World War II & Personal Posted by JP Stormcrow, 19 Apr 2007 05:00 am

The Road To (and From) Okinawa

Sixty-two years ago today, American army units, supported by naval artillery, were preparing for yet another assault on Kakazu Ridge, a part of the outer line of the “Shuri” defenses on the southern part of Okinawa Island. April 1st, Easter Sunday, had been L Day (the landings on Okinawa itself) for Operation ICEBERG. There had been little opposition to the American landings, nor any significant fighting during the first few days of the operation. However, within the first week, American Army units, including my father’s, had begun to run up against the well-established Japanese defenses concentrated in the southern third of the island and which took full advantage of the abundant rocky hills, caves and burial tombs. These engagements marked the start of more than two months of  bitter fighting as American Army and Marine units slowly forged advances through the well-prepared Japanese defenses. When they reached the southern tip of the island in June, the last land battle of World War II came to a close. The Americans had suffered 12,000 dead and 50,000 wounded, the Japanese Army almost 100,000 dead and 7,000 captured (up to a quarter of the army was Okinawan conscripts), and estimates of the death toll among Okinawan civilians ranged from 40,000 to 150,000 (modern consensus favors the higher estimates.)

Hill that was part of the defenses, normally covered with verdant foliage.

US Tanks and infantry on Okinawa.

The campaign for Okinawa had many noteworthy features, including the most intense Kamikaze attacks of the war against the supporting US fleet, extensive use of flamethrowers against entrenched Japanese defenses, mass civilian suicides, the deaths of the commanding officers on both sides - and of the famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle, the sinking of the “super” battleship Yamato, intense disagreements on strategy and tactics within both the American and Japanese commands, and of course the question of what impact, if any, it had on the subsequent decision by the United States to use atomic weapons against mainland Japan. For further reading, I recommend the official Army history available online here, and the books: Operation Iceberg (primarily an oral history) and Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb. For me, Okinawa has served as a nexus of the personal and the historical, linking my quest to connect to my father’s specific experiences, with the larger narratives of World War II, war in general and the decision to use atomic weapons . (I want to thank The Constructivist for this post at Mostly Harmless and a subsequent one here at waagnfnp which prompted my latest reexamination of my views on the entire episode, and which led directly to this post.)

As far back as I can remember, I was aware that my father had served in World War II, but it was only after he had rebuked me in uncharacteristically angry tones for suggesting that a particularly intense fireworks display might be akin to an actual bombardment, that I began to view his time in the war in anything other than the most simple-minded comic book terms.

Subsequently, in talking with him I could only get unsatisfactorily evasive descriptions of his combat experience (though he was quite forthcoming on all other aspects of his time in the military.) Given his obvious discomfort, even I got the hint and backed off on attempts at direct discussion. Instead, I plunged into reading all that I could on Leyte and Okinawa (where he fought) and the ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program) program which he was part of along with folks like Bob Dole and Kurt Vonnegut.

Here, I will backtrack briefly and pick up the tale of my wife’s father’s brother whose experience paralleled my father’s quite closely for a time. My wife’s father’s family were relatively prosperous Viennese Jews who still had close ties to their shtetls in Poland/Russia during the 1930s. (My father came from a tiny Midwestern hamlet, where he was “privileged” to be the banker’s son, albeit one whose house did not have an indoor toilet - the parallels come later.) After the Anschluss, the immediate family all eventually managed over the course of several years to get to the US (Brooklyn), helped along by their level of prosperity, the father’s World War I service, and good luck (mother and daughter were in Russia and got to the USA via trans-Siberian railroad, then boat to Japan, and thence on to the US.)

My wife’s uncle eventually joined the Army and like my father was selected for the ASTP program. This was a “lucky” assignment (selection was by standardized test), the premise was that the war might last a long time and the US could not afford to completely cut off academic training of all young men, especially in engineering (and the universities, deprived of much of their student population by the war, lobbied hard for a program to make up some of the shortfall.) Both he and my father were assigned to large Midwestern universities.  It was nice work for wartime if you could get it. However, as it became clear that the Allies were winning the war, thoughts turned to the immediate need for ground troops to press the advantage on multiple fronts, and the ASTP program was shut down and its members reassigned to the infantry (My father ultimately ended up in an Amphibious Tank unit through an Army logistics SNAFU.)  A troop train snaked through the Midwest stopping at universities and finally delivering the new grunts to training camp in the Pacific Northwest.

Thus my wife’s uncle, with his perfect German language skills, and my father both became members of units which were to participate in the battles of Leyte and Okinawa. However, my wife’s uncle never did get to Okinawa. He was killed in Leyte by sniper fire as part of a small-scale action which, although it had its element of heroism, did little or nothing to further the aims of the war. And I am not really sure how I feel about that.

My father continued on to Okinawa, where he experienced intense combat And although I do not know any details, I have picked up enough hints from him and my mother to know that its impact on him was “Not Good”. (I have accepted that this is the extent of what I will ever know of his wartime combat experience, but I am not really sure how I feel about that.)  After the battle he and his cohort on Okinawa began preparations to take part in the invasion of the Japanese mainland. 

So we come to August 1945, and the momentous atom bomb decision(s). Among those present with decision makers Harry Truman and the US Military leaders, are my father and hundreds of thousands of US troops awaiting the order to invade the mainland, hundreds of thousands unknowing Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as all of us reading this in the future. Among those not present: 100,000 Okinawans, 100,000 Japanese soldiers on Okinawa alone, at least 100,000 civilians in Tokyo, my wife’s uncle and 12,000 other US soldiers, and millions of Jews in Europe. The decision is made, a terrible day(s)for America, Japan and humanity, which will reverberate forever - but it is still hard for me to separate it out completely from all of the other horrors of that war, and war in general. I do appreciate the uniqueness of the atom bomb deliberations, and I do not mean here to be an apologist either for the decision itself, nor the after the fact “slam dunk” justification myth that I accepted for so long, and which my father and most Americans still accept. However, I do think that post-mortem analyses of wartime actions and decisions often assume a rational calculus (especially for the leaders of states and armies) that clearly is not the whole picture in general - nor was it necessarily the case in this instance. It is certainly a point worth arguing case by case - I am not trying to wash away the existence of war crimes - but I still feel that significant responsibility for the excesses of any conflict must accrue to those who engineered the original breach of the peace. Mankind has seen and knows war, no one can claim ignorance of the blood-dimmed tide of history - the use of atomic weapons were unique, but not uniquely evil when set against this history.

