We The People
Constitutional Activism Website
For Liberty in our Lifetime!
"if
we are not part of the solution, then most assuredly,
we are part of the problem. Live free or die!"
Stanley2002.org thanks it's unique visitors.
The Patriot A List To
honor Patriots who do more than talk about standing up to those in
government that are operating outside the law or under color of law
Volunteer Today!
Rick needs your help as all of our campaigns for constitutional freedom
from government need volunteers. Email Rick Stanley at Rick@Stanley2002.org
and tell Rick how you wish to help.
<>"If
you mean that the Japanese bombed the military base of Pearl Harbor,
before the US bombed the Japanese, then this is a difficult question to
answer (see #1 below). If you mean that Japan committed acts of war
against the United States first, then the answer is a definitive, "No!"
The United States committed at least two acts of war under
international law against Japan before December 7, 1941" (See
complete article below.)
Dying For the Emperor? No Way
by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers (LewRockwell.com)
US President Harry S. Truman, with consent of his top brass, ordered
the atomic bombings of Japan in order to save one million US lives. The
Japanese were fascists. They were religious fanatics who worshipped the
emperor as their God and were prepared to fight to the death. This was
evidenced by the Kamikaze pilots and vicious fighting in Saipan and
Okinawa. The annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations are exercises
in blame-shifting and obfuscation; the fact is that WW II in Asia and
the Pacific was a war between aggressive Japan and everyone else, and
in each case, Japan was the aggressor. Japan attacked the United States
first.
~ An average US history professor
What a bunch of post-war revisionist nonsense. The above statement is
pure US government propaganda. It contains almost as many outrageous
lies as it does individual words. The only part of this statement that
is absolutely true is, "US President Harry S. Truman ordered the atomic
bombings." This drivel, in many forms, has been repeated again and
again to US schoolchildren over these past 60 some years to the point
that even some (supposedly educated) US scholars have begun to repeat
the mantra. This lie has been so overblown that, recently, the absurd
amount of "saved lives" has ballooned from "one million lives" to "two
million lives" to even the point where President George W. Bush has
stretched it to "millions of lives." At this rate, by the year 2025,
the atomic bombings will have saved 20 million lives. America, this is
a lie. It’s time you faced up to the truth about the war and the atomic
bombings.
When in the history of mankind have people actually fought to their
deaths for one man? I propose to you that this has never happened. It’s
against human nature to do so. The only people who even made the
outlandish claim that the emperor was a living God were a very few
Japanese rightists – and Shinto priests (a very minor religion) – who
merely used this idea as a means to forward their own imperialist
agenda (as well as modern American apologists for the atomic bombings).
The average Japanese never thought the emperor was anymore than a man –
just like they do today. I would like to end this misconception of the
Japanese people. All people – regardless of the political system they
are living under – will, however, fight to the death if they believe
that they are saving their homes and families. That’s natural human
behavior.
Besides the obvious common sense of the preceding two paragraphs, I
would like to put every piece of this fabrication to rest – From the
idea that the Japanese were suicidal maniacs – To the excuse of
dropping the atomic bomb to save one million American lives. Am I a
scholar historian? No, I am not. But I do have some unbeatable
advantages over just about every US historian who has ever written on
the subject: I speak Japanese and I live with the Japanese. The other
trump card I have is that there are still a very many everyday Japanese
alive and well today, who clearly remember the war, with whom I have
spoken. This is the overall story of World War II from the Japanese
point of view. Of course, this is an extremely long subject and it
would take an entire series of books to cover it fully – and even with
that the debate would continue and the A-bomb apologists will refuse to
face facts – but for the sake of convenience for the reader, I will try
to keep this as short and simple as possible.
US President Harry S. Truman, with consent of his top brass, ordered
the atomic bombings of Japan in order to save one million US lives.
There are two lies in this one sentence. Yes, Truman did order the
atomic bombings. Did he do it with the consent of his top brass? No.
Did he do it to save one million US lives? No.
Let’s look at the comments of several of America’s top military and
civilian commanders at the time; Admiral William Leahy, the World War
II Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Douglas McArthur;
Brigadier General Carter Clarke; General Dwight D. Eisenhower; and
Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy.
First General Douglas McArthur:
Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the
American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with
MacArthur, "MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different than what the
general public supposed. When I asked MacArthur about the decision to
drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn that he had not even been
consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that
he saw no justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might
have ended earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed – as it
did later anyway – to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
~ Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70–71
General Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in
Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an
atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a
number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act… The
Secretary, upon giving me the news of a successful bomb test in New
Mexico, and the plan for using it, asked for my reaction expecting a
vigorous assent.
