US History and actual History.

[beastro]

The South didn't fall until 1975 after Democrats repeatedly (and in my opinion, correctly) refused to support further actions.

So you're fine with the slaughter that ensued after the North took over, not to mention the Killing Fields which sprang directly that cut off support?

No way. I'd say the North resoundly defeated the United States. With no small thanks to the result of their ingenious engineering, the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

How is a dirt road ingenious exactly?

The reason why it was so effective was because the US under Johnson and MacNamara refused to target the beginning of the trail starting at Hanoi through blockade and bombardment, something which eventually happened during the Linebackers (long after the North had become highly, though ineffectively defended) which produced the expected results one would think attacking the heart of the enemy would create.

Regardless, the Tet Offensive did not soundly defeat the Viet Cong. It was a massive win for the southern forces, but it only had a very temporary effect on the rest of the war.

Tet had nothing to do with the Viet Cong anf everything to do with the North Vietnamese Army. It ceased to be a fighting force after Tet and the war transitioned into COIN operations to track down the Viet Cong in the jungle and Mekong Delta.

Military-wise if not for the scandals and problems at the time, the US army would have burned them to a crisp. The Vietnam War was "lost" due to public perception, media manipulation and political scandals. It's pretty clear when you read about the battles really.

The US Amry was the primary reason why things were so bungled. They went in trying to justify Maxwell Taylor's and the Kennedy Administration push for a large army and they ignore the USN and Air Forces strategy, which had worked in Vietnam in 1958.

The war was lost because under Nixon the US finally got their heads together, forced the North to the table and then set up and supplied the South sufficiently to defend itself, only for the Democrats to cut off aid which caused it to collapse militarily. That also had the lovely effect of spiraling off and leading to the fall of Cambodia (They also had their aid cut off as well).

I imagine reunification would have gone as planned, and who knows, maybe in the absence of conflict Ho Chi Minh's commies would've been less tyrannical.

Oh? You're talking about the people who exterminated all the non-Communist Viet Minh during the 50s before they moved on the South.

Either way, it wasn't our fight, and we certainly didn't make things better for people there (or in neighboring countries).

Of course of it was "our" fight. The North had tried to push into the South, a vital ally in SEA before but were driven back thanks to US involvement. It was unfortunate the JFk, his Whizz Kids and the Army got involved and didn't repeat the tried to true tactics used under Eisenhower because of their agenda which bound their hands and allowed things to get out of hand.

Btw, did you know one of the main reasons we chose Diem instead of anyone who was actually well-liked in S. Vietnam was because he was Catholic? We didn't trust Buddhists to fight the communists, so we had to get someone we felt was like us in power.

The Catholics were given preferential treatment under the French and formed the upper class, of course the US continued to us them in such a fashion, even putting up with their anti-Bhuddist antics.

It seems to me that without US propping up Diem and rigging the elections for him (or allowing him to rig the elections, don't remember which), there wouldn't have been a Vietnam War.

It began because the North made another test push into the South, only this time around, unlike in '58, their bayonets hit flesh, not steel, so they kept pushing deeper.

Not to mention it's rarely brought up that HCM, although a communist, wanted a distinctly Vietnamese communist state. He did not want to be a Soviet communist state.

And that matters how?

He was still trying to bring in a Communist state and would slaughter whoever he needed to bring it about. That also includes the real Ho Chi Minh who he murdered so he could assume his name.

This is beside the fact as they were still within the Soviet sphere of influence, as is shown by the fact that their air force and navy were able to establish bases in the South to reach into SEA, an area previously out of the Soviets reach.

 

[DarthFennec]

I would be very surprised if the US was the only country that did this. Everyone has their own biases and their own points of view, and (more importantly) people sometimes have trouble correctly understanding other people's biases and points of view, as well as the reasons behind their actions and so forth. Especially in times of war (if everyone did understand each other fine, we would always be able to reach mutual agreements, and there would be no need for war). Also, it's important to note that people who write history books generally weren't actually there for any of it, and are relying on their own interpretations of other people's interpretations of what happened. I'm no historian, but I expect sometimes information is heavily biased, misinterpreted, or just plain not available, and the writer of the history book just has to do as well as he can with what he has. The only way to really get a "proper" picture of history is to sample all involved parties, which is probably really difficult, if not impossible, especially right after a war (though with the recent trend to globalization and the internet it's probably easier these days).

This is what I don't like about history, as opposed to something like science or math. You can't go out and test things to see if they're actually true. Things only happen once, and if you want to know what those things were you have to rely on the filtered and skewed versions given by anyone who may have happened to be there at the time.

 

[flarty]

Thank god for that at least regarding Brazil, we had relatively little foreign aid, but I dread absolutely DREAD at the notion of a communist party actually revolutionizing things here, it has a corruption problem big enough as it is with a fake republic, a communist regime would be more brutal and dangerous than the military dictatorships we've seem on the americas(central and south.)

Little foreign aid? You've not long finished paying the IMF off. Communist party more brutal than the juntas that littered the southern continent? You do realise that communism is an ideal that can be set into a number of motions by anyone? Whilst a military dictatorship is a type of regime and usually very brutal, for example the Argentine junta rounded up hundreds of pregnant women in the 70's let them give birth then executed the mothers after.

Whilst just adhering to the idea of erm communism is bad mmkay, read up on Khrushchev and Gorbachev. The latter probably being the most progressive leader of the last century. Both Russian leaders during the soviet era.

 

[flarty]

snip

Are you really trying to defend Americas position in a war in which they lied their way in too?

Also there are so many half truths and inaccuracies in your post i don't know where to start.

 

[Yeager942]

I've never quite experienced this "bias" in American History classes. My high school history teacher was intent in exposing this historical half-truths and myths and thus balanced approach to history has only continued in my college experience. The advantages if a private Armenian school I suppose.

 

[RoonMian]

And to further sollidify your earlier point: In Germany kid are taught pretty obsessively how bad their nazi history was, whereas in Japan the kids hear very little if anything about the bad things Japan did.

German here. The part about Germans being obsessively educated about WW2 without any nationalistic sugar coating is definitely true. At least in the highest school form here you're also taught how to spot fascism, you go very into depth about human and civil rights, the German Basic Law and how it treats human dignity etc. and all that over a broad spectrum of different subjects like history, German literature, politics and social sciences and all mandatory.

And there is such a focus on it that other dark spots in the more recent German history don't get even mentioned at all.

For example how proficient Germany was at genocide even before World War 1 when the expeditionary corps under Lothar von Trotha nearly wiped out the complete Herero people.

Or the history AFTER WW2, "der Deutsche Herbst" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Autumn left terror, bombings, kidnappings, assassinations. The place where Hanns-Martin Schleyer was held captive and subsequently executed was literally just a few hundred meters away from my school yet it was never even once mentioned in history class.

So yeah, all nations do it. Even repentive ones like mine.

 

[TheLion]

slavery they only do cause they have black kids in there school and I'm sure they don't go to far into the nastiest parts.

Then explain why we don't learn about white slavery that predates the black slave trade. Instigated by the same people non the less.

Firstly, the "White Slave Trade" was controlled by Arabs, Turks, Ottomans, Berbers, and other north Africans. Second, it's quite inaccurate to call it "White slavery" since white people didn't exist until there was a reason to establish a racial caste system in the post-Colombian world. There were English people, French people Spaniards, Slavs, etc., but not White people because: "'White' depends for its stability on its negation, 'black.' Neither exists without the other. . . " - Frantz Fanon.


Third, White Slavery isn't terribly relevant to American History, because it isn't American History. There were no White Codes, there was no Billy and Becky Dove Laws, there were no eugenics societies plotting to eliminate American Whites in the late 19th and early 20th century, there was never an Apartheid State established in any corner of the US built specifically to terrorize and disenfranchise White Americans. There is no legacy of White slavery in America.

Just because you have not come across the topical information before does not mean it is no there. There's a few books written on the matter. The best I've read is http://www.amazon.co.uk/They-Were-White-Slaves-Enslavement/dp/0929903056 thought it does contain a few historical inaccuracies. Now the question you should really be asking is why is white slavery never really acknowledged in America?

White "slaves" in the Americas were indentured servants; they labored under a contract for about seven years. If they survived, they received payment in land by their employer to conscript other indentured servants to work. Some were kidnapped, most were voluntary, but they were never anyone's legal property and thus weren't slaves. The practice was replaced with African Slavery because slavery was more lucrative (though Africans were indentured servants as well, for a time). They were never regarded as little more than animals for decades afterwards either. White Indentured Servitude has had almost zero relevance to American life for the last two centuries. It's an interesting aspect in that chapter of colonial history, but not an aspect with any lasting effect on American culture or politics. That's why it has been all but forgotten and unacknowledged, though that isn't to say it shouldn't be taught as a means of further characterizing the Colonial period.

 

[DrOswald]

snip

The only surrender terms they sought was for their emperor not abdicate, which they got anyway. So even if there was no other choice but to use the bomb to gain unconditional surrender, then the US failed in doing so.

The US never wanted an unconditional surrender. They wanted a surrender under the conditions of the Potsdam declaration. The Potsdam declaration does close with verbiage suggesting an unconditional surrender, but only after listing a number of conditions.

Besides, documents that have come to light that show that the Japanese understood that the Americans intended to maintain the emperors position at the conference. From the journal of Takashi Itoh, July 20th 1945: (days before the declaration, while negotiations were taking place.)

"Americans assume that Japan's gravest concern should be the maintenance of the Imperial House and the U.S. government has no intention to abolish the Imperial House." This is said with the understanding that the Imperial house would become basically a powerless figurehead institution.

The terms you say the Japanese wanted were offered but were refused. In fact, the terms under which the Japanese eventually surrendered were the terms outlined in the Potsdam declaration.

Lets look at what the Japanese actually wanted, and what prevented the surrender:

From the same entry, on their goals in negotiating with the Soviet Union: (this is their third point of discussion they wished to bring before the Soviets)

"Agree that the two countries will develop trade in both war supplies and living goods"

Note the mention of trading war supplies. If Japan was willing to completely disarm (under the supervision of an occupying force), the trade of war supplies from or to Japan would be impossible.

I believe you are thinking of these end of war negotiations incorrectly. There was no conference, the leaders did not sit down at a table and make proposals and counter proposals. There was great dissent of opinions within both the american and Japanese government.

All the Americans knew for sure was that the Japanese had rejected the ultimatum of the Potsdam declaration.

More information: (source - Zenshiro Hoshina, a navy vice admiral present at the post bombing meeting discussing the terms under which the Japanese would surrender, August 10th, 1945)

"The following conditions discussed by the Supreme War Council this morning were refered to the Cabinet meeting without solving the difference in opinion:
(1) The terms will not include any demand regarding the Imperial House.
(2) The Japanese military forces abroad will voluntarily withdraw and be demobilized.
(3) The issue of war criminals will be dealt with by the Japanese government.
(4) There will be no occupation of the Japanese territory to secure [the achievement of the objectives set forth in the said declaration.]"
And, a summation of several intercepted Japanese communication: "The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyo?s condition that the Potsdam Declaration ?not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.?"

Thus we see that there were a great deal of sticking points even post bombing. Lets compare the Japanese desired surrender with what actually happened:

Desired: Emperor remains as the sovereign ruler of Japan.
Actual: The Imperial house is maintained, but only as a figurehead. Democratic basis for government is installed over the coming years.

Desired: Voluntary retreat and demobilization with no oversight.
Actual: Forced retreat, demobilization and complete disarmament with oversight.

Desired: No occupying force.
Actual: Large occupying force to ensure compliance with the terms of surrender.

Desired: Japanese government deals with war criminals internally.
Actual: Allies deal with war criminals.

On most other points the desired and actual match, or are at least very close.

 

[Kathinka]

as one who went to school in the u.s. and in europe as well, and a generally very interested in history person, i can pretty clearly say: yes.

histoy in american highschools is moderately to severely skewed towards the benefit of uncle sam, from the revolutionary war over the world wars to post-war history, there is numerous example when stuff that is tought is simply wrong, stuff that is left out and stuff that is twisted into a desirable direction. if anyone is interested, i can give a whole list of stuff that i was thought in u.s. history classrooms that i learned to be false.

 

[DrOswald]

When it is said that the Japanese were unwilling to surrender it is meant that they were unwilling to surrender under any terms the allies would accept. You must realize that one of the core goals of the United States in the terms of Japanese surrender was to eliminate them as a potential threat for at least a generation. This meant disarming the Japanese military and changing the Japanese government. The Japanese were unwilling to accept those terms (as outlined in the Potsdam Declaration) and so sought Russian mediation in the hopes that with the weight of the Russians they could get the surrender terms they wanted.

Far as I know(and I'll get the reference the Japanese themselves tell there was infighting on the matter and the prime minister was willing to consider the North American conditions, the military and radical factions within the government didn't however and wanted to keep their jobs and military tradition, so you're right but there was divided opinion. There's no discussion about the probable smaller casualty rate of the bombs however, an invasion of Japan where everyone would be called to defend it would probably be way more bloody than Germany.

You are correct that there was significant dissent within the Japanese government. I left that out of my above quote for the sake of simplicity. Opinions ranged from "We need to take any terms they offer us, right now" before the bombs were dropped to "We will fight until that last man is dead" after the bombings. There was even an attempted military takeover to prevent surrender post bombing.

 

[Lieju]

And to further sollidify your earlier point: In Germany kid are taught pretty obsessively how bad their nazi history was, whereas in Japan the kids hear very little if anything about the bad things Japan did.

German here. The part about Germans being obsessively educated about WW2 without any nationalistic sugar coating is definitely true. At least in the highest school form here you're also taught how to spot fascism, you go very into depth about human and civil rights, the German Basic Law and how it treats human dignity etc. and all that over a broad spectrum of different subjects like history, German literature, politics and social sciences and all mandatory.

I'm curious, how 'evil' are the nazis portrayed as?
And how much is focused on how and why normal people supported them, and the historical reasons any of that happened, and how the nazis rationalised the stuff they did?

I'm kinda wondering if you have a risk of going too far in the other direction; this is something I've noticed in some horrible historical subjects; being afraid of making people who participated in such things look human, leading to the image that they were just super evil monsters, which ignores the scariest thing; that normal, generally nice people can do horrible things. And it's not very useful in trying to stop stuff like that from happening again.

 

[Henkie36]

First off, some people contend that the empire of Japan was willing to surrender, it is by no means accepted fact, in the US or out.

Well, this was actually down to something that had been concealed for a very long time in the archives: On August 8th 1945 the Soviet Union had finally declared war against the empire of Japan, on special request from president Truman. This is where it starts to intertwine with regular, well-known history. During the Battle of Okinawa, the US lost over 50.000 men, and they figured, that with casualties so high for a relatively unimportant island, it wouldn't hurt if they could speed things up a little. That is where they say they made the decision to nuke Japan. But what actually is that the US government contact the Russian government to discuss this same problem. The Russians agreed and war was declared. However, the Americans still weren't sure about the destructive power of the atomic bomb, so they threw it anyway. And to make themselves look good, they locked this information up and diplomatically forced the Soviet Union into doing the same thing.

 

[RoonMian]

I'm curious, how 'evil' are the nazis portrayed as?
And how much is focused on how and why normal people supported them, and the historical reasons any of that happened, and how the nazis rationalised the stuff they did?

I'm kinda wondering if you have a risk of going too far in the other direction; this is something I've noticed in some horrible historical subjects; being afraid of making people who participated in such things look human, leading to the image that they were just super evil monsters, which ignores the scariest thing; that normal, generally nice people can do horrible things. And it's not very useful in trying to stop stuff like that from happening again.

Well, the question "How evil were the Nazis?" was neither ever asked nor answered. I was thoroughly educated on what they did. The whole deal from an exhaustive review of the first world war, over the situation after, over the failed Hitler/Ludendorff-Coup, over the antics of the NSDAP and SA, over their whole rise to power, over how remnants of Prussian militarism and real and imagined wrongs in the treaty of Versailles influenced people, how the first democratic Government on German soil abolished itself, over Gleichschaltung, over how the war actually went to, of course, the genocide, the Shoa. I even visited the concentration camps Struthof and Dachau with school. And that was just history class, as I said a lot of other subjects dealt with that as well.

During all that time I think I never even heard one of the several history teachers I had even once say the word "evil" or give any value at all. They didn't need to, the actions spoke for themselves. There was never a doubt that these were normal people who carried that whole system, a silent majority. Some people at the top were deranged, no doubt. And of course we were taught about the resistance as well, the White Rose, the Edelweiß Pirates, the Kreisau Circle etc. But at no point were we ever taught that Nationalsocialism happened because of just a few people who were especially evil, so evil they couldn't have been human. And I think that this is necessary to keep history from repeating itself. And as a German with the kind of education I have I feel that doing all I personally can to help prevent history from repeating itself is part of my nation's historic responsibility.

 

[Lieju]

Well, the question "How evil were the Nazis?" was neither ever asked nor answered. I was thoroughly educated on what they did. The whole deal from an exhaustive review of the first world war, over the situation after, over the failed Hitler/Ludendorff-Coup, over the antics of the NSDAP and SA, over their whole rise to power, over how remnants of Prussian militarism and real and imagined wrongs in the treaty of Versailles influenced people, how the first democratic Government on German soil abolished itself, over Gleichschaltung, over how the war actually went to, of course, the genocide, the Shoa. I even visited the concentration camps Struthof and Dachau with school. And that was just history class, as I said a lot of other subjects dealt with that as well.

During all that time I think I never even heard one of the several history teachers I had even once say the word "evil" or give any value at all. They didn't need to, the actions spoke for themselves. There was never a doubt that these were normal people who carried that whole system, a silent majority. Some people at the top were deranged, no doubt. And of course we were taught about the resistance as well, the White Rose, the Edelweiß Pirates, the Kreisau Circle etc. But at no point were we ever taught that Nationalsocialism happened because of just a few people who were especially evil, so evil they couldn't have been human. And I think that this is necessary to keep history from repeating itself. And as a German with the kind of education I have I feel that doing all I personally can to help prevent history from repeating itself is part of my nation's historic responsibility.

That's great to hear. I'm always bothered by the idea that it was all caused by Hitler with his inhuman monster-powers...
And of course a lot of people will try to blame Nazism on any thing they dislike, from evolution to communism and Jews. (Seriously, I've heard people actually arguing Jews were behind Nazism as a some kind of long-term plan to gain sympathy for the Holocaust...)

 

[RoonMian]

That's great to hear. I'm always bothered by the idea that it was all caused by Hitler with his inhuman monster-powers...
And of course a lot of people will try to blame Nazism on any thing they dislike, from evolution to communism and Jews. (Seriously, I've heard people actually arguing Jews were behind Nazism as a some kind of long-term plan to gain sympathy for the Holocaust...)

That makes sense, of course Nazism was a ploy by the Jews. Just like the Native Americans went to Europe to pick up Columbus and the pilgrims and Africans sailed to the USA themselves because they find cotton just fabulous.

 

[Luciella]

-snip-

But, in all honesty. America has never won a war on its own. Even.....maybe the Civil war i guess. They never beat Vietnam or Korea so the idea they think they saved a whole world from the Germans twice is laughable. Its great to be patriotic and proud of your Army and the great work they do. But you have to take into account the allies.

While I am the first to admit that the US does a poor job teaching US history, your lack of knowledge on US history is also rather apparent. Mexican American War, where America was expected to get its ass kicked since Mexico is code for "French" at this point and had a fairly impressive military. Instead, the US got the West Coast. Spanish American war, which wasn't really a surprise, but kicked Spain out of Cuba and some Pacific holding, like the Philippines.

In Vietnam, the US and Co. most certainly did "beat" the North in the sense that after the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong ceased to be a threat and it was 2 years after the US left until the South fell. While the Vietnam War is pretty horrific and we really shouldn't have been there, it is very much misunderstood in the wider culture of both the US and the world.

Korea is more difficult. The US/UN Allies definitely would have won if anyone had actually cared enough to continue the fight, but it was unpopular and we had a President who didn't particularly care for the war. So they signed an Armistice and left and technically, the North and South are still at war. While China certainly pushed them back when they joined, they were running out of forces and were getting pushed back themselves when everyone said "screw this" and left.

There are other wars, but they are either tiny or enough cooperation existed that America definitely shares credit.

About the Mexican American War...your are awfully misinformed.
For starters, Mexico was getting out of the Independence war which left the country's arcs pretty much empty, there was no money AT ALL for food and weapons for the armies to even protect the civilians around the country.
So the president of Mexico decided and encouraged to create militas in each state to help protect everyone, one of those cases were Texas, where the territory was large and the Mexicans living there were too few (around 7k only) he decided to let "anglos" immigrate to Texas in order to help protect the state from the indians who tended to go attack settlements and he let "the anglos" establish.
The bad thing was, the "anglos" traditions about slavery was against mexican constitution (which prohibited slaves) and the number of american immigrants went too far up, that the president decided to tell them to stop occupying Texas, he raised the taxes and demanded to stop having slaves.
Americans just decided to ignore this and things went to hell. They were in Texas as guests, but they decided the territory was theirs by right as well as their slaves.
The war went out and with mexico in a verge of a civil war couldn't just keep Texas.
As for the rest of the stolen territory things were pretty much similar, although a great part was the President Polk's spirit of Manifest Destiny in which he just wanted or had the nice greed for the USA to expand to the west coast.
Mexico had horrible internal problems at that time, it was pretty much impossible to get out of all this mess and greed from the USA unscratched.

You can read this all at wikipedia, if you dont believe me.

 

[flarty]

snip

If you don't want to invest the time to read about white slavery in the states, then that's fine. But there are many books written on the matter I've only read 2 but don't be ignorant and pretend it didn't happen.

snip

Are you saying the impending invasion of the soviets had nothing to do with their surrender then? It was at least a reinforcing factor to decide to surrender after the bombs. The US had long broken Japanese codes and knew that surrender was on the table despite the arguing happening in house. If America wasn't interested in an unconditional surrender then there was absolutely no need to use the bomb. I think the US was more interested in the effects of using the bomb on a population, and sending a strong political message to the Russians. Japan had already lost the war, and with them surrounded, it was just a matter of waiting for surrender.

 

[Korolev]

The Japanese insist that they were prepared the surrender, the US insists that the Japanese were not willing to surrender unconditionally. Did the US HAVE to drop the atomic bombs.... well.... strictly speaking, no. The Japanese cities were being firebombed pretty horrendously. Industry was severely hampered by the fact that the rail system and the road system were completely wrecked. The Bulk of Japan's Army was in China, and had no way of really getting out of China or fighting the US. Japanese commercial shipping and its navy were complete shadows of their former glory and the Japanese airforce was so thoroughly decimated that Japan could barely put up any resistance to American air-raids (and in many ways, did not put up resistance, which is why the firebombings were so atrociously effective).

Near the end of the War, Japan no longer posed a threat to the US or the UK or to any nation, except perhaps China where it still had large numbers of troops (but being cut off from supplies, it is doubtful whether or not these could have held on for much longer).

The Bombs certainly ended the war - which was good for all those Chinese citizens held under Japanese control. And in some ways, it was good for the Japanese - the Red Army was on the March against Japan, and had they invaded the mainland, Japan would have fallen under communist control, like North Korea (and ain't that a happy place, eh?).

Of course, you then balance the fact that hundreds of thousands of Japanese people, most of them civilians, died horrendously due to those bombs. I have read accounts of what happened to the survivors of the bomb blasts - horrific stuff.

It was a terrible war - for both sides. Let us not forget what the Japanese did in China... or Vietnam... or Burma... or Malaya... or PNG... or Indonesia. You want to read accounts of brutal atrocities, you can read accounts of what the Imperial Japanese Army did it the places it conquered. They were so bad that many of the indigenous populations which initially welcomed them for kicking out the British and the French, VERY QUICKLY decided that they wanted the British and the French back. Seriously - go read accounts of what the Japanese did in the regions it conquered. Very, very, very nasty stuff. The level of racism the Japanese displayed towards the peoples of China and Vietnam and Burma and Malay and so forth dwarf the levels of racism shown by the European powers.

But does that justify what the US did - well, no, not really. Yes, the Japanese Imperial Army were.... frankly... horrific. I've read what they've done. I've read about Unit 731 (which you can read for yourselves here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731). I've read about the Rape of Nanjing. Nasty, nasty stuff. Yet those 5 year old Japanese children, so horrifically burned by the firebombs and the atomic blasts weren't responsible for that.

But then again, what was the alternative? We could have starved them to surrender. We could have conventionally bombed them into submission - but that would have taken many more years and the firebombings actually were killing more people than the Atomic blasts. Either way, people were going to die.

Why couldn't the US just accept a Japanese surrender? Because the Japanese wanted a negotiated surrender, in which it would be allowed to keep parts of the nations it had conquered. The Japanese didn't want to give up parts of China that they controlled, didn't want to give up some of the Russian islands they had snatched away. But most importantly, the military leaders didn't want to go to jail. They didn't want to give up control of Japan - the fascist government wanted to remain in power. After all the horrors they perpetrated against the Chinese, would it be justice to just let them go as they were asking? What, so they could turn around and start re-building for another go at China? No siree, that is not right.

The ultimate responsibility for the pain of the Japanese people must and does rest on the shoulders of its nightmarish military leaders. Even AFTER the atomic attacks, the head of the Japanese navy at the time pleaded for the Emperor to give him command of 20 million Japanese civilians to be used in a "suicide" attack. Even AFTER the two atomic bombs, the firebombings and the deaths and the utter devastation of Japanese military power, half of the cabinet and the military generals wanted to continue to war, even when they knew it would result in certain death - they felt that death was preferable to surrender (and indeed, many of the military commanders did commit suicide after the surrender was announced). Had they surrendered, it would have been over sooner.

And did the Americans "destroy" Japan as the Generals feared? No. They set up a democratic government, and after 10 or so years... they largely left. Handed control back to the Japanese. Let them rebuild. Answer me this: would the Japanese have done the same if they had won? Would they have given China back to the Chinese? Or would they have ruled over it with an iron fist?

Japan and its government HAD to be defeated, for the security and peace of the region. Yes, the atomic bombs were not necessary - had the Japanese government surrendered sooner. Had they been more clear in communicating with the allies. Had they been more rational and less proud. The Japanese Government, with their astonishing levels of arrogance and racism towards anyone not Japanese, and their absolute refusal to put the survival of their people above their imperial interests and sheer pride, are to blame more than anyone else.

 

[J Tyran]

Americans are a bit weird with WWII, I think. I mean celebrating dropping those bombs on Japan is pretty fucked up, for a start. Some talk about it like it was no big deal.

Also, plenty of Americans think they won the war, that the allies had nothing to do with it.

But other than that, I don't know.

No one celebrated the murder of thousands of innocents. They celebrated VJ day, Victory over Japan aka the END OF THE WAR. Who the hell wouldn't celebrate that?

A day of quiet retrospection and rememberence would have been more appropriate, thinking about all the lost friends and being grateful it was finally over. Much better than celebrating over the corpse of a nation and the 10s of thousands of corpses create by the bombs.