Apologise For Hiroshima!

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
danmaftei wrote:
So why does that mean you shouldn’t apologize for Hiroshima? I don’t see a reason for being so taken aback at your friend being sympathetic. A wrong is a wrong, just because Japan has done more fucked up shit in their past than us attacking Hiroshima doesn’t absolve anyone’s responsibility to admit fault or cruelty, or to apologize.

Fuck that.

That was a world war, and the Japanese were completely consumed with the code of the bushido and the idolatry of the emperor.

If we were forced to invade them (as we would have had we not dropped the bombs), the casualties would have been through the motherfucking roof.

They would have armed every man, woman, and child to defend their homeland, and we would have killed all of them.

Apologize? I don’t think so. They should thank us. They were insane with their atrocities, and a more brutal country would have aimed for Tokyo first. We did as well as we could there. There would be millions more dead in the Battle of Japan if we had not dropped that bomb.[/quote]

Agreed. I think we did the humane thing by nuking them instead of invading them by sea. The Marines would’ve made it a hell of alot bloodier, if not deadlier by numbers…

23

Are you joking? They started the war, they wanted the killing, we gave it to them. I would apologize for the dropping of the A-bomb after every single xenophobic japanese person crawled on their hands and knees and apologized individualy for killing countless american sailors, soldiers, and marines. Then they would have to apologize for what they did in china and korea. After that I would apologize for using a weapon whose effects lasted so long instead of the continued mass fire bombing which killed more people.

War sucks, killing people sucks, but they started it.

I guess in your world if someone robbed and beat you senseless and in the attack you scratched him badly, you should both apologize. After all a wrong is a wrong. Lunatic.

[quote]danmaftei wrote:
So why does that mean you shouldn’t apologize for Hiroshima? I don’t see a reason for being so taken aback at your friend being sympathetic. A wrong is a wrong, just because Japan has done more fucked up shit in their past than us attacking Hiroshima doesn’t absolve anyone’s responsibility to admit fault or cruelty, or to apologize.[/quote]

24

I was going to respond to your post, but it is so utterly stupid that it is very difficult. Killing people in a war is not a war crime. Killing civillians in war is not a war crime. Fire bombing is not a war crime, and as a matter of fact dropping bombs of any sort are not war crimes. You should read the laws of land warfare before calling people war criminals. The laws of land warfare are clear on what constitutes a war crime and what doesn’t. Just because you think something is cruel doesn’t make it illegal. Soldiers in the US military have comitted war crimes, but they are usually punished quickly and severly. That is not true in most places. Here are some things that are war crimes:

Raping civillians, killing soldiers that have surrendered, shooting unarmed civillians after a city is under your control, and attacking civillian structures that have no military value. The Germans and Japanese did this with great regularity. The Allies much less so and always on a much lower non state sponsered level.

War is terrible. The more terrible you make it for the enemy the shorter it will last and there will be fewer total deaths.

[quote]Kailash wrote:
US war crimes in WWII go far beyond (or rather, before) the use of atomic mega-tons as terror bombing activities. Do you not know of the fire-bombing of German and Japanese civilian populations, which preceded the atomic fire?

The firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians (the intended target) in one night. An estimated 635,000 German citizens were killed during US/British terror bombing, including 150,000 in Dresden and 50,000 in Hamburg.

Maybe its you then, who needs the history lesson?

“By August 1945, 58 Japanese cities had been firebombed and the bomber commander, General Curtis LeMay, had to curtail his raids because he had run out of incendiary bombs. After the war, Le May remarked ‘I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.’”

Funny, this supposed relativity of “war criminal” and “terrorist”.[/quote]

25

[quote]Flop Hat wrote:
Here are some things that are war crimes:

Raping civillians, killing soldiers that have surrendered, shooting unarmed civillians after a city is under your control, and attacking civillian structures that have no military value. The Germans and Japanese did this with great regularity. The Allies much less so and always on a much lower non state sponsered level.

