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From: parnass@ihuxf.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: flame on America
Message-ID: <1710@ihuxf.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Jan-84 16:56:27 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxf.1710
Posted: Tue Jan 17 16:56:27 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jan-84 07:38:51 EST
References: <6418@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 54

x
       In a series of seemingly	random flames maligning	Americans1,
       Sophie Quigley asserts:

	     "Another fact showing how self-centered americans	are
	    is the furor and controversy that surrounded this whole
	    TDA	story."


       Don't judge my character, nor that of my	fellow	countrymen,
       by the presentation of this or any other	television show.

       She continues:

	     "... Another thing	which I	find  interesting  is  that
	    there  hasn't  really  been	a sense	of guilt in America
	    about either the bombings  of  Hiroshima  or  Nagasaki,
	    like there has been	in West	Germany	about the holocaust
	    ....."

       You are confused.  The United States was	at war with  Japan.
       The Germans2 were systematically	murdering innocent  civili-
       ans,  in	an attempt to completely annihilate a people.  Most
       of my grandfather's family (mother, father,  brother,  etc.)
       were murdered in	an extermination camp during the holocaust,
       how about yours?

	     "Now  Hiroshima  can  be  defended	 intellectually	 by
	    jugling [sic] numbers judiciously ......"


       Rather than trying to appeal  to	 your  intellect,  I  shall
       present a simple	argument:  It was "them	or us."

       My father was in	the U.S. Army force being readied to invade
       Japan,  an  operation  that  would  have	been very costly in
       Allied lives.  If Japan hadn't surrendered, my father  would
       have  likely been a casualty, and I wouldn't be here to edu-
       cate you.



       __________

	1. The word "Americans"	will be	capitalized in this
	   submission, current fads not	withstanding.

	2. We now call them Nazis, so as not to	offend current
	   Germans.


-- 
============================================================================
Robert S. Parnass, AT&T Bell Laboratories, ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass (312)979-5760