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Hiroshima: An Apology Fatally Devalued by the Passage of 65 Years
Robert Fisk reports on the day America and Britain united with Japan to remember victims of the world’s first atomic bomb
At last we've apologized for Hiroshima - well, sort of. We've recognized the suffering our atom bombs caused -well, kind of. President Obama was showing off his anti-nuclear credentials in the killing grounds of Hiroshima, but this was not to be confused with saying sorry.
Tsuyuko Nakao, 92, praying for the victims of the atom bomb at the Peace Memorial Park yesterday. The presence of John Roos, the US ambassador to Japan, and the British deputy ambassador, David Fitton, at the site of the world's first atomic bombing was an odd appearance.
We are looking at the survivors' ceremony and recognizing their suffering - how very Blairite of us - and even the British embassy's words were of Blairite insincerity. "This is the right move at the right time," it said. But the right 'move' for what? After all, we are really not apologizing for the 220,000 dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hell, didn't we win the Second World War?
What it really comes down to is this. If you apologize for slaughtering civilians - or, at the minimum, causing their deaths - you have to do it quickly and for humanitarian reasons. Wait too long and do it for political reasons, and it will lose its effect. Germany was quick to start admitting responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and now calls itself Israel's best friend in Europe. Turkey has never apologized for committing the Armenian Holocaust in 1915. But if it ever does, will anyone except the Armenians care?
On the surface, it's all very simple. Most of us seem to believe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime. I certainly do. The Japanese were already talking of surrender. That Caesar of British historians, AJP Taylor, quoted a senior US official. "The bomb simply had to be used - so much money had been expended on it. Had it failed, how would we have explained the huge expenditure? Think of the public outcry there would have been ... The relief to everyone concerned when the bomb was finished and dropped was enormous."
Taking his cue from the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared the Allies a bloody invasion of mainland Japan - a thesis which now appears to be completely untrue - Lord Louis Mountbatten remarked that "if the bomb kills Japanese and saves casualties on our side I am naturally not going to favor the killing of our people unnecessarily ... I am responsible for trying to kill as many Japanese as I can. War is crazy ... But it would be even more crazy if we were to have more casualties on our side to save the Japanese."
This, of course, carefully avoids the fact that Japanese soldiers - brutal and sadistic though they were - were largely murdering soldiers, while Mountbatten's men were slaughtering mostly Japanese civilians. And when will the Japanese apologize for Pearl Harbor?
Much more seriously - since most of the victims were civilians and it was a war crime of almost Holocaust-scale magnitude, so terrible that even a latter-day historian of the bloodbath committed suicide - why hasn't Japan apologized for the murder and rape of perhaps a million Chinese in the attack on Nanking, then the capital of nationalist China, before "our" Second World War broke out? Why should "we" apologize before the Japs do?
When I visited the Japanese war criminals' Shinto shrine in Tokyo - the darker the crimes of those honored, I noticed, the fewer were captions to their portraits provided in English - there was even a restored steam locomotive in the shrine, the engine that hauled the first train along the Burma railway. It was carrying the ashes of Japanese soldiers who had died in battle. But building that railway line was Royal Marine Jim Feather. He had been rescued from HMS Repulse when it was sunk by Japanese aircraft in December 1941 but was subsequently taken prisoner when Singapore fell. Mistreated and sick, he was forced to work on the railway. He was six feet tall but in his last days his mates could lift him on their shoulders like a child, like a feather I suppose. He died sometime in 1942. Jim was the son of my Dad's sister Freda. So don't the Fisk family deserve an apology, too?
But what good would it do? Tony Blair could, in 1997, "recognize" the suffering of the Irish famine victims, he could say that the British Government did not look after their "own" Irish citizens. No apologies, mind you. Even though the famine had taken place almost 150 years earlier. Then the Brits waited almost 30 years to say sorry for the massacre by British paratroopers of 14 Irishmen on Bloody Sunday. Had they told the truth at the time - that they were shooting innocent civilians - Northern Ireland's civil war would have been far less bloody and men and women and children would be alive today who are, in fact, long dead. But no, we had to lie at the time and thus we helped the IRA's "recruiting sergeant".
