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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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I've no inclination to go over 23 pages, so I'll just pose the Q on the assumption that this hasn't already been mentioned:
Hasn't anybody heard of JAPAN'S LONGEST DAY by the Pacific War Research Society? That's right...post-war Japanese scholars compiled sources to produce a book that clearly showed that a bloodbath was imminent if a US invasion was undertaken w/conventional weapons.
Bombed, starved, blockaded as the Japanese were, there was no doubt that only an invasion of the Great Yamato race's main islands, in accordance with the Allied doctrine of unconditional surrender, was the only option. The Japanese military, in its weakened state, was determined to repel an invasion and in doing so maintain the integrity of the Emperor system and provide a base for a future(albeit well into the future)resurgence of Japanese power in the Pacific and SE Asia. Civilians(including children)were mobilized for just this very cause.
And yet, AFTER BOTH A Bombs were dropped, a radical clique of army officers(a typical Japanese phenom..."geko kujo"..."ni ni roku jiken", anyone?)tried to prevent the Emperor's surrender speech from being broadcast. Kind of reminds one of the old saw about being ''more Catholic than the Pope'', if one's looking for an analogy.
I'm well aware of the many arguments of how the Allied policy of calling for the unconditional surrender of the Axis was a "mistake". I and dozens of scholars don't agree. How did Truman put it? "When dealing w/a beast you must treat him as a beast."
So, the Manhattan Project provided an alternative to invasion. A justifiable alternative. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 5:52 am Post subject: |
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| Thank you Mosley. I had forgotten Japan's longest Day. Since the article being discussed is by a non historian who writes an article with no historical context, just rhetoric about war crimes and horror. It is good to read some real history. Pilger's career is based on bashing the U.S. I love how he ties Hiroshima with an attack on Iran that has not happened and as far as anyone knows is not even being considered. How he meets a victim of the Hiroshima blast , possibly just by chance maybe while sitting in a fashionable coffee shop. Just rhetoric without any background or real information. Hiroshima was a major center for the manufacturing of war materials. Also leaflets were dropped warning people to evacuate. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| rollo wrote: |
| Thank you Mosley. I had forgotten Japan's longest Day. Since the article being discussed is by a non historian who writes an article with no historical context, just rhetoric about war crimes and horror. It is good to read some real history. Pilger's career is based on bashing the U.S. I love how he ties Hiroshima with an attack on Iran that has not happened and as far as anyone knows is not even being considered. How he meets a victim of the Hiroshima blast , possibly just by chance maybe while sitting in a fashionable coffee shop. Just rhetoric without any background or real information. Hiroshima was a major center for the manufacturing of war materials. Also leaflets were dropped warning people to evacuate. |
If a nuke was detonated over an American city you'd be up in arms, talking about crimes and horror. Your supposed level headed, dispassionate approach is a sham. The real point is that you don't value Japanese lives in the slightest. We could have dropped several dozen bombs on every Japanese city and turned the whole country into a crater, and you'd be perfectly fine with it. Because Japanese lives don't count and they deserved it being the wicked people they are. Just fess up. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| Because Japanese lives don't count and they deserved it being the wicked people they are. Just fess up. |
It is not a coincidence that you - a Japanese - have a totally different opinion on the slaughter of Japanese. How could you justify the incineration of your kin? It isn't possible.
..
So the story is that the choice was nuking or invading, to obtain unconditional surrender. Why did the Americans demand unconditional surrender? Is anything in life unconditional? Would a surrender not have been sufficient?
Given everything the US/NATO have done over the past 50 years I'm very uncomfortable with justifications for mass slaughter. Could not Iraqi's make the same arguments against us? One million dead there from the war.
I don't trust the victors history. |
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excaza
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 6:37 am Post subject: |
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| Can someone explain to me why we're trying to find morality in war? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| excaza wrote: |
| Can someone explain to me why we're trying to find morality in war? |
Sure. There is a meaningful difference between blowing up soldiers and blowing up their wives and kids. Both are immoral, but one is more immoral. If we delude ourselves into accepting the justification for horrors more horrors will follow. The state has a pre-packaged set of talking points to send off to the media and into our minds. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| mises wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| Because Japanese lives don't count and they deserved it being the wicked people they are. Just fess up. |
It is not a coincidence that you - a Japanese - have a totally different opinion on the slaughter of Japanese. How could you justify the incineration of your kin? It isn't possible. |
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I don't really consider myself "a Japanese". I was born and raised in the US (as was my mother). True, I suppose I feel a bit of kinship in the same way others would, but I don't feel any need to inject that into the debate. I honestly would feel the same way had the bomb been dropped on any other country.
| Quote: |
So the story is that the choice was nuking or invading, to obtain unconditional surrender. Why did the Americans demand unconditional surrender? Is anything in life unconditional? Would a surrender not have been sufficient?
Given everything the US/NATO have done over the past 50 years I'm very uncomfortable with justifications for mass slaughter. Could not Iraqi's make the same arguments against us? One million dead there from the war.
I don't trust the victors history. |
My sentiments exactly. |
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shifty
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:04 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| excaza wrote: |
| Can someone explain to me why we're trying to find morality in war? |
Sure. There is a meaningful difference between blowing up soldiers and blowing up their wives and kids. Both are immoral, but one is more immoral. If we delude ourselves into accepting the justification for horrors more horrors will follow. The state has a pre-packaged set of talking points to send off to the media and into our minds. |
This is NOT true. In the 2nd WW the Brits were a maritime nation. Their Soviet allies were often at the point of throwing the towel in. If the Russians had in fact done so, made a seperate peace, it would have spelled doom for the women and children of England.
