And my issues with Stone's distortions in it
So, rather than directly addressing your questions....I'll simply post my review on the series, as my review covers all your questions.
To address two small things you ask however, to add depth of context as one reads my review?
Stone doesn't note Japan's atrocities, because he is trying to smear the US for nuking them. If he paints a picture showing how insane and murderous Japan was, it becomes far more difficult for him to try and brainwash the viewer into thinking nuking Japan was a war crime. Of course he isn't going to mention Japan's attrocities. He can't. His propganda angle wouldn't allow it. He can't mention either Japanese brutality, or their complete unwillingness to surrender....because he's trying to lie and suggest the atomic bomb drops were unecessary and accomplished nothing. He ignores any and all facts that stand in the way of his propaganda ball.
Additionally, by not harking on how insane, vicious and evil Stalin was....he skews all context for US actions. It doesn't matter if "Stalin is bad" has been beat to death. If you're trying to put a conflict into context, you need the supporting elements to explain actions. The US was well within its rights, and moral rights, to oppose Stalin tooth and nail....because he was a vicious tyrant. It's this distortion, this false assertion that the USSR and US are two sides of a coin, equal in fault and blame...when the reality, is 90% USSR was bad and evil, 10% the US was bad and evil. It's Right Wing tactics Stone employs. It's putting a creationist next to an evolutionist. It's putting a climatologist next to someone whom says global warming is fake. It's distortion by simply comparing them absent of contextual reality.
You can't gloss over Stalin's evilness if you're attempting to speak on US actions, because US actions were contained within the world in which the lunatic Stalin was the adversary. His lunacy dictated American actions. He was a vile human being that the allies used to help topple another vile human being. Once that toppling had been completed....treating the USSR as a friend would have been nothing short of immoral.
My review of the series below
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To start....nothing in this series is new--I've read these revisionist interpretations numerous times over the years.....Chomsky, Howard Zinn, William Blum etc.....there is literally nothing in this series which is new or fresh. The very title and its clear distortion and hyperbole really sets the tone for the rest of the series....grand statements and accusations not backed by what follows.
There is literally so many bizarre historical reasonings and insinuations in this series that it is very difficult to undertake the numerous fallacies, self-defeating arguments and laughably absurd innuendo that stone presents as his nonsensical interpretations of facts. A 1,000 word review can't cover all the distortions and rescue them from Stone's absurd historical reasoning. It would be like correcting an Ann Coulter book....you have to address how unhinged the entire thought process is before you can systematically address the absurdities that thought process created.
To summarize this silly series in as a succinct manner as I can? Stone and this series' whole premise is that If the US would have treated a defeated Germany and japan with ferocious and crippling harshness (as the Soviets wanted)....the soviets wouldn't have needed to viciously annex, subjugate their neighbors as buffers and mold them into dictatorial client states filled with oppressed and completely freedomless citizens.(Stalin and molotov made clear they would do just that regardless of what the US did in West Germany, the whole "spheres of influence" between the UK and USSR already happened as well; clearly showcasing Soviet aggressive ambitions and the clear desire to spread communism...but I digress) If the US would have treated Stalin (a brutal tyrant responsible for the murder of tens of millions, a man easily equateable with Adolph Hitler ) as an equal and friend, rather than a necessary evil ally to defeat Nazism, that....the USSR, despite being ran by Stalin, wouldn't have been so bad.
Stone and this series is filled with distortions, mistruths, irrational deductions and an endless slew of lies of omission.
He reduces astronomically complex and layered actions/reactions as mere psychological projections of childhood traumas. So tenuous and pathetic is his linkage prism, that he suggests Harry Truman being a bullied kid is why he dropped nukes and turned on the poor poor peace-seeking Stalinist Soviet Union.....so he could be a tough guy and get back at his dad. Cartoon characters are never written so thin.
This is "history" for people whom don't really understand history, yet are those whom inherently dislike Capitalism and resent the clear successes of the US in the face of failed Marxist "alternatives". This is an attempt to get even for losing the ideological war....by white washing and downplaying pervasive Soviet atrocities, global ambitions, global meddling and tyranny... and by exaggerating the actual impact of US interventions, and by distorting the truth behind their purpose and design.
