How depressing that this article ignores the appalling atrocities committed by the Japanese during WWII and wilfully forgets that Japan had publicly decreed that the many thousands of allied POWs who had survived thus far were to be instantly murdered should any foreign soldier set foot on Japanese soil. The bomb, while savage, ended this mindless attitude and saved the lives of what poor POWs remained, ended their brutal slavery and also saved the lives of the thousands of other nationalities, particularly Tamils and Chinese who were abused and murdered by Japan as slave labour. The bomb also saved the lives of millions of Japanese – as it is widely accepted, even in Japan by more considered thinkers, that the war would not have ended without it. The poor victims of Japanese atrocities who still live and continue to suffer are greatly insulted by this one-sided view. Their suffering continues – unrecognised and unremarked by this revisionist sentiment. The world is encouraged to remember the bomb but to ignore the tragic victims of Japanese nationalism and brutality.
I think you’re being a little unkind, Gina. The author states “By emphasising Japan’s own wartime sufferings and its current desire for peace, the conservative Japanese regime, in power for most of the postwar period, has tended to downplay Japan’s record as an imperialist aggressor, first in East Asia, and later in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.” I think that’s sufficient acknowledgement of Japanese atrocities before and during WWII, given that the article is about Japan’s response to regional tensions today.
A Spetzari
3 years ago
Similar to Germany, Japanese society understandably took a pacifist line to try to atone for their widespread atrocities in the Second World War. Although, the former’s pacifism was somewhat tempered by the post war threat of the Soviets and being split into two. Japan was able to sit in a kind of pacifistic splendid isolation and focus on change and growth, somewhat insulated from the chaos in Korea and elsewhere in South-east Asia.
Pacifism is a superficially honorable position, but unless violence or the potential for violence magically disappears from reality, it’s a luxury.
Would people (you know who they are) be happy if Bundeswehr has the same fighting power as Wehrmacht? Imagine Bill Cash in Parliament! (and he is already insane)
amurrayj
3 years ago
Dubious history about the likelihood of surrender absent the bomb. Sources please if we are to believe this.
The Japanese peace movement is about making one of the most aggressive aggressors in history look like the victim. And that is before Abe turns up at Shinto temples to worship Kamikaze pilots.
This country cannot face up to truth.
I have no problem forgetting and forgiving, but not on these terms. The Japanese need to be more mature if closure is what they want.
I knew people who were still suffering from their experiences of being prisoners 20 years later. Where is their peace I. This version of events?
Well said. The author does not mention any of the atrocities carried out by Japan in WW2 – interesting that. She mentions the Blitz where Japan’s future ally attempted to obliterate London, but detailing that would have weakened her argument that the Japanese were unique in having its citizens bombed
“Based on a detailed investigation of the facts…Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped” (1946, US Strategic Bombing Survey). In recent years there have been plenty of credible sources talking to this taboo point in the US mythology. Japan feared being invaded by the Russians way more than by the US, and the Russian invasion of Manchuria was the final cause of their surrender. They still remembered what the Communists had done to the Romanovs for starters.
D Ward
3 years ago
How to ruin an otherwise interesting article. You had to play the race card, didn’t you?
” explicit calculations of an immoral or an even racist nature propelled the US decision to drop those atomic bombs on Japanese cities”
Agreed, a cheap shot. War has hard equations and in life or death wars it is us or them whoever them is.
F Healey
3 years ago
The morality of the atomic bombs has been argued ad Infinium. It is an interesting but pointless discussion at this time. More appropriate to our current geopolitical situation is the fear of war and the role of pacifism in the rise of totalitarian regimes in post WW1 Europe. China has world domination aspirations and if surrounded by impotent peaceful neighbors will quite effectively follow the piece by piece dismantling of independent Asian nations. It has already begun. Where is our Churchill? Who will recognize this? Japan can and must be a powerful deterrent to stop this ” Gathering Storm.”
Nick Whitehouse
3 years ago
Perhaps – with the benefits of hindsight – it was a mistake to bomb Pearl Harbour?
No doubt… but it shows something about the way the moral framework of the world was coarsened over World War II that we moved from a situation where, in 1941, people could be shocked by a surprise attack on a military target to one where, in 1945, people were not shocked by the indiscriminate slaughter of children through intensive aerial bombing.
Ultimate and limitless evil exhibited by the Holocaust and Japanese rape of Nanking shocked all moral peoples but demanded it’s defeat. Morality cannot follow the rules to it’s own destruction. You are left with guilt and the hope that your immorality in victory was the absolute least amount to endure victory over evil. And that you take all possible preventive steps to avoid the same in the future.
