Patton leads German troops against USSR?

[Big J]

"'It was a bright, sunny day in Hiroshima, when without warning the US dropped the worlds first atom bomb on the peaceful city'."

That's the height of hypocrisy in one statement. Someone should remind them that the same could've been said about them attacking the peaceful fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor while our troops slept on a sunny Sunday morning. And if they hadn't done that, or raped Nanking and Manchuria and all the other stuff the Empire of Japan had done, then perhaps we wouldn't have had to resort to using such a weapon to bring them to the surrender table.

You see, for most Japanese, none of that ever happened. It's all a lie.

 

[Big J]

As far as I'm concerned Japan sowed the wind when it marched into Manchuria in the first place. It reaped the whirlwind at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While I'm not oblivious to the uniquely-horrific aspects of the Bomb, the fact that its short and long term effects on those two cities was a powerful deterrent from anyone ever using nuclear weapons again makes it justifiable. In that respect it didn't just save "thousands of American lives," it saved millions, if not billions of lives around the world.

I'm not Harry Truman's biggest fan either, but I have no doubt that FDR would have made the same call.

Absolutely Lizzie; cause and effect.
However, abdication of responsibility is a Japanese national trait engendered by societal concepts of 'good manners', and by the very language itself.

I read something once that said that when societies bang on and on about 'democracy', it's usually a symptom of them having a lack of democracy- a kind of over-compensation. I think that this could be true. My studies of Japan have shown that all the emphasis on 'loyalty' and 'honor' actually compensates for those values being relatively rare on a historical basis.

And yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible. not because of the scale of the destruction, but because of how quickly we could do it; one plane, one bomb, one second. And that certainly created an awareness in many societies about the danger of nuclear war, and (IIRC) turned an RAF Chaplin into a founder member of CND. We didn't have a nuclear war, so I guess the end justifies the means. And I for one am grateful for that.

 

[AmateisGal]

It all goes back to the post-war education system. To ensure that Japan became an 'anti-communist bastion' in Asia, the Japanese were given amazing latitude in reorganizing their own institutions after the war. Like I said, war-criminals like the present Prime Ministers Grandfather were let out of prison and the CIA funded the creation of their political party, which has held power for all but 5 of the post-war years. These criminals released from prison then staffed the ministry of education with former Kempeitai in order to ensure that Imperial ideology survived the occupation period and was transmitted to the next generation.

As a result, Japanese war-crimes aren't taught in Japanese schools. Pearl Harbor is taught as an 'the Americans tricked us into starting the war' event.

Since Japanese grow up knowing only this, they find any mention of war-crimes to be something they believe is a lie, since they were never taught about it at school.
The four times elected mayor of Tokyo (who resigned in 2012 and became a national politician until he retired last year), the Mayor of Osaka, the Mayor of Nagoya (those are Japan's 3 biggest cities), the Chairman and two of the directors of the national broadcaster, have all denied Japanese war-crimes as 'anti-Japanese lies' and that 'China and Korea have bribed or brainwashed the west to teach lies to their children'. It's absolutely absurd.

In addition, to the current PM's grandfather being a war-criminal, the current deputy PM's family made it's money from wartime use of POWs to work in the family owned mines.

There is a total top-down effort to hide and distort the truth because those at the top have benefitted from those crimes.

What really bends my mind is when I see groups of young ladies parading up and down demonstrating that it's all lies, and Japan did nothing wrong in the war, and Japan should return to the Imperial system. Don't these women realize that they only have the vote because GHQ gave it to them?

It's not refusal to accept the truth. It's 70 years of being lied to about the truth.

This is absolutely fascinating to read, Big J. Thanks for sharing. I took a course in Japanese history in graduate school, but I don't remember learning much about the post-war educational system the Japanese put into effect.

The whole thing is just very sad.

 

[Big J]

This is absolutely fascinating to read, Big J. Thanks for sharing. I took a course in Japanese history in graduate school, but I don't remember learning much about the post-war educational system the Japanese put into effect.

The whole thing is just very sad.

