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From: arndt@3434.DEC
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: Belated Good Wishes!
Message-ID: <3665@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 13:59:14 EDT
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Posted: Thu Aug 15 13:59:14 1985
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**************************************************************************
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****************  HAPPY 40TH HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI!!  *******************
****************   MAY YOU HAVE MANY MORE TO REMEMBER  *******************
**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************

Sorry to be so late in getting this out but I've been busy pickin' the 
wings off flys . . . no, not really, I've been trying to get all the white
paint off my body left there from layin' on the dirt roads hereabouts and
paintin' a white shadow to remember the 40th!

With all the hand wringing and lamenting about us droppin' the bomb on the
Japs during the war a few things seem to have gone by the board.  One 
almost gets the impression we were the 'bad' guys for pickin' on the poor
fun lovin' little islanders.

One is always saddened at the killing of children.  But for instance, 
if they HAD won the war we'd be living in a different world and they
(along with their allies the good ole Germans) and those very children who
died in H & N might this minute be beating the stuffin' out of YOUR 
children!!!  Remember how friendly the Japs were to prisoners and nations!

If I start shooting at people from my car or home in which my family are
sitting, and if they are hit by return fire that is MY RESPONSIBILITY.  I would
apply the same analogy to nations.  Even more so when the civilian 
population supported the war!
                                    
They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind!  I remember a statement by
Viscount Slim at the surrender (he insisted against Mac's orders the Jap
officers give up their swords) that he felt no pity for these men when he
remembered what they did to their prisoners.

Speaking of which here's a little sample:

           Orders posted on a Jap prison ship

"Commander of the Prisoner Escort Navy of the Great Japanese Empire"

              Regulations for Prisoners

1. The prisoners disobeying the following orders will be punished with
   immediate death.

      a) Those disobeying orders and instructions.
      b) Those showing a motion of antagonism and raising a sign of 
oppositon.
      c) Those disordering the regulations by individualism, egoism, 
thinking only about yourself, rushing for your own goods.
      d) Those talking without permission and raising loud voices.
      e) Those walking and moving without order.
      f) Those carrying unnecessary baggage in embarking.
      g) Those resisting mutually.
      h) Those touching the boat's materials, wires, electric lights, tools
switches, etc.
      i) Those climbing ladder without order.
      j) Those showing action of running away from the room or boat.
      k) Those trying to take more meal than given to them.
      l) Those using more than two blankets.

2. Since the boat is not well equipped and inside being narrow, food being
scarce and poor you'll feel uncomfortable during the short time on the boat
Those losing patience and disordering the regulation will be heavily 
punished for the reason of not being able to escort.

3. Be sure to finish your 'natures call'.  Evacuate the bowels and urine
before embarking.

4. Meal will be given twice a day.  One plate only to one prisoner.  The
prisoners called by the guard will give out the meal quick as possible and
honestly.  The remaining prisoners will stay in their places quietly and
wait for your plate.  Those moving from their places reaching for your
plate without order will be heavily punished.  Same orders will be applied
in handling plates after meal.

5. Toilet will be fixed at the four corners of the room.  The buckets and
cans will be placed.  When filled up a guard will appoint a prisoner.  The
prisoner called will take the buckets to the center of the room.  The 
buckets will be pulled up by the derrick and be thrown away.  Toilet papers
will be given.  Everyone must cooperate to make the room sanitary.  Those 
being careless will be punished.

6. Navy of the great Japanese Empire will not try to punish you all with
death.  Those obeying all the rules and regulations, and believing the
action and purpose of the Japanese Navy, cooperating with Japan in 
constructing the 'New Order of the Great Asia' which lead to the world's
peace will be well treated."

                              The End

What some of you need is a good dose of reality!  The Japs and the Nazis
were qualified bastards!  (Qualified because even in the prisoner diaries
there are accounts of German and Japanese humanity being displayed -read
THE MURDERS AMONGST US, by Simon Weisonthal)

A few lines from such a diary: (an American held in China)

June 4 to June 18: Sick most of this period; stomach cramps and fever.
Was standing next to Lonnie Riddle (electriction) when one of the Japanese
guards called him over to the fence.  Riddle refused because it was against
the rules to be near the fence.  Without warning, the Japanese guard raised
his rifle and shot Lonnie through the neck.  He died immediately.

Aug.11:  Japanese ordered each man in camp to kill five flies and five
mosquitoes every day.  Oh boy!  A sailor named Hodgkins got careless around
the electric fence today and was killed.

Oct. 2: Colonel Yusi, the Camp Commandant, died today of pneumonia.  I was
sorry.  He was not one of the vicious ones as long as you didn't make waves

To see survivors of the atomic bombings speak about what THEY suffered 
without even mentioning what they SUPPORTED and what the Japanese nation
did is a moral outrage!  To see Americans cheer them when they speak with
such a lack of moral view is disgusting.  

I have been to the Hiroshima memorial at ground zero and I wanted to shout
"Where is the memorial to what you did to those who brought this upon you?"
The Japanese are still hated throughout many parts of the Pacific Rim.  
When in Manila, in a seedy section of town a few years back, I got worried
for my safety (strange what with my being such a sweet guy, eh?) and being
even then the quick thinker that I am I started talking about my father who
fought in the Islands against the Japs, etc.  Well, night and day!  
Suddenly I had a bodyguard and 'God Bless America!"
      
Well, this is gettin' too long.  Remember I'm not talking about using the
bomb NOW.  Just about how and why we did back then.  The ivory tower 
scientists, many of them never having seen a shot fired in anger much less
AT them lamented the use of the bomb.  (Also remember, only SOME of them 
did!  Many spoke out against Oppenheimer's famous statement to the effect
that now physicists had known sin.)

The facts of history are very clear, the Japs were NOT going to surrender,
their own testimony says so, and the bomb forced the issue with the
Emperor making the decision against the war party after the second bomb
and we weren't at all sure the bomb would work if we gave a demo, etc.
                                 
Not to resist evil IS evil.  May the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki long
be remembered so that evil men will know that there is risk in waging war.

              HAPPY 40TH H & K !

Regards,

Ken Arndt