Jumping ahead from 1945 to today (and it is sobering to realize that we are at a significantly further remove from that event than it was from the Spanish-American War), I find that I am not really sure about how I feel about a lot of things anymore. It is clear to me that many structural adjustments must be made in our way of seeing, understanding and living in the world if we are to avoid continual massive breaches of the peace, with all the concomitant horrors that follow. But, however confident I am that we do need to change our ways, I grow increasingly respectful of the complexity and nuance present in the world,  and thereby less sure of the correctness of many of my own choices . But although I may have lost my way to what is “right”, I still have enough clarity of moral vision to recognize what is horribly wrong.

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Responses to “The Road To (and From) Okinawa”

  1. on 19 Apr 2007 at 9:58 am 1. Seattle said …

    I’d like to retire WWII. What is it about humans that we need to relive our own and other’s traumas over and over again? WWII traumatized a generation and by proxy another couple of generations since. I regard the unrest surrounding the existance of Israel as an unacknowledged continuation of WWII-or what happens when a large population relocates due to war and dislocates another population.

    My father survived a kamikaze attack on the US California in the south Pacific. All my life I’ve looked at his burned legs and heard the things he didn’t talk about. Almost every Sunday I woke up to Wagners Ride of the Valkeries. At the age of 80, the Dr.s at the veterans hospital have drawn the shocking conclusion that perhaps he suffers from PTS. I look at the people I’ve involved myself with, the majority of them suffering from some form of childhood trauma and draw lines of connection to my 17 year old father floating in the sea with burning legs. I’m ready to retire WWII.

  2. on 19 Apr 2007 at 11:25 am 2. christian h. said …

    Sorry, off topic: apparently, the US released Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Cuban terrorist likely responsible for the bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976, from custody today - pending trial on immigration charges.

    War on Terror, my ass.

    More on topic: the question of who started it is not so easy to answer with regards to the Pacific portion of World War II (as opposed to the European part, were there’s no doubt whatsoever). It depend on what “it” means. The economic embargo measures (on oil and scrap metal, for example) taken by the US against Japan before the hot war started with the attack on Pearl Harbor were certainly, to quote Jimmy Carter in a similar context, “the moral equivalent of war”. In my opinion, this was a textbook example of a war between imperialist powers.
    Of course actions - like dropping a nuclear bomb - should be viewed in the historical context they were taken in, but it is a little easy to say “Well, they started it. Tough luck.” - in particular when it isn’t so obvious that they really did start “it”. (I’m not saying these are JP’s views, but I have numerous otherwise reasonable liberal acquaintances whose opinions on the nuclear bomb issue can basically be summed up as “Japan started the war. The bombs were needed to finish it. So there.” - which is, in my view, an expression of the mythologization of World War II in the US, to the degree were it has replaced the revolutionary war as the “founding myth” of the country.)

  3. on 19 Apr 2007 at 12:29 pm 3. James Killus said …

    I agree with Seattle; it’s time to let go of WWII.

    I’ve known too many people who treat grief and suffering like treasured family heirlooms, or maybe even a trust fund, a way of collecting interest off the past deeds of others. It seems shabby somehow, like the last dregs of a family fortune used for drugs and paid sycophancy.

    We share experiences with our parents and grandparents, but not those experiences. Similarly, our own experiences often baffle them. Hell, I’m frequently baffled by the experiences of those my own age, to say nothing of the lessons they’ve supposedly learned. And frankly, I’ve made a point of having experiences and learning lessons that baffle other people. What good is having an individual life if it does not individuate? Yet truly shared experiences amplify those experiences, and elevate them to a height sufficient to improve the view.

    Vicarious experience, on the other hand, is a diminishment, both of the observer and the observed. I don’t want life, either mine or anyone else’s, to become just another chunk of reality television, or a snatch of some grainy newsreel.

  4. on 19 Apr 2007 at 1:52 pm 4. spyder said …

    Sorry, off topic: apparently, the US released Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Cuban terrorist likely responsible for the bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976, from custody today - pending trial on immigration charges.

    my first and only response: “those fucking bastards, gawd i hope some cubano-venezuelan truth-squad cuts him down to size (shoe box??).”

    it has replaced the revolutionary war as the “founding myth” of the country. Interesting as today is the anniversary of that singular precipitous event on the greens of Lexington and Concord. And from the spawn of that violent reaction to oppressive imperial disdain for the collective of individuals, we continue, across successive generations to hold violence near and dear as THE teh tool of making people behave democratically (re: capitalistically).

    It is clear to me that many structural adjustments must be made in our way of seeing, understanding and living in the world if we are to avoid continual massive breaches of the peace, with all the concomitant horrors that follow.

    The recent reports by military planners that the US needs to acknowledge and recognize that our “collective” choices to overuse and abuse the wealth of the planet (wow the UK pound hit its highest level regards the US dollar this morning in more than 25 years), are endangering our children’s and grandchildren’s future. Countries will use force and violence to keep us from making things worse, and to garner their presumed fair share of such minor resources as fresh water and arable fields.

  5. on 19 Apr 2007 at 2:31 pm 5. JP Stormcrow said …

    I agree with Seattle; it’s time to let go of WWII.

    Hah! I’ll let go of WWII when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

    And I will say that in looking back at it, there was a fair degree of selfishness in the compulsion I had as a younger man to fill in those gaps - as if I were entitled by birthright to the knowledge. And I certainly had not thought through what I would even do with anything I learned as a result, or how it might complicate our relationship. And yet, as I say in the post, I am still somewhat ambivalent. That’s me.

    I am not, however, ambivalent about what I learned from that pursuit - in particular, after reading about the battles themselves, I consumed large chunks of the official service histories of the war and other “insider” narratives: the planning, the politics, the logistics (God, were there logistics!), the uncertainties, the bold leaps of foresight and the stupidities. I do not begrudge the time I spent, and value the perspective I gained. I have read rather deeply about one war, and it is WWII, but I do not doubt any war would have served.

    To Christian’s point,
    It did not come across very well, but yes I would certainly cast a relatively wide net in identifying those who engineered the original breach of the peace. War is certainly an example of collectively “wearing the chains we forge in life”, and it this broader perspective that has increasingly caused me to question many of my assumptions and routines. What exactly in my life and actions helped get that little bantam son-of-a-bitch strutting across the carrier deck like a First World Idi Amin to the eternal shame of my nation? Whatever they may be, I would dearly love to know and change them.

