August 6th means one thing in Japan. Hiroshima. It's easy to be cynical as a Westerner. We grow up knowing that the A-bomb saved millions of Allied lives; it ended the war; the Japs deserved it - look how they treated POWs. Watch the History Channel, and you see the mushroom cloud rising and think "awesome" or "job done" or "it happened a long time ago, far away." Look at the picture above in the Abiko library, Our Man doesn't see someone far away, long ago.
He sees his neighbour.
11 comments:
Nicely put Our Man.
The true horror of the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fully appreciated, in general, outside Japan. It really does seem long ago and far away. Something that happened to "Them" not "Us".
The only really effective way to make people understand and reflect is for them to visit the cities and their museums. More than photos of flattened buildings I find the mundane, everyday items - a scorched schoolgirls bento box still filled with black carbonized rice, a fireman's helmet with the top of his skull fuzed to its inside - that really bring the tragedy home.
Unfortunately, for many people Japan is far away, and as such they will never see, and thus never really understand.
Agree. I used to be supportive of the decision to use the A-bomb...until I visited Hiroshima myself.
The Japanese do well at playing the role of the victim, but that doesn't mean that they haven't been victimized.
Well said, Our Man!
Yes, haven't heard a word about this terrible anniversary here in Blighty. Shame on us. We (rightly) acknowledge "our" victims but we shouldn't ignore the horrors we also inflicted.
I can't imagine disagreeing. The atomic bombings, like the fire-bombings of Tokyo, were attacks which we knew would kill a massive number of civilians---including old people and children---but we found ways to "justify" it. By doing so, we put ourselves in the category of committing what most would call atrocities as well as what would be called terrorism today.
The other consequence is that it contributed to the sense of special victim-hood present in Japan---Japan as the ultimate victim in the minds of many.
The A-bomb also saved millions of Japanese lives. The Japanese government was pretty happy to sacrifice thousands in mass "suicides" in Okinawa, in numbers approaching the Hiroshima death toll. Just think how many more would have been killed at the hands of the evil regime had a land invasion of the rest of the islands still been necessary.
I have heard that argument before which seems to ignore the possible alternatives to the intentional use of atomic weapons on a civilian population. It also seems to make a lot of assumptions about other things including the "millions" of Japanese that "would" have been killed.
However, I suppose looking at it as something done for the benefit of Japanese civilians is an interesting alternative.
Yes, the A-bombing was horrific. I'm just not sure there were any less horrific alternatives. A land invasion, or even continued conventional bombing of Japan, would have produced vastly more casualties on both sides. This is not some hypothetical "what-if" scenario, either. It actually happened on Okinawa.
Yes, it happened on Okinawa, which was a different battle than the hypothetical one for mainland Japan would have been.
About 14 years ago, this debate was in the news and there were at least two books written about the necessity for the bombing and a discussion of whether or not an invasion would or would not have resulted in so many casualties.
Still, the problem is that the invasion did not happen so we won't ever know for sure. All we can do is debate "what-ifs" However, even if it did result in fewer casualties, what does that mean? It was OK? It was morally acceptable?
Some what-ifs:
Japan had attempted to make its own nuclear weapon during the war but never got anywhere with it. (fact) Let's suppose that they would have been able to make a few nukes and had the means to deliver them. Let's say that they saw an invasion by the Allies coming and knew that the invasion would result in millions of casualties for Japan as well as for the Allies---should they have been concerned about the lives of Allied soldiers. Let's say that in order to spare everyone those casualties that they nuked New York and perhaps London resulting in fewer casualties from the atomic bombs than could be expected to result in during the invasion of Japan.
Would that have been acceptable? Would it have excused or lessened the immorality of intentionally killing civilians (they worked in factories and paid taxes thus actually being a part of military capability). Would Americans and the British have said "It was horrible, but think of the casualties it saved"?
Let's say that Japan had possessed several nukes before the war and started it by bombing Beijing, New York, London, Sydney and a few other key cities. Despite the horrific casualties, it would have still been fewer than the total causalities in the Pacific War. Would that have been acceptable? What would it have been?
How about today. Can we justify the one-sided use of a nuclear weapon against a mostly civilian population because it might result in fewer casualties than other actions?
At any rate, the decision to use nuclear weapons was not made with a primary concern about sparing Japanese casualties, but sparing American and other Allied casualties. (And understandably so.) So I am not sure what credit could be given if the casualties would less than they could have been.
You completely miss the point. There was no moral equivalence between the US and Japan in WWII, just as there was none between Nazi Germany and the US. One side was a threat to the rest of humanity, and had to be defeated.
Yes, the US was fighting for its own selfish reasons, as all countries do. But at least it grasped that its interests lie on the side opposing fascist militarism.
It just so happened that the people of Japan were the biggest beneficiaries of the US's victory over Imperial Japan, having been freed from one of the vilest regimes in human history. Intended or not, that is an indisputable fact.
I suppose I can understand why national pride would prevent the Japanese from referring to 15 August as "Liberation Day", but that is exactly what it was.
As for the battle of okinawa being somehow different from an invasion of Japan: were the rest of the Japanese islands being held by some other army? Martians perhaps? Why would you assume that Okinawa (and every other place in Asia ravaged by the IJA) was somehow an aberration? A rather bizaare assumption...
I did not say that there was a moral equivalent between Imperial Japan and the US (though the use of nukes certainly give many Japanese and others that idea).
I suppose you might have interpreted it that way when I asked how Americans would have felt if Japan---or some other country---used a nuclear weapon against civilians in order to prevent theoretically possible causalities later.
I did not say that Okinawa was an aberration. Those are your words. I am saying extrapolating statistics and estimates from the Okinawa battle to a theoretical battle for Honshuu is a "what-if" which you said it was not. (And it was not, and is not an indisputable fact that an invasion of Honshuu would have been necessary in order to obtain a surrender.)
"This is not some hypothetical "what-if" scenario, either. It actually happened on Okinawa."
I am not defending the Japanese Imperial Army or any of its actions in any way. I was addressing your comment that "The A-bomb also saved millions of Japanese lives" which is unprovable.
As for the August 15th Liberation Day idea, I would not know about that. What I do know is that the A-bombs have reinforced a feeling of Japan being the war's ultimate victim. We can watch that over and over on TV for the first few weeks of August every year. No problem hearing or reading or talking to someone about it and this victimhood nonsense hampers Japan from truly addressing its role in the war---60 years after the fact.
I suspect that we will have to agree to disagree on this, as many have been doing since the bombs were dropped.
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