Jarvik7 wrote:

Agreed. If you read back to my posts I never described Japan as a victim of the big meany USA or their war as a just cause. International politics is way more complicated than that. It's why the whole Bush-era "Axis of Evil" concept was so ridiculous (I hope we're not still using that term under Obama).

It's funny, because I use "Axis of evil" as one of my kanji stories.

If you take "sprout" as an oil derrick, then the axis of evil (axis, FRAME 1112 I think) can only have something to do with cars and oil, right?

For me, unforgettable.  ^_^

But yes, international relations is quite complicated.  When one side goes for the gun, whatever the reason, it becomes less complicated in my mind, however.  (The DPRK could reach for the gun for any number of assumed reasons.)  So holster the gun, and we can talk.  It's simple, and some would say simplistic, but there you go.  Pull the gun out and there is going to be violence.  Keep it holstered and we have a chance to work it out.

activeaero wrote:

Wally wrote:

The flying tigers was, as you know, a voluntary organization.  Americans, as you might know, are big on idealism.  It may be misdirected from time to time, but there it is.

Japan attacked.  It sent an armada to destroy US facilities on Hawaii.  Try and squirm as you will, that fact is inescapable.  Japan picked up the gun, with the intent to kill.

Japan had no business in China.  None.

Give me a break with the "volunteer organization" BS like we are talking about the Red Cross.  This was a PRESIDENTIAL APPROVED PROGRAM TO SEND AMERICAN FORCES TO FIGHT JAPAN.  It's not like a bunch of good natured US service men were sitting around one day and said "Hey let's resign from the military, move to China, and help them fight Japan because we are just such big idealist".   

This was a COVERT program, approved by the United States government, with the mission of fighting Japan, period.  This is not debated by any historians of merit and even the airmen themselves now openly admit it.  Even more telling is that after the war was officially declared this "volunteer" group was magically consolidated right back into the military.  How convenient lol.

Of course the most glaring issue of all with this "volunteer" non-sense is the fact that they were using freaking American P-40's fighters!

The only one trying to squirm away from the facts is you. 

America sent forces to attack Japan before Japan sent forces to attack America.  The end.

Oh and as a side note my grandfather, the greatest man I've known (who also raised me for a significant portion of my life), was part of a fast carrier strike group that bombed Honshu (notably Tokyo) so I'm not exactly cheer leadering for Japan on this one. 

I simply recognize making cut and dry claims regarding war requires a lot of ignorance, regardless of ones historical knowledge.

Frankly, I don't see much difference.  The US should be pilloried for defending China against blatant Japanese aggression?  Say what?

WHAT BUSINESS DID JAPAN HAVE TRYING (stupidly as it was, considering China had FIVE TIMES Japan's population) to subdue China?

The answer is ZERO.  China was not some island nothing in the middle of the ocean.  Japan was dreaming of some glory way beyond its means, and beyond its capabilities.  One of those calculations would have had to have been (if you are a rational human being) that someone might object to your play, and assist the other side.

As I have said repeatedly, Japan was a naive simpleton in world affairs.  It needed another several hundred years studies to figure out what was what.  It got its fingers burned by jumping in where angels fear to tread.  So be it.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 1:20 am)

activeaero wrote:

Wally wrote:

Frankly, I don't see much difference.  The US should be pilloried for defending China against blatant Japanese aggression?  Say what?

WHAT BUSINESS DID JAPAN HAVE TRYING (stupidly as it was, considering China had FIVE TIMES Japan's population) to subdue China?

The answer is ZERO.  China was not some island nothing in the middle of the ocean.  Japan was dreaming of some glory way beyond its means, and beyond its capabilities.  One of those calculations would have had to have been (if you are a rational human being) that someone might object to your play, and assist the other side.

As I have said repeatedly, Japan was a naive simpleton in world affairs.  It needed another several hundred years studies to figure out what was what.  It got its fingers burned by jumping in where angels fear to tread.  So be it.

Why do you keep coming back to this "who's business" crap?  Who's business was it of the United States to be involved with helping China?  The United States was founded on the principle of non-intervention. "Commerce with All Nations, Alliance with None, Should be our Motto" as Thomas Jefferson put it. 

  You were just claiming that the United States was Mr. Isolationist and now your are trying to justify us sending combat forces to help one country fight another.   If you can't stick to an argument then stop making them.  You can't run around claiming we didn't want any part of the rest of the world when it suits one part of your argument and then turn around and say that it was ok that were doing the exact opposite when it suits the other side of it. 

  Either we were isolationists or we weren't. 

   You create your arguments and then whenever you get caught with United States doing the same thing your only argument seems to be "well it was none of the other countries business to be doing it".   That argument is just insane to me.   Japan was weak therefore it was none of their business, where as the United States was strong and had interests there so it was "part of their business" and that makes it ok!?

  So I guess that means if Japan was powerful enough to possibly defeat China or the United States then they would have been equally as justified?  Ridiculous.

Nope.  But I do suggest that if you embark on a military quest, you'd better have some idea about how you can end the same, otherwise you are pretty stupid.  The only fantasy Japan had was that its "Yamato Damashi" was superior to that of any other culture, and that as a result it could compel another culture to submit simply because the "Yamato Damashi" was so overpowering.  It's something out of science fiction, with no basis in reality.

Everybody is tough.  Everybody goes down fighting.  How Japan ever got the idea that it was singular in this regard is absolutely unfathomable.  The Japanese were, in a word, STUPID about the rest of the world.  They were like little children imagining that they were cowboys or indians.  Dreamland.  Perhaps it was their experience with their neighbors:  Russia and the other "powers" in East Asia.  But in any case, it was foolish and naive beyond the pale.

Bottom line:  Japan had no business in China, and the US refusal to sell them oil as a result of its aggression in China does not justify picking up the gun.  Japan picked up the gun.  Big mistake for Japan.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 2:41 am)

This has got to be the ugliest thread ever on this forum.  What a mess!

activeaero wrote:

The first eastern nation to defeat a modern western power in war (Russo-Japanese War).

Pretty much the worst thing that ever happened to Japan.  It defeated a backward, semi-European, semi-industrial, barely post-feudal pseudo-power called Russia, and defeated it basically in one naval battle (anyone care to cite a major naval battle that Russia *EVER* won in its long and storied history?), and then decided it was ready to take on the most advanced nations.

It wasn't.

Like Russia was really prepared to support a Pacific navy of any consequence when it didn't even have a single ROAD that spanned the continent!  Japan defeated a Potemkin country, nothing more.  And as for defeating it ... well, we didn't see much follow-on now, did we?  I mean, Japan didn't exactly send an army group to Moscow to dictate surrender terms now, did they?  They shot up some ships in Eastern Siberia, and Russia had its hands full elsewhere.  Plenty full.  Lucky for Japan.  Except it wasn't lucky.  Because like you (apparently) Japan thought Russia was a serious power, so Japan thought it was a serious power.  Neither was true at all.

Of course if Japan had decided to march on Moscow, they would have discovered what Napoleon (and later Hitler) discovered:  It's one hell of a long way, and there are a lot of tough people in between.  Japan would have been humiliated.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 4:42 am)

So how did this not serious power embarrass the British Royal Navy repeatedly during the earlier years of the war and all but run them out of South East Asia?  How did this not so serious power surprise the United States enough to devastate it's main naval fleet and then defeat them numerous times afterwards in actual direct naval combat?  How did this not so serious power achieve superior air to air kill numbers against the United States (just slightly, but it was greater than 1:1) during the beginning part of the war?

Is that the kind of results typical from countries that aren't serious powers?

activeaero wrote:

So how did this not serious power embarrass the British Royal Navy repeatedly during the earlier years of the war and all but run them out of South East Asia?  How did this not so serious power surprise the United States enough to devastate it's main naval fleet and then defeat them numerous times afterwards in actual direct naval combat?  How did this not so serious power achieve superior air to air kill numbers against the United States (just slightly, but it was greater than 1:1) during the beginning part of the war?

Is that the kind of results typical from countries that aren't serious powers?

The Royal Navy was quite busy trying to make sure that a much more vigorous and powerful tribe, called the Germans, would not overrun the home island.

Take Germany out of the equation and the British would have been dictating terms in Tokyo Bay, not the Americans.

But nice try.

As for the Americans, they were caught flat-footed, no doubt about it.  But Japan was never set to go toe-to-toe with America, as no less than Admiral Yamamoto well knew.  Six months, he said.  After that we are probably in trouble.  Well, FIVE months after Pearl Harbor American planes were dropping bombs on Honshu.  Did Japanese planes ever get to, say, Las Vegas?    (Not to mention Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and should I go on?)

New York?  Washington DC?

Did you know that the US played major league baseball throughout the war (most of my Japanese friends are absolutely flabbergasted to discover this)?  Yeah, it was a real hardship for America to crush Japan.  I mean, Japan almost won, right? 

This comment by Yamamoto is the key, IMHO.  Six months.  What conceivable dreamer could have possibly imagined America would be suing for peace in six months?  Occupied?  Phew!  Only in a weird fantasy.  America was impregnable, basically.  Japan was tilting at a windmill, but a windmill that could tilt back quite severely.

I will grant you this much:  Japan was a formidable *REGIONAL* power.  But it was no world power, and it severely overestimated its reach.  And it paid the price for that misjudgment.

I mean, Japan could not entirely subdue China, which was a second-class regional power, if that (a project that they had been working on for about a decade).  Yet just a tad more than 3 1/2 years after Japan decided to play with a genuine world power, it was over.

Then it became a military protectorate of that world power, which it remains to this day.    How ironic.

Oh, and I want to add one more thing: 

Do you know how many licensed pilots there were in America in 1941?  I bet not.  Roughly three-hundred-thousand, is how many.  Against less than 10,000 pilots in all of Japan.  So when Japan lost ONE pilot, it was like the US losing about 30 pilots.  So a "slightly better than 1:1 kill ratio in the beginning" isn't going to come even close to getting the job done.  And of course, when you lose your carriers at Midway, well, you lose the planes and the pilots, too.  Not good.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 5:50 am)

Tobberoth wrote:

I think Wallys constant reference to "picking up the gun" is kind of stupid and a simple way of thinking. It tries to make a colorful picture black and white.

"You are the bad guy because you picked up the gun."
"Yeah but you held an axe over my head and told me you would kill me if I didn't pick it up...."

And of course you are entitled to your opinion, even when expressed with a "kind of stupid and simple way of thinking" as you have expressed above. 

It is rather simple, unfortunately.  Someone begins killing.  Japan never had an axe to its head, as if you needed someone to point that out.

And maybe it's time for a little history course for you young people, who may not know that there was actually a "United Nations" prior to 1945.  It was called the League of Nations of course, and when it almost universally condemned Japan for its actions in East Asia, Japan simply stormed out in 1933.  So it wasn't the US.  It was pretty much planet Earth that decided Japan was out of line on the Asian continent.  Maybe planet Earth was holding an axe to Japan's head?

Oh the vote.  Yes, I forgot the vote.  It was 42 to 1.  Japan was the one.  The only one.

And don't forget that the US was not even a member (never joined), so it could not vote.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 6:36 am)

Tobberoth wrote:

Wally wrote:

Tobberoth wrote:

I think Wallys constant reference to "picking up the gun" is kind of stupid and a simple way of thinking. It tries to make a colorful picture black and white.

"You are the bad guy because you picked up the gun."
"Yeah but you held an axe over my head and told me you would kill me if I didn't pick it up...."

And of course you are entitled to your opinion, even when expressed with a "kind of stupid and simple way of thinking" as you have expressed above. 

It is rather simple, unfortunately.  Someone begins killing.  Japan never had an axe to its head, as if you needed someone to point that out.

Point being that Japan didn't have any choice. The US actions clearly showed where they stood, they put up the embargo which Japan considered an unfriendly act. If Japan didn't do something, eventually the US would. So Japan defended their interests, just like any other country would.

Pearl harbor can easily be seen from both viewpoints, and I'm that's how war should be handled. Trying to simplify it like you're doing isn't helping anyone. It just shifts the blame around, which is completely useless. The US was (and still is in some regards) an imperialistic force. The Japanese were an imperialistic fascist force. Sweden was neutral in WW2 and didn't help the allies. All countries have skeletons in their closets. Instead of trying to put that blame on others, it's better to be open-minded about it.

I'm open minded.  Really.  But Japan was a country that was run and dominated by an extremely aggressive army that had no compunction against using violence to enforce its will.  This was not true of America.  Japan's army had expansionist goals, and it was prepared to assassinate Japanese politicians to achieve them, and to wage war against other nations to achieve them.  It started hostilities in Asia, against America, grossly overreached and underestimated, and was finally utterly smashed.  That's about the end of a rather simple story.  You can complicate it if you like, but it was basically an army run amok, beyond all civilian control, and out of touch with reality.  It's not a stain on Japan per se other than Japan did not have the institutions in place to control its own army, and so its army overran its own country first.  End of story, really.

By the way, I should add here that I believe had Hirohito tried to move against the army at almost any time before the very end, the army would have killed him.  And I think he knew it, and the people around him knew it.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 6:50 am)

Tobberoth wrote:

Wally wrote:

I'm open minded.  Really.  But Japan was a country that was run and dominated by an extremely aggressive army that had no compunction against using violence to enforce its will.  This was not true of America.

Two words for you: Atomic. Bombs.

Wally wrote:

Japan's army had expansionist goals, and it was prepared to assassinate Japanese politicians to achieve them, and to wage war against other nations to achieve them.  It started hostilities in Asia, against America, grossly overreached and underestimated, and was finally utterly smashed.  That's about the end of a rather simple story.  You can complicate it if you like, but it was basically an army run amok, beyond all civilian control, and out of touch with reality.  It's not a stain on Japan per se other than Japan did not have the institutions in place to control its own army, and so its army overran its own country first.  End of story, really.

This I agree with, more or less. That doesn't clean the US free of blame, and tons of other countries for that matter. I agree with many, maybe even most of your opinions. Your simplification is the problem. Even in the case of the army, there are tons of reasons for everything. Making it seem like everyone in the Japanese army was some bloodthirsty beast and that was the only driving force behind the war makes no sense either.

You aren't writing a history book for 5 year olds, you're having an argument. Oversimplification isn't needed.

Well I don't know what the two words signify in the context of the outbreak of hostilities.  I do know what they signify after 3 1/2 years of bitter fighting, fighting that went on long after the contest should have been decided.

The army general staff was pretty crazed.  Not to a man, almost undoubtedly of course, but thoroughly enough that men with calmer minds dared not speak their minds.  How complicated does it get?  I'm simplifying, but not oversimplifying.  There were lots of good and decent people in Japan at the time; it goes without saying.  If they spoke out however, people from an organization known as Kempeitai came around for a visit, and it wasn't just to have tea and exchange pleasantries.

As is usually true, the first violence was inflicted on decent-minded Japanese themselves.  This, more than any other reality, should help to pinpoint where the problem was.

Last edited by Wally (2009 June 04, 7:03 am)

What do you guys think of Sanrio licensing out Hello Kitty to the Chinese?  I am disgusted by this.  Is nothing sacred?

Wally wrote:

I mean, Japan almost won, right? 

This appears to be what your argument really boils down to.   By us not accepting all of your personal character judgements that Japan's actions were "unfathomable" for a nation during that time you think we are somehow taking up for Japan.

Where did I EVER say that Japan "almost won"?  Sorry but you just made that up and I'm not sure why. 

I was simply responding to your tirade that tried to convince us that Japan was just a tiny little po-dunk dirt clod in the middle of the ocean that should have had no reason to believe it had a little bite to back up it's bark.   I provided evidence that they DID in fact have a lot of reason to think "Hey maybe we are a pretty powerful nation", regardless of how right they were.  I never said they were the most powerful nation on earth, I never said they "almost won", I never downplayed America's power. 

You're now twisting the argument to basically say "Well they weren't as powerful as America or Britain".  Yeah no crap but not being the MOST powerful nation on earth is not remotely the same as arguing that they were a "joke".....which is exactly what you've been trying to convince us that Japan was.

The facts are this:   Within an extrememly brief period of time Japan's industrial/economic base had skyrocketed almost beyond belief, they were successful in gaining control of huge amounts of terrority in the Pacific, proved they could engage and defeat western powers in large scale "modern" combat, and built the 3rd largest Naval Fleet in the world. 

Trying to disregard all of that simply because they weren't "number 1" is just silly. 

Yes we crushed them.  No they didn't have a chance in the long run.  I fully understand and have always agreed with this.  I simply challenged your whole black and white take on the matter. 

You just acted like Japan was the only nation in history to act like it did and you seem genuinely enraged that anyone would disagree with you.  If you would calm down and not over exaggerate your stance by forcing everything into the two perfect little boxes that you have apparently labled "Acceptable action by that country" and "OMFG COMPLETELY UNFATHOMABLE ACTION UNMATCHED IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AND I WILL KILL A KITTEN IF YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO QUESTION THIS!!!!!"  you would have a much stronger argument.

Peace out.

CodingHorror wrote:

(...) The silent treatment was a punishment I didn't fully understand until years later in life. That's how you change the world. Not by arguing with people. Certainly not by screaming at them. You do it by ignoring them. (...)

From I Stopped Reading Your Blog Years Ago.