Japan which defeated in information war

[Kanji]

I worry about a lot of misunderstanding concerning Japan.

Many of Japanese think that our ancestors did bad in World War II.
"Do not repeat this tragedy."
Mayor Hiroshima says so on the day to which the atomic bomb was dropped.
Strangely, they do not insist on the United States crime at all.
A lot of people in the world insist yet as follows.
"The Japanese does not admit the crime which their ancestors committed, and insist only on their damage."

The Japanese from 40 to 60 years old especially regards their own ancestors as the criminal.
Besides, they are insisting that reflection is insufficient for the Japanese.
They have been just brainwashed by the United States.
Material that the United States reeducated the Japanese remains in National Archives in the United States.

I want you to note the word of the person who has the root in Korea or China.
They have received the anti-Japan education.

[Zen Blade]

Well,

Kanji, here in the US it is not explicitly taught in school that the Japanese committed the crimes that Hitler did... (the reasons for this can be debated by ppl if someone wants... I have my own guesses).

However, the fact remains that some of the Japanese commanders and soldiers did commit crimes that would be considered inhumane at best. As you are from Japan, I will assume you know what I am talking about, but you may not. --if you are curious, look up something about Harbin or Nanking and what happened there during WWII.

-also, Japan was the aggressor during WWII. Now, I know that not every person in Japan wanted to go to war, but the country as a whole did go to war against its neighbors.

---But Kanji, don't think that it is completely one-sided... many ppl in the US understand why the Japanese went to war (to one extent or another). And many ppl throughout the world view the droppings of the atomic bombs as a horror all their own. (I don't personally feel that way, but I can respect someone mourning for the lives of countless thousands).

-I hope we can all have a calm and cool-headed discussion about this topic.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil

[solypsist]

Ever visited the concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WW2 out in California?

It's amazing how American history books gloss over that little bit.

[Kanji]

Where did Japan invade?
Who did Japan make surrender at that time?

The United States tried to withdraw Japan from China.
However, the United States did not try to leave from Hawaii and the Philippines.

It is not known well of the occurrence in Nanking.
Even in encyclopedia Britanica, whether the people how many died of the event is not fixed either.
The certain one is that soldiers of the confused Chinese army ran into towns as the commander of a Chinese army escapes.

There is a doubt by which a Japanese army experimented on the human body in China.
However, there is a doubt by which the U.S.Army achieved the result of the experiment, too.

And yet, I feel admiration for there are a lot of people that this forum comparatively has the good sense.

[LinkEmperor]

Hi Kanji

I'm from Norway, so I can't say that Japan
did war crime or admit any crime at all, but the history has thought us that in both side of a war, crime dose happen.

*[Many of Japanese think that our ancestors did bad in World War II.
"Do not repeat this tragedy."
Mayor Hiroshima says so on the day to which the atomic bomb was dropped.
Strangely, they do not insist on the United States crime at all.
A lot of people in the world insist yet as follows.
"The Japanese does not admit the crime which their ancestors committed, and insist only on their damage."]*

And to this I can say that, this is that the Japanes is ashamed of what they did,, and admit WWII was wrong, and they are so (nice/good*sorry bad english) that they don't say that US did anything wrong, even when the world know at the drop of atomic bomb was the biggest mistake (crime)
Not many in the westen country would say that, if someone at all.
I admier The ppl of The Rising Sun.

Even today ppl are doing human Experiment,
this is the dark side of human, to learn and dosen't caer how or who they are doing it to.

Don't forget the history, or it will be repated.

LinkEmperor


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The members of the chain clan will unite all of the land.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

The American occupation of Japan has likely affected the average person's perception of the Pacific War a great deal. And I really mean "the average person's", as in *anywhere*.

I don't claim to have any divinely inspired info on what war crimes the Japanese exactly did commit and what they did not. But I think it's more than likely that the American occupational government's research on the matter, and the verdicts rendered based on it, is biased. That is to say: it's more than likely (certain) that the Japanese committed war crimes during WW2, but it's also more than likely (certain) that they didn't really do everything they've been accused of by the Americans.

Kanji does have a point: both the Western Allied and the Soviet occupiers did a very good job after WW2 in rooting one thought firmly to the occupied peoples' minds: they were wrong. They lost, and committed crimes, and therefore they should be ashamed of their history.