  6. on 19 Apr 2007 at 3:23 pm 6. James Killus said …

    After I posted, I did realize that I should have made it clear that I don’t mean that anyone should deny, denigrate, or ignore the experiences of ones that came before us. I am a strong believer in history and the need to understand it on its own terms. And it does appear to me, JP, that you have taken some pains to avoid moulding the history to your own ends.

    That notion of people not taking history on its own terms, is part of what I find so bothersome about “inherited grievances.” Do I think that the descendants of African-American slaves are owed “reparations” for slavery? No. I think they are probably owed reparations for evils that they have experienced within their own lifetimes. Do Hiroshima and Nagasaki have anything to teach us about SDI? On the contrary, I think such appeals muddle thought. Are the “lessons” to be learned from Vietnam, or “The Sixties?” Both look like Xtreme Rorschach to me.

    By the way, Woodstock sucked. On the other hand, Fox Hollow was great.

    “And the drugs? Well, the drugs were fantastic.” — Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater

  7. on 19 Apr 2007 at 3:39 pm 7. christian h. said …

    I am a strong believer in history and the need to understand it on its own terms.

    I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. History is a reflection of the past in the present, it seems to me.

  8. on 19 Apr 2007 at 3:41 pm 8. Seattle said …

    LOL

    From one of my favorite (heh) bad kid’s movies, Small Soldiers:

    “I love World War II; I think it’s my favorite war….”

    Phil Fimple (played by Phil Hartman)

  9. on 19 Apr 2007 at 4:33 pm 9. Seattle said …

    “I am not, however, ambivalent about what I learned from that pursuit - in particular, after reading about the battles themselves, I consumed large chunks of the official service histories of the war and other “insider” narratives: the planning, the politics, the logistics (God, were there logistics!), the uncertainties, the bold leaps of foresight and the stupidities. I do not begrudge the time I spent, and value the perspective I gained.”

    Did you read any histories of the event by Japanese authors, from the Japanese perspective?

    History is written by the victors.

    -Winston Churchill

  10. on 19 Apr 2007 at 6:19 pm 10. JP Stormcrow said …

    Did you read any histories of the event by Japanese authors, from the Japanese perspective?

    My reading has been admittedly US-centric. However, I did read The Battle For Okinawa by Hiromichi Yahara, a high-ranking staff officer in the Japanese army on Okinawa. He was one of the prime advocates for a purely defensive strategy, as opposed to aggressive counterattacks. The Army history of Okinawa in my link above does give a fair bit of attention to the organization and tactics of the Japanese forces, as you would expect from a professional military history, but of course its perspective is American.

    History is written by the victors.

    -Winston Churchill

    And of course he would know, having written a detailed six-volume history of the war. It actually was one of the first things I read on WWII in college, but I would certainly not recommend it as a place to start. Of course he had a lot of insight into what was going on behind the scenes, but he also has his own extensive “backside acreage” to cover, which he does skillfully. It is something best read in the context of a prior knowledge of the basic facts of the war.

  11. on 19 Apr 2007 at 7:40 pm 11. James Killus said …

    “History on its own terms” means, among other things, and to paraphrase David McCullough, people in the past were living in their present. They did not know how it would all turn out. They were afraid of things that did not happen, but those things did not happen partly because of their own actions, and it is the height of arrogance for us to assume through the wisdom of hindsight, that had they acted differently, those things that they were afraid of still wouldn’t have happened.

    It is also folly to ascribe modern motives and insights to those in the past, and to assume that what is obvious now was obvious then. Lamarkism was once a respectable scientific hypothesis. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was well designed; no one before it ever thought that aerodynamics was an important aspect of bridge design. Well meaning, intelligent people once believed in eugenics, and the reason why we can now have strong opinions about the uselessness of strategic bombing is because of the large number of times it has failed to achieve its ends.

    The two scariest phrases that can possibly be uttered about the past is, “This is just like then,” and “Things are different now.” It is possible to gain wisdom from history, but not by analogy, and everything worked out for the best, because it produced us, and we are wonderful, except for those guys over there, who wouldn’t be a problem if something had been done right at the beginning.

  12. on 19 Apr 2007 at 7:48 pm 12. christian h. said …

    Now I have some time, let me expand a little on my remark concerning James’ “understand history on its own terms” point. My thinking is that we understand the past through its action on the present, and the cultural product of that understanding is what we call history. Hence I don’t see how we can “understand history on its own terms” - or more accurately, I don’t know what that means. If it simply means “contextualize!”, then I agree, and so does everybody else, I believe. However, if it is supposed to advocate a naive historicism (”tell it like it happened”, to quote Leopold von Ranke), then I don’t agree at all.

    To get back to the example of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a useful historical reflection of these events cannot, I believe, be obtained isolated from a consideration of the nuclear age that followed - in this sense the bombings have to do with SDI.

  13. on 19 Apr 2007 at 7:57 pm 13. JP Stormcrow said …

    Or as Don Rumsfeld might put it: you have to live with the history you have, not the history you want.

    James, I am curious, are you a fan of alternate histories? I find many to be tiresome, but there are a few that I quite liked. The Years of Salt and Rice, The Iron Dream and The Man in the High Castle spring to mind.

  14. on 19 Apr 2007 at 8:00 pm 14. christian h. said …

    and it is the height of arrogance for us to assume through the wisdom of hindsight, that had they acted differently, those things that they were afraid of still wouldn’t have happened.

    Maybe. But that does not mean that we can’t say after the fact, that, for example, strategic bombing was useless - if only to avoid the same mistake. I don’t see why it should be outrageous to judge past actions - it is in fact necessary if we want to learn from them.

    As importantly, we shouldn’t think people in the past were too stupid to know things. When North Korea and later Vietnam were bombed strategically, for example, it was already quite clear from prior experience that strategic bombing didn’t work. The fact that those in charge might not have been able to realize this because they were blinded by groupthink is no excuse.

    As far as Hiroshima and Nagasaki are concerned, there is ample evidence that the decision-makers were well aware that Japan was about to surrender due to the Soviet entry into the war anyway; and that Truman decided to go ahead in an effort to scare the Soviets. You may disagree (and I don’t want to start a whole big discussion about it), but I think dismissing the possibility - supported by serious historical research - out of hand is somewhat lazy.

  15. on 19 Apr 2007 at 9:59 pm 15. James Killus said …

    JP, I’m on good terms with Harry Turtledove, so I never mention the fact that I pretty seriously dislike alternate histories. On the other hand, I substantially enjoy historical fantasies such as Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates or Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas, so there you are. I think it has something to do with implied realism. Fantasy must answer to the measure of emotional realism, not physical realism, and that makes a difference.

