Victor Davis Hanson and host Sami Winc discuss developments in Iran, China, Israel’s military administration of Gaza, Trump’s new census proposal, the history of the atomic bomb missions of 1945, and more.
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11 thoughts on “Israel’s Gaza Decision and Dropping the Big One”
Steven Dunn
Victor,
I wrote you a letter several months ago and no reply – no big deal. I’m sure you’re busy. I was the one that sold the financial crisis of 2008 for the Obama administration but they did not use my tool until it was too late in . I do have you by one generation in terms of original Californians. My five times great grandfather Johann Christian Borchard came down from SF because he missed the gold rush; he had every intent to go to Anaheim to join his German brethren, but he ended up staying in Oxnard farming and bought the first thousand acres from the Camarillo family. I’ve studied Curtis Lemay in depth and particularly the WWII South Pacific war ending. You are correct about him. He is not held in regard like MacArthur, or Patton, but in my opinion, he was immeasurably and more important in winning the wars in both Europe and Japan/South Pacific. It’s an ugly fact and bad choices were the only ones, but he was the key to all of it. He did not want to drop the bomb, yet he was immeasurably more important in winning the wars in both Europe and Japan/South Pacific. His job was almost done. After the war, the Japanese honored him with a golden palm leaf.. They realized that he saved lives.
Steven Patrick Dunn
Jay B.
VDH,
Your segment on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fascinating, as your content always is. I had never heard of Curtis LeMay’s “third option.”
My father was a cryptologist in the Army Air Corps during World War 2 and was stationed on Tinian when the Enola Gay took off. Perhaps he and your father crossed paths and maybe even shared stories over a beer or two.
I make your podcasts my daily edification when I walk.
Thanks for sharing knowledge and brilliant insights!
Jay B.
John the Econ
Totally agree on the WSJ. I’ve been a subscriber for over 40 years and have been questioning that loyalty for some time now, especially considering the premium I still pay to have access to it. (They no longer bother to deliver a print edition since COVID) They don’t miss an opportunity to spin Trump negatively, even when it’s an obvious win for the country. I might as well be reading the NYTs. The WSJ has been on a consistent slide ever since Murdoch took over. I remember when they started sending out that glossy weekend fashion magazine seemingly for uber-wealthy trust fund hipsters, which just went straight to the trash bin and only amplified the disconnect that must have been happening at the editorial offices. Media-wise, I feel very homeless these days.
thebaron@enter.net
As far as artificial intelligence goes, remember that it is a program, an application. Much more sophisticated that previous generations of applications, but still, someone wrote the original code.
My experience in 20 years as a quality assurance analyst, writing and executing tests of applications to ensure the best code goes out the door, is that any program is only as good as:
• the business analyst/product owner who creates the requirements (formerly called specifications)
• the developers who write the code, and
• the testers who test the code
If you have an organization that skimps on any of those three inputs, but especially who shorts quality assurance, you will have bugs, unexpected behavior in your application.
And then, how the organization handles those bugs shows more about the character of the organization and its leadership than anything else.
And where our society is today, too many organizations fail to maintain a high standard, as various points in this process.
So don’t be surprised.
thebaron@enter.net
“I wish people would people would just take 10 minutes to review…”
I do, too, Victor, but it is a vain wish.
What we see, in these foolish arguments about using the atomic bombs, is the effect of 70 years of increasing progressive influence, ever-increasing control, of our education system and media.
Till we can defeat progressivism and wrest control of education back from these Statists, these Jacobins, and re-establish teaching classic American political and civic thought, these foolish arguments will persist like weeds in our garden. They must be uprooted altogether, and that is a job for generations to come.
thebaron@enter.net
Two good books to read on this subject:
“Enola Gay” by Max M Witts and Gordon Thomas. This follows the story from the Manhattan Project, through the establishment of the 509th Composite Squadron, to the atomic missions.
“In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors” by Doug Stanton. Not to take away from Quint’s monologue, which is a moving scene in “Jaws”, but to read the actual details is just as moving, and tragic.
Charles Carroll
Vis-a-vis the morality of dropping “the Big One”, it is instructive to listen to Minoru Genda, the officer who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and who was born in Hiroshima:
Copy the above URL into a blank Word page. Add one space to make it turn blue as a live URL.
General Genda’s remark got an ovation at the Naval Academy but he was whisked out of the U.S. three days later; never to return.
About the Bay of Pigs: It was an Eisenhower plan but I have read that McGeorge Bundy, the academic who knew nothing about tactics, overrode Arleigh Burke and the Joint Chiefs by eliminating two of the three bombing targets and reducing the number of sorties on the remaining one target.
Adrienne Wasserman
And what choice does Israel have besides wiping out Hammas leadership and replacing them with someone whose whole raison d’etre is not the extermination of Jews? Repeat this war every few years?
ben
would like the text of this podcast
Alan Morrison
Firstly thank you Victor for doing what you do. You always bring a rational approach to topics including discussion of alternative points of view.
Another consideration which you may have already discussed about the invasion of Japan in 1945 is the actions of the Soviet Union. There are many estimates of the ~ 1 million US & Allies casualties and the possible tens of of millions of Japanese civilian casualties during the months that it would take to subdue Japan but during those months the Soviet Union whose armies were moving across China could have participated in the invasion of Japan by coming in from the north. That could have resulted in a situation similar to East and West Germany namely North and South Japan as it did in Korea. So it could be argued that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki save millions of American, American Allies, and Japanese lives and also saved the nation of Japan from becoming split into a communist North Japan and a democratic South Japan.
SubXO
Victor,
As a Retired Naval Officer trained as a Nuclear Strategic Planner, your discussion of “Dropping the Big One,” is by far the most succinct ‘whole picture’ moral examination of the topic I have experienced. Please contact me, as I think it core to my quest lecture on the ethics of nuclear weapons at one of your prior employers, this fall.