This is especially visible in the German mindset, even nowadays. Those people (the ones I've met/heard of, at least) are really very hysterical about their past - as if the fact that some of their ancestors were criminal made them too criminal, as if it were a taint upon their nation and them personally. (If anyone still remembers it, I cite the Wolfenstein 3D incident as an example.)

Yes, people, it's the good old "the winners write the history books" phenomenon. I think it would clear up a lot of misunderstandings and grudges if the people, thus mind-washed, were made to see that the occupiers can be wrong, and were wrong, just the same. It doesn't make their ancestors less criminal, if they actually were that, but it erases the guilt of the nation that makes them feel inferior to others. That kind of mentality has never done anyone any good - especially not the Germans, who nowadays have Neo-Nazist movements. It is my theory that they really are just another form of feeling national guilt, or, rather, rebelling against it. If those people had a healthy relationship with their history, those movements wouldn't be so strong, if they existed at all. No revisionism is required if the truth is brought out in the first place.

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"A bushi who has mastered the jutsu but knows nothing of the do is like a priest who preaches one thing and does another."
- Shimmen Miyamoto Musashi

[Ai-jin]

The dropping of the atomic bomb was a big mistake?
I have to disagree with that to a certain point. The reason why the US dropped the bomb.. was to save thousands of us soldiers lives. If the US would of invaded Japan, surely it would of costed thousands of US military lives to achive and thousands of japanese lives to defend.
Yes the dropping of the bomb was a catastrophe to the people of Japan. But IMO the US either had to do this, or send thousands of troops to there death. Try to explain that to all the families that would of lost there sons, fathers and husbands.

It was a very tough decission and I surely am glad I didn't have to make it.

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Clan "No Fear At All"
"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

[This message has been edited by Ai-jin (edited 11-21-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ai-jin (edited 11-21-2000).]

[ShaiHulud]

It's difficult to respond to this thread when such questions as, "Where did Japan invade?" are asked. The Phillipines? China? Korea? Read the history! If you're going to make an argument it would serve you well to ascertain the facts. Failing that you'll just spout knee-jerk responses about moral equivalence.
Regarding the bomb...Japan vowed that 60 million would die as one. Project Olympic anticipated one million AMERICAN casualties alone to take the Home islands.
Get the facts, THEN argue....

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Tachikaze]

The blame Japanese has received is also compounded by differences of culture. Japan is a Confucian, Buddhist, Shintoist society being judged by Judeo-Christian, humanist, individualist societies. Notions of community, death, honor, fairness, honesty, the relative importance of the self vs. one's society, natural law, etc. are very different. Westerners will judge Japan based on Western ethics, morality, and laws.

I am personally a pacifist (then why am I playing this game?), so I believe the whole war was a crime. To me, World War Two was a violent outbreak that was merely a continuation of historical events caused by greed, hate, fear, etc. It is one of an unbroken series of events including the Spanish Civil War, the Depression, World War One, European imperialism, scientific racism, etc. on back through history. We are all paying the price for breaking our own ethical/moral codes.

Before I go too far, the crimes committed by Japan in the 1940s, 1930s, 1890s, etc. are no worse than the US's destruction of the North American cultures, Belgium enslaving the Congolese, on and on. Westerners were the models for modern imperialism, genocide, and international warfare. Japan did nothing they didn't do.

Western critics may be correct, but they are hypocritical when they condemn Japan.

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[Ai-jin]

I wasnt arguing...
I was just giving a representation of my opinions of what I have been taught. So I didnt have the exact numbers... big deal, it still served its purpose on what I wanted to express.

Thank you.

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Clan "No Fear At All"
"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

[Obake]

Easy Shai..........

There are atrocities enough for everyone to share as a result of WW2, whether it be the concentration camps of the Germans, the US internment of citizens of Japanese decendants, or the Japanese rape of Nanking, or the Allied decision to firebomb Dresden.

War has never been for the faint of heart and the old notions of Chivalry were thrown out the window in WW2. I will not argue who was right and who was wrong. History is written by the victor and hindsight is 20/20.

Who's history books are to be read, those that claim Japan was an agressor state, or those that say Japan was liberating the Orient from Western influence (a mind-set that is still predominant today I might add)

Based on my studies, Japan in the 1930's was undergoing the same sense of "manifest destiny" that the US operated under during the 19th and early 20th Century. The only difference was that while the US only had to deal with Native Americans, Mexicans and the remains of the Spanish Empire; the Japanese had to face the might of the most powerful nation on the planet at that time (whether we knew it or not).