    Christian H. And there you are as well. I tend to look at the ample evidence that Truman exerted considerable effort to encourage the Soviet Union’s entrance into the war as indicating that Truman was throwing everything he had at ending the war as quickly as possible, which was what his job entailed. The debates are over whether or not it was “reasonable” to demand unconditional surrender, and whether or not such a demand was best for everyone involved. I say yes, but everyone is welcome to yearn for a better past, provided they understand that they will never get it.

    As for the strategic bombings of Vietnam, I have the luxury of not having to resort to history. For me it was once current events; I thought it both criminal and stupid at the time and I have not changed my mind.

  16. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:09 pm 16. James Killus said …

    Oh, and one final point: to frame current nuclear debates in terms of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is to demand that people agree with you in all particulars, that any and all uses of nuclear weapons be considered inherently evil. This is a standard of ideological purity; it practically insures that you will lose the debate.

  17. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:11 pm 17. The Constructivist said …

    Hmm, it just so happens that I used to have arguments much like these with my grandfather on Hawthorne’s racism. But actually the reason I am writing is to recommend a few books on Okinawa on my way to making a larger point about how we conceive of the past in the present.

    Michael Molasky’s The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory is a great introduction to and analysis of Japanese and Okinawan literature on the U.S. Occupation (which didn’t end in the latter until 1972) and a salutary reminder than many Okinawans consider themselves and their ancestors to have been victimized by Japanese imperialism. (One of my wife’s best friends from college in the States returned to Okinawa and took up politics–he’s one of the youngest elected officials on the island, and his long-term goal is independence from Japan.) It’s ironic that Hawaii and Okinawa are linked in so many people’s minds by WW II, as their histories are actually fairly similar–both function as vacation paradises in the imaginations of main(is)landers, but there are significant debates among the natives as to the virtues of political independence (in that, they are not so different from Puerto Rico).

    A much shorter and easier-to-digest work, though, is Tomiko Higa’s The Girl with the White Flag, which tells how she survived the battle of Okinawa as a little girl and also tells the story of her reuniting with the photographer who took her picture when she was captured/rescued by American forces late in the battle. Amazon provides links to other books on Okinawa you may be interested in.

    I still owe you all my own Okinawa post–I’ve been thinking about it but have little time as my semester here in Japan is getting into full swing–so in lieu of it I’ll suggest you all come out and visit Okinawa one winter or early spring (before it gets too hot!). The historical tours they offer are something to be experienced.

    In any case, the larger point I’m stumbling toward here is that we revise our histories all the time. The Atlantic just featured in its book review section the work of British and other historians who have finally gotten access to the ex-USSR’s archives and are completely upgrading our view of the Eastern Front. The significance of this new evidence will be hashed out for decades to come, but the emerging consensus is that Stalin defeated Hitler and paradoxically saved the world for democracy. Similarly, as the mid-’90s Enola Gay controversy shows, it’s easier to demonize than engage the findings of the historians Christian alludes to.

    As this is likely to be held in comment limbo due to my excess linking, I’ll get to my larger point in the next one.

  18. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:13 pm 18. Oaktown Girl said …

    I think WWII has been fetishized to an unhealthy degree for a long time now. And I think we all know why. And don’t even get me started on this “Greatest Generation” business.

    Thanks JP, for this non-fetishized and informative post!

  19. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:32 pm 19. The Constructivist said …

    But first (a reference to a comment likely to be in limbo due to excessive linking), I agree wholeheartedly with James’s endorsement of historical fantasy (I like Guy Gavriel Kay’s efforts over the past decade or so), but I am a huge fan of The Years of Rice and Salt, which, by the way, participates in our science/belief/faith debates, especially toward the end, where one of the characters starts sounding like late-career Einstein. Anyway…

    What I like about JP’s post is that it’s more about memory and stories–especially withheld ones–than about history. I’ve done a bit of scholarly writing on trauma and literature, and his (and others’) dad’s reticence is part of a larger pattern where those traumatized stay silent to avoid triggering flashbacks, or to avoid the difficulties of bearing witness (which many emphasize includes a compulsion to tell along with a confrontation with the impossibility of telling), or to spare their listeners the possibility of being traumatized by their witnessing. (If you do a search on “trauma” at Citizen of Somewhere Else, you can see how I frame my work in this field.) In the absence of eyewitness testimony, JP heads into history and is forced to confront the difficulties of evidence and interpretation that search gets you into.

    It also gets you into difficulties of framing. As in, in which contexts and from whose perspectives do we view WW II? I’ve been gnawing on this problem over at CitizenSE, too, and what I have to ask here is a little preview of what I hope to post there next Monday (my time). What happens when we see WW II as part of a continuum, from the annexation of Hawaii and the invasion/liberation/occupation of the Philippines in the late 19th and early 20th C to the Vietnam War, a period in which the U.S. went from being an economic powerhouse to a military and political one and, in effect, tried on the clothes of the European imperialist tradition, tried to make alterations, sometimes removed them, and eventually put them aside for good and gave up on attempting to hold colonies in East and Southeast Asia?

  20. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:33 pm 20. The Constructivist said …

    And yes, I managed to get a typo in my first link to CitizenSE. Sorry.

  21. on 19 Apr 2007 at 10:45 pm 21. Oaktown Girl said …

    TC - let me assure you that your comment (#17 above) did NOT go into moderation.

    {It went straight into our Spam bucket!}

    But seriously, thanks for letting me know, otherwise I would have forgotten to check before turning in for the night.

  22. on 19 Apr 2007 at 11:04 pm 22. JP Stormcrow said …

    so I never mention the fact that I pretty seriously dislike alternate histories

    Ok, then I won’t respond to you by saying that the reason I asked was because it seemed like that would follow from your previous statements.

    Thanks JP, for this non-fetishized and informative post!

    Well in retrospect, I tried to mash too much in to it, and kind of forgot that the boomer lament on not connecting with their father’s involvement in the war has been done a bit to death, even if I had never actually written down my version of it before - but then again, if it weren’t for self-indulgence there would be no blogging at all.

    When I first contemplated the post, I was going to stop at the discussion re: the atomic bomb decision, but as I was contemplating my various ambivalences about that, the Bush in a flightsuit image came to me unbidden accompanied by a wave of rage. I had always viewed that whole episode more through the lens of the weird homoerotic response of folks like Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity, as well as the whole lying Rove political PR production angle - pathetic, sad, and ridiculous, but not really “menacing”. But for some reason, this time around it struck me as the perfect visual metaphor for the whole mad criminal enterprise that is BushCo Inc. Buffoons yes, but dangerous, deadly buffoons, and for those of us in the US, our dangerous, deadly buffoons.

