On The Media

This segment ignores some basic facts of the time. There were an estimated four million Japanese troops still active in Southeast Asia and China, plus another four million in Japan. We saw firsthand the willingness of even civilians to fight and die for the emperor when they threw themselves from cliffs in Okinawa rather than surrender to us. All the military and civilian experts expected the death toll of US troops in an invasion to at least equal the toll from the entire war! The civilian toll from the house-to-house fighting would be in the millions. Compared to that, 350,000 dead in both bombings, while tragic, was the only way to sway the Japanese into surrender.

It would have helped Goodman to do some real research on the facts of the times instead of using such a myopic view of the facts to slander someone for doing something that helped save more lives than Goodman would ever have the courage to do.

I could hardly have improved on the comments of Robert Hagaman. It would be most interesting to me to wonder what the feelings of those opposing the Bomb would be if THEY had lived through those years and had suffered through Corregidor and other horrible events of the time.

I'm just a little tired of post-war critics of what was to Americans at the time a fully justified final event of the war.

My only criticism of Truman's decisions was that a demonstration of the bomb off the shores of Japan may have at least warned them of the coming events.

AS the Manhattan Project had its shill in the media embodied in the remorseless William L. Laurence, so too does the U.S. occupation of Iraq HAVE ITS SHILL IN NATIONAL "PUBLIC" Radio(oops pardon the caps)

Not once in three years has NPR had a voice critical of Bush's war on principle but merely tactics. Whereare the left wing voices who claim that Bush's war was based on a system of lies or who question the latetst alibi about "bringing democracy to Iraq"?of course with today's interview of David Goodman, OTM proved to be the exception to the rule. otherwise, publicly criticzing the Iraq war on NPR seems equivalent to discussing feces at a cocktail party.

The very first comment above -- Mr. "Hagaman"(?) -- is overstated in our traditional, self-justifying American way. Indeed it was NOT "all" the authorities with the reaction described, especially after the end of the war. And the projected deaths from a U.S. invasion of Japan was by no means the universal horror he projects.

Of course Truman's decision was understandable. He was, after all, no more immune to the urge for self-justificastionthan anyone else. By now, however, we ought to be able to think more clearly.

Similar to post #3 (Dana Franchitto), my response to this segment was pleasant surprise. Goodman's reporting on this issue is grounded in solid historical facts and supporting documents. But he is also an unapologetic critic -- not on tactical grounds, but theoretical -- of current US foreign policy. For this reason I was I was shocked to hear him on NPR, and then I was dismayed that I was shocked. It underscores how "establishment" debate dominates much of NPR.

At least for its part OTM really is committed to airing the full left-right spectrum.

It is amazing that when people hear, but do not listen to a report that is clearly not a rehash of a controversial subject. Hagaman and Thulman reacted to this piece, as I suspect many did, as being an attack on the decision to drop the bombs on Japan. Whether conflicts of interest and suppressing facts should be rewarded or punished was the actual topic of the piece. For journalism to be good, it requires attentive and open minds of readers. Perhaps we should blame the readers of yesterday and today who probably preferred to hear only of patriotism and success, and rarely the doubts and errors of reality.

I guess the atomic bomb was a bad page in the history of the world, and now we have to do everything to forget it. I also think we have to fight for the peace. I know everybady is in the mood for peace.

Many of these commenters seem to have missed the point of the piece. It's not about whether the bomb should have been dropped; it's about journalistic ethics and integrity. I hope the comments aren't representative of how the listening audience as a whole took the piece. Listening to it again, I can understand where the commenters were mislead -- there's a minute about the bomb, setting the scene, before journalism is even mentioned. If people latched onto that first minute, they may not have paid enough attention to body of the story.

Comment [6] (Daniel Bennett) also expresses my sentiment.