Which brings me to my point, if we all took the time to see things from the other perspective rather than just our own, we'd all be in a lot better shape and many of the problems we have gone through could have been avoided.

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Obake

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

[The Black Ship]

Well Obake I'm not so sure the peoples of Korean, Taiwan, Sakhalin, Manchuria, China, Burma, Phillipines .... would really be all that interested in understanding Japan's desire for Leibenstraum (sp?), or it's right to Asian hegemony. Notice I left out the Indonesian archipelago (under Sukharno)and Thailand, they at least displayed tacit acceptance.

While Europe & America did similar acts in this region it has become PC to condemn them for it, so why should the Japanese be let off the hook? We in the States rightfully aren't allowed to forget the internment of "Japanese-Americans" (exactly how many did we kill in our concentration camps?), nor forget that we dropped the bombs in our history classes. Guess to make the historic revisionist happy we'll just blame the victors from now on.

[Zen Blade]

FACTS AS I KNOW THEM... (I know my history pretty well)

1. Japan invaded or attacked the following areas first. English and American holdings in the pacific, China, the Korean ppl. (it is debatable whether or not the rulers or Manchu-Quo (sp off) asked for Japanese assistance, and a brief excursion into USSR (where they were beaten back very badly).

--Now, was Japan justified in attacking these places????? if so, why? if not, why not???

2. The numbers show that with almost 100% certainty that MORE PPL WOULD HAVE DIED IF THE BOMB HAD NOT BEEN DROPPED. THIS INCLUDES JAPANESE AND AMERICAN AND SOVIET LOSSES.

3. All sides committed atrocities. The soviets imprisoned or killed millions of their own. The Germans (obvious). The Japanese on Chinese ppl. The Americans on their own Japanese civilians. The Western allies on the German and Japanese civilians. (bombings to destroy industrial capability and to weaken morale to the point of surrender if possible.)

--now, were any of these acts justified.... from a military standpoint, maybe... from a scientific standpoint, perhaps.... from each country's perception of things at the time, most definitely. However, as culture changes, some acts are no longer considered proper....---slavery, voting rights, absolute power.

4. in the history of the world, the loser is almost always considered "wrong". This is b/c they lost, and the winning side can't be "wrong"... Thus, since the winners right the history books, it is easy to see why a citizen in a losing country (a generation or two down the line) would see their past acts as wrong, or criminal.

--is this right??? why??? why not??


-this post is an attempt to make sure that noone takes things too emotionally and that ppl continue to use logic/reason while discussing such a topic as this.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil

[Tachikaze]

Here are some answers to Zen_Blade's proposals and questions:

1) I already answered this question in my previous post. No one is justified in attacking anyone.

2) I have never been convinced that the Japanese would not surrender before an Allied invasion. I believe the US wanted to end the war quickly before the USSR laid claims on Japan. Japan was on its knees. It could exert no aggressive effort any longer. It had virtually no navy, air force, or factories to replenish them. We had many options other than invasion or A-bombing.

3) It is ridiculous that there are "rules" to war. War itself is an atrocity, and there is nothing "unfair" or "against the rules". It is the breakdown of all civility and humanity. Forced labor, rape, and death camps are called "atrocities", but I consider the bombing of cities, the shelling of trenches, the torching of soldiers in a bunker, the mining of villages, the starving of people under siege to all be equally atrocious.

Insisting there are rules to war is an attempt make it palatable, and thus, acceptable. The Vietcong and Palestians, among others, have shown that they are not playing games. They are serious, and didn't play by the rules set by powerful industrial nations. They have been condemned for conducting warfare outside of our wargaming rules. But I think we are shocked because they have revealed the truth about war. We can't face it.

My answer is, those things Zen_Blade listed are as justified as the war itself.

4) True, the victors write history. The US even managed to convince many people that the American Indians were wrong. That was an amazing PR stunt!

Usually, a war is an economic power struggle. Both sides are trying to get more, or hold on to what they have. The powerful nations of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are all responsible for the World Wars. They were not the result of short-term events in the 1910s and 1930s; they were the results of centuries of imperialism, capitalism, zenophobia, and naked greed.

I hope that Kanji and others around the world will not worry about who was responsible in the past, but will fight in their own countries to prevent future atrocities by Japan et. al. just as I will fight to prevent the US from doing the same.

