Flattop,

It sounds as though you would like to change the human heart so that revenge is no longer wired-in as a reaction to loss and attack on home, family, and person. That would be nice, wouldn't it? I mean, if we could truly and universally just turn the other cheek, at least until we ran out of them.

But it has nothappened, for one thing. and under current conditions it would be a foolish philosophy to be willing toi absorb unlimited attacks without retribution. And for a third, we ARe wired up to get angry, even to the point of destructive rage, in the face of attack, loss and pain.

I expect the way the Japanese felt about being bombed was pretty similar to the way the sailors of Pearl harbor or those who died marching through jungles and building railroads for the Japanese as prisoners of war, or being raped in their own hospitals and convents felt -- outraged, harmed, terrified, hurt, humiliated.

War sucks, and this is one of the reasons.

But at the moment, war is and those who will not see it plainly will find it invading their lives anyway, no matter what they call it.

So get real.

I only wish we could see the name of the enemy. It is hard to plan surgical strikes -- which the bombing of the Japanese was NOT, BTW -- when you don't have a goddamned target.

Cowardly rotten conniving slimy sonsabitches, whoever they were, whatever their nation. I spit.

A