Posted on 08/25/2005 11:00:49 PM PDT by Ronin
What man, who calls himself a man, would not fail to put himself into harms way to defend his home, his family, his nation?
It is always politically correct to stipulate that Japan was the aggressor at the beginning of the war. There is no doubt that Japan was defeated at the end of the war. After the many many years that have passed, I find it extremely difficult to find or analyze the root causes of the Pacific War, and frankly, I am not interested in that part of it.
What I strongly object to the increasingly common characterization of Islamic suicide bombers as Kamikaze.
Kamikaze Divine Wind generally refers to two things. Originally, it referred to a typhoon which was responsible for destroying a Mongol fleet bent on invading Japan. Later, in the Pacific War, it was used to designate the members of special suicide airplane pilots, submariners and even just small boat operators who hurled their explosive packed vessels against the enemy and yes, that was us Americans and our allies.
That kind of thinking was incomprehensible to Americans. American Soldiers, Sailors and Marines went into battle with the clear understanding that they might, could, and most probably would, be killed but not with absolute certainty. Indeed, I can confidently suppose that their fondest hope was to get home alive.
There were, of course, individual acts of heroic valor where a warrior would, faced with overwhelming odds, would gallantly sacrifice himself to save his comrades, but it was certainly never a part of national defense, or religious, policy.
Part of that is our Judeo-Christian heritage -- which abhors the idea of suicide in any form but the most important part, in my mind at least, is the pioneer heritage of all Americans which stresses and exults survival. Survival in the face of all odds, survival in the face of all enemies, survival but above all, survival with honor.
And that is the key! Honor!
Simple survival itself is meaningless. Cowards do it. And do it regularly. Nobody has anything but contempt for any man who abandons his loved ones in the face of peril. Our greatest heroes are those who died valiantly fighting against overwhelming odds in defense of those they loved.
So did the Kamikaze go forth on their missions. To die. Striking the enemy warriors who were most definitely determined to kill them. One part of it was the Bushido creed the Japanese warrior code. Duty is as heavy as a mountain death is as light as a feather. But that is not, by any means, all of it. Or in many cases, I am sure, the most part of it.
What most people see to forget is that the Kamikaze were defending their homes. They were defending their families. They were defending their nation. They were going out to do battle against warriors as warriors. To die. They knew it. They accepted it. Without any hope of survival at all.
To die. With honor. With the respect of their families and loved ones, their comrades in arms, their Emperor.
They didnt do it way any guarantee of future happiness. Certainly with no hope or Paradise. Afterlife, in Buddhist or Shinto canon is an undecided. An individual Kamikaze might have had a personal belief in an afterlife of sorts, but it was certainly not a point clarified by dogma of any universally accepted kind.
They died as warriors deserving of honor and I honor them.
Contrast this with the Islamic suicide bombers and the difference is profound.
Islam teaches, or at least a great many Islamic teachers teach, that death in the fight for Islam guarantees automatic admission to Paradise where they will be waited upon by 72 virgins who will serve all of their desires and feed them delicious food and drink for eternity.
Christian men and women, on the other hand, face lifes test without any firm guarantee that they will eventually find succor in The Lord God. Some Christians may debate this, but they all believe that their actions, in this world, will be examined in the transition to the next.
I am not familiar enough with the Jewish faith to comment on their beliefs, but I am confident enough to surmise that no Jewish man or woman who blows themselves up in a crowded train or plane is expecting to go to Heaven. One can even surmise that the few who do commit acts of terrorism do so in the full expectation that God will punish them for their actions.
Is not, then, an Islamic suicide bomber a despicable coward? Is he not then, taking the cowards way out?
Is he not then, using the ultimate Get out of Jail Free card? To die on the promise of eternal Paradise, regardless of any previous sins which might have to be reckoned with?
Is not then an Islamist suicide bomber the most contemptible of cowards? A person who is willing to kill innocents simply to ensure he, himself, enjoys the full fruits of Paradise? To refuse to compete? To cut class? To fail to even try to meet the challenges of lifes test?
No . Whatever they are, they are not martyrs. They are not heroes. They are beyond contempt.
And they certainly are not, Kamikaze.
I respect your passion but as respectfully take umbrage at the notion that any part of and/or actions of the forces of Human History's fourth most prolific mass murderer, Hirohito, guilty of serial aggressions against innocents, of countless scores of millions of rapes and tortures and horrific mutilations and of almost twenty years of mindless barbaritioes -- and guilty of the deaths of upwards of forty million innocents -- be described as "honorable."