Damn, that's a big soapbox I've got, isn't it?

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[ShaiHulud]

Obake....I'm neither hot under the collar nor inspired to defend. I just intended to point out the difference between an OPINION and a POSITION. The former requires lips, the latter requires facts. If a position is taken one can argue interpretation of facts but to spout an opinion one needs only to shout loudly.
And again I reiterate my high regard for the
Japanese people and their history. Were it not so I'd be playing something else.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[ShaiHulud]

Ai-Jin....My comments were NOT directed at you. In fact, I was bolstering your point. "Get the facts" was directed at he who asked where Japan had invaded. So, apologies for ruffled feelings,no offense was intended, friend.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[LinkEmperor]

Ai-Jin

You mean that to kill houndred thousend civilian Japanes is right, just so you can spear some US soldiers...

And they used 2 bombs, and if you read how many they would drop (50!)
But Japan surended after the second.
And if you don't think that is a mistake,
what is a mistake then m8?

Even today you can see children be born not healty in Japan coz of the bombs.

Don't forget the history, or it will be happning agein

LinkEmperor

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The members of the chain clan will unite all of the land.

[This message has been edited by LinkEmperor (edited 11-22-2000).]

[ShaiHulud]

LinkEmperor.That's right..it was better to kill so many to save a great many more. The projection of one million American casualties alone would be enough...I expressed it that way assuming others could fill in the blank...Japanese casualties would likely be ten times that. It was their intent to send every man, woman, and child to fight but some people will insist that those were 'non-combatants' and sacrosanct.
Consider instead that JAPAN's scientists stopped their research on atomic weapons because they concluded NO ONE would be able to develop such within the next 10 years and they would, therefore, be too late to be of use. Had they developed A-bombs first one can show little to indicate they might have shown restraint in using it on, say, China....
I don't think anyone will argue that Germany would have refrained from using atomic weapons.
America has had many opportunities to use Atomics since WWII yet has not. If blatant racism ruled Korea and Viet Nam would be glass.
As for 'destroying Japan's culture' as a pre-requisite for accepting their surrender I recall a story from a friend who worked in the North Sea oil fields. Two men were fighting and one knocked the other down and sat on his chest and proceeded to pound on him. The man on the bottom said "OK, I give up!". The man on top replied "I'm giving this arse-whippin and I'll say when it's done!" and he continued to pummel.
My point is this...once battle was joined there were few rules. Japanese and Americans had differing philosophies which NEITHER had bothered to learn about. Japan expected the US to lack will and seek peace. The US had no one in power who understood the power of Bushido in Japan culture.
Japan saw the European nations as interlopers in areas she saw as her own areas of destiny and growth. In context the war was inevitable between two expansionist cultures. To try, in retrospect, to impose CURRENT moral views is pointless. Colonial Japan and the colonial west would meet and they would dispute. Colonial Germany (no description is more apt) created a war (to acquire)in Europe and Japan saw Germany fighting a common foe and as her ally. Their forms of government, also, made their alignment simple. Thus the fight for survival of THOSE forms of government and THOSE conflicting expansionist urges created
opposing camps. In a fight for survival no punches are pulled. When the winner is declared the loser should be pleased to find itself still breathing. It was American restraint that spared both Germany and Japan
from greater humiliation than just losing the war. If Japan had been occupied by Russia
or China a far more punitive occupation would have resulted.
America isn't inhabited by angels or saints. Neither is it the home of unmitigated
beasts. If America were the raving war-mongers some suspect there would be nuclear wastelands across the Earth.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Word-san]

Tachikaze, I totally agree with your posts.

To expand slightly upon your point:

Quote Usually, a war is an economic power struggle.[/QUOTE]

This hits the nail on the head. It's funny how humanitarianism goes out the window once money is involved.

If you examine the motivations behind the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe, as well as the US assisstance in the rebuilding of Japan, you can see that clearly, they both had little to do with humanitarian concerns, and everything to do with creating a stable marketplace for American-made goods.