How depressing that this article ignores the appalling atrocities committed by the Japanese during WWII and wilfully forgets that Japan had publicly decreed that the many thousands of allied POWs who had survived thus far were to be instantly murdered should any foreign soldier set foot on Japanese soil. The bomb, while savage, ended this mindless attitude and saved the lives of what poor POWs remained, ended their brutal slavery and also saved the lives of the thousands of other nationalities, particularly Tamils and Chinese who were abused and murdered by Japan as slave labour. The bomb also saved the lives of millions of Japanese – as it is widely accepted, even in Japan by more considered thinkers, that the war would not have ended without it. The poor victims of Japanese atrocities who still live and continue to suffer are greatly insulted by this one-sided view. Their suffering continues – unrecognised and unremarked by this revisionist sentiment. The world is encouraged to remember the bomb but to ignore the tragic victims of Japanese nationalism and brutality.
I think you’re being a little unkind, Gina. The author states “By emphasising Japan’s own wartime sufferings and its current desire for peace, the conservative Japanese regime, in power for most of the postwar period, has tended to downplay Japan’s record as an imperialist aggressor, first in East Asia, and later in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.” I think that’s sufficient acknowledgement of Japanese atrocities before and during WWII, given that the article is about Japan’s response to regional tensions today.
Similar to Germany, Japanese society understandably took a pacifist line to try to atone for their widespread atrocities in the Second World War. Although, the former’s pacifism was somewhat tempered by the post war threat of the Soviets and being split into two. Japan was able to sit in a kind of pacifistic splendid isolation and focus on change and growth, somewhat insulated from the chaos in Korea and elsewhere in South-east Asia.
Pacifism is a superficially honorable position, but unless violence or the potential for violence magically disappears from reality, it’s a luxury.
Well said.
Would people (you know who they are) be happy if Bundeswehr has the same fighting power as Wehrmacht?
Imagine Bill Cash in Parliament! (and he is already insane)
Dubious history about the likelihood of surrender absent the bomb. Sources please if we are to believe this.
The Japanese peace movement is about making one of the most aggressive aggressors in history look like the victim. And that is before Abe turns up at Shinto temples to worship Kamikaze pilots.
This country cannot face up to truth.
I have no problem forgetting and forgiving, but not on these terms. The Japanese need to be more mature if closure is what they want.
I knew people who were still suffering from their experiences of being prisoners 20 years later. Where is their peace I. This version of events?
Well said. The author does not mention any of the atrocities carried out by Japan in WW2 – interesting that. She mentions the Blitz where Japan’s future ally attempted to obliterate London, but detailing that would have weakened her argument that the Japanese were unique in having its citizens bombed
“Based on a detailed investigation of the facts…Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped” (1946, US Strategic Bombing Survey).
In recent years there have been plenty of credible sources talking to this taboo point in the US mythology. Japan feared being invaded by the Russians way more than by the US, and the Russian invasion of Manchuria was the final cause of their surrender. They still remembered what the Communists had done to the Romanovs for starters.
How to ruin an otherwise interesting article. You had to play the race card, didn’t you?
” explicit calculations of an immoral or an even racist nature propelled the US decision to drop those atomic bombs on Japanese cities”
I would read that again – it starts with “….one cannot assume…”
It is not her saying that, rather repeating arguments that have been used against the bombing in the past.
Good article
Agreed, a cheap shot. War has hard equations and in life or death wars it is us or them whoever them is.
The morality of the atomic bombs has been argued ad Infinium. It is an interesting but pointless discussion at this time.
More appropriate to our current geopolitical situation is the fear of war and the role of pacifism in the rise of totalitarian regimes in post WW1 Europe.
China has world domination aspirations and if surrounded by impotent peaceful neighbors will quite effectively follow the piece by piece dismantling of independent Asian nations.
It has already begun.
Where is our Churchill?
Who will recognize this?
Japan can and must be a powerful deterrent to stop this ” Gathering Storm.”
Perhaps – with the benefits of hindsight – it was a mistake to bomb Pearl
Harbour?
No doubt… but it shows something about the way the moral framework of the world was coarsened over World War II that we moved from a situation where, in 1941, people could be shocked by a surprise attack on a military target to one where, in 1945, people were not shocked by the indiscriminate slaughter of children through intensive aerial bombing.
Ultimate and limitless evil exhibited by the Holocaust and Japanese rape of Nanking shocked all moral peoples but demanded it’s defeat.
Morality cannot follow the rules to it’s own destruction. You are left with guilt and the hope that your immorality in victory was the absolute least amount to endure victory over evil.
And that you take all possible preventive steps to avoid the same in the future.
Simple and effective comment.
I visited Japan (2 weeks) in 2018. Absolutely amazing country.
Need to go again.