Letters from Iwo Jima

[06 Maestro]

Curtiss Lemay did a lot toward gentling them down and making them downright reasonable.
 
Is this what you refered to as racist?  If so, sensitivity training has attained new hights-shades of A Clockwork Orange even.
 
It is clear to me that Doggie is talking about the Japanese military as being murderous, and needing to mellowed out a little.  Some of the general public was of the same mind set-it was a problem.  No one here has asserted that mamason was a baby killer, or that all Japanese people were whacked out murderers.  There was a problem with Japanese culture, and it was addresed after the war (as it was in Germany). 
 
People are a little to quick to yell "racist" these days.  It is as if they were brainwashed.  Just as it is obvious that to make assumtions about someone based on skin color is foolish, it is obvious that to make assumtions about someone based on their home culture will be close to the truth.  Does anyone think that the Japanese have the same culture now as in '41?  Of course some aspects of their culture have remained unchanged, but the veneration of the military, and willingness to follow illegal orders is gone (among other things).  Curtis Lemay had something to do with that.

[wesy]

Maestro,

Good points. As in posting on boards like this, context is often lacking [:)]. The points you make could be made for the Japanese as well. Think of the divisions within the IJN, the "Fleet Faction" and the "Gun Faction" let alone the differences between the IJN and the IJA. Those that truly understood the folly of going to war with the US we're not in position to drive the bus so to speak.

Quality over quantity - was a necessity. The Japanese knew they could never have the material superiority of the US, so they strove for qualitative superiority. However, i don't think that has to do with any racial/doctrinal feeling superiority - rather it was the only option for Germany or Japan. I do agree with you that cultural/racial feeling of superiority was used to rally the troops to victory - in lieu of proper supply etc.

I think facist/communist states wether western or eastern are equally capable of committing attrocities - imho it is just how it manifests itself. Treatment of POWs is an example that has been used in this thread vis a vis Japan vs ROW. However, what are the statistics of Soviet POWs or other sub-human "slavs" in German POW camps? (I don't know) Germany's extermination camps systematically and industrially killed Jews - across Europe. The Japanese have no doubt committed terrible attrocities (Nanking, Unit 731 etc.), but it wasn't necessarily to eliminate an entire religious/racial group. My point is that east or west - all are capable of committing horrible acts. To quote Tolstoy, "...All happy families are the same, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own individual ways..."

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: wesy

I think facist/communist states wether western or eastern are equally capable of committing attrocities - imho it is just how it manifests itself. Treatment of POWs is an example that has been used in this thread vis a vis Japan vs ROW. However, what are the statistics of Soviet POWs or other sub-human "slavs" in German POW camps? (I don't know) Germany's extermination camps systematically and industrially killed Jews - across Europe. The Japanese have no doubt committed terrible attrocities (Nanking, Unit 731 etc.), but it wasn't necessarily to eliminate an entire religious/racial group. My point is that east or west - all are capable of committing horrible acts. To quote Tolstoy, "...All happy families are the same, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own individual ways..."

I agree with this completely (could have added Soviet treatment of Germans). It is clear that no one race has a monopoly on brutality. The level of criminal brutality is tied to the type of culture, or even to a temporary type of government. Confucius had a saying; "people are to their government as grass is to the wind". All to often, this is true.

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Dino
This whole turmoil started because one movie showed one Japanese soldier as - God forbid - a human being [X(]...something you are evidently not capable of perceiving as possible.

This whole turmoil started because some foks got their panties in a bunch about comments directed towards a group that no longer exists.

Erik has called for the personal stuff to be dropped. How about honoring that?

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

Curtiss Lemay did a lot toward gentling them down and making them downright reasonable.

Is this what you refered to as racist? If so, sensitivity training has attained new hights-shades of A Clockwork Orange even.

It is clear to me that Doggie is talking about the Japanese military as being murderous, and needing to mellowed out a little. Some of the general public was of the same mind set-it was a problem. No one here has asserted that mamason was a baby killer, or that all Japanese people were whacked out murderers. There was a problem with Japanese culture, and it was addresed after the war (as it was in Germany).

People are a little to quick to yell "racist" these days. It is as if they were brainwashed. Just as it is obvious that to make assumtions about someone based on skin color is foolish, it is obvious that to make assumtions about someone based on their home culture will be close to the truth. Does anyone think that the Japanese have the same culture now as in '41? Of course some aspects of their culture have remained unchanged, but the veneration of the military, and willingness to follow illegal orders is gone (among other things). Curtis Lemay had something to do with that.

Well said...