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a
feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first
on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that
dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I
thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by use of a
weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a
measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at the
very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of
‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…"
Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pg. 380
In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with
Stimson:
"The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit
them with that awful thing."
Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
Brigadier General Carter Clarke (The military officer in charge of
preparing intercepted Japanese cables – MAGIC summaries – for Truman
and his advisors):
"When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and
they knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for
two atomic bombs."
~ Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg.
359.
(Once again, considering the above, one has to wonder just where did
this idea that the Japanese were ready to fight to the death for the
emperor come from anyway?)
John McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War):
"I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese
government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the
retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and made some
reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the
future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I
believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some
disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable
consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after
talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely
associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject
the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe that we missed the
opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender that was satisfactory to
us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."
~ McCloy quoted in James Reston, Deadline, pg. 500
World War II Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William
Leahy:
"I was not taught to make war in that fashion… And wars cannot be won
by destroying women and children."
The above proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that many of America’s
top military and civilian commanders disagreed with Truman (or didn’t
even know about) the dropping of the atomic bomb, and all thought that
the A-bombs were unnecessary. It goes without saying that many never
considered the absurdist notion that the Japanese would fight to the
death for their "emperor God."
(The A-bomb was dropped) to save one-million US lives (?)
No. This is a complete post-war fabrication. As scholar Ralph Raico
pointed out in Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
US military planners at the time foresaw the worst-case scenario as
46,000 US casualties.
A typical WWII propaganda poster from Japan; it has no sign of
the emperor. It says. Uchiteshi Yamamu: Don’t stop shooting
This proves that the preposterous number of one million American lives
saved is a ridiculous post-war belief. The total numbers of all US
military killed in World War II stands at 405,000 and that’s for both
the Pacific and European theaters. This number of one million lives
saved is rubbish akin to the magician pulling a live rabbit out of a
hat. The Japanese had no air force or navy and were starving with no
food, oil, gasoline, or any other natural resources to keep up the war
effort.
The Japanese were fascists. They were religious fanatics who worshipped
the emperor as their God and were prepared to fight to the death.
These sentences are completely false. One must understand a bit of
Japanese history – and have a bit of common sense – just to see how
really outlandish these notions are. Let’s touch on Japanese history
first:
The imperial Japanese family returned to the throne of Japan a mere 70
years before the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and the United
States. The utter notion that the Japanese nation was prepared to "die
for their emperor" is an out-and-out fantasy. The average Japanese did
not feel any more affinity to the emperor than the average American
feels for their president; or the British or Spanish for their King.
Why would they? Japan’s Hirohito had only been emperor for 15 years by
the time war started with the United States. His family had been placed
back in power only 70 years before. In fact, according to the Meiji
Restoration (the movement that returned the emperor’s family to the
throne of Japan), the emperor was nothing more than a figure-head of
state. In fact, the emperor himself fancied his position along the
lines of modern British monarchy and was unwilling to get involved with
the day-to-day affairs of running the country.
The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that led to a change in
Japan’s political and social structure. It occurred from 1866 to 1869,
a period of 4 years that transverses both the late Edo and beginning of
the Meiji Period. Probably the most important foreign account of the
events of 1862–69 is contained in A Diplomat in Japan by Sir Ernest
Satow. The leaders of the Meiji Restoration, as this revolution came to
be known, claimed that their actions restored the emperor's powers.
This is not in fact true. Power simply moved from the Tokugawa Shogun
to a new oligarchy of the daimyo who defeated him.
Emperor Hirohito was the figurehead emperor of Japan. Before him, his
father, Emperor Taisho, held that position for a mere 14 years. It is
widely rumored that Emperor Taisho had the same ailment that many
inbred European monarchs suffered from; namely "being crazy." Now it
doesn’t take too much of a leap of imagination to see where the average
Japanese Joe – just like Europeans – may have felt some affinity for
the emperor, but they certainly were not going to risk their lives for
him. So, if this guy was not so revered and respected – as claimed in
the west to this day, why then did the Japanese fly Kamikaze planes and
fight so hard in Saipan, and Okinawa, etc.? More on the obvious answer
to this in a moment.
But first, another point that has been lost on most people from the
west in these last 60 years: The idea that the emperor is divine is a
strictly Shinto religious belief. Japan was, and still is, a
predominately Buddhist country. Buddhist’s do not believe man can be a
God. As Albert Einstein wrote:
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic
religion of the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogma and
theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on
a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural
and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
Typical war poster regardless of country – Once again, no sign of
the emperor – Just an urging to work harder for the war effort
(The Japanese were prepared to fight to the death) This was evidenced
by the Kamikaze pilots and vicious fighting in Saipan and Okinawa.
