stu3@mhuxh.UUCP (Mark Modig) (10/12/84)
<..> > >To say that the Japanese were inhumane and irrational because they did >not surrender quick enough shows a lack of understanding of the Japanese >culture. The US demanded a totally unconditional surrender, including the >removal of the Emperor. The Japanese hesitated on this one point. If the US >would have been willing to guarentee the sovereignty of the Emperor, then >the Japanese would have surrendered without the second bombing. If one >of the two parties can be said to have been irrational and inhumane, it must >be the US. > To be entirely accurate, the U.S. did NOT demand the removal of the emperor. In fact, I do not believe the original surrender demand even mentioned the emperor (I will check). I think this is so, because the Japanese made an inquiry about the emperor's sovreignity after the second bomb had been dropped. There had been no response to the Americans after the first bomb had been dropped. The inquiry came only after the second bomb was used. The Americans refused to guarantee anything, but the Japanese surrendered anyway, with the proviso that the Emperor remain on the throne. ($&%&^!!! Why couldn't the Japanese just have had a king? It's easier to spell :-) ) He did, despite the American refusals to guarantee anything. There was precedent for this situation in that Shoguns at one time had ruled Japan: although the Emperors were in nominal control, the Shoguns were the real authority in the country. There is also, as I have said before, some evidence that Hirohito was willing to stop the war even earlier than he did (this is what happened for all practical purposes), but that he was unwilling or unable (due to custom, NOT lack of time) to do so before the A-bombs had been dropped. As I have said in another article, the speed with which the Japanese began to make inquiries about, and preparation for, surrender suggest that they had plenty of time to think about surrendering after the first attack. I really think the U.S. was NOT inhumane in choosing to use the A-bomb. The Allies simply took a realistic and pragmatic view from their perspective of the situation. I think their understanding of the situation was better than most of us think, and our understanding of what happended and why is not as good as we like to think. Mark Modig ..ihnp4!btlunix!mom
kevin@lasspvax.UUCP (Kevin Saunders) (10/14/84)
<so eat me, i am but one line among many, no one will notice my passing> The core of the moral failure of American war policy over the past 150 years can be summed up with those two words: "unconditional surrender." The meaning of this policy for the vanquished country and its government is clear: you surrender all rights to national soveignty and self-government, and throw yourself upon the mercy of your mortal antagonist, who has shown no compunction whatsoever in refusing diplomatic initiatives prior to the conflict (every side will believe this) and murdering civilians _en masse_ (true of every government involved in WWII). Unfortunately, this policy makes it rather difficult for opponents to back out of a conflict. Anyone in the enemy camp, regardless of his(her?) position, who suggests that such terms be accepted, will be labelled quickly (and accurately) as a traitor--"Can anyone forget the horrible atrocities committed at [fill it in]" . . . "How can you dare to propose that the valiant sacrifices of our people and Armed Forces should be rewarded with such cowardice! We must preserve our sacred honor and fight--to the end!" And then, to "improve" on this policy, the United Nations (Yup, US, the Brits, the Sovs, one big happy family) developed a truly wonderful body of _ex post facto_ law after the end of the war, the better to punish evildoers--the principles of Nuremburg, a/k/a "Victor's Justice." "Waging aggressive war" became a capital crime--the winners, of course, get to define "aggression"--and those unfortunates who happened to be on the wrong side face the noose. So imagine you're the President now, the Soviets have conquered Europe, "Red Dawn" has come to wholly improbable life, and all they want is--"unconditional surrender." (They're gonna HANG YOU!) And if you DON'T surrender, your country fries. Well, Adolf Hitler "hung tough". . . that way, at least, no one will laugh at you in your last days. . . . I know: we were the Good Guys in WWII: we only cut off their oil, prior to Pearl Harbor, to show we were tough. (Funny, though, I hear a different tune about US access to oil supplies--it seems that a threat to the Persian Gulf is a threat to our "vital interests," justifying all kinds of mayhem.) The Japs wanted to dominate Asian economic life (we wanted an "Open Door" policy in China: open for Europeans, that is). The Japanese military was incredibly brutal, viz. the Bataan death march (we fire-bombed Tokyo, killing some 350,000 civilians over a few days). Gee, discussing this stuff gets sickening once you've picked up both sides of the argument. I think the most nauseating aspect of the debate (aside from the stench of death) is the blatant hypocrisy displayed by those who wish to justify the mass murder of noncombatants, by any country, in any place--particularly when the perpetrator holds the upper hand and refuses to offer a negotiated peace. That policy can only lead in one direction: Hell on Earth. SOURCES: _Advance to Barbarism_, F. J. P. Veale. Publ? This gets hard to take, largely because criticizing Nuremburg tends to sound like apologizing for Nazis. Veale is a liberal English jurist who thinks poorly of _ex post facto_ laws invented to punish only those crimes committed by the other side, ignoring those *we* *consciously* *planned* (The Linden Plan, for example, which targeted air raids on working-class Germans). Remember, folks: they didn't tell us about Dresden until 1961! Why were they so shy? _American Power and the New Mandarins_, Noam Chomsky. Interesting discussion of Japanese imperialism in the Far East, and American positions v/v Japan (in "The Revolutionary Pacifism of A. J. Muste"). Lots of background in military history and economics, which makes me suspect a blockade would have starved them to death very efficiently without any technical problems whatsoever. Why invade? Blockade/starvation won WWI through collapse of German civil government. Sincerely, Kevin Saunders, common hacker and future victim.
kevin@lasspvax.UUCP (Kevin Saunders) (10/14/84)
[I keep the first half, and you can have "There I go again!" Before I get flamed beyond recognition, I just wanted to retract one rash statement I made in my earlier note: it's obviously untrue that "ALL the governments involved in WWII" were responsible for mass murders of civilians. As far as I know, the Aussies, NZ'ers, Brazilians, Greeks, etc., etc., are completely guiltless in this regard. On the other hand, had their national governments possessed the strategic means, they might have risen to the challenge, and striven to outdo the Germans/Italians (the inventors of "terror bombing"), just as we did. "Bombs don't kill, governments do" Abashedly, Kevin Saunders, blue-faced baboon