Why has Japan not asked for forgiveness for WWII?

[Hamish Howl]

^ Talk about not serious.

I said that with a perfectly straight face.

 

[Bodi]

I've never seen someone who thinks the firebombing was somehow acceptable. The nukes get more attention for reasons that should be obvious.

Acceptable? I do. For that technological time period and the manner in which the Japanese were conducting the savage and genocidal war.

The nukes were even better and more effective... Think of the perhaps million lives that might have been saved if we had the nukes earlier...

 

[Bodi]

Historically-speaking, conservatives don't use atomic weapons. Liberals do.

Conservatives talk tough, but they're not really serious about havin' a good time.

@Antiwar

Correct. Liberals got us into WWI, WWII, Vietnam...

 

[Hamish Howl]

@Antiwar

Correct. Liberals got us into WWI, WWII, Vietnam...

But not Iraq or Afghanistan.

Not the point. We were discussing who drops nukes and who doesn't.

 

[Bodi]

But not Iraq or Afghanistan.

Correct. Bush was great on Afghanistan and Iraq was a shit show and probably war crimes, or at least illegal invasion.

Not the point. We were discussing who drops nukes and who doesn't.

America dropped two nukes and it was the right call. Totally justified.

 

[Deuce]

Acceptable? I do. For that technological time period and the manner in which the Japanese were conducting the savage and genocidal war.

The nukes were even better and more effective... Think of the perhaps million lives that might have been saved if we had the nukes earlier...

Targeting a civilian population with a weapon of mass destruction is acceptable if you think your enemy is evil enough?

Thanks for the tip, Bin Laden.

 

[Deuce]

@Antiwar

Correct. Liberals got us into WWI, WWII, Vietnam...

Liberals got us into WW2 because conservatives sympathized with the nazis, yes. "America first," and all that.

 

[Tigerace117]

Targeting a civilian population with a weapon of mass destruction is acceptable if you think your enemy is evil enough?

Thanks for the tip, Bin Laden.

Considering that A) Hiroshima and Nagasaki both had major military targets; B) the Imperial Japanese rivaled the Nazis in terms of sheer evil; and C) every other option would have cost far more lives, your hysterics are rather ridiculous.

 

[Tigerace117]

Nice cherry pick there to only bring up American holdings in the pacific while completely ignoring those of other Western powers and allies of ours in the Pacific. It's not true btw that our holdings in the Pacific consisted only of Philippine Islands. We had several other island under our control. On the eve of the Second World War, the United States had the world’s fifth-largest empire on the planet by population. Nearly thirteen percent of its populace lived in its overseas colonies. That was undoubtedly less than lived in the world-straddling British Empire, where there were roughly ten colonial subjects for every inhabitant of the British Isles. But it is still a significant figure.
View attachment 67345403
Look, I understand how images and the horrifying narratives of the terrible atrocities committed by Japanese and Nazis can bring to the fore deep emotions of anger and sadness and even a lust for revenge. But the factual historical narrative is that even though the US had been receiving numerous reports of these horrible crimes we did relatively little to nothing about them actually until pretty much after the fact. We turned away ships ladened with Jewish refugees from Germany and Europe. We used the reports and narratives of Japanese atrocities in China to drum up public support and funding to send military equipment and munitions and supplies to revitalize China's war effort as a deterrent to the Japanese military operations pushing southward. Not an easy feat really given the history of anti-Asian sentiment in the US up till that time. Even after Nanking, what the US squabbled with the Japanese afterwards was a member of the US embassy staff that had been allowed to return early after the fall and ensuing massacre in Nanking to investigate reports of Japanese had trespassed on American property and kidnapped and raped a Chinese woman being struck in the face by a Japanese soldier. It became known as the "Allison Incident". Under orders from Tokyo, the Japanese occupying force in Nanjing apologized to Allison and placed the officers and soldiers involved in the incident under court-martial. And with that as far as the US was concerned the incident was thereby resolved. However amidst all the furor the Chinese woman who had been assaulted was forgotten by both the American and Japanese governments as well as by public opinion. So even though we had all these reports of the terrible things that went on in Nanking when it comes right down to it, in policy and deed, the American response was limited to safeguarding its national interests in China.