I've yet to see doggie make racist remarks. At worst he made bigoted and/or prejudicial remarks, but given the actions of the japanese soldiers and the japanese empire as a whole, the remarks are quite understandable.

[*Lava*]

Nice posts, Maestro.

Now where is the "increase reputation" button?

Ray (alias Lava)

[Doggie]

Well, for some of us; it's about the conduct of the Japanese during the Pacific War.  For Dino; it's about how he's gentically superior to untermensch.

[Dino]

[:D]

[Doggie]

Aw Dino, I feel your pain. I really do. I lived in Europe for eight years. I know all about self loathing Europeans. "Oh, we're so evil. We've plundered and pillaged our way around the world and exploited all the poor indigeounous people. We're bad, bad, I tell you. The best thing we can do is sit around and smoke dope and reflect on how evil we truly are.

Well, Americans aint like that. We aint ashamed of who we are. I know it sucks to play war games where the only way to win a campaign is to play as the British or Americans. And when you can't even find your country among the minor Allied or Axis counters, well, that's really gotta hurt. And then you guys who were on a side that lost, or didn't even play in the real game. Or surrendered before the first PBEM turn is over. Ouch. So you gotta play as the racist yanks. Man, that's gotta hurt.

It's gotta suck even going to the movies. Here's the debonair English guy keeping a stiff upper lip in his Spitfire. Or the American guy from the Bronx patting his pin up of Betty Grable befor he goes out to gentle down some bad guys with his chattering tommy gun. You guys gotta settle for old pictures in Life magazine of some old guy crying in shame as the Wehrmacht marches through his capitol city.

Even the Germans got stuff they can be proud of. The kreigmarine had one of the most honorable war records in naval history. The tales of the surface raiders would make a great movie. And as an aviator myself, I gotta take my hat off to the poor kraut bastard who crawled into his Bf-109 every day and took on the whole Eghth Air Force. Even if they were fighting for the wrong side, those guys had to have a huge set of balls to swing that cockpit closed and hit the starter switch even when their guts were heaving and their hands were shaking.
I'm sure many American, Austrailian, and British airmen felt the same way when they took off knowing the noble Japanese would literally skin them alive and eat them if they should be force to bail out over New Guinea.

And then there's modern day real life. Americans make history. Nobody's ever even heard of you. Even when there's not a war going on, it's the Americans who are first on the scene of any disaster. Earth quake? It's American soldiers flying in medical teams and relief supplies in aircraft manufactured by our evil capitalist defense contractors. Shipwreck? Hey, it's helicopters from an American naval task force that are rescuing survivors. Terrorists? You turn them loose. Americans put them in prison and they stay in prison. They don't even bother making threats about all the horrible things that will happen if we don't turn their buddies loose. They know they're wasting their breath. You guys censor your newspapers and pack up duffle bags full of Euroes for every pooh-bah that so much as scowls at you.

So you were a squad leader in the army of what ever insignicant country you live in? **Yawn*** Tell us what it's like taking census counts of walruses in the ice floes. So how is that sandbag detail during the spring floods coming along? You got rifles? Hey, how does that built in bottle opener work. Pound any nails with the stock lately? Hey, we'd like to stick around and swap stories, but we got things to do.

So keep on pretending there's no such thing as good guys and bad guys. There's a lot of people in places like Arnhem, Stavelot, Manila, and a thousand other places that wouldn't agree with you. They know who the bad guys were. You don't. Just because you've freed your mind with assorted mind altering chemicals while you were sitting around wishing you mattered doesn't make you morally superior to anyone.

[mdiehl]

Well, pzjgr hortlund, you have of course your opinion, despite the fact that the German citizen jailed in Sweden for being German described his experience as life in an "internment camp." It wasn't a "refugee camp" and he was no indigent refugee looking for a handout. He had means of self-support, but he was arrested FOR BEING GERMAN. That makes it an internment camp.

The difference between the Swedish Internment Camp and the American ones being that many of the American ones were located in warmer places. Otherwise, with respect to motive (jailing a civilian whose ethnicity was that of a combatant nation) and treatment the difference between Sweden's internment camps and US ones is so small as to be immeasurable. Did Sweden arrest Swedes of German descent? Probably not. It really does not make a difference to me, because in the end the only issue here that matters is the conditions in which the internees (or if you prefer, "refugees") were held.

