[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

Thanks for that post, which helps clarify for me your thinking on this. I
still disagree about a number of key points.

> >As I mentioned in the previous message, the Japanese overtures to Russia
in
> >search of a better deal are well known.
>
> On the  contrary, it is clear that after the Potsdam Declaration of
> July 25th, Japanese overtures were on that basis.

I'm not sure where the disagreement ("on the contrary...") here is supposed
to be. If you mean that the Japanese were approaching the Russians only, but
with an attitude to full compliance with the Potsdam Declaration
(Unconditional Surrender), that doesn't make sense. If they were agreeing to
the Potsdam agreement, why only approach the Russians? I have never seen any
plausible suggestion that the probings with Russians were anything other
than probings for a better deal (which did include a list of unacceptable
counter-demands/conditions that could hardly be taken as a valid offer of
surrender). If you have evidence to the contrary, please share it.


> >  It was not an offer of surrender,
> >however. It was a probing, based on misguided notions held by some in the
> >Japanese leadership that Russia, having its own imperial history, would
be
> >more understanding.
>
> This is rather difficult to understand. Stalin would be more
> understanding because of Russian Imperial history ?

Yes it is. That's why I characterized it as "misguided notions held by some
in the Japanese leadership." I think -- but this would be a wide and
complicated detour to get into in detail -- that it can be clearly
documented that the Japanese harbored fundamental misconceptions about the
nature of the Soviet Union and the Communist Revolution, starting in 1917 (I
mean their misconceptions, not just the revolution) and continuing at least
through the duration of the war. Having an Emperor, and believing in their
heart of hearts that the Russian people would still have warm and fuzzy
feelings about their own Czar on some level, they would understand -- unlike
the Zionistic Americans who were sovereignless -- Japanese demands to
preserve the emperor (one of the Potsdam conditions was elimination of the
Emperor system). The Japanese were obviously very confused about this.

>
> >  The US repeatedly issued requests, though various
> >channels, asking for the Japanese surrender, which the Japanese
repeatedly
> >refused, according to some accounts, in very harsh terms.
>
> Earlier and irrelevant.

Irrelevant? So your position is the Americans were gluttons for punishment
and eager or willing to sacrifice thousands or hundreds of  thousands of
young Americans just to continue prosecute a war that was for all intents
and purposes over -- except for the Japanese penchant to take things to
their suicidal end -- so much so, that the Americans were closed to the idea
of Japanese surrender? And the alleged benefit from dragging things out just
a little more and taking these casualties was...? Or, that they were willing
to suffer all those losses just to see how their new toy bomb worked?

Let's make this very, very clear. It was up to whom -- the Americans or the
Japanese -- to make the announcement that would end the war?

>
> On the contrary, it is the precise timing which makes it unlikely.
> Governments rarely make decisions all that quickly.

That doesn't follow. As Stephen rightly noted, there were competing factions
in the Japanese leadership echelon, running a spectrum from envisioning the
glorious consummation of the entire Japanese nation for the honor of the
Emperor (unfortunately, far from empty rhetoric, and far from limited to a
few kooks -- it was the common ethos of the military and the civilian
population, once the prospect that Japan might not the win the War, in spite
of their leader being a Deity) to more pragmatic thinkers searching for the
best and most face-saving deal with which to end the hostilities (and
perhaps fight again some other day). The bombs decisively brought the
internal debate to a conclusion.

> The crucial factors were Potsdam and probably the carpet bombing of
> Tokyo which killed 100,000 people - more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
> combined and much closer to home.

More wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Potsdam gave the pragmatists a new goal
or victory to seek -- a better deal than what Potsdam offered, and the
simple fact that they didn't surrender after either Tokyo or Hiroshima
undermines your idea. The war was already over from the military standpoint
after (and possibly even during) Sanpan, Iwo Jima, etc. Japan had no hope of
winning the war. Rather than surrender, it went into suicide mode (kamikaze,
Yamamato, etc.). The Allies had experience that fanatic suicidal ethos since
the beginning of the war, from the common soldier to the decisions from High
Command. They had no reason to believe that that ethos had suddenly
evaporated. An invasion would give them precisely the occasion of going out
in a blaze of glory as their rhetoric and actions throughout the war had
demonstrated. The bombs were effective precisely because they demonstrated
that the blaze of glory would never happen. No Allied soldier need ever set
foot on Japanese soil, and yet the whole place could be decimated in short
order. No honor in that. The pervasive suicidal ethos -- no Japanese I have
ever heard has suggested anything otherwise. On the contrary, if they say
anything, they offer contrite explanations -- more like excuses, really -- 
for maybe thinking, in the last hours of the war, that all this suicidal
fervor might be *slightly* mistaken (that a very few have expressed remorse
at having been caught up in that frenzy suggests it is NOT a post-war
rationalization or self-justification, but a very real pervasive social
phenomenon, for which Zen played a not insignificant role). One might want
to question to what extremes they ultimately were willing to go in that
mode. Fortunately that hypothetical remains today just a hypothetical
precisely because of the two bombs.

But to belabor the point, while the noose was tightening and the war was
effectively over, Germany has surrendered months earlier; but it was still
necessary to break the will of the Japanese govt. and get them to
acknowledge defeat, i.e., to surrender and cease hostilities. That they
surrendered on Aug. 10th seems to settle the matter.

It's noble to want to demonize the bomb. It's a demonic, terrible thing. But
inventing imaginary history to erroneously suggest it wasn't necessary or
used judiciously, or that it didn't accomplish what it accomplished, when
what one would really like to do is turn the clock back and try to prevent
the damn thing from being invented in the first place, is not the way to go.
That does not put the genie back in the bottle.

> To be expected - it excuses defeat. Also, people do tend to assume
> causal connexions in the past, forgetting that attitudes were
> different at the time. Post hoc propter hoc.

So the Americans have distorted the record, and the Japanese have as well.
Only the BBC gets it right. I see. Might all this BBC blame game be an
attempt by some British to disown their role as Allies -- pawn the "guilt "
of the evil bomb off on the guys who saved Europe? Remind me now, who bombed
Dresden?

Playing this sort of motive game can get messy, don't you think? OTOH the
Japanese motives, if read in terms of their consistent actions throughout
the war, and the intensification of the suicidal rhetoric AND actions, is a
different affair. It would have been irresponsible of Allied leaders to
ignore proven behaviors.


> But, to belabour the obvious, Germans (or Americans) in general are
> not responsible for the actions of some Germans, etc. They are not
> even responsible for all actions of the German government,
> particularly when that government was authoritarian in nature. The
> same goes for Japanese. The truth is that almost all participants in
> WWII have things of which to be ashamed. What we shouldn't do is drag
> up other people's wrong deeds selectively or exaggeratedly - usually
> out of unacknowledged hatred or vengefulness. Or because they do not
> belong to the same political or cultural grouping as us.

I don't think that is what has been going on here. My wife and in-laws are
Japanese, and I am not on some vendetta against them (or vice versa). We
have been discussing the difference between the mythology and the historical
reality of the strategic use of the bomb. My objections have been precisely
to the selective and exaggerated nature of some otherwise popular opinions.
That is something quite different than inventing imaginary stories to make
one side better than it was, and the other worse than it was -- such as
asserting that the Japanese really had already surrendered -- they just
forgot to tell the people attacking them; or that the Americans were
scrambling for excuses to drop a bomb just because they are racists, or
facinated with technology (but then why wait to drop the second bomb, why
not just drop them on the same day?), or whatever.

People make mistakes. In wartime those can be quite egregious. We could
probably generate a lengthy litany of Allied wrongs during the subsequent
Occupation of Japan (and the continued presence on Okinawa, etc.), But on
balance, I think we might agree that for the most part, the occupation was
benign and enabled, rather than hindered subsequent Japanese prosperity.
Certainly in comparison to the Japanese occupation of Korea and China, there
is actually no comparison.

Dan Lusthaus