The Brits had put in all they had to avert war, however misguided their policies.
During the war the only way they could assist the Russians was to prosecute a bombing war, having no regard for precision.
The Brits were also aware of the straits of the Jews in the prewar years and what the nazis were really about. The German nation as a whole had accepted Nazism as a form of religion. If anyone deserved to be indiscriminately bombed, they did.
And visitorq, after much reading of your posts I still don't really get your point. In March of 1945 already a few bombing raids over the space of 2 days had caused twice the casualties ever caused by the A bomb. Is it the A bomb that is causing your disquiet or carpet bombing in general?
I think your knowledge of history is lacking, while your eloquence suggests otherwise. And that is leading everyone astray. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:09 am Post subject: |
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| shifty wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| excaza wrote: |
| Can someone explain to me why we're trying to find morality in war? |
Sure. There is a meaningful difference between blowing up soldiers and blowing up their wives and kids. Both are immoral, but one is more immoral. If we delude ourselves into accepting the justification for horrors more horrors will follow. The state has a pre-packaged set of talking points to send off to the media and into our minds. |
This is NOT true. In the 2nd WW the Brits were a maritime nation. Their Soviet allies were often at the point of throwing the towel in. If the Russians had in fact done so, made a seperate peace, it would have spelled doom for the women and children of England.
The Brits had put in all they had to avert war, however misguided their policies.
During the war the only way they could assist the Russians was to prosecute a bombing war, having no regard for precision.
The Brits were also aware of the straits of the Jews in the prewar years and what the nazis were really about. The German nation as a whole had accepted Nazism as a form of religion. If anyone deserved to be indiscriminately bombed, they did. |
To prevent my taking this thread into a whole other galaxy, I'll just issue a blanket disagree with every single word above. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:22 am Post subject: |
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| shifty wrote: |
| The Brits were also aware of the straits of the Jews in the prewar years and what the nazis were really about. The German nation as a whole had accepted Nazism as a form of religion. If anyone deserved to be indiscriminately bombed, they did. |
Wait, who's the religious fanatic here? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
So the story is that the choice was nuking or invading, to obtain unconditional surrender. Why did the Americans demand unconditional surrender? Is anything in life unconditional? Would a surrender not have been sufficient?
I don't trust the victors history. |
You don't get to the Civil Rights Act without slavery and Jim Crow. You don't get to the Potsdam Declaration without repeated Axis invasions and treachery.
| mises wrote: |
| It is not a coincidence that you - a Japanese - have a totally different opinion on the slaughter of Japanese. How could you justify the incineration of your kin? It isn't possible. |
I don't think in visitorq's case it matters. By the way, pegging someone's argument to their nationality/ethnicity is inimical to productive conversation. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| You don't get to the Civil Rights Act without slavery and Jim Crow. You don't get to the Potsdam Declaration without repeated Axis invasions and treachery. |
I don't believe the case is sufficiently strong to justify what was done.
| Quote: |
| By the way, pegging someone's argument to their nationality/ethnicity is inimical to productive conversation. |
And justifying the incineration of humans is? These rules of conversation and civility we've been given are just insane.
It is a statement of fact that a Japanese person (or a person of Japanese ethnicity) is less likely to support the atomic bombs than a non-Japanese person. That someone does not want their ethnic kin turned into ashes does not weaken their argument in any way. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Quote: |
| By the way, pegging someone's argument to their nationality/ethnicity is inimical to productive conversation. |
And justifying the incineration of humans is? These rules of conversation and civility we've been given are just insane. |
Yes, the incineration of humans at Hiroshima was justifiable. I think between the Holocaust and the slaughter of the Chinese, you have estimates of 10 million to 20 million dead. It had to end. And that end had to be complete destruction of the expansionist ideology that birthed such carnage: the annihilation of fascism.
| mises wrote: |
| It is a statement of fact that a Japanese person (or a person of Japanese ethnicity) is less likely to support the atomic bombs than a non-Japanese person. That someone does not want their ethnic kin turned into ashes does not weaken their argument in any way. |
That's not my point at all. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:45 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Yes, the incineration of humans at Hiroshima was justifiable. I think between the Holocaust and the slaughter of the Chinese, you have estimates of 10 million to 20 million dead. It had to end. And that end had to be complete destruction of the expansionist ideology that birthed such carnage: the annihilation of fascism. |
Fascism is the merger of state and corporate power. In present times, this merger of state and corporate power have given us "cost plus" wealth creation in Iraq. What would an Iraqi retort to your post above?
| Quote: |
| That's not my point at all. |
Ethnicity is material. |
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:47 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
If a nuke was detonated over an American city you'd be up in arms, talking about crimes and horror. Your supposed level headed, dispassionate approach is a sham.. |
If the nuke was launched by a nation that the U.S. had attacked then I would consider it to be the American military's failure to prevent the event. Incidentally, that's the entire point of having a nuclear deterrent.
On the other hand, if the nuke was detonated by a non-state group or a nation that the United States had not initiated hostilities against, then yes, it would be a crime of the highest order.
When you bomb a country, you have to be prepared for that country to bring hell to your citizens. |
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