Putting the US internment camps into the same category with the Japanese ones or German ones is, frankly, idiotic. Only a base liar could suggest that the two kinds of treatment were comparable. The US did not operate gas chambers, execute droves of the interned, enslave them, or starve them. The Germans and Japanese did so, deliberately and systematically. Any suggestion that many Japanese or Germans were not aware of their nations' respective brutality is idiotic. The Japanese and Germans celebrated their "successes" in their publically circulated newspapers. (Osaka Nichinichi Shimbun 25 January 1938, for example, see: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/kuchikomi/298 ). Ordinary Germans knew as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story ... 68,00.html

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

Curtis Lemay's decision to alter our bombing tactics and focus on fire-bombing had a neglible effect on Emperor Hirohito and his government. This WAS truly an evil regime.

We always go back to the atomic bomb argument, and yes, those WERE necessary to end the Pacific War.

That being said, Japan is now a valued ally. What's past is past. We have to let it go. Replaying old animosities is now done as entertainment.

That’s precisely what Europe tried after the fist “war to end wars“,we all know how that worked out [X(]

If your looking to repeat WWII that would be the first step [;)]

[morvwilson]

Didn't I hear some famous guy say "trust but verify" ?

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Lava
Then you shouldn't be defending the Germans and Japanese who did...

I havent defended them. I have been saying that not all Germans or not all Japanese were guilty of warcrimes. A shocking notion it seems. The fact that you cant tell the difference between defending those Germans or Japanese who didnt commit any warcrime, and those who did speaks volumes of you.

And don't give me this baloney their people didn't know or disapprove. They believed. And that is why they fought to the bitter end. Their people believed. And that does not only make them individually guilty, but collectively as well.

More pointless stereotyping. This time based on stuff you conjured up yourself. The vast majority of the German armed forces were conscripted. Those who tried to avoid that conscription were punished for it. The same goes for the Japanese armed forces.

"Thats why they fought to the bitter end".
It would seem that you really have no idea what you are talking about in this thread. You come in here with an enormous amount of stereotypes, predjudice and made up crap. From this you try to build some sort of argument, but all you succeed in doing is displaying your own ignorance.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Doggie
That would be your outrageous position. Typical of you to attribute things to me I never said, like the lie about shooting Japanese Prisoners. There was a reason for strafing soldiers in life boats. It kept them from reaching shore alive and killing American soldiers. I haven't said a word about firebombing anybody in their homes, either.

It would seem that you are now trying to backpeddal and retreat from some of your more famous statements in this thread. Instead of trying the "oh, but thats not what I meant"-defence, you should come clean and admit that what you said was wrong.

You never said that soldiers were to be strafed in life boats, you said that japanese should be strafed in life boats. You said that all japanese were stinking savages, and that is why they were shot when captured.

You havent said a word about firebombing anyone in their homes? Well you were in here singing LeMay's praises, and thats pretty much the only thing he is known for. Well, that and his absolute desire to have a nuclear war over Korea. LeMay was the one who thought that firebombing Tokyo would be a swell idea, and you were in here telling us how LeMay taught the Japs a lesson. Clearly you are defending his actions, clearly you are defending the idea that firebombing residential areas is ok.

If not, here is your chance. If you believe it is wrong to firebomb residential areas in a war, then speak up now.

How about you document one of your outrageous lies just this once and show us where I've said anything about murdering the thousands of Japanese who survived U.S. captivity, or anything about exterminating Japanese in general based on their race.

What I have said is the truth, that Japanese soldiers were sadistic savages and deserve no sympathy.

Actually, until you are able to understand the fact that not all Japanese soldiers were sadistic savages, then you are stuck on square one. The inability to see people of a different race as individuals, and instead you bunch them all together in a vicious, evil stereotype where they are all presented as monsters who deserve no sympathy...well, that is racist.

No, you engage in stereotyping when you judge all American soldiers on one isolated incident, which you have. The actions of the Nanking Gang, and the Okinawa gang, and the Battan gang, and the Singapore gang, and the Guam gang, and every other gang of murderous thugs in the Japanese army were typical of their behavior, not exceptional.

It is still a stereotype

The native Americans committed quite a few atrocities of their own. But you wouldn't know that as it's obvious you know nothing of the American Indian wars.

Of cource I know alot about the indian wars. I can, after all, read. We do not all build our thoughts and opinions on predjudice, inferiority complexes and tales told to us by our uncles you know.

No atrocities were committed against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese interned in the United States during world war II. And not all Germans, Italians, and Japanese were interned. You'd know that too if you knew anything at all about the subject.

Ah, but the fact that they were interned at all is the atrocity here.

And then you have the nerve to claim that historical facts like the existence of Swedish concentration camps are not relevant because you say so. How about a source for even one of your fantasies?

