The grave injustice of COMMEMORATING victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[snagglepuss]

whilst FORGETTING about the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

Today my thoughts are with the forgotten victims of the Japanese - Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Burmese, Vietnamese and Malay. I post this in their memory.

When I was younger I heard about the horrors the Germans inflicted, the post-war horrors inflicted by Stalin and the untold suffering of civilian casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wasn't until some 15 years ago that I found out about the Japanese war crimes, their magnitude and their utter brutality.

I was shocked and angry that this story hadn't been told. I feel as angry now as I did then that collective memory is so selective. Why is it that some people's victimization is remembered and commemorated whilst the unimaginable suffering and victimization of many millions are largely forgotten.

According to historian Chalmers Johnson "It may be pointless to try to establish which WWII aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimized. The Germans killed 6 million Jews and 20 million Soviet citizens; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos,Malays,Vietnamese ,Cambodians Indonesians, and Burmese at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese."

http://www.answers.com/topic/japanese-war-crimes

What also galls me beyond belief is that the Japanese to this day refuse to fully acknowledge their guilt. They refuse to have their history taught in schools. Not all Japanese however are so quick however to gloss over their crimes. As you can read below a former mayor of Nagasaki "felt ashamed of the annual peace declarations he issued during his sixteen year term as mayor of Nagasaki "because they failed to include the point of view of Japan as an aggressor in the war.""

So for anyone who like myself is unaware of the magnitude of Japanese atrocities and the horrific brutality of their crimes during the period of Imperial expansion, the links below give some small sense of it.


GERM WARFARE EXPERIMENTS ON WOMEN,CHILDREN AND MEN

" it was the human experiments that distinguished Pingfan. Once, in an operation aimed at extracting plague-infected organs, which Kamada still finds it difficult to talk about, Kamada took a scalpel with no anesthetic, to a Chinese prisoner, or "log," as the Japanese euphemistically called their victims. "I inserted the scalpel directly from the log's neck and opened the chest," he told an Japanese interviewer, at the time anonymously. "At first there was a terrible scream, but the voice soon fell silent..

snip

"Today, a bizarre stone memorial that Kitano erected in honor of his experimental rats still stand in a disused rat cellar in China. It was more courtesy than he showed the victims of his experiments, who were
euphemistically referred to as "monkeys" in published scientific papers. The Shenyang medical school still has hundreds of slides of human brain cross sections, some of which were used in papers published by Sendai University with open references to the use of "fresh human brains."
Prof. Keiichi Tsuneishi, a Japanese historian of science, pieced together much of the Unit 731 story from scientific papers published by doctors, many of whom later agreed to speak to him. "They have no sense of remorse at all," he says. Instead, the doctors complained of wasting the best years of their lives on medical research that could not be continued after the war."

http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/floor/9597/confession.html


RAPE OF NANKING

"Numerous atrocities were committed en route to Nanjing, but they could not compare with the epic carnage and destruction the Japanese unleashed on the defenseless city after Chinese forces abandoned it to the enemy."

snip


"Women were killed in indiscriminate acts of terror and execution, but the large majority died after extended and excruciating gang-rape...One eyewitness, Li Ke-hen, reported: "There are so many bodies on the street, victims of group rape and murder. They were all stripped naked, their breasts cut off, leaving a terrible dark brown hole; some of them were bayoneted in the abdomen, with their intestines spilling out alongside them; some had a roll of paper or a piece of wood stuffed in their vaginas" (quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195).

... Many young women were simply tied to beds as permanent fixtures accessible to any and all comers. When they became too weepy or too diseased to arouse desire, they were disposed of. In alleys and parks lay the corpses of women who had been dishonored even after death by mutilation and stuffing." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195.)

SNIP

... The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest -- fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers ... those who refused were killed on the spot." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95.)

SNIP

"Atrocious tortures were also inflicted on the captive men. "The Japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims but performed more excruciating varieties of torture. Throughout the city they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. At least one hundred men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. Another group of two hundred Chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by zhuizi -- special needles with handles on them -- in hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes. ... The Japanese subjected large crowds of victims to mass incineration. In Hsiakwan a Japanese soldier bound Chinese captives together, ten at a time, and pushed them into a pit, where they were sprayed with gasoline and ignited." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 87-88.)

http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html


JAPAN'S REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE ITS WAR GUILT AND ATROCITIES

"One of the leaders of an influential and growing movement to deny Japan's war crimes and prevent Japanese children learning about Japan's war guilt and atrocities is Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka of the Education Department at Tokyo University. Fujioka chooses to ignore overwhelming evidence and claims that the Nanjing Massacre did not occur. He is harshly critical of Saburo Ienaga and anyone who believes that Japanese schoolchildren deserve to be told the truth about Japanese war crimes. "It's masochistic", said Professor Fujioka in 1997. "No other country in the world subjects its schoolchildren to such terrible history education. (They) are volunteering to show that Japanese people are ruthless".

According to Fujioka, Japanese troops were no more brutal than those of the United States. He claims that the American occupation forces brainwashed the postwar Japanese into believing that they had committed terrible crimes.

Fujioka is not a fringe radical. His distortions of history have wide support in Japan, not only from ultra-nationalist thugs and militarists but also from a new breed of better educated neo-Imperialists, including at least sixty-two parliamentary members of the ruling Liberal democratic Party (LDP), many academics, writers, journalists, businessmen, and sports figures. His books denying Japan's war guilt and countless atrocities are best sellers in Japan.

SNIP

In 1997 a former mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, told the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun ... that he felt ashamed of the annual peace declarations he issued during his sixteen year term as mayor of Nagasaki ..."The first thing to do is to apologise to China and others who were victims of Japan's aggression. Hiroshima and Nagasaki should pardon the atomic bombing and lead the world in reconciliation".
Following an unfortunate pattern of intimidation in Japan, Hitoshi Motoshima was attacked and seriously injured by a Japanese nationalist for speaking the truth about Japan's war guilt and war crimes."

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/Denying_truth2.html

[The Magistrate]

1. Well Said, Ma'am!

[snagglepuss]

77. Thank you Magistrate.

[Alamuti Lotus]

91. What is your opinion on the Russian dimension?

I am already aware of various other opinions on the matter ("only dropped the bomb to scare the Russians", etc), but I would be most curious as to your views on this aspect. Thanks,--E.

[The Magistrate]

93. There Are Two Russian Dimensions, Sir

One is the question of whether it was actually the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the northern islands which occasioned the surrender of Imperial Japan, rather than the atomic detonations. There is a fairly good case for this; it certainly seems to have more influence on the Army high command than any suffering inflicted on the civilian populace. It moved directly against the chief gain of Imperial Japanese aggression, the mineral and agricultural wealth, and vast space, of Manchuria. Opposition to Communism was a leading tenet of the Japanese military (the original step towards the Tri-Partite Pact incorporating Japan into the Axis was the Anti-Comintern Pact), and the prospect of Soviet incursion directly into the Home Islands was much to be feared.

The second is what is sometimes phrased in some such form as 'the Soviets were the real targets at Hiroshima'. There is probably something to this, though it falls far short of being 'the real reason' for the employment of the atomic bombs. It probably was at the back of many military and political minds, however. Victory is traditionally dangerous to coalitions, since it removes the enemy which unifies them in common purpose, and throws each element of the coalition back onto calculation of its own interests, which may well be inimicable to those of its erstwhile allies. The more disparate the elements of the coalition, the greater the danger of this, and it is hard to imagine a coalition more disparate than that of the leading Capitalist power, the leading maritime Imperial power, and the Communist homeland of Stalin. The unfriendly breaking up of the war-time collaboration was already in evidence in Europe, and there is no doubt that there the Red Army was the most formidable force on the ground, though the U.S. was certainly the most formidable in the air.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Interesting. How have you commemorated the rape of Nanjing? n/t

[snagglepuss]

4. They are in my thoughts and I am posting this information to ensure that

that the autrocities suffered by the Nanking's citizens are known.

[ColbertWatcher]

25. That's a start, I guess. But, how do you commemorate it?

Like take for instance, do you celebrate the New Year? If so, like that.

[snagglepuss]

30. Definition of commemorate: to make honorable mention of.

1. to serve as a memorial or reminder of: The monument commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

2. to honor the memory of by some observance: to commemorate the dead by a moment of silence; to commemorate Bastille Day.

3. to make honorable mention of.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/commemorate

[ColbertWatcher]

52. Okay. So, to make sure I'm understanding you correctly ...

... you consider your post a commemoration. Is that right?

You do not commemorate the Nanjing massacre annually in any other way, in real life.

Only online and by posting a single thread on the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki, while ignoring the call for peace from people who do recognize the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki.

[snagglepuss]

58. What is it you're smoking? Where have I ignored any calls of peace?

Besides haven't you ever heard that where there is no justice there is no peace? Peace isn't a slogan. Nor can it be accomplished without Japan acknowledging the crimes it perpetrated .As of Aug 7, 2009 according to the Korea Herald, Korea's largest English language newspaper, Japan still has not acknowledged all its atrocities.

For many years I was furious that US nuked civilians, that it used its nuclear arsenal however I have over the years modified my views. Had the US not bombed those cities Japanese generals would have willingly sacrificed countless citizens before surrendering and the US would have lost countless troops in a land invasion had they gone that route.


"In 1997 a former mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, told the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun ... that he felt ashamed of the annual peace declarations he issued during his sixteen year term as mayor of Nagasaki ..."The first thing to do is to apologise to China and others who were victims of Japan's aggression. Hiroshima and Nagasaki should pardon the atomic bombing and lead the world in reconciliation".
Following an unfortunate pattern of intimidation in Japan, Hitoshi Motoshima was attacked and seriously injured by a Japanese nationalist for speaking the truth about Japan's war guilt and war crimes."

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/Denying_truth2.html

[ColbertWatcher]

87. We do not justify what WE did just because the other guys did something bad first.

Just think, one day Iraqi children will be remembering March, 20, 2003 in much the same way as the Japanese remember August 6 & 9, 1945.

Of course, there will be people denying the barbarity of that date too.

[snagglepuss]

92. Who is doing that? Who is justifying what the US did because of what other guys did first?

I'm not are you? And who is denying barbarity? I'm not are you?

[stranger81]

195. You're doing that

by suggesting the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve no commemoration because the Japanese also committed war crimes.

IMHO, the reason we remember one and not the other, is because we were responsible for one and not the other. And this country would do well to remember the not-so-nice parts of history it was responsible for.

[snagglepuss]

201. I'll ask you the same question what are you smoking? Nothing in the OP

suggests the "victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve no commemoration because the Japanese also committed war crimes' You completely pull that from thin air. My position is that it is unjust to commemorate and educate kids and the public about H&N but not make make similar efforts about the 30 million victims of Japanese. This is tantamount to commemorating the senseless destruction of Dresden and subsequent loss of innocent German citizens but never mentioning Hitler's victims, never mention Germans concentration camps. That would be an outrage just as this is an outrage.

[stranger81]

202. Maybe you should reread your OP, titled "the grave injustice of commemorating the victims

of Hiroshima & Nagasaki" without also recognizing the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

It's clear what you're really upset about -- the perceived injustice of the US being accused of war crimes without Japan suffering the same fate. Why don't you just say that, instead of pretending you care about the victims of either atrocity?

[snagglepuss]

203. Obvisiously you're unable to read a complete sentence

The grave injustice of commemorating the victims of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
whilst FORGETTING about the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

[stranger81]

204. hence the second portion of my sentence,

"without also recognizing the atrocities committed by the Japanese."

I wouldn't throw so many stones from inside that little glass house of yours.

[snagglepuss]

209. Your initial response, post #93 clearly misrepresents my position.

You stated that I have suggested that "victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve no commemoration because the Japanese also committed war crimes"

It is obvious that you now are back-pedalling but its understandable.

As to the conclusion you reach, it is laughable. Being Canadian I have no emotional no attachment to the US, and have no need whatsoever to concoct rationalizations to justify its behaviour.

The issue here is straight-forward. Who in the world would partake in commemorating the loss of innocent German citizens killed during the senseless and unnecessary destruction of Dresden if there were were no commemorations for the victims of German aggression, no mention of German atrocities, no mention of concentration camps, no mention of the final solution. That wouldn't be tolerated.

Any commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be a commemoration for the millions of innocent people ACROSS ASIA which includes Japan who died as the result of a FASCIST government in Japan.


edit spelling

[inna]

241. how one can act as an apologist for nuking civilians

is absolutely beyond me.

:(

[snagglepuss]

253. How you can completely mistate my position is beyond me. My position is clear

H&N commemorations should include acknowledging Japanese atrocities. The Japnese were killing 500,000 a month (30 million) that is like one H&R every month. They killed more people than the Germans. Rather than commemorations focusing on the H&N, a commemoration should focus on all those killed as a result of a FASCIST IDEOLOGY. The truly diabolical element are fascists. It is the crimes perpetrated by fascists that should be front and center.


edit spelling

[buzzycrumbhunger]

68. Some, apparently, make it Family Fun Day

Nope, not kidding. I'm not sure exactly what to make of this atrocity. . . :wtf:

[Warren Stupidity]

3. none of that justifies the incineration of the cities of hiroshima and nagasaki

we committed a war crime. That the Japanese committed war crimes does not justify what we did.

[snagglepuss]

10. That isn't the issue. The issue is that the suffering of 30 million people has gone

unnoticed for years. Why is the bombing of these two cities remembered but death of tens of millions go by unremarked on. The Nazis were dispicable swine but their crimes known to all whereas few know about Japanese war crimes.

[aquart]

11. Yes, dear. Of course.

But they've been ever so peaceful since. In fact, they have whole generations who have grown up believing they are essentially non-violent.

If you don't want to be killed, you shouldn't wander out killing. Which applies to nations. We ought to remember that but we don't.

The interesting side effect of being bombed to hell and gone is that you have to rebuild from scratch. Germany and Japan had shiny new factories in the postwar era and we didn't.

And yes, dear, millions were still dead. But we didn't start it. We just finished it.

[snagglepuss]

14. Why the snarky remark of "yes dear, of course"? As for Japanese being nice.

Japanese might be nice now but same can be said for the Germans but Germans aren't given the privelege of forgetting "unpleasant" truths about their history nor should they be allowed to.

[gtar100]

111. I can't believe you're getting such backlash from your post.

To me your intention was clear. No excusing anyone. War atrocities should not be forgotten. The fact that humans exist that would actually consider war as a legitimate means is a frightful thought in itself. We put ourselves in grave danger by forgetting the consequences of hatred and greed. The perspective you have shown is one not spoken of much at all. I believe you have done so without diminishing the horrors committed on any side. It's so sad how the military (of any nation, any era) kills so many who would have nothing to do with the conflict in the first place. There is no "honor" in that. There is no honor in war, period.

[verges]

213. Backtrack a little Snag,

the Yes Dear comment wasn't directed at you.