There's a great book that really breaks everything right down; Postwar Japan as History, Gordon.

The best quote I ever read that explains postwar Japan is this (not from Gordon's book);

“…can you not imagine a Europe in which Germany was like Japan? A “pacifist” Germany defended by America, occupied by America, overseen by America? A Germany with “self defense” forces led by officers who wrote essays on the glories of the Third Reich? A Germany which wrote a few diplomatic communiques apologizing for the holocaust, but whose schoolchildren and general citizenry were taught and believed that the Third Reich was intended to help Europe, and was crushed by greater, more foreign empires. A Germany whose only commemorations of WW2 were to shed tears for Dresden and the fallen veterans of the SS? Imagine a Germany with no Nuremburg, where Goebbels and Goring were never prosecuted. Indeed where they became CEOs of BASF and BMW? And a Germany where Herr Hitler’s son still lorded over the Alps as a figurehead Kaiser? A Germany which was taught and believed that Dachau and Auschwitz were nothing?…”

I get accused by Japanese and westerners alike of being a racist on a regular basis. But my wife and kids are Japanese, and Japanese society's obsession with the war, the sense that there is 'unfinished business', that they were 'cheated out of their entitlement' (the current PM wrote a book a couple of years ago called 'Towards a Beautiful Country', and in it he goes on about the war and remilitarization, and is very anti-democratic and anti-human rights) really frightens me. My wife and I actually have a plan to relocate to the US if the right-wing gets it's way.

 

[AmateisGal]

There's a great book that really breaks everything right down; Postwar Japan as History, Gordon.

The best quote I ever read that explains postwar Japan is this (not from Gordon's book);

“…can you not imagine a Europe in which Germany was like Japan? A “pacifist” Germany defended by America, occupied by America, overseen by America? A Germany with “self defense” forces led by officers who wrote essays on the glories of the Third Reich? A Germany which wrote a few diplomatic communiques apologizing for the holocaust, but whose schoolchildren and general citizenry were taught and believed that the Third Reich was intended to help Europe, and was crushed by greater, more foreign empires. A Germany whose only commemorations of WW2 were to shed tears for Dresden and the fallen veterans of the SS? Imagine a Germany with no Nuremburg, where Goebbels and Goring were never prosecuted. Indeed where they became CEOs of BASF and BMW? And a Germany where Herr Hitler’s son still lorded over the Alps as a figurehead Kaiser? A Germany which was taught and believed that Dachau and Auschwitz were nothing?…”

I get accused by Japanese and westerners alike of being a racist on a regular basis. But my wife and kids are Japanese, and Japanese society's obsession with the war, the sense that there is 'unfinished business', that they were 'cheated out of their entitlement' (the current PM wrote a book a couple of years ago called 'Towards a Beautiful Country', and in it he goes on about the war and remilitarization, and is very anti-democratic and anti-human rights) really frightens me. My wife and I actually have a plan to relocate to the US if the right-wing gets it's way.

That quote is absolutely spot on. I'm going to check into that book you mentioned.

It's just so surreal to think of long-established facts being so blatantly disregarded.

 

[hatguy1]

You see, for most Japanese, none of that ever happened. It's all a lie.

That same kind of irrationality nowadays tries to say the Holocaust never happened either.

 

[Stanley Doble]

"'It was a bright, sunny day in Hiroshima, when without warning the US dropped the worlds first atom bomb on the peaceful city'."

That's the height of hypocrisy in one statement. Someone should remind them that the same could've been said about them attacking the peaceful fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor while our troops slept on a sunny Sunday morning. And if they hadn't done that, or raped Nanking and Manchuria and all the other stuff the Empire of Japan had done, then perhaps we wouldn't have had to resort to using such a weapon to bring them to the surrender table.

It is factually untrue as well. The US warned Japan before dropping the bomb and offered the chance to surrender. They even dropped leaflets on the city warning the people to evacuate. They did the same at Nagasaki.

It was a matter of "calling their shots" so there could be no doubt that the US had a weapon that could destroy a whole city with one bomb.

But if the Japanese authorities had listened there would have been no bomb.