Victor,
I wrote you a letter several months ago and no reply – no big deal. I’m sure you’re busy. I was the one that sold the financial crisis of 2008 for the Obama administration but they did not use my tool until it was too late in . I do have you by one generation in terms of original Californians. My five times great grandfather Johann Christian Borchard came down from SF because he missed the gold rush; he had every intent to go to Anaheim to join his German brethren, but he ended up staying in Oxnard farming and bought the first thousand acres from the Camarillo family. I’ve studied Curtis Lemay in depth and particularly the WWII South Pacific war ending. You are correct about him. He is not held in regard like MacArthur, or Patton, but in my opinion, he was immeasurably and more important in winning the wars in both Europe and Japan/South Pacific. It’s an ugly fact and bad choices were the only ones, but he was the key to all of it. He did not want to drop the bomb, yet he was immeasurably more important in winning the wars in both Europe and Japan/South Pacific. His job was almost done. After the war, the Japanese honored him with a golden palm leaf.. They realized that he saved lives.
Steven Patrick Dunn
VDH,
Your segment on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fascinating, as your content always is. I had never heard of Curtis LeMay’s “third option.”
My father was a cryptologist in the Army Air Corps during World War 2 and was stationed on Tinian when the Enola Gay took off. Perhaps he and your father crossed paths and maybe even shared stories over a beer or two.
I make your podcasts my daily edification when I walk.
Thanks for sharing knowledge and brilliant insights!
Jay B.
Totally agree on the WSJ. I’ve been a subscriber for over 40 years and have been questioning that loyalty for some time now, especially considering the premium I still pay to have access to it. (They no longer bother to deliver a print edition since COVID) They don’t miss an opportunity to spin Trump negatively, even when it’s an obvious win for the country. I might as well be reading the NYTs. The WSJ has been on a consistent slide ever since Murdoch took over. I remember when they started sending out that glossy weekend fashion magazine seemingly for uber-wealthy trust fund hipsters, which just went straight to the trash bin and only amplified the disconnect that must have been happening at the editorial offices. Media-wise, I feel very homeless these days.
As far as artificial intelligence goes, remember that it is a program, an application. Much more sophisticated that previous generations of applications, but still, someone wrote the original code.
My experience in 20 years as a quality assurance analyst, writing and executing tests of applications to ensure the best code goes out the door, is that any program is only as good as:
• the business analyst/product owner who creates the requirements (formerly called specifications)
• the developers who write the code, and
• the testers who test the code
If you have an organization that skimps on any of those three inputs, but especially who shorts quality assurance, you will have bugs, unexpected behavior in your application.
And then, how the organization handles those bugs shows more about the character of the organization and its leadership than anything else.
And where our society is today, too many organizations fail to maintain a high standard, as various points in this process.
So don’t be surprised.
“I wish people would people would just take 10 minutes to review…”
I do, too, Victor, but it is a vain wish.
What we see, in these foolish arguments about using the atomic bombs, is the effect of 70 years of increasing progressive influence, ever-increasing control, of our education system and media.
Till we can defeat progressivism and wrest control of education back from these Statists, these Jacobins, and re-establish teaching classic American political and civic thought, these foolish arguments will persist like weeds in our garden. They must be uprooted altogether, and that is a job for generations to come.
Two good books to read on this subject:
“Enola Gay” by Max M Witts and Gordon Thomas. This follows the story from the Manhattan Project, through the establishment of the 509th Composite Squadron, to the atomic missions.
“In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors” by Doug Stanton. Not to take away from Quint’s monologue, which is a moving scene in “Jaws”, but to read the actual details is just as moving, and tragic.
Vis-a-vis the morality of dropping “the Big One”, it is instructive to listen to Minoru Genda, the officer who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and who was born in Hiroshima:
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVACIU6D4V0H4KCO4GEBB2DNI9S0-UNITED-STATES-JAPANESE-GENERAL-MINORU-GENDA-WHO-PLANNED-PEARL
Copy the above URL into a blank Word page. Add one space to make it turn blue as a live URL.
General Genda’s remark got an ovation at the Naval Academy but he was whisked out of the U.S. three days later; never to return.
About the Bay of Pigs: It was an Eisenhower plan but I have read that McGeorge Bundy, the academic who knew nothing about tactics, overrode Arleigh Burke and the Joint Chiefs by eliminating two of the three bombing targets and reducing the number of sorties on the remaining one target.
And what choice does Israel have besides wiping out Hammas leadership and replacing them with someone whose whole raison d’etre is not the extermination of Jews? Repeat this war every few years?
would like the text of this podcast
Firstly thank you Victor for doing what you do. You always bring a rational approach to topics including discussion of alternative points of view.
Another consideration which you may have already discussed about the invasion of Japan in 1945 is the actions of the Soviet Union. There are many estimates of the ~ 1 million US & Allies casualties and the possible tens of of millions of Japanese civilian casualties during the months that it would take to subdue Japan but during those months the Soviet Union whose armies were moving across China could have participated in the invasion of Japan by coming in from the north. That could have resulted in a situation similar to East and West Germany namely North and South Japan as it did in Korea. So it could be argued that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki save millions of American, American Allies, and Japanese lives and also saved the nation of Japan from becoming split into a communist North Japan and a democratic South Japan.
Victor,
As a Retired Naval Officer trained as a Nuclear Strategic Planner, your discussion of “Dropping the Big One,” is by far the most succinct ‘whole picture’ moral examination of the topic I have experienced. Please contact me, as I think it core to my quest lecture on the ethics of nuclear weapons at one of your prior employers, this fall.