I mean, just be a blind man and consider this. Whenever sides of a conflict have been chosen between the US and either the USSR or a broader Communistic adversary...what has the outcome been?? Hmm, the US took West Germany, the USSR took East Germany. The US took South Korea and Japan, the USSR took North Korea. The US backed Taiwan and broke ties with Mao and mainland China. Anyone wanna tally up that score card for when the two Superpowers/ideologies were directly pitted against each other? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, West Germany.....hmmm....what was the end result for these?? Democratic, open, wealthy, internationally peaceful. As opposed to North Korea, East Germany, China.....poverty, police states, freedomless, backwards.....they all still lag behind because of their communistic backgrounds. Look at any former Soviet "Republic"....how hugely they have failed to do anything beyond oppress their own people. Look at the differences between a US occupation and a Soviet one. The US post war occupation of Germany and Japan was the softest and most respectful occupation of any defeated nation in the history of humans. It was so incredibly non-assertive in nature, that nobody has a memory of it as a physical enterprise. The Japanese didn't even know they had first attacked the US at Pearl Harbor until Hirohito died in 1989. That is how adverse the US was to rubbing in its victory and control. AND TO STONE, this is Americas sin....treating West Germany and Japan with kindness, an offer of friendship, peace and rebuilding....which so freaked out the USSR, that they had to invade all their neighbors and turn them into freedomless police states.....though the words of Stalin, Molotov and their own released archives clearly show they were always going to invade their neighbors to spread communism.
The most pathetic thing is that the people singling out conservative and right wing detractors of this absurdity (I'm a liberal by the way) are doing so in support of a series which borrows heavily from right wing media procedures/tactics you see on Fox News programs or right wing radio. Selecting partialized facts to report, ommitting broader and stronger context and counter evidence. Chalking up complex geopolitical actions and initiatives as being sinister projections from fractional and incomplex portions of an individual's life-- replete with beyond amateurish psychological profiling...i'm so reminded of people like Newt Gingrich and Dinesh D'Souza whom claim Obama is secretly a Kenyan anti-colonialist marxist trying to rise to his father's supposed ambitions....because of Barack's heritage, or he's a secret Muslim terrorist for his brief stay in an Indonesian madrassa as a child. I mean, it is fact rooted to biographical tidbits of a full man's life!!!! They are insane and nonsensical extrapolations of real life situation and circumstance, but the points of origins are not made up.....so it is indeed rooted in historical fact. It would be like arguing the Holocaust never happened, because the human skin lamp shades and human bars of soap have little to no evidence, and because some of the death toll numb ers don't add up.
This is liberal Fox Newsing....and I'm offended as a Liberal.
Like I said...1,000 words isn't enough. 20,000 on Stone's nonsensical, contradictory and absurd interpretation of the atom bomb drops, alone, wouldn't be enough.
To summarize Stone on the a-bombs as best I can? Using his reasoning patterns?
I'll basically paraphrase Stone--- """The US is immoral for nuking Japan, it was cruel and vicious....except the Japanese didn't even care about the nukes and they really surrendered not because they were upset at the ongoing firebombing and nuking hitting them in real time, but because they were terrified of the Soviet's theoretically invading them.
However, the USSR is actually not a bad guy remember, so don't consider how vicious they might be in occupation as I'm suggesting Japan would rather be nuked than invaded by the USSR, also forget that Japan had pulverized Russia in war when they had met prior as well.
Also, Japan would have surrendered earlier if allowed to keep their empereor (whom was a war criminal whom encouraged the imperial Army to plunder and murder 20+ million Chinese, among other Asian peoples)....and also still remember that the nukes did not make them surrender.""
So, just ignore the whole fact that Japan, in actuality, surrendered UNCONDITIONALLY, 5 days after the second drop with no guarantee for their emperor (despite what I, Oliver Stone, stated and insinuated)....and also please ignore Hirohito (the first time his people had ever heard his voice) noting the reason for surrender as ""the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable taking the toll of many innocent lives ".....forget that, because the nukes didn't factor, like I said, or something"""" Literally the kind of dance he does for the atomic bomb drops. Lies of omission out the wazoo, dead end reasoning and assertions.