[/quote]

I’m pretty sure dropping an atomic bomb on a city has to violate “attacking civillian structures that have no military value” it’s a whole city, there has to be at least 1 building that has no military value.

26

Ask yourselves this question. If Japan had aquired the knowledge and built the atomic bomb first would they have only used 2? Would they have only stuck to military targets of value? And after we surrendered would they have been sympathetic enough to sieze bombardment?

Fuck No

27

[quote]Halfback wrote:
I was in a bar with some American exchange students a couple of weeks ago. One of these guys was wearing a US Army t-shirt, and they all had distinctive American accents. A while later a couple of rather drunk Japanese men walked over to us, noticed they were Americans and demanded that they “Apologise for Hiroshima!”

I was very taken aback by that, and even more surprised when one of the guys reponded sympathetically. My first thought about the Japanese was: “How about you bastards first apologise for Nanjing, Manchuria, Taiwan, Shanghai, Pearl Harbour, Korea…”

Today, I came across this very gruesome and hard-hitting read:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/cover/china1-9650.html

In many ways, the Japanese ‘Holocaust’ was probably even more horrific than the Nazi Holocaust. Do you think there is not enough of this taught in schools? I don’t think the extent of Japanese atrocities are well known by most people, the least of which, the new-age Japanese themselves.[/quote]

Hell, I’d be happy if they taught it in JAPANESE schools instead of trying to hide the entire war and censor the entire history of that time, terrible things done on both sides, noble things also, done on both sides, war is terrible and people should be taught that instead of being told a rosy, one sided load of balony - because that is what gets new wars starting.

As for apology, Hiroshima was perhaps necessary to stop the war, and may have saved a lot of lives, ironically. Nagasaki however, was it really necessary to drop a second bomb? Or were they trying to test it (it was different to the first bomb).

But, yeah, USA is responsible for some terrible actions. It is not the terrible actions in war that is so bad (it is terrible however) but the smarmy “we are so noble” bullshit that is propogated afterwards, the covering up of what has gone on, and especially not teaching people the terrors on all sides, and the hypocritic double dealing behind the scenes. The information is out there for anyone who wants to dig, but who can be bothered digging? And then in Japan, you ain’t allowed to dig, and if you start telling people about it, they’ll nab you.

28

What is a “war crime”? (from interview with Iris Chang)

"Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons, their mothers.

Chinese men were forced to rape corpses. Competitions took place among Japanese soldiers to see how many Chinese they could kill in one day.

Women were raped, forced to perform bizarre sexual acts, then killed.

Decapitation was popular, evidenced by dozens of photographs in James Yin Shi Young’s The Rape of Nanking. Chinese heads were fed to the dogs.

Prisoners were used for bayonet practice. Women’s breasts were cut off. Men were castrated.

I have read accounts of tanks being stuck, not able to go across a ditch because the ditch was empty, and so they would round up all the civilians in the area, men, women, children, and shoot them all down and they’d put their bodies in the ditch so the tank could go over it.

During the rape of Nanking–just that incident alone–the number of deaths that resulted surpasses the death toll, the immediate death toll, of the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. That’s just one incident. And the rape of Nanking was not a unique and isolated incident. There were so many similar atrocities that occurred all throughout China. So few people even know about [them]."

[quote]Kailash wrote:
US war crimes in WWII go far beyond (or rather, before) the use of atomic mega-tons as terror bombing activities. Do you not know of the fire-bombing of German and Japanese civilian populations, which preceded the atomic fire?

The firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians (the intended target) in one night. An estimated 635,000 German citizens were killed during US/British terror bombing, including 150,000 in Dresden and 50,000 in Hamburg.

Maybe its you then, who needs the history lesson?

“By August 1945, 58 Japanese cities had been firebombed and the bomber commander, General Curtis LeMay, had to curtail his raids because he had run out of incendiary bombs. After the war, Le May remarked ‘I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.’”

