The_Jazz

They did. In 1991.

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cynthetiq

thanks for the timeline correction.

I think that's an important part of this thought, if torture is so abhorrent, surely war is too. Both are truisms to humanity. Your outline here best describes why I find that torture is acceptable. It's just framed as war in your post, but I see the same thing but with the lens of torture.

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The_Jazz

I see your point, but I still think that torture only confirms what you think you know, not any actual facts. The same Soviets you mentioned were masters at getting confessions of crimes that were imagined wholesale by the torturers.

Torture is an inefficient intelligence gathering tool.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

Innocent civilians were either vaporized or had to suffer in the agony of radiation poisoning for as much as decades. What kind of sick justice is that?
And the only reason you gave was.... your family was victimized by the Japanese. Which doesn't address the nuclear attack at all.
They had already long since stopped, Cynth. By April they had essentially no navy. They lacked the ability to wage war against anyone, let alone continue expansionism. It wasn't until August, 4 months later, that the nuclear bombs were dropped. Ignoring factual evidence and presenting appeals to emotion and sympathy arguments are intellectually dishonest.

roachboy

apparently it was not entirely clear that the japanese were definitely going to surrender before the bombing of hiroshima, but there was no question that they were before nagasaki got levelled.
but there were two types of bombs and on the second day it was thursday and the weather was nice.
so why not, eh?
let's see what this new toy can do...

on the other hand, it was also not entirely evident to folk at the time what the nuclear weapons were that they had fashioned---they were understood before hiroshima as really really big conventional bombs, basically--but that changed after, yes?
you'd think it'd have changed.

btw my stepfather was part of the bomber crew that would have flown a third bomb had it not become REALLY obvious that japan was throwing in the towel. he felt so great about it that he's spent much of the rest of his life doing political work against nuclear power in general.
go figure.


so anyway the two bombs are not the same, the do not present the same problems.

you could accept jazz's arguments concerning the cold-war motive and STILL not understand or accept the bombing of nagasaki. if that sort of thing concerns you--ethics and all that.

i understand the school of "thought" that says war is war and all bets are off--i understand the argument that "terrorists" don't play by the rules so why should "we" play by them--blah blah blah i generally say afterwards--and i wonder what good there is in using these arguments to justify blowing off those few international conventions that make the already barbaric state of war a little more humane, particularly given that the arguments encapsulate exactly the kind of motivations that created the need for such agreements in the first place, and demonstrate why they're important.

it is easy--really fucking easy--to slide down the pathway to barbarism: there's **always** a justification, it's **always** reactive it's **always** "their fault" that "we" have to throw respect for even the most basic norms that make us human beings and not some extremely dangerous and stupid animal out the fucking window.

i know i know war is ugly and people die.....but how on earth does it follow from this self-evident claim that therefore all ways of killing are equivalent and that therefore anything goes?

people say war is about revenge and is about primitive human instincts and i suppose that's true--and it is in the effort to get past a world controlled by these primitive human instincts that the modern world took shape, for better and for worse--and it is strange to consider that the doctrine of total war (clausewitz) and the notion of international law designed to place limits on what people can do to each other are the results of the same modernity, ain't it?

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it make you sick.

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Cynthetiq

jazz, I don't disagree that it is inefficient. In the hands of those paranoid governments, you are correct, it doesn't do much for their cause.

In the end, I believe this doesn't help the US cause, but it doesn't change my opinion of its usage.

From what I've read of the war they didn't surrender and were not willing to surrender after the Germans did.

I don't care who is doing the beating, but if you don't get the guy to say "uncle" he's still going to try to get you when he's got the opportunity.

And, no Will, it wasn't just my family, it was my entire race. My family happened to have good example of the atrocities at their hands. Jewish family members who have Holocaust survivors don't have much love for Germans either.

Again, you may find it not to your liking, but after reading all the accounts that I did from the Filipino perscpective, I was quite satisfied with the outcome.