[Violet_Crumble]

234. It wasn't aimed at her, but it's still an incredibly snarky thing to call someone...

I'm glad someone picked up that poster on it....

[godai]

16. So, is it also an 'interesting side effect' that 9-11 will give us 'shiny new' skyscrapers?

I think that there is no 'interesting side effect' in either instance.

[snagglepuss]

70. Oops. I thought the response you made to Warren Stupidity was made

to the OP. So I take back my query as to why the snarky reply.:dunce:

[dysfunctional press]

32. actually- yes, it did.

the alternative would have left many more dead on both sides.

THEY were the aggressors, and it was our right to end it in the less deadly way that we chose.

but- you are entitled to your...opinion.

[Art_from_Ark]

71. You should read about the 90 years of so of US-Japan relations

that preceded Pearl Harbor, especially the "Yellow Peril" scare of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both sides share blame.

[proteus_lives]

97. Yeah right.

The US shares the blame in Japan's aggression and decades-long rape of China and Korea. :eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

119. had commodore perry just left well enough alone...

pearl harbor never would have happened.

but it did.

so did hiroshima and so did nagasaki.

hindsight always seems to be 20/20- but dropping the bombs was the correct decision at the time it was made.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Amen

[imdjh]

121. If you want to feel guilty, fine. Use "I" not "we". nt

[Warren Stupidity]

160. deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime

It is not a question of my wanting to feel guilty, it is a question of what was done, and that is not in dispute.

[imdjh]

169. there are no civilians

[Warren Stupidity]

196. have a nice day

[ddeclue]

5. You forgot about the Koreans..

they occupied Korea in 1895 and abused the citizens of that country brutally for 50 years!

People have no idea about this in the West.

I spent 3 months in Taejon S. Korea in 1998 and they still hate the Japanese there.

Doug D.

[snagglepuss]

13. I didn't forget Koreans. I mentioned them in my OP.

Korea was an early victim of Japanese imperialism. Japan occupied Korea in 1905.

"During Japanese Occupation of Korea, many Koreans became victims of Japanese war crimes. Korean villages found hiding resistance fighters were dealt with harshly, often with summary execution, rape, forced labour, preventable famine, and looting.

Koreans, along with many other Asians, were experimented on in Unit 731, a secret military medical experimentation unit. The victims who died in the camp included at least 25 victims from the former Soviet Union, Mongolia and Korea. <66> The forced labor toll for Korea comes to 450,000 in Japanese proper.<67>

During World War II, women who served in the Japanese military brothels were called Comfort women. Historians estimate the number of comfort women between 10,000 and 200,000, including Japanese women.<68><69> According to testimonies, there were cases that Japanese officials and local collaborators kidnapped or recruited under guise of factory employment poor, rural women from Korea (and other nations) for sexual slavery serving the Japanese military.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule#Japanese_war_crimes

[ddeclue]

31. Sorry - I missed the one mention of them - you discussed China in detail but not so much the Koreans

thanks for expanding the discussion to ocver it.

[snagglepuss]

42. To adequately address what the Japanese did in all the countries it invaded

requires a book. My omission of detailing Japanese crimes in Korea was not meant as a slight. Hopefully people will read the few links and look further into the matter. Many people I talked to about this are surprised to hear this about the Japanese. I would say most people have heard about Kamakazi pilots and Pearl Harbour but that is about it. When people think about WWII atrocities they think Germany/Hitler and America/Hiroshima.

[mopinko]

129. goes back further than that.

goes back at least to the sung dynasty. the japanese kidnapped korean potters to get their glaze recipes. (nearly useless factoid from art history class)

but i approve of this thread. taking the atomic bombs in isolation, from a modern perspective, with modern knowledge of it's long term effects, and passing judgement is, at best, a fruitless exercise.

[annm4peace]

6. can we not condemn all atrocities and remember all victims?

When I remember those who died by the bombs and the illness from the bombs, I grieve for my friends grandmother who died of horrific cancer/radiation poisoning. It does not mean I celebrate the atrocities by soldiers of Japan. I grieve for all who have suffered.. usually women and children.

The injustice is of the nuclear bombs themselves against humanity.


Just like I work to end the cluster bombs(and other weapons) .. and grieve for those killed in afganistan by our cluster bombs.
It does not mean i forget the horrors committed by many in Afganistan (I was going to say Taliban, but is more than just the Taliban).

Violence does not justify more Violence

[ddeclue]

That's a nice saying but it's not always true... sometimes you have to face down force with force.

welcome to the real world.

[ShamelessHussy]

60. +1

:hi:

[imdjh]

124. Not if you are trying to make it value neutral, no.

[Supersedeas]

279. exactly

[Unvanguard]

151. Yes, we can, and yes, we should. Well said. n/t

[Bluerthanblue]

7. all that being said, to acknowledge the harm done by our Bombs-

dropped on a civilian population is not wrong.
It is up to US to take responsibility for our actions-
And an appropriate time to do it.

The facts you list are important for people to know- but when pulled out
in a kind of ..."yeah, but look how bad THEY were" tends to just muddy everything
up into such a muddle that nothing comes through-

One atrocity doesn't cancel out another- (at least imo)

I hope you'll post this info again sometime, and let it stand on it's own merit- rather than as an attempt to minimize the effects of our use of such a terrible, unknown weapon on a civilian population.


:hi:

thanks

[godai]

12. Well said...August 6 and 9 are for the remembrance of the only use of nuclear weapons.

The crimes of the Japanese military were throughout the war and are well known and to be condemned but not necessarily on August 6 and August 9.

[snagglepuss]

24. I do not minimize the suffering endured by civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I do take issue with selective recall. Germans have been rightly demonized for their support of Hitler but the Japanese are let off the hook. Nobody condemns the Japanese for their worshipping Emperor Hirohito with the same fevour as Germans worshipped Hitler and Japanese xenophobia and racist attitudes which are still prevalent. There is such a thing as collective guilt and but some miracle of history the Japanese are remembered as victims of the "evil empire" aka the US.

[Bluerthanblue]

55. yes, I believe you do not only minimize it, but try and deflect

the atrocity that happened to people in Nagasaki, and Hiroshima when you boldly say:

"The grave injustice of COMMEMORATING victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
whilst FORGETTING about the atrocities committed by the Japanese."

On the anniversary of those terrible events. It isn't a 'grave injustice' to think of the innocent men, women, children, elderly, and disabled people who suffered and died under the only military use of the atomic bomb in history, by our Country.

The Germans weren't subjected to an atomic bomb- and while the bombing of Dresden was terrible- it doesn't compare, and shouldn't be compared. There is no lack of outrage, regret and reconciliation that needs to happen- from all sides of this issue.
It isn't 'selective recall'- The things done by Japan in the war may not be as widely known or publicly condemned to your satisfaction, and you can and should educate people to the facts- BUT trying to deflect the attention off of the the results of our dropping the atomic bombs - by the "yeah but" justification, and minimization only makes things worse- (imo, fwiw)

peace~

[The Magistrate]

59. Why You Feel, Ma'am, That Fire-Storm 'Doesn't Compare' To Atomic Detonation Quite Escapes Me

Incineration is a pretty gruesome form of death, and in the fire-storm attacks in Germany and Japan were included many refinements such as slow roasting in cellar shelters and boiling in streams and pools. Temperatures sufficient to spontaneously combust clothing a considerable distance from flame were reached; lungs were scorched by inhalation of the heated air. Many lingered in great pain from burns until dying; many suffered life-long respiratory illnesses from inhalation of hot soots. The largest proportion of deaths from the atomic blasts were immediate, occurring in a few seconds at most; there is little death of that sort in fire-storm.

[Bluerthanblue]

66. have you seen the results of the radiation on the populations ?

Atomic bombs are "gifts that keep on giving"-

Many of the people who died at H&N were incinerated Magistrate- the heat of the blast was pretty intense- and what's worse, even those who appeared to have come through it virtually 'unscathed' began to vomit, bleed from their mouths, had their hair fall out in clumps and died slow painful deaths from radiation poisoning. Those who survived that often succumbed to cancers of all kinds- or gave birth to children horribly deformed as a result of the exposure to radiation....

I'm not ignorant of the horrors of any of the methods of murdering our fellow humans- It's wrong- and our decision to unleash this terrible weapon upon innocent civilians was WRONG- On the Anniversary of that terrible time, I think it is appropriate to remember those who died as a result of our country's actions.

Is that too much to ask?
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200712090011.html

Perhaps it is... :shrug:

too tired to keep discussing this tonite- i'm sorry.

[The Magistrate]

85. None Of That, Ma'am, Is News To Me

But it does not nearly suffice to prove your contention there is 'no comparison' between the two things, meaning the one is somehow vastly more horrid than the other.

[inna]

247. +1. great post, i wish i could rec it. nt

[snagglepuss]

75. I don't believe anything in the OP indicates that I am using one

atrocity to negate the other. My point is I had never been taught nor had I ever seen in movies or newspapers anything about Japanese war crimes. I have over the years asked many people if they have ever heard about Japanese atrocities and only few have - most know about Pearl Harbour and Kamikaze pilots. Other than those tidbits everyone knows about Hiroshima.

How can it be that a country can kill 30 million after torturing and raping many of them but those fact fall into a memory hole? Has America been allowed to forget Hiroshima? Has Germany been allowed to forget concentration camps? I think it is a terrible injustice to have days set aside to remember the many deaths brought about by nuclear weaponry but no days set aside to remember 30 million deaths. And is absolutely wrong is that Japan refuses to acknowledge its crimes and it refuses to teach its history to its young. Japanese students are baffled as to why Koreans hate them. That is absurd. Do think that there is one German living today that can't tell you why Jews may not like them?

Therefore when people remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki my hope is that also are aware of the 30 million victims of Japan.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. One atrocity has nothing to do with each other.

You think Truman gave a shit about the people of Nanjing when he decided to drop the bomb?

It's like saying we shouldn't commemorate the victims of 9-11 because of what the Americans did to the Native Americans.

[The Magistrate]

15. Actually, Sir, There Is A Direct Connection

The pattern of atrocities led to the war, the climax of which was the destruction of those two cities. That is what brought the war to an end. Without the first, the latter would have never happened; it would never have been necessary.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Yeah, yeah, yeah, butterfly flaps its wings, hurricane other side of the world.

Bullshit is what that is.

[The Magistrate]

21. No, Sir, It Is Cold Fact

You are, of course, free to parade a degree of ignorance and unthinking reflex that leaves no doubt you have nothing to contribute to a serious discussion of the matter, if that is your pleasure, but it will be evident to anyone with a grasp of the subject that you have not got the slightest idea of what the actual course of events, and the situation in place at the time, really was.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. That Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the logical consequence of Nanjing?

Sorry, no, that's a load of silly bullshit, and I think know it, goofball.

[The Magistrate]

27. Do You Seriously Pretend It Was Not, Sir?

The Japanese depredations in China were the origin of its conflict with the United States, and established Japan in the eyes of the world as an aggressive and atrocious actor. Without them, there would not have been war between the United States and Imperial Japan. One of the major items steeling the military leadership of Japan against surrender, until directly ordered to it by the Emperor in the wake of the atomic detonations, was fear of punishment for its atrocities, in China and elsewhere over the course of the war these marked the beginning of. Nanking, of course, is simply the emblem standing for a much wider pattern of atrocity, of many year's duration already before the capture of that city, and persisting for many years after it.

[godai]

29. Pearl Harbor, not atrocities in China, got the US into the war against Japan.

I don't believe that the US cared at all about atrocities against Asians during the war.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

40. There was a China Lobby in the U.S. after Nanking

I believe that some of the survivors toured the United States showing photos of the holocaust. The editor of Time Magazine was a major supporter of intercession on the side of the Chinese and some politicians were swayed. Many in the U.S. Congress were reluctant to get involved and had an isolationist mentality, but the American people were aware of the massacre. Germany was also committing acts of war before Pearl Harbor, sinking several U.S. merchant marine ships and killing more than 250 American sailors before we got into the war. I think many Americans were outraged but our politicians were not motivated to act. I believe that one of the obstacles were U.S. oil companies, who continued to do business with the Japanese even after the embargo and they exercised their influence over the U.S. government.

[The Magistrate]

41. Then You Need, Sir, To Inform Yourself Better On This Passage Of History

Hostile expression between the United States and Imperial Japan over the latter's conquests in China commenced late in 1931, when a Japanese column drove down out of Manchuria towards Peking, provoking a threat of war from then-Secretary of War Stimson, which moved the Tokyo government to halt the column and compel its retirement. Japanese atrocities in China were well covered in the United States in the late thirties, and subject of much interest and comment. Economic measures against Imperial Japan from Washington were aimed explicitly at forcing Japan to leave off expansion in China; Japanese refusal to do this led to military planning for war against the United States, which eventuated in Pearl Harbor. This took place after the line was crossed on both sides, with Imperial Japan seizing the Vichy colony of Cochinchina, to complete the encirclement of Nationalist China, isolating it from any source of Western military supply, and the United States enjoined a fuel embargo calculated to force a halt to Imperial Japanese military operations within a year's time.

[godai]

44. To repeat, Pearl Harbor resulted in the US declaration of War against Japan.

Without Pearl Harbor, there would probably still be a Greater Japan (familiar with that term?) today.

[The Magistrate]

46. And Pearl Harbor Resulted From the Train Of Events Presented Above, Sir

Albeit in drastically compressed and simplified form. Your statement above is simply meaningless noise.

[godai]

48. No, Pearl Harbor resulted from the US oil embargo.

Nothing to do with Nanking. You rationalizations are really exposing your lack of knowledge in this area.

[The Magistrate]

50. Which, Sir, Resulted From The Train Of Events Described Above

Which very much flowed from Nanking, that being taken as the crowning emblem of Japanese aggression in China, which it was long-standing U.S. policy to oppose. In avowing me ignorant of the history here, you provide tremendous amusement, and it is my firm hope you will continue to provide such occasions for laughter.

[TankLV]

90. WTF?!?!?!

Your DELIBERATE ignorance is stupifying...

really...

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

47. It would have just been a matter of time

Pearl Harbor was just the incident that put us over the edge. Congress could no longer ignore the war that many in the country were already calling for. Japan had to eventually move against the Dutch colony in Indonesia for their oil, against the British colonies in Malaya and Singapore, against the American colony in the Philippines, and against Australia. The United States would not have sat idly by, even if Pearl Harbor had not occurred. The Japanese knew America would eventually get involved with their navy. That's precisely why they attacked Pearl Harbor, trying to take out as much of our navy as they could before the U.S. got involved militarily. War was already well on the horizon.

[verges]

215. And Pearl Harbor happened

for no reason?

[TankLV]

88. Then your belief is WRONG. The US spent many YEARS trying to "persuade" the BRUTAL Japanese

monsters from continuing their RAPE of China - eventually leading to BLOCKADE of ALL TRADE by Japan.

but remain confortable in your ignorance...