And for those of you who defend nuking Japan, it wasn't done with solely with notions of ending the war. The targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a carefully calculated terror strike aimed at civilian populations in order to demoralize Japan. Those cities were also chosen because they were relatively unscathed, and the military wanted to accurately measure the bomb's destructive effects upon those cities' infrastructures. And nobody involved in the bomb's development or deployment could understand, or could much less comprehend, the massive destruction that it would cause -- particularly in the number of human lives it would take. Therefore much of the elaborate justification for the use of the bomb came after the huge extent of the human casualties was already known -- and that makes the tired rhetoric of pro-bomb-droppers sound like simple sophistry. Pro-bomb arguments are, quite often, furthered by people who are parroting government propaganda created after the fact. The US government needed to quell their own population's moral queasiness, as well as the world's shock, lest pulic opinion turn against them.

If the average American citizen of the time (and there were many pacifists and many more anti-war activists at the time than history books tend to report) were asked whether the US should deploy a weapon upon Japanese civilians that would not only wipe out millions of them at once but cause lasting negative health effects for decades, I believe that the response would be unmitigated horror.

Einstein, who initially encouraged Roosevelt to race to build the bomb in order to stay ahead of the Germans, said after it was dropped, "If I knew they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker."

[The Black Ship]

Quote If the average American citizen of the time (and there were many pacifists and many more anti-war activists at the time than history books tend to report) were asked whether the US should deploy a weapon upon Japanese civilians that would not only wipe out millions of them at once but cause lasting negative health effects for decades, I believe that the response would be unmitigated horror.[/QUOTE]

Please...now the bomb killed millions, better double check your facts- more people died during the Tokyo fire-bombings months earlier than died from both bombs!

Now the revisionist are revising the original reviewers

[FwSeal]

Say, Word-san, didn't Einstein say that he would have become a watchmaker?

[Tachikaze]

Word-san, I have heard that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were relatively untouched by previous Allied attacks. It made me cringe to read your posts thinking about those quiet cities being vaporized. It's just an emotional feeling, maybe caused by the thought of "purity" being destroyed. War is a very emotional thing.

Sometimes, I look at Japanese people around me, gentle old men; beautful young girls; bright, excited 7-year-old boys; smiling middle-aged women offering hospitality, and think, "These are the people who burned in that fireball at Hiroshima." It's a shocking experience.

Those people did not attack the US, the military dictatorship did. And they were (most likely) not in Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August, 1945. I blame the Japanese government, as well as the US government for those atrocities.

I was going to bring up the economic incentives for the Marshall plan, myself. Thanks for bringing it up, Word-san. I believe the US did some of its actions for humanity's sake, but others to create business partners, or at least future allies.

In the latter point, about developing allies, I'm not being cynical. It makes perfect sense to develop a good relationship with a former enemy.

On Word-san's point about many Americans being against the bombing, I wanted to add that the Japanese public was very much against continuing the war, themselves. This is from personal accounts of civilians at the time. Many, if not most, were against even starting it.

I'm not making a judgement about the US entering the war. As I said earlier, the die was cast centuries ago. The war was inevitable.

As a parable, if I am rich and I have a family, and a burgler enters my home with a gun, I will do anything to protect my family, even kill if necessary. But, in my philosophy, I was a cause of the situation as much as the burgler. I had wealth due to my greed and desire. The same greed and desire caused the intruder to enter my home. We have committed the same moral crime.

I feel strongly about writing on this subject because I feel sick when I think of war (the reality beyond playing games on a table or in a computer). Sorry, but I hope it makes all of you sick, too. But I have no animosity towards those who feel that dropping the bombs was the best solution. It's a difficult topic. I firmly believe it was wrong, though.

The Black Ship, it doesn't matter how many people died. Though, I realize you're just trying to keep people from being too lose with figures. (However, some estimates put the combined death toll from the two bombs at over 2 million including the days after the drops, which justifies "millions").

FwSeal, I don't think Einstein cared whether he dropped a shoe or watch on Nagasaki. As long as there was no fission.

Kanji, you have become quite a controversial fellow on this forum. I admire your frankness, especially writing in a second language. Keep cool. Have you visited the United States? If you haven't, I hope you do someday. Every Japanese I know (many) have been surprised and even changed by the experience. My experiences in Japan did the same for me.

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[ShaiHulud]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Word-san osts.


If you examine the motivations behind the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe, as well as the US assisstance in the rebuilding of Japan, you can see that clearly, they both had little to do with humanitarian concerns, and everything to do with creating a stable marketplace for American-made goods.