Stone says the nukes didn't make Japan surrender.....yet they, oddly, surrendered 5 days after the second drop
Stone says Japan would have surrendered if they had guarantees for their empereor. Well, let's ignore the fact that Japan was an aggressive, vicious and evil empire which had no right/perch to demand anything or set ANY TERMS, and lets also ignore the fact that Hirohito was a war criminal (should the allies have allowed Germany to surrender if all they asked for is that Hitler could still be furor?).....and LETS PAY ATTENTION, to the fact that Japan DID, in reality, surrender with no guarantees for their empereor...AFTER they were nuked. Stone's assertion is rejected by known history. Flat out.
Stone says the bombs weren't a part of Japanese capitulation thought-processes....So, why did they surrender then, an oddly-timed few days after the second drop??? if the bombs didn't cause it....why did they surrender? Why did Hirohito specifically name the bombs as the reason (in a broadcast which was the first time most Japanese had ever heard his voice) if the bombs didn't factor?
The distortions and nonsense are endless in this series. Some examples--
Stone passively notes that Kruschev made a horrible and aggressive mistake arming Cuba with nukes....followed moments later with praise for Kruschev for helping end a crisis he created. Sort of like a guy throwing a brick through a window...getting into a heated debate with the wife bout it, escalating to extremes...with the guy, in the end, replacing the window...and him getting credit for averting greater crisis.
The mention of "hardliners" pressing soviet leaders (specifically Kruschev)to extremism, but ignoring the very threatening nature of such an occurrence and how reactionary it forced the US (or would force anyone) to be. Was the US supposed to decipher the inner workings of a closed off Soviet plutocracy in order to manipulate what was beyond their controls? How on earth, why on earth, would the US separate the figurehead of a totalitarian regime from what amounts to his inner circle? How can you base a foreign policy on this theoretical separation??
Whitewashing of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan-- Saur Revolt/coup in 1978, of course not mentioned. Soviet invasions and atrocities during the full invasion not mentioned. Once again, the US is to blame for Afghan issues. US black budgets show that the US sent, only, outdated radio equipment and some farm equipment to Afghanistan prior to the USSR invasion. Charlie Wilson (coming years later) was when the US did ANYTHING of note in Afghanistan....the Soviets had been meddling and invading for the previous half decade. So what if the US armed Afghan Muhjahideen to resist the murderous USSR which had invaded it? MuJihadeen is a broad term. Bin Laden's Arab Wahhabbist faction had zero to exceptionally tenuous links to any American agency. Despite cherished revisionist myths, Bin Laden was not EVER trained by any US agency. Stone does the sort of Fox News parallel referencing that made Fox news viewers think Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11 here.
Ho Chi Minh and crew executing hundreds of thousands of non communists, land owners, democracy advocates prior to Vietnam war? No way that is mentioned. Fidel Catsro's vicious dictatorship and despised police state, its tens of thousands of executed democracy seekers? Please....Stone loves Castro. Pinochet's terror where he executed 2,000 people while helping to forge South Americas most stable and prosperous nation?? You'd think it was 1,000 times worse than Castro's dictatorial terror, except in reality it was a thousand times more beneficial and passive.....and the US took no direct part in it---and put an arms embargo on Pinochet as the UK and France increased arms shipments to him.
To close, If I could encapsulate this series in one short stroke?? If i could show you where Stone's heart and mind is? It would be Stone trying to excuse away Soviet aggression in Germany, specifically the building of the Berlin Wall. According to Stone and company....One can hardly blame the USSR for building the Berlin wall....because of how embarrassing it was that hundreds of thousands of east Germans were desperately fleeing Soviet oppression. Isn't this a reflection point though? Shouldn't we stop for a minute and hang on the fact that hundreds of thousands of East Germans were risking their lives, in desperation, to flee Soviet oppression?? To Stone....of course not. He reasons for the USSR like a cop would reason for a Serial Killer....except Stone goes so far as to actually empathize. The Serial Killer had to kill her after he raped her, or else she might have told on him. Duh. How he feels confident critcizing the US in the context of its reaction to the USSR is nonsensical, because he refuses to acknoweldge the full depravity, inhumaness and brutality of the USSR...and how that list of insanities would naturally force the US to react to it. You can't give a fuller and cleaner history by whitewashing and lying about a side.