Funny, this supposed relativity of “war criminal” and “terrorist”.[/quote]

29

[quote]Magarhe wrote:

Hell, I’d be happy if they taught it in JAPANESE schools instead of trying to hide the entire war and censor the entire history of that time, terrible things done on both sides, noble things also, done on both sides, war is terrible and people should be taught that instead of being told a rosy, one sided load of balony - because that is what gets new wars starting.

As for apology, Hiroshima was perhaps necessary to stop the war, and may have saved a lot of lives, ironically. Nagasaki however, was it really necessary to drop a second bomb? Or were they trying to test it (it was different to the first bomb).

But, yeah, USA is responsible for some terrible actions. It is not the terrible actions in war that is so bad (it is terrible however) but the smarmy “we are so noble” bullshit that is propogated afterwards, the covering up of what has gone on, and especially not teaching people the terrors on all sides, and the hypocritic double dealing behind the scenes. The information is out there for anyone who wants to dig, but who can be bothered digging? And then in Japan, you ain’t allowed to dig, and if you start telling people about it, they’ll nab you.

[/quote]

matter of fact, the use of the atomic bomb was not necessary in bringing an end to the war. believe it or not, the atom bomb was dropped simply as a means by Truman to scare Stalin.

Yes, a scare tacict is all it was along with the fact that they didn’t want to see this million dollar project go to waste. Really?! certainly, because the Japanese were in fact becoming weaker and had also made attempts at surrendering. Japan’s catch was that it did not want to give up their emperor, who by them is/was about as God-like as they come.

well, truman, with virtually no sense of diplomacy, did not cave in (which i don’t really think he should have, just widening the perspective). Furthermore, the USSR was ready to assist the US’s battle in the east which would’ve decreased potential casualties substantially as well as shortening the war. With all this in mind, and given that the bombs were dropped on civilian targets I do very much believe that the Japanese have a right to be angered. However, I do not think that a person should’ve to apologize for a military action committed by ones government. But I do believe that there’s nothing wrong with empathy which seems to be lost much of today’s world. I think it’s sad that the eurocentric focus of WWII puts in the dark about the Chinese Holocaust. I think it could be expected of the Japanese to leave it out of their history books (to uphold [ the old] Japanese sense honor) which perhaps stands above truth in many reagrds. However, I think it’s more important that rest of the world becomes educated on this matter…

30

I have spoken with my father about this. He was a WWII vet (and also served in Korea).

In 1945 my father was in the Phillipines with the rest of the fleet waiting their orders for the invasion of Japan. He said everyone knew if there was a ground war the casualties would have been astronomical. He knew from what he had seen of the Japanese during the war, that they would never give up. Like many WWII vets, he really didn’t talk about the details of what he had seen much. You had to pry it out of him as it was an ugly time.

He said dropping the bombs saved countless lives on both sides. And on a personal note; had they not, I probably would not be here.

In regard to Japanese history. As I recall the Japanese try to take over the world every couple of hundred years. Guess that island gets kinda small.

31

I’m usually on the side of leniency when it comes to war but the Japanese deserved everything they got (I’m talking about the ruling government at the time. Unfortunately innocent lives were lost).
They had (and still do to some extent) consider themselves a chosen people. Chinese were expendable dogs. Westerners were considered cattle and stupid. Look at their whaling industry. Since whale meat isn’t in anymore they kill them for dogfood. What a bunch of barbarians.
If Japan had won the war do you think the United States would have a democratic country today? A democratic country like Japan has?
No sir brother. We would all be speaking japanese and working in sony corporation prison factories making dvds and cameras. It’s easy for them to ask for an apology when they are the loser…If the shoe was on the other foot you can bet this world would be different in a big way.

