Lets be clear that US generals vaporised nagasaki and Hiroshima not because they really cared about some kind of revenge for Japanese imperial occupations, butmore so due to Soviet advances near Manchuria and fears of a potentially USSR aligned Japan. (Among other reasons but I have to rewatch that 6 hour long Shaun video to refresh my memory.)
So I do have sympathy for civilian deaths during war brought on to some extent by American anti communist geopolitics.
I always point out the members of Unit 731 were sipping champagne with American diplomats ten years after the war ended, while the blast shadows of Korean slave labor and Japanese working class people painted the masonry
Too often when discussion of Japanese warcrimes comes up and the lack of “remorse” by Japanese elites, it’s never pointed out it was the Americans who pardoned or refused to prosecute the war criminals, the Americans had total control of Japan and Japanese society and yet anti-communism was more important than any conception of justice
Hell nobody even clocks the incredible and sickening irony that the US killed more Koreans in three short years, than compared to the totality of Japanese colonial history
The US absorbed and perfected Japanese colonialism
Yes it’s true that was the actual reason for dropping the bombs, and yes civilians and POWs did die from them, but my criticism is towards Japan reinventing the narrative to make them look like the victims of WW2 and not the perpetrators which the atomic bombs do help them achieve. I’m not trying to make any arguments about whether using nuclear weapons were justified, but it’s very hard for me to have sympathy for a nation that was employing biochemical weapons in China at the same time.
Lets be clear that US generals vaporised nagasaki and Hiroshima not because they really cared about some kind of revenge for Japanese imperial occupations, butmore so due to Soviet advances near Manchuria and fears of a potentially USSR aligned Japan. (Among other reasons but I have to rewatch that 6 hour long Shaun video to refresh my memory.)
So I do have sympathy for civilian deaths during war brought on to some extent by American anti communist geopolitics.
I always point out the members of Unit 731 were sipping champagne with American diplomats ten years after the war ended, while the blast shadows of Korean slave labor and Japanese working class people painted the masonry
Too often when discussion of Japanese warcrimes comes up and the lack of “remorse” by Japanese elites, it’s never pointed out it was the Americans who pardoned or refused to prosecute the war criminals, the Americans had total control of Japan and Japanese society and yet anti-communism was more important than any conception of justice
Hell nobody even clocks the incredible and sickening irony that the US killed more Koreans in three short years, than compared to the totality of Japanese colonial history
The US absorbed and perfected Japanese colonialism
Yes it’s true that was the actual reason for dropping the bombs, and yes civilians and POWs did die from them, but my criticism is towards Japan reinventing the narrative to make them look like the victims of WW2 and not the perpetrators which the atomic bombs do help them achieve. I’m not trying to make any arguments about whether using nuclear weapons were justified, but it’s very hard for me to have sympathy for a nation that was employing biochemical weapons in China at the same time.