This is Stone though...agenda and propaganda before context and fact. This is the driving force behind movies like JFK, or his Castro documentary. Even in this garbage series, he can't help but insinuate that JFK, RFK, and MLK were victims of some US conspiracy....he can't disown the absurd distortions of his previous works.
It's pathetic, like this series
"There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins"
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cash_carstar
12 years ago
I'm not gonna get into your full review, just the discussion.
Stone doesn't note Japan's atrocities, because he is trying to smear the US for nuking them. If he paints a picture showing how insane and murderous Japan was, it becomes far more difficult for him to try and brainwash the viewer into thinking nuking Japan was a war crime. Of course he isn't going to mention Japan's attrocities. He can't. His propganda angle wouldn't allow it. He can't mention either Japanese brutality, or their complete unwillingness to surrender....because he's trying to lie and suggest the atomic bomb drops were unecessary and accomplished nothing. He ignores any and all facts that stand in the way of his propaganda ball.
I'm sorry but there's no way to look at this other than as a complete misreading. He argues that, in practical terms, Japan was willing, before the bombs, to surrender; just not surrender the Emperor. And that what really forced their hand was the Russian declaration of war. And seeing as how the ultimate surrender did not include the emperor, the argument is that we bombed countless civilians when we really didn't have to.
The atrocities of the leadership and military have no bearing on how the US conducts itself in regards to civilian targets. Just as in discussing the bombing of Dresden.
One is free to argue that it's all well and good and it's necessary to debase ourselves in order to demoralize the enemy. And it's all well and good to suggest that wantonly killing Japanese women and children is somehow justified by the actions of Japanese leadership and military.
But that's got nothing to do with Stone's case. He doesn't rationalize in that way. As I said before, he's more than willing to point out that most of these countries conducted themselves horribly. His argument is simply that we needn't do the same. And that in practical terms we could have shown a lot more restraint and still have gotten the same results.
Additionally, by not harking on how insane, vicious and evil Stalin was....he skews all context for US actions. It doesn't matter if "Stalin is bad" has been beat to death. If you're trying to put a conflict into context, you need the supporting elements to explain actions. The US was well within its rights, and moral rights, to oppose Stalin tooth and nail....because he was a vicious tyrant. It's this distortion, this false assertion that the USSR and US are two sides of a coin, equal in fault and blame...when the reality, is 90% USSR was bad and evil, 10% the US was bad and evil. It's Right Wing tactics Stone employs. It's putting a creationist next to an evolutionist. It's putting a climatologist next to someone whom says global warming is fake. It's distortion by simply comparing them absent of contextual reality.
You can't gloss over Stalin's evilness if you're attempting to speak on US actions, because US actions were contained within the world in which the lunatic Stalin was the adversary. His lunacy dictated American actions. He was a vile human being that the allies used to help topple another vile human being. Once that toppling had been completed....treating the USSR as a friend would have been nothing short of immoral.
Stone doesn't argue to treat Stalin as a friend. He simply argues that we could have dealt with him without toppling democratically elected, moderate regimes, and replacing them with dictators. Again, Stone's whole point is to argue against rationalizing our own atrocious behavior. You're still stuck on "at least we are better than......"
To me that's not good enough. And the case made is that we could always live up to our supposed ideals and still come out on top. We needn't debase ourselves to the level of the "bad guys".
And he makes that case with very practical points. And he uses quotes of others to bolster himself. That Churchill states Stalin was always a man of his word tells me we could have handled the Cold War much more rationally. As you state, we were able to work with him during the war (and frankly there rarely has been a despot we couldn't work with.) Then there is little reason we couldn't work against him without turning it into a global proxy war.
We at the very least could have tried. But in my view we did what we always do and overreacted. And it's always easier to argue that an overreaction is better than an underreaction. But hey it's only innocent blood on our hands.
"That's what a gym teacher once told me."
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malakar_is
12 years ago
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I'm sorry but there's no way to look at this other than as a complete misreading. He argues that, in practical terms, Japan was willing, before the bombs, to surrender; just not surrender the Emperor. And that what really forced their hand was the Russian declaration of war. And seeing as how the ultimate surrender did not include the emperor, the argument is that we bombed countless civilians when we really didn't have to.