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Willravel

RB, by my understanding (I've been studying WWII at length since I was in my early teens), the US had decoded the Japanese communications by as early as February. They intercepted communications about surrender as early as March, and had confirmed reports in April through June. The Japanese even tried to use allies of the US as intermediaries. Their one condition was to not harm the Emperor.

One thing that cannot be disputed is that Japan had lost it's ability to wage war long before either bomb was dropped. They were no longer a threat to anyone, let alone the US. So dropping the bombs could not have been done in order to prevent the loss of more lives or to stop Japanese aggressions.

The_Jazz

The obvious answer is that at the end of the process everyone is equally dead. The only difference is how drawn out the process was and who the person was prior to being dead. Morality has little to do with warfare.

The fact that poison gas was not used as a weapon between c. 1918 and c. 1985 shows that there are some weapons that require restraint. Even at the height of the most total war this planet has ever seen, gas weapons were not used by any side.

Was Nagasaki payback for Pearl Harbor? Maybe. I agree that it seemed to be overkill, but who can say that the current global political landscape would have been different without it? Again, that's a question for novelists, not us.

No and no. One of the overtures made was that the Emporer would remain the head of state. There were several others that included the Japanese disarming themselves and that no war criminals would be prosecuted.

Japan had not yet lost it's ability to wage modern war when the bombs were dropped. It was right around the corner and would have happened by September or so, but the US had a valid concern that an invasion would have been very costly given that Japanese civilians were expected to resist as heartily as they did at Okinawa.

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

Japan wasn't willing to surrender unconditionally because they didn't want the Emperor killed. That was their only condition. And guess what, after the bombs were dropped, the US decided that the Emperor was necessary to control the rebuilding of Japan so he was left alive, demonstrating that the condition was acceptable and ignored.
Have you see Monte Python an the Holy Grail? "I have not yet begun to fight" the black knight says, despite not having any arms or legs. There no longer existed an opportunity for Japan to attack, as their military was basically gone.
This is still irrelevant. And Filipino is a nationality, not a race.
You're satisfied with vengeance. I get that. But vengeance is not justice.

roachboy

will---i know the history around this pretty well, and while you're right, you could still make the arguments i put up above about hiroshima and nagasaki posing basically different ethical problems.

jazz--i don't really follow your argument--on the one hand, it's tautological.
then you make some odd jump to talking about the ban on poison gas.
how do you get from a to b and what are you arguing?


as for the last question--you can set up ethical problems that concern the past without launching into the curious world of counterfactuals.
again, i am not sure what you're arguing.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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Willravel

You're only listing the first of many overtures made by the Japanese. By the end, the only condition was that the Emperor was not killed. And it makes sense, as many of the Japanese believed that the Emperor was still holy.
Japan's navy was essentially gone as was their air force. Maybe they would have swam to China?

As for the civilians, all they needed to do was keep the Emperor as a figurehead, which is actually what the US decided to do.

Cynthetiq

rb: I don't take torture or war lightly. My only comment to being "proud" about them is that I have to be part of the whole. This is mainly about things that I don't, can't, or won't do and that there are a select few people out there that are willling to do such things. This goes for picking up trash to being a soldier, building houses to torturing individuals it is the length and breadth of humanity and societal living.

The only example I can come up with as an explanation is I am proud of military men who show service to their country, yet I know those that have seen combaty, they have killed and maimed invidiuals. I don't like that side of it, but it is part and parcel of what they do.

does that make sense?

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The_Jazz

Sorry, I got distracted by something while writing that and didn't realize how disjointed it is.

Poison gas and nuclear weapons are similar in that they're indiscriminant killers that leave long-term effects on the survivors. Granted that they don't have the same long-term ecological effects, but prior generations showed restraint with tried and true WMD before 1945. My point is that the same actors restrained themselves from using gas prior to WWII as well as afterwards, but only after seeing its effects. No one really knew all of the problems associated with nuclear weaponry until well into the 1950's. Once those became clear, Nagasaki in particular started to be seen in a completely different light, one that wasn't available at the time.

