Kawaii

  • Denjin@feddit.uk
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    4 hours ago

    In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.

    The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).

    In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children’s throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.

    The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers’ lives.

    Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

    *edit: all you 4edgy5me America Bad commenters really need to do some reading about Japanese atrocities during the Pacific War here are some suggestions:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_campaign

    • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them

      We nuked them twice after carrying out a campaign of what we cozily referred to as “moral bombing”, where we targeted civilian populations to kill the families of soldiers.

      We ARE absolute monsters.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

      Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much the first stages of the Cold War pivot as the USSR declared war on Japan and took Manchuria and Korea from Japanese occupation.

      Imperial Japan had hoped the USSR would arbitrate peace with the Allies as they had not fought or invaded, but the Soviets chose to declare war, sealing their fate.

      • Denjin@feddit.uk
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        8 hours ago

        It’s literally the trolley problem writ large. Do you kill a few hundred thousand civilians to prevent the deaths of probably several million.

        • gmtom@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          But thats dishonest. It assumes that:

          1. The nuking of Japan was the reason they surrendered

          2. The nukes were gauranteed to make then surrender.

          Like would it still have been justified if Japan hadnt surrendered? Then youve committed an atrocity for no reason.

          Or what about if it was a different atrocity? Would tourturing a few hundred thousand Japanese to death be justified for the same reason?

          • lmagitem@lemmy.zip
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            22 minutes ago

            Especially since it probably wasn’t the reason they surrendered. There are multiple papers on the subject. They didn’t really grasp the difference between the atomic bombs and regular bombing, and the US were carpet bombing multiple other cities at the time. They probably surrendered because of the Soviet advance after failed talks with them, which would definitely reduce their chances to zero.

        • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I used to think along the lines of this too until I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial where they tell you about all the ways the US min-maxed the bomb to kill as many people as possible and did it truly as an experiment.

        • lemmyknow@lemmy.today
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          7 hours ago

          Well, idk much about history and politics and war, so I’m just gonna trust 'Muricans claiming they need to bomb other countries to bring peace to the world

            • lemmyknow@lemmy.today
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              3 hours ago

              You’re right. I do sometimes put more effort into my comments, but this one was not one of those. I simply chose to inform of my lack of knowledge in the probably important fields needed to understand this event, and then said I’d trust 'Muricans speaking, pointing out the claim that the bombing was needed for peace

          • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            What part of @[email protected]’s statement do you disagree with?

            In the last days of WW2, the Japanese military were getting children to make sharpened bamboo spears and training those children to attack American soldiers on sight. The elderly and women were told that they should kill themselves before potentially coming under American control.

            The Japanese civilian population had been indoctrinated into the belief that western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them should they become prisoners (ironic considering the IJA/Ns actions during the conflict).

            In the battle of Saipan, hundreds of mothers leapt from cliffs with their babies in their arms to evade capture, men would slit their children’s throats and booby trapped the bodies to injure Americans and then themselves fought relentlessly, before mostly killing themselves or being killed to prevent capture.

            The level of blood shed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented but it did in fact save untold Japanese civilian and American soldiers’ lives.

            Crucially, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japanese High Command still refused to surrender.

            The Allies had just fought the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater.

            Have you ever even read any of the history of the proposed plan for the invasion of mainland Japan and the casualty estimates? How about the reasoning for opposing the Imperial Japanese Government?

            Or Is this your opportunity to virtue signal to people on the internet by implying Americans are murderous pigs and the jApAnEsE dId NoThInG wRoNg?

            • Jhex@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Americans are murderous pigs and the jApAnEsE dId NoThInG wRoNg?

              how about: they are both murderous pigs?

              • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Imperial Japan was far more murderous, in the context of the 2nd World War, which is what this thread is about.

                • Jhex@lemmy.world
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                  2 hours ago

                  sure, let’s dice and slice the context until the USA is always right

                  • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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                    2 hours ago

                    In the context of WW2, the United States was morally justified to oppose the Imperial Japanese Government.

              • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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                4 hours ago

                Just like Ukraine bOmBiNg CiViLiAn TaRgEtS in Russia amirite

                Both sides bad I is very smart

                (Of course America was bad, but not for bombing Imperial Japan)

                • absentbird@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  Arguably fighting against Japan and Germany in WW2 is one of the only times the US used their military in a justifiable way. Fascism had to be stopped.

                  The Japanese military expected to lose 20 million people in the very first battle of the invasion, and the Americans were considering using poison gas because the casualties of fighting it out in the streets would have been in the millions of troops. People don’t realize how dark it was in 1945, food shipments had all but ceased, Japan was entering a famine; if the war had dragged on through a land invasion it would have been cataclysmic.

        • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          Sorry, but repeatedly posting a link to some blog doesn’t justify murdering hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people.

    • ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz
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      7 hours ago

      Those Palestinian children were going to be used to populate the schools and hospitals so they can’t be bombed. Better starve them.

    • noodles@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      “western soldiers were absolute monsters who would carry out unspeakable acts on them” They were right

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        4 hours ago

        So prior to the nukes Japan had just lost their entire navy, their air force, and practically all their conquests in Asia where they killed well over 20 million civilians and lost 2 million soldiers in the process.

        After Hiroshima the US gave them three days to surrender.

        They didn’t. One of most inevitable defeats in modern history and not only did they not surrender after the first, they tried to call America’s bluff, and there was a coup attempt to prevent surrender after the second.

        If you’d like some reading on the Japanese militarist cult and propaganda campaigns that enabled a people to be so delusional there’s quite a lot of scholarly work available.

        In any event the cause of their delusional dreams was the same cause that led them to having baby-bayonetting contests in China: ethnic supremacist rhetoric functionally identitical to Nazism that told them Americans and Soviets would be doing to them what they’d just done to China, Korea, the Phillipines, and many other nations.

        • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          Japan appealed to the USSR to arbitrate surrender. The USSR responded by holding to the Yalta conference agreements and declaring war on Japan and occupying Manchuria and Korea.

          USSR broke the neutrality pact they had with Japan to do so, and the US dropped the second nuke after that pact was broken.

          The bombing, declaration, and surrender was a period from August 6-August 15. Eleven days.

        • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          So prior to the nukes Japan had just lost their entire navy, their air force, and practically all their conquests in Asia

          Yep. No point in a genocidal terrorist attack on civilians in japan.

          a people to be so delusional… ethnic supremacist rhetoric functionally identitical to Nazism

          Lol. Have you seen USA today? It’s the birthplace of racism. They’re still justifying this nuclear terror attack on japan while genociding people in palestine and all over the world. Never changes.