[Statistical]

131. Some people can't accept the have been clueless on a topic for years.

Even when given evidence of that they can't accept it.

Most Americans are likely unaware of:
* Japan had began an imperial expansion long before WWII
* Japan attacked the US because they feared the US a direct result of our embargo
* Japan was far more brutal that Hitler ever was and killed far far more civilians.
* The Japanese people were xenophobic, and incredibly racist in 1920-1950 feeling that Chinese were sub-human and thus any use of forced prostitution, slave labor, or extermination.
* The Japanese empire didn't want the people just the land & resources. They saw the Chinese and other lesser races as pests blocking the expansion of the Japanese people.

If Japan had its way the entire South East asia would have been clensed on non-Japanese life. Today there likely would be 400-500 million Japanese people living on a empire that exfended from Australia to China.

None of these facts fit into their nice narrative of WWII
Pearl Harbor -> War in Pacific -> Unecessary A-bomb on the beaten and victimized Japanese.

When confronted with the totality of their ignorance they lash out.

[Dreamer Tatum]

266. Well said.

Every year during the first week of August, there is a much collective head-shaking, finger-wagging, and hand-wringing over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is chiefly done by people who justify their opinions by looking at an event and reshaping everything
that came before it to fit just so.

Happens every freaking year here.

[Confusious]

100. Pearl harbor WAS BECAUSE of an oil embargo

BECAUSE OF the atrocities in China.

[hack89]

128. And Pear Harbor was in response to America's

assistance to China as they resisted Japanese occupation.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. No, and it's a common little logical fallacy...

called "blaming the victim."

Yeah, she got raped, but maybe she shouldn't have been wearing a miniskirt and jogging through the park at night.

I'm sure right now in Japan there's some nationalistic, pseudointellectual dick arguing that the massacre of Nanjing was just the logical consequence of the incident at Nanjing in 1927.

[The Magistrate]

43. Cute, Ma'am, But No Cigar: What You Are Doing Is A sort Of 'Victim Masquerade'

Imperial Japan was no victim of World war Two; it was a leading instigator. Probably even among Japanese Nationalists, few are so pin-headed as to attempt arguing that Nanking in '37 was a response to the attack against Nationalist troops by Japanese in 1927 there. Japanese ,ilitary leadership at the time was quite explicit that the sacking of Nanking was a combination of revenge for resistance offered before the city by Chinese troops, and rest and relaxation for its soldiery.

[Statistical]

133. Well said. It was a 6 week pillage and rape vacation for "hard working troops".

Nanking is only one example but it is good because it illustrates Japans lack of regard for human rights, the sadistic nature of Japanese Imperial troops, and the fact that Japanese didn't consider the Chinese human or certainly not on the same level of Japanese.

Japan wanted the land & resources. The Chinese living on it were an inconvinient problem, one that Japan had a "solution" for and they had already exterminated 30 million of them by the time we ended the war with the bombs.

[Romulox]

165. The study of history is a HATE CRIME!11!!1!!11!!

:rofl:

[noamnety]

184. I think it's clear to everyone

that you are in a better position to understand the situation in place at the time than Eisenhower was.

"It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting , was a double crime."

What an unthinking ignorant dufus that guy was, eh? He had no grasp of the subject at all.

[The Magistrate]

185. You Know, Sir, One Of These Days Cut-And Paste Artists Will Have To Provide Dates For These Quotes

Gen. Eisenhower was not privy at the time to the decoded radio intercepts that guided the policy decisions of President Truman's administration in this matter. Most of these have been disclosed within the last decade or so, and they make clear the actual posture of the Imperial Japanese was not inclined to surrender even by the end of July, owing to the view of the military leadership it could sufficiently bloody an invasion that the U.S. would offer better terms.

Post-war assessments, noteably the Strategic Bombing Survey, offer a mixed view of the matter. That document, in its political analysis, is somewhat hampered by the absence of leading voices from the war party, who committed suicide upon the surrender. It is the only authoritative source near the time for the view that Imperial Japan would have surrendered before the end of 1945, had the United States simply kept on as it was going. There is certainly some question, as well, whether this judgement was not in some ways an attempt to vindicate conventional air power as the decisive arm, a thing which was a very live issue in military politics at the time.

To the best of my knowledge, anyway, the oft-cited comments by President Eisenhower come from a memoir written in the early sixties, after a good deal of Cold War tension, and years of the looming specter of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. These things may well have come to condition his view of the matter.

[noamnety]

187. I'm agreeing with you completely

I think you are a much better expert on war than Eisenhower, and you are in a better position to analyze the real situation on the ground both during and after the fact.

I also believe you are a better expert in his life than anyone writing his biography. They really should have consulted with you.

It's a shame Eisenhower didn't have the benefit of your psychoanalysis of the motivations behind his opinions. He would have been a much better president - AND a much better Supreme Commander of NATO if only he'd had that.


:patriot:

[The Magistrate]

188. Comedy, Sir, is Best Left To Professionals....

Amateurs cannot help but look clumsy and lead-footed at it.

[snagglepuss]

189. Oh this is rich. As I observed earlier you clearly have no handle on the facts nor

have slightest interest in improving your grasp of history yet now you chose to attack someone who is clearly in full command of the facts. Rather than resorting to snarkiness you'd gained much insight if you actually read his posts.
:eyes:

[noamnety]

190. Oh stop. I'm agreeing with him.

It's "evident to anyone with a grasp of the subject" that the bomb was necessary, and the people best able to assess that are those who had the most knowledge of "the actual course of events, and (what) the situation in place at the time, really was."

Except for Eisenhower, like the magistrate points out, because um ... because he had too much knowledge of the larger picture, which can muddy the water ... and um ... folks like the magistrate who aren't looking at the big picture and weren't there are obviously in the better position to judge. So we're all in agreement, those with the most knowledge are the ones with the best judgment, unless they disagree with the magistrate.

[The Magistrate]

191. Jokes, Sir, Divide Into Those Which Are Always Funny, And Those Which Are Funny Only Once....

"I think we're going to need another Timmy!"

[hack89]

120. So there is no direct connection between brutal imperialistic expansion and occupation

World War II, and the atomic bombs? Really?

[ShamelessHussy]

20. Nonsense, Sir.

You can only get away with that kind of primitive 'logic' in grade school or church.

[The Magistrate]

23. Not In The Slightest, Ma'am

It is a concise statement of the course of history. It may be uncomfortable to people who do not wish to grasp the complex whole of the situation, and desire to remain ignorant of anything but a few comfortable slogans, but that is no concern of mine.

[neverforget]

61. Well stated, Magistrate!

:hi:

[snagglepuss]

83. Hear. Hear. nt

[Confusious]

101. I say old man, WELL DONE!

[Hobarticus]

142. Well played! eom

[Confusious]

99. Direct connection

Rape of Nanking -> US embargoes oil to japan -> japan bombs pearl harbor because of oil ( dutch refineries in Indonesia it needed. If they attacked, we declare war ) -> we kick their asses across the Pacfic ( bloodly. Less then 5% surrender. ) -> we drop the bomb to end the war.

The End.

[Dreamer Tatum]

267. Maybe Truman did, maybe he didn't, but

when calculating the expected fanaticism and brutality the Japanese would exhibit if we invaded Japan,
Nanking PROBABLY wasn't a point in favor of sending hundreds of thousands of troops to their shores.

Ever give that some consideration?

Also, since you're utterly sure of this particular chain of historical events, when are you going to write
it all up and submit to the peer-reviewed academic journals? If you already have, can you PM me the references
to your articles?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. Unit 731 - the Japanese were developing weapons of mass destruction

They were developing bacterialogical and chemical warfare weapons by experimenting on live human subjects, including Chinese, Russians, Koreans, and even American POWs. The Japanese then tried out these biological and chemical weapons on the Chinese population, killing over half a million by some accounts.


"...Unit 731 was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China).

More than ten thousand people,<1> from which around 600 every year were provided by the Kempeitai,<2> were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731.

Those were both civilian and military of Chinese, Russian, American and other nationalities as well as some Japanese criminals from the Japanese homeland.<3> The victims who died in the camp included at least 25 victims from the former Soviet Union, Mongolia and Korea. <4>Some American and European Allied prisoners of war also died at the hands of Unit 731.<4>

According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.<5> According to other sources, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731's bioweapons and chemical weapons programs resulted in possibly as many as 200,000 deaths of military personnel and civilians in China...."


(more) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

[steaa]

167. If I recall correctly, a deal was made with the US military

for the research data from the human experiments at Unit 731, in exchange the perpetrators of these experiments at Unit 731 were let off the hook.



I remember watching a documentary on Unit 731 several years ago... to call it a place of nightmares doesnt really come close to describing what went on there.

[greguganus]

207. You are correct about Unit 731.

The Japanese used the Chinese as guinea pigs by dropping containers of fleas infested with bubonic plague on their villages. They also handed out candy to Chinese children laced with anthrax. The Japanese then invaded these villages and dissected living people to find out the results. A deal was made not to hold the Japanese doctors responsible for their actions in exchange for data on the these horrible experiments, as the only chemical/biological experimental data the US had at that time was done on animals and not humans.
The Unit 731 documentary you mentioned can be viewed on YouTube in a 5-part series.

[snagglepuss]

275. The unspoken tragedy of H&N which I wanted my OP to address

is that these two events our seared into consciousness dwarfing what preceded them. Besides obliterating people, the bombs obliterated context. Without context why bother keeping track of history at all?

A terrible irony is that death by nuclear weapons conferred on its victims a sort of special victim status, the victims of H&N are a special sort of war victims but the victims of the Japanese are just the "regular" war dead. This is ironic because the Japanese have historically regarded themselves superior over other Asians.

[The Mailman]

17. Interesting...

Crazy to think Truman was a Democrat. Amazing how we've evolved. I wonder what kind of atrocities he would've committed after 9-11.

[alarimer]

73. the same kind of atrocities Bush committed.

Which are being swept under the rug as well.

[The Mailman]

171. I was thinking

more along the lines of nukes rather than occupation. That would make what we have now look like nothing.

[The Mailman]

18. dp

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. NOTHING justifies a nuclear bomb that killed innocent people

Absolutely nothing.

This is such an offensive OP. Really stunning.

[The Magistrate]

28. That, Ma'am, Is Not Even A Good Bumper-Sticker, Let Alone A Considered View Of The Events

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. I'm not writing a bumper sticker

I am appalled. Beyond appalled, that anyone would try to justify murdering tens of thousands in our name with a nuclear bomb. Have I taken a wrong turn into freeper hell here tonight??

[godai]

37. This apparently happens every August 6. I thought it was over for this year until this post.

Japan has moved on, promoting this year, the 'Obamajority' in the world who want to eliminate nuclear weapons.

[snagglepuss]

65. How nice the want to move on and shake off their past. In todays Korea Herald,

Korea largest English newspaper Koreans aren't so willinging or able to move on, they still want Japan to admit their crimes. Koreans also are angry that Japan's young have deliberatedly not been taught its own history.

"The Japanese government continues to ignore and refuse to take responsibility for their past war crimes," she said, pleading with her audience from the West to "let the world know and continue spreading the word to your students of the horrible crimes the Japanese committed during the war."

The she referred to is Lee Ok-soo, "a former comfort woman who was abducted off the street by a Japanese soldier at age 16 relayed her tragic story first to the invited group. Before she began telling her story, she apologized for her accent which had a tinge of a Chinese cadence.

"My family never knew what had happened to me. I was sent to the comfort stations in China where I witnessed unimaginable abuse toward young girls like me getting raped, shot and physically beaten to death by Japanese soldiers," she said.

"When I came back to Korea, I had lost all of my family. My parents had passed away, I didn't have a nationality and because I didn't go to school, I didn't know how to read or write - I didn't have anywhere to go."

Lee said she was sent to China in 1942, where she remained for 58-years before finally making her way back to Korea in 2000.

They (the Japanese) are waiting for all of us to die so history will be erased, so it is up to people like you to educate the young."

[The Mailman]

38. Apparently!

[The Magistrate]

45. Actually, Ma'am, That Is All You Are Doing

And making a pretty poor job of anything but displaying a lack of knowledge of, and any thought upon, the events in question.

[proud2BlibKansan]

109. Stuff it, Sir

There is not one thing you can say to me ever that will justify the war crime of Aug 6, 1945. Nothing. So give it a rest.

[Bonobo]

140. He is already overstuffed and inflated.

With pomposity, arrogance, and self-importance.

[The Magistrate]

158. Now There, Sir, Is A Text-Book Overthrow Of A Point Pressed With Fact And Logic....

Impossible for an opponent to do anything in face of such mastery of the forensic art....

[snagglepuss]

159. Touche Magistrate.

:applause:

[Ichingcarpenter]

233. Two wrongs never make a right

with war crimes. pomposity, arrogance, and self-importance
but some never pay attention........well said

[The Magistrate]

251. Ah, But Three Do, Sir...

"Rest assured, a walk through the Ocean of most souls would scarcely wet your feet."

[The Magistrate]

157. Your Decision To Blind Yourself, Sir, Neither Concerns, Interests, Or Binds Me

That you have nothing but a handful of recycled slogans is evident to all....

[inna]

255. +1. exactly. bravo.

:applause:

[Unvanguard]

141. I think you're missing the point.

Take a case that seems to inspire more consensus among left-liberals, torture: what is the proper response to someone who says "What about the 'ticking bomb' case?" Sure, you can debate how often such situations (or a reasonable analogue) actually arise, where information is both absolutely necessary and torture is an effective means to get it, but it's probably true that sometimes you can save innocent lives by abusing prisoners for information. That does not, however, make it an acceptable means to use--however "considered" one's view of its likely consequences. Liberal societies have from the start, if only quite imperfectly, attempted to establish norms of humane treatment of others that do not depend upon utilitarian considerations of cost and benefit; were this not the case, in all probability we would have to revise our criminal justice system, among other things.

The same might be said here. My historical knowledge of the period is not exhaustive enough to say whether or not the bombs were necessary; certainly, looking at it from a purely strategic standpoint, it's understandable to err on the side of overdetermining victory rather than underdetermining it, when information is scarce and the costs of continued war are immense. The war, furthermore, was certainly worth fighting, for the reasons cited in the OP, and others. But this does not exhaust the question: these considerations do not indicate to us that the means employed are the sorts of things that we can legitimately use to pursue our ends, however important and worthy those ends are.

Atrocity, of course, is inseparable from war, especially a war as total as that of World War II. From the standpoint of humaneness, the US had probably already done worse prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs, and certainly the Japanese atrocities in Asia and the Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe make the entire sum of Allied atrocities appear a pittance in comparison. But the war is over, the atmosphere of necessity that tends to distract from moral questions is gone, and there seems no reason to fail to come to terms with what has been done: not as a horrific crime of US imperialism against an innocent Japanese victim, but simply as an evil of war that should not have been done, simply because human beings should not be treated in such a way.

