THE NOT-SO-FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 11:11:28 -0800
>From: TMOliver
>Organization: Kestrel/SWRC/Oliver
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win16; I)
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: Re: THE NOT-SO-FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Louis R. Coatney wrote:
> >
> > > Jonathan Gingerich wrote:
> > > > >
> > Which is *exactly* what Jonathan Spence is doing, Jonathan.
> >
> > > but those numbers seem way off. Jonathan
> > > Spence in his history of China says 20,000 rape victims many murdered,
> > > 30,000 executed soldiers, 12,000 murdered civilians. Notably absent
> > > was any comparison to CCP killings… >>
> >
> > The American intellectual/academic Left … in its ongoing attack on
> > America’s (use of the) nuclear weapon/deterrent and military
> > establishment, generally … has not only attacked the justification
> > for the atom bombings … minimizing what the human holocaust of
> > a U.N. assault on the home islands would be, for example … but in
> > a few cases has even attempted to question and/or de-emphasize the
> > bestial — un-negotiable, you see — fanaticism of the World War II
> > Japanese fascists. (Snippage)
> > There have been academic/intellectual “missions” — intellectual
> > diplomats, you see — by American Hiroshima revisionist
> > historians which have supported … instigated? … Japanese
> > historians’ call on American historians to “reassess” the atom
> > bombings … i.e., blame Americans for the nuclear holocausts,
> > rather than the Japanese fanatics whose refusal to surrender
> > necessitated them … shifting the weight of war-guilt off of the
> > lid on the A-bomb-sealed tomb of Imperial Japanese militarism.
> >
>(Vast snippage for length)
>
>Lou’s comments are well considered (and well received, at least by me).
>
>Secondhand personal experience provides much of my perspective, formed
>by a childhood spent at my father’s knee. He had spent several WWII
>years running a field hospital for the CHINAT army and had little regard
>for Japanese sensitivities. Detached in late 1941 from a unit in transit
>to the Phillipines (from captivity only a few returned) and sent to
>China (where his profession brought him into contact with vivid examples
>of the activities of the ambassadors of the Greater East Asian
>Coprosperity Sphere), he harbored extreme ill will toward Japan. Until
>his death in 1982, he refused to purchase a Japanese auto, complained if
>required to ride in one, attempted with some success to avoid the
>purchase of Japanese products, eschewed sushi and sukiyaki and even
>things described as “tempura”, and planned carefully any travel to the
>Orient to avoid landings in Japan.
>
>His anecdotes provided ample justification for his attitude, and he
>maintained strong opinion that even with nuclear attack on two of its
>cities, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and the damage from other air
>attacks, the sum of destruction to (and casualties within) the Japanese
>home islands had been relatively light compared to Germany, and far too
>light in view of Japanese military and civilian conduct abroad. Perhaps
>his attitudes and remarks represented “extremism”. Certainly cutting
>short a Hawaiian vacation because of the number of Japanese tourists may
>have indicated a certain level of irrational reaction. But for him,
>memory was real, vivid, and not dulled by the passage of half a century.
>
>National blame/guilt for atrocities ought not always to be apportioned
>by total numbers or comparisons. The levels of systematic application
>and breadth of occurrence may also form determinate indicators.
>
>–
>”A little learning is a dangerous thing,
> But more is inevitably catastrophic!”
>