Hirosima→see the Notes of this post.
Hiroshima again
hisotry textbook
Yasukuni shrine
Nanjin massacre/Iris Chang
Nanjin massacre and Mao
Nanjin massacre/China
Nanjin massacre/Japan
Nanjin massacre/the U.S.
Nanjin g massacre and Korea
The figure for number of victim at Nanjin
a related topic about Nanjin massacre
nanjin-massacre-in-perspective
what should be done
what should be done(2)
interpretation and the law
Historical controversy
【日中歴史研究】南京
Holocaust deniers
David Irving, a Holocaust denier was arrested and is in on trial.
BBC
Holocaust denier may be offensive but I do not think that arresting is a solution, but an open debate in public is a solution.That is what I think democracy should be.
(pros and cons about the holocaust
link
link )
What we need is the place and atomospher that make free rational descussion possibe.It is people, not the state power, who will decide which is correct.
Holocaust admires
“Thank God for the atom bomb.” I would add, “Thank God for the brave men who made a difficult decision.”plunge
It might be more offensve to see a Holocaust admire, and I feel sorry for women and children who got killed or wounded instantly without knowing what's happening in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,but as I said, I support freedom of speech, that is a sacrifice we have to pay for democracy.(Some people might think nuking Japan was not a crime in the first place, see the Notes.[1])
Victimization Olympics medalists.
Novick, a Jewish historian, argues that
American Jews in some groups use the Holocaust to silence their critics, raise money, amass political power, support Israel,link
Rejecting the thesis that the Middle East conflict arose from the displacement of the Palestinians, many Jewish organizations ascribed the continuing wars to the world's having forgotten the Holocaust, says Novick. While other strategies were also employed to mobilize support for Israel, its importance as a strategic US asset, Biblical claims, and so forth, the Holocaust was far and away the most effective public relations tool.
By Nancy Russell
29 June 2000
I seems this is a controversial book, link
link,but in my understanding, reading these sites, he is not a Holocaust denier, he is just pointing out some aspects of how the Holocaust was used and abused politically.
History matters for some people like people above because where you are from, what you have been constitutes what you are.and because it is sometimes claimed that what you are and what you have been will reflect what you will be.
Moreover, where you are from, and what you have been doing , depending on how you write the history, will justifiy or invalidate what you are doing and what you will do.
For instance,Catholics vindicated its authority by resorting to an oral traditions,while Protestant justify it by the Bible.p52
And before WWⅡ,
"[hitorians ] were required・・・ to find a past that justified not only Hitler's accession to power, but also the imperial role that Nazi Germany was to play in the future.p65
[O]thers, with their onw (often hidden) agendas, were no less concerned to use the history of that country for political purposes.So in the earier part of the twentieth
century・・・・Germany was deliberlately exlcluded from a newly constructed concept of the West.Germny, by her aggressive actions, had shown herself ineligible for inclusion of club.p73
But there should be no taboo on any subjects of history.
I'll examine the use and abuse of the holocaust on the next thread.
Notes
[1]
People tend to think nuking Japan, "the final solution of Japanese Qustion", is justified because of Perl Haber and the brutal Japanese acts during the war
Thus
Truman testify:
Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.88
However, cliams Ralph Raico
This, however, is absurd. Pearl Harbor was a military base. Hiroshima was a city, inhabited by some three hundred thousand people, which contained military elements. In any case, since the harbor was mined and the U.S. Navy and Air Force were in control of the waters around Japan, whatever troops were stationed in Hiroshima had been effectively neutralized.link
One might say," Japan commited brutal war crimes. So she deserved it."
Yet,
The Catechism repeats its denunciation verbatim in No. 2314:
“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”No matter how vicious the Japanese war tactics were, and they were cruel and brutal, America crossed a line we never should have crossed.link
Besides, the civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not directly culpable for the atrocities of Bataan and Nanjing.link
Some people who were scheduled to take part in the invation of Japan claim that nuking Japan was justified because they might have been killed if nuking Japan didn't happen.
To this,
.
It is a mystery why Fussell takes out his easily understandable terror, rather unchivalrously, on Japanese women and children instead of on the men in Washington who conscripted him to fight in the Pacific in the first place.link
Others might claim "It is justified because it was industrial center"
Thus
On other occasions, Truman claimed that Hiroshima was bombed because it was an industrial center. But, as noted in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, "all major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city – and escaped serious damage."90 The target was the center of the city. That Truman realized the kind of victims the bombs consumed is evident from his comment to his cabinet on August 10, explaining his reluctance to drop a third bomb: "The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible," he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing "all those kids."91 Wiping out another one hundred thousand people . . . all those kids.link
Still others might say,"Dropping atomic bombs was necessary to make Japan surrender.Therefore it is justified."
For instance, it is claimed that it acctually played the crucial role to make Japan surrender.link
But,a recent book reveals that Russian participation a played greater role.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Professor of History at the University of California, challenges the view that the atomic bomb provided the immediate and decisive knockout blow to Japan's will to fight. The author explains that the Soviet entry into the war played a greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender.achikochilink
Suppose it did played the cruical role, still it does not follow that nuking Japan was necessary if Truman had other choices which is less devastating.