There were no Swedish concentration camps. The fact that you want to pretend there were does not change that fact. If you want to claim there were, then the burden of proof lies with you. I can hardly be called upon to prove the non-existance of something.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Well, pzjgr hortlund, you have of course your opinion, despite the fact that the German citizen jailed in Sweden for being German described his experience as life in an "internment camp." It wasn't a "refugee camp" and he was no indigent refugee looking for a handout. He had means of self-support, but he was arrested FOR BEING GERMAN. That makes it an internment camp.

Being German, in Sweden. In other words, he was not a swedish citizen. And thus his entire experience becomes utterly irrelevant to the discussion. But still, that was a refugee camp, since he was not part of the German armed forces.

The difference between the Swedish Internment Camp and the American ones being that many of the American ones were located in warmer places. Otherwise, with respect to motive (jailing a civilian whose ethnicity was that of a combatant nation) and treatment the difference between Sweden's internment camps and US ones is so small as to be immeasurable. Did Sweden arrest Swedes of German descent? Probably not. It really does not make a difference to me, because in the end the only issue here that matters is the conditions in which the internees (or if you prefer, "refugees") were held.

Eh, no. The issue here was "did Sweden ever put its citizens in concentration camps because of their ethnicity. And the answer is no. The issue was not, and has never been "what condition were the internees held in"...that is just something you are trying to add to the discussion now.

Putting the US internment camps into the same category with the Japanese ones or German ones is, frankly, idiotic. Only a base liar could suggest that the two kinds of treatment were comparable.

Oh, but no one has suggested that the two kinds of treatment were comparable. What I have said is that only those three nations put their own citizens in camps because of their ethnicity. Surely you are capable of understanding the difference between those two issues?

[morvwilson]

Got a question here for you guys, this may be a distinction without a difference (depending on country) but, what is the difference between a concentration and an internment camp? Your own words please.

[Dixie]

I would say that a concentration camp is set up specifically for the killing of certain people, or to use them as slave labour. Most obvious example would be Buchenwald etc. I would also apply this to the Soviet gulags. Poor conditions and no personal liberties.

An internment camp would be used to hold enemy civilians or potential threats to a nation etc. Examples of this would include those of Japanese origin in the US, or refugees from Germany were held for a while in internment camps in the Isle of Mann in the UK. The term would also apply to the camps operated by the neutral nations to hold military personnel from the combatant nations who ended up in their territory (mostly airmen). They would generally be fairly good living conditions, but with added guards and some limitations on liberties.

However the first use of the term concentration camp actually referred to what would be internment camps. So if you wanted to be technically correct, most nations operated some form of concentration camps but generally not the type associated with the phrase.

[Dino]

ORIGINAL: Doggie


I feel pretty
Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and gay
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me today
I feel charming
Oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real
...

So, now I AM the "untermensche" ? [:D]

Keep typing Doggie...maybe you'll succeed in provoking me just before you make a COMPLETE ass of yourself.

[Dino]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Any suggestion that many Japanese or Germans were not aware of their nations' respective brutality is idiotic. The Japanese and Germans celebrated their "successes" in their publically circulated newspapers.

Celebrating the "successes" in the newspapers of totalitarian regimes means squat. We still don't know how the public felt about it, or more importantly, how they would feel about it if they knew the full truth.

But I know one thing: In my home town there's a monument to one Jozef Shulc, a German soldier who died because he refused to execute POWs...and if someone came with the evidence that ALL THE OTHER Germans committed war crimes, I'd still think twice before calling the whole nation "stinking savages".

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Clearly you are defending his actions, clearly you are defending the idea that firebombing residential areas is ok.

If not, here is your chance. If you believe it is wrong to firebomb residential areas in a war, then speak up now.

It's not about being "OK" or not. It was deemed necessary. These things didn't happen in a bubble. It was a war. Ultimately the Allies prevailed. You don't get to determine after the fact what things we could have removed from the equation so that we could have prevailed in a way acceptable to future generations.

And it's particularly irksome to have someone from a country that simply used WW2 to make a few bucks commenting on the questionable behavior of those that defended the free world.

Actually, until you are able to understand the fact that not all Japanese soldiers were sadistic savages, then you are stuck on square one. The inability to see people of a different race as individuals, and instead you bunch them all together in a vicious, evil stereotype where they are all presented as monsters who deserve no sympathy...well, that is racist.

Yes we did (note the past tense) lump them together - because they were the ENEMY! To Sweden they were potential customers. That's the difference.