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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!psuvax1!burdvax!dowding
From: dowding@burdvax.UUCP (John Dowding)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Japanese Military
Message-ID: <1736@burdvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Oct-84 14:22:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: burdvax.1736
Posted: Sun Oct  7 14:22:42 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Oct-84 05:16:16 EDT
Organization: System Development Corporation, Paoli PA
Lines: 34



I feel forced to reply to this quote from Rick Keir (in regards to the
Japanese military):

>This was a military that had allied itself with Hitler's Germany; belief
>in rational and humanitarian decision-making on their part seems misplaced.

This guilt by association with Germany is simply unjustified:  The alliance
between Japan and Germany was purly tactical, not an alliance in the same
sense in which the US and England had formed an alliance!  Lest we forget,
we fought Japan because Japans imperialist plans for China conflicted with
our imperialist plans, as stated in the Open Door Policy.  Because the USSR
was as concerned about Japanese aggression in China as the US was, an
alliance with Germany was necessary to keep the USSR out of the war over 
China.  There was never any real cooperation  between Germany and Japan.

This is related to why the US bombed Nagasaki.  By the end of the war, 
relations between the US and the USSR had deteriorated to cold war levels,
but the USSR was scheduled to join the war against Japan soon.  We wanted the
war over before the Soviets had a chance to attack through China (once they
went somewhere, they tended not to leave).  There were several alternatives
to using the A-bomb (such as  invasion, fire-bombing, etc.), but none of them
would have ended the war quick enough to avoid the Soviet Union's invasion
of China.

To say that the Japanese were inhumane and irrational because they did
not surrender quick enough shows a lack of understanding of the Japanese
culture.  The US demanded a totally unconditional surrender, including the
removal of the Emperor.  The Japanese hesitated on this one point.  If the US
would have been willing to guarentee the sovereignty of the Emperor, then
the Japanese would have surrendered without the second bombing.  If one
of the two parties can be said to have been irrational and inhumane, it must 
be the US.