But then there's the other argument about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our Axis enemies had bombed Pearl Harbor and Coventry and Belgrade and killed the Jews of Europe and murdered our POWs in Asia and - this is a bit of a hypocritical one - if the Germans and the Japanese had the atom bomb, would they have hesitated to use it on "us"? Besides, didn't we kill more Germans in Cologne by fire-bombing than in Hiroshima by nuclear bombing? Do we have to apologize for Cologne, too? And the RAF's mass carnage in Hamburg? And Dresden? Well, we did sort of apologize for the fire-bombing of the medieval city in February 1945 - the new cross on top of the restored cathedral was actually made by the son of one of the Lancaster pilots who bombed Dresden - but so long after the event that thousands of modern-day neo-Nazis were gathering at the mass graves to prove that the RAF were the war criminals.
Even now, we have no intention of apologizing to the Iraqis for our illegal 2003 invasion. Ed Miliband announced only a few days ago in typical anthropological claptrap that it was "time to move on"; and we shall not mention Blair's arrogant performance in front of the Chilcot inquiry.
Yet it's intriguing to go back to what people said about Hiroshima at the time. Today, we might share these words. "This outrage against humanity ... is not war, not even murder. It is pure nihilism." And we might be appalled by a newspaper that found it possible to legitimize the use of the atom bomb because it was impossible to judge the morality of the bombing by the size of the bomb that was used. So for the paper, the slaughter was "entirely legitimate". But the first quotation comes from the venomous Imperial Japanese radio station in occupied Singapore. The second comes from a 1945 edition of what was then called the Manchester Guardian. And we might do well to note how the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West reacted to Hiroshima. Her husband, Harold Nicolson, wrote in his diary that "Vita is thrilled by the atomic bomb. She thinks ... that it means a whole new era."
Well, yes, I suppose it did. But ever since the American journalist John Hersey revealed the terrible suffering of the people of Hiroshima - unlike Wikileaks, he didn't suck the stuff out of computers, he set off there, on his own, to find out the truth - the name of the city has become a symbol of the guilt of humanity. And rightly so.
But it raises another question. When do our war "crimes" have an expiry date. Blair gave his half-hearted apology to the Irish a century and a half after the Brits exported Ireland's food instead of using it to save Irish men and women who were found dead in ditches after trying to eat stinging nettles. The Americans and the Australians have said sorry to their native peoples. But what about Cromwell and Drogheda? Or the Thirty Years' War, or the Hundred Years' War? Or the sack of Rome - a Goth war crime (poor Mrs Merkel)? - or the Roman destruction of Carthage? Or the death of Jesus - I guess Rome's imperial history means Berlusconi has to apologize, though an awful lot of Catholics have spent centuries living in their anti-semitic world by blaming the Jews. Poor Benjamin Netanyahu!
All in all, then, the apology business is a pretty sticky wicket. And yesterday's theater was played to boost the image of an increasingly self-regarding president, not out of any real concern for suffering - by which I mean physical pain - or humanitarian sorrow. A step in the right direction, you may say. Sure. But if you want to to believe in it, alas, it all came far too late.
75 Comments so far
Show All"Germany was quick to start admitting responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and now calls itself Israel's best friend in Europe." Piling sin upon sin.
"... American journalist John Hersey revealed the terrible suffering of the people of Hiroshima - unlike Wikileaks, he didn't suck the stuff out of computers, he set off there, on his own, to find out the truth ..." The Wikileaks team doesn't suck the stuff out of computers, they publish documents leaked by insiders.
I also agree with Mr. Mitchell - wikileaks does not suck.
Good lord. Mr. Fisk's litany of the history of man's inhumanity to man reads as a hopeless lament. I was born a month after Hiroshima's introduction to the atomic age. What can I do to unload some of my miniscule share of this collective human guilt. I'm a quarter Irish, a quarter Anglo. and half German. Can my English me apologize to the Irish me for the hundreds of years of barbaric treatment of my forefathers, or my German me apologize to the English me for bombing the crap out of London or the English me apologize to the German me for the incineration of Dresden.