Which is exactly what I said. What I left out was that those that made the overture didn't have the power to negotiate or to make a peace at all. It's notable simply because it happened.

In the end, the condition wasn't that the emporer wouldn't be killed, it was that he would remain head of state, even as a puppet. And that what they got. There's a huge difference between the two.

The Japanese still had the ability to ferry their troops from China back to the Home Islands.

And the US didn't care any more about the Japanese civilians than the Japanese did. They all cared about the Japanese elite, who made policy.

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cynthetiq

Sure since you've been reading about WWII since you were a teen, maybe you can shed some light as to the actual reparations that the Japanese paid to the Philippines, Singapore and China. Three countries that have well documented war crimes and thousands that suffered and were killed at the hands of the Japanese.

You're espousing that justice could be had from courtroom, I have not read of any courtroom that was able to hold responsible any Japanese soldiers for warcrimes. In fact my readings have shed light to the fact that Japan doesn't recognize any of it's nationals to have committed any warcrimes.

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roachboy

understood--i'm making a similar point, but trying to place the tipping point between hiroshima and nagasaki.

i don't think there's much question about both being atrocities--part of a long list of them which unfolded during world war 2 (to keep with this)---if you're feeling ambitious and dont mind sitting through a version with an irritating russian voice over, have a look at this:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?...is&sitesearch=

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mojo_PeiPei

Umm might seem petty at this point to chime in, but I thought the basis was Japanese surrender wasn't so much about harm to the emperor, rather retention of his throne?

Had I been the one dictating terms, and facing a Japan with no navy or air force, that was crippled and isolated, and offering surrender, I wouldn't let him retain his throne; I certainly wouldn't kill him or use it as justification to drop nukes.

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Willravel

So you're saying someone in the position as Premier of Japan didn't have the power to negotiate a surrender? I think you may need to read up on Japanese government through WWII into post-war.
The Japanese leadership were scared to death of having the Emperor killed by Americans because they knew they'd lose any power they had left over the Japanese people and they were worried about it becoming anarchy. They knew that surrender would only mean something if they could restore order and begin to rebuild, which made the Emperor's life priceless to Japan. It had nothing to do with power because the Japanese people assumed he had power regardless of whether he actually had it or not.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from.
Do you know how? Fishing boats. I have a book here at home with amazing black and white pictures of Japanese troops on fishing boats which are headed toward the main island. The fishing boats were privately owned, though, which means a military strike with them would be nearly impossible.
How did that effect their decision to nuke Japan after repeated attempts at surrender from the elite in government?

Still immaterial to the subject at hand. I don't know what makes you think you can change the framework of the conversation to the Philippines. I'm talking about why the bombs were dropped. You're welcome to continue talking about whatever it is you're talking about.
Clearly you didn't do any real research at all. I have 4 books that only deal with the Tokyo Trials. I'll tell you what, google "Tokyo Trials". Even wikipedia has a pretty decent entry for it.

Cynthetiq

Really? Just because it's fishing boats doesn't mean that they are harmless.

Japanese troops landed on the Malay peninsula. They commandeered privately owned bicycles and invaded Singapore. Singapore fell to the Japanese Feb. 15, 1942.

Their occupation of Singapore resulted in 40,000 civilians executed under suspicion of being anti-Japanese.

still no war crime court justice.

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Willravel

And how many troops, from your research, did Japan have in August of 1945?
Tokyo Trials. Intellectually dishonest.

Cynthetiq

Life imprisonment and individuals were paroled after 5-10 years?

hardly justice.

sorry.. JUSTICE... please see that word.

You're touting that someone who was maimed or murdered should seek courtrooms for justice. I don't see how 5-10 years served is justice for beheadings, maiming, rape, pillaging, of villages and countrysides.

Yes, my aunt and her 2 young childred felt so vinidicated that her husband's beheaders had their day in court.

