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This line of argument always seems weird to me. The Imperial Japanese Army was made up of conscripted _civilians_. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; ordinary f
by ThrowawayR2 3y ago
This line of argument always seems weird to me. The Imperial Japanese Army was made up of conscripted _civilians_. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; ordinary folk from all walks of life were conscripted into the IJA and given training and sent off to invade other parts of Asia, where they committed various atrocities on a par with the Nazis. Civilians did do that.
As for why, IMO the strong militarism that was part of their culture in that era is probably a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoTechnically speaking every military is made up of civilians … every soldier was once a civilian. That said, there is a difference between you voluntarily signing up to join the military and you being dragged into it.
- ThrowawayR2 3y agoTo state the obvious, civilians can get dragged into something and manage not to commit atrocities. The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. They weren't drugged, lobotomized, or transformed into robots either. What they did came from within themselves.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago> The conscripts of the IJA weren't trained specifically to commit atrocities. Maybe not directly. 100s of thousands of people don't commit atrocities just out of the blue. Their doctrine was pretty hardcore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Yokoi