[The Magistrate]

166. Your Well-Reasoned Comment, Sir, Is Much Appreciated

That the events under discussion were evil in themselves, and certainly deplorable considered in isolation, is beyond argument.

Unfortunately, that is not always a sufficient consideration in prosecuting war. The over-riding ethical imperative in war is to attempt to inflict the minimum degree of cruelty necessary to bring the thing to a victorious conclusion. One has no business engaging in the enterprise at all if one is not convinced the end signified by victory is an improvement of the situation from what it was when the war commenced. On this, obviously, there can be a great deal of debate, and necessarily considerable disagreement on the part of the combatant powers, and one can only be guided by one's own values. In the instance of the Second World War, it is impossible for me to see the war aims of the Axis powers as good, or indeed as anything but evil in the extreme.

There are two elements to this discussion, one of which has been gone into at some length, while the other has not been touched on at all. The former is the fact that the atrocious conduct of Imperial Japan commenced the war in the Pacific, and so brought with some inevitability, considering the actual balance of material forces, ghastly horrors down on the populace of the Home Islands. The latter, unremarked so far, is consideration of what is needed to break the power of an aggressor state, and what was available to the military art of the time.

It is an unfortunate fact that there is no way to assail a government in the era of total war without doing great harm to the population it governs. The capability to manufacture and distribute weapons, and to fuel the machines of war and transport, and to feed soldiers and workers engaged in war manufacture, are the keys to the business. In our present day, these things can be done with some degree of precision, but in the period of the Second World War, only very blunt instruments were available. Blockade which cuts off importation of food and fuel and raw materials imposes malnutrition on the civilian populace, which leads to disease outbreaks and a great increase in death rate. Aerial bombardment did well to hit a target the size of a city; effective bombing of factories proved to be largely a mirage. Ruining of rail networks, and harrying of road transport, conducted by fighter bombers when these could be brought in range, swept up many civilians and imposed a sort of 'internal blockade', with the same effects as the external form. It became quickly apparent to those directing the war effort against the Axis that there simply was no way to weaken the enemy save measures that killed a tremendous number of civilians, and of all ages and conditions. A peculiar twist of horror layers onto this with the understanding that the leadership of totalitarian regimes above all others is most impervious to the suffering inflicted on its civilian population, and so this will be slower to effect the councils of such a regime than it might others differently constituted.

But it remains the case that without the aggression of those regimes, which put on others the necessity of breaking them, and the atrocious conduct of that aggression, which steeled political will to see the thing through no matter what, none of the various sufferings endured by civilian populations in Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany would ever have occurred. It is also the case that what was inflicted on these civilian populations did materially shorten the war. Some of this suffering was directly attendant on actions against strictly defined military objectives, much of it was occasioned by more general measures intended to break the will to fight of both the populace and the leadership, both political and military. In the case of Imperial Japan, the best assessment of the results of the campaign as a whole is that it crippled military power outside the Home Islands, reduced popular fighting spirit, weakened the will to fight of the political leadership, but did not diminish the will to fight of the military leadership in any appreciable degree. The will of the population, in the Japanese system, was the most negligible factor, at least until some putative future collapse under immediate strain to wholesale desertion of soldiers and defections of civilians to an invading force. The military leadership believed it had in hand sufficient fighting power in the Home Islands to bloody an invasion badly, and was resolved to hold on till that crisis materialized: whether it was right or wrong in this assessment is immaterial to the effect it had on their actions.

The story of the last months of the Pacific War is the story of interplay between the weakening will to fight of the political leadership of Imperial Japan, and the resolve to continue fighting of the military leadership of Imperial Japan. In the Japanese system, the military leadership held control of the government, unless directly ordered to some course by the Emperor. In the wake of the catastrophic fire raid on Tokyo early in 1945, the will of the key figure, the Emperor, to continue the war began to weaken, but not sufficiently for him to command the military leadership to surrender. His attitude was sufficient to empower civilian political leadership to commence halting peace feelers, but these were opposed by the military leadership, and worthless without their support. The only peace terms the military leadership was willing to consider were wholly unacceptable to Imperial Japan's enemies, and rightly so, as they would have simply ratified much of Imperial Japan's conquests, and left the same military dominated political structures in place. The Emperor was not moved to directly order the military leadership to surrender until after the atomic bombs, and the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo. It is a dicey debate which of these was the dominant factor, but in any case, the Soviets did not move until August 9, after the atomic attacks.

[Unvanguard]

174. Well, there are a few separate questions here.

First, there is the direct historical question, were the bombings necessary to secure Japanese surrender without the immense cost in life and suffering of a long-term continuation of the war? I am no historian, and certainly I have no special knowledge of the period; my judgment, for what it's worth, is that the "revisionists" overstate their case by reading the reports of surrender offers too optimistically, but on the other hand that, considering the immense harm that had already been dealt to Japanese cities long before the atomic bombings, what really altered the picture from merely "more of the same" (if in an even more fearsome way) was the Russian intervention.

Second, there is the abstract moral-philosophical question, do the ends justify the means, or, to put it better, are there some means that may never be used whatever the consequences? Moral theory is an area I have studied in some depth, and my own judgment is that there are indeed such means, and rather more than would be convenient; it is of course true that plenty of others have reached the exact opposite conclusion, and if we simply outright disagree fundamentally on this point, it may be better to simply "agree to disagree." What can be said more definitively here is what I said in my earlier post, however, which is that, despite our rather inconsistent application of the principle, a great deal of mainstream moral and political ideas and practices can only be sustained on the judgment that some means, at least, are not justifiable by considerations of consequence.

Third, there is what is perhaps the diciest issue of all, which is what means, in the context of wartime, count as "simply evil and never to be used" and which ones count as "necessary evils when proportionate gains can be accomplished." The straightforward answers to this question are much complicated by war, and by total war especially, for precisely the kinds of reasons you reference: when the entire population and infrastructure is directly or indirectly connected to the war effort, it is no longer clear who should and should not count as a combatant, and what should and should not constitute a military target.

That said, effective means can be roughly divided into two categories: first, ones that attempt to directly impair the capacity of a power to inflict violence in pursuit of its objectives, and second, ones that attempt to weaken the will of the enemy to fight by imposing such heavy costs of continued war that it concedes. To specifically target civilians and civilian infrastructure for the sake of compelling a surrender is a quite different thing from attempting to directly destroy its capacity to wage war; when precision bombing is impossible and when total war is in effect, even bombing aimed at targets concretely related to the war effort will result in incidental immense harm to civilians, but, when proportionate, this can be treated as simply the cost of war, for which the ultimate responsibility lies with the aggressor. The practice of "terror bombing" (forgive the propagandistic term, for lack of a good alternative), on the other hand, involves treating civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure not as unfortunate tragedies to be averted when possible, but as necessary and proper accessories to the objective of prosecuting the war: the attempt, then, will be made not to minimize, but to increase, the quantity of such casualties and damage. This I find morally unacceptable: we do not have the right to use other people merely as resources for the objectives we pursue, and while an exaggeration it is not too much of one to say that doing so is at the root of most human evil.

Into which category do the atomic bombings fall? Again with the preliminary acknowledgement that my historical knowledge of this era is not superb, I'm inclined to think that they are more in the way of "terror bombing" than the more defensible practice of "strategic bombing for a concrete military purpose." This is because, like incendiary weaponry, they are designed and used precisely for their destructive capacity. When a city is nuked or firebombed, there can be no pretense that there was a meaningful attempt to avoid the loss of civilian life, even in the limited way that such is ever possible when bombing cities. It seems the most plausible reading of intent to say that the point of such bombings was not their direct military gain, but the totality of the destruction they inflicted (on combatant and non-combatant alike) and the power they put on display, as a way to compel Japanese surrender. And while very much understandable in the context of the time, and certainly far from demonstrative of nonsense like "The Allies were no better than the Axis", this cannot be squared with even those limited norms of human decency that ought to prevail in the midst of wartime.

What does this mean, at this point? Ultimately not much. Except that we should continue to strive, insofar as gains (limited and narrow as they may be) can be had, for a world that can overcome the prospect of nuclear war and, ultimately, that of mass organized violence itself.

[The Magistrate]

178. Our Views, then, Sir, Would Seem To Be Largely Similar, Or At Least To Have Substantial Overlap

Your distinction between forms of strategic bombing is acute, and soundly presented. Most Allied strategic bombing, particularly in Japan, was 'terror bombing', a term accurate enough to meet with no objection from me. There is no question that this is an immoral enterprise. Where we would seem to differ in some degree is on the question of whether an action's being immoral bars its use in warfare in all circumstances. War in my view is pretty much a moral vacuum; calculations in war are always guided by expediency. It is often expedient in war to appear moral, but in my view actions taken out of expediency, for advantage, cannot truly be considered moral, since it is not a desire to do the right and moral thing, but a desire to gain advantage, which motivates them. The great 'war crimes' emblematic of the Axis powers in the Second World War; the murder of prisoners of war, the exterminationist policies towards particular populations, the grand killing sprees in wake of victory, and similar items, are not really war crimes, but rather crimes committed during time of war. They do not, and did not, flow from efforts to achieve military objectives; achieving a position from which these actions could be performed was the military objective, and where they occurred there generally was no fighting at all. They are thus of a different character than measures, however immoral, which are aimed at some genuine military objective, even one so broad as seeking to compel surrender in the manner you have outlined above. In war, all persons are resources for the object pursued; this as true of one side's own soldiery and civilians as it is of the enemy's people. It is in the nature of the thing, and cannot be avoided.

[godai]

34. But there are those who have a need to rationalize this unique American use of nuclear weapons. n/t

[snagglepuss]

53. Nothing justifies deliberately misquoting an OP.

Where do I justify killing innocent people? In fact I stated clearly that even as a child I was aware of the terrible suffering endured by civilian casulties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nothing in the OP minimizes that fact.

My complaint is that I nor any one I know heard about Japanese war atrocitiies growing up. Something in my opinion is very wrong that the 30 MILLION victims of Japanese aggression have fallen down the memory hole, not only forgotten but that the Japanese are let off the hook, no collective guilt whatsoever even though Japan historically has been xenophobic and racist and still is.

And it is not just me who thinks this in fact "In 1997 a former mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, told the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun ... that he felt ashamed of the annual peace declarations he issued during his sixteen year term as mayor of Nagasaki ..."The first thing to do is to apologise to China and others who were victims of Japan's aggression. Hiroshima and Nagasaki should pardon the atomic bombing and lead the world in reconciliation".

Following an unfortunate pattern of intimidation in Japan, Hitoshi Motoshima was attacked and seriously injured by a Japanese nationalist for speaking the truth about Japan's war guilt and war crimes."

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/Denying_truth2.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

110. What's next? The Germans were justified in murdering Jews?

You're on a roll! Keep going!

[The Magistrate]

170. Oh, Do Expand On That One, Ma'am....

Please show how anything in the account of Japanese atrocities in the Orient is analagous to presenting an argument in favor of Nazi extermination of European Jewry....

"I think we're going to need another Timmy!"

[ShamelessHussy]

54. Well Said, Ma'am!

I, too am upset by this post and it's sponsors.

That they think the mass and indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians is justified, yet are apparently offended by it in other occasions smacks of simple political ideology where all animals are declared to be equal, yet some are more equal than others.

Nanking is often brought up but rarely is Fallujah or other cities we have wiped out in maintaining our own empire, but to follow their logic to the end would justify some crazy nation or terrorist attacking innocent civilians in this country. :puke:

They remind me of the radical (former) proffesor at the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill :shakes-head:

:hi:

[alarimer]

74. But we're Americans, everything we do is ALWAYS justified.

According to the pieces of shit that think the atomic bombing was okay because it saved American lives (who really gives a shit about all those foreigners anyway?)

:sarcasm:

[snagglepuss]

82. Tell who gives a shit about the 30 million people Japan killed. Who gives a

shit that Chinese men, women, and children that used for germ warfare experimentation are referred to in medical reports as monkeys. I am no US apologist but the blame for the deaths in H&N lies with the Japanese. If Japan cared one shit about it own citizens why didn't it surrender after the bomb was dropped? Do you not get the fact that the Japanese were fascists and therefore operated like fascists and subscribed to fascist ideology? Had the invaded Japan, Japan would have sacrificed their entire population to its ambitions.

[alarimer]

137. They people that were killed in Hiroshima had nothing to do with that.

They were innocent bystanders. It was the Japanese military and government who were to blame. We deliberately bombed civilian areas, just like with the firebombing of Dresden. It was utterly disgusting and despicable.

No one could know with absolute certainty what might have happened. But they chose to commit a blatant war crime instead. Fuck the apologists. I have seen pictures of people with their skin burned off and worse. Not to mention the killing that continued for years afterward.

You disgust me. I am deeply ashamed of the US for doing this. We hold ourselves to a higher standard but always fail to live up to it.

I absolutely hate the rah-rah bullshit I read on this thread. I hate the apologists like you.

[proteus_lives]

94. It was justified.

It was total war and those people were part of the Japanese war effort.

The Japanese government is to blame for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They should have surrendered when we first offered.

[Marr]

265. Just out of curiosity, what would *you* have done?

And I don't mean if you'd been sitting in the President's chair.

If you'd been a regular American at the time, would you have been willing to invade Japan on foot and likely be killed-- so as to spare all those "innocent civilians" in the nation that had sneak attacked your own? I rather doubt it.

[Gemini Cat]

39. I'm glad you posted this.

I think a lot of people forget or don't understand or would rather forget what Japan was doing during this time period.
With that said, I do feel bad for the children. They didn't deserve it, on either side.

[snagglepuss]

63. Thanks for that feedback. I'm really susrprised by some of the reactions.

I suppose many people have an opinion which I once shared that the US was dead wrong for dropping the bombs and the Japanese were victims. Case closed. The horror of carnage brought about by the bombs has not subsided but I no longer blame the US. The blame should rest with Japan where it belongs.

[nini]

49. my dad was in the army in WWII - mostly in New Guinea but the Philippines too for a bit

For the longest time he couldn't get over his hatred of Japan for all the evil things THEY did in those places during the war. I didn't understand it as a kid but as I grew up I could see how he struggled with it.

But, the most telling moment of my life that brought home his war stories was during a hospital visit before he died he had a Filipina nurse. They got talking and he asked her if she was from the Philippines. When she confirmed she was he told her he was in the army there during the war. What she said next made me cry. She took his hand and thanked him for all he did for her and her family. She saw her grandparents and other family members slaughtered right before her eyes as a child. She told of the rapes, the constant violence of the innocent etc... When she thanked my dad so humbly he got tears in his eyes. He said no one had ever thanked him before for that.

It was a memory I will carry for the rest of my life. So, your points are well taken here. The Japanese were hardly innocent in all those though as usual those who have nothing to do with government decisions paid the price. I am in the camp that if this had not been done millions more would have died and we may not have won this war in the end. At the very least the Japanese could have stopped the 2nd attack and surrendered after the 1st.

