Debatable, but I don’t care to do so. Not now at least.

[quote comment="61086"]
And then: I find it of course “irrelevant” in some way to discuss which war was more evil. It’s starting to become irrelevant as soon as you put the discussion on a personal level: be sure that the mother who has lost her children in Iraq couldn’t care any less about the fact, that in WWII much more people died actually than in Iraq, due to the bitter truth, that it was the war in Iraq that took away her kids and NOT WWII. I think there is some emancipation in thinking to be done in regards to that issue. War means people dying, definately and irrespective of tolls, reasons or participating nations. [/quote]

Of course. Winners (and powerful nations) see little use in apology. The historical importance of WW2 isn’t too debatable, though, although I most definately see your point with regards to the present. Of course, although in absolute terms the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been small in relative terms, there have been far-reaching implications due to it. And it has been about as terrible for combatant and civilian alike for those involved.

[quote comment="61086"]
Does it really need death tolls to legitimize calls for an appology adressing those in charge? I don’t think so. And that’s what we were talking about: you think appologizing is a matter of how much blood is on the hands of a country. That’s what you said, ain’t it? [/quote]
Yes. You’re right.

[quote comment="61086"]
You know, my point of view is deriving from the theses that as long as there is some sort of codified extra-ordinary worst case that has been and that can’t be compared to anything else there won’t be possibilities of recognizing similar events in the future as what they really are, since comparing to the worst case has widely become a no go. I find that sort of dangerous, as people tend to think like: “Oh, they haven’t killed 6 Million of the other one, than it’s not as bad as the holocaust and thus can be neglected.”
[/quote]
I never meant to suggest that, although that that comparison is overused and unfair is certainly the case. “What’s a few 10,000 dead to the holocaust anyway?”
It’s still horrible and should be treated as such. I wonder if people are less sensitive to such news today than 100 years ago… undoubtedly.

That’s something totally different than I wrote above. I didn’t say that we shouldn’t talk about death tolls of wars, but about “who has more blood on his hands”. Don’t you see the semantic difference in that?

And then: I find it of course “irrelevant” in some way to discuss which war was more evil. It’s starting to become irrelevant as soon as you put the discussion on a personal level: be sure that the mother who has lost her children in Iraq couldn’t care any less about the fact, that in WWII much more people died actually than in Iraq, due to the bitter truth, that it was the war in Iraq that took away her kids and NOT WWII. I think there is some emancipation in thinking to be done in regards to that issue. War means people dying, definately and irrespective of tolls, reasons or participating nations.

[quote comment="61085"]Not at all! How could apologizing not help in at least some way (provided it was sincere)?[/quote]

Does it really need death tolls to legitimize calls for an appology adressing those in charge? I don’t think so. And that’s what we were talking about: you think appologizing is a matter of how much blood is on the hands of a country. That’s what you said, ain’t it?
The truth is: a nation having inflicted war and death on others appologizing or not towards the victims mainly depends on the geopolitical status of that country after the war has ended. Be sure that germany hadn’t appologized to that very day would it not have been defeated, destroyed and totally dependent on the good will of others. You have a different situation for the USA and also it was different for Japan. That’s why for them there still is no need to come to terms with their past.

[quote comment="61085"]Now, I don’t want to rant about the various mass-genocides of history and I agree that is not a very fruitful exercise. War is war, after all.[/quote]

Well, that’s what I was about to express.
You know, my point of view is deriving from the theses that as long as there is some sort of codified extra-ordinary worst case that has been and that can’t be compared to anything else there won’t be possibilities of recognizing similar events in the future as what they really are, since comparing to the worst case has widely become a no go. I find that sort of dangerous, as people tend to think like: “Oh, they haven’t killed 6 Million of the other one, than it’s not as bad as the holocaust and thus can be neglected.”
Tradition maintanance is a form of historical policy.

OMG, that’s so difficult to express in english….

There is of course a certain rationality to the decisions of the US leadership. It is rationality in terms of profit maximation or maybe system maintainance. So if the goal is to stay the most powerful nation in the world, doing everything to achieve that would be rational choice (see: economics, the paradigme, RREEMM, Homo Oeconomicus).

[quote comment="61010"] The US has much blood on its hands too, although not as much. I certainly think both need to apologize. It could do little harm, after all.[/quote]

I think it inappropriate to argue over which country has killed how many people throughout its history. Such a debate is inevitably doomed to be irrelevant.[/quote]

I think it is entirely justified to compare the death toll of wars. I think we can agree the Second World War was worse in most every way than Iraq. Irrelevant?