The atrocities of the leadership and military have no bearing on how the US conducts itself in regards to civilian targets. Just as in discussing the bombing of Dresden.
One is free to argue that it's all well and good and it's necessary to debase ourselves in order to demoralize the enemy. And it's all well and good to suggest that wantonly killing Japanese women and children is somehow justified by the actions of Japanese leadership and military.
But that's got nothing to do with Stone's case. He doesn't rationalize in that way. As I said before, he's more than willing to point out that most of these countries conducted themselves horribly. His argument is simply that we needn't do the same. And that in practical terms we could have shown a lot more restraint and still have gotten the same results.
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I'm sorry, but that isn't what Stone argued at all. Did you even watch the series?
Stone makes no mention that Japan surrendered without guarantees for the empereor. NONE. How can something he purposefully refuses to mention be a part of his overall argument???????? He doesn't acknowledge that Japan surrendered with no promises for their emperor, because he has already made the assertion that Japan refused to surrender without guarantees for their empereor while simultaneously suggesting nuking them didn't make them surrender. If Stone acknowledges that Japan surrendered after the nukes, with no guarantee for their empereor....then he admits it was the nuking that made them surrender. The nukes did, inarguably, expedite their surrender. That's simply historical fact.....and Hirohito even admitted it in his public address.(another lie of omission by Stone, a man whom picks and chooses what quotes he'll use--ignoring broader context in the process. Like an Ann Coulter book or a Foxnews host).
As for the rest of your spiel here? The Japanese (the citizens) openly supported the invasion and slaughter in Manchuria. Japanese newspapers had editorials announcing races between Japanese officers to see whom could behead 50 Chinese first. Their entire civilization had been militarized since the 1920's; geared to annihilate the Chinese....the need of their nation to expand by war was indoctrinated in their entire nation...infant to centenarian. Japan wasn't like Germany. There wasn't near the separation between civilian understanding and imperial control in Japan like there was in Germany. Their citizenry backed the wholesale slaughter of what their soldiers did in China (further reason why Stone refuses to mention it, because he doesn't want the viewer to understand the kind of enemy the US faced, and why nuking them was so logical, moral and reasonable). You can see citizen fanaticism at places like Marpi Point, during the Pacific campaign in Saipan, where 8,000 Japanese women and children committed ritualistic suicide when faced with Japanese soldiers losing to Americans. That was the enemy the US faced,...the one that refused to come out of bunker complexes and surrender; leaving no choice but for American soldiers to grenade them. An enemy that employed kamikazee pilots, an enemy that still had renegade soldiers, still in hiding, on remote pacific islands into the 50's and 60's; which was attached to a never surrender Samurai mentality that could not be broken by conventional methods. Only an act of God or Magic (nukes) could have shaken them....last leg or not, there was nothing tangible or offered that suggested Japan was ready to surrender, and they had ignored US Ultimatum deadlines in run-up to the drops. The US explicitly gave date deadlines..."surrender or we'll use a most incredible weapon" and they refused to surrender. Even after the nukes forced their surrender, two separate coup attempts were launched to try and stop the surrender order
The US had no obligation, whatsoever, to sacrifice the life of a SINGLE additional American soldier in 1945 to the cause of Japan sifting through their insanity and finding reason in surrender. If Japanese civilians have to die (and it was the Japanese, by not surrendering that decided they had to die) to save American lives, only a maniac says take the American lives instead in the context of that war...and that is what Stone is asking in measure, but he knows he can't ask that directly, so he distorts and pretends the nuking didnt' speed up the end of the war (though it inarguably did). If you argue that the US debased itself by nuking Japan, then you are, in fact, simultaneously arguing that the US had some sort of obligation to sacrifice further American soldiers to die in the cause. That is true debasement if you ask me, killing the citizens of the righteous side to prevent the death of the citizens on the evil side. The US was righteous in that war. No haze or ambiguity exists to that war. It was good versus evil as much as those concepts have ever represented opposing armies in human history. The moral thing was to end it as soon as possible....to not let it linger.