32

What is silly is that some people on this thread take the alleged comments of two Japanese, related to us by Halfback, as indicative of the general feeling of Japanese people. Most Japanese people are, while not as informed of the details of the war as us, at least aware that the atomic bombs were the consequence of their country’s former warlike nature. The atomic bombs traumatised Japan and turned them into the most peaceful people I have encountered anywhere.

And in 6 years of being here, on and off, no Japanese has ever demanded I apologise for Hiroshima. In fact I call bullshit on Halfback’s story. If you want to start a thread on Japanese war atrocities, that’s fine, and no argument from me, they were responsible for plenty. But don’t make up some bullshit story as a pretext to post on some pet topic of yours… If a Japanese ever asked me to say sorry for Hiroshima, I would say ‘Say sorry for Pearl Harbor’. But that would probably never happen.

33

Fuck 'em. If they haven’t apologised for karaoke, then we don’t apologise for Hiroshima.

34

[quote]Hanzo wrote:
matter of fact, the use of the atomic bomb was not necessary in bringing an end to the war. believe it or not, the atom bomb was dropped simply as a means by Truman to scare Stalin.

Yes, a scare tacict is all it was along with the fact that they didn’t want to see this million dollar project go to waste. Really?! certainly, because the Japanese were in fact becoming weaker and had also made attempts at surrendering. Japan’s catch was that it did not want to give up their emperor, who by them is/was about as God-like as they come.
[/quote]

I suggest reading the reconustructions of the Japanese Imperial Council meetings in August of '45 (based on participants accounts).

Peace overtures by the Japanese Goverments weren’t attempts to surrender - they were trying to get a truce. The “moderate” ruling elite believed that could go back to status quo (which included keeping of pre-1941 conquests). As far as the Army circles are concerned, they wanted to fight another of those hare-brained “decisive battles” but this time using women and children armed with bamboo spears.

Even when the decision was made to accept the requirements of the Potsdam declaration (and that after tense discussions, quite some time after the second bomb) a group of officers attempted a military coup to prevent the broadcast of the Emperor’s surrender message.

Now the general concensus is that the factors that contributed to the Japanese surrender were:

  1. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  2. Soviet invasion of Manchuria
  3. Hirohito’s personal intervention at the Imperial Council meetings.

And 3) was done out of purely selfish reasons - he realized that the Americans won’t press for his removal

35

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

Fuck that.

That was a world war, and the Japanese were completely consumed with the code of the bushido and the idolatry of the emperor.

If we were forced to invade them (as we would have had we not dropped the bombs), the casualties would have been through the motherfucking roof.

They would have armed every man, woman, and child to defend their homeland, and we would have killed all of them.

Apologize? I don’t think so. They should thank us. They were insane with their atrocities, and a more brutal country would have aimed for Tokyo first. We did as well as we could there. There would be millions more dead in the Battle of Japan if we had not dropped that bomb.[/quote]

Absolutely right. (Did I just Agree with FI?)

The bombings actually reduced the number of deaths that would have occurred.

Now how many know they were planning on hitting 2 American cities (one on each coast) with dirty bombs? The material was being sent from Germany to Japan because Germany was unable to figure out how to produce a functioning nuke, so the Japanese were going to take the material and produce dirty bombs instead. It was planned for on month after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit.

The material was on route via a German sub when Germany fell. The officers decided to surface and give up to the Allies instead of finishing their route to Japan. (They also killed all Japanese officers onboard so they couldn’t argue the point.)

To ask for an apology just because we did it before they could is preposterous. The only reason they were even going the dirty bomb route instead of full nuke is simply because Germany ran out of time to develop one.

Now for some real obscure history. Anyone know that Japan did in fact bomb America? No planes, but they did drop bombs on America.

36

The teaching of WWII history in Japan is pretty basic. It goes along the lines of Japan being bad and on the wrong side and that America did what they had to do to end the war.

The average Japanese person is of the opinion that Japan was in the wrong and did a lot of bad stuff BUT almost none of them are truely aware of the atrocities that were comitted. It`s a very 2 dimensional view of the war.

