Yamamoto crash site.
Posted on 04/17/2017 7:37:05 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
Some sixty-eight years before U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden, America conducted an assassination of another kind.
This time, the target wasn’t a terrorist. It was the Japanese admiral who planned the Pearl Harbor operation. But the motive was the same: payback for a sneak attack on the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
“I have some trouble with including civilians.”
I don’t.
The farmer in Afghanistan who sells goat milk to Al Qaeda is a legitimate target.
The truck driver who brings coal to help keep ISIS in Syria warm at night is a legitimate target.
And the Japanese civilians who ran cottage businesses to support the Japanese war effort were also legitimate targets and all of the bombs and terror they experienced duirng the war was a fitting justice for the bombs and terror they would have unleashed on Americans if they could have.
Yamamoto crash site.
I don't doubt it. My point was only that Sakai's observation about the Emperor was a total eye-opener for me. From the 1960s until my bro-in-law gave me Sakai's book a few years ago, I had heard consistently that the Emperor had been insulated innocently from politics while his mad, megalomaniacal generals were plotting and executing the war against the U.S. It was a surprise to me to learn that the Emperor had been all for it and Adm. Yamamoto was opposed, and knew it would fail.
The targeting of civilians as legitimate military targets is perfectly fine. The issue should be that it is done for advancing military objectives, not for the sake of harming them in a gratuitous manner.
They are the source of supplies, replacements, and the motivation. The risk to a soldier that his family many not be there when he returns home should be something that an enemy soldier should keep in mind as he proceeds with his orders.
Yes, I think there was a mythology developed after the war, even with the support of the US, to say that the Emperor had been isolated from all of the war-making decisions. We wanted to maintain that Emperor’s cultural authority since it seemed useful in re-building Japan, but Hirohito was probably never as innocent, ignorant, and isolated as the post-war image suggested.
That’s the kind of re-accommodating I can support!!
To live back in those times...P47 for me.
Old news regurgitated with a left-wing slant! Assassination: BS!
Ridiculous spin. This was not an assassination, it was a military operation against any enemy military aircraft carrying an admiral.
> It was once considered improper for a foot soldier to attack a knight. <
Yes. And Pope Urban II banned the use of crossbows (in 1096) because it gave ignorant peasants a decent chance to take down gentleman knights.
You are right. He was stating the obvious. And didn’t he originally advise against bombing Pearl Harbor?
IIRC a flight of P-38s got him after learning his upcoming meeting on some island in the Pacific. They patrolled that area for days to not arouse suspicion they new how to decode their traffic.
“Too bad we didn’t expend that effort to get Tojo.”
It was a fortuitous intercept that informed us where Yamamoto was going to be.
Maybe they needed to cite a moral reason why they hanged Tojo, but left Hirohito more or less in place--with the understanding that MacArthur was the boss. They must have had a lot on him. For the Occupation to work, I guess they wanted a transition figure the people could point to, yet one who knew he needed to play ball or fry.
No kidding.
I am so tired of being painted as a war mongering white guys who do not play fair.
Everything is their fault.
Rommel was a prick. Not too many GIs would have liked him. They try to make him out to be the German Patton. Not even close. He was a disciplinarian and a stickler for order.
The Germans I met who were in his armies were pretty “meh” about serving under him. Not so with Patton. Yeah, they had to wear ties. But he was bold and he won.
I wonder though, given how Rommel felt about Hitler, if he might have sabotaged the Normandy defense to make it easier for the Allies.
You would have expected with Rommel’s reputation, the German defense on D-Day would have been more effective.
Even Rommel couldn't convince Hitler to release the Panzer reserves which were oriented around Calais. Hitler believed that the Normandy landings were feints and that the actual landings would be made in and around Calais. Once it became evident that the Normandy landings were real and Hitler okayed the redeployment, it was too late. The early release of those reserves would have played havoc on the Normandy beaches ...
It was an attack on a legitimate military target. "Assassination" will get more page clicks, though.
I would also point to the Atlantic Wall never being completed.
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