And it is undebateable that the atomic bomb drops saved American lives.
Absolutely undebateable. Stone makes a fine point to note that the number of saved Americans lives was exaggerated over the years, but there is not a respected voice on the subject that puts the number lower than tens of thousands.
And to be honest, considering the brutality of Soviet invasion and occupation???? It is probably undebateable that the US nuking Japan.....saved Japanese lives. Japanese civilian lives.
It is undebateable that nuking Japan saved Korean and Chinese lives as well at the hands of their Japanese occupiers.
Hell, it even saved Soviet lives from what an invasion would have been.
Think of Japan today. Democratic, Peace loving, friendly, prosperous, decent. Think of what Japan would be today if the USSR invaded it. North Korea rings a bell.
I'm not going to address much of your second blurb directly, because it doesn't make sense really.
Stone does clearly argue that the US should have treated Stalin as a friend actually, and Stone makes just one reference of the US toppling any "democratically elected, moderate regimes and replacing them with dictators" as a means to deal with him. Stone mentions the US/Uk coup against Mossadegh in Iran (he ignorantly reasons for the revolution in Iran in 79 as a direct consequence of operation Ajax, but that's a separate issue). Stone doesn't mention several instances. In fact, his indictment on America is so structurally weak...that he is forced to rely on innuendo and in finding fault that the US disliked a leader, rather than it toppled him. As examples--The US did not orchestrate the coup which brought down Allende and brought forth Pinochet, even if it did want Allende out of power. The US failed to remove a dictator (Castro) at Bay of Pigs. The US played no part in the death of Patrice Lumumba, even if it did want him dead. In Vietnam, the US, at first backed Diem...okay, bad move for sure....but nothing was overthrown, nothing was taken from something there before. The US simply backed a monster in the South to try and thwart the monster (Ho Chi Minh and gang) in the North) and then the US eventually turned on that (Diem) monster. Then from here, Stone's reasoning gets more and more bizarre...suggesting the US bears responsibility in Afghanistan, or that backing native Afghan Mujihadeen to resist their brutal Soviet invaders somehow has something to do with 9/11....which is incoherent nonsense that conflates different nationalistic/ethnic sects of MuhJahideen at random, also the referencing of Pol Pot, as if the US has anything to do with the fact that he exterminated his own people....an action the US never supported, never assisted, never apologized for, or never wanted in any capacity whatsoever. A whole list of American offenses where the US, in reality, didn't take direct part, didn't succeed, didn't take from as a means to create, or bears no responsbility for. Again, no excuses for the US doing or thinking wrong....but a little scale in regards to actual impact is important to necessary to note I should think.
i'm also not remotely stuck on "at least we are better than", and have made no single argument in that vein. What are you even talking about with that accusation?? I've defended nothing about the US, at all, I've simply attacked Stone for downplaying the sheer brutality, expansionist designs of the USSR and for his selective highlighting of attrocities for the sake of propagandist purposes., and for his refusal to acknowledge scale. When I made the comment USSR 90% of the problem, the US 10%....I wasn't saying the US is blameless, I was in fact saying the US deserves about 10% of the blame.....which is still, the end of the day....a blame deserved. The US was/is better than the USSR. That's simply a fact...not something I was bragging about, or using as a means to excuse anything the US has done wrong. I'm critical of this series and how it distorts reality, scale, and context. I'm not critical of any negative consideration of negative US actions in generl
The USSR turned it into a global proxy war, and the US was forced to react in kind. The day the US decided to treat a defeated Japan and Germany with friendship, kindness and democracy....the path of Soviet international insanity was paved; their instinct to annex neighbors sewn. The idea that the US could have navigated such a world without bumps is impossible. When your adversary goes ape-s_hit nuts because you refuse to further pulverize their defeated neighbors....you really can't do all that much to ease the situation besides appeasement. The US absolutely made mistakes in subsequent decades trying to contain communism, but the suggestion that anything could have been done to avoid proxy/escalation conflicts does not apply....because the US crossed the Soviet psychological Rubicon the instant the US decided it wasn't going to turn Japan and Germany into wasteland. And even this isn't the truth truth, just the truth to the world and narrative Stone creates. The truth truth is, by fact of Soviet archives and Molotov and Stalin's own words, is that the USSR was always going to expand and annex their neighbors and try to spread global communism. The US had no choice but to be sucked into that vortex at the end of the day, regardless if it was cruel or nice to Germany and Japan. When your adversary is that dangerous, unstable and reactionary....you're going to, in turn, be reactionary. The world suffered as a result of all this, and the US deserves blame for many situations (guatemala is the worst if you ask me), but on an elemental level...short of complete appeasement--considering that the USSR was the enemy, and the nature of their oligarchy? The US was always forced to reason between a rock and a hard place.
