As President, FDR oversaw the most extensive bombing of civilian

[Ptarmigan]

As President, FDR oversaw the most extensive bombing of civilian
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3956062

The DUmmies are talking about how Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt bombed civilians during World War II. It is called war. I cannot believe DUmmies would talk about Roosevelt. Quite a campfire.

MineralMan (58,645 posts)

As President, FDR oversaw the most extensive bombing of civilian [View all]

Last edited Thu Oct 31, 2013, 03:11 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
 targets ever. WWII included strategic bombing not only of industrial and military targets but also of the major cities of Germany and Japan. The death toll was enormous. He died in April of 1945, but also oversaw and ordered the development of the nuclear weapons that were used in Japan to end the war in the Pacific. Those bombings were planned before his death, which came less than four months before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Planning was already in place for those events.

While Harry Truman gave the actual orders for those nuclear weapons to be used, it is certain that FDR would have given the same orders. He believed in strategic bombing of civilian populations as a means of creating panic and destroying civilian morale and thus ending support for the enemy's war efforts.

In terms of economics, FDR did some amazing, progressive things, but when it came to making war, he was not any sort of pacifist. Since there are so few people left who were adults during FDR's presidency, our memories of that time only come from contemporary writings. It doesn't take much research to confirm what I have written above. It's important to keep history in some sort of accurate perspective.

I don't remember FDR. I was born less than 10 days before the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. My parent, however, were around then, and their memories are intact and strong. My father was a B-17 bomber pilot in WWII, and participated in some of those bombings in Germany. The reality is that we did those things, and that FDR was President when we did.

Cali_Democrat (17,799 posts)
1. Also, the internment of Japanese-Americans was awful and incredibly racist


Last edited Thu Oct 31, 2013, 03:13 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
Americans of German and Italian decent weren't detained in nearly the same numbers.

It was under FDR again. Earl Warren advocated interning Japanese, while J. Edgar Hoover was opposed to it.

Earl Warren, Japanese American internment
http://www.fofweb.com/History/HistRefMain.asp?iPin=EJA566&SID=2&DatabaseName=American+History+Online&InputText=%22Earl+Warren+Japanese+American+internment+and%22&SearchStyle=&dTitle=Earl+Warren%2C+Japanese+American+internment+and&TabRecordType=All+Records&BioCountPass=0&SubCountPass=1&DocCountPass=0&ImgCountPass=0&MapCountPass=0&FedCountPass=&MedCountPass=0&NewsCountPass=0&RecPosition=1&AmericanData=Set&WomenData=&AFHCData=&IndianData=&WorldData=&AncientData=&GovernmentData=

Japanese-American Internment During World War II
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-ii.htm

geek tragedy (32,887 posts)
6. No, but Zombie FDR gets held up as some kind of superhero who would have

solved all the problems we're facing today just by being FDR.

Ironically, a lot of the people who say this think Obama is the worst thing ever on civil liberties and because of drones.

kratos00 (84 posts)
98. I see that your critique of FDR has left out

why he oversaw these bombing campaigns. Have you forgotten what the Nazis did in Europe beginning with starting the war itself and including killing millions in Eastern Europe and Russia in addition to the 6 million Jews he exterminated as if they were nothing more than insects. What options were open to FDR to stop these acts? Harsh words? Lets turn to Imperial Japan, again guilty of starting the war in the Pacific, attacking us at Pearl Harbor without warning and guilty of millions of deaths in China and Korea not to mention the myriad atrocities they committed on the civilian populations they enslaved. Criticizing FDR as a warmonger while ignoring that not only was this war forced on us but the consequences to humanity that would have been wrought by not stopping Hitler and Hirohito is both short sighted and naive.

[GOBUCKS]

The DUmmy fails to mention that the internment of the Japanese, the saturation bombing of Germany, and the use of atomic bombs on Japan had very near 100% support from the American public at the time.

There was no number of enemy lives that were worth the loss of even one additional American, and that policy should be used in any conflict.

It's easy and wrong to apply a moonbat perspective to the real world 60-70 years ago.

[98ZJUSMC]

In terms of economics, FDR did some amazing, progressive things

Like turning a serious recession into the Great Depression.  Huzzah!!  As far as the rest of his little spiel,  a person knowledgeable of history, he is not.  The bombing of civilian centers was a British retaliation for, essentially, a German mistake that became warfighting strategy by Air Marshal Harris.    

kratos00 (84 posts)
98. I see that your critique of FDR has left out

why he oversaw these bombing campaigns. Have you forgotten what the Nazis did in Europe beginning with starting the war itself and including killing millions in Eastern Europe and Russia in addition to the 6 million Jews he exterminated as if they were nothing more than insects. What options were open to FDR to stop these acts? Harsh words? Lets turn to Imperial Japan, again guilty of starting the war in the Pacific, attacking us at Pearl Harbor without warning and guilty of millions of deaths in China and Korea not to mention the myriad atrocities they committed on the civilian populations they enslaved. Criticizing FDR as a warmonger while ignoring that not only was this war forced on us but the consequences to humanity that would have been wrought by not stopping Hitler and Hirohito is both short sighted and naive.

Hmmmmm......OK, whose mole? 

[Freeper]

The DUmmy fails to mention that the internment of the Japanese, the saturation bombing of Germany, and the use of atomic bombs on Japan had very near 100% support from the American public at the time.

There was no number of enemy lives that were worth the loss of even one additional American, and that policy should be used in any conflict.

It's easy and wrong to apply a moonbat perspective to the real world 60-70 years ago.

I have no problem with dropping the bomb, but putting people in camps just because of where they immigrated from was a horrible thing. It was shameful when we did it to the Germans in WW1 and it was shameful when we did it to the Japanese in WW2.

[Delmar]

Response to Rex (Reply #4)Thu Oct 31, 2013, 03:39 PM
Poddy Fries (43 posts)
25. Had he implented pacificist policies following Dec. 7th, 1941, he would have been impeached.
 
And rightly so.

Poddy Fries still lives!  I thought the big weeping tub of guts drove a stake through his heart.

[GOBUCKS]

I have no problem with dropping the bomb, but putting people in camps just because of where they immigrated from was a horrible thing. It was shameful when we did it to the Germans in WW1 and it was shameful when we did it to the Japanese in WW2.

Well, opposition to internment was tiny, and it was approved by the Supreme Court, including liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas. It is shameful only in retrospect, many decades later.

If today's version of morality had been applied in the past, we'd still be overrun by savage Indians and America could not exist.

[Ptarmigan]

I have no problem with dropping the bomb, but putting people in camps just because of where they immigrated from was a horrible thing. It was shameful when we did it to the Germans in WW1 and it was shameful when we did it to the Japanese in WW2.

Some people think Japanese internment is a socialist plot to redistribute land.

[Zathras]

If the DUmbasses were alive during the 30's they would've been members in good standing in the German American Bund.