Fisk has written of human foibles and sometimes horrendous behaviors on many occasions, but in my recollection, never as darkly as this. I do agree with him.
"This is the right move at the right time"
If timing is the problem, they should apologize for the next war now.
All apologies but the one for Rome by the Viisgoths sacking same I agree with, but that was a case of a civilized people getting rid of the beginning of Western Savagery too often passed off as Western Civilization. That was really more like Custer's last stand, and we all know George Armstrong Custer had it coming as did Christopher Columbus, but justice wasn't done. Hell, sometimes good things happen to war criminals unfortunately. But Western Savagery can still be defeated and bring about a rebirth of African democracy, civilization, humanity, and the world we should all seek for ourselves and future generations-- traditional progressive values can and must prevail. Let us not be stopped by the last 10,000 to 12,000 years of hierarchal brain washing by power elites for these same hierarchies.
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"Turkey has never apologized for committing the Armenian Holocaust in 1915. But if it ever does, will anyone except the Armenians care?"
After reading this I know the author isn't to be taken seriously.
Fact is the Armenian Genocide is still a very big deal to many Armenians, even today there are billboards around west Hollywood that say something like "1915, never forget." Turkey doesn't even acknowledge what they did, all while Armernians still have a remembrance day. Yes only they would care, if someone killed my grandpa then took 50 years to apologize only i would care but it would bring my family closure .
Mr. Fisk is quite correct about this. Outside of the Armenian enclaves in the Los Angeles area, nearly all USAns are completely unaware of the Armenian genocide, couldn't locate Armenia, or probably even Turkey, or recognize a Armenian surname.
I don't recall the Armenian genocide ever being mentioned in all my years of US-based schooling (in affluent Fairfax County, Va. - probably the best public school system in the US), higher education, or in the mainstream media. I _only_ learned about the Armenian genocide much later, from the 1987 Kurt Vonnegut novel "Bluebeard". In other words, I only learned about it from a work of fiction by a eccentric novelist who, if we were living and writing in today's reactionary cultural mileau, would never get published! Any other knowledge I gained about it was solely from the left/alternate media.
That's his point.
From my reading of history General Eisenhower opposed the plan to drop atom bombs on Japan. He believed that the Japanese were about to surrender without dropping the big ones. Harry Truman thought otherwise. Were we sending a message to our temporary allies. the Soviets?
The only true and meaningful apology for war crimes can be the hanging of those guilty for such acts.
It is too late for most. Obama could remedy the crimes of Bush and his own war crimes by trying Bush and hanging himself.
Of course, every member of congress who has voted for war funding is guilty, too. Hang em all. There is nothing special about any of them.
Good Grief.
Fisk seems confused. As others have noted, some of his factual claims are highly questionable. For example, he claims the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki avoided a bloody invasion of mainland Japan “appears to be completely untrue.” Obviously the Allies were spared such an invasion. Even if the atomic bombing wasn’t morally acceptable, it seems obvious that it prompted the Japanese surrender .
The opening of his article interprets the attendance by Roos and Fitton as an inartful way of apologizing for the bombing of Hiroshima. Yet news reports I’ve seen don’t indicate their attendance was intended, or asserted by their respective countries, or interpreted by the ceremony hosts, as apologies. Rather, they were joining in the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons.
Fisk clearly thinks apology for the atomic bombing is in order. That may be, but without stronger evidence, I’m unwilling to view the diplomatic move as a bungled apology, which appears to be Fisk’s opinion.
Honoring the dead and apologizing are different. I’m reminded of how the allies honored the “Red Baron” after he was finally killed in a dogfight in 1918. He wasn’t forgiven for killing his enemies; his skill in aerial combat was recognized. (Not that I would have honored him for that.) I think it’s appropriate for the U.S. to honor the dead in Japan, and that obviously was intended, but not an apology.
You're the one confused. Or lying. The surrender was certain, but not on American terms, that's why the cowards dropped the bombs. So they could be on top of things, regardless of how many fathers, mothers, sons and daughters would be incinerated in the process. Monstrous and cowardly.