It should be obvious, after reading the above, that even the wartime
American military commanders did not believe this story. After many
interviews with elderly Japanese, I can tell you why the Japanese
fought so hard; and, if anyone can, Americans should be able to
understand this: The Japanese fought so tenaciously because there were
some people who were brainwashed by government propaganda – Soldiers
believed they were fighting to save their families.
In Japan, as with every other country in human history, the most
brainwashed people join the so-called military elite. In America today,
these people join the Marines, the Green Berets, or some other "Cream
of the Crop" military organization. The difference between the Japanese
of 1944 and Americans today, is that the Japanese thought they were
fighting on home soil. Americans are brainwashed to believe that they
are protecting America while fighting on foreign soil. The Japanese
stopped this kind of imperialist brainwashing in 1945. The United
States has been doing this since 1898 and it continues right up until
today. Witness events in Iraq and Afghanistan for proof of this.
As far as Saipan is concerned, many Japanese soldiers believed that
Saipan was a part of Japan. Saipan became a part of the Japanese empire
in 1918 – It was a convenient "gift" for supporting the allies against
the Germans in World War One (Thank you, America and its allies).
Okinawa (formerly Ryukyu Islands) became a part of Japan in about 1609.
Of course the Japanese fought hard in these places. They were fighting
on "home turf" – or so they believed.
Regardless, something can be said for the idea that the Japanese
soldier was fighting closer to home than the western allies were – The
Japanese soldiers considered the Pacific War theater their backyard.
Aside from the militarists in Japan, then, the average soldiers fought
only to protect their homes and families. That’s it. And that’s what
every Japanese I’ve spoken to has said. In fact, my own Japanese mother
told me that people from the southern part of Japan hated the emperor
and the militarists because it was the people in southern Japan who
were being discriminated against and sent off to do insane things like
fly Kamikaze planes (Kamikaze pilots were, by the way, pumped full of
drugs before flying on missions – that was the only way they could get
those guys to do those missions).
Many Okinawans still to this day hold ill-will towards the emperor and
his masters for what happened on their island. All of the elderly
Japanese I have spoken to (12 in all) thought it was ludicrous when I
told them that Americans were taught to believe that all Japanese would
die for the emperor. All the Japanese I spoke to (yes, and these were
regular people – not die-hard Marines) were shocked or laughed at this
notion.
Mr. Nishikawa, now almost 90, who was a captain in the imperial
Japanese navy, said it the best when he replied to me, "We wanted to
protect our families and our homes. Sure, it’s a part of Japanese
culture to say that we did care about the emperor in front of each
other – that’s Tatemae (a kind of little white lie) – but no one really
wanted to go to war. No one really cared about the emperor. We were
merely told that if we won this war, then we could finally have peace.
That’s all we wanted. We were sick and tired of war."
We were told that if we won this war, then we could have peace? This
should sound hauntingly familiar to today’s American.
Also, if one understood the true nature of how the emperor – as with
all European Monarchs also – was so out of touch with regular people
and reality – and had been all his life, you’d understand that emperor
Hirohito – as figurehead of state – in a nation that respects the
elderly – could have never stopped the generals from going to war
anyway.
By the same rationale that the US government propaganda machine today
sells American youth and the ill-informed American public on the idea
of fighting for "your country," the Japanese military-government did
the same exact thing. They all do. That’s the nature of government. If
you asked an American soldier if he would die for the president, that
soldier would most certainly say, "No!"
But if you asked him if he’d die trying to save his family, he’d say,
"Yes." What makes you think the Japanese were any different than the
Americans? The average person, American or Japanese, were just about
the same: Duped by their respective government’s imperialist government
propaganda.
I have yet to find one shred of evidence that the Japanese government
used this "Fight for the emperor" kind of jingoism in order to motivate
the troops, let alone the average population.
