged to fight to the death for the emperor. They wanted to fight, they die. That’s called the reality of war and all the narcissistic, phony moralizing doesn’t change that.
I’ve met and dined with General Tibbets on a few occasions. His story about meeting the leader of the attack on Pearl Harbor is spellbinding. The fact that the bombs saved not only countless millions of Japanese as well as hundreds-of-thousands of Americans was absolutely confirmed at those meetings. Every man, woman and child had vowed to fight to the death against the American invaders. The bombs finally gave the Emperor a way out of the war while “saving face”.
Tim, you must realize that you are sitting in the comfort of your chair, surrounded by the highest technological crap available today, and trying to devise an artificial “moral equivalency” test on a time over 60 years ago. I was alive then…living with coupons to buy white lard to be blended with a small amount of yellow food coloring to make it look like butter. With gas rationing which meant we could only drive to work and back…no long Spring Break vacations for us! Every bit of nylon was given to the war effort. The entire airplane manufacturing plant in Southern California was covered over to hide it from possible air attack. (Yes we rounded up the Japanese…but we have since atoned for that. And there are still many of my generation who feel we shouldn’t have done that.)
Don’t sit there and try to tell me what was wrong with what we were doing then. You haven’t walked in my shoes…I’m also a Vietnam Vet…and I resent you trying to make me feel guilty for us defeating the Japanese Empire who attacked our country.
You probably don’t want us to defeat the enemy which attacked our Country on 9/11 either. I’m fed up with your ilk.
Tim,
Japan = Mega War Criminals 1933-45 – quite possibly the whole nation.
This has been parsed ad nausea and I don’t care too much to get into a 60 year old debate, but here’s John Bolton on Truman and War Crimes:
Now, he uses this to undermine the legitimacy of the International Criminal court, but he does concede the fact that international law would likely deem Truman a war criminal. Don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ at all, apparently.
The core of Stewart’s claim (which he apologized for) was that the US should have dropped a demonstration bomb first, that such an act would have been enough to force Japan to surrender as they were near ready at the time anyway. I’ve heard the exact same argument from far left friends, and would LOVE to know where the idea originates! It’s a good idea-one I like, and one the people who designed the bombs advocated as well. Unfortunately for Stewart, history/hindsight is 20-20, and we know with absolute certainty that dropping a demonstration bomb wouldn’t have shocked Japan into surrendering. We know this because they didn’t surrender after Hiroshima; they weren’t shocked into surrendering. It took Nagasaki and the Russian entry into the war to force a surrender.
Tim, your point about stockpiling gas is useless. It wasn’t used, so it’s like complaining about claims of torture in Gitmo because they had rooms w air conditioners at the Caribbean prison, and those rooms could have been used to make the detainees uncomfortably cold.
Col., thank you for your service, and I would LOVE to have met Col Tibbets to hear those stories!!!!!!!!!
This was a very good video and a clear look at history. As for Jon Stewart, I haven’t watched him in a very long time. He is a comedian, and not a very funny one.
Scott,
Not only this, but we all have the luxury (even Stewart brings it up in his Cliff May interview- but with a positive spin) of the distance of history. Things Thomas Sowell has pointed out in relation to another topic:
This isn’t to say we can’t “judge” the past and shouldn’t learn from it; but in being careful how we proceed to judge and analyze without understanding not only from our perspective but also from within the perspective of those who lived within the times.
I heard about the million leaflets dropped over Hiroshima and 35 other cities; but never the details of the message until the Bill Whittle video.
Is this in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States?
Scott: Thank you for your comment. It means a great deal every time I hear it said. Everyone should continue to thank all those who have served in the past, and especially those who are now serving. I make it a point to go out of my way to walk up to anyone in uniform, ask if they have been to the Iraq theater, and thank them for their service, even if they are straight out of boot camp.
Wordsmith: Thank you for publishing the text and photo of the leaflets which were dropped over Japan. It’s a bit of history which, unfortunately, is not publicized when discussing our dropping the bombs on Japan.
I remember the fuss that was raised in 1994 when an Enola Gay display was going to be opened in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. The powers that be at that time wanted an “apologetic” type display which relegated the true feelings and events at the time to a very small portion of the space. They were to display “burnt remains of a schoolchild’s meal, a melted rosary, a clock that stopped at the time of the bombing” and other photos of the Hiroshima horror.