Terms something like
"We get to keep all of our pre-war territory and maintain a rather high military capacity, no occupation."
Not only would we of agreed to screw over Korea, but like we saw after WWI the enemy doesn't always forget and move on...
And I'm looking for ONE poster who talks about how inhuman the A-bomb was to even mention the Japanese caused Vietnamese rice famine from 1944-1945 that only ended once Japan surrendered . 2 million people starved to death in that short amount of time. What if the war continued for say another 4, 5 months, how many more hundreds of thousands of Asians ,not just in Vietnam , but in the entire Great East Asia prosperity sphere would of starved to death. Remember a crowed listening to Ho Chi Minh actually started cheering when an American plane flew over them in 1945 .
In my opinion the A-bomb was unnecessary, firebombing was just as effective.
Now in a perfect world after the firebombing of Toyko the war council would of accepted that there was no way for them to win. Instead there's evidence that some the members of that council wanted to KEEP FIGHTING even after the A-bombs were dropped. So tell me, whos more evil here. A president who orders the use of the worlds first WMD, or leaders who after seeing thousands of there citizens killed, with no hope of winning , found a way to rationalize CONTINUING THE WAR.
"but like we saw after WWI the enemy doesn't always forget and move on."
Actually, more than any other factor, it was the excessively harsh terms imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles after WW1 - an orgy of savage barbarism on all sides with absolutely no good guys - that helped Hitlers political rise to power.
A minority of the Japanese command wanted to keep fighting - so what? If masses of US citizens were being killed by an invader, would there not be some arguing to fight to the bitter end?
And, exactly what barbarisms did Japan commit that the Europeans and USAns didn't commit dozens of time over? Why does the west, and particularly the US, grant itself special divine exception for it's acts of barbarism?
I'm not a nationalist ,but for some evil conquerers we sure are generous. Think about (when adjusted for inflation) the TRILLIONS of dollars we gave to Germany, Japan and most of West Europe to rebuild . No other victor in history has treated nations they defeated in such a positive way. Now the standard of living is HIGHER in Germany and Japan then it is here.
And for Korea, I know you guys have your Howard Zinn books to tell you about how we only wanted to stop the communist from taking over Asia , but look at how nice things are in S. Korea. Its the 14th largest economy and now is a technical power house in its own right . That wouldn't of been possible without American aid( to be fair S. Korea had to commit troops for the Vietnam war to get this). How's N. Korea doing, with over 5 million people starving to death in the last 20 years, with boarder guards ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to escape. Any Korean I've talked to about the history of there country has acknowledged America helped them rebuild after the war.
Next your going to tell me war is a American/European invention, wasn't Art of War written by Sun Tzu...
We DID screw over post war Korea. A young diplomat named Dean Rusk drew a line on the 38th parallel and that became the border, and we installed our own Dictator.
delia_darrow August 7th, 2010 10:50 pm -- Certainly debate will continue about why the bombs were dropped. My point doesn't rely on rejection or acceptance of your claim. I was simply pointing out that Fisk seems to argue that attendance at the ceremony was an inept attempt at apology. I didn't see it as that, but just an honoring of the war dead and an expression of support for the permanent end of nuclear weapons.
The Japan of that era helped launch a war that killed 57 million people. It just seems odd to take on any moral culpability for what we did as a nation in response to that war and in an effort to win and end that war. Massive 1000-B29 firebombing attacks were being done over mainland Japan. Countless innocent civilians were killed by those, but how much hand wringing can you expect under those circumstances? It's not as if the U.S. just suddenly dropped A-Bombs on Japan out of the clear blue. A long war was going on and many allied lives had been lost. Anytime innocent lives are taken it presents an enormous moral dilemma or at least it should. But these circumstances were so dire that one cannot justifiably look back and try to draw clean moral lines around the A-Bomb attacks. They weren't carried out in a vacuum. If my understanding of history is correct it was very difficult even after the second attack to get the Japanese war council to surrender. If that is in fact true then doesn't that cast doubt on the notion that the bombings were unnecessary in ending the war?
"then went on to kill without cause another 10 million people in SE Asia and Korea"
I think you're including the vast majority murdered by the communists in your total. Not even the commie history i learned in grade school was saying that. They were pretending those murders never happened.
But hey, let's not let facts stand in the way of some good revisionist history.
"'The communists' that you rail out against were not invaders of their own countries"
You do have point on which we agree. Communists murdered their own people who would not fall in line.
Hey, what have Capitalist governments been doing in ways since the Second World that would make the Communists look like choir boys? "The Communists murdered their own people who would not fall into line.
Gee have you ever read Blowback, a book by Christopher Simpson on the hard core Nazi infiltration and influence in the US intelligence community following the Cold War? Do read it. It's a real eye opener by someone who was with the very solidly progressive Institute for Policy Studies.
Obviously whoever attacked is really getting over to the right to the point that individual might consider joining a "tea party" gang.
Sometimes I can't even believe this is a progressive forum. Maybe that's the reason Counter Punch doesn't allow for this comment type forum. I like to see a debate, but if we debate the far right we can do that in some other forum.
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Hey, what have Capitalist governments been doing in ways since the Second World that would make the Communists look like choir boys? "The Communists murdered their own people who would not fall into line.
Gee have you ever read Blowback, a book by Christopher Simpson on the hard core Nazi infiltration and influence in the US intelligence community following the Cold War? Do read it. It's a real eye opener by someone who was with the very solidly progressive Institute for Policy Studies.
Obviously whoever attacked is really getting over to the right to the point that individual might consider joining a "tea party" gang.
Sometimes I can't even believe this is a progressive forum. Maybe that's the reason Counter Punch doesn't allow for this comment type forum. I like to see a debate, but if we debate the far right we can do that in some other forum.
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"Sometimes I can't even believe this is a progressive forum"
It's not really progressive forum. It's more of a gathering of people who hate the United States. You have a mix of leftists (some who think the US is worse than Hitler) and anarchists (who called Joe Stack all sorts of names even tho he embodied their own aspiration) with no real compass. You can call some of them progressive in their views but the main theme is hatred and/or envy towards the US.
Like I'm accepting YOUR definitions and interpretations, right-winger.
Aside from Stalin and Pol Pot - who were madmen, not "communists", can you cite some of these supposed mass murders by communists of people who didn't fall in line?
How do they compare to the millions of "communists" (really mostly labor union members and socialists) killed by the dozens of US supported thugs around the world from Suharto to the Shah to Somoza to Mobutu-Sese-Seko, to Pinochet to Marcos, to Diem with through the cold war era?
"can you cite some of these supposed mass murders by communists of people who didn't fall in line"
Sure can, here's three more of your idols: Mao, Kim, Ceausescu.
And FYI, the arrests and deportations didn't stop when Stalin died.
I know it's not gonna happen but i would like to be alive when the body of the last communist gets dumped in a landfill and a bulldozer covers it with it trash.
>>SaboCat wrote: ...can you cite some of these supposed mass murders by communists of people who didn't fall in line?
Really SaboCat? You really are not aware of the number of people killed during Mao's "Cultural Revolution"? And this was preceded by the "Great Leap Forward", although the deaths during the first insanity were by other means. And who do you think was the role model for Pol Pot?
Right wing troll? You have no idea what sort of person I am. And do you think anyone who expresses a rational, polite opinion contrary to yours is a troll? Incidentally, just to let you know how wrong you can be, I am an extremely progressive and liberal person totally opposed to our country's right wing, pro-war, pro-corporate policies. However, I am not a knee-jerk decerebrate liberal who can't even form my own opinions without consulting the handbook of political correctness. My views on the bombings were expressed in a perfectly reasonable way. You trash my views and me because you disagree with me.
>>BillyD1953 wrote: It's not as if the U.S. just suddenly dropped A-Bombs on Japan out of the clear blue.