Wow! Just plumb lucky we were to establish viable democracies, trustworthy allies, and independent economic powers that rival our own! And all we wanted was someone to buy Hershey bars!
And our ignorance of what the bomb would do?
Again, What a shock it must've been that after a crash program utilizing some of the finest minds in the world, having exploded test bombs and measured the results to learn that NO ONE had kept notes? That the bombs destruction was a total surprise is plainly rediculous. The only question was whether it would work this time and if two would be enough (all we had).
And if you believe that Americans were concerned with Japanese casualties, after Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Kamikaze, and years of propaganda you're in a dream.
I truly hate to be harsh but those arguments are complete drivel. Indeed, they are propaganda such as the Fellow Traveler's have spouted for years.



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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[LinkEmperor]

ShaiHulu

I can't speak on the way of US
but I can't see, why US would bomb a city
when they knew waht a impact it would do?
well they did surly destroyed the last moral from the Japanes.
But remember that cilldren, dont choos to be in the war, and how many chilldren did die, coz of it, and the A-bomb was not needed coz Japan was allready hurting so badly that they would give up, if US had only sceard them (thats why they used the bomb)
US was affreid that if they didn't take Japan they would lose it to the USSSR.
And remember that Soldiers of war, and country leaders did choose to go to war not the children.
And rememb that US policy wasn't to just take military building, but to take the moral away.
Dosen't matter what name you have on ur uniform if you know you are killing children.

I think we could debat all year long about
this subject.
Don't forget the history, or it will be happning agein

Dose someone know if there is a good history book from Japan about the WWII, I have a hard time finding it, thanks.

LinkEmperor


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The members of the chain clan will unite all of the land.

[Word-san]

ShaiHulud, now you've forced me to quote some Howard Zinn to you.

From "The People's History of the United States":

Quote The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set up, supposedly to help reconstruct war-destroyed ares, but one of its first objectives was, in its own words, "to promote foreign investment."[/QUOTE]

And regarding American public opinion abou the war:

Quote Beneath the noise of enthusiastic patriotism, there were many people who though war was wrong, even in the circumstances of Fascist aggression. Out of 10 million drafted for the armed forces during World War II, only 43,000 refused to fight. But this was three times the proportion of C.O.'s (conscientious objectors) in World War I. Of every six men in prison, one was a C.O.[/QUOTE]

Further:

Quote The government lists about 350,000 cases of draft evasion...[/QUOTE]

Finally, regarding the A-bombing:

Quote The justification of these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said -- a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; a half million, Truman claimed was the figure given to him by General George Marshall. When the paers of the Manhattan Project -- the project to build the atom bomb -- were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.) These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombing which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people.[/QUOTE]

When you say:

Quote That the bombs destruction was a total surprise is plainly rediculous. [/QUOTE]

I meant in human, not architectural terms. Testing had not been done on civilian targets.

Some of the builders of the bomb even thought that the first test might ignite the atmosphere and cause a global firestorm. Obviously, they were dealing with many unknowns, even after testing. And radiation poisoning was a giant X factor, and was a huge part of the effect of the bomb.

Zinn goes on to describe how the A-bombing was timed to prevent Russian entrance into the war against Japan, so that the US, and not Russia, would occupy post-war Japan. Reconstruction, he points out, was the big economic boom that got us out of the depression. Thus occupation and reconstruction equaled, in the most direct way posible, American dollars. So in a way, yes -- it was about selling Hershey bars, and much more.

[The Black Ship]

I'm sorry, but i keep coming back to this fallicy concerning millions dying from the two relatively low-yield atomic devices. I speak with intimate knowledge concering radiobiolgic effects of x-ray, and in this case neutrons, and just think the millions figure to be made up, fiction, dramatic license, propaganda! Why does it matter?. Well it seems to be the lynch-pin of your argument that the US was unjustified in using these weapons. It saved more lives than it took!

Strategic bombing on all sides unfortunately had become a policy of inducing in the enemy the feeling of dispair-to this end an atomic device would have been the logical next step.

Is this wrong? Well given the time-frame, and the men involved only God can tell you... and he'e already passed judgement upon these individuals- look for them when you get to your final destination.

Oh, and BTW it was the United States that recruited the Soviets into the fray with Japan (to the chagrin of Churchill). The Russians were reluctant to brake a non-agression treaty after the Nomonhan (Khalkin Gol) skirmishes. So this fallicy concerning "we gotta get this over with or the bad-ass Russkies will take over" should stop!

[ShaiHulud]

The difference between "creating a market for American-made goods" and "to promote foreign investment" is a chasm. To, somehow,
declare them the same is an obvious subjective reach which reveals a predeliction to deny to Americans any motive other than greed.

