• ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Now imagine how the japanese are seen by the people of China, Korea, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra, Singapore, Indonesia and Papua who were still living under japanese occupation and terror in August 1945. Who died in droves far greater than the Hiroshima or Nagasaki victims, with up to 25 million casualities. Whose death rates increased towards the end of the war, and for whom a delay of the capitulation of the japanese by a few weeks or, god forbid, months would have meant millions of deaths.

    Who, mind you, did not support the japanese government, did not support the japanese war, had no way of stopping it except for fighting for their lives, yet still had to suffer from it. Unlike the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who could have prevented the japanese government from taking power, who could have striked and fought against their militaristic government, who could have sabotaged the war efforts of their government in a war that was lost anyways - yet they never did.

    • dudinax@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      “Unlike the people” and their school-aged kids, and their babies, and the old grandmas. Don’t let them off they hook, they could have taken down a military dictatorship that dominated East Asia if they felt like it.

    • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Like, there are still people alive today who wouldn’t have been without the atomic bombs. And I’m not even talking about american soldiers here, I’m talking about civilians. Not dropping those bombs would have meant their death. Go on, tell them they should’ve died because the japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocently living their life and it totally wasn’t their government, their labor and their devotion to the emperor that kept the war going.

      After all, the real victims of the japanese imperial war were the japanese. Totally! You know, those who until today have not accepted their crimes and instead openly deny it.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        At the same time you can turn that around and say that there are thousands of regular people (that didn’t have any power over what their country was doing and didn’t participate in it) who would be alive today and that aren’t because of two bombs… So it’s not that strong of an argument when you think about it…

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Yes, because the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the ones deciding what the emperor was doing.

            • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              Oh right, they were ready to surrender. You know what would’ve been nice? Fucking surrendering.

              You know what would’ve been nice after the first nuclear bomb? Fucking surrendering.

              You know what would’ve been nice after the second nuclear bomb? Fucking surrendering.

              Instead, they tried a coup until the emperor finally grew some tiny balls.

              Man people like you should have lived in the japanese occupied territories.

              • irmoz@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                Because the fucking Imperial government was trash. You think I’m defending Japan? Fuck no. But it’s a historical fact that the ONLY thing stopping them from surrendering at that point was their worry that surrendering would mean the US forcing them to remove the emperor. What they didn’t know, and what the US refused to tell them, was that they didn’t give two shits about the emperor. In fact, their demand for Japan’s surrender included a statement that the Emperor would retain his place. That little note was only removed when the nuclear tests came back to the President, letting him know that the bombs would work.

        • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          that didn’t have any power over what their country was doing and didn’t participate in it

          It’s funny how the people in the war fighting countries don’t have “any power” over what their country is doing. Nope. None at all. Nope. Can’t oppose your government, can’t fight your government, can’t oppose the war, can’t strike, can’t sabotage, can’t leave. Nope, nothing they can do. Poor, poor victims of war.

          And that the people who actually lived innocently have to die in 10-fold numbers because those poor Japanese can’t be held accountable.

            • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              And the italians revolted against their facist handlers. And hung Mussolini upside down in Milano. That’s why italy got a rather okay end to the second world war.

              And the poles managed to stage an uprising against the germans while fully under their control in a ghetto. But yeah, the poor japanese victims were powerless.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            You’re saying with the point of view of someone in 2023. The Army would have shot people fighting against their government and that would have been the end of it. Japan (especially at the time) is also culturally very different from Western countries.

            • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              Japan (especially at the time) is also culturally very different from Western countries.

              Yeah that excuses the 25 Million dead people and damn the US for stopping them. They just wanted to murder in peace!

              But hey, thanks for confirming that only the nuclear bombs could have pushed them into surrendering. After all, anything else was culturally too different for them.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                I never said it’s not dramatic, I said that your argument that “people are alive today because X” doesn’t hold much water because others died so they’re alive. Go tell the family of those who died that their brother/sister/parent had to die to save people in another country.

                • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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                  1 year ago

                  Go tell the family of those who died that their brother/sister/parent had to die to save people in another country.

                  I’m german and an anti fascist. The fuck do you think I’d do?

                  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    Tell me, what two days during WW2 did the Germans lose over 100k civilians uninvolved in the war in a couple of seconds? 🤔

                    The situations aren’t that comparable if we’re being honest with ourselves.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        1 year ago

        I always find it fascinating that people even ignore the simple fact that American soldiers were more than capable of war crimes themselves.

        Disregarding their conquered nations, disregarding the millions of soldiers that would die, far, far more civilians would have died in the invasion under equally horrible conditions.

        Starvation, gangrape, summary execution, dying trapped in rubble from an artillery strike, deaths due to extreme shortages of all kinds, all these horrors and more awaited the Japanese citizenry if the Allies invaded. It is just incontrovertible fact that the bombs lessened human suffering by an incomprehensible degree.

      • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Tbf, they were ready to surrender after the first bomb but it wasn’t unconditional. They wanted protection for their emperor. The US wanted to drop the second bomb to make Russia think we had more. This is an open secret. The second bombing has nothing to do with stopping Japan.

        And pretending like everyone has the power to end a war is horrifyingly childish. It’s actually scary how naive and simple your viewpoint is when taken into context the monstrosity you’re defending.

        • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I wrote an actual rebuttal to everything you wrote. But I realize that all of this is meaningless because you are one of the people who just love to lie to protect imperial japan. I only need to focus on this one thing:

          Tbf, they were ready to surrender after the first bomb but it wasn’t unconditional. They wanted protection for their emperor.

          And here we see the lengths you go to defend the japanese monstrosities. The Potsdam declaration didn’t mention the emperor at all. But you know what the japanese mentioned? That they would fight to the bitter end:

          I consider the Joint Proclamation a rehash of the Declaration at the Cairo Conference. As for the Government, it does not attach any important value to it at all. The only thing to do is just kill it with silence (mokusatsu). We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war.

          And this was their stance even after the first bomb, when they still demanded their four conditions

          • that the emperor’s rule would be left untouched
          • that Japan handle their own disarmament
          • that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals
          • that there be no occupation of Japan

          Those were their demands. This is what they wanted. That is why a second bomb was necessary. Not because of “the emperor”. Because they wanted to keep running their country and never face consequences for their actions.

          This is how dishonest people like you brush away all the shit Japan has done, turn everything upside down and turn victim into aggressor and aggressor into victim. You need to make things up to justify the fucked up decisions of imperial japan because you can not allow the idea that japan was at fault.

          • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I’m not condoning the Japanese. I’m just saying there was likely not a need to drop a second nuclear bomb in this world. You seem insistent that not condoning countless deaths of Japanese people seems to be apologizing for them. You aren’t actually arguing for necessity of the actions in your posts but the necessity of believing in punishment of them. Just as I don’t think random murders of US Americans would be a justified if it stopped the wars in Afghanistan which is exactly what your logic dictates would make it ok. You basically justified terrorism and events like 9/11 dumbass.