Posted on 09/28/2002 7:43:05 PM PDT by Askel5
The self-sacrifice and bravery of Japanese culture really shines through in this relatively innocuous photo of Allies in a Japanese POW camp.
I have battled your form of racism for many, many years. To you, it is an embarassment that it the most decorated American fighting unit in the entire war was a JAPANESE unit, the 442 CRT.
Were they Japanese or Americans? Hmmmmmm? The 442nd were Americans of Japanese descent fighting in Europe.
Hah! First you imprison them and their famlies, take away all their private possessions (talk about blatant racism run rampant in the supposedly "democratic" United States) and than they have to show your all-white units how to fight! I won't mention the cover-up the white US Army spent over the next 50 years trying to hide the truth about the brave men of the 442nd. Some groups are heidonistic and others aren't: deal with it.
See picture above.
A little history leesson for you: While they may have been U.S. citizens the United States army, government and people saw them not as citizens of this great nation, but as enemy aliens. That is why the violated their civil rights like no other group has had done to them in this last century. As bad as the blacks had it in the South during the years of Jim Crowe they were never THROWN INTO A CONCENTRATION CAMP.
Just because their ancestors were Japanese we committed unspeakable crimes against them, regardless of the fact they were US citizens. Shame on you!
But you are not singing the praises of them, or the 442nd, but of the "self-sacrifice and bravery" of the Imperial Japanese. Look at how they treated their concentration camp victims and tell us all again how culturally superior the Japanese were to the Americans. Compare photos of Japanese-Americans in their camps with Allied POWs in Japanese camps and see for yourself who valued human life or basic human rights more. There weren't any Japanese-American living skeletons in the U.S. You didn't see them beaten to death and starved to death or walking around with not even enough flesh on their bones to keep their bodies and souls together.
The internment camps is a shameful chapter in U.S. history, but that is nothing, nothing compared to the complete lack of humanity on the part of the Imperial Japanese. The Japanese to this day don't teach their students about how they treated their prisoners. It isn't taught in their schools. We acknowledge our shameful acts much more than they do theirs.
For later reading.
I freely admit that the IJA committed many, many evil and distasteful atrocities. You will get no argument from me. Unlike you though, I am able to separate the criminal elements of the Japanese armed forces from the rest of the men who fought with honor and distinction.
I'm sure you don't judge all the the American armed forces by the criminal fire bombing of DRESDEN or Tokyo, right? I'm sure you don't judge all the the allied forces by the fact that over 1,000,000 German soldaten were allowed to die in POW camps in the year AFTER the war was over. Nor will me mention the fact that Eisenhower knowingly sent some 2,000,000 patriotic Russians and Ukrainians to the death when he handed them over to the evil Soviet armed forces at the end of the war (these Russian and Ukrainian men's only crime was to have surrendured to the Germans during the war). Eisenhower was told by his intelligence that these poor slavs would be killed, but that didn't stop him.
Don't lecture me on war crimes pal, our fecal matter stinks just like the rest. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You will never win the moral equivalence argument. You are beaten. You were beaten before you picked this fight. Now you're talking about the Allies. I guess you've run out of American "atrocities".
That didn't take long.
Furthermore, you can't narrow this sick mentality down to an incident or two, no matter how hard you try. It was rampant. And it was evil. And it was apparently sanctioned at high levels. Explain to me how a couple of bad apples resulted in what happened at Nanking. At Bataan (by some accounts, a decapitation every fifteen paces). And created a "kill all" order for POWs. And performed experimental surgery on downed pilots. And cannibalized pilots who had been shot down over Chi Chi Jima. And sliced Filipino women's babies from the womb. And on, and on, and on.
As I stated before, the Japanese have many things to take pride in. The conduct of their military in WWII is not one of those things, no matter how you try to point the finger elsewhere.
You've demonstrated your loathing for the United States here and on other threads (does "Stupid, stupid, stupid Americans" ring a bell? Yes, I saw your comment regarding the men who died on Iwo Jima). Evidently, you have some issues to work out.
I just wish you weren't doing it here.
In any case, I've got no time to converse with someone living on American soil who glorifies the death of American sailors. I've got better things to do. I'm through with you.
Well, at least wimpycat got this much out of you; I didn't acknowledge it when I replied, and I should have. I have to say it makes your prior claim of Japanese military cultural superiority fall rather flat.
And I've one more point to make before I leave this thread.
The same mindset that created Mohammed Atta created the one you say fought with "honor and distinction".
You might want to give that some thought.
Now I am through with you.
For more about Japanese Americans' contributions, click on theJapanese American National Museum.
If I had the time though, I would post the names of the nearly 125,000 old men, women and children who died in March of 1945 due to the Tokyo fire bombing perpetrated by the USAAF. War crime, pure and simple, yet no one was held accountable.
Bravery isn't limited to the exploits of the white race my friend. The history of the IJN is replete with many of their pilots knowingly making one-way trips. Unfortunately, there isn't a comperable situation in the USAAF or the USN.
I find it interesting that you are taking the Axis side here.
Here you could be extolling the work of the Tuskegee airmen, but aren't. You could be extolling the virtues of the code talkers, but areen't. You coud be extolling the virtues of teh red ball express, but aren't.
For that matter, you could still identify with the person you chose, or with Admiral Yamamoto's virtues as a planner and a leader, while still remaining a good American, but you choose to snipe at every turn.
Why is that? Please tell me.
Please, give me a brake. None of these people faced the dangers or knowledge that they were facing one-way flights like Lt. Kobyashi or the Kamikaze pilots knew they were taking.
I notice you take a pass on defending the war crimes of the Allied powers during and after the war. If I were you, I also would take a pass, but I'd wouldn't dodge the issue like you are so adroitly doing.
Tokyo, the capital, was the industrial and political heart of Japan.
Despite setback after setback, the Empire fought to hang on to every island possible (and we won't mention how many deaths were inflicted on the civilian population of the PI during normal garrisoning duties).
As a result, the bombings had to touch the civilian population, to demoralize it, and make it harder to continue perpetrationg the war - and as luck would have it, that population lived in residential areas built primarily of wood products.
So we bombed, and bombed, and bombed some more - and still the population held on - mainly because of the conditioning they had received, and not so much out of an innate bravery.
You want to say that the war should have been prosecuted differently, or that the US should have left it alone? Do you think Imperial Japan would have let the PI become independent in 1948? What about the other Pacific nations?
Wrong answer, Mr. "History Major". The bombing of Tokyo wasn't targeted at any specific industry, like the bombing of Schwienfurt was, the munitions dropped on Tokyo were specifically aimed at immmolating the population, not the business that help the Japanese war industry. It was a Fire bombing, designed to kill Japanese civilians, not military targets. War crime, pure plain and simple.
Obviously you are the product of a government school that has been indoctrinated in "victors revisionism". LeMay and Harris got their "justice" when they passed into the after life my friend.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.