Hiroshima Anniversary

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]aussie486 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
I speak from experience, people have tried to kill me, and I have tried to kill them. Hurting
people is easier then you think.

Please tell me you are not in the military.

Thats what you do in the military, you kill.

Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

mike

Rabid dog, interesting term,

Been reading some of the suvivor’s accounts of the Bataan death march, appears to be a perfect term for the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the march, evil is another term that goes with it in that context.
[/quote]

Kodiak said, in so many words, that he would kill civilians as long it meant his survival.

Soldiers aren’t supposed to do that. Luckily, Kodiak is not the military.

183

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

[/quote]

Correct. You terminate with extreme prejudice.

Like a Devil Dog. :wink:

184

[quote]aussie486 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
I speak from experience, people have tried to kill me, and I have tried to kill them. Hurting
people is easier then you think.

Please tell me you are not in the military.

Thats what you do in the military, you kill.

Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

mike

Rabid dog, interesting term,

Been reading some of the suvivor’s accounts of the Bataan death march, appears to be a perfect term for the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the march, evil is another term that goes with it in that context.
[/quote]

Why exactly are you trying to convince me of the Americans having moral superiority? I’ve made no claims to the contrary. Need I bring up instances of Japanese eating American POWs as a show of solidarity with their fellow soldiers who were starving in far off islands? In fact I’ve also said that there would have been nothing wrong with dropping nukes on islands like Iwo or Tarawa. My only statement is that it is immoral to kill a civilian to save a soldier and doubly so to save a Marine, particularly after the war had already been won (post-Okinawa).

mike

185

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Uh huh.

186

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
I speak from experience, people have tried to kill me, and I have tried to kill them. Hurting
people is easier then you think.

Please tell me you are not in the military.

Thats what you do in the military, you kill.

Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

mike

Rabid dog, interesting term,

Been reading some of the suvivor’s accounts of the Bataan death march, appears to be a perfect term for the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the march, evil is another term that goes with it in that context.

Why exactly are you trying to convince me of the Americans having moral superiority? I’ve made no claims to the contrary. Need I bring up instances of Japanese eating American POWs as a show of solidarity with their fellow soldiers who were starving in far off islands? In fact I’ve also said that there would have been nothing wrong with dropping nukes on islands like Iwo or Tarawa. My only statement is that it is immoral to kill a civilian to save a soldier and doubly so to save a Marine, particularly after the war had already been won (post-Okinawa).

mike[/quote]

At no time was my reply aimed at you, I should have been clearer in my delivery, in fact i agree with the vast majority of your posts on topics. There was no disrespect intended for you.

188

I must say that this has been a very informative thread. I’m sure I will be referencing this thread(and PWI in general)in my upcoming Humanities class.

190

Closest approximation would be “hi-RO-shi-ma.” (“hi” and “shi” are close to our pronouns “he” and “she”, except a little shorter. Slight accent on the second syllable, and the Japanese “r” is slightly trilled, like in Spanish or Italian. Actually midway in sound between an L and a D in English.

Not “hee-ra-SHEEE-ma”, which is how most Americans pronounce it.

191

I have a question.

I read 2 books in the 90’s both at the same time. History of China and History of Japan. I noticed that the Japanese and Chinese had constant warfare going on for centuries. Japanese would invade the mainland, the Chinese would counterstrike, ect. A famous episode is when Kubalai sent his Mongol armies to crush the Japanese and his armada got hit by a hurricane.

My question is this: during WWII, the Japanese invaded Chinese territories, had the British, French and other Europeans not been there in colonies this time, would the Pacific war have been any different than countless wars between the 2 countires in the past?

That’s my question.

192

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
I have a question.

I read 2 books in the 90’s both at the same time. History of China and History of Japan. I noticed that the Japanese and Chinese had constant warfare going on for centuries. Japanese would invade the mainland, the Chinese would counterstrike, ect. A famous episode is when Kubalai sent his Mongol armies to crush the Japanese and his armada got hit by a hurricane.