Not at all! How could apologizing not help in at least some way (provided it was sincere)? We still live in a dangerously nuclearized world (as I pointed out) and one of our best chances to determine a sensible approach for the future is to draw on lessons of the past. Of course historical debate is relevant and important to our understanding of issues of this kind.

Now, I don’t want to rant about the various mass-genocides of history and I agree that is not a very fruitful exercise. War is war, after all. But there are instances in which it may prove useful for comparison. It is hard to suggest that the US was as totalitarian in genocide in comparison with Japan, for example. The difference in the number of victims is not a pointless discussion either - for example the roughly 400,000 victims of the atomic bombings don’t scratch the surface of the casualties taken in China or at Stalingrad and Leningrad (even Kiev and such others were several times more bloody, on a purely numeric basis). Nevertheless I retract that comment; it really wasn’t very relevant.
Although I’m totally behind an apology to them - proving little as it might, it is still a moral imperative the way I see it.

There is of course a certain rationality to the decisions of the US leadership. It is rationality in terms of profit maximation or maybe system maintainance. So if the goal is to stay the most powerful nation in the world, doing everything to achieve that would be rational choice (see: economics, the paradigme, RREEMM, Homo Oeconomicus).

[quote comment="61010"] The US has much blood on its hands too, although not as much. I certainly think both need to apologize. It could do little harm, after all.[/quote]

I think it inappropriate to argue over which country has killed how many people throughout its history. Such a debate is inevitably doomed to be irrelevant.

That’s actually something that I experienced myself during kindergarden and first class which was some time around the early 1980s. And it was pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were usually brought up to legitimize such practices considering the fact that, at the time, the cold war had long since become less of a threat.

Fictionalization of history is another matter, and not one I particularly want to argue about. But, I believe (however sincere the suffering of the many and varied victims of the war) many stories such as that of Sadako (and mangas and so forth) are often used to manipulate opinion. Japan (unlike Germany) still hasn’t apologized for its war crimes or made much restitution to the families of the victims. The US has much blood on its hands too, although not as much. I certainly think both need to apologize. It could do little harm, after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen/quote

Keiji Nakazawa, the author of Barefoot Gen, is one of the survivors interviewed in the doc White Light, Black Rain.

The world was a much bigger place in 1945. Information took much longer to reach its destination giving many the opportunity to manipulate the information. With so much death in the world between 1939 and 1945, the minds of our leaders -especially Truman was to end the suffering. I wish our leaders had had the opportunity to see the problem more clearly but between a new President that was seen as weak and eager military officials who wanted to see what their new weapon could do, the bombs were dropped. Remember, the white-washing of history goes both ways. It is so hard to read logic into decisions that were made under the pressure of that moment in history. And with all the false statements made after the war ended, it leads us to believe we were lied to about what options the US had in front of them in 1945. I hope we have a much better opportunity to find out what really happen in our present administration that led to the War in Iraqi.

With regards to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima back in 2003. There’s really nothing left standing that wasn’t build before the bombing. There is, of course a few ruins left as memorials/reminders to the event. We visited the park where they have the statue in the memory of Sadako. You can read her story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki

I’ve taken some pictures of the trip, but I think what really made an impact on that trip was the Peace Museum. There you have relics from that date. There was also a special exhibit of drawings made by survivors. It’s incredible to see the horrors they experienced.

I would also suggest the animated movie “Graveyard of the Fireflies”. It’s a difficult film to watch, I find, as it illustrates how things were in Japan at that time. As well made as the animation was, I just can’t watch it again.

Amazingly, a city like Kyoto was relatively unscathed. I believe this may be due in part to an American official who had visited the city once and recognized it for its historical and cultural value. And indeed, Kyoto is an amazing city.

I’m tellin’ yah, though. If my country is hit with an atomic bomb like the one that Hiroshima suffered from, I’m on the telephone, the radio, sending Morriss code, etc. the next day waving the white flag.

What’s the facts in concern to the Japanese surrender in between the two bombs? The Americans did not give them a lot of time to respond, 3 days or so. But I’m not too clear on why the Japanese did not immediately surrender. That’s something surely that the Americans could use to argue the resilience of the Japanese government at that time. There are other obvious indications, war tactics from the Japanese did not show any regard for life, in any manner. Suicide bombings for example — equipment, such as planes that were not designed to return from combat. Bizarre tactics such as those are unexplainable.