That's right. The bombs were NOT dropped at random, but after a cold, calculated, ruthless decision-making that should horrify anyone who can visualize such a mindset. Certain cities had NOT been bombed previously so that the precise effect of the atom bombs could be demonstrated and verified.
From "Now it Can be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project" by Leslie Groves, as quoted in Wikipedia:
*******************************************
"Hiroshima was spared conventional bombing to serve as a pristine target, where the effects of a nuclear bomb on an undamaged city could be observed."
"In April 1945, General Groves was instructed to pick targets for the nuclear bombs."
"To enable us to assess accurately the effects of the bomb, the targets should not have been previously damaged by air raids."
"Four cities were chosen, including Hiroshima and Kyoto. War Secretary Stimson vetoed Kyoto, and Nagasaki was substituted."
"When our target cities were first selected, an order was sent to the Army Air Force in Guam not to bomb them without special authority from the War Department."
The US outdid Hitler on Aug 6 and Aug 9 1945 and for that they should be proud.
Take your half-assed apology and stuff it.
I think you misread what she was saying.
It was perfectly clear what she meant to me.
Not clear.
You're confused. About me and about Fisk.
Fisk is giving us his opinion, you either agree or disagree, but you can't say it's not true.
As for my position on the bombings, I've made it abundantly clear in my posts for the past days. They were heinous war crimes, inhuman, cowardly acts. My post here was also very clear. The US outdid Hitler in monstrosity for which they must feel very proud. It's obvious you can understand neither sarcasm nor nuance.
Once again, you are not following through when you make assertions here on CD. Why is Fisk part of the problem, what is the political reality that Fisk doesn't know about and why is his "little" statement not true? It's fun reading your posts. They're target rich.
Try reading my post again, sober this time.
The decision to use the bombs was reached through a process of rational insanity. No act more barbarous or heinous had ever been ordered. Because Harry Truman acted immorally and without imagination, the first sound produced by atomic energy was the roar of a nuclear blast and not the whir of a turbine generating electricity. It is hard to oppose the statement that because the Manhatten Project had been a success, it was extremely difficult not to use its product. If only the scientists in all countries working on the bomb had had the courage to oppose its development and flee their country to a safe-haven instead of taking part in the amoral thinking of war-crazed politicians and militarists, humanity would have been relieved of shouldering the burden of the nuclear threat until some future time when all weaponized nuclear material and its delivery systems are destroyed and banned forever. Certain human beings cannot be trusted with the scientific and technical knowledge that can be used to produce weapons of war. It it can be done, they will do it. The terrible event in Hiroshima and Nagasaki sixty-five years ago are proof of that.
>>moderatus wrote: The decision to use the bombs was reached through a process of rational insanity.
I agree. And possibly also involving criminality. Mobs threaten to kill and sometimes actually do kill the next of kin of their adversaries - simply to send a message. Bombing civilians, deliberately in a war is criminal, no matter who does it or against whom.
What safe haven? And how were scientists supposed to flee from the USSR, or, for that matter, Germany?
I think that Aristotle said that progress in the technical arts was inevitable because war made it inevitable. I wonder if he was right.
Interesting point. Had the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Japan, chances are they would have kept it, post war? The US would have wanted to avoid that. I also wonder whether the dropping of the two atom bombs on Japan was not intended, at least in part, to give the Soviets a thing or two to think about. Everybody knew that, once the war was over, Stalin was going to be a problem for the West.
Somehow, I doubt that the Soviet Union could have or would have successfully "kept" a country as populous and culturally completely different as Japan. Recall that all other countries occupied by or controlled by the Soviet Union had already been part of the former czar's empire, were Slavic countries, or traditionally close to Slavic countries - the lone exception being eastern Germany.
The active participation of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan never aimed at gaining a foothold in Japan proper. Stalin knew that would be impossdible. Among Stalin's objectives was getting a foothold in Manchuria to support the cause of Mao.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6233113
DWIGHT EISENHOWER, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe
"...in 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent."
"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. 380
Thank you. Must keep challenging propaganda.
Teachers in high school learn quickly just how cheap apologies are. They make absolutely no difference at all; I like to believe that the sinners who apologize commit yet another sin and pour coals upon their own heads in the hell that is to come.
