Far eastern perspective on WWII

Satori, we have contingency plans for all kinds of things- like invasions and attacks. The difference between us and Japan is that we did not invade China and Asia; they did.

The industrial revolution displacing and destroying hunter gatherer societies is not the same event as Japan rolling through China. There is 'bad' in each, but they are not the same.

Let me put this another way, if it all the same, let's invade Canada today!!!


Look at Japan today- doing commerically what it attempted militarily. We do have shades of value judgement here.

IT is hard to look at all of this. But if the arguement is that Japan was just like the US, then so were the Nazis. And now you have a problem.
munk
 
aproy1101 said:
My boss is Chinese and old enough to remember fleeing to Tiawan on a smuggling ship to escape the communists. He says that China and Russia won WWII and that the Americans had little to do with it. It has, as you may have guessed, been a contentious point between us. His point is that the Russians and Chinese lost more people, and so their sacrifices were the greatest/had the most effect.
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You might mention what Patton said about the idea is not to die for your country. It is to make the "other poor bastard die for HIS country."

It is not how many people died for their countries anyhow. It is about who was left standing at the end of the war. Who came in and kicked butt until the 'other guys' said, "Enough! We don't want to fight anymore."
 
Bill,

Believe me there is no way to win an argument with my boss. I have let him know not to talk of opinions of our boys from the greatest generation. It will be left there with him. Boundaries. That is how the two of us deal with each other. He does conceede that our RESOURCES were the advantage for the allies. He's kind of an ass, so that's pretty good. I asked him how China's strategy of retreating and being beaten was going to work against Japan, but he changed the subject. As I said it has been a loud contentious argument that has almost become physical on several occasions.
 
aproy1101 said:
Bill,
I asked him how China's strategy of retreating and being beaten was going to work against Japan, but he changed the subject.
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Not to mention their civil war between the communists and the nationalists. that wouldn't have caused any troubles would it ?
 
munk said:
The industrial revolution displacing and destroying hunter gatherer societies is not the same event as Japan rolling through China. There is 'bad' in each, but they are not the same.

Let me put this another way, if it all the same, let's invade Canada today!!!
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That was not what I was talking about. I was talking about the Spanish American War, among other things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War

And all of a sudden, we've got possessions (and naval bases) in the western Pacific, right about the time we were seeking to extend our sphere of influence, as a direct result of a war based largely on hearsay and false assumptions, that Spain attempted to avoid. Very conveniant, wouldn't you agree?

If the oil embargo and military assistance were merely intended to assist China and not to provoke a fight, why were similar actions not taken on behalf of Abyssinia, who was a member of the League of Nations and had requested aid numerous times after Italy attacked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssinia_Crisis
 
I don't know, Dave, I'm not going into Absinya. I'll say that there are far fewer divisions between the actions of people than seperations; history is bloody and greedy. But there are distinctions. There is no 'fair'. We can look at the actions of Imperialist Japan and the murder of a 100,000 civilians in China in Nanking alone as too far, the gas chambers by Hitler as too far, and we can see the Spanish American war as trumped up and unfair, a sorry sight, but not in the same league. I'm certainly not proud of everything my country has done.


munk
 
I appreciate that you have tried to see all the perspectives Dave. The Germans were suffering from inflation in the trillion percent. The depression hit us and we called in their loans. They were starving. These are factors just as the ones you have highlighted with Japan. Unfortunately for both of those nations, they attacked us. They attacked us. It wasn't just a plan, or a called in loan. They didn't just take territory near us and set up a base. They attacked. It was a miscalculation and IMHO, they deserved what they got. The Brits, Chinese, Russians, Polish, US, etc. Those are the victims and the victors. The Japanese are wrong to think of themselves as victims because they were not victors. Unless they consider themselves victims of themselves.
 
Actually, the Germans did not attack us. They attacked Poland, and then France and England attacked them - but that wasn't a point that I was trying to debate.

Again, the point that I've been trying to make here is that there are two sides to every story. If one were so inclined, they could make a case that Japan was provoked into conflict.

For the record, I do believe that America was intentionally provoking Japan, but that in no way relieves Japan of responsibility for its later actions, including the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I also believe that a conflict with Japan was pretty much inevitable.
 
Dave,

By us I was refering to the allies. Your last post clears up your position. Provoked or not their attack was not justified any more than Germany's was. Can you imagine inflation such as that? Suddenly your lifes savings wouldn't buy bread. Being provoked doesn't make them the victims and neither does economic hardship. I also think a showdown was inevitable though. I always wonder how the war would have turned out if they had let us sit out a while longer. I dunno.
 
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The US declared war on Japan. Germany then declared war on the US, i.e., they attacked us.
 
That is correct and in the right order. Germany and Japan had signed a pact.




munk
 
Steely_Gunz said:
History really needs more zombies
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You must not have taken some classes with me then.

We declared war on Japan after they atttacked us. Germany declared war on us. That is one the one I've wondered about, if German and said "no thanks, once is enough" to us, what would have happened?
 