FDR's Europe First policy was predicated on these ideological lines of thought. That it was Hitler's Germany that presented an existential threat to the material self-interest and core values of the United States in a way that Japan simply did not. That Anglo-American economic, political and intellectual life was “inextricably intermingled” with European culture and tradition and if Nazi ideals and values are allowed to take hold in Europe it would come at the expense of American ideals, values and interests. Whereas the racist colored attitudes toward the Japanese and their ilk prevalent in Western thinking at the time was casually dismissive of their capabilities as being inferior to those of Anglo-American and European descent. “The Atlantic world, unless it destroys itself, will remain infinitely superior in vigor and inventive power to the too prolific and not too well-nourished Orientals.” - Harold Callender, “Two Oceans, Two Worlds,” New York Times, 6 Oct 1940.

I know we all like to believe that America always does the honorable, morally right thing and maybe at the end of the day it all mostly came out alright, eventually. But we weren't often really all that much above other nations in the respect in safeguarding own national interests first before taking up the interests of others. As Churchill is famously quoted as saying; "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Screeching about unpopulated islands making America an “empire” is pretty funny. The existence of the British or Dutch Empires, meanwhile, do not excuse the Japanese actions; especially since the locals in those empires, again, pretty overwhelmingly supported their “masters” against the Japanese after they got a taste of what “Asia for the Asians” meant in reality.

“Deterring the Japanese from pushing southwards” saved millions upon millions of people from falling under the genocidal Japanese boot. The Japanese launched multiple attacks on Americans or American vessels prior to the outbreak of war, yes.

The Germany First policy was based on the fact that FDR recognized that the Nazis were just as much a threat as Imperial Japan— more so, in many respects— and therefore had to be defeated first if at all possible.

 

[swing_voter]

So everyone wanted to keep the Japanese emperor. To a lot of Japanese, the emperor was their Jesus.

Even the Potsdam Accord had language that said the emperor could keep his job.

But then they took that language out of the Potsdam Accord.

One atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on the 6th.

A day or two later, another was dropped.

No response from the Japanese. A week went by.

There was zero communication between America and Japan so nobody could figure out what the problem was.

Finally the head of the American state department wrote a letter to the Japanese, delivered by the Swiss. In it, he strongly hinted that the emperor could keep his job after the war.

The Japanese regime waffled a little, but it was good enough for the emperor who threw his vote in with the surrender crowd.

The war was over.

So why did the Americans remove the language about the emperor from the Potsdam Accord?

A gallop polled showed that 85% of Americans wanted the emperor hanged. If Truman said the emperor could keep his job, it would've been political suicide for the Democrats.

Such is politics in a democracy.


.

 

[Deuce]

Considering that A) Hiroshima and Nagasaki both had major military targets; B) the Imperial Japanese rivaled the Nazis in terms of sheer evil; and C) every other option would have cost far more lives, your hysterics are rather ridiculous.

Intentionally wiping out civilians is a war crime no matter how good you think your reason is.

Did you know it is actually possible to drop a bomb on a military base that doesn't destroy half a city?

 

[Deuce]

Screeching about unpopulated islands making America an “empire” is pretty funny. The existence of the British or Dutch Empires, meanwhile, do not excuse the Japanese actions; especially since the locals in those empires, again, pretty overwhelmingly supported their “masters” against the Japanese after they got a taste of what “Asia for the Asians” meant in reality.

“Deterring the Japanese from pushing southwards” saved millions upon millions of people from falling under the genocidal Japanese boot. The Japanese launched multiple attacks on Americans or American vessels prior to the outbreak of war, yes.

The Germany First policy was based on the fact that FDR recognized that the Nazis were just as much a threat as Imperial Japan— more so, in many respects— and therefore had to be defeated first if at all possible.

You're foaming at the mouth, literally shouting at your keyboard, you're so angry that someone dares disagree with you. Dude, calm down. Stop screeching.

 

[Tigerace117]

Intentionally wiping out civilians is a war crime no matter how good you think your reason is.

Did you know it is actually possible to drop a bomb on a military base that doesn't destroy half a city?

Bud, “surgical strikes” as we have today essentially didn’t exist in the 1940s. Whenever you are throwing around high explosives there’s going to be a high risk of collateral damage. Does it suck? Yes. Is it better than the alternative, which is a hundred thousand POWs being murdered by Japanese troops as the Allies storm ashore to face civilians forcibly conscripted and sent at Sherman tanks with bamboo spears?

Also yes.

 

[Tigerace117]

You're foaming at the mouth, literally shouting at your keyboard, you're so angry that someone dares disagree with you. Dude, calm down. Stop screeching.