The only way to stop having the embarrassment of apology is to stop committing the sin of war in the first place.
Suggestion: Do Not Attack Iran.
When the USA and Moscow were allies as they were in the Second World War, how does someone get the idea simply because Moscow got a hand in the military occupation and government of Japan had Moscow taken part in the invasion of Japan that has anything to do with them having
permanent control over Japan? It would have been a joint Anglo US Russian occupation at a minimum. In Germany those big three carried out a joint occupation and government without that resulting in any of those powers having permanent control. Moscow simply created its own separate state in Germany after the Western powers created their separate state in western Germany which violated both the Yalta and Potsdam agreements which both the USA and the UK signed. Face it the West started the Cold War. Oh, and I know the USA and the West were under the odious influence of hard core Nazis in US intelligence including the top level of Adolph Eichmann's organization.
None of this is to say that Moscow had a halo over its head during the 1930s and 1940s.
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When USA and Moscow were allies as they were in the Second World War, how does someone get the idea simply because Moscow got a hand in the military occupation and government of Japan had Moscow taken part in the invasion of Japan that has anything to do with them having
permanent control over Japan? It would have been a joint Anglo US Russian occupation at a minimum. In Germany those big three carried out a joint occupation and government without that resulting in any of those powers having permanent control. Moscow simply created its own separate state in Germany after the Western powers created their separate state in western Germany which violated both the Yalta and Potsdam agreements which both the USA and the UK signed. Face it the West started the Cold War. Oh, and I know the USA and the West were under the odious influence of hard core Nazis in US intelligence including the top level of Adolph Eichmann's organization.
None of this is to say that Moscow during the 1930s and 1940s had a halo over its head.
I would like to see any of you clowns back in 1945, at age twenty, sitting in a landing craft, waiting to die hitting a beach on one of the main Japanese islands. These islands were defended by at least a million armed Japanese, ready to die to defend their country and their Emperor. You would have been exceedingly thankful that anyone had invented and used a weapon that caused the Japanese military leadership to surrender and end WW2.
We need to concentrate on ending US imperialism in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan now, and not waste time trying to rewrite history of WW2. If you want to apologize to the world for anything, apologize for 112 years of US imperialism in the third world, since 1898...
>>These islands were defended by at least a million armed Japanese, ready to die to defend their country and their Emperor.
And that's a bad thing - from their point of view? And you would rather drop a big bomb on civilians than fight man-to-man against those ready to fight, defending **their** country? That's very courageous indeed. As courageous as operating a drone today. The "courage" to use overwhelming force, completely disproportionate to what the enemy has probably originated back then.
It is a sad shame to see these people condeming the decisions made by the generation that fought WWII and defeated the Axis powers with their all their own young blood, giving us the chance today to hold these free and open discussions instead of clicking our boots in salute to NAZI invaders. Not to agree with the rationale behind the atomic bombs is one thing, but would you really have wanted even one more allied soldier to have died in the Pacific while the allies tried other ways to get Japan to surrender? I pity any G.I. who gave his young life in the Pacific to give a much longer life to the hand wringing ninnies in this discussion, who, I guess, would have been content to see more G.I.s lose their lives while the allies fought on instead of using the weapons at hand to end the war. I don't know if the people making these comments have any notion of just how evil the Japanese empire was and of the atrocities they committed during the war. I have extreme opposition to the taking of civlian lives that we have committed in the current wars, but we were the aggressors in Iraq. We were not the aggressors in Japan. I would love to give back every civilian life lost in WWII on any side. It's just such an obvious tragedy that they died, but it was a horrendous war that had gone on for years. The death and destruction were so terrible that even the loss of a couple of entire cities and all those poor innocent people seems small in comparison to finally ending the war. All of our lives today depended on the decisions and the sacrifices of that generation. To denigrate them like this seems very wrong to me. Personally I am just too grateful and admiring of that generation to ravage their memory. I would instead focus on condemning the actions of our current leaders and stopping their very real atrocities and aggression.