45-70 said:
We declared war on Japan after they atttacked us. Germany declared war on us.

That is one the one I've wondered about, if German and said "no thanks, once is enough" to us, what would have happened?
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That is an interesting question. It would be really wonderful if there were multiple timelines where things happened slightly differently and we could tap into them to know what happened in such an instance.

I still believe that if we would've had to take the island of Japan by force that it would've cost us dearly.
Hell it cost us dearly anyway.:( All war is truly hell on earth methinks.
 
45-70 said:
You must not have taken some classes with me then.

We declared war on Japan after they atttacked us. Germany declared war on us. That is one the one I've wondered about, if German and said "no thanks, once is enough" to us, what would have happened?
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I really should have put a ";)" by my last statement. it was tongue in cheek. History is chalk full of good stuff. My wife thinks me a geek because my top 3 favorite TV channels are History, Discovery, and Animal Planet. I just tell her to shut her yap and to get back in the kitchen and bake me a 3.1416:D

Jake
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Germany then declared war on the US, i.e., they attacked us.
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I don't consider the two synonymous. A formal declaration of war - at least for the US - is simply an authorization to use military force. No one has attacked anyone yet.

Coupled with the fact that Germany made the declaration simply in response to a pact with Japan, and that they lacked the ability to pose any real threat to mainland America, I hardly consider this an attack. I would go so far as to classify it as a political formality in this particular case.

Had zombies been involved, that would have been another story of course.
 
Dave Rishar said:
And we had plans to go to war with Japan as early as 1922. How does that figure into things?
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Doesn't, Dave. You're recently "X," so you know about contingency plans. I'll bet we have a plan for invading _______________________ .

And their conquest? Disregarding the conduct of their forces, others were doing the same thing...except that in America, it was known as "Manifest Destiny," not armed conquest. (Of course, no one ever slapped us with an oil embargo for it.)
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If you say the "western" powers "had done the same thing," you have a point. But conquest was no longer PC. We "conquered" Philippines, Cuba, and PR but gave them up. (Well, there is PR, but they wobn't go away.) I suppose you could say Japan was simply slaughtering it's way to parity.

And how does one "disregard" their methods? Ain't that part of the "thing" they were about doing -- for decades prior to 12/7/41? Genghis Khan would have been proud. Wait, would he have been proud of their "medical" experiments? Maybe not. Freezing live folk's limbs then seeing how they shatter when stuck may exceed anything the Khan ever ordered.

Put yourself in Japan's shoes for a moment. They wanted more territory. The very same nations that condemned them for it were largely guilty of the same thing, and one in particular made some very aggressive politcal manuevering. How should a government interpret something this?
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"[T]he same thing"? I think we were past small pox on the blankets. Japan was not. We were giving up our more recent conquests; they were conquering - brutally.

Plus, there is the cultural thing -- thinking the stab in the back is meritorious and clever vs. thinking it's treachery. 12/7 plus how they treated prisoners (torture and murder) is a big part of how we look at "war guilt."

And I respectfully submit that the debate is not over whether we're pure as the driven snow. We were not and never will be. We have our "interests" to pursue. And yes, we thought we were "superior." However, this debate is over whether they should acknowledge any responsibility for Korea, Manchuria, China, Thiland, Burma, the Indies, Cochin China, Australia, the U.S., India -- all those dead civilians, dead via bombs, shells, bullets, bayonets, swords, "medical experiments" -- a pile of bodies to blot out the sun. Add the injuries and systematic rape of "inferior" peoples ("No dishonor away from home.")

Poor judgment on their part in any case.
 
Don't mean to quibble, but IIRC, we devoted less than 25% of our war effort against Japan. On 12/7/41, the Empire of Japan had fewer motor vehicles than California. The vast majority of out effort, and that of the UK -- and all of the USSR's until the very end, was devoted to the truly daunting enemy - Germany.

They had achieved great military power. Geologically they had the advantage. The prospect of ruling the whole S.E Asia and the Australia was too much a price to past up. Resources, land,population ,trade routes..... That was a big hunk of the planet!
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And many Japanese leaders (but not all) had no respect for any western nation as a military opponent. They did not think we would "pay the price" for victory. (That was then.)
 
Dave Rishar said:
. . .
If the oil embargo and military assistance were merely intended to assist China and not to provoke a fight, why were similar actions not taken on behalf of Abyssinia, who was a member of the League of Nations and had requested aid numerous times after Italy attacked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssinia_Crisis
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The consensus is that FDR thought Japan would back down because they were a second-rate power -- a failute to understand the "other guy's" point-of-view and "realities." The war warning was not issued until a few days before 12/7. We were almost totally unprepared for war.

Abysinnia did not have 10,000's of western missionaries flooding the media with tales of Japanese war crimes. Those tales were also the staple of Sunday sermons in churches all over the U.S. We had no "interests" in poor little Abysinnia. Italy hadn't bombed our warships (See "Panay" + "bombing")("So sorry.")
 
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