John T. Carrell, Editor in Chief of the Air Force Magazine wrote numerous articles regarding the display and The Air Force Association, among others, worked diligently to prevent that sort of display to be approved. More than 30,000 letters from all over the country poured into Smithsonian in opposition to the display, and patrons and subscribers quit the association “in droves”. (See: “The Activists and the Enola Gay, Air Force Magazine, Sepbember 1995)
The final display was one which even General Tibbets said he was proud to visit. It is good to know that there are those who continually guard our freedom, our history and our legacies.
BTW: The code word for the program given to General Tibbets was “Silverplate”, and if he ran into any difficulties getting what he needed, he was to run his request, “through the office of Henry (Hap) Arnold, commanding general of the AAF…who had passed the magic name down thorugh the Air Staff with the strictest instructions…that any request was to be honored immediately!
Wow..pretty impressive
@Colonel KC:
Colonel,
Come on in and take a seat.
We’ve got coffee and warm brownies fresh from the oven right over there and we’d be honored to have you stay awhile.
Flopping Aces is fortunate to have other former and current members of the US military here and their contributions make this site a great place to be a part of.
When it comes to appreciating our military, you are absolutely correct. There is nothing I like better than going up to a soldier in uniform, looking him/her in the eye, shaking their hand and saying “Thank You”. I am proud to say that I’ve even got my 18 year old and 12 year old in that habit now too.
“Thank You” is never enough but it’s all this fellow and his family from Georgia can offer you from a distance.
Colonel KC, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m just an ex-Air Force puke…but the estimated loss of American life for a landing party invasion was………1 million? I’m relatively sure that’s what I was taught during the NCO Academy.
1 million American military personnel or a few bombs? Tough call. Unless your son was on one of those LST’s.
Aqua: I don’t know what you were taught at the NCO Academy, but I’m sure it was thoughtful and for the most part correct. As to actual numbers, I believe the number 1 million was used in the Bill Whittle video cited above. I think it has also been mentioned in other media outlets. I wouldn’t want to argue with it.
Aye Chihuahua: Muchas Gracias. I love a good cup of coffee and a stimulating conversation. Oh, and you can always pass the brownies my way! Again, thank you for your comments. Much appreciated. You are doing a wonderful job raising those youngsters of yours.
Vaya Con Dios!
Hey Wordsmith, check out John Stewart’s apology:
“The other night we had on Cliff May. He was on, we were discussing torture, back and forth, very spirited discussion, very enjoyable. And I may have mentioned during the discussion we were having that Harry Truman was a war criminal. And right after saying it, I thought to myself that was dumb. And it was dumb. Stupid in fact. So I shouldn’t have said that, and I did. So I say right now, no, I don’t believe that to be the case. The atomic bomb, a very complicated decision in the context of a horrific war, and I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say. Which, by the way, as it was coming out of your mouth, you ever do that, where you’re saying something, and as it’s coming out you’re like, ‘What the f**k, nyah?’ And it just sat in there for a couple of days, just sitting going, ‘No, no, he wasn’t, and you should really say that out loud on the show.’ So I am, right now, and, man, ew. Sorry. And, Warren G. Harding was a [bleeped, unintelligible].”
Apparently he reads this site LOL!
Ron
Yeah, Bill O’Reilly had the video of that “apology” on last night. Gave him the benefit of the doubt and said OK. Reading it above doesn’t do a whole lot for me; but, for him I guess it’s about as much as one could expect. (I can’t believe the statistics that have been reported showing how many people cite Stewart and Colbert as their prime source of getting the news! I guess it’s true: our school systems have been hijacked by a bunch of liberals who do not want educated people growing up and threatening their positions of power.)
BTW: I had the time last night to review the bio’s of the “authors” on this site, and I am almost embarrassed to think that I have had the temerity to write any comments here. The level of knowledge and experience of those listed above is impressive as hell, and I salute each of you, say “Welcome Home, Brother” to you and thank you all for your service to our country.
This blog is extremely impressive…I shall continue to lurk, and perhaps summon up the courage to once again try and type something which may prove of interest to one or two of you.
Regards!