[4lbs]

51. What Japan did in China indirectly led to the dropping of the Atomic Bomb.

1.) Japan invades China.

2.) The United States issues a blockade, a siege, of Japan, preventing vital supplies to reach Japan which hampered their war effort. That was initiated in October 1937 by Roosevelt's "Quarantine Speech". It culminated with the complete cutoff of oil sales from the U.S. to Japan in July 1941, which took away 95% of Japan's oil supply.

3.) Japan, reacting to the cutoff in oil supply, attacks Pearl Harbor after months of negotiating fail.

4.) The U.S. enters WW II and declares War on both Germany and Japan.

5.) After 4 years of war, the Atomic Bomb is dropped.


Had Japan not invaded China, there would have been no blockade and cutoff of oil supplies, no Pearl Harbor, no atomic bombs destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The U.S. would have entered WW II, but only to fight against Germany and Italy. This is because FDR came up with the "Rainbow Five" plan, which called for a U.S. invasion of Europe in 1943 of about 10 million men to aid England and Russia. However, there would have been no war in the Pacific against Japan then. It wasn't until FDR got an intercepted Japanese message about an imminent attack from them that he decided to prepare for possible war with Japan.

[Fleet]

56. Thank you for sharing

It is an important perspective to bear in mind. There are times when nothing is more just or appropriate than victory.

[snagglepuss]

62. I am surprised by all the flack this OP created. Thanks for your comments.

The observation that "there are times when nothing is more just or appropriate than victory" is very apt.

And welcome to DU. I look forward to reading your posts.:hi:

[Fleet]

57. dp.... minds out of the gutter, that's double post

'doh

[GodlyDemocrat]

64. Let them grieve ... war sucks.

No one here would deny the evil of the Japanese empire, but let them grieve on this day for the innocent bystanders that were killed.

[snagglepuss]

81. My issue is that most people don't know half about what Japan did.

Most of Japan's 30 million victims were innocent bystanders. "Certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history," writes Iris Chang. She notes that "it is impossible to determine the exact number of women raped in Nanking. Estimates range from as low as twenty thousand to as high as eighty thousand." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 89)

... Many young women were simply tied to beds as permanent fixtures accessible to any and all comers. When they became too weepy or too diseased to arouse desire, they were disposed of. In alleys and parks lay the corpses of women who had been dishonored even after death by mutilation and stuffing." (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195.)

SNIP

... The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest -- fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers ... those who refused were killed on the spot." (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95.)


...total number of civilians and prisoners-of-war murdered in Nanking and its immediate vicinity during the first 6 weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000.

[yodermon]

67. You have described War as it has Ever been fought. Raping, Pillaging,

disembowelment, mutilation, necrophilia, and wanton destruction as you describe, has been part of War since the beginning of human history. That the Japanese enacted it on a such a scale is worth commemorating (and it IS commemorated), but frankly it was nothing new under the sun.

BUT WE DROPPED THE FIRST FUCKING NUKE EVER EVER EVER ON THEM. That's what's different. That's why this is deserving of a memorial on its anniversary.

Recognizing this day does not by definition detract from the memory of the Japanese atrocities. But we *did* unleash something new and horrible that day, and it had better damn well be remembered as its own separate and singular event. If the horror of NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMBS exploding over innocent civilians is allowed to be rationalized for *any* reason then the bar is being set for "acceptable use" of such weapons. THERE IS NO BAR, and our remembrance of the event should firmly establish this.

My wife is Korean. I was just in Korea for 3 weeks in July. The Japanese occupation is *still* palpable to them for the exact reasons you listed, and because it had lasted so long. They will be celebrating their independence exactly 1 week from today. I assure you that their "collective memory" is not so "selective". And you're right about Japan's obstinate refusal to properly acknowledge their history (especially in the classroom). Perhaps your post would have been more fitting had you waited a week.

[TexasObserver]

69. Recommend

[kiva]

72. K&R

If the Japanese people were victims, it was of their own government's military aggression.

[patrice]

116. By this principle, what should be an appropriate response to the War of Aggression against Iraq

[Rabrrrrrr]

76. The Japanese, sadly, have a very selective cultural memory

and like so many Asian cultures, a truly arrogant sense of their own innate superiority and the subhuman status of all other races.

Not all Japanese, obviously, but in general.

And as your post pointed out, there is a growing movement of people moving into politics who wish to go back to the old imperial style, who want Japan to be a military powerhouse again, and who wish to bring Japan back into a golden age of honor - that is, create a huge peasant class, a warrior class, and a ruler class, and try to take over the world again.

Or if not take over the world, at least wipe out all the Koreans, and then maybe move on to taking out the Chinese.

[ShamelessHussy]

78. Classic example

of projecting.

[Rabrrrrrr]

79. You don't really know anything about the Japanese, do you?

Oh, well.

Someday you might learn.

[anneboleyn]

103. I have actually heard scholars of Japan say what you just argued, Rabrrrrrr

You may be an academic, so excuse my point -- but I have heard the points you made argued by academic scholars of contemporary Japan -- so there is definitely support for what you are arguing, despite what some might say here in this thread.

[Rabrrrrrr]

113. And I live in Japan part of the year, and my SO is Japanese

and I hear much the same from her and her friends - granted, they are mostly Christians (and most of them highly educated clergy, as well) of a liberal bent and not tied into the Emperor worship/old school ways so much (though they all certainly love Japan and want the best for their nation), so they are more willing to see the truth more accurately than many.

And they know damned well the fullness of the atrocities committed by the Japanese not only in World War II and the years before it, but in the thousand years before that, too. And, of course, they know and see the atrocities of other countries, including the US.

[Vidar]

80. Thanks for posting this , snagglepuss. It's too easy to armchair quarterback sixty

years after the fact.

[snagglepuss]

84. Thank you for that feedback. I am really surprised at how much rancor this

created. It is too easy to be an armchair quarterback. However it is undeniable that Japan started the war and that it reaped a whirlwind. Did innocent citizens deserve a horrible death. No. However one could argue that the Japanese were responsible for their unquestioned obedience to the Emperor. and that the Japanese who have always been xenophobic and racist let themselves become captive to fascists who spouted off about Japanese superiority.



edit spelling

[TankLV]

86. Thank You! How easy it is for the apologists to IGNORE this "inconvenient" TRUTH!!!

[Morning Dew]

89. I love a thread where The Magistrate posts more than once. Thanks for the thread.

[hayu_lol]

98. Thanks Snaggle for your research and links...

for those who live in the greater Los Angeles area, you might want to visit the 3rd floor of the Honnold Library at the Claremont Colleges in Claremont CA.

There are rows and rows of very dusty books, most with pictures(Japanese orgin)of what took place in China and Korea. It is helpful to be able to read Japanese/Chinese but not necessary. A picture is worth....

Apologists are quite out of step. Before dropping either of the bombs, we dropped pamphlets and leaflets telling what would happen if Japan did not immediately surrender. They were warned. The warnings were ignored.

The Manhattan Project, the most secret project ever undertaken in human history, produced our entry into the 'atomic' age.

For those who continue to protest the firebombings(saturation bombing over a period of days and nights)that produced the firestorms tend to forget how the Germans casually dropped V-1s haphazardly over London killing many civilian men, women, and children at random. Had the Germans developed the atomic bombs, then the V-2s could have been aimed at the US.

One cannot compare the tiny war in Iraq with the total world war of WWII.

[virginia mountainman]

95. K&R!!

Too many people don't even comprehend the bloodbath and in the end, near total annihilation the Japanese people would have endured had not the Atomic Bombs been used.

They have NO IDEA about what they so cavalierly like to second guess about..

And the Irony is, many thousands of US GI's would have been killed aswell..

Their is a great chance, that many of the "atomic bomb" apologists, would not even be here today, if their grand father would have been killed invading Japan..

[proteus_lives]

96. Great post!

People often forget why we used the atomic bombs. They just get caught up in the hand-wringing of the fact that we used them in the first place. We used them to stop a genocidal empire.

The fact will always remain that the bombs were the best card in a shitty hand.

Japan still has a long way to go about admitting the horrors of their past.

[ConsAreLiars]

102. Massmurder of innocents because the more powerful want to extend their power is certainly

common practice. And that dittoheads repeat their "justifications" for mass slaughter, despite the historical evidence, is all too commonplace. That conflict was over before those directed-at-the-USSR bombs were detonated. When the question is asked "How sick and hateful and xenophobic can you be,?" and even before, someone pops up with a "See me" post.

[The Magistrate]

105. It Was Not Over, Sir

Not in the minds that mattered, namely the War Minister, and the Chiefs of Staff of the Imperial Army and Navy. These maintained a deadlock in the War Cabinet which kept the government on a course for continued war right up until the very end, after both atomic bombs had been dropped, and the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo had commenced, at which time the Emperor finally explicitly commanded surrender.

[ConsAreLiars]

226. Eisenhower held my view.

You share McArthur's and those with similar outlooks.

See: http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

"...in 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

And you disagree with many scholars and historians who provide documentation rather than simply asserting claims based only on the all too common "if my tribe did it, it is justified" premise.

See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-drobny/the-myth-of-hiroshima_b_56245.html

For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division concluded, "The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."<3>

[Statistical]

118. Your fallacy is that you assume it was over.

Could Japan fight offensively in a co-ordinated manner? No.

So to those outside Japan sphere of control the war was largely over.

However about 138 million civilians lived in territory still controlled by Japan.

Japan had already genocided 30 million civilians.

They were mostly sub-human Chinese. Japan wanted the land to expand the Japanese race not rule a bunch of worthless Chinese.

So the war wasn't over unless we were going to let Japan keep occupied territory and allow another 30, 50, 80 million people killed in ethnic cleansing.

The Japanese Imperial Army was incredibly brutal and the belief is that they needed to be stoped today not in 6 months or a year but right now.

The two bombs plus Russia entering the war was a strategy to force Japan into accepting a very undesirable outcome and that is that the Japanese Empire was over, forever.

[ConsAreLiars]

227. See my post #226 just above yours (nt)

[EFerrari]

104. I knew very little of this. Thank you.

[The Magistrate]

106. It Is, Unfortunately, Little Known, And Even Less Appreciated, Ma'am, Here In The West

Chinese history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a particular interest of mine, and has been for a long time. Imperial Japan was so involved that of necessity a good deal of lore concerning that polity as well must be picked up for understanding of events.

One of the worst features of it is that it is so little documented: there is not even much agreement on total numbers. Vast as the scale of the Hitlerite atrocities were, the numbers are reasonably precise, and even many of the names of the dead known. These people in China and elsewhere were mostly simply vanished from the world, as if they had never been living humans at all. Rest assured, Ma'am, that what has been listed above is a barest introduction....

[EFerrari]

198. I'm watching Iris Chang on BookTV speak about her book, Rape.

It's not scheduled to repeat this weekend but typically, this week's programs are uploaded by next weekend. Her grandparents both survived Nanking.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/5269/Encore+Booknotes+Iris+Chang+The+Rape+of+Nanking+The+Forgotten+Holocaust+of+World+War+II.aspx

[The Magistrate]

211. Thank You, Ma'am: I Will Keep An Eye Towards It

A horrible thing. When the Nazi Consul is appalled, you know things have crossed a line....

[regnaD kciN]

107. Ah, the good old "blame the victim" gambit...

Next time, I suggest you go to NYC on the anniversary of 9/11 and tell everybody how unfair it is to commemorate the victims of the Twin Towers while not doing the same to every Arab and Muslim victim of U.S. military action that "logically" led to al-Qaeda's "reply."

On the bright side, I guess I've found some new people to add to my ignore list. :puke:

[The Magistrate]

108. You Are The Second Person To Try That Puerile Wheeze In This Discussion, Sir

Imperial Japan was no victim in the Second World War; Imperial Japan was a leading aggressor instigating that war. Without its having embarked on a decades long course of conquest, pursued by atrocious means, not a soul in Hiroshima, or in any other Japanese city burnt to bone-ridden cinders, would have met the slightest harm.

[Rabrrrrrr]

114. Thanks for your posts here, Magistrate! Cogent, true, accurate - and "puerile wheeze" is lol!

"Blame the victim" - what a fucking load of shit, as though an infant had explosive diarrhea into a clothes hamper and mom said, "Oh, you washed the clothes!" and put them on. Or something. I'm tired.

It's like some people on this thread have no sense of history before August 6, 1944. As though the Japanese had spent the earlier four decades sitting on their tatami mats drinking tea and arranging flowers and sending goodwill packages to all the Pacific Rim countries.

[TexasObserver]

127. Indeed. It wasn't a war we wanted, but one we had to fight.

Anyone who actually understands the history of the world at war in the first half of the 20th century knows without question that the use of the nuclear bombs to end WWII ushered in an era that has for 64 years avoided the kind of slaughter we saw in WWI, the Holocaust, and WWII (with the exception of the Khymer Rouge massacres of the 1970s).

Fear of nuclear weapons has saved millions upon millions of lives that would have been lost in a world controlled only by conventional arms. It's an ugly truth, but it's the truth.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

139. "puerile wheeze" lol!

Perfect!!!

[patrice]

126. wow

:eyes:

[Obamanaut]

112. An outstanding OP, and educational thead. Thank you. nt

[snagglepuss]

276. A belated thank you. I am astonded that it has received so much flack

When I posted the thread I assumed the feedback would be positive. I am am really struck by the divergence of opinions and outright hostility. It cheers me to know that some have found it informative.

[patrice]

115. "It was justified." "They started it. We ended it." So, what would be a just response to Shock&Awe?

and the subsequent 7 years? We started it. According to the stated principle, whose aggression against us will be justified by what we have done to Iraq?

BTW: I get the point in the OP. If bombing H&N is evil, then so are the Japanese Atrocities. You simply can't condemn one, unless you condemn the other.

The History shows HOW it happened, but that isn't justification either; it's more like describing the progression of a fatal cancer.

[bahrbearian]

122. Exactly.

But they did it first, is a childish arguement.

[Statistical]

125. That wasn't the point. See #123 n/t

[Statistical]

123. You are missing the point (or just projecting).

The point is that Japanese Imperial Army was extremely brutal to troops, civilians and POW.

They had killed 30 million civilians. Hitler killed 8 million Jews and it is the Holocaust.

So what is the systemtic extermination of 30 million civilians via famine (burning farmland), chemical weapons, rape & pillage, mass executions, slave labor, and forced prostitution camps?

30 million. That is about 500,000 civilians a month. 15,000 civilians were dying EVERY SINGLE DAY at the hands of the racist, sadistic, xenophobic Japanese Imperial Army.

15,000 a day. How long should we have stretch the war out?

1 month? Well you just signed the death warrant of half a million people.
3 months? Another 1.5 million snuffed out.
6 months? Another 3 million dead.

How long is too long when your enemy is exterminating people at the rate of 15,000 per day?

