http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... ar_ii_poll

Interesting stuff abotu the divide between Japanese and Americans on fundamental issues of importance and the belief of whether or not there will be a third world war. Japanese largely say no, Americans say yes.

I wonder why more Americans than Japanese are okay with war

I love how the Japanese are so indignant that the bombs killed their civilian, as if this was unprecedented. I wonder if the survivors in China, Burma, Siam, Phillipines, etc. feel any sympathy whatsoever for civilian Japanese casualties.

And who the fuck are the Japanese to bring up war crimes?

Yup, we're fucked.

How did we get away with Hiroshima?

Scale, and technology.

Obviously, if nuclear armaments were not any different than the offense used by the Japanese against their neighbors, Truman and Marshall would not have struggled mightily to get the nuclear genie back in the bottle. Nuclear would just be one more piece of turn-of-the-twentieth-century style warfare. But, huh... they did?

Yes.

That is not to say, though, that the situation in the Pacific did not call for the bomb. As both an end to the war -- accounting for possibly fewer casualties than a "simple" ground invasion would have -- and a prelude to the Cold War -- hey, Soviets, this is how we can fuck you up, if we want to -- it was sublime. And how Truman got it back under wraps, and made almost inoperable, for any side, in future conflict? Genius.

"The Japanese people take peace for granted," said Hiroya Sato, 20, of Tokyo.

that says it all.

The Rape of Nanking was one of the worst attrocities of, not only, WWII but probably in all of history.

However, you can't blame someone for what their grandparents generation did more than 60 years ago.

Today's Japan has as much right to critise war crimes past or present as anyone else.

Tell that to the slavery reparations movement.

Except many of the quotes are from WWII survivors, not "today's Japan". The Japanese conducted their war with terror and brutality unequalled by any except their Axis friends.

is there really a reparations movement? i think that the only times that i hear about it is when black guys are on fox news.

I don't think it's a real big movement, but it's enough to push Wachovia into coughing up some dough.

I don't think it's everyday people that you live next door to or work with, but moreso the those guys that don't appear to have an actual job, yet end up on television all the time.

"goin' to get dem reeeeeeeeparations, gotta go get dem reeeeeeeeparations!"

You mean the Japanese military, right? I think usually that would go without saying, but that's the second time you've posted about this without drawing a distinction, so it seems like you're lumping all Japanese people in with the atrocities committed by their military. Am I reading you totally wrong on this one?

I'm lumping anyone who is over the age of 75 together. These people would have been at least 10 years old in 1940, old enough to be aware of world events and what their nation was doing. I don't buy the "we're civilians and should be completely absolved of what our nasty military was doing in our name." Doesn't hold for the Germans, doesn't hold for the Japanese. I have no sympathy for the citizenry of Hiroshima nor of Dresden. These were aggressor nations that we were forced to confront and subdue. Their citizenry was supportive of their nations' conquests, cheered on and relished their apparent military might. I'm not sympathetic when the tune changes after they run into someone with a bigger stick. Live by the sword, and all that.

[img][650:391]http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/carte/autriche.gif[/img]

HUSH! WE WERE SUBJUGATED BY A HORRIBLE NEIGHBOUR. WE DID NOT RELISH ANYTHING. HUSH!

Sure, Hitler was elected Chancellor of Austria, after the Klagenfurt Putsch. I forgot, my bad.

For those who don't know (and still care), southern germany and austria are the traditional strongholds of independant, "fuck everyone else" germanism. Bavaria was its own kingdom until maybe a hundred and change years ago, and you can still see t-shirts around that say Freistatt Bayern (free state of bavaria) making reference to it.

I totally disagree.

Let's take something contemporary like Iraq. Unless they voted to reelect President Bush, how can a US citizen be held culpable for any of the shit that goes down there? And if Iraqi insurgents decide to bomb some American cities, the people in those cities are fair game in your mind?

Aside from voting and protesting, we have no more control over what our military does in Iraq than your average Japanese citizen had over what its military did. In fact they probably had significantly less.

I guess no one your grandfather knew had his cock chopped and stuffed in his mouth? Makes what we may or may not be doing at Gitmo, Ghraib or random street violence look like child's play. The two situations are totally different, especially in that, yeah, we are a representative Democracy, and Japan was a fucking Dictatorship, where they worshipped the Emporer as a dictator.

I wasn't comparing the brutality of the two situations, nor was I even making a moral equivalence argument. I was speaking to the degree of culpability that citizens have or don't have when their governments do fucked up shit.

Immediately after I hit submit on my last post I thought to myself I should have added what I'm posting now, cause inevitably some jerk off will pretend to misunderstand what I said and use it to build a strawman to deflect from the actual argument. And hey, it only took one post!

I think you are underestimating exactly how much the Japanese and the Americans outright hated each other.

And yes, the individuals are in some capacity responsible for the actions of their government or military.

Wow, and here to think I almost felt bad about saying the following about you on IM: If this is the type of bs gaybo that public schools are producing, they should shut them down in favor of forced labor camps: We'll show these schmucks who's really boss around here, BUBBA. You people and your knee jerk liberal blame America first C-R-A-P is what drives rational, normal, liberal minded folks like me directly out of the Democratic Party.

nicely put.

osama bin laden would be proud

no disrespect to you personally Logan (even though you have totally represented yourself as the kind of misguided person who really needs to take a close look at themselves and more importantly---the big picture): but why the fuck do people hate America so much?

I didnt vote for GWB (nor would I ever) but dude is the president and this a country where we should all stand up together.

Whatever, my frustration at the complete lack of intellligence and farsightedness that people show isnt gonna stop---i cant help it that folks mommas smokin crack when they pregnant and shit, and that the educational system be lettin people who have the dumb through; it they problem not mine, but damn y'all, we live in America, how's about appreciating what you got every now and again????