Yawn. I get that you don’t have an actual argument, but no amount of squirming can change the fact that all other options would have led to a far greater death toll.

 

[Bodi]

Targeting a civilian population with a weapon of mass destruction is acceptable if you think your enemy is evil enough?

Everything depends... it depends on why you are doing it. WWII it was acceptable. And WMD is meaningless... the 64 cities that were firebombed prior to the nukes were weapons of mass destruction too... an argument can be made that the civilians a country are also responsible for what their government is doing.

Thanks for the tip, Bin Laden.

Your posts are more hysterical than I remember... and increasingly more rude.

 

[Deuce]

Bud, “surgical strikes” as we have today essentially didn’t exist in the 1940s. Whenever you are throwing around high explosives there’s going to be a high risk of collateral damage. Does it suck? Yes. Is it better than the alternative, which is a hundred thousand POWs being murdered by Japanese troops as the Allies storm ashore to face civilians forcibly conscripted and sent at Sherman tanks with bamboo spears?

Also yes.

So, the claim you are making here is that there are exactly two options in a war of that size.

 

[Deuce]

Everything depends... it depends on why you are doing it. WWII it was acceptable. And WMD is meaningless... the 64 cities that were firebombed prior to the nukes were weapons of mass destruction too...

"Excuse me nukes aren't the only war crime we committed" isn't the slam dunk you think it is.

an argument can be made that the civilians a country are also responsible for what their government is doing.

So now you're trying to establish that it's always ok to kill unarmed civilians.
Yikes

Your posts are more hysterical than I remember... and increasingly more rude.

Listen man, talk like a terrorist and that's the comparison that's going to get made. They're the sort of people who think civilians are legitimate targets and attacking them is justified.

 

[Deuce]

Yawn. I get that you don’t have an actual argument, but no amount of squirming can change the fact that all other options would have led to a far greater death toll.

It's possible to drop a nuke on a military target that not also surrounded by civilians. Did this... not ever occur to you?

 

[Tigerace117]

It's possible to drop a nuke on a military target that not also surrounded by civilians. Did this... not ever occur to you?

So in other words drop the weapon supposed to win the war.....in the middle of absolute nowhere, where nothing the Japanese regime cares about exists. Yeah, that’ll work real well....not

 

[Tigerace117]

So, the claim you are making here is that there are exactly two options in a war of that size.

The feasible options available to the US were

1. Drop the nukes.
2. Launch a conventional invasion
3. Try to starve the Japanese into surrendering.

Both 2 and 3 come with MUCH higher death tolls than 1.

 

[Deuce]

So in other words drop the weapon supposed to win the war.....in the middle of absolute nowhere, where nothing the Japanese regime cares about exists. Yeah, that’ll work real well....not

So in other words you consider some random uninhabited desert with nobody around a "military target."

Curious.

 

[Deuce]

The feasible options available to the US were

1. Drop the nukes.
2. Launch a conventional invasion
3. Try to starve the Japanese into surrendering.

Both 2 and 3 come with MUCH higher death tolls than 1.

You can drop the nuke on a military target not surrounded by civilians. We already went over this.

Or, yes, you actually can drop such a bomb in the middle of nowhere. Demonstrate its power, and the futility of resisting.

 

[Tigerace117]

So in other words you consider some random uninhabited desert with nobody around a "military target."

Curious.

Please provide a link as to what uninhabited deserts Japan has.

I’ll wait.

 

[Tigerace117]

You can drop the nuke on a military target not surrounded by civilians. We already went over this.

Or, yes, you actually can drop such a bomb in the middle of nowhere. Demonstrate its power, and the futility of resisting.

You wanting the US to drop the weapon far away from anything the Japanese government cares about— aka the middle of nowhere— would not cause the Japanese to surrender. Their war effort had been futile for three years by 1945.

People gleefully loading up pilots to crash into American ships aren’t going to be forced to surrendered by a big explosion far off in the middle of the ocean. It’s nothing more than wishful thinking on your part.

 

[Atomic Kid]

I can't believe that anybody would actually try to defend Japanese war atrocities like @Atomic Kid is doing. It is astoundingly immoral.

If your reading comprehension was better you would understand that it was not a defense of Japanese atrocities but rather an explanation that they were not a focal point, or even a driver of American deeds and policy towards China and Japan in lead up to war with Japan. We had other interests to protect. I'm arguing this from a factual historical standpoint, not an emotional one. Sorry if that doesn't fully comport to your view of the world. That is just simply the factual history of how things were back then.