[Dean's World] Dave Price: Purple Hearts and Public Patience

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Purple Hearts and Public Patience
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1182897333.shtml


   Glenn has a [1]fascinating case in wartime perspective, noting that
   500,000 Purple Hearts were manufactured for the invasion of Japan, so
   many that we're still issuing them today and have enough for decades
   more. There's [2]another interesting note here too:

     âIn 1943, the Joint Chiefs agreed that Japan should be forced to
     surrender not more than one year after Germany's surrender. They
     were inspired to do this after seeing the 'Appreciation and Plan
     for the Defeat of Japan', a planning document produced by a joint
     British-American team that did not call for an invasion of the
     Japanese home islands until "1947 onwards".[4] Prolonging the war
     to such an extent was considered dangerous for national morale.â

   [3]No kidding. Itâs interesting they understood this long before
   Vietnam or even Korea. WW II was the last popular war, mostly because
   FDRâs was the last administration with the clout and ideology to
   hammer the press into compliance. (Can you imagine Bush threatening to
   nationalize the media if he didnât get good war coverage? His own
   party would rebel on the grounds of conservatism and the MSM would
   shriek. He might end up in jail if he tried it.) But it also helped
   enormously that Japan surrendered to us when they did, probably as
   much in preference to a Soviet invasion as because of the atomic
   bombings.
   Oh well, I try to remember that in the end itâs a good things wars are
   so unpopular and difficult to sustain in liberal democracies, even for
   noble causes, sometimes even in self-defense. Someday there will only
   be liberal democracies and [4]war will be a forgotten relic of a
   barbaric past.

References

   1. http://instapundit.com/archives2/006620.php
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
   3. http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob1.htm
   4. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM