Posted on 04/07/2002 7:52:03 PM PDT by Rule of Law
Some people have been saying that they are happy that Japan is talking about how they can have nukes any time they want them. These people talk about how the Japanese are our friends.
Maybe they've forgotten. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe the rice rocket in the driveway and the big color TV means more to them than what our "friends" did in WWII.
But maybe they just need to be reminded. Read this if you've got the stomach for it. But I wouldn't eat first.
And Here's some more. I haven't got the stomach to read it all. But maybe you have.
Read it and then tell me that these people are our friends and that you want them to have nukes.
Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do. It was the humanitarian thing to do. Otherwise, we would have had to invade and casualties on both sides would have been much higher.
I do not, however, think that firebombing German or Japanese cities was necessary. But hindsight is 20/20.
Firebombing was seen as a way to strike back at the enemy. Early in the war, it was the only way. The bomber advocates believed it could end the war. Utter nonsense of course, but people don't like to give up their pet theories.
Strategic bombing was a failure any way you look at it. Studies of "pinpoint" bombing showed that they were lucky if one bomb in 10 hit within a two mile radius of the target. The best night bombing could do is hit a city and it wasn't all that successful at doing that.
Colin "Bomber" Harris thought that he could bomb the enemy into submission. He thought that he could break German morale by bombing their cities. It hadn't broken British morale, but then, the Germans weren't British, were they?
We Americans decided that we'd go for factories. But as discussed above, we couldn't hit the targets. So we pretty much bombed the cities the factories were in. And sometimes, we'd say, "What the hell" and participate in firestorming a city such as Dresden, Hamburg, or Cologne.
In Japan it was different. They didn't have a lot of big factories we could miss. They had small factories strewn through their towns. So we decided to burn down the towns.
More people died in these firestorms than were killed by A-bombs.
After the war, we found that strategic bombing had done very little to hurt German or Japanese war industries. The Germans moved most of their production underground and by the time we got close enough to Japan to bomb, they didn't have enough raw materials left to produce much anyway.
The Air Forces of the world didn't like these facts. Still don't. Short of use of weapons of mass destruction, strategic bombing cannot win a war. Personally, I don't think nukes can these days unless you nuke the enemy all the way back to the stone age. Nukes surprised Japan but people are used to the idea now.
Now before you say it, I'll agree. The US shouldn't be trusted with nukes either. But we've got them and the Japs don't. So what are you going to do? Give them nukes in an attempt to make two wrongs make a right?
What? To fry the ChiComs 6 times over? No. I'm against nuclear war. That's why I'm against nuclear proliferation. There are already enough nukes in the world, thank you very much. We don't need more. Especially not in the hands of a country with such a recent history of militarism.
Have to disagree with you. The Nazis were Germans and until they started losing, had the full support of the German people -- including the Wermacht.
Which was occupied by the Japanese at the time.
Yes, I know. I should turn the other cheek and love my enemy.
I don't.
That's a failing of mine.
I should probably forgive the sadistic, murdering thugs that tortured America POWs to death too. But that's another failure of mine.
But there's only been one perfect Christian. He was tortured to death too. So maybe he'll forgive me for my aversion to people who torture people.
The German weren't tricked or forced or seduced into doing their evil master's bidding. They went into Nazism with both eyes open. They knew where it would lead because Adolf had spelled it all out in his book. They supported it wholeheartedly.
Why? Because they really bought into the master race idea. They really believed that they were Ayran supermen. As supermen, it was their duty to rule the world and to purify the human race.
The Japanese had, and still have, the same belief. They call it "Japanese Uniqueness". It is a belief that many Japanese still have -- including many very influential people in government and industry.
This belief is, as you point out, dangerous to all mankind.
I'd like to see more evidence of the cultural mindset going away first. The "Japanese Uniqueness" idea is being debated hot and heavy over there. It's still a mainstream idea.
I wouldn't demand that the idea disappear completely before we trust them to re-arm. We still have our nutcases here -- skinheads, neo-Nazis, militant black organizations, and the KKK. But the vast majority of Americans see these people as crazies. That's not the case yet in Japan.
