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From the comments: One of the failures of teaching a balanced history is to ignore what was going on in Asia in the run up to the war. Perhaps because of our c

From the comments: One of the failures of teaching a balanced history is to ignore what was going on in Asia in the run up to the war. Perhaps because of our cultural biases, we focus so heavily on the atrocities of the Nazi's and entirely ignore the murders, rape, torture, etc of the Chinese, Indonesian, Philippines, Burmese, and other countries by the Japanese. When we do talk about their atrocities, we focus primarily on those committed against Caucasians prisoners of wars. While the ethical aspects of using nuclear devices is important, it is also important to recognize that imperial Japan was arguably the most brutal and sadistic colonial expansions of the 20th century. Japan has done an excellent job of whitewashing their history. The US talks openly about the use of nuclear weapons. Japan is in a state of denial about their regime. Even the Rape of Nanking gets barely a sentence in their high school history books.

aikah 11y ago
And? what is YOUR point?
pluma 11y ago
We are supposed to have overcome this line of thinking. This is basically "an eye for an eye".
- beering 11y ago
  Not revenge. Every month sooner that the A-bomb brought the war's end was about 100k-250k civilians saved in the co-prosperity sphere. In the western narrative, the number of deaths the Japanese caused in their own region is rarely compared against the number who died in the atomic bombings.
lagadu 11y ago
You're effectively saying that committing atrocities is justified if it's against someone who also commits them. It never is.
- honest_joe 11y ago
  A-bombs saved zillions of lives. If you do not see this then you are a brain amputee.
  - justizin 11y ago
    zillions? raises eyebrow
honest_joe 11y ago
Exactly but you will get downvoted to the oblivion because there's too many japanese,anime lovers that would hit you in the face if you would defend the bombing. But these are retarded westerners who have no clue. They deserved every shrapnel from the bomb and still have not paid the full price to all of the victims. HELL THESE japanese denied the free health-care to non-japanese victims. 20 000 koreans died in the bombings. But nobody cares. Japanese people were and still are a terrible nation. I hope they sink to the oblivion.
- toolsadmin 11y ago
  Upvoted. Japan can shove their lotte icecream up their butts.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  Hey look, you get my first down vote ever for being a racist. A lot a brutal things were done by many countries over the course of WWII, the effectiveness and morality of which can be discussed from many interesting points of view. You however chose to say this: > Japanese people were and still are a terrible nation. I hope they sink to the oblivion.
- Panoramix 11y ago
  One of the most racist and misinformed comments I have come across in a while. You are an embarrassment to Koreans everywhere.
  - honest_joe 11y ago
    Are you kidding ? I am not korean and I do not represent koreans as a nation. Just take a look at a korean newspapers from that time. The koreans felt satisfied with the bombing. And there were a lot of them. Japanese are very racist to the end of these days if not the most racist nation on earth.
mfoy_ 11y ago
>One of the failures of teaching a balanced history is to ignore what was going on in Asia in the run up to the war. No. That's one of the failures of POORLY teaching history. Don't confuse a "balanced history" with "half of history".
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