What absolute bullshit.
Both the islamist homicide bombers and their 1930s-40s Japanese soul-mates were and are but manifestations of bloody evil.
<< There needs to be a stop put to the islamics claim that they worship the same God as Jews and Christians. Islamics are Satan worshipers, plain and simple. Why this abomination, this cult of death, is treated with respect by our leaders or anyone else is beyond the pale. >>
Absolutely!
Blessings -- Brian
The new fun word is Islamofacist. Some like Islamonazi. I rather like Islamozoid myself..as in being lower than the lowest human.
The only thing I have said in the past was the Kamikazes where a LOT more effective then these terrorists are.
Damn! That's a nice article Ronin. Now you got me worked up and eager to write my own piece.
Both the islamist homicide bombers and their 1930s-40s Japanese soul-mates were and are but manifestations of bloody evil.
Blind obedience is when you are ordered to do the same.
They were volunteers.
"Today in flower
Tomorrow scattered by the wind.
Such is our blossom life.
How can we think it's fragrance lasts forever."
Cherry Blossom Bump.
Of course, Imperial Japan's record with regard to civilian targets were not without blemish. Nanking comes immediately to mind. As does largely ineffective random bombings of the northwest from submarine planes and balloons in the spring of 1942.
However, even these cases show less cowardice than Islamofacists. The object of the bombings was not to kill civilians per se, but to spread fear. The object of Nanking was to make an example of a city which resisted. The Islamofacits, on the other hand, select the softest targets possible-- markets crowded with women and children, schools, busses.
As demented as the soldiers of Imperial Japan were-- and I've talked to many elderly people in Japan who lived in that dark era who have made them the pacifist nation they are today-- the worst of their actions pales in comparison to the Islamofacist terrorists-- to the point that I want to bitch-slap every reporter who makes the comparison or uses the term "insurgents." They are no more insurgents than a gallows bird pedophile is a lover of children.
Pales in comparison? The Japanese military committed the full laundry list of atrocities throughout Asia. Maybe you should consider Bataan, Nanking, Ghost Ships, etc.
Their atrocities included mass rape, murdering of innocents by the hundreds of thousands, POW mistreatment and murder, ritual cannibalismbiological warfare, medical experiments that would make Mengele proud, and on and on. If you can imagine it, they did it. Japanese tactics included suicide attacks and on Okinawa there were many instances of Okinawan civilians attacking US troops. If they had infiltrated the US is there any doubt they would have hesitated to attack and murder innocents?
I think you could all find better uses of our time than quibbling over whether the Japanese kamikaze is more "honorable" than an Islamic terrorist.
The fervor with which a kamikaze executed his mission, his level of commitment to the cause, would certainly have made him just as likley to rape an innocent in Nanking, murder a POW at Bataan, or eat the flesh of a murdered US POW on Okinawa in the final days of the campaign, given the opportunity by fate. I find it hard to imagine that any American could have nostalgia and sympathy for a kamikaze. Nuts. There are dead men buried throughout the Pacific turning in their graves at this absurd defense of the kamikaze.
I don't call 'em Kamikaze; I call 'em Islamikazis -- they are certainly without honor, and without much else once they zot themselves.
dont you mean his first flight?
Bravo! Bravo!
You make your point well, Ronin. You're right. And so is MissAmericanPie.
Whatever honor resided in individual Japanese soldiers (and there was some) was never allowed to bloom until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Paul Johnson in Modern Times has a good treatment on the phony "bushido" code of honor. Time for me to go re-read it.
That said, post-war Japan has been admirable in almost every sense, though some would call it on its apparent denial of much of its recent history. Imperial Japan was a far bigger threat to freedom than the unmitigatedly evil but bumbling, incompetent buffoons that call themselves "mujahideen."
I think if the WWII roles had been somehow reversed and the Japanese Imperial Army had been successful all across the Pacific, then having taken Honolulu and had been burning, killing, raping and looting on the Hawaiian islands as they moved eastward with their naval fleets targeting landings on the US west coast, and we had some inkling that the USA was about to fall under their tyranny, a brave corps of suicide US airmen, etc., would probably step forward and as national policy I was imagine some, if not many, would go forward to save the Republic through such a desperate measure, rather than risk being enslaved under Imperial Japan.
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