And if this post reminds us of any poetic, or lyrical content it has to be Dylan and Hard Rain.[/quote]

The tactics employed by the Japanese are far from bizarre, and even further from unexplainable. The Japanese military played heavily on the ideology and philosophy of the samurai, which is deeply entrenched in their culture. To the samurai there is no greater honour then to give one’s own life in service to the master, preferably in combat. As a result Japanese pilots returning from battle could be seen as dishonourable for not giving up their lives and flying their planes into the very midst of their enemies to deliver a final blow with their last breath. Faced with the shame this would bring upon not only themselves, but their families, it is not hard to understand why many pilots rallied behind the Kamikaze idea as a result. After all, do you suffer a death which will bestow upon you the greatest of honours, or do you suffer a life in which you will have to carry the greatest of dishonours?

Perhaps ironically, this is very similar to the situation being faced in both Iraq and Afghanistan with regards to suicide bombers. Impressionable youth are indoctrinated with an ideology and philosophy that tells them there is no greater act in the name of Allah then to strap a bomb to their chests and detonate it in the very midst of the unbelievers. Such an act, they are further told, will secure them (and in some cases even their families) a place in paradise. Given the deep cultural entrenchment of the ideas that the recruiters are playing upon, its is very easy to see why a young man or woman willingly blows themselves up in a crowded market, police checkpoint or government building.

Also, regarding Japan’s surrender… they had been trying to surrender for two years. The persistent dismissal of such attempts by the American government of the time could very easily be interpreted as a rejection of any peace at all without total subjugation and domination of the Japanese. Given what followed the end of the war during the US occupation of Japan, it really is not that much of a stretch that the Japanese government could have come to such a conclusion well before the bombs were dropped.

So sure, they could have had every person out there trying to wave a white flag, but what good is that going to do when your enemy has shown again and again that they aren’t willing to acknowledge it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen

It asked whether the nuke would have been dropped had Japan not been a ‘brown nation’. Was one of the reason’s we could overlook the horror of what had been done simple because we percieved them as so different from us? Would we have done it to Germany or Russia?

The bombing of Dresden was a terrible thing, but nowhere near what was done to Japan.

I don’t like the answer that seems to be so clear.

With regards to the bombing of Hiroshima, I believe to say it was an appalling and heinous act of mass murder is an understatement. The suffering of those unlucky enough to survive is beyond comprehension. Over 200,000 deaths purely for political pragmatism in the opening stages in the Cold War. Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) may not have been the worst excesses of the war, but they were certainly chilling reminders of our abilities of morally bankrupt and senseless wholesale destruction.

The emergence of other nuclear nations prompts me to wonder whether the old balance of power will survive. I suspect not, especially as new nuclear nations are exceptionally sensitive politically - to mention little of what the US and Russia remain capable of.

To give an idea of scale, the Tsar bomb of 1961, the most powerful weapon ever devised, was over 3000 times more powerful than that used at Hiroshima. To say we are playing with fire is an understatement here. And just last year Russia completed it’s ‘father of all bombs’. Perhaps something of an arms race is well underway as we speak.

But Russia is relatively trustworthy, however beyond horrible the consequences of nuclear engagement are. It is difficult to know what Pakistan, India, China and Israel may attempt in nuclear armament and how they might plan to deploy them.

Yet for the extremely serious nature of the issue there has not been a major push for disarmament since 1991 (if not before). The reality is that soon enough another nuke is going to be deployed if something is not done; a reality that we should not be comfortable with.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/synopsis.html

Look what we can do if you try to mess with us..

I’m tellin’ yah, though. If my country is hit with an atomic bomb like the one that Hiroshima suffered from, I’m on the telephone, the radio, sending Morriss code, etc. the next day waving the white flag.

What’s the facts in concern to the Japanese surrender in between the two bombs? The Americans did not give them a lot of time to respond, 3 days or so. But I’m not too clear on why the Japanese did not immediately surrender. That’s something surely that the Americans could use to argue the resilience of the Japanese government at that time. There are other obvious indications, war tactics from the Japanese did not show any regard for life, in any manner. Suicide bombings for example — equipment, such as planes that were not designed to return from combat. Bizarre tactics such as those are unexplainable.

And if this post reminds us of any poetic, or lyrical content it has to be Dylan and Hard Rain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads