Michael, In numbers the allies did not kill nearly as many civilians and Japanese/German POW had a far higher survival rate than vice versa. Sure you could argue that qualitatively war is hell and that either side will be reduced to savage demons, but quantitatively imperial japan and the nazi were far more demonic.
Even the soviet union which managed 15-20% death rates of their German POW does not match the 27.1% death rate amongst POW held by japan.
true but they made up for it with their killing of their own civilians. there was a reason the nazis pushed west in an effort to surrender to the western power rather than the USSR.
And what does that have to do with this topic? Sure and Mao murdered millions of Chinese as well, but still irrelevent.
I was under the impression that the culture in Japan was that death was preferable to POW - mainly due to their culture of honor? The Japanese, like the Aztec and Romans, and actually lots of people, felt dieing in battle was more honorable than not. So from one POV they were doing the honorable thing killing POWs. Actually, some said that's why they personally killed POWs. They were doing them the favor of not having to return to their home and live the life or an outcast. My point earlier was that just one generation earlier we in the USA were f*cking, beating and selling human slaves. Whereas Japan had banned Slavery for over 1000 years. See how there are two sides to the coin? By Bushido culture death was sometimes a better option. SO, here we have Japan with 10000 POWs and no clue as to what the hell was going on. They didn't have POW camps prepared. Most were shocked at the time that all these English were dropping their weapons. That must have appeared to them shocking. So, yeah, 10000s died marching to somewhere to put them. I remember one Japanese saying he was shocked these guys were not firing - yet there were 10000s of them and their guns worked fine. Why weren't they fighting on? It was mind-boggling to him. I suppose my point is two fold. 1. In some cultures death was more honorable to surrender. 2. In some cultures people were paid to walk the battle field pushing their swords into anything that looked like it might still be alive. We can't expect everyone to have the same moral outlook. It's like comparing apples with pears. That said, yes, some of the Japanese of the day were utterly ruthless. Beting on how far a man's testicles will blow off is sick and discusting and I'm sure against their own cultureal normals of war. But what I wonder is how did THAT happen to the Japanese? Oh, now I remember, they stayed in their little island for yonks - - until we Yanks pried them open the everyone vied to sell them weapons. I mean come on. Americans were more than happy to sell them repeating machine guns to mow down their fellow Japanese only a few years earlier. Before that only Samurai fought, now idiot farmers (who couldn't wipe their own ass) were given a gun, told he was superior "perfect race" and set off to murder "inferior Chinese" - with European and American guns Japan lost it's moral compass. And in the end we dropped nukes on Japanese civilians. Mainly women and children. We lost what ever we had of a moral compass. That was all out war and everyone has to shoulder the shame and carry the blame. I know we LOVE wwII because it was the "good fight" but that's very Hollywood. And really sucks too because we loose the great moral lesson we had learned. And now we're killing and selling weapons again - -only now it's to people who can barley read and write and just manage to eek out a living with a goat and live in a mud hut. Jesus if it's not all starting over again.
Yeah and the slave labor, torturing to death and cannibalism were favors too? Unfortunately the Geneva convention made cultural relativism invalid for war, though true the Japanese didn't sign it as they had no intention of even attempting to pay tribute to the concepts of fair play and humanitarianism. So? No I don't see why the sides of the coin matter, there is a coin that all. Except when the pear loses it has to accept it was wrong, the apple dictates the moral standard now. If the Japanese and Nazi had won, mass genocide would be morally acceptable, lets be thankful humanitarians or at least a striving for it on paper was on the winning side. And what were the Japanese doing before that, oh yeah warrior clans fought across the islands for power murdering each other. I sell you a gun and you shot someone dead, I get charged with murder? Including the fire bombings and atomic bombings the US killed perhaps half a million Japanese civilians in aerial bombing. The japanese killed more than 20 million civilians across Asia and the Pacific with there own guns, blades, what ever they had, heck they even drops bio/chemical weapons on people. Aside for the staggering numerical difference there is a fundamental differences in killing people from afar by pulling a lever and say holding a competition for who can chop off the most heads of captured civilians. There is no moral compass, anyone no matter how guilty they them selves are can accurately point out the guilt of others. Learn critical reasoning step one:tu quoque. No matter the sins of others the sins of the Japanese aren't any less real or horrific, certainly the Japanese should like the Germans admit to their sins, ideally we all should admit to our mistakes but that is a prose for another thread. True, history is likely repeating its self in a way, but that has nothing to do with Japanese and Nazi war crimes.
That was mainly true among the aristocracy and office class. Among the rank-and-file soldiers, there were plenty of people who surrendered to the Americans when it was clear that the fight was hopeless. The Japanese also told their soldiers that the Americans would just torture and kill them if they surrendered, which tended to encourage people to fight to the death. Not really. Throughout its entire history, the Japanese created large peasant armies any time they were serious about fighting a war. The samurai served mainly as the military leaders and trainers, and as armed thugs for the feudal lords who enforced order in times of peace. There were plenty of battles in which "idiot farmers" wiped out the opposing side (samurai included) with crossbows, formations of massed spearmen, etc. Also, no one had to force the Japanese to buy guns from the west. They were interested in them as soon as they found out about them. They also started enthusiastically making their own as soon as they were able to figure out how in the 1600s.
Yes Micheal. This must be it. I mean, the honor totally accounts to all those women who where raped on a daily basis by nearly a hundred troops a day. Cannabilism also took hold of the horrors of the Japanese army. Not to mention the atrocities of their medical staff, who exposed them to chemicals, diseases and prolongued torture to pain in horrific medical practices without the use of painkilling medication. Come to think of it, death simply for honor would have been a good way to go out.