This is absolutely true, but I have trouble seeing the relevancy of stating that in how it relates to the fact that two non-military, civilian-dense cities were bombed. Normally killing hundreds of thousands of civilians for political gains is considered terrorism, easily a warcrime, despite the fact their government may be driving its population to horrible atrocities all over Asia, or not doing enough to prevent them. In fact I don't think the US really covers this enough, it's usually brought as merely the end of a bloody war, when you can find many generals who opposed, arguable claims that the bombs were the first political move in the cold war as a gesture of power towards the Soviet Union and as a way to have Japan surrender to the US rather than the allies, and therefore under US terms which would cement US-Japanese relations (which are solid to this day), as a test, and within a context where Japan may have offered to surrender under similar conditions as the US ultimately demanded, many months earlier. To be fair, there is no academic consensus on any of these points, but many are credible and sensible claims for which evidence does exist, and my experience of the standard reading in US culture makes little mention of this. It's mostly seen as a necessary evil that saved many lives by ending the war abruptly, which isn't incorrect, but far from the comprehensive truth or the only credible historical narrative. But as for Japan's whitewashing, yes, in and of itself, viewed separately from the nuclear debate, you're absolutely right. It's quite astonishing they haven't gotten this right yet, and with what power a wrongful national narrative can continue to exist in the age of internet, globalisation and relatively little Japanese censorship. You'd think the latest generation would be acutely aware of its history. And it's not as if they haven't changed. They've done more than enough to consider themselves among the most civilised countries since then, of course there is a sense of shame but we're approaching an age where nobody during that time was alive, and where even the generation after it is on their way out. Internally Japan is long overdue in recognising these parts of its history in full, and I think purely internally few Japanese really would have an issue with that, as painful as it would be, just like I'm completely comfortable as a Dutch person to acknowledge my country's colonial and slave history. But these things are particularly externally, politically sensitive, in terms of Japan's international relations with the various powerhouses in Asia (China and Korea, and populous emerging economies like say Indonesia). Similar to say, if I were a Dutch politician I may be more concerned how our standing in the world changes when recognising the full extent of our colonial history (e.g. apologising for certain political executions the Netherlands committed are still controversial) Just like say Turkey and the Armenian genocide. Although even here as an outsider I think it would warm Japan's relations immensely if it were to reach out in sympathy and make at the very least symbolic gestures like small reparations.
nogridbag 11y ago
I'd just like to add another data point. As an American, I don't recall ever being taught anything in school about the atrocities Japan committed on the Chinese, etc. Perhaps I was just a poor student :) but it obviously was not a main focus. It wasn't until I met my wife who is Chinese that I learned about this and she could not believe I didn't know about it. Of course it's a big part of the history education there and why many Chinese still hold strong grudges towards Japanese.
- sitkack 11y ago
  Because General Douglas MacArthur granted the Japanese who participated in human biological experiments pardons to get their cooperation in collecting the research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii But none of this makes justifying the murder of Japanese civilians ok, esp after the fact.
  - nogridbag 11y ago
    Wow, that's probably the first wikipedia page I've ever had to close because I simply could not handle reading it...
- onnoonno 11y ago
  Another data point from Germany: I remember being taught (sometime during the 1990s) about atrocities committed by the Japanese during WW2 in history lessons in school. (Obviously, there was a lot more about the atrocities by the Germans)