"There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins"
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cash_carstar
12 years ago
Japan was negotiating defeat well before the drop of any nukes. They obviously wanted the best deal they could get, and ultimately saved the Emperor. That basic fact suggests there was not a true intent to fight to the last man(and there are records of many Japanese officials that were certainly prepared to surrender well before the bombings), and the US was ultimately willing to accept that surrender compromise on the Emperor.
You can't say definitively that the use of nukes (plural) and nothing else would force surrender. And you can't say it was all the SECOND bomb and not the Russian invasion when they were both happening on the very same day. At the absolute least it should be argued that the second bomb was unnecessary so soon after the first. It was nothing short of gratuitous.
Regarding boots on the ground, you make it an either/or scenario that it simply wasn't. There was time after the first to negotiate surrender with the clear implication that all 3 superpowers were at the door and that more bombs were ready to go.
Regarding the Japanese people, there was plenty of propaganda and plenty of insanity, but you cannot with any credibility talk about them as if they were a monolith. There is plenty of material out there showing clearly that there were plenty of Japanese that didn't buy into it.
This is a film site, here's an appropriate quote from a great filmmaker:
'We Japanese,' [Kurosawa] said, 'were also the victims of Japanese militarism.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Kurosawa:_Summary_of_criticisms
To characterize them all as mindless animals is absurd. especially when considering how relatively easy the postwar transition was, and the society they became. I mean, you come off as incredibly cavalier to the point of seeming inhuman yourself.
As far as this 90-10 split. I can't make heads or tails of it. It's not a thing to be so measured. My issue is not that you assume zero responsibility for antidemocratic and inhumane acts perpetrated by the US (Allies) during and since the war, it's that you justify most all of it(correct me if I'm wrong here) and I think that is the heart of the problem. We rationalize our own acts of atrocity as "the only way".
You can insist as you do(doth insist too much, I'd say) , but I take it as rationalizing, plain and simple.
"That's what a gym teacher once told me."
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RottenBeauty
12 years ago
I must agree with you on all points really, notably the attitude in which malakar regards the value of Japanese life. Life is . . . life, I fail to see how a life can have more intrinsic value than than of another simply based upon the soil under them when they were born.
There was plenty of resistance from Japanese people who felt the ideas were wrong, there was also a great deal of propaganda surrounding the war within Japan to convince everybody that it was justifiable.
Japan is not the only nation guilty of such propaganda and I would argue that most, if not all, countries engaged in wartime activities are guilty of the same. In this I include my own nation which, as far as I know, has no international infamy in regards to being war mongers or aggressors. But simply, when you are engaged in something that cost tax dollars and involved the danger and death of your own people then it is best to have your citizens on your side.
Also, history has not forgotten the barbaric or inhumane actions of the Japanese, Russians or the Germans but you rarely see mention of the immoralities and/or war crimes committed by US troops and politicians. Torture, murder, theft, rape etc all within the confines of their involvement in WWII.
If you go into details about the Japanese, German and Russian cruelties then don't you, objectively, have to investigate and give equal attention to the war crimes and atrocities committed by all nations above and beyond the harsh realities of war?
That would be one hell of a tangent and it is not particularly relevant to the story. I know that malakar may be busting at the very notion of such things being dismissed . . . but the reality is that USA, France, England and Russia are not kids in the schoolyard and not a one of them is without a violent and bloody history to credit for all their successes as nations. If you use only past actions by a country as a compass for how to deal with an arising situation then you have to question the vision and intelligence of those decision makers.