Truman decided 1 week was too long and then he dropped 2 awesomely powerful weapons in a gambit that he hoped would force Japan to its knees and end the war.

[bahrbearian]

132. This is about dropping a Bomb on Civilians.

[Statistical]

135. Exactly. It was the fastest way to stop the Imperial Army.

An Army that had exterminated 30 million civilians and was doing so at the rate of 500,000 per month.

An invasion likely would have worked but it would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides AND more importantly would have taken time, 3-4 months. Are 2 million Chinese civilians worth less than 200,000 Japanese civilians?

Anothe route would be continung the blockade. That would have killed 300-500 thousands Japanese civilians with little risk to Americans however blockades are slow and unpredictable. It could have taken 6-12 month or longer before the Empire collapsed. Is 6 million Chinese civilians worth less than 200,000 Japanese civilians?

There was no method to ending the war that wouldn't result in more civilians deaths. Pretending doesn't make it so.

[bahrbearian]

136. Did you not hear ,Einsinhower stated they were ready to surrender before the Bomb

[Statistical]

138. "surrender" vs surrender.

There is no historical evidence that Japan was wiling to surrender on term acceptable to the US prior to the bombs.

Japan had 5 conditions
* Keep the emperor.
* Not disarm the military
* Keep all occupied territory (the ones where they exterminated 30 of 138 million people living there).
* No war crimes
* No occupation of Japan.

Historical documents from JAPAN show this to be true.

Would you accept "surrender" on conditions like that.

It was never going to happen but even if it did it would have signed the death warrants of 138 million civilians living in occupied lands.

Would you be ok with that?

[Hobarticus]

146. Hindsight is awesome that way....

Ike wrote that years after the fact, long after what was really going on in the Japanese high command was out in the open.

And considering Ike was the Supreme Allied Commander in EUROPE, that's the only way he'd know what the hell was going on in the Pacific: read about it after the fact. Kinda lazy, on his part, and anyone else who'd take his POV as gospel.

That's like skipping asking the guy who was in the car accident what happened, and instead asking the guy who read about it in the paper the next day.

I have enormous respect for Ike, but he wasn't directly involved in fighting and thus ending the Pacific war while trying to stabilize Europe after VE Day, so frankly his opinion on the matter doesn't carry a lot of weight.

[The Magistrate]

172. The Statement, Ma'am, Was Made Many, Many Years After The Event

It has no bearing on the contemporary views of the leadership directing the war in the Pacific.

"The word is regalia: no such thing as 'full regatta'...."

[ShamelessHussy]

176. As is yours however his & other military leaders who where there at the time cary much more weight

Then your opinion on this matter.

For folks who are interested in this serious discussion may I suggest a recent book that is filled with a wealth of information on this topic called...

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674016939

please see the excellent reviews there of other serious minded folks for their thoughts on the book as well.

:hi:

[The Magistrate]

179. At Least, Ma'am, You Are Giving the Search Engines a Work-Out....

That is something, anyway....

[ShamelessHussy]

180. I do my best to provide relevant information to support my views

And to not engage in childish snarks when discussing such serious matters as I find that to be the hallmark of folks who simply wish to disrupt and shut down discussion.

Good day, sir.

[The Magistrate]

181. And A Poor Best It Is, Too, Ma'am....

Amazing how you present disagreement with your views, and pointing out their sparse foundation, as 'disrupting and shutting down discussion'. You will not find me complaining that persons expressing views contrary to mine are engaged in silencing me, or disrupting a discussion. Statements like that proceed from two things, and two things only: persons who call disagreement with themselves disruption mistake the word 'discussion' for the phrase 'echo-chamber'; persons who call disagreement with themselves 'shutting down discussion' are openly confessing themselves incapable of sustaining their views against reasoned and informed argument.

[ShamelessHussy]

182. Thank you for illustrating my point

You seem to be only interested in snarky replies on this very serious discussion, therefore I will disengage in any further comments with you on this topic.

Good day, sir.

[The Magistrate]

183. You Have Said You Are Breaking Off Several Times Already, Ma'am, And Yet, Here You Are....

The discussion is indeed a serious one, but you have made no serious contribution to it, and show no signs of ever doing so....

[snagglepuss]

186. En guard Magistrate. Which might I ask of your posts are more

rewarding? The devastating riposte such as we see here or the longer posts with historical analysis? Both immensely rewarding. How to chose?

:toast:

[bahrbearian]

214. Don't call me Ma'am ,, Bitch.

[The Magistrate]

237. You Know, Ma'am, It Would Probably Be Worth Alerting On This, But Best To Let It Stand

It does eloquent service as an emblem of your temperament, and the workings of your mind....

[neverforget]

269. Game. Set. Match.

[Hobarticus]

144. Absolutely nothing do with the OP, thanks for playing. eom

[patrice]

150. how clever! pardon me if I'm somewhat under-whelmed by your sycophantic lack of any kind of case

in support of your statement.

[Hobarticus]

154. I don't think sycophantic is a good term to use here, but I'll play...

The OP is making no connection to the bombing being "justified".

The OP is pointing out that the millions - MILLIONS - of victims of fascism and imperialism go seemingly unnoticed and un-mourned, while everyone's debating the use of a terrible weapon that simply can't be un-dropped.

Know what's crazy? I actually agree with your post re: shock & awe. History will not judge us kindly. But it has nothing to do with what the OP is saying. Hence, my statement.

But I think - and maybe I'm wrong - that you're also obliquely drawing parallels between what Japan was up to in the Pacific Rim in the 30's and 40's and the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I think also trivializes the experiences of those millions.

If you really need to equate the US in Irag and Afghanistan to WW2-era Japan and Germany and their political and military objectives of genocide and exploitation, then we pretty much have nothing to say to each other further, and I wish you well.

[snagglepuss]

268. The fact that the 30 million deaths are victims of fascism is paramont.

I think H&N commemorations should be framed as a commemoration of the millions who died as a result of the Fascist government of Japan and not on a debate about the bombs which as you say cannot be undropped. Nothing should take eyes off the fact that the Japanese embraced a fascist ideology and that the fascist government started the war and that Japanese fascists like all other fascists were willing to sacrifice even their own citizens to realize their goals.

Furthermore Hedgehog suggests in post #147 "that there were those in the US government who encouraged the Hiroshima and NAgasaki* commemorations to build up the image of nuclear weapons as something distinctly more powerful and horrible than conventional weapons". I think he is right on the mark.

BTW thanks for re-iterating that the OP is not justiying the war. Why many on this thread seem bound and determined to interprete the OP in that way baffles me.

[hack89]

117. Excellent post.. nt

[patrice]

130. So, it's not about what is Just, but, rather, what works. But, what if it hadn't worked?

The principle as I see it at this point is "Atrocity legitimizes Atrocity." Certainly, I'm not the only one who sees what that means.

[closeupready]

134. K&R

n/t

[H2O Man]

143. You forgot Poland.

[snagglepuss]

152. I don't understand how Poland factors into a thread about Japanese atrocities.

[noamnety]

145. "the Japanese to this day refuse to fully acknowledge their guilt."

Happy Columbus Day.
Happy Thanksgiving.

[Unvanguard]

148. Ouch. n/t

[patrice]

149. Don't forget "Long Live the South!"

:hi:

[snagglepuss]

156. So if you are concerned and rightly so about harm inflicted on First Nations

and how their suffering fell down the memory hole only to be supplanted by commemorations of those who were in fact aggressors, why do you balk at the OP?

Just like those who massacred the First Nations,the Japanese were racists. Their xenophobia has been a fact for centuries. Their sense of superiority has been a fact for centuries. The Japanese regarded non-Japanese Asians as sub-humans, they referred to Chinese for example as monkeys. Doctors who performed germ warfare experimentation on live men, women, and children refer to their human subjects as monkeys in their logs.


Japan began the war to WIPE OUT the non-Japanese in order to get more land (ring any bells?) and those not killed were forced into slave labour. So how you can sneer at the OP is baffling.

edit spelling

[noamnety]

161. logic problem in your post

The commemoration of the victims are not a celebration of Japanese treatment of POWs. It's a commemoration for innocent victims of a genocide.

The civilian population we "WIPED OUT" was not entirely composed of doctors performing germ warfare, but you already knew that.

[snagglepuss]

162. Glaring lack of historical fact in yours. Japan killed 30 MILLION people, not POWS

civilians, innocent bystanders in other words innocent victims of actual planned deliberate genocide. 30 million is a death rate of 500,000 a month. How many Hiroshimas and Nagasakis is that per month? But wait you clearly have no handle on the facts nor slightest interest in questionning your own grasp of history.

[Romulox]

163. It would be a better analogy if we claimed Columbus was a victim at the hands of Native Americans

:hi:

[hedgehog]

147. "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." -Curtis Lemay

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/LeMay/AP36.htm


History is written by the victors to suit the victors. For many years, the US was interested in Japan as a Pacific ally than as a criminal nation. I would suggest that there were those in the US government who encouraged the Hiroshima and NAgasaki* commemorations to build up the image of nuclear weapons as something distinctly more powerful and horrible than conventional weapons.

Once war begins, so do war crimes. One side or another may encouraged them, one side or another may try to prevent them. The ultimate war crime is war itself.


* It's an illustration of how quickly we get used to the unspeakable that most of us know something about Hiroshima, but nothing about Nagasaki. Test yourself: what was the target point in Hiroshima? What was the target point in Nagasaki? Do you know of a landmark in Hiroshima? Do you know of a landmark in Nagasaki?

[snagglepuss]

260. DING.DING. DING . You have hit the nail on the head. H&N commemorations

"build up the image of nuclear weapons as something distinctly more powerful and horrible than conventional weapons".

The Japanese were killing an estimated 500,000 a month which is like a H&N every month. They were doing quite nicely achieving their ends by conventional means. And one could argue facetiously that the Japanese won the PR battle because in the long run their atrocities have gone to the memory hole but the US atrocity of dropping nuclear weapons on civilians remains etched in our minds.

The other thing about H&N commemorations is that they don't focus on the fact the FASCISM is the truly diabolical factor at play. Any commemoration should be first and foremost a commemoration of the millions killed as the result of fascist ideology.

[nadinbrzezinski]

153. My stand these days is quite simple... you want to remember

Hiroshima, FINE... do so at the same time you stand side by side the Chinese for the rape of Naking, and other victims.

Usually people get angry when you point this out.

[The Magistrate]

192. That Some Do, Ma'am

[lumberjack_jeff]

155. We don't hear about it because the collective consciousness thinks they have atoned.

Their civilian deaths number about 1% of the civilians murdered by Hirohito.

Had that atonement not occurred, it is hard to envision a Marshall plan.

[Romulox]

164. The Chinese, not the Japanese, are ascendant. *They* have not forgotten what Japan did in WWII

that much is sure. Japan's horrible past will have consequences into the future, and it's an absurdist fantasy to believe otherwise.

[BlooInBloo]

168. Sigh. It's not a contest.

[Hansel]

173. +1

[proud2BlibKansan]

193. +2

One of the top ten worst OPs I have ever seen on DU. :puke:

[Umbral]

175. The war couldn't end until the United States proved it could be just as wretched as the enemy.

I feel so proud.

[ShamelessHussy]

177. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (2005) by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

To all who are interested in this topic may I suggest taking a look at this well regarded scholarly examination of this critical topic that is so misunderstood and often not discussed in our country. (except for the common propaganda of that time)

http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674016939

Editorial Reviews
Review
Racing the Enemy is a tour de force -a lucid, balanced, multi-archival, myth-shattering analysis of the turbulent end of World War II. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa sheds fascinating new light on fiercely debated issues including the U.S.-Soviet end game in Asia, the American decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan's frantic response to the double shock of nuclear devastation and the Soviet Union's abrupt declaration of war.
--John W. Dower, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (20050819)

With this book, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa will establish himself as the expert on the end of the war in the Pacific. This important work will attract a wide readership.
--Ernest R. May, author of Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France (20050802)

In summer 1945 Truman and his advisers set a foreign policy course that demanded American use of doomsday weapons not only against Japan but, indirectly, against humanity itself. In this groundbreaking book, Hasegawa argues that the atomic bombs were not as decisive in bringing about Japan's unconditional surrender as Soviet entry into the Pacific War. His challenging study reveals the full significance of Truman's decision not to associate Stalin with the Potsdam Declaration and offers fresh evidence of how Japan's leaders viewed Stalin's entrance into the war as the decisive factor. Others have shown that Truman missed opportunities to secure Japan's unconditional surrender without an invasion or the nuclear destruction of Japanese cities. But few have so thoroughly documented the complex evasions and Machiavellism of Japanese, Russian, and, especially, American leaders in the process of war termination.
--Herbert P. Bix, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (20050807)

In this landmark study, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa gives us the first truly international history of the critical final months leading to Japan's surrender. Absorbing and authoritative, provocative and fair-minded, Racing the Enemy is required reading for anyone interested in World War II and in twentieth-century world affairs. A marvelously illuminating work.
--Fredrik Logevall, author of Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (20050808)

The long debate among historians about American motives and Japanese efforts at ending World War II is finally resolved in Racing the Enemy, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's brilliant and definitive study of American, Soviet and Japanese records of the last weeks of the war.
--Richard Rhodes (New York Times Book Review 20050805)

Without doubt the best-informed book in English on Japanese and Soviet manoeuvres in the summer of 1945... provides an international context sorely missing from most previous work. He has mined Japanese and Russian literature and documentation and, despite much that is based on surmise, provides fresh insight into the extraordinary inability of Japanese leaders to surrender, and into Stalin's machinations aimed at maximizing Soviet territorial gains in East Asia.
--Warren I. Cohen (Times Literary Supplement 20050807)

A landmark book that brilliantly examines a crucial moment in 20th-century history... important, enlightening, and unsettling book.
--Jonathan Rosenberg (Christian Science Monitor 20060629)

The most comprehensive study yet undertaken of Japanese documentary sources. The highly praised study argues that the atomic bomb played only a secondary role in Japan's decision to surrender. By far the most important factor, Hasegawa finds, was the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan on Aug. 8, 1945, two days after the Hiroshima bombing.
--Gar Alperovitz (Philadelphia Inquirer )

One of the first to make a detailed study of the political interplay among the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States in 1945.
--Alex Kingsbury (U.S. News and World Report )

As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has shown definitively in his new book, Racing the Enemy--and many other historians have long argued--it was the Soviet Union's entry into the Pacific war on Aug. 8, two days after the Hiroshima bombing, that provided the final 'shock' that led to Japan's capitulation.
--Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (Los Angeles Times )

might be called the definitive analysis of the U.S. decision to use atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Professor Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has mined both Japanese and Soviet sources to produce the first truly international study of the Hiroshima decision.
--Errol MacGregor Clauss (Winston-Salem Journal )

Managing to convey the thought processes, assumptions and biases of the Imperial elite is Hasegawa's greatest achievement...Hasegawa's story is a weird, compelling one, and his case for revising our view of the leadup to VJ Day is overwhelming.
--John Dolan (The Exile )