aikah 11y ago

And? what is YOUR point?

pluma 11y ago

We are supposed to have overcome this line of thinking. This is basically "an eye for an eye".

beering 11y ago
Not revenge. Every month sooner that the A-bomb brought the war's end was about 100k-250k civilians saved in the co-prosperity sphere. In the western narrative, the number of deaths the Japanese caused in their own region is rarely compared against the number who died in the atomic bombings.

lagadu 11y ago

You're effectively saying that committing atrocities is justified if it's against someone who also commits them. It never is.

honest_joe 11y ago
A-bombs saved zillions of lives. If you do not see this then you are a brain amputee.
- justizin 11y ago
  zillions? raises eyebrow

honest_joe 11y ago

Exactly but you will get downvoted to the oblivion because there's too many japanese,anime lovers that would hit you in the face if you would defend the bombing. But these are retarded westerners who have no clue. They deserved every shrapnel from the bomb and still have not paid the full price to all of the victims. HELL THESE japanese denied the free health-care to non-japanese victims. 20 000 koreans died in the bombings. But nobody cares. Japanese people were and still are a terrible nation. I hope they sink to the oblivion.

toolsadmin 11y ago
Upvoted. Japan can shove their lotte icecream up their butts.
shkkmo 11y ago
Hey look, you get my first down vote ever for being a racist. A lot a brutal things were done by many countries over the course of WWII, the effectiveness and morality of which can be discussed from many interesting points of view. You however chose to say this: > Japanese people were and still are a terrible nation. I hope they sink to the oblivion.
Panoramix 11y ago
One of the most racist and misinformed comments I have come across in a while. You are an embarrassment to Koreans everywhere.
- honest_joe 11y ago
  Are you kidding ? I am not korean and I do not represent koreans as a nation. Just take a look at a korean newspapers from that time. The koreans felt satisfied with the bombing. And there were a lot of them. Japanese are very racist to the end of these days if not the most racist nation on earth.

mfoy_ 11y ago

>One of the failures of teaching a balanced history is to ignore what was going on in Asia in the run up to the war. No. That's one of the failures of POORLY teaching history. Don't confuse a "balanced history" with "half of history".

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

This is absolutely true, but I have trouble seeing the relevancy of stating that in how it relates to the fact that two non-military, civilian-dense cities were bombed. Normally killing hundreds of thousands of civilians for political gains is considered terrorism, easily a warcrime, despite the fact their government may be driving its population to horrible atrocities all over Asia, or not doing enough to prevent them. In fact I don't think the US really covers this enough, it's usually brought as merely the end of a bloody war, when you can find many generals who opposed, arguable claims that the bombs were the first political move in the cold war as a gesture of power towards the Soviet Union and as a way to have Japan surrender to the US rather than the allies, and therefore under US terms which would cement US-Japanese relations (which are solid to this day), as a test, and within a context where Japan may have offered to surrender under similar conditions as the US ultimately demanded, many months earlier. To be fair, there is no academic consensus on any of these points, but many are credible and sensible claims for which evidence does exist, and my experience of the standard reading in US culture makes little mention of this. It's mostly seen as a necessary evil that saved many lives by ending the war abruptly, which isn't incorrect, but far from the comprehensive truth or the only credible historical narrative. But as for Japan's whitewashing, yes, in and of itself, viewed separately from the nuclear debate, you're absolutely right. It's quite astonishing they haven't gotten this right yet, and with what power a wrongful national narrative can continue to exist in the age of internet, globalisation and relatively little Japanese censorship. You'd think the latest generation would be acutely aware of its history. And it's not as if they haven't changed. They've done more than enough to consider themselves among the most civilised countries since then, of course there is a sense of shame but we're approaching an age where nobody during that time was alive, and where even the generation after it is on their way out. Internally Japan is long overdue in recognising these parts of its history in full, and I think purely internally few Japanese really would have an issue with that, as painful as it would be, just like I'm completely comfortable as a Dutch person to acknowledge my country's colonial and slave history. But these things are particularly externally, politically sensitive, in terms of Japan's international relations with the various powerhouses in Asia (China and Korea, and populous emerging economies like say Indonesia). Similar to say, if I were a Dutch politician I may be more concerned how our standing in the world changes when recognising the full extent of our colonial history (e.g. apologising for certain political executions the Netherlands committed are still controversial) Just like say Turkey and the Armenian genocide. Although even here as an outsider I think it would warm Japan's relations immensely if it were to reach out in sympathy and make at the very least symbolic gestures like small reparations.

nogridbag 11y ago

I'd just like to add another data point. As an American, I don't recall ever being taught anything in school about the atrocities Japan committed on the Chinese, etc. Perhaps I was just a poor student :) but it obviously was not a main focus. It wasn't until I met my wife who is Chinese that I learned about this and she could not believe I didn't know about it. Of course it's a big part of the history education there and why many Chinese still hold strong grudges towards Japanese.

sitkack 11y ago
Because General Douglas MacArthur granted the Japanese who participated in human biological experiments pardons to get their cooperation in collecting the research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii But none of this makes justifying the murder of Japanese civilians ok, esp after the fact.
- nogridbag 11y ago
  Wow, that's probably the first wikipedia page I've ever had to close because I simply could not handle reading it...
onnoonno 11y ago
Another data point from Germany: I remember being taught (sometime during the 1990s) about atrocities committed by the Japanese during WW2 in history lessons in school. (Obviously, there was a lot more about the atrocities by the Germans)