Sean: 反省

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Posted by Sean:
反省
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1157007516.shtml


   A very late thank-you to Rondi Adamson for [1]linking to [2]one of my
   posts about the atom bombings. Perhaps it's unfair to take this up
   when the gentleman concerned can only assume the discussion is over,
   but I must take exception to the unfortunately common sentiment
   [3]expressed by one Martin in Rondi's comments:

     Although a common mythology promoted assumed by many in US and
     Canada, the bombs were not necessary for Japan's surrender and were
     probably not the major provoking factors...they were used to
     establish the US and the most pwerful nation on earth and to tell
     the Russians that Japan belonged to the US. see Hasegawa 2005
     "Racing with the Enemy" or other serious historians on the subject.
     Thus its use was cynical. It did not save lives; it destroyed lives
     (the overwhelming majority of them innocent civilians). All wars
     have many criminals on both sides. War is essentially a criminal
     activity. The victors get to spout propaganda but we dont have to
     believe it.

   Where to begin? For starters, I grew up in an all-American
   town--during the Reagan Era--and we were never told once in my public
   school system, in any year that World War II was covered, that the
   atom bombs had been necessary to cause Japan to surrender. We were
   taught that Hirohito's leaning toward surrender had produced an
   eruption of dissent among his military advisors and generals, that
   there was a real danger that an official surrender from the imperial
   palace would not stop a significant proportion of citizens from
   fighting Allied military personnel who then landed, and that the bombs
   were intended to send a message both within and outside Japan that it
   had been decisively crushed. Let's also remember that the battles of
   Iwo Jima and Okinawa had happened only months ago and probably
   affected, a bit, strategists' calculations of how many enemy lives it
   was worth risking in order to guarantee surrender and save lives on
   our side.
   As for showing the Soviet Union that the United States was the most
   powerful nation on Earth and would, thank you very much, take charge
   of Japan...yeah, so? Considering what happened to the economies the
   USSR managed to pull into its orbit (not to mention millions of its
   own people under Stalin), I'm not entirely sure that was a bad thing
   for Japan. Within a few decades after the Treaty of San Francisco,
   Japan was outcompeting its former occupier in many consumer product
   sectors; by the 1980s, Akio Morita and Shintaro Ishihara were freely
   arguing, in The Japan That Can Say, "No!", that Japan had the
   geopolitical power to play the US and USSR off each other in the
   nuclear arms race. Just try to imagine China or Korea in a similar
   position if Japan had won and continued to establish its East Asia
   [ahem] Co-Prosperity Sphere.
   As for Hasegawa, his contentions are far from universally accepted by
   "serious historians." The book caused a stir when it came out and won
   a prestigious award or two, but Hasegawa has been (pretty
   conclusively, from what I can tell) [4]shown to have relied on
   evidence that contradicts his conclusions. Note that we're not talking
   about merely failing to deal thoroughly with possible counterarguments
   or account for contrary evidence; the charge is that his own sources
   have to be twisted in order to say what he wants them to say.
   There are meaningful debates to be had over how peoples should reflect
   on their wartime conduct and what lessons they should take from it;
   the controversy over the Koizumi cabinet's Yasukuni Shrine visits
   makes them of particular practical importance now. Unfortunately, they
   won't happen if we rely on sludgy statements of morality such as "All
   wars have many criminals on both sides."
   [Frighteningly apposite gay moment: I happen to be watching [5]The
   Manchurian Candidate right now started typing that last paragraph just
   as the scene in which Angela Lansbury reveals her true loyalties to
   Laurence Harvey. *shiver*]

References

   1. http://wonkitties.blogspot.com/2006/08/v-j-day.html
   2. http://whiteperil.com/posts/1091690668.shtml
   3. http://wonkitties.blogspot.com/2006/08/v-j-day.html#c115575403990533018
   4. http://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/kort.html
   5. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0792838289/104-2163212-1000769?v=glance&n=130