Hasegawa's study provides the most comprehensive examination yet published on the international factors that shaped the decision-making processes and policies adopted in Washington, Moscow, Potsdam and Tokyo, and which ultimately contributed to Japan's surrender in 1945. Racing the Enemy provides a fresh and multi-faceted perspective on a well studied topic primarily because the author draws on information from Russian, Japanese and American archives and sources. While this study both complements and challenges the well-informed findings of Asada Sadao, Robert Butow, Richard Frank and Leon Sigal, the international framework in which Hasegawa places the surrender of Japan makes this book a compelling read for students and scholars alike.
--J. Charles Schencking (Pacific Affairs )

Will we ever really know why Japan surrendered in World War II? In this judicious and meticulously researched study of the endgame of the conflict, internationalizes (by a thorough look at American, Japanese, and Soviet literature and archives) the diplomatic and political maneuvering that led to Japanese capitulation...No study has yet to bundle together the myriad works on the war's end in such a complete manner...This work should become standard reading for scholars of World War II and American diplomacy.
--Thomas Zeiler (American Historical Review )

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is a splendid book--the first to examine the end of the Second World War in the Asia Pacific from a comprehensive, international perspective. Based on archival and published materials in Russian, English, and Japanese, it provides a gripping account of the complex diplomatic maneuvers and political battles that culminated in the tumultuous events of August 1945...Hasegawa has written the first truly international history of the end of the Pacific War. By bringing hitherto separate literatures together into a much-needed dialogue, he has recast the contours of the whole debate. Racing the Enemy will remain essential reading for students of foreign policy and international history for many years to come.
--Anno Tadashi (Monumenta Nipponica )

This book is a well-researched and provocative analysis of a fascinating yet neglected aspect of World War II: the American public's conventional assumption is that Japan surrendered to the Allies because of American atomic bombs...Hasegawa's conclusion raises tempting hypothetical questions for further research of this topic, and he provides intriguing answers to them.
--Sean Savage (Historian )

http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674016939

[AsahinaKimi]

194. What more do you want?

Sentence of War Criminals

On November 12, 1948, on the basis of a simple majority of the eleven judges, Matsui and Hirota, with five other convicted Class-A war criminals, were sentenced to death by hanging. Eighteen others received lesser sentences. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, who was apparently sent to the gallows on the basis of a bare six votes, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures, but to no avail.

Generals Hisao Tani and Rensuke Isogai were sentenced to death by the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal.


Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan

On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and informal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his heartfelt apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that such atrocities would never be repeated.



Japanese American internment refers to the forcible relocation and internment in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans to housing facilities called "War Relocation Camps", in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally throughout the United States. Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast of the United States were all interned, whereas in Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans composed nearly a third of that territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 Japanese Americans were interned. Of those interned, 62 percent were United States citizens.



Climate at Manzanar
The weather at Manzanar caused suffering for the prisoners, few of whom were accustomed to the extremes of the area's climate. The temporary buildings were not adequate to shield people from the weather. The Owens Valley lies at an elevation of about 4,000 feet (1,200 m). Summers on the desert floor of the Owens Valley are generally hot, with temperatures exceeding 100 °F (38 °C) not uncommon. Winters bring occasional snowfall and daytime temperatures that often drop into the 40 °F (4 °C) range. At night, temperatures are generally 30–40 °F (16 to 22 °C) lower than the daytime highs, and high winds are common day or night.<49><51> The area's mean annual precipitation is barely five inches (12.7 cm). The ever-present dust was a continual problem due to the frequent high winds; so much so that prisoners usually woke up in the morning covered from head to toe with a fine layer of dust, and they constantly had to sweep dirt out of the barracks.



"In the summer, the heat was unbearable," said former Manzanar prisoner Ralph Lazo (. "In the winter, the sparsely rationed oil didn't adequately heat the tar paper-covered pine barracks with knotholes in the floor. The wind would blow so hard, it would toss rocks around.

Life behind the barbed wire
After being uprooted from their homes and communities, the prisoners found themselves having to endure primitive, sub-standard conditions, and lack of privacy. They had to wait in one line after another for meals, at latrines, and at the laundry room. Each camp was intended to be self-sufficient, and Manzanar was no exception. Cooperatives operated various services, such as the camp newspaper, beauty and barber shops, shoe repair, and more. ] In addition, prisoners raised chickens, hogs, and vegetables, and cultivated the existing orchards for fruit. Prisoners made their own soy sauce and tofu.

Food at Manzanar was based on military requirements. Meals usually consisted of hot rice and vegetables, since meat was scarce due to rationing. In early 1944, a chicken ranch began operation, and in late April of the same year, the camp opened a hog farm. Both operations provided welcome meat supplements to the prisoners' diet.

Resistance


Although most prisoners quietly accepted their fate during World War II, there was some resistance in the camps. Poston, Heart Mountain, Topaz, and Tule Lake each had civil disturbances about wage differences, black marketing of sugar, intergenerational friction, rumors of “informers” reporting to the camp administration or the FBI, and other issues. However, the most serious incident occurred at Manzanar on December 5–6, 1942, and became known as the Manzanar Riot.

After several months of tension between prisoners who supported the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and a group of Kibei (Japanese Americans educated in Japan), rumors spread that sugar and meat shortages were the result of black marketing by camp administrators. To make matters worse, prisoner and JACL leader Fred Tayama was beaten by six masked men. Harry Ueno, the leader of the Kitchen Workers Union, was suspected of involvement and was arrested and removed from Manzanar. Soon after, 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners gathered and marched to the administration area, protesting Ueno's arrest. After Ueno's supporters negotiated with the camp administration, he was returned to the Manzanar jail. A crowd of several hundred returned to protest, and when the people surged forward, military police threw tear gas to disperse them. As people ran to avoid the tear gas, some in the crowd pushed a driverless truck toward the jail. At that moment, the military police fired into the crowd, killing a 17–year–old boy instantly. A 21–year–old man who was shot in the abdomen died days later. Nine other prisoners were wounded, and a military police corporal was wounded by a ricocheting bullet.



President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones", from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders, while noting that the provisions that singled out people of Japanese ancestry were a separate issue outside the scope of the proceedings.





The buildings may be gone, but the cemetery still stands in mute testimony to the fact that men and women lived and died in this inhospitable land.

Only 15 of the 150 people who died at Manzanar were buried here, while most of the others were cremated. Today, only 6 graves remain because the rest of the bodies have been moved closer to their families. People still come and leave tokes of remembrance though, like the paper chains decorating the monument and the doll lying on the bottom row.

The characters on this monument can be translated as "soul consoling tower". On the back, it reads "August 1943, erected by the Manzanar Japanese."


**My Grand Parents were at Manzanar. They lost their house and all their property. My Grandfather died at Manzanar. Tell us what more do you want?

[Warren Stupidity]

197. some here wish to pretend that the one nation on earth to ever

use atomic weapons is blameless for doing so. The motivation for that false belief is rooted in the same nationalist idiocy that motivated Japanese and German support for the atrocities committed by their governments. In the end it is the blind foolishness of 'my shit don't stink'.

[EFerrari]

199. A formal apology would be a good thing. The governments of both

Japan and the United States still resist these healing measures.

I wanted to teach Farwell to Manzanar in 1989 at Berkeley. We had to have a huge fight to be able to do that because the book was still, at that date, being actively suppressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_to_Manzanar

[AsahinaKimi]

200. Portraits of Manzanar

Found more from another family's experience at Manzanar.
**Note: No one in my family ever wanted to talk about it. Though my Asian Studies course I managed to learn alot more.
http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/manzanar1/page10.html

[The Magistrate]

206. Pitiable, Ma'am

This attempt at 'moral equivalency' falls so far short of the mark as to rank among the most bizarre posts in context ever to feature on this site.

A confined population of 10,000 persons over a period of four years, in whch time 150 persons died, only two as a result of action by the guards, and that in response to an acknowledged riot. That is a death rate of 0.425% per year, below the average of the civilian population at large. This you are putting up as response to wholesale massacre of hundreds of thousands, labor gangs which saw a third to a half their number worked to death in the course of a year, a military campaign whose official title was Burn All, Loot All, Kill All, among other gems. The government which carried out this confinement, acknowledged as illegal and un-Constitutional, has not only apologized, but paid money reparations, and the matter is duly emphasized in its school-books.

This strains even my capacity to take things in good humor, leaving only a residue of disgust at the moral blindness this post displays.

[AsahinaKimi]

208. I am asking what more do you want...

The extinction of All Japanese people?
War Criminals were hung,
The prime minister and emperor of Japan have apologized..
Do you require more blood for blood? Was my Grandfathers death not enough for you?
How far from this event must we go before people stop fighting WWII?

[The Magistrate]

210. Nowhere Near Enough Was, Or Has Now Been, Done, Ma'am

If you cannot see that, there really is little to be said to you....

[AsahinaKimi]

218. so you believe there should have been

Genocide. Maybe a few H bombs to exterminate the entire race?

[proteus_lives]

220. The Japanese would have loved those.

They would gleefully exterminated the Chinese or the Americans had they access to those weapons.

[AsahinaKimi]

221. Everyone of them?

My, my... hatred sure runs deep on DU. 64 years later, and some people generations later, still hate people with such fervor. Maybe its a good thing I am partially Korean.. now you can just hate 3/4Th's of me. Its not like I haven't heard the hate speech before, being an American born Asian in the USA. Its just hard to believe on a progressive website like DU, there are still some haters here, expressing there hatred.

[proteus_lives]

225. What hate? This is merely facts.

Not my fault you're so uncomfortable with the truth.

Everyone of them? No, just the warrior class, the military and social elite, the economic leaders and the emperor. The culture of Imperial Japan was brutal and uncompromising.

Funny you should bring up being partially Korean. It reminds me of high school. I went to a school where half the student population was from Asian countries. SK, China, Japan and Thailand, etc. And the Japanese students wouldn't associate with the Korean and Chinese. I roomed with one Japanese student for a while. Hiro, nice guy, bit of fop. But one day he got into an argument with a Korean student that became a fist-fight. Turns out Hiro had been giving this kid shit for a long time. I asked him about it and he said, "Doesn't matter, he's just a Korean. They are dog people." He continued on a racist rant for a few minutes that left me rather shocked. Never looked at him the same way after that.

I also dated a girl my senior who was half-Korean and half-Japanese. Born and raised in America, she was popular and friends with whites, blacks, latinos, Chinese. But the Japanese exchange students gave her nothing but shit. She once came back from lunch in tears because they were mocking her as half-breed in Japanese. (Which they didn't know she knew)

I don't hate anyone or any culture. But I do get angry at glossing over the past and relativism. I'll own up to the mistreatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, mistreatment of Asians in America previously and anything else. But the Japanese haven't done that. A few half-assed public apologies but what else?

A perfect example of how they haven't dealt with it: There's a sign in the Yasukuni Shrine that says FDR "forced" Japan into the war as a economic strategy. Wow.

[AsahinaKimi]

235. I am not uncomfortable about the truth.

I have read the history. Nor am I defending what was done. Japan has a history of warfare and brutality between clans and among themselves long before the days of the Samurai. Families often fought over land and power.

I grew up in San Francisco and was the only Japanese or Korean in my class. Most of the Asian students were Chinese, of Philippine decent, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai and Indian. Our school was so very international, as we had students who were Hispanic, Black, Middle Eastern, Slavic, European decent, Native Americans, and we all got along very well. Fights were rare in our school, unless if was over relationships and dating.

I was told many of the Japanese in San Francisco were mostly of the older generation, and that many of the Japanese and Koreans had moved down to Southern California, though I suppose there were a few who stayed in the bay area, and in places like San Jose. We had one exchange student who was my best friend, and she was from Indonesia.

I have since met many Exchange students from Japan and even helped to tutor one in English. I had never heard much about the "half breed" descriptions until recently when my Sensei told me. Like me, he is Japanese and Korean and had left Japan because of that ..and because of being Gay. He prefers to stay here in the USA because of it. My other Sensei is from Miyazaki and she has always been sweet to me.

I am glad to know you do not condemn all Japanese. I have heard many stories of those who thought it was wrong to go to war, and they were caught up in something they had no control over. Many of them feared to say so in any public place for obvious reasons.

There are certain things I am proud of, in my culture, but obviously there are some things historically that are revolting and disgusting. I am glad to be an (Nikkei Amerikajin) American and a Nikkeijin. I am just saddened that there is so much hatred in the world and that it seems even generations beyond the events are still affected by it.

[snagglepuss]

262. Hatred? Please be so kind to state which posts you refer to. I hope you have

alerted the mods to these posts as hate speech isn't allowed on DU.

[The Magistrate]

236. That, Ma'am, Is Simply Hysterical Distortion

You will not be able to find a single word of mine, recently or in eight years on this forum, to provide the slightest weight to the charge.

The nation of Japan has not yet faced up to the enormity of its crimes in the first half of the twentieth century. That is a simple fact. Substantial sectors of Japanese political life to this day openly deny such crimes were even committed; in Germany, people attempting similar denials of Nazi atrocities would be jailed. Has Japan paid reparations to China, to Korea? Has it compensated Indonesia or Burma for the murder of conscripted laborers from those occupied lands? Far too many leaders of Imperial Japan, military, civilian, and industrial, commencing with the then-Emperor himself, were not dealt justice for their actions. The expediemt reasons for this, which dictated this ommission at the time, are familiar to me, and sound enough to accept on argument of necessity, but it was still a bad policy, even if it was probably the best among several un-promising options in a difficult situation.

Accusing persons who point out the facts of history, and give them all due weight, of advocating genocide, says a good deal more about you, Ma'am, and your attitudes, than it does about the persons you aim such slanders at.

[Bonobo]

240. Ironic to hear someone ignoring crimes while accusing others of ignoring crimes.

For you to suggest that the Japanese still carry the burden of their guilt because they do not acknowledge the crime is ironic considering that you refuse to accept the great crime of killing so many Japanese.

It is clear that you are as incapable of seeing irony as you are of seeing you own hypocrisy.

[The Magistrate]

244. You Do Not Even Take That Statement Seriously Yourself, Sir....

You are as aware as anyone else reading it that it is simply a reflexive noise, devoid of content, and meaningless as announcing a person arrived to the ball in full regatta....

[Bonobo]

245. Not at all.

Your entire argument is essentially that Japan "had it coming" because of their misdeeds.

You are unable to see the hypocrisy in justifying our misdeeds as a result of their misdeeds?

Honestly, I would expect a higher level of morality from a 5 year old ("I hit my brother in the head because he hit my friend in the head!")

[The Magistrate]

250. Again, Sir, Utter Nonesense

You would seem to one of those people caught up in the fallacy moral gymnastics cnstitute the point of life....