I genuinely consider the bombings in Japan a . . . massive mistake tantamount to a war crime and many historians and the efforts of the USSBS indicate that Japan was willing to surrender regardless of Russian forces or possible bombing.
Even though a court refused to rule on the actions of the US in regards to this being a war crime, one quote I think is poignant is this:
"the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."
These bombings were, in my view, pure and unfiltered terrorism . . . nothing more. They lack necessity, merit, outcome and any moral compass.
No one debates that Japanese forces were guilty of many war crimes . . . but had the Germans won you can bet that many Allied troops would be facing war trials and justly so.
If a small wait or possible assault could have saved countless lives and generations of suffering then I think it would or could have been worth it.
Also, as an aside to this issue, I am constantly shocked at how many Americans . . . not unintelligent people, regular and intelligent people, believe that the bombings ended the war which could and would not have ended without American involvement and that they are undoubted heroes in the situation. I guess that phrase about history being written by the victor can be depressingly true.
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DlarryB
11 years ago
I am a little late to the party but found this thread intriguing and felt the need to address your responses. It appears you wish to critique Stone's style of debate as opposed to the facts provided. It is a slippery slope when one accuses another of something and then does the same thing just to prove it.
You claim that the series is riddled with logical fallacies yet there are multiple logical fallacies within your responses.
A few examples are as follows:
If you argue that the US debased itself by nuking Japan, then you are, in fact, simultaneously arguing that the US had some sort of obligation to sacrifice further American soldiers to die in the cause.
This is an insane accusation and I can count at least three logical fallacies in this one statement.
1. Strawman wherein you misrepresented and exaggerated the arguments of the person you are responding to.
2. Slippery Slope wherein you argue that further American soldiers would have to die if the US did not nuke Japan.
3. Black or White/False Dilemma wherein you claim that American soldiers would die if the US did not nuke Japan.
More examples of your endless count of fallacies can be found in the following:
And it is undebateable that the atomic bomb drops saved American lives.
Absolutely undebateable. Stone makes a fine point to note that the number of saved Americans lives was exaggerated over the years, but there is not a respected voice on the subject that puts the number lower than tens of thousands.
And to be honest, considering the brutality of Soviet invasion and occupation???? It is probably undebateable that the US nuking Japan.....saved Japanese lives. Japanese civilian lives.
It is undebateable that nuking Japan saved Korean and Chinese lives as well at the hands of their Japanese occupiers.
Hell, it even saved Soviet lives from what an invasion would have been.
As for the actual content of your response, I must say that you provide a compelling argument. However, so do our History Books and countless documentaries on the subject of WWII. But we must remember that "History belongs to the victors". Stone reminds us of this and provides the unspoken truths of these events.
I think you would be best to argue the facts presented (as opposed to the style of debate in which he employs). After all, you employ the same style but simply rest on the side of opposing opinion.
As for my opinion on the matter:
1. I firmly believe that we instigated the cold war by not honoring our agreement with Stalin. Stalin was a monster and there is no denying that. However, we provided support to the USSR in the billions which allowed Stalin to build is own retaliatory war machine. We helped grow that monster. We also knew who he was and knew that he was intending on honoring his word post Germany. If we would have handled things differently, we may have been able to peacefully keep Stalin in check while avoiding what ultimately transpired into the cold war. The adage "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" also applies to potential enemies.
2. I firmly believe that peace talks should have been allowed to take place with Japan. If nothing else, we could have agreed to a temporary peace order to prevent further loss of life while we contemplated Japan'a propositions and provided our own. We could still have maintained our "unconditional surrender" policy and did not have to agree to anything. It is quite possible that Japan may have ultimately surrendered after understanding that we were willing to drop the same bomb that we tested in the desert. The worst case scenario is that we would actually be forced to use it.
I can go on and on but must get back to work.
Regards,
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fatacad
11 years ago
I am also late to the party and found this thread intriguing. I admit that Malakar is a talented and very persuasive debater, he expresses his views in an extremely vivid and compellingly intelligent manner, but the way you summed up his logical fallacies is 100% correct! and you completely annihilated his whole 20,000 word argument by simply quoting Strawman and Slippery Slope on your lunch break. Just wanted to give you the praise you deserve, Kudos to you, Sir
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