Michael are you Japanese... you nhave writing which means a Japanese play under your name, and I became curious.
Wow, that got some discussion going. Look, I agree some Japanese acted immoral in war-time. Yes, Japanese rapped their way across China. That was morally wrong. My point really was that we create cartoon-like characters of WWII making it somewhere between we wore White hats and they wore Black hats and Bugs Bunny. We LOVE to think about WWII and how wonderful we were. Lets not forget we purposely dropped nuke on Civilians in Japan. Twice. Lets not forget we were experimenting on Black Americans with chemicals and biowepaons as well at the same time. IOWs, we should keep things in perspective. Not only that, but Americans were rapping, beating and selling their Black African Slaves only a generation before. I'm not making a logical comparison in terms of ethical justification. I'm not suggesting it therefor was right, I'm only saying lets put things into context. List of war apology statements issued by Japan No, I'm not Japanese Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Yes, I do visit Japan often, and lived there for a bit. Maybe later this year I'll go visit some friends. I also like to go to China. I visited Nanjing and I've spoken about Japan, WWII and Nanjing massacre to a large number of Chinese. Come to think of it, I even lost out on an interesting job opportunity in Shanghai due to WWII and the Nanjing massacre. ' Yes, perhaps my "idiot farmer" phrasing was also a stupid simplification. I suppose I was wondering how much our (I mean the West) earlier actions of selling weapons to anyone and everyone precipitated the events that led to WWII in the East? Those were times of great change around the world. HUGE changes in China and Japan were taking place. While that the same time we still had Emperors and Kings. An amazing time period.
No I'm not a weeaboo.. haha... if I were a 15, yeah, I think cosplay could be fun at those huge gaming conferences ... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I just don't want to be mistaken for an ignorant son of bitch when talking about these subjects. I am quite aware of the honor in Japan, but I would know that would have had little effect during the world war. As I said, Japan probably have committed some of the most unthinkable acts on humanity. But as I said, things still happen. Look at this one for a perfect example: Project Disappeared: Chile Chile. During the Pinochet regime, thousands of people were "disappeared" by the security forces. Their families and friends continue to look for them and ... www.desaparecidos.org/chile/eng.html - Cached - Similar
To get some idea of their atricities, here is a report on the incident, indicating different methods of abuse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valech_Report Again, to measure who was worse, is hard to do when weighing in these things. I guess it remains at the eye of the beholder... ..For some reason, the Japanese experimenting on people by linking their throats to their guts and people put into pressure chambers until their eyeballs popped and blood seeped through their skin, was - nightmarish!
Edward Anthony Jenner is considered the Father of Immunology. At the time, everyone noted milkmaids had nice skin (meaning their faces were smooth and not covered in deep pox pit scars which was not uncommon at the time). So, he called in the the farmhand to bring him his son. He infected the farmhand's son with cowpoxs. He then infected this kid with smallpoxs! The kid was immune (thank the gods). Imagine if the boy wasn't. Even if he lived (unlikely at 80% fatality) his body would have been covered in scars. Smallpoxs Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! One person's "Father of Immunity" is another's Shiro Ishii, War Criminal. Interesting huh? It should be noted Dr. Jenner called on the farmhand to bring in his son, not one of Jenner's own family members. It's no different than the way Japanese viewed Chinese or Germans viewed Jews, White Americans viewed Black Americans or even Christians viewed heretics, or Muslims view infidels. IMO it's getting humanity to move PAST thinking like this is what is important. The most important. If it's even possible.
please.. have you visited some museums in europe and seen the horrific torture devices? it could be argued that at certain times in history, europe or any white nation would be the last, worst and scariest place anyone would want to be that would instill the worst fear and despair. humans, period, have done horrendous acts but they definitely thought them up. japanese were not the only ones who killed, raped or tortured people in wartime or in peacetime.
And killed a fraction of what the Japanese did with there own bare hands! So no numerically we were fucking goody two shoes in comparison to them! Nothing compared to Japan bio-weapons program, which killed hundreds of thousands. Again So? This thread was not for comparing America vs Japan. Heck just a generation before in the age of the samurai, any samurai could chop off the head of peasant for what ever reason he wanted, they were living in a feudalistic state of lord and vassals that was akin to slavery. But hey how is this for comparison: the US after defeating japan could have left them to die of starvation like the Japanese did to china, but instead sent billions in food aid, where was Japanese honor to fight to the death then? When you put it in context japan still comes out way way ahead in atrocities. Japan apologies have not been forth coming nor acceptably sincere, and when they openly deny that it even happened and don't teach it to their children they clearly have no repentance. Green Destiny, fork over $5 I won the bet.
That a idiotic comparison, Shiro Ishii did not risk the life of a boy, but intentionally murder thousands, and dissected many alive to watch the progress of the disease, and he did not come out with a cure for any disease only added to the secretive science of administering disease! He was also a business man and sold his research to the US for immunity, never was punished and lived a long life contributing ultimately nothing of value as the US closed down bioweapons research in the 1970's because it was to horrible (unpredictable) to ever use.
Yes, and america bought the results of those experiments and let him free. i guess those lives didn't matter much to america either, eh? but yes, the japanese were awful in wwII but so were the nazis but maybe a tad less, not a significant difference though. how could anyone think that when the nazis also conducted experiments on adults and children among other atrocities.
