I would like to apologize for the Rape of Nanking

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I am roughly as responsible for Japan's 1937 murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the rape of 20,000–80,000 women by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army as I am for the USA dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so why not apologize for the Rape of Nanking?

The fact that Japan was, 1935-1945 a morally appalling operation doesn't mean she needed to be atom-bombed in and of itself. It means that Japan was a combatant in a world of combatants in a war where targeting civilian populations was standard operating procedure on all sides, so fixating on the atomic bomb is odd, from a moral perspctive.

World War II was a relentless series of ultimate crimes. The atom bomb was one of a very long list of appalling developments.

Perhaps I could apologize to Japan for the US fire-bombing of Tokyo a few months before Hiroshima that killed a bunch more people. (And at least as horrifically.)

Or perhaps I could just cut to the chase and apologize for the Holocaust.

Why not? I was as responsible for the Holocaust as I was for Hiroshima or the crusades or the extermination of Neanderthal man as a species.

But since it would be kind of self-important for me to apologize for events with which I had nothing whatsoever to do I will instead offer thanks to people who lived and acted during my lifetime and who I voted for or against...

Thank you to everyone around the world for not dropping any more atomic weapons since August 1945.

Had I been alive at the time I would have dismissed any prediction that no more atomic weapons would be used for 65 years+ as an impossibility, given what people are like.

There have been all sorts of shocking crimes committed by governments during the last 65 years but somehow nobody nuked anyone.

And thanks are due for that.

We humans tend to try out new weapons. There is very little anyone has thought up that wasn't used in some war or another. But for whatever reasons, the most potent bomb we've managed to come up with (the fusion bomb, or "H-bomb") has never been used in war. (Some folks got damaged by the aftermath of H-bomb tests in the Pacific, but that was more manslaughter than murder... reckless indifference.)

On Edit: The disproportionate focus on Hiroshima that I find irrational is, of course, part of the same special stigmatization of atomic weapons that has lead to what I applaud--that none have been used on cities since 1945. The focus on Hiroshima has been part of the movement to restrain the more-terrible weapons developed since. So, ironically, those I criticize are part of the solution I applaud. (Yes, the world is an ironic place.) So carry on. :hi:

[The Magistrate]

1. Useful Perspective, Sir

[Stuart G]

2. In a museum in Japan..guess who is responsible for Pearl Harbor?

The U.S. Boycott of Japan forced the empire to defend itself by trying to disarm the U.S. Navy so the empire could obtain enough oil to survie. The Museum calls it the "Asian War"

Go there..

War sucks......you start it. most of the time everyone loses..At least in WWII, while there was terrible loss, everyone did not lose..and at that historical museum..which I visted three years ago..it was mainly about the growth of Toykyo from the middle ages to the present.....
I don't recall any apologies about the Rape of Nanking...and I might add
......... the Japanese do not apologize very well..they are not exactly the most liked people in Asia.......Just ask the Koreans..

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Gandhi...

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

I find the "they do it, so we do it" argument about killing people flimsy, at best. Even more repugnant is the "It's human nature to kill" argument.

[lunatica]

10. I am so with you on this!

I say hogwash to people who claim that humanity is naturally warlike. If that were the case then why do soldiers come home after wars and never feel the need to kill anyone again, or why do they come home all fucked up? If war was normal and part of our psychological makeup then people would thrive in them. Children of war torn countries would be the most normal and well adjusted people on the planet.

Bah!

[damntexdem]

4. I think it credible that Hiroshima was a reasonable act to end the war.

As was the dropping of a second A-bomb, although the selection of Nagasaki as the target city was criminal. It did, in fact, take two atomic bombings to move the Japanese leadership to agree to unconditional surrender -- and unconditional surrender WAS the only viable option in ending the war.

The firebombing of Tokyo would have been more defensible had the Imperial Palace been targeted -- in fact, were it to have been the major target.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. I am curious as to why, re: Imperial Palace

I am not dismissing it at all, but curious.

It seems that the emperor was key to the smooth success of our occupation and I don't know that bombing the palace would have weakened resolve... that sort of thing can strengthen resolve.

Were the palace grounds militarily key at the time?

[grantcart]

6. And the second bomb did not move all of the military.

Some wanted to literally fight to the last man.

[Pavulon]

7. Nagasaki was (is) a port city

and conducted martial activities that warranted its destruction. The Emperor was useful in post war american rebuilding of Japan.

[closeupready]

8. If they'd just legalized gay marriage, that would have solved everything.

Oh, wait, you said 'martial'. Never mind. :sarcasm:

[grantcart]

9. I apologize for the 18,591 Japanese soldiers who died at Iwo Jima

Despite the fact that the outcome was never in question and that the fighting was only the result of Japanese military commanders who wanted to frighten the Americans with the prospect of sustaining huge casualties if the US decided to invade Japan.

The Japan's military commanders were completely successful. Their brainwashing meant that 98% of the Japanese soldiers involved were either killed by enemy action or committed ritual suicdie. Only 216 Japanese soldiers were captured, almost all of them were too critically wounded to carry out their own suicide.

The result was that while virtually the entire Japanese force was killed the Americans still sustained more casualties than the Japanese with 6,822 dead 19,217 wounded.

It was this result at Iwo Jima that led American civilian and military leaders to conclude that a gradual invasion of Japan would cause millions of casualties on both sides and that the use of an atomic weapon could provide the dramatic ending to a war that would save allied and Japanese lives.

The fact that the same results were experienced on Okinawa where the Japanese military convinced civilians to engage in mass suicide confirmed the impression made at Iwo Jima

With the impending victory of American troops, civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by the Japanese soldiers who told locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers (to blow themselves up)."<31> Some of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture. Some of them threw themselves and their family members from the cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Rape_allegations.2C_mass_suicide