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The_Jazz

[sigh]

The Japanese Premier never made any such overtures. It was done in his name without his knowledge.

The only common request in the 40-page dossier that MacArthur gave Roosevelt in February 1945 was that the Emporer would remain head of state. Note, it wasn't that his life would be spared, it was that he would remain head of state. Those aren't mutually exclusive - after all, he'd have to be alive to serve - but the request, which was one among many, was that Hirohito would remain emporer. Those making the offers weren't so much worried about anarchy as continuation of Japanese sovereignty and tradition. After all, the Japanese had started the war hoping for a negotiated end to it and hoping to retain some of what they conquored or the liberation of some of the colonies. They just started the war in a way that roused the giant and continued to persecute it in a way that failed to engender any respect.

Fishing boats would have been a big source of the fleet to move the troops, but they would have used their civilian ferries and their remaining merchant fleet, ragtag as it was.

One other thing that I just caught - the Japanese air force was still a going concern. They had planes and pilots left in the last days. They were just stockpiling the gasoline to run them in anticipation of the invasion.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

Good point. LET'S NUKE EM!
Another good point. NUKE EM!

So, to summarize, while you were under the impression from your readings that there was no courtroom that was able to hold accountable any Japanese soldiers for "warcrimes":
There actually were, and it's such an obvious fact that even wikipedia has information on it. Did you read the Wiki page? 3 prime ministers, were convicted of class A war crimes. Military leadership was convicted. Outside of the Tokyo Trials, 5,600 Japanese personnel were prosecuted, including in the Philippines!

You can't guess history, Cynth. You actually have to do the research.

Japan Premier Suzuki, July of 1945. While it's generally reported that he announced that Japan would never surrender (or some such nonsense), he was actually the one who laid out the Emperor condition towards the end of attempts, immediately before the bombs were dropped.
As I said, Japan ran out of oil in April of 1945.

Cynthetiq

If you're so well read on this stuff you'll then know that the Japanese were very careful in making sure that they didn't create any war criminals. They were very carful of that since the San Francisco Treaty was the actual court remedy.

Of that court justice you tout, it restored nothing to our family businesses, loss of family member, and little justice served to my great grand father or the widowed wife.

yes, will, justice was served according to your beliefs. Make 'em pay with the wallet even though they killed your family and took your family livelihood away from you. Yes, courtrooms and money solves everything.

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Willravel

I'm hesitant to believe your understanding of what really happened now.

The San Francisco Treaty simply was an official end to the war between the allies and Japan, it had nothing to do with war crimes. The war crimes were addressed in the aftermath of the war with the thousands of trials of Japanese soldiers and officials, including most notably the Tokyo Trials in which those responsible for such reprehensible acts as the Nanking Massacre and the use of narcotics and biological weapons were sentenced. Death by hanging is a rather serious punishment, wouldn't you say?

As for the reparations (monetary compensation) to the Philippines by Japan, Japan gave 198 billion yen (or about 550 million in USD).

Anyway, none of this is particularly pertinent to the topic at hand, which is something you simply refuse to discuss (which I understand, I don't like being wrong either).

Cynthetiq

Sorry there are two points I'm confusing here. Reparations and war crimes.

Reparations were meted out by the treaty. Warcrimes were via the trials.

I'm going to say that my family did not receive any justice from courts, nor any payments or reparations. I've done extensive family history and geneological interviews and have gotten no satisfaction of knowledge in that aspect.

Again, where is the justice? As far as I'm concerned It didn't exist.

Acutally will, unlike you, I've stated before I like being wrong. Being wrong gives me the opportunity to learn something new. Since you're an expert at most everything, I'm sure you find it challenging to learn new things.

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Baraka_Guru

Quite possibly; however, it is a different world now. I'm not sure if this remains relevant today.... Interesting conundrum, nonetheless.

If there were to be a national referendum held tomorrow, I would bet my bottom dollar that most Canadians would not be in favour of firebombing Kