[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan,

I tried to twice to respond to this, but hit the size limit both 
times. Here's my last try !

>  If they were agreeing to
>the Potsdam agreement, why only approach the Russians?

In accordance with normal practice in wartime communication was via 
the embassies of a neutral power i.e. the Soviet Union (and 
subsequently Switzerland).

>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.

Can you provide evidence of such a list after Potsdam ?

>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.

I find this hard to believe. They cannot have been unaware that 
Stalin was part of the group who murdered the whole of the Russian 
Imperial family.

>  > >  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?

Because I take the above to refer to the period before Potsdam.

>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?

I have no idea where you get this from.

>  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?

No, I think it was a question of warning off the Soviets. Perhaps 
also a measure of vengeful feeling. There was quite a lot of racist 
hatred of the Japanese.

>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

He was a deity in a way similar to the Roman Emperors, not a Deity 
comparable to the Judeo-Christian 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.

But they didn't. Nobody changed their views after the dropping of the bombs.

>  > 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.

You don't seem to understand that processes take time !

>The war was already over from the military standpoint
>[section omitted]
>  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.

They sent a negotiating letter on Aug. 10th. They did not surrender.

>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.

I don't think this has anything to do with anything I have suggested.

>So the Americans have distorted the record, and the Japanese have as well.

In different ways, yes.

>Only the BBC gets it right. I see.

This is silly. Better to blame Google which produced this and various 
similar documents, when I was asked for documentation.

>  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?

I don't have any such idea and couldn't, since the project to develop 
the atom bomb was started by the British. Anyway, we finish paying 
for American help in WWII next year :-)

>  Remind me now, who bombed
>Dresden?

Let me repeat my views on Dresden:
The German bombing of Rotterdam and subsequently of Coventry, 
Plymouth and elsewhere was a terrible thing and quite inexcusable. 
That makes the (even worse) subsequent bombing of Dresden and other 
German cities understandable. It doesn't make it excusable.


>  > 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).

It is the language of what is now called stereotyping that I object 
to. I do not know what your motives are.

>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;

No-one suggested that. It is simply clear that even had the bombs not 
been dropped they would have surrendered shortly.

>  or that the Americans were
>scrambling for excuses to drop a bomb just because they are racists,

There was a widespread anti-Japanese racist propaganda at the time. 
Such racist popular feeling would have ben a political consideration 
at the time among American decision makers, some of whom certainly 
had racist motives. Others probably didn't. Only Truman knew why he 
took the decision he did. And of course even he may not have known.

>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.

For all I know that is true.

>Certainly in comparison to the Japanese occupation of Korea and China, there
>is actually no comparison.

The Japanese colonization of Korea from 1894 has to be judged in the 
light of 19th century colonialism. It would appear at times in a 
rather favourable light if contrasted with, say German imperial rule 
in parts of Africa or the extension of American imperial rule in some 
parts of North America.

Again if we look at Japanese militarism in the1930s, it is fairly 
obnoxious but not as bad as e.g. German or Russian militarism in the 
same period (or slightly later). Unfortunately, there was something 
of a plague of militarism in this period which caught on with many of 
those who like to be 'modern'.

Well, I don't think we are going to agree. So perhaps we should call it a day.

Lance Cousins