My point on the use of the atomic bombs is that nothing prior to their use had convinced the military leadership of Japan they were out of military options for gaining some result they could view as success in the Greater East Asian War, nor had anything prior to their use convinced the Emperor to order his military leadership to acquiesce in surrender as the Imperial Will. Imperial Japan's government was so constituted at the time that the military leadership held an absolute veto over policy, absent direct, personal intervention by the Emperor.

My point in insisting on turning an open eye towards the atrocities of Imperial Japan, crimes of colossal size and scope, extending over many years, is that they deserve recognition, and that the use of the atomic weapons in an effort to bring them finally to an end has been used to turn eyes away from these crimes, and pressed into service as form of alibi for these crimes, which is wrong.

[Bonobo]

252. I agree that the bomb does not absolve the guilt of Japanese crimes. Similarly...

The US is not absolved of the crimes they committed this day so many years ago by pointing out that the Japanese had committed crimes "first".
If you accept the notion that the bombs were justified, than you have successfully primed yourself for their use, once again, when the correct conditions are met in the future.
Congratulations. I am sure there are many who feel the citizens of the US also deserve collective punishment for their country's sins.

I hope you will be the first to defend Pakistan or North Korea when they drop one on us and state that it was the only way to get the US to stop killing Muslims -or whatever their excuse may be.

[The Magistrate]

256. War, Sir, And Revenge, Will Continue On This Earth Quite Independent Of Me....

You take it as a given the use of the atomic bombs was a crime, but that is far from clear to me. A case can be made that the entire campaign of bombing directed at the urban population of Imperial Japan was criminal; a case just as strong, or stronger, can be made that it was necessary.

No similar arguement exists over whether the torturous executions of prisoners in the hands of Imperial Japanese soldiery was or was not criminal; no plea of necessity can possibly be entered with a straight face and honest heart. Nor is there the slightest question that the crime of aggressive war was committed by Imperial Japan.

[Bonobo]

258. You can claim that bombing an innocent, urban population was necessary?

You would justify the firebombing of Tokyo as well?

No moral justification of that will ever amount to anything but the ravings of a deluded mind.

[The Magistrate]

259. Spoken, Sir, Like A Man Who Has Never Given Six Minutes Consecutive Thought To The Problem....

And there for a moment this had begun to resemble a reasonable and thoughtful exchange....

"They say war is an art, but it isn't. It mostly consists in outwitting people, stealing from widows and orphans, and inflicting suffering on the helpless for one's own ends, and that's not art: that's business."

[Bonobo]

261. The point at which we disagree is this one.

Justification.

For some things, justification represents in itself, another crime, Some things cannot be justified less they become more palatable, and the difficult steps needed to avoid them begin to look like too much trouble.

Your arguments can only end in more bombs being dropped, then justified after the fact. And anyone, Sir, can claim that anything is deserved after the fact. But we will all eventually find ourselves victims in such a world.

[fascisthunter]

270. well stated

[The Magistrate]

273. Welcome To My World, Son

"Happiness can be cured. Contact me for details."

[datasuspect]

278. full regalia

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

216. I have read that 75% of American POWs of the Japanese never came back alive

They were worked to death and starved to death.

[proteus_lives]

219. We want the Japanese to acknowledge the Rape of China and Korea.

Your grandparents were Americans and while they suffered, it's sickening to compare that to the millions butchered by the Japanese Empire.

Was your grandmother made a sex slave by the US army?

Was your grandfather worked to death in a munitions factory?

Were all their neighbors burned alive in a church? Were used for bio-warfare experiments?


"My Grand Parents were at Manzanar. They lost their house and all their property. My Grandfather died at Manzanar. Tell us what more do you want?"

We don't anything from them. They were Americans who hopefully distanced themselves from their genocidal cousins.

[AsahinaKimi]

222. again,,,

Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan

On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and informal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his heartfelt apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that such atrocities would never be repeated.

[proteus_lives]

223. Yet they continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine.

And pray for and honor the souls of war criminals......


And white-out Japanese war crimes from school text-books.

[AsahinaKimi]

224. Is there something wrong with honoring your dead?

So if you are on the losing side of a battle or war, its wrong for you to honor the dead? That means people who visit the graves of Confederate soldiers should be scorned? Families are not allowed to honor their dead? Germans are not allowed to visit the graves of their families? Even if they were on the wrong side of history?

[proteus_lives]

228. Nothing wrong with honoring the dead.

But I don't see any official shrines to Hitler in Germany. We're talking about war criminals, not soldiers.

Would you remove Tojo's name from the Shrine or would say a prayer and call him a gunshin?

I don't know about you but I would have a problem with praying to butcher.

[AsahinaKimi]

230. Gunshin ..

Originally, a tutelary kami of battle, similar to the Greco-Roman gods Ares and Mars. Numerous kami have been venerated in Japan as tutelaries of warfare, based on various interpretations of their personalities and characteristics. Ise Sadatake (1717-84) considered the three kami Ōnamuchi, Takemikazuchi, and Futsunushi as noteworthy tutelaries of warfare, but Hayashi Razan (1583-1657) added Amaterasu ōmikami, Hachimanōkami, Sumiyoshi myōjin, and Hiyoshi myōjin. Other commentators include such figures as Susanoo, Yamatotakeru, Empress Jingū, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, Takeminakatanokami, MichinoOminomikoto, Umashimaji no mikoto, Emperor Jinmu, Takeshiuchi no sukune, Minamoto no Yoshiie, and Takeda Shingen to the list.

The idiomatic expression, the "three kami of war" refers to Hachiman ōkami, Empress Jingū (alternately, Michi no Omi no mikoto), and TakeshiuchinoSukune. The Minamoto clan's adoption of Hachiman as a particularly important tutelary of warfare was in large measure responsible for the popularity of the deity among warriors in general.

Within Japanese Buddhism, the Indian deities Marishiten, Bishamonten, Fudōmyōō, Daikokuten, and Benzaiten are considered gunshin, and the bodhisattva Myōken was likewise revered by military families. In the modern period, certain military men who died in the Russo-Japanese war, such as Hirose Takeo (1868-1904) and Tachibana Shūta (1865-1904) were popularly called gunshin, but in such cases, the term was used merely to refer to a soldier who exhibited exemplary military demeanor and died bravely in battle, and who was therefore held up as a model of military bearing. When used in that way, the term had a significance somewhat different from its original meaning.
-Ōhara Yasuo

This has been something that is traditional and passed down from Generation to Generation. Asian countries are rich on tradition, and tradition is important. As an American born Japanese-Korean, I barely know much about it, other then what I have been taught. Life is different here. I am not from the "old country".. however.. I have a respect for tradition, even from far, far away. I may not always agree with it, but I still respect it.

[stranger81]

205. If only I had a sock puppet

just so I could unrec this OP again.

[kgnu_fan]

212. Article 9 of Japanese Constitution states that

"Japanese people forever renounce war as a soverign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes".

Peace Constitution has been the founding legal document of Japan since 1947. To this end the article provides that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

During the 1950's to early 1960's, Japanese school children were taught about their war history and progressive thoughts to fight militalism, an effort given by very strong teachers union. However since 1970s, revisionists started to change text books, weakened teacher's union lost their resilience, as US-Japan security treaty became firmly planted and economic growth engulfed the whole nation.

Now the committment of Article 9 is endangered due to the increasing consolidation of Japanse "Self Defence Force" into the American military system through the treaty. Amendments to Article 9 has been proposed by the curent Japanese govenment and the right wing nationalists to justify sending troop to Iraq, Afghanistan and to Somalia etc. While more than 70% of Japanese people do not want to give up teh commmitment of Article 9, militalism is growing in Japan. We need to stop this.

[verges]

217. kr

[DainBramaged]

229. NHK's Finest Hour: Japan's Official Record of Chinese Forced Labor

The contemporary reparations movement for Chinese forced labor (CFL), with roots in Japanese society stretching back to the late 1940s, has unfolded fitfully since it reemerged two decades ago. In 1989, survivors of Kajima Corp.'s notorious Hanaoka construction site, where 418 out of 986 workers died and a late-war uprising and massacre took place, demanded a public apology, compensation and establishment of a memorial museum. Kajima did apologize in 1990 but then dug in its corporate heels; the "community relief fund" finally set up in 2000 lacked any admission of wrongdoing. Yet the 14 CFL lawsuits filed nationwide have been notably successful, at least by Japan's inhospitable judicial standards, with four major victories for plaintiffs so far.



The Tokyo District Court in July 2001 ordered the state to compensate the family of Liu Lianren, who escaped from a Hokkaido mine in 1945 and hid in the mountains until 1958. The Fukuoka District Court ordered Mitsui Corp. to pay compensation in April 2002, while the Hiroshima High Court ordered Nishimatsu Corp. to do likewise in July 2004. Those three cases are now before the Japan Supreme Court. The Niigata District Court found both the state and Rinko Corp. liable for damages in March 2004.



Japanese judges at both the district and appeals court levels, in fact, routinely find that the Japanese government and private companies jointly engaged in illegal conduct by forcibly bringing plaintiffs to Japan and forcing them to work here. This has established a vital historical record, even though most claims are rejected (as at the Tokyo High Court on June 16) on the legal grounds of state immunity and a 20-year time limit for filing lawsuits. Judges occasionally (as at the Nagano District Court last March) express their personal desires that victims be redressed through non-judicial means.



But Mitsubishi Materials Corp., successor to the mining arm of the zaibatsu that was Japan's top munitions producer, is currently embarked on a bold defense strategy based on revisionist historical arguments. In a recent lawsuit before the Fukuoka District Court involving a coal mine where one out of every four workers died, Mitsubishi lawyers denied all charges of forced labor, questioned whether Japan ever "invaded" China, and warned that a "mistaken burden of the soul" would result from court findings that forced labor occurred.



Mitsubishi attorneys have told the Miyazaki District Court, in reference to a copper mine where the 31 percent death toll was double the national average, "Conditions at our worksite were in no way any worse than those in China at the time."<10> At the Nagasaki District Court, Mitsubishi has claimed that the operations of the North China Labor Association, the collaborationist Beijing agency that will be discussed below, were not influenced by the Japanese military occupation.

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/3691

[Violet_Crumble]

231. I wasn't aware that anyone was forgetting about Japanese atrocities...

I certainly don't. Or are you saying that people shouldn't remember Hiroshima without spending equal time talking about Japanese war atrocities? Sorry, but if that's the case, it's too much like an attempt to justify the bombing of Hiroshima for me to want to play along with it...

[snagglepuss]

248. I think H&N commemorations should be framed as a commemoration of

the millions who died as a result of the Fascist government of Japan. Nothing should take the eye off the fact that the Japanese embraced a fascist ideology and that the fascist government started the war and that the Japanese fascists like all other fascists were willing to sacrifice even their own citizens to realize their goals.

To view those killed by nuclear weapons as something particularly different from those millions the Japanese killed is unjust. Japan without nuclear weapons was killing as estimated 500,000 a month, that's like a H&N every month. Therefore in my mind something is wrong with focasing on the nuclear attack.

An interesting experiment is to ask yourself and people you know to name some of the German generals and at least one German doctor who carried out medical experiments. Then ask yourself and friends to name some Japanese generals and at least one Japanese doctor who carried out medical experiments. I think the outcome is clear because atrocities carried out by Japanese fascists have not received the attention that German atrocities have received.

[Bonobo]

254. Here's a difference. We did Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So WE must reflect on it.

Are YOU Japanese? No. Then reflecting on the crimes of the Japanese will do nothing for you in terms of becoming a better person or improving your own society.

To reflect on one's own actions and how one can improve is at the heart of being a good person. To point the blame at others while glossing over your own sins is immature, unhelpful and cowardly.

We have our own problem with fascism in case you didn't notice. And frankly, hearing so many citizens defend the decision to drop nuclear bombs is quite scary and telling. Japan poses no danger to the world, but we sure as hell do.
And people like you make it a lot scarier.
Because you are clearly blind and unable to see yourself or your country clearly.

[snagglepuss]

263. We should reflect on the fact the fascist ideology embraced by the Japanese

set the war in motion. H&N commemorations should include acknowledging Japanese atrocities. The Japanese were killing 500,000 a month that is like one H&R every month. They killed more people than the Germans. Rather than commemorations focusing on the H&N, a commemoration should focus on all those killed as a result of a FASCIST IDEOLOGY. The truly diabolical element are fascists. It is the crimes perpetrated by fascists that should be front and center.

[DainBramaged]

232. Japan remembers Chinese who died through forced labour

Hundreds of people attended a memorial service at a Buddhist temple here Saturday for 6,830 Chinese who were brought to Japan for forced labour and died here during World War II, media reports said.



It was the first time that people from China joined such a memorial service in Japan, the reports said.


"I hope the two countries will not only look back on history and pray for peace but also take opportunities such as this memorial service to lead to mutual friendship," Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cui Tiankai told the service, according to Kyodo News.

Historians say 40,000 Chinese were conscripted under Japan's wartime measure of general mobilisation. They worked at 135 locations including mines, construction sites and shipyards throughout the country.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20090808-159980.html



230 Japanese showed up. Shameful.

[ecstatic]

238. I am stunned by this OP and all the support it's getting. Those Japanese civilians

had nothing to do with what their government did, and they did not deserve to be obliterated. Just like all the Iraqi civilians. Just like many American civilians. Shame on you!

[Bonobo]

239. It shows we are a far sicker country than them.

No Japanese person would ever use the ANNIVERSARY of such a tragedy to so many people as the day to spit on their memories.

Sick, sick, sick people in here. Same as the mentality of the "freepers" they delude themselves into seeing as the "other side".

Absolutely shocking to be amongst you all. I find it disgusting.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

242. Agree

This thread is appalling but not surprising.

There is every bit as much pro-American jingoism round these parts as anywhere.

[The Magistrate]

257. But Neither Stunned Nor Educated, Apparently, Ma'am, By It Content....

"There are none so blind as though who will not to see."

[inna]

264. what's with all the pomposity and condescension?

disgusting.

:puke:

[inna]

243. "The grave injustice of COMMEMORATING civilian victims"???

what drivel, it's just offensive and pathetic.

:wtf:

[Bonobo]

246. Yes, how dare anyone commemorate victims!!!

We are free republic now apparently.

[tj2001]

249. "Wouldn't be prudent" to commemorate My Lai either

because of what "the gooks" did to McCain...

[fascisthunter]

271. its a bit sociopathic actually

this thread is an excellent eye-opener. I could never attempt to justify wiping out civilians. Reminds me of the statements by the right wing to turn all of the Middle East into a "glass parking lot"/weeding out the wicked. I'm sure terrorists feel what they do is justifiable too...

[The Magistrate]

274. Care To Expand On That, Sir?

"The first cut is the deepest...."

[fascisthunter]

277. It's pretty self explanatory by what I meant

[fascisthunter]

272. Yes... never commemorate victims, especially the US's victims

they were evil, evil I tell you... all of them. Kill them all.... harrrrrrr!