  23. on 19 Apr 2007 at 11:35 pm 23. JP Stormcrow said …

    though, is Tomiko Higa’s The Girl with the White Flag,

    I have run across references to this book a number of times and have been meaning to get to it, thanks for the reminder - and the pointer to the book on the occupation.

    There certainly is a lot to the role of the US in the Okinawa/Japan tangle beyond just the WWII battle, starting with Admiral Perry and continuing to the present.

  24. on 19 Apr 2007 at 11:49 pm 24. The Constructivist said …

    I have to say I didn’t find it nearly as moving as Barefoot Gen. BTW, I find Dower’s War Without Mercy a very even-handed exploration of the issues we’ve been discussing. Oh, and via Boing Boing I came across a post of Douglas Adams reading from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe as part of a Dawkins video attacking some religious fallacy or other that makes the reading particularly apropos–and potentially of interest to our science/belief/faith warriors who drop in on this thread!

    And thanks, Oaktown Girl, for the late night save!

  25. on 20 Apr 2007 at 10:18 am 25. Zeus said …

    From Wikipedia :

    Choice of targets

    The Target Committee at Los Alamos on May 10–11, 1945, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The committee rejected the use of the weapon against a strictly military objective because of the chance of missing a small target not surrounded by a larger urban area. The psychological effects on Japan were of great importance to the committee members. They also agreed that the initial use of the weapon should be sufficiently spectacular for its importance to be internationally recognized. The committee felt Kyoto, as an intellectual center of Japan, had a population “better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon.” Hiroshima was chosen because of its large size, its being “an important army depot” and the potential that the bomb would cause greater destruction because the city was surrounded by hills which would have a “focusing effect”.[14]

    Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson struck Kyoto from the list because of its cultural significance, over the objections of General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson “had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier.” On July 25 General Carl Spaatz was ordered to bomb one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki as soon after August 3 as weather permitted and the remaining cities as additional weapons became available.[15]

    [14] ^ Atomic Bomb: Decision — Target Committee, May 10–11, 1945. Retrieved on August 6, 2005.

    [15] ^ Thomas Handy: Memorandum, July 25, 1945. Retrieved on April 6, 2006.

    Zeus: What is alarming is the lack of moral consideration, human costs, civilian casualties, regard for life at all. The scientific/military calculation and discussion was more akin to designing an engineering experiment and seeing which variables would facilitate the best (most destructive) and grandest (most impressive to the international community) effect. This was not only meant to destroy, but to send a message about future unilateral U.S. military dominance and power, motivations obscured by the doctored historical explanations revealed below…

    From the link provided in the original posting by JP Stormcrow “The Road to (and from) Okinawa:

    Americans were also told that use of the bombs “led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands.” But it’s not that straightforward. As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has shown definitively in his new book, “Racing the Enemy” - and many other historians have long argued - it was the Soviet Union’s entry into the Pacific war on Aug. 8, two days after the Hiroshima bombing, that provided the final “shock” that led to Japan’s capitulation.

    The Enola Gay exhibit also repeated such outright lies as the assertion that “special leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities” warning civilians to evacuate. The fact is that atomic bomb warning leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities, but only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed.

    The hard truth is that the atomic bombings were unnecessary. A million lives were not saved. Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, the man who first popularized this figure, later confessed that he had pulled it out of thin air in order to justify the bombings in a 1947 Harper’s magazine essay he had ghostwritten for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.

    The bomb was dropped, as J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, said in November 1945, on “an essentially defeated enemy.” President Truman and his closest adviser, Secretary of State James Byrnes, quite plainly used it primarily to prevent the Soviets from sharing in the occupation of Japan. And they used it on Aug. 6 even though they had agreed among themselves as they returned home from the Potsdam Conference on Aug. 3 that the Japanese were looking for peace.

    These unpleasant historical facts were censored from the 1995 Smithsonian exhibit, an action that should trouble every American. When a government substitutes an officially sanctioned view for publicly debated history, democracy is diminished.

    Today, in the post-9-11 era, it is critically important that the U.S. face the truth about the atomic bomb. For one thing, the myths surrounding Hiroshima have made it possible for our defense establishment to argue that atomic bombs are legitimate weapons that belong in a democracy’s arsenal. But if, as Oppenheimer said, “they are weapons of aggression, of surprise and of terror,” how can a democracy rely on such weapons?

    Oppenheimer understood very soon after Hiroshima that these weapons would ultimately threaten our very survival.

    Presciently, he even warned us against what is now our worst national nightmare - and Osama bin Laden’s frequently voiced dream - an atomic suitcase bomb smuggled into an American city: “Of course it could be done,” Oppenheimer told a Senate committee, “and people could destroy New York.”

    Ironically, Hiroshima’s myths are now motivating our enemies to attack us with the very weapon we invented. Bin Laden repeatedly refers to Hiroshima in his rambling speeches. It was, he believes, the atomic bombings that shocked the Japanese imperial government into an early surrender - and, he says, he is planning an atomic attack on the U.S. that will similarly shock us into retreating from the Mideast.

    Finally, Hiroshima’s myths have gradually given rise to an American unilateralism born of atomic arrogance.

    Oppenheimer warned against this “sleazy sense of omnipotence.” He observed that “if you approach the problem and say, ‘We know what is right and we would like to use the atomic bomb to persuade you to agree with us,’ then you are in a very weak position and you will not succeed. … You will find yourselves attempting by force of arms to prevent a disaster.”

  26. on 20 Apr 2007 at 11:32 am 26. James Killus said …

    I’m quite familiar with the Hiroshima/Nagasaki counter mythology, Zeus. I consider the “they were about to surrender anyway,” narrative fully as compelling as “we only resented the Civil Rights Act because it was forced upon us. We were going to do the right thing eventually, anyway.”

    Reread the original post. The soldiers on Okinawa were also “a beaten army.” Yet they still fought to the death. No doubt the armies of the Confederacy would have surrendered without the burning of Atlanta, just as they accepted Reconstruction with such good grace. And the Japanese are no doubt much weaker than the sons of the Confederacy.

    The reason why I dislike alternate histories is because one person gets to tell everyone in the narrative how they will behave. In actuality, people do as they will. All you must do to prove your point is to get me to agree with you. And I will not. Then what? And I am not even a adherent of Bushido, just stubborn.

    Do you have a sensei? What is his/her name?

  27. on 20 Apr 2007 at 12:05 pm 27. christian h. said …

    James, I wonder why you think you need to dismiss historical research that does not fit your preconception so readily. It’s one thing to disagree - fair enough - it’s another to ridicule it, or those who take it seriously.
    It is clear that the official story on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is at the very least open to debate (and has been for a long time). The revisionist view is not some crackpot conspiracy theory, nor is it based on guesswork or empty professions of intent - it is supported by ample documentary evidence.

  28. on 20 Apr 2007 at 12:33 pm 28. JP Stormcrow said …

    Since it was I who cried havoc, and let slip the dogs of historical analysis on this one, let me unwisely jump in for a second.

    For a decision of this complexity and magnitude, I think it is extremely difficult to try and establish a “motive”. I would not necessarily even trust a direct statement from Harry Truman in his frickin’ diary, not simply because he might be covering his ass, but because it may not even rise to the level of his conscious awareness. That said, I am sure there were some in the loop on the US side who really did want to just let ‘em rip and see what happened (men who in their own way were brutalized by the war - although many as well were undoubtedly operating under a racist perspective), but I am also sure that the “what if they don’t” scenario was a factor - even if only at the level of the subconscious.

    Yes many self-serving and/or ideology-reinforcing mythologies can be (and are) made out of momentous historical events - many have some validity within a certain context, but only very rarely does one approach anyhting like the whole truth.

    (I am feeling like I need a whole study program in theories of historical analysis right now, - or maybe the counterfactual history where I posted about the beautiful spring weather we are finally having here…. I know, I am a coward.)

    Wait a minute, i have an idea! Let’s retire WWII.

  29. on 20 Apr 2007 at 12:53 pm 29. Oaktown Girl said …

    JP - all you’re missing is a comment hyperlink back to Seattle’s comment up at #1. Being the looping ever-inward-and-ever-outward White Hole expert that you are, I’m surprised you didn’t do it! Or maybe you’re at work like me - which is why I can’t link to your White Hole “Insert Title Here” post right now.

    Seattle!

  30. on 20 Apr 2007 at 1:19 pm 30. JP Stormcrow said …

    I am not a looping ever-inward-and-ever-outward White Hole expert. I am a Man! I am a human being!

    Careful, I could set the building on fire destroy the margins of this blog with a single bad YouTube embed!

  31. on 20 Apr 2007 at 1:33 pm 31. Oaktown Girl said …

    Careful, I could set the building on fire destroy the margins of this blog with a single bad YouTube embed!

    Oh yes, GFAT. You’ve more than proven your destructive prowess! (Sweet Lord Astaroth, have you ever proven it!)

  32. on 20 Apr 2007 at 1:43 pm 32. spyder said …

    In the absence of eyewitness testimony, JP heads into history and is forced to confront the difficulties of evidence and interpretation that search gets you into.

    Growing up as the “chosen” scion in a multi-generational US military family, i was encouraged (forcefully at times) to learn my military history, particularly naval history. Later, during my early years of academic training, i had the good fortune (at the time i swore it was misfortune and the spawn of hell as it just seemed like so much common sense to me) to study under historians of religions who took historiography and historicism very, very seriously. I really hated to have to spend so much time learning about this or that historian within the context of their lives, philosophies, and time frames (i wanted to get to what i wanted to study, damn it), but over the years the hard work had so many hidden blessings.

    Over the years, particularly now, that sort of deeper effort has been set aside for greater intensive excursions into specializations. I say this because i mentor a doctoral student at a “prestigious” university who wishes she were so embedded, in that it would help her think better about her own researches; and Catherine Murray, a cultural historian, made a similar comment recently. Thus when JP writes: I am feeling like I need a whole study program in theories of historical analysis right now, he is not likely to easily find such a program, though efforts are being made to reinvigorate them.

    James point then (i think somewhere in there), regarding the past tenseness of history, is important in this regard. And i will use military history and military behavior as an example. What is oft misunderstood outside of the military, is that they (military leadership) will formulate and develop long and short term strategic goals and plans regardless of the politics. It is their job to do so, and their histories reflect that. James was suggesting that when we review this or that history (i hope i am reading James correctly), we tend to try to fit it into our own constructs and perceptions rather than take it at face value for what it is. Military history, for the most part, is just what it is, and does not usually acknowledge parameters outside of its intent– we fought war like this because xyz. This however does not preclude us from making our own intepretations, only that we recognize and honor the authors of those histories, and respect and present factually the artifacts and primary source materials as they are giving to us to use.

    The military history Zeus mentions above is fairly accurate and straightforward. It was not the Department of War’s job to make the final decisions only to offer the best case strategems for the political process to consider. For example, one of the great strands of world military history is focussed solely on weaponization. US Naval Academy historians love to talk about this stuff (personal experience), disregarding any of the related human factors and intensely focussed on the minutea of development as it relates to military success. My new stick with a sharp rock tied on it beats your club with a rock tied on it; my MIRV’d warhead system beats your single large warhead system; my super quiet submarine beats your sub chasing; and so forth and so on. If you view the long term of human history solely form this perspective you see WW2 as a point along a long and productive line of weapon development.

    Military historians also embed themselves into the fabric of strategies and tactics, again separating those out from their human, social, and political tapestries. Thus one can discuss Genghis Khan at the same time as Patton and Mao, and comfortably ignore the human and social costs all three created in their efforts. And we here in the US have three separate graduate institutions in which future military commanders are training, focussing on the effective use of nuclear weapons, the efficacy of various bio and chemical weapons of mass and minimalist destructions, and other horrible futures. They don’t spend much time on the philosophical implications of these courses of actions, or on the social and human costs, other than to maximize their own survivability and decrease that of the enemy. Thus we end up standing at the dawn of a new era (and finally after wandering tangentially all over the freaking map) in which our military is developing the most sophisticated and technologically advanced weapon delivery systems imagineable and unimagineable. Robotics and VR based wireless AI controlled vehicles are either being designed or being tested, that reduce the human cost of the the fighting force while increasing the lethality of the attacks.

    My question then is: Do we train our political leaders to make the most humanely-informed decisions regardless of the presence and pressure of the military to use a horrific weapon to satisfy a quest for the violent resolution of a social/political problem?? Right now, i don’t think so at all.

  33. on 20 Apr 2007 at 2:08 pm 33. Seattle said …

    Wha? Oh, yeah. : ) Here’s my two cents on the dropping of the bombs that ended our favorite soon to be retired war: it was all about miscommunication. Or mistranslation, to be more exact. From a cross-cultural communication standpoint, the response from the Japanese to the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was not a flat “No.” It had more the flavor of “Give us a chance to save face don’t push so hard not yet.” But that’s not how it was interpreted/translated. The nuance was lost in translation.

  34. on 20 Apr 2007 at 2:16 pm 34. JP Stormcrow said …

    The nuance was lost in translation

    Lost in Translation. Wasn’t that the Bill Murray film where he has to live August 6th in Hiroshima over and over again, and each time the bomb gets dropped for a different reason…

  35. on 20 Apr 2007 at 2:38 pm 35. Seattle said …

    LOL Hated that flick.

  36. on 20 Apr 2007 at 2:49 pm 36. The Constructivist said …

    Dower points out that U.S. war planners also tended to take Japanese war propaganda at its word, when actually civilian support for the war on the mainland was shaky and the Thought Police were concerned about disloyalty to the Emperor and civilian uprisings (Japan in War and Peace). Also, Okinawa was a relatively-recently-acquired colonial possession–whether the Japanese Army would have been as brutal toward the citizens of southern Kyushu as they were toward the second-class-citizen-Ryukyus of Okinawa. And the Soviet army had its choice of landing zones–northwestern Kyushu (near the Korean peninsula) and Hokkaido spring to mind–so the Japanese Army could conceivably been facing a multi-front war. How long Japanese leaders would have put off surrendering under such pressures is still an open question, of course, and their delays could well have resulted in more deaths and more suffering than in Nagasaki. Try telling that to the people you meet in Nagasaki next time you visit.

    For me, Dower (in War Without Mercy) raises the more difficult question of whether U.S. racial stereotyping and U.S. war propaganda, which framed the war effort as against all Japan rather than doing as was done with the German people, who were distinguished from the Nazi regime, played as big a role in the planners’ decision-making as any strategic or geopolitical calculation.

    You all may remember from my first post here my not-at-all-anti-American student (who would be horrified again that we’re even having this debate); well, after class I asked her what her reaction would be if Japan had been split like Germany after the war, with the USSR holding northern and the US holding southern Japan. I’m not saying the Nagasaki bomb prevented that (it seems to me from my little reading on the subject that Stalin was in no position to take a firm stand at the end of the war and was more interested in trading Asian influence for European [and perhaps hoping that the U.S. would get bogged down in China’s civil war?]), but I wanted her to engage James’s point that changing one aspect of history would change a lot more than just that one aspect It gave her food for thought, at least. Dower’s most recent book, Embracing Defeat, gives even more food for thought. I recommend it highly.

    To spyder’s great question, I don’t have a good answer. Where were Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith and the gang educated? What did they take from their decades of schooling? What Washington and media “schools” were they enrolled in after graduation? My first (perhaps radical democratic) impulse is to say that civil society needs to demand a better education for its elected and appointed officials; that is, non-state, non-corporate associations and organizations need to pose better questions to those in power at every opportunity and not be satisfied with anything but engaged responses. Same for everyday citizens–especially in the smaller Congressional districts, it’s not too hard to visit your Representative’s local office and get some time with staffers at least. These kinds of public education are a decent first step. (Isn’t there an anti-war campus group doing a sit-in in Kohl’s local office right now? Or is that already over?)

  37. on 20 Apr 2007 at 3:37 pm 37. Oaktown Girl said …

    LOL Hated that flick.

    But that flick was a total media/Academy darling. What’s wrong with you? Who the hell are you to go against the prevailing opinion of the Opinion Makers?

    But let’s continue this at the Friday Night/Week End Open Thread that will be posted up this evening. Nothing like an Open Thread for movie chat. So check back in tonight or over the weekend, Seattle, and tell us why you hate Bill Murray - and by extension - America, so much.

  38. on 20 Apr 2007 at 3:41 pm 38. Seattle said …

    Would that mean I’d have to sit in front of a computer on my weekend? Isn’t 40 hours a week enough in front of the demon spawn box? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT OF ME!!!! ; )

  39. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:08 pm 39. Oaktown Girl said …

    Seattle, I was simply using your comment as a nice little bridge to plug our Friday night/weekend Open Thread which MOOAD Minister spyder is so kindly hosting. But hey, thanks for throwing cold water all over it. : )

  40. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:32 pm 40. Seattle said …

    hu·mor /ˈhyumər or, often, ˈyu-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hyoo-mer or, often, yoo-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
    –noun 1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.
    2. the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical: [Oaktown Girl] is completely without humor.
    3. an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; something humorous: The humor in [Seattle’s] joke eluded the audience.
    4. the faculty of expressing the amusing or comical: [Seattle’s] humor came across better in the book than in the movie.

    ; )

  41. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:40 pm 41. Oaktown Girl said …

    What? Didn’t you see my smiley face at the end of my comment? Or is this just more evidence of my lack of humor for trying to plug one of the WAAGNFNP’s most excellent writers, MOOAD Minister spyder? : )

  42. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:40 pm 42. James Killus said …

    On yet still further reflection:

    There are many historical controversies that I greet with, “Sure, fine, whatever.” I also have no problem with the occasional overt condemnation. Andrew Jackson was an evil son of a bitch, in my opinion, and I’ve believed so since the first times I had his “greatness” thrust upon me in school.

    The reason why I am scornful of the “the Japanese were about to surrender anyway,” is that I find it demeaning to the Japanese of that time, and because I believe that the urge to believe that all that violence wasn’t necessary is very soothing to our own psyches.

    Nuclear weapons put the United States genuinely at risk of destruction, as opposed to those bizarre paranoid fantasies of invasion that ran rampant immediately after Pearl Harbor. How convenient it would be, how very pleasant, if the nuke genie were back in the bottle, or better yet, if it had never come forth. And it does so further the ends of those who wish to deny the nukes their place (notice I do not say “rightful place”) in the world to hold that they never had a shred of utility in war.

    All it takes to indulge this fantasy is a belief that a people who had shown themselves to be the fiercest of warriors on so many occasions, were just about to give it up, so cowed by the prospect of the Russians invading, so whipped by the previous air attrocities that the U.S. had inflicted on them, that they were ready to throw themselves into our open arms. Because, after all, we had been so nice to them up to that point.

    I’ve dealt with many Japanese nationals over the years, not Japanese Americans (although I’ve know plenty of them as well), and my greatest single impression is that they don’t give up. They will perform whatever task is expected of them until they drop, even if the task is minor, even if the cost is significant. And I do not believe that this is an innovation in Japanese culture. I find it admirable, if more than a little unsettling.

    So there is the final thing that I will say about “taking history on its own terms” and that is that it is a peiece with “taking people on their own terms.” They are not puppets in someone else’s shadow plays; their decisions are not made for the benefit of our high moral ground or our convenience. They do not behave in order to further our own ends.

    I ask myself, what it would take to make my own country surrender to a foreign power, and I think of the shattered cannonball that I once found on my uncle’s farm, in Franklin, Tennessee, and I remember what it took for the South to surrender, and they sure as hell weren’t going to do so until threatened with utter and total destruction. Indeed, they would not surrender until they were destroyed, and even after surrender, they regrouped and became terrorists when they found the occupation to not be of their liking.

    So I look at the end of WWII, and even more so, the aftermath of the occupations, and I compare them to every foreign adventure that this country has undertaken both before and after, and it looks to me like WWII was a very special deal, and I’m not smart enough to second guess the decisions of the men who were in charge of it. Maybe they were just lucky, in which case it is better to be lucky than smart.

    In any case, there’s that saying about everybody always refighting the last war, but I’d rather not refight any wars, or fight any new ones either. And I think that second-guessing the wars of past plays right into the hands of people who want to fight them all anew.

  43. on 20 Apr 2007 at 5:01 pm 43. Seattle said …

    “I’ve dealt with many Japanese nationals over the years, not Japanese Americans (although I’ve know plenty of them as well), and my greatest single impression is that they don’t give up. They will perform whatever task is expected of them until they drop, even if the task is minor, even if the cost is significant. And I do not believe that this is an innovation in Japanese culture. I find it admirable, if more than a little unsettling.”

    I lived with Japanese nationals and I saw a number of them give up and/or fail, close up and personal. Friends and family members. I appreciate a number of personal attributes of the people I knew during that time, but I would not generalize the don’t give up stuff.

  44. on 20 Apr 2007 at 5:40 pm 44. James Killus said …

    Noted, Seattle.

  45. on 21 Apr 2007 at 3:02 am 45. Zeus said …

    I also think spyder’s question is a very good one, but not as tough to answer in the age of globabilization and non-state terrorism:

    “(spyder) My question then is: Do we train our political leaders to make the most humanely-informed decisions regardless of the presence and pressure of the military to use a horrific weapon to satisfy a quest for the violent resolution of a social/political problem?? Right now, i don’t think so at all.”

    There is a cold war, WWII mindset that seems to say “my bigger stick trumps yours” so if I have the bigger bombs and ships, you bow to me. But in an age of urban insurgency, like that of Iraq, it is the GENERALS who are the ones now saying that diplomacy must be front and center and military response an enforcer of diplomacy. This formula worked (once its was used, not soon enough to prevent serious genocide) in the former Yugoslavia.

    Bush admin Iraq policy was purely about military solutions and using the cold war “mushroom cloud” formula in the form of “shock and awe” and it made matters worse, creating a destroyed infrastructure and other conditions and bad decisions (disbanding the military/police force) led to a festering of conditions and directly contributed to an increased threat. This comes out of trying to solve a political crisis with purely military means in these times.

    The macho mentality (Cheney, et. al.) like to paint diplomatic/military/political integrated solution as “soft”, as trying “therapy with terrorists”, appeasement, etc. and yet they have no accountability and admission of not only the failure of their approach, but acknowledgement that it has actually incited and aided the “enemy”. There is a reason why many others around the world are hoping for a Bill Clinton reemergence as Sec. of State. I wasn’t a big fan, but he had some presence and success in international diplomacy. He at least recognized the cold war was over and is not trying ot reinstate it.

    Citizen Zeus

  46. on 21 Apr 2007 at 7:12 am 46. The Constructivist said …

    Oh jeez, CZ, now we can expect a fierce debate over the cruise missile left. Talk about unleashing the hounds of war!

  47. on 21 Apr 2007 at 8:31 am 47. JP Stormcrow said …

    Oh jeez, CZ, now we can expect a fierce debate over the cruise missile left.

    Actually TC, I had a section in my original write-up that linked to that thread and several other similar ones (excised it since it was already overly long.) Basically was pointing out, that although I am, by the terms of debate in that thread, a member of the Cruise Missile Left, I do think that those who advocate intervention often ascribe too much ultimate control of the situation to the intervening states. They certainly may control the terms of the initial engagement, but they are still the proverbial children playing with matches and that risk should be front and center in any debate prior to taking action.

    (OK, I am talking about some parallel universe here, where the US administration is not run by an organized crime syndicate.)

  48. on 21 Apr 2007 at 8:44 am 48. JP Stormcrow said …

    Thanks JP, for this non-fetishized …

    Ah but you wouldn’t say that if you could see the black leather book cover I put on my Atlas of the Second World War.

    Sometimes, the wheels of humor rival the wheels of justice in terms of speed …

  49. on 21 Apr 2007 at 10:47 am 49. christian h. said …

    Oh jeez, CZ, now we can expect a fierce debate over the cruise missile left.

    I am sooo going to stay away from this. No way am I going to point out [CENSORED] [DELETED] [m u s t r e s i s t temptation].

  50. on 21 Apr 2007 at 11:03 am 50. christian h. said …

    Can’t resist, one question: what do the liberal internationalists and “don’t support Hezbollah” - people say about the mass carnage in Somalia? I mean, apart from abstract sadness and condemnation? Is there any doubt Somalia was better off while the UIC was in power than they are under the warlord “transitional government” and their US-supported Ethiopian backers? If so, doesn’t saying “a pox on both their houses” amount to tacit acceptance of the murder being perpetrated now.

  51. on 21 Apr 2007 at 1:03 pm 51. Oaktown Girl said …

    Ah but you wouldn’t say that if you could see the black leather book cover I put on my Atlas of the Second World War.

    You are correct, sir!

  52. on 23 Apr 2007 at 1:19 pm 52. christian h. said …

    Article by Niall Ferguson in the LA Times supporting James Killus’ point about hindsight and history quite well.

  53. on 05 May 2007 at 6:25 pm 53. Colonel KL said …

    My dad was also at Okinawa. He was a Marine and retired a full bird Colonel.

    To ‘let go of’ and stop attempting to learn from the past is to be doomed to repeat it.

    Times change. Technology changes. Human nature doesn’t. My own experience with being in the thick has led me to not only believe that ‘letting go’ is not a good idea, but to know that it is not good way to go.

    When I see our current so called leader dressed in military garb, return a salute, my stomach churns. The current admin has perverted the word patriotism beyond recognition.