Link...I've read a great deal about the war and my OPINIONS are based upon that reading and the deductions of the various authors and my own subjective deductions.
Still, knowing that tens of thousands of Japanese civilians committed suicide (Saipan)
rather than surrender, faced with the fact of Japan's will to fight against the odds to
the death (pick any campaign in the Pacific),
being fully aware of Japan's insistence on fighting despite their desperation (Kamikaze), American leaders could easily conclude that only demonstrating that Japan's obliteration was in the offing might
dissuade them from continuing the war.
Conventional weapons had not convinced Japan's leaders that to continue was pointless. They still believed that inflicting great losses on Americans would result in a truce that would allow Japan to avoid the consequences surrender would surely entail. Projections of huge American casualties (which propagandists naturally
decry as false...Americans just like killing the helpless) while POSSIBLY inaccurate were certainly INTENDED by the Japanese to be proven true.
The entire warring world was, by then, inured to the fact that civilians were dying. Broadcasts from London, nightly, certified that Allied civilians were being ruthlessly attacked. Dresden, Berlin, and Tokyo's destruction were trumpeted as resounding victories. The truth is no one cared anymore.
Thus, to avoid unconscionable and unacceptable losses to Americans the choice was made. Attempting to find fault in retrospect, to impose propagandist arguments utilizing narrow arguments to explain complex decisions made then is, as someone said, sophistry.



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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[This message has been edited by ShaiHulud (edited 11-24-2000).]

[FwSeal]

I think that the American planners could hardly be faulted for projecting enormous losses in any attempt to take Japan on the ground. After all, Okinawa cost the US (in dead alone) 5,000 sailors, 4,000 soldiers, and almost 3,000 marines (and 763 planes and 38 ships) - or around 12,000 killed out of a total of around 50,000 casualties (and about 35 percent losses among the Army and Marine divisions involved). The Japanese lost 110,000 killed and civilian losses were somewhere between 70,000 and 160,000. (Keegan, 'Second World War').
It was not unreasonable to assume that those ghastly figures would be dwarfed by those incurred by slogging up the length of Kyushu (which is very-well suited for stubborn defenses) and in the Kanto region. Applying a similar percentage of losses from Okinawa to an invasion of Kyushu (as Adm. Leahy did for Truman) would result in (out of a planned 767,000-man invasion force) some 268,000 casualties.

[solypsist]

if this were an academic forum i might feel inclined to comment. which is not to say everyone on here is learned on the subject, but reading some of these posts.....

[xFedaykin]

Quite a hot topic we have here, and as I am a newcomer to these boards, seems a bit odd that my post be on this subject first. I am quite an avid student of history though, especially those dealing with military and morality, so this interests me quite a bit.

First off, I am a Filipino. We have had a long history of oppression and colonization starting with the Spanish in the early 17th century, the Americans in the early 20th and briefly Japanese during the second World War. I'm going to offer you a unique perspective on this subject, as all of you have been discussing this from the point of the winners or the losers of the war. Well, I'm going to show you how it is from the point of view of the victim.

We fought wars against all 3 colonizers. But I doubt that in American history books, the Fil-American war was nothing more than a footnote. I doubt that in your schools, you were taught that one of your American generals nearly exterminated all human life on one of our islands in retribution for the ambush and beheading of an American platoon. In no history book will you find that similar strategies were adopted across the rest of our islands in retribution for the aid that the civilians gave to Filipino guerillas. And because we were an American colony and now an ally, in no history book here in my country will someone read that as well. It took quite a bit of research for me to discover it.
Now lets switch to the Japanese. Your country invaded us 40 years after the Americans turned us into a colony. We suffeed the atrocities all subjugated nations suffer. Rape, plunder, torture (I remind you of the Bataan Death March).

Remember, we were at war. Suffering and death is the natural consequence of war. War brings out the best and the most terrible in us, regardless of which side you are on. There is no complete justification for it, no matter how noble the cause and no matter how urgent the need. Instead of moralizing and justifying the actions taken during the war, try and look at the people that suffered in its wake. How can you speak of nobility in front of a person whose familiy was killed before his eyes? Patriotism? Tell that to the person who will sleep under the cold night because his house was firebombed.
No nation, no soldier can claim complete innocence from its consequences. All the victims can do is move on.