My question is this: during WWII, the Japanese invaded Chinese territories, had the British, French and other Europeans not been there in colonies this time, would the Pacific war have been any different than countless wars between the 2 countires in the past?

That’s my question.

[/quote]
Japan was hell bent on maintaining a massive empire during WW2. Not just a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese forces like in the past.

And they attacked US forces throughout the Pacific… so how would European colonies affect the US response to Japanese aggression?

194

[quote]Dustin wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
I speak from experience, people have tried to kill me, and I have tried to kill them. Hurting
people is easier then you think.

Please tell me you are not in the military.

Thats what you do in the military, you kill.

Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

mike

Rabid dog, interesting term,

Been reading some of the suvivor’s accounts of the Bataan death march, appears to be a perfect term for the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the march, evil is another term that goes with it in that context.

Kodiak said, in so many words, that he would kill civilians as long it meant his survival.

Soldiers aren’t supposed to do that. Luckily, Kodiak is not the military.[/quote]

I’ve talked to a few marines and soldiers, who fought in the sandbox. they did what was needed to do, to come home. None ever enjoyed it, there’s a difference

If I was, I’d be serving time at Fort Leavenworth right now or dead. The Code of Conduct is, to much for some men to follow. I can’t see any situation, where I’m armed to the teeth , and People who don’t were uniforms, start attacking me and my bothers to show any kind of restraint. I would open up on any people, who warn’t my brothers.

195

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

  1. This characterization was by no means uncommon during the war: popular songs such as When We Set that Rising Sun (1945), for example, proclaimed that Japan was ‘a land of heathen people’ with ‘no respect for God or man.’[/quote]

This characterization was so “not uncommon” that a Google search of the “popular” tune When We Set That Rising Sun generates zero hits other than a link to a site that discusses music as war propaganda. How about that? Proof that this “not uncommon” attitude is a song recorded in 1945 that no one has ever heard of or ever remarks on except to reference it as propaganda.

More to the point, the war against Imperial Japan was never sold as a holy war, nor was it ever conducted by those in charge as warfighting as a holy war. This is an obvious point - well, it should be.

So we have no official declaration by the United States government and no proof of popular sentiment - other than that, spot on, Varq.

Not a straw man - Push wanted a sample of Japanese propaganda that was guilty of the same sins you highlighted. I provided it independently.

You made an implication by omission - more than happy to castigate America for its propagandistic practices but otherwise silent as to the propagandistic practices of your “victims” of your “holy war” (see where the implication finds its footing) - and I offered you the opportunity to clarify your your position, and another one (substantiation that our offensive against Imperial Japan was a holy war).

To the first, you haven’t clarified. To the second, you offered an obscure song no one has ever heard of to demonstrate the “commonplace” public attitude in 1945 that the offensive against the Japanese was an offensive to destroy heathens.

But, on the other hand, after reading your response, it does look like you have a lot of free time on your hands, but not enough time to get a decent grasp of the history of the era you want to discuss, apparently.

196

[quote]kodiak82 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
Dustin wrote:
I speak from experience, people have tried to kill me, and I have tried to kill them. Hurting
people is easier then you think.

Please tell me you are not in the military.

Thats what you do in the military, you kill.

Yes, but you don’t kill indiscrimately like a rabid dog.

mike

Rabid dog, interesting term,

Been reading some of the suvivor’s accounts of the Bataan death march, appears to be a perfect term for the Japanese soldiers behaviour during the march, evil is another term that goes with it in that context.

Kodiak said, in so many words, that he would kill civilians as long it meant his survival.

Soldiers aren’t supposed to do that. Luckily, Kodiak is not the military.

