General Dwight Eisenhower on learning of the planned bombings: “I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and voiced to [Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’.”
Admiral William Leahy, Truman's Chief of Staff: “The use of this barbarous weapon…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.”
Major General Curtis LeMay, 21st Bomber Command: “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb…The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
General Hap Arnold, US Army Air Forces: “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.” “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”
Ralph Bard, Under Secretary of the Navy: “The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss…In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb.”
Brigadier General Carter Clarke, military intelligence officer who prepared summaries of intercepted cables for Truman: “When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it…we used [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred.”
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Pacific Fleet commander: “The use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”
"When a man sees himself to be completely lost and ruined, covered with the defilement of sin, with no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his own and pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is clean through the blood of Jesus and the grace of God.
"Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity is the true leprosy of the soul; but when sin is seen and felt, it has received its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the afflicted soul. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are “nothing else but sin,” for no confession short of this will be the whole truth; and if the Holy Spirit is at work in us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment—it will spring spontaneously from our lips."
Charles Spurgeon on Leviticus 13:13
Yesterday, February 24, was the projected, anticipated but classified D-Day attack on Iran by American air power. But it did not happen.
One possible reason: A week ago, self-described "jerk" Tucker Carlson had the courage to confront his friend Ambassador Mike Huckabee on definitions of Israel's claims to geographic territory. Huckabee insisted that the Bible gave today's secularized, anti-Biblical Israel all the land currently held, and Palestine, and more: all across those current Arab nations stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Is this accurate Biblical theology? No.
Huckabee so angered the nations of the Islamic world that there will now be none of the necessary alliances President Trump needed to wage war against Shia Iran. Huckabee’s statement caused immediate, unified, diplomatic condemnation from many possible wartime allies, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt.
Thank you, Tucker, for asking theological questions.
In Pete Hegseth’s world, generals and admirals are valued by their weight and muscle tone, not their seriousness in defending the Constitution. Personal loyalty to the president with a Ken or Barbie shine trumps courage, competence, and patriotism every day of the week.
Yet, these guys are not responsible for bad sewage design on an aircraft carrier, F-35s that are only operational 35% of the time, a slow, expensive, discombobulated logistics tail for every major American weapons system, or for US foreign policy founded on the nutty idea that we can borrow our way into permanent global dominance. They perpetuate it because, like their predecessors, they are not interested in how the system works, only in how it can work for them.
Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., USAF, Ret.