But isn't it true that atomic bombs saved a million of people,therefore it is justified?.
Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.93 The ridiculously inflated figure of a half-million for the potential death toll – nearly twice the total of U.S. dead in all theaters in the Second World War – is now routinely repeated in high-school and college textbooks and bandied about by ignorant commentators. Unsurprisingly, the prize for sheer fatuousness on this score goes to President George W. Bush, who claimed in 1991 that dropping the bomb "spared millions of American lives."94link
And again, nuking Japan was not necessary if Truman had other choices which is less devastatingif he had other choices .
And he had other choices.
As Anscombe wrote: "It was the insistence on unconditional surrender that was the root of all evil."101link
After the atomic bombings, Japan was allowed to retain their Emperor, anyway. link
On July 18, 1945, exactly 19 days before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, in his own handwritten diary, Harry S. Truman wrote:
"Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. (Churchill) of telegram from Jap emperor asking for peace…"link
Assume that the Pacific war had ended in the way wars customarily do – through negotiation of the terms of surrender. And assume the worst – that the Japanese had adamantly insisted on preserving part of their empire, say, Korea and Formosa, even Manchuria. In that event, it is quite possible that Japan would have been in a position to prevent the Communists from coming to power in China. And that could have meant that the thirty or forty million deaths now attributed to the Maoist regime would not have occurred. link
Though to save life is laudable, it in no way justifies the employment of means which run counter to every precept of humanity and the customs of war. Should it do so, then, on the pretext of shortening a war and of saving lives, every imaginable atrocity can be justified.106link
(Suppose Bin Ladin said "Desipite the warning, the U.S. did not listen.they were determined to fight to death, it was necessary to make the U.S. surrender to save a million of islam soldiers who would have gone to fight if the plane had not crashed the building. Imagine further that an Islam fighter said,"Thanks God, he saved my lives, and a million of Islam fighters.Do you buy the arugment?)
To sum up,
We probably could have ended the war sooner with fewer deaths on all sides by using the full carrot and stick: 1) offer retention of the Emperor for a quick surrender; and 2) threaten Russian invasion and 3) atomic destruction as the alternative. None of these key incentives to surrender were used prior to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Had the above method failed, and had the Russian invasion failed to bring surrender soon, the atomic bombs were still available - but as a last resort. .link
see also surrender of Japan
See Atomic Tradedy
DWIGHT EISENHOWER
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380link
ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.link
linkHERBERT HOOVER
On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."
Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347.
On August 8, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hoover wrote to Army and Navy Journal publisher Colonel John Callan O'Laughlin, "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."
quoted from Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 635.link
GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR
quote
"...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."link
I want to ask, with Anscom,100
" what is the difference between the U.S. government massacring civilians from the air, as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Nazis wiping out the inhabitants of some Czech or Polish village?"
88. Alperovitz, Decision( to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (New York: Knopf, 1995)), p. 563. Truman added: "When you deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true." For similar statements by Truman, see ibid., p. 564. Alperovitz’s monumental work is the end-product of four decades of study of the atomic bombings and is indispensable for comprehending the often complex argumentation on the issue.
90. Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (New York: Knopf, 1995) p. 523.
94. J. Samuel Walker, "History, Collective Memory, and the Decision to Use the Bomb," Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 320, 323–25. Walker details the frantic evasions of Truman’s biographer, David McCullough, when confronted with the unambiguous record.
100 G.E.M. Anscombe, "Mr. Truman’s Degree," in idem, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, Ethics, Religion and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 62–71.
101 G.E.M. Anscombe, "Mr. Truman’s Degree," in idem, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, Ethics, Religion and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p. 62
106. J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War, 1939–45: A Strategical and Tactical History (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948), p. 392. Fuller, who was similarly scathing on the terror-bombing of the German cities, characterized the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "a type of war that would have disgraced Tamerlane." Cf. Barton J. Bernstein, who concludes, in "Understanding the Atomic Bomb," p. 235:
The photo http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/index.html
Truman /war criminal 魚拓
It's odd that I never got around to adding a link to the blog "What Japan Thinks", as I've long been something of a fan; in any case, this post on the depth of animosity felt during WW2 by Americans towards Japan is, I think, particularly worthy of highlighting.
In another survey conducted in December 1944, when asked what they thought should be done about Japan after the war, 13% favoured killing everyone, 33% favoured the breaking up or dissolution of Japan as a political entity, 28% supported supervision and control, and only 8% favoured re-education …(emphasis added)
It's a great thing that the rabid voices weren't listened to: not only would our world be much the poorer for it, but the very idea of killing 80 million people is so inhuman that one has to fear what lurks within the hearts of one's fellow men to make more than 1 in 8 Americans embrace such a barbaric notion. I think this number is worth keeping in mind whenever one is tempted to rant about the supposedly "unique" and "innate" wickedness of the Germans, the Japanese or [insert your preferred nationality here]: with the right priming, dismayingly large numbers of people anywhere can be made to go along with the worst savagery.
On a more positive note, I think it attests to the ample possibilities for rapprochement where the necessary will exists that two peoples who hated each other so intensely a little over 60 years ago now hold each other in such high mutual esteem and fondness; therein lies a lesson for certain East Asian countries fond of picking at old injuries incessantly ...foreign dispathes.
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