I’ve talked to a few marines and soldiers, who fought in the sandbox. they did what was needed to do, to come home. None ever enjoyed it, there’s a difference

If I was, I’d be serving time at Fort Leavenworth right now or dead. The Code of Conduct is, to much for some men to follow. I can’t see any situation, where I’m armed to the teeth , and People who don’t were uniforms, start attacking me and my bothers to show any kind of restraint. I would open up on any people, who warn’t my brothers.
[/quote]

There is a difference between acting in self defense like a professional Soldier and acting like a lunatic.

Your comments emphasized the latter.

197

[quote]Therizza wrote:
And they attacked US forces throughout the Pacific… so how would European colonies affect the US response to Japanese aggression?

[/quote]

Because if the European powers were not in China, they would have had no reason to attack America. Even Hitler thought the Japanese attacking America was a stupid idea. The Japanese attacked Manchuria, and this did not seem to be a problem. It became a problem when they struck the European colonies.

But you are correct. They attacked the Phillipines, and other areas across the Pacific, which was far more aggressive than just attacking mainland China. Great point.

198

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

But you are correct. They attacked the Phillipines, and other areas across the Pacific, which was far more aggressive than just attacking mainland China. Great point. [/quote]

Are you being serious? If so, thank you for acknowledging my point. If it is sarcasm, I missed it, lol.

199

No sarcasm intended.

But do you think had the Japanese just set up a huge ass colony in mainland China, no one else would have cared?

200

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
No sarcasm intended.

But do you think had the Japanese just set up a huge ass colony in mainland China, no one else would have cared?[/quote]

Sigh Tacitus lives…

So on the one hand, the US is to go running into wars in far off lands and play policeman, right? Japan invaded Korea and China and yes, the US objected, just like we’d object now if a set of non-allies went at it. The US had a drawdown post WW I and the widespread public opinion was “good riddance”. The US really didn’t have much of a standing army and didn’t want one. Wars were European things, not American ones. The two oceans were seen as buffers that insulated us from most foreign entanglements. This is worth noting, because it is too easy to put us on trial by modern standards, where we are supposed to run into places like Bosnia and fix everything. We didn’t have the resources to do anything even remotely like that through the 1930’s and everyone back then would wonder what the Hell you’re thinking if you even suggested it.

Another point is Tacitus. So what does a Roman historian who died in 117 AD have to do with this? His work about the German tribes tells us what a bunch of peachy, honest, hard-working and noble people they are. In short, they embody every positive Roman virtue. He takes the Romans to task for falling from the true way and being shown up by barbarians. Of course, he’d probably never even seen a German and virtually none of his supposed virtuous was found a few short centuries later when they were sacking Rome. My point is that a long strand in political/social writing IN THE WEST is to ascribe a sort of hyper-Westernized mindset to another culture in order to carry out a criticism. This is still chugging along oh, 2,000 years later and it seems to be one of the few things you can count on in every age. Always mind this, or you might end up in the same boat as such great thinkers as Sartre, who ended up being an apologist for just about every petty dictator he met. What I’m saying is that this mode of social commentary has a fine and noble history, but it can get out of control if you don’t put it in its place, whereby it turns into rabid nationalism, but of an inverted sort.

There is a lot of talk about imperialism of the West, but this soul-searching seems a bit fatuous. War was always the answer in the good old days and unrelenting warfare was the order of the day. Peace is by and large a Western social goal, mostly an outgrowth of the Enlightenment and truly only realizable, I think, with a massive industrial capacity + service-oriented economy. What we call “terrorism” was how countries were traditionally run – you didn’t mess with the government or they would make an example of you and your family. The more brutal, the better. Doesn’t phase me at all to say that the Japanese were almost fantastically bigoted at the time – heck, a lot of the one’s I’ve met still are. What bothers me is trying to whitewash it so it fits into a Westernized model of behavior. Shimabara anyone? (A Christian inspired uprising in 1637 that ended with around 30,000 crucifictions. This was very typical of how dissent was treated – with a massive spectacle, showing everyone how badly you lost.)

And as always, I might just be full of shit…

– jj