There are some in the education system who are on record as saying of Nanking that A) It is grossly infalted or B) Not actually true. Both of these are wrong and insulting.

Ive also read that some experts believe Japan wouldve given up if the Russians had been the invading force. They reckon that due to hostilities left over from the Russian/Japan wars the last thing the Japanese would`ve wanted was an occupying Red army. The hostility is still evident today (check out the Russian Embassy in Tokyo to see how heavily guarded it is compared to the other embassies)

Another interesting point made was that it wouldv`ve taken a U.S force of 250,000 men to take the island by invasion alone and Roosevelt was not willing to sign off on the lives of any more men (and rightly so).

There are also a few accounts of rapes and atrocities committed by U.S soldiers when they landed ont he southern islands. There was one in particular about 2 black soldiers that raped a cople of girls an, when thewy came back for a second helping, got killed by some of the few men left. I only mention the colour of the soldiers becasue it lent its name to the cave where their bodies were dumped (cant recall the name of the cave at the moment.)

Anyway, its pretty accepted that the U.S didnt have much in the way of options and lets not forget that there was fore warning of the bombings.

The whole apologising for past generations actions is a bit silly at times. Where does it end? Being half English can I get an apology from the Spanish for trying to send an Armada after us? I want those bloody Saxons to step up to the plate and eat some humble pie too!!! Obviously WWII is a lot more recent but the line needs to be draawn somewhere.

37

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
I allways think it’s funny when someone demands an applogy. That is the best time in the world to tell them to go fuck themselves.
[/quote]

110% spot on comment, look at the loss’s America and it Allies serviceman to get to that point, the lives that would have been consumed with a full invasion on Japan, on both sides would have been horrific, after the offer of surender was refused, there was only one option.

38

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
What is silly is that some people on this thread take the alleged comments of two Japanese, related to us by Halfback, as indicative of the general feeling of Japanese people. Most Japanese people are, while not as informed of the details of the war as us, at least aware that the atomic bombs were the consequence of their country’s former warlike nature. The atomic bombs traumatised Japan and turned them into the most peaceful people I have encountered anywhere.

And in 6 years of being here, on and off, no Japanese has ever demanded I apologise for Hiroshima. In fact I call bullshit on Halfback’s story. If you want to start a thread on Japanese war atrocities, that’s fine, and no argument from me, they were responsible for plenty. But don’t make up some bullshit story as a pretext to post on some pet topic of yours… If a Japanese ever asked me to say sorry for Hiroshima, I would say ‘Say sorry for Pearl Harbor’. But that would probably never happen.[/quote]

The Japanese who want an apology from America are out there, but my understanding is that they are a small and shrinking group. I believe more Americans and Europeans want the apology. (Didn’t Clinton apologize?)

Now this is history, and the conflict was resolved, so really I don’t think any apology from either side is necessary. This is more of a PC movement then anything.

39

I agree that it is ridiculous to apologize for something our country did over 50 years ago when many of us weren’t born. Just as modern-day Germans are not to blame for the Holocaust. But it’s also ridiculous to whine about ‘atrocities’ of other countries like we are blameless. Throughout our history, we have committed plenty of our own. Rather, we should lament the baser side and depths of human nature as well as appreciate the height.

40

The effects of an atomic bomb dont end with immediate death. Generations afterwards suffer desease, deformity, etc. Not to mention its effects are so large that civilian death completely outways military unit death. I think nukes are a seriously wrong weapon to use for those two reasons. and thats why america has allready apologised. You can say to hell with it, and usually america does just that… but hey… its allready been done, both the bombing and the apology.

I love your stupid rhetoric though. “hey, we offered them a chance to surrender!” Nukes are spreading in the world. and america isnt involved in all conflicts. Can i use nukes in the next african war because of genocide is bad? what about in the kosovo area? south america? Americans! so hypocritical “We can use our weapons like this, for these reasons - but you can’t”