> Dave: This rather oversimplifies a lot of history. For instance, dropping
> the bomb was simply barbaric, and also unnecessary, as the Japanese were
> very close to a conditional surrender.
Yup, Mark, I agree. The dropping of the bomb(s) was barbaric, it was
indiscriminate mass-murder, the UK wasn't guiltless of the same - Bomber
Harris and all that. What pisses me off is the US cultural myth of
innocence. The result is a poetry of sickening narcissism crossed with
facetitiousness, you can see that in poets as distinct as John Ashbery and
Billy Collins, you can trace it back to what undermines Moby Dick as a
novel.
I recall talking to an old guy who was in the Normandy landings - his joke
went like this:
When a Bitish plane came over the Germans all ducked.
When a German plane came over the British ducked.
When an American plane came over everybody ducked.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: Happy New Year!
> Dave: This rather oversimplifies a lot of history. For instance, dropping
> the bomb was simply barbaric, and also unnecessary, as the Japanese were
> very close to a conditional surrender. The intelligence reports that
> indicated that the Japanese would fight to the last man woman and child
> rather than surrender were based partly on what happened in Okinawa. They
> probably grossly exaggerated, but seemed, unblike recent events, to have
> been believed by those in power. They led the military folks to predict a
> million US casualties in the invasion of the islands, which is why the
bomb
> seemed appropriate. Even had this been true the bomb shouldn't have been
> dropped.
>
> As to the dismemberment of the British Empire as motive, it wouldn't have
> been a bad idea, but it's news to me. Some documentation?
>
> Mark
>
>
> At 12:42 AM 1/2/2006 +0000, you wrote:
> >Ken wrote:
> >
> >But do not, please, ask me where I believe
> > > the bombing of a country in time of a war they started ranks on the
> > > list. Please don't.
> >
> >Ok - history: the Rooselvelt government had three aims for the war was
about
> >to become: they were, the destruction of the German Empire, likewise the
> >Japanese, and also the dismemberment of the British Empire as it was
> >considered a restraint on trade.
> >
> >WW2 was soaked in hypocritical moralising to cover that reality, none the
> >Powers (including Britain) cared a fuck about what was happening to the
> >Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homos etc in the concentration camps, they could
have
> >easily bombed the train-lines, but after the Brit conscripts found the
poor
> >sods in Aushcwitz nobody could keep quiet about it.
> >
> >The reality of WW2 was to establish US economic supremacy, (only three
> >countries made money out of the war - Sweden, Switzerland and Uncle Sam)
the
> >whole of the history of the latter 20th century can be see in that light.
> >
> >As for atomic bombs, you lot dropped them, nobody else has, nor does any
> >other nation hold the world in ransom.
> >
> > From poodle-land
> >
> >Best
> >
> >Dave
> >
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Kenneth Wolman" <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 11:58 PM
> >Subject: Re: Happy New Year!
> >
> >
> > > David Bircumshaw wrote:
> > >
> > > >My post did not say 'anti-american' it was 'anti-americans'. I wrote
that
> > > >with a purpose as I am very well aware of the loadedness the phrase
> > > >'anti-american' can bear.
> > > >
> > > I feel as though I am trying to read the white space on a page. In
fact
> > > I can do that better than I can intuit the essential difference
between
> > > the two terms.
> > >
> > > > Now, without being nasty, I do suspect you are
> > > >living in a dreamworld, one in which the Japanese aren't pissed off
with
> >the
> > > >USA for dropping two atomic bombs on them, remember,
> > > >
> > > I beg your pardon. I'm not even going to do the "my ancestors were in
> > > Poland during slavery" routine, i.e., "Gee, I was only 18 months old
> > > when my country bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Wasted breath.
Someone
> > > bent on the religious doctrine of Collective Guilt will pound on me
'til
> > > I'm pulp. I don't know what the Japanese feel...as though there were
a
> > > unitary body called THE Japanese. I've never asked a Japanese who was
> > > aware and of age in August 1945 what he or she feels now...I never met
> > > one. I don't know what their children and grandchildren might feel.
I
> > > don't know what illnesses they contracted and died of. But I must
tell
> > > you that this is among the most reprehensible comments I have seen
since
> > > 1984, when I first began reading Internet postings. You also picked
an
> > > astoundingly poor target.
> > >
> > > > yours is the only
> > > >nation to have done that to anyone, I know, all to well, about my own
> > > >nation's guilt, the only thing I can say in self-defence was that
neither
> >I
> > > >nor my antecedents took any part in it, but the myth, and the
> >accompanying
> > > >sentimentality, of American (which reads USA) innocence is more than
I
> >can
> > > >bear.
> > > >
> > > Right, and we also slaughtered Indians, enslaved Black people, and
> > > locked up our resident Japanese-Americans in concentration camps. You
> > > left My Lai off the list. But do not, please, ask me where I believe
> > > the bombing of a country in time of a war they started ranks on the
> > > list. Please don't.
> > >
> > > Ken
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------
> > > Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com kenwolman.blogspot.com
> > >
> > > 39. Not observing the imperfections of others, preserving silence and
a
> >continual communion with God will eradicate great imperfections from the
> > > soul and make it the possessor of great virtues.
> > > --St. John of the Cross, Maxims on Love (The Minor Works)
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