|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:10 AM
Quote:
Quote:
If you actually read what I posted you would realise that I believe America was justified in using the bomb 
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:29 AM
Quote:
Also.... America and the Allies did not fight against those notions. This belief that the Allies fought for Altruistic ideals is just that... a belief. The United States was still a racially segregated nation at the time. When the war was over many of the European powers sought to retake or reassert control over many of the colonies it lost in Asia. ( Britain in Malaysia, France in Vietnam, Holland in Indonesia etc... and they failed in all those cases.)
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:35 AM
Quote:
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:35 AM
Was it necessary? Probably not. There were other ways to end the war...
The thing is, it needed to be put to an end quickly and there was no time to come up with another good way. So it happened. The war ended. I think a lot of people tend not to realize that - especially when you get closer to the end of the war - most of the soldiers were only a piece of paper away from being a civilian. Basically drafted, sent immediately off to war with no training and no experience... To die. Even when things got to this point, the Japanese government (ignore the feelings of the normal citizen) had no interest in quitting. Someone dies? Pull some random guy out of his home and send him off to fight. When he dies just replace him with another. Who cares if the new guy is only 16, has been studying calligraphy for 2 years, and has never even seen a gun! Put him on the next ship out! My husband`s great grandmother had 11 children. Two girls and 9 boys. Her husband died when he went off early in the war to try and make money as a soldier to make up for an extended period of hardship. Of her 9 sons, only one survived the war. None of them volunteered. Two were fishermen, one was off in the city studying calligraphy. One was an elementary school teacher. One was drafted the day he graduated junior high school. Two were farmers, and another was doing small jobs to make money to try and study music to be a music teacher. (There were plans to build a new junior high school soon) None of the sons were "soldiers". The one who did survive was the oldest, and he only survived because he was injured and became infected keeping him hospitalized through the end. One of the two daughters starved to death trying to keep her children healthy, but lacking any men to actually do any of the serious farming. This was happening all over Japan. The government had no plans to give up until they had exhausted every single path for replenishing soldiers. Extending the war would have just made more and more "soldiers" dragged off to be shot. In the town cemetery, there are three graves dedicated to those who died in the war. One to the soldiers of the area, one to those who died of "hardships" during/just after the war... And one to the men of my husband`s family. It was originally the grave for the great-grandfather, as he was apparently decorated and a pride of the town before he was killed... But it was changed after the war ended. ETA; I have never heard of anyone who actually did any of the real fighting who believed that the emperor was divine. That Japan had any divine right to anything, etc. Except for a few exceptions, all the attitudes I have actually encountered from people who volunteered are that it was either because they a) Wanted money and possibly honor for the family by being a decorated war hero... or b) They believed that if they didn`t go to fight that America would make it`s way to the mainland and kill their family. The majority were, as I said, drafted.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:51 AM
Quote:
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 06:54 AM
Thank you for sharing that, Nyororin. That is an incredible story, and I am glad I resisted my urges to close this thread earlier.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 07:02 AM
Quote:
Obviously there were crazy guys out there who raped and pillaged, who got a kick out of hurting others. This sort of thing doesn`t excuse those sorts of actions at all. But I think that because of the horrors committed by one segment of the Japanese army, people forget that the majority were just regular guys - most of them untrained, most of them not wanting to be there - who were fighting to the death because they didn`t want to die, and if they did at least they would have died trying not to. When great-grandmother heard the war had ended, and about the bombings - she apparently collapsed crying why hadn`t they done it sooner, why hadn`t they done it a year earlier. (Almost all of them died in the last year of the war when things were desperate.) I think that most of the Japanese population knew they were losing, knew there was no hope, but really had no power to do anything. ETA; I forget where it is, but there is a really depressing museum about this sort of thing. It`s sort of like the "museum of the unwilling soldier", and has a huge collection of art, music, poetry, etc done by those who were sent off to war, from before the war. All of the contributors died in battle.
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
08-06-2009, 07:08 AM
Quote:
Why? Those nuclear bombs had killed so many Koreans willing to make a living for their poor relatives living in Korea. During that time, a very significant chunk of Koreans in Japan worked in big cities easily targeted by firebombings and, yes, the two nukes. Yes, a bitter story. As a matter of fact, my aunt's uncle was killed during the firebombing in Osaka.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 07:23 AM
Quote:
The eternal Saint is calling, through the ages she has told. The ages have not listened; the will of faith has grown old…
For forever she will wander, for forever she withholds; the Demon King is on his way, you’d best not be learned untold…
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
08-06-2009, 07:51 AM
Nyororin,
Did you write that kind of as a reply to my posts? Anyway, it is an entirly different issue altogether; using civilians as soldier is equally as retarded as murdering innocent civilians. There used to be a time when, once your Army was lost, you admitted defeat and gave up. The concept at losing a war (especially a big one) seems to scare America a lot. I think America starts out fighting for justice every time. Yet always has trouble achieving its victories. But given how zealot they are with their beliefs, they think any sacrafice should be made in order to win. So when they cannot win justly, they commit unjust crimes to achieve victory. In the end, they may win their wars, but they return to home the enemy they set out to kill after all they've done. All they do is murder, and their goal of justice is never achieved. They are lost. The eternal Saint is calling, through the ages she has told. The ages have not listened; the will of faith has grown old…
For forever she will wander, for forever she withholds; the Demon King is on his way, you’d best not be learned untold…
|
 |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|
