Posted on 03/04/2007 2:53:43 AM PST by LibWhacker
Anyone who thinks that war and barbarity are mutually exlusive is living in a world of Tinker Bell's and tea parties.
You want the truth, well here it is. Considering the state of affairs at that time, The Japanese are lucky that we didn't wipe their culture and race off the face of the earth.
It's that simple.
I am sure that many lost POWs of "The Forgotten War" suffered unspeakably and horribly. It is very sobering to think about how much so many have suffered to keep us free, and how so many of us (US citizens) are such ingrates. God help us.
My understanding of history is quite concrete, narbo, and so is my sense of right and wrong.
And I have determined that it is wrong to waste my time defending the honor of our WW II vets to one who has one goal in mind........to besmirch it.
In all my years on FR, I have never had to do so, and clearly, it was a waste of time with you.
I will not return for any more of your drooling over Lindbergh, nor your attempts to make one man's opinion 'history.'
You have failed, because it isn't valid argumentation.
Good bye, narby. Don't ping me again.
I will not return for any more of your drooling over Lindbergh
Well forget Lindbergh and follow the link and read about Guy Gabaldon from Los Angeles, who single handedly captured 1500 Japanese on Siapan. He won a silver star for his bravery, but it certianly should be a Congressional Medal of Honor.
Had Gabaldon's experience been just one occasion, you could write it off as a fluke. But he brought in large numbers of prisoners on multiple occasions. One time leading 800 Japanese soldiers and civilians, many still armed that could have killed him with one shot.
Gabaldon's experience demonstrates that it was true that the Japanese normally refused to surrender. It's just that no one bothers to tell you that the reason is because we refused to let them. Gabaldon spoke a tattering of Japanese and could convince them that he would not kill them, whereupon they immediatly surrendered.
You have had your chance to prove your case, and you have failed miserably.
Now leave me out of your paranoid, self-pitying, Lindbergh worshiping, revisionist history nonsense.
DO NOT ping me again.
You forgot to mention 'military desecrating, 'unsubstantited accusations', 'self-preening', 'self-righteous'...you get my drift.
LOL! And that isn't even everything......
Attempting to get the last word by asserting I've "failed miserably", and then telling me not to ping you again is rather childish.
I'll honor a "please do not ping me again", alone on a post. But arguments offered followed by "do not ping" I will not.
Or simply disappear off the thread, that will do as well.
Insults offered by NewLand still do not advance your gangs argument, as they did not in earlier posts.
Let me know when you've read the link I gave you in the previous post with evidence that Japanese soldiers were quite willing to surrender in droves to a solitary GI on multiple occasions. He won the Silver Star for it, but he should have gotten a Congressional Medal of Honor.
I'm not interested in anything you have to say.
There..........is that polite enough for you? Feelings not hurt this time? Up to your standards of posting?
I certainly hope so, because you are becoming an irritant, and the next time I see your ping to this thread, I shall not yield to its call.
Good bye, narby.
I see no arguments offered. Good by Ohio.
ketteiban
You're into Karaoke?
That was Dresden. The raids were led by the British, who had made a habit of nighttime firebomb raids on cities since the London Blitz. American B-17s did bomb the second day, targeting the rail yards.
Undoubtedly most on this thread believe I am some kind of America hating leftist, but the truth is opposite on both those counts. I care about this country enough to face the fact that our conduct in the battle against Japan will eventually come out, and needs to be faced squarely and delt with in a manner that will do us the least harm.
I assume that our conduct in the Indian wars, where US soldiers have been accused of genocide (watch the movie "Little Big Man" someday), did not come out during the lifetimes of the soldiers who fought in those engagements. But instead the history of those times has been used as a "proof" that America is a brutal country. Our conduct vs. Japan will someday be used the same way, as a weapon to trash the US.
I'm not a PR guy, but I think the best thing we could do is talk about the issue now, while there are a few soldiers still alive who were there, and give them a chance to come clean on what happened. They were kids then. They were taught that the Japanese were fanatical and had been ordered not to surrender, and they were pleased to send the SOBs to hell as they were told the Japanese wanted. It just wasn't true. But very few on our side knew that it wasn't true, who knew there was a better way to win the war where fewer people on both sides would be killed.
Stuff happens. Particularly in war.
What drives me crazy was the reaction to the initial article that mirrors what we thought of the Japanese in 1944. That they were horrible monsters who did horrible things. The only problem is that we were little better to them. And the argument can and will be made that we were considerably worse by firebombing entire cities. The Japanese may have ordered atrocities committed on a handful of innocent civilians as this doctor admitted to. But how is that better from ordering fleets of B-29s to firebomb civilians?
We told ourselves that this was the only way to win the war. We told ourselves that it would cost a million Americans GIs their lives to invade Japan (which could well have killed my father a decade before I was born). But with 20/20 hindsight, was that true?
With the lesson of Guy Gabaldon, could we not have figured out a better way to conduct battle?
Maybe not. At least in 1944/45, with the culture that existed in both countries, we did the best we could. I just hope we wouldn't do the same today.
In any event, when articles such as this one come out, we shouldn't treat it as a time to think of how horrible the Japanese were, with the implication that we were saints. We should treat it as a time to think of how horrible the times were, and be glad that we live in a different era.
ketteiban
Nabiettek
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"
21"Caesar's," they replied.
Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
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