Old Adolf spelled it out to them in his book -- which was required reading. They knew. They just turned a blind eye.
Possibly if you could have taken them all through the death camps, they would have changed their minds. Seeing the details might have turned their stomachs. But they knew in the abstract.
Should we feel responsible for being ahead of Japan in the atomic race? Should we be ashamed for ending the war quickly because we obtained the knowledge to do it first? What's your final answer? Hurry before that buzzer...
There was plenty of opposition to the Nazis in Germany, prior to their takeover. Hitler never won an election in his life. He was appointed Chancellor by an aging President Hindenburg, after an all night harangue by his nephew, an ardent Nazi. Hindenburg did this in the mistaken belief that it would bring stability to Germany, and counter the growing Communist movement. That's force and deception right there. In March 1933, the last free elections held for the Reichstag, the Nazi party captured only 44% of the vote, not a majority. Even that 44% was mostly due to the fact that the political center in Germany had collapsed and the only viable alternative to the Nazis was the Communist Party. After the Reichstag Fire (a notorious fraud perpetrated by Hilter and his henchmen) the Communists, then the socialists were kicked out of the Reichstag, giving the Nazis the decisive majority. From then on it was clear sailing for them. They betrayed the labor movement, jailed thousands of former supporters, supressed all effective opposition, especially courageous clerical denunciations, and the rest is history. Although Hitler won a fervent minority following through his mesmerising, seductive speeches, his party had to resort to fraud and force to gain and cement their hold on power. To say that the entire German people supported Hitler whole-heartedly and went into Nazism with both eyes open is therefore historically inaccurate, ignorant, and unfair to the countless Germans who courageously stood up to Hitler, even in the face of certain persecution and death. Read some history, Rule!
As far as the worst wartime atrocities, it is absurd to say the German people somehow willed or ratified them, since the 'final solution' was not even conceived of by the Nazis themselves until near the end of WWII. Even some Nazis, like Albert Speer (who knew Hilter as well as anyone and recounted his experiences in Inside The Third Reich) was shocked when he discovered the atrocious conditions Russian pows were forced to work in, and Speer used what power he had to improve those conditions. Other Nazis actually had the nerve to protest the treatment of Jews and others to Hitler or his deputies... they were given quick mock trials and hung up on piano wire for their trouble. There were at least three attempted assasination attempts on Hitler's life. Despite total political and military dominance, resistance within Germany continued throughout the Nazi era up to the end of the war. Blaming all Germans, or blaming the German character is as meaningless as blaming the Cambodian character for Pol Pot. Same with Japan. Evil leaders have arisen from time to time, for various reasons, in every land. You need to wake up from your juvenile miasma and get serious about analyzing people and events, lest you end up as some kind of nut-case ideologue yourself. That's how Hilter and Pol Pot started -- with an irrational hatred of 'certain' groups.
Ok, well enough.
I was simply stating that because the Japanese are not Christians, which has nothing to do with race, that one should not be suprised when informed about reports of Japanese war crimes.
I would add, however, that neither should one be surprised at reports of Christians participating in war crimes. War seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. Furthermore, it seems to me there is enough guilt and blame to go around that it cannot be allocated exclusively to any particular races or religions. Although strong Christian beliefs are certainly a bulwark against the temptation to do evil, belief alone does not render one invulnerable to error. And yes, I am aware of things like Bataan, the rape of Nanking, and the Nazi-like experiments carried out by the Japanese in Manchuria, but I still don't hold the Japanese in contempt. In fact I admire them. I have known my share of Japanese and find them to be cheerful, optimistic and achievement oriented. I wouldn't trust them with nuclear weapons any more or less than I would the Russians.
This is baloney. Hitler had to inculcate that idea into the German mindset. He played upon their wounded feelings at having lost WWI, the onerous reparations imposed on Germany by the victors, and the natural pride which every people possesses. And I have not noticed any master race tendencies in any of the many people of Japanese ancestry I have known and worked with, but perhaps I am not as astute an observer of human nature as you, Rule.
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