Amazon.com Slaughter at Sea The Untold Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes Books Mark Felton
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(To be released by the publisher on November 15, 2007)
Amazon.com Slaughter at Sea The Untold Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes Books Mark Felton
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(To be released by the publisher on November 15, 2007)
And the Leftists in the MSM and especially in academe would have us believe that all cultures are the same, that the West is as evil as any other.
Prisoners of the Japanese : Pows of World War II in the Pacific
It’s one of the reasons we dropped the bombs on them and why we should nuke Mecca if we get hit again.
We gunned down survivors of Japanese ships too. The Pacific Campaign was a war of mutual racial hatred and without mercy on both sides. The Japanese military by 1940 were completely brainwashed to hate the Westerners. They were raised to believe they were the earth’s super race. They held all the other races in contempt and the same went for the other Asians. Another book to read is “Fly Boys”, I recommend it. I still give the Japanese credit though, they did go from a feudal agrarian society to an industrial power within a century.
I see no one on this thread is questioning the mass bombing of civilians, so here goes...
Consider the following scenario: In 1945 the Allies gain a foothold on mainland Japan. In the first city we capture, in revenge for Japanese military atrocities women and children are dragged from their homes and savagely dismembered in horrifying mass public executions. The Japanese government is informed that the wholesale killings of women and children will continue until Japan capitulates.
A typical response to such a scenario would be: “Whoa! That’s ridiculous. Americans wouldn’t do such a thing. That’s not how we fight a war. We aren’t savages. We don’t deliberately slaughter civilians. That’s what the OTHER side did... “
The question then is, was not the massive fire-bombing of Japanese cities and using atomic bombs deliberately targeting non-combatants?
The reason we do not directly target civilians is because of our Christian culture. Even those unfamiliar with Just War teaching instinctively understand it’s precepts, because they arise from basic Christian teachings about justice and protection of the innocent (as for the response “they were ALL guilty because they supported the war, that is the exact response of Islamic suicide bombers targeting innocent Israeli children, who add: “they’ll just grow up to be Israeli soldiers anyway.”)
Just war teaching says it is wrong to directly target non-combatants, and further says that the the “proportional use of force” must be employed. Observing these reasonable restraints will help keep us a nation that stands for doing what is right - not what is expedient, and prevent our descent in barbarity. Observing these restraints in Iraq has doubtlessly earned the respect of much of the population.
The counter-argument that “dropping the bomb saved countless Allied lives” in the impending invasion of Japan does not wash. Lining up and executing women and children might also have had the same effect, but it would have been both wrong and barbaric.
Understandably, with modern weaponry it is difficult to avoid civilian casualties, which are regrettable. However, if the intent is to attack enemy combatants, with reasonable precautions taken to prevent civilian casualties, then the attack can be justified even if civilian casualties occur.
This is not “pie in the sky, unrealistic, tying the hands of our military...” These are considerations that every commander and platoon leader in the United States military must take into account, and rightly so, if we are to be a force for good, and not evil; if we are not to be classed by future historians as barbaric, along with the Japanese during WWII, or Islamic terrorists of our day.
As for Japan in WWII, other solutions existed that might have prolonged the war somewhat, but would not have violated Just War. One possibility was a complete blockade of Japan combined with the relentless bombardment of any remaining military targets. Yes, civilians might have starved in the blockade, but the blame would have been placed squarely on their fanatical military leaders.
[full disclosure: I am a Protestant who recognizes the truth of Catholic teaching about how to conduct a Just War. Also, I fully support attacking adn defeating the enemy, whether Japan or militant Islam in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. with the full force of our weaponry - so long as we do not directly target non-combatants and observe the proportionate use of force.]
Flame on...
“The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World
War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book.”
Let there be no confusion who started the tit-for-tat in the brutality
of The Pacific Theater.
The Japanese lit this fire and never tried to turn down the heat
when it came to torture or murder of innocents and the unarmed.
And how RESTRAINED the Allies were in at least attempting to take
prisoners and treating well the few they could coax into surrrender.
To this day my 80 yr old mother will not buy a Japanese car.
I am ashamed to have done so.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”. The devils will not escape!
The Japs during WWII were absolutely ungodly brutal. Their brutality reaped what it sowed as they managed to create a situation where finally the Allies quit bothering to take Japanese prisoners. They had indicated by their lack of even basic human compassion when it would have been much easier to be compassionate than to be viciously brutal that these were the terms of engagement they demanded of the Allies. . and so, that was what they in many cases got.
I remember reading The Rape of Nanking when it was first published. The Japanese atrocities described therein were unimaginable. To this day that book gives me nightmares.
In it, the unlikely hero was a Nazi who heard about what the Japs were doing and spoke directly to Hitler about stopping the rape and slaughter.
Many of my pops Army buddies who fought in Korea had also fought in WWII and most thought worse of the Japs than they did of the Nazis.
ANOTHER book to buy....bump!
bump for later read
It's very difficult to look at these pictures. My dad's brothers were killed in the Bataan Death March along with one of my mother's brothers.
I'd hate to imagine what he would have done had he seen the Japanese tourists I sighted at the Arizona Memorial. Though they tossed flowers into the waters and voiced prayers for the war dead, I know he'd have killed every one of them, had he been able to get to them.
BUMP in remembrance to my Dad’s generation.
My dad (who served in the Pacific Theater) did not tell me details but would occasionally mention the brutality of the Japs in WWII. It is difficult to even read this horror.
funny the only atrocities we hear about are the ones by Hitler and his regime. There is a hell of a lot more to the story.