The Japanese regime was up to worse shit than the German one
The firebombing of Tokyo was as nightmarish a war crime as the London Blitz.
I’m not necessarily defending anyone here; all three suck, but it feels like weird revisionism
History is written by the victors. So there’s always a justification for atrocity in the bylines when it comes time to explain your own campaigns of horror.
In another fifty years, I suspect the subject of the Gaza Genocide will be treated with the same backhanded accounting as the genocides in Kenya and Armenia, the Red Scares in America, and the White Terror in Taiwan.
The modern relationship between Korea and Japan is deeply fucked, especially given the historical context.
But during the US Occupation of Japan I’m 1946 and 1947, U.S. authorities offered Unit 731’s leader, Shirō Ishii, and other perpetrators immunity from prosecution for war crimes in exchange for the biological weapons data collected from their experiments.
The people we slaughtered were civilians and the ones we spared were the worst war criminals.
But killing civilians wasn’t taboo at the time and we can whataboutism Japan’s treatment of civilians.
As for your question, yes the US was inconsequential in the allies beating Germany (though it can argued they allowed the western Allies to meet the USSR in Germany) and was mostly in the Pacific theatre.
This is absolutely wrong, but the fascists violated the rules deliberately and repeatedly and created the modern concept of total war as an ideological demand.
The Geneva Conventions were established prior to the war. The versions we have now were updated post-war to reflect the changing demands but deliberate attacks on civilians were never allowable under them. As it happens the reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen is that they were military ports and so Americans claimed the whole cities were viable “military targets” though that’s… Debated. It is an inevitable consequence of the concept of total war however.
Japan was invited to join them, agreed, and then broke them with glee. It sucks to suck but that’s the kind of the war the fascists wanted.
An estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. The number of people wounded or ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who died “indirectly,” as a result of wars’ destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment.
I mean, if we’re talking genocidal regimes of the 20th century? Germany and Japan had a really late start compared to the Americans, the British, and the Dutch.
The Germans are primarily vilified for killing other Europeans. But King Leopold’s Holocaust in the Congo Free States was nightmarish, killing as many as 13M local residents in pursuit of cheap rubber and lumber. Nevermind British massacres in India, Ireland, and Kenya.
However you slice it, the targets of these war machines are inevitably civilian. Either direct war on industrial centers to limit war time production or indirect siege of a city through embargo or attacks on transports and commercial shipping inevitably and intentionally murders the most vulnerable first and foremost.
But killing civilians wasn’t taboo at the time
Still isn’t. All war is, at its heart, a civilian slaughter. The only real way to bring a population to heel is to terrorize them past the point of resistance. From the German conquest of Poland to the American firebombing of Tokyo, mass murder of civilians plays a central role in extorting surrender.
Didn’t more Americans fight in the Pacific Theater? Weird how all these hagiographies don’t start with “Killed 3M Japanese, mostly civilians”.
The Japanese regime was up to worse shit than the German one, rhey just weren’t doing it to white people.
So there was this city called Dresden…
I’m not necessarily defending anyone here; all three suck, but it feels like weird revisionism.
The firebombing of Tokyo was as nightmarish a war crime as the London Blitz.
History is written by the victors. So there’s always a justification for atrocity in the bylines when it comes time to explain your own campaigns of horror.
In another fifty years, I suspect the subject of the Gaza Genocide will be treated with the same backhanded accounting as the genocides in Kenya and Armenia, the Red Scares in America, and the White Terror in Taiwan.
Remember that Japanese PM who got got wiyh a diy shotgun? Lookup his grandpa.
Or “unit 731” and the guy who ran it.
The modern relationship between Korea and Japan is deeply fucked, especially given the historical context.
But during the US Occupation of Japan I’m 1946 and 1947, U.S. authorities offered Unit 731’s leader, Shirō Ishii, and other perpetrators immunity from prosecution for war crimes in exchange for the biological weapons data collected from their experiments.
The people we slaughtered were civilians and the ones we spared were the worst war criminals.
Well yes. The wrong thing got done. Kind if reliably.
Sucks to suck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
Who was worse Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan?
But killing civilians wasn’t taboo at the time and we can whataboutism Japan’s treatment of civilians.
As for your question, yes the US was inconsequential in the allies beating Germany (though it can argued they allowed the western Allies to meet the USSR in Germany) and was mostly in the Pacific theatre.
This is absolutely wrong, but the fascists violated the rules deliberately and repeatedly and created the modern concept of total war as an ideological demand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions
The Geneva Conventions were established prior to the war. The versions we have now were updated post-war to reflect the changing demands but deliberate attacks on civilians were never allowable under them. As it happens the reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen is that they were military ports and so Americans claimed the whole cities were viable “military targets” though that’s… Debated. It is an inevitable consequence of the concept of total war however.
Japan was invited to join them, agreed, and then broke them with glee. It sucks to suck but that’s the kind of the war the fascists wanted.
At the time?
Thanks to the internet and spread of information you have to pretend it’s not happening.
I mean, if we’re talking genocidal regimes of the 20th century? Germany and Japan had a really late start compared to the Americans, the British, and the Dutch.
The Germans are primarily vilified for killing other Europeans. But King Leopold’s Holocaust in the Congo Free States was nightmarish, killing as many as 13M local residents in pursuit of cheap rubber and lumber. Nevermind British massacres in India, Ireland, and Kenya.
However you slice it, the targets of these war machines are inevitably civilian. Either direct war on industrial centers to limit war time production or indirect siege of a city through embargo or attacks on transports and commercial shipping inevitably and intentionally murders the most vulnerable first and foremost.
Still isn’t. All war is, at its heart, a civilian slaughter. The only real way to bring a population to heel is to terrorize them past the point of resistance. From the German conquest of Poland to the American firebombing of Tokyo, mass murder of civilians plays a central role in extorting surrender.