A telling story about what the higher echelons of the Japanese military
thought about the war comes from a well-known admiral who was known as
"The Father of the Kamikaze." Japanese Navy Vice Admiral Takijiro
Onishi – the man who came up with the idea of Kamikaze – He wrote in
October of 1944:
"Japan must surrender as soon as possible. Now, we lost Mariana
Islands, so the U.S can attack Japan by using B-29 from Saipan Island
and Chengdu in China. However, we cannot stop their attack because we
have no aircraft. Also, all of our oil and aluminum will have been
spent within 6 months… we cannot fight anymore, so we have to sue for
peace as quickly as we can. However, historically, the U.S is a scary
country because many Indians and native Hawaiians were slaughtered. If
they come to Japan, we have no idea what will they do; therefore, we
have to fight with them at Philippines even if we make a sacrifice of
ourselves. The war at the Philippines is the last…"
"Historically, the U.S is a scary country because many Indians and
native Hawaiians were slaughtered"? Yes, this is true. American
imperial history shows why so many of the world’s people are afraid of
Americans to this very day. The final slaughter of the American Indians
happened not 50 years beforehand at Wounded Knee; and a coup
d’état in collaboration with the US marines dethroned the
royalty of Hawaii in 1893.
The Japanese propaganda machine might have made claims that the
Japanese were ready to die for the emperor, but it defies common sense
to imagine that, even if they did, this was nothing more than a tool in
order to exhort the troops to fight on – and an ineffective one at
that. Common sense dictates that what the government says, and what the
person on the street thinks is an entirely different story. I suspect,
once again, that this is a postwar fabrication created by the United
States as a convenient tool for relieving US guilt over atomic bombing
war crimes. I would welcome any US historian to prove me wrong by
showing me Japanese language documentation of such a propaganda
campaign.
In World War II, the average Japanese citizen on the street couldn’t
have cared less about the emperor. And there was no way they were
prepared to die for him.
Die for their family? Yes. Die for the emperor? No.
The annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations are exercises in blame
shifting and obfuscation; There are two enormous lies in this
statement. The annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations are not
exercises in blame shifting and obfuscation. That is purely American
right-wing A-bomb apologist propaganda. I have been to a Hiroshima
A-bomb commemoration. There was not a shred of blame-shifting. All
speeches by guests were either recollections of the day’s events or
wishes for a peaceful, nuclear-free future. Here is a report on
speeches made at Nagasaki:
Fumie Sakamoto, a junior high school student home for lunch when the
bomb struck Nagasaki, spoke to the crowd with resolve and anger. "The
world around me was lost in a cloud of dust," she said, and she ran for
shelter in the forest. "People, clothes ripped and torn, with gaping
chest wounds, whose hearts were exposed and could still be seen
twitching; people burned so badly one could not tell front from back,"
she said. "The woods were full of such people." Sakamoto, dressed in a
deep purple kimono, her eyes and voice sharp and clear, said doctors
had told her she was bound for death and not worth treating. She
somehow survived over a "long and painful road." "Yet war still
persists on this Earth and, far from abolishing nuclear arms, I have
heard there are even plans to develop nuclear weapons with new
capabilities," she said. "We have devoted our lives to demanding that
there never be A-bomb victims again, but why are our voices not heard?"
Nagasaki Mayor Ichou Itoh chastised the United States for continued
nuclear proliferation and Japan for taking cover in America's nuclear
fold. "The nuclear weapons states, the United States of America in
particular, have ignored their international commitments and have made
no change in their unyielding stance on nuclear deterrence; we strongly
resent the trampling of the hopes of the world's people."
Do you see any blame-shifting here? I don’t. I don’t see where they are
talking about anything but the horrors of nuclear war and how mankind
must abolish these WMD. To state otherwise is ignorant.
…the fact is that WW II in Asia and the Pacific was a war between
aggressive Japan and everyone else, and in each case, Japan was the
aggressor. No one doubts that Japan was the aggressor nation over its
Asian cousins – mostly China. In fact, until now, 4 Japanese Prime
Ministers have officially apologized to China and Korea for the war and
war atrocities; the last one being current Prime Minister Koizumi who
apologized this year.
Taiwan had become a part of the Japanese empire – or part of Japan –
depending on your slant, in 1895; a full three years before the
Philippines became part of the US empire (where it remains until this
day). But it is impossible to deny that Russia, then the Soviet Union,
as well as the United States and several European nations weren’t
involved with empire building in Asia. And, in turn, to claim that
Japan was the aggressor nation over these western states – in Asia no
less – is to be biased towards historical facts. Japan kicked the
Russians out of Korea and Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese War of
1904–1905.
This would end (temporarily) Russian imperialist ambitions in Asia. The
United States is definitely not free of guilt; the USA had imperialist
ambitions in Asia for over 50 years as witnessed by the US colonization
of the Philippines in 1898 and the presence of US troops in China as
early as 1927.
This was another catalyst for the Meiji Restoration; Japan feared being
colonized by the west as the rest of Asia was. Therefore all of Japan
had to unite under one government. After unification of the country,
one of the very first priorities of the Meiji government was to
industrialize in order to escape the same fate as the rest of the Asia
continent.
By 1930, Japan was already well entrenched in China and Korea – with US
blessings under the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905. In 1937, hostilities
between China and Japan would break out again. Considering that this
war took place in China, it is common sense to assume that Japan was
furthering imperial ambitions. The other powers involved with empire
building in Asia, then, at the time of the start of World War Two were:
France, Britain, The United States, The Netherlands, and Japan. To
claim that Japan was the sole aggressor in Asia is to completely tell
the history of the war conveniently from the victor’s point of view. Or
as Gary Wills would say, "Only the winners decide what were war crimes."
If Americans wish to use flawed excuses for justification of the atomic
bombings, then allow me to show you how the same sort of logic was used
by the Japanese military as an excuse for empire building in Asia. An
excellent analysis of this use of flimsy justifications by both sides
can be found in A Critical Comparison Between Japanese and American
Propaganda during World War II. By Anthony V. Navarro:
It is hardly necessary to say that the basic policy of the Japanese
government aims at the stabilization of East Asia through conciliation
and cooperation between Japan, Manchoukuo, and China for their common
prosperity and well being.
Sure, The Japanese invaded Singapore; they did the same in Malaysia –
they kicked the British out. Yes, Japan invaded Indonesia and in doing
so kicked the Dutch out. Japan invaded the Philippines too, kicking out
the Americans. These places were all attacked around the same time as
the attack on Pearl Harbor.
But the question that needs to be asked is, "If Japan was the only
aggressor nation in Asia, then what were American, British, Dutch,
etc., armed forces doing in Asia besides protecting and/or expanding
those nations’ empires?" Japan attacked the United States first.
If you mean that the Japanese bombed the military base of Pearl Harbor,
before the US bombed the Japanese, then this is a difficult question to
answer (see #1 below). If you mean that Japan committed acts of war
against the United States first, then the answer is a definitive, "No!"
The United States committed at least two acts of war under
international law against Japan before December 7, 1941. They were:
US military pilots – 40 from the Army Air Corps and 60 from the US Navy
and Marine Corps – in a clandestine operation organized by and funded
by the Whitehouse – flying bombing missions against Japanese forces in
the famed Flying Tigers as early as 1937. These people did “volunteer”
to fly for the Flying Tigers but they were paid employees of the US
government. US pilots flying bombing missions for the Chinese was an
act of war under international law by America against Japan. Even with
the weak argument that these professional military men were
“volunteers” (when they were actually sent by the US government), under
international law, a nation is responsible for the actions of its
nationals. To claim otherwise is hypocritical and completely
irresponsible.
US initiated oil embargo against Japan. This is unquestionably an act
of war under international law. The US was also totally hypocritical on
this point as they forced the British and the Dutch to uphold the
embargo, yet secretly allowed Japan oil from the United States as a way
to spy on Japanese shipping. See: Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett.
Counting the above two, then President Roosevelt had a total of eight
plans to incite hostilities with the Japanese. The rest, as they say
"is history." There are a great many excellent books and articles on
what really happened in World War II. The serious student (and
professor) would do themselves and their country good to seek out the
truth. Things are not as black and white as US public schooling and US
history books would lead us to believe. The true causes of the Pacific
War were the clash of the US empire in Asia and the Japanese empire.
There is really nothing that is new to the informed student of history
in this article, except for one thing: The idea that the Japanese were
fanatics that would fight to the death for their emperor. This is
unquestionably a complete and total fabrication. The Japanese people
that I spoke to, the people who still clearly remember the war, state
uncategorically that this idea is false.
The average Japanese – like the average person anywhere in the world –
at any time in history – would act in a way that is common to human
nature: To fight to the death to protect their families and homes. Only
a few brainwashed fanatics in the military would have made a claim such
as dying for the emperor. Even more to the point, the Japanese I
interviewed were surprised to hear that this nonsense is being taught
to American children in school. Where this fabrication initially came
from is a good question. I would submit to you that this is also a
post-war fabrication by apologists for the atomic bombing war crimes of
the United States.
Of course the imperial Japanese Army committed atrocities in Asia.
Those are unforgivable. That being said, though, committing atrocities
is what all imperial forces do – and have always done. World War II
Japanese atrocities were no different than what US imperial forces are
doing in the Middle East today. Modern Americans should keep this in
mind whenever they attempt to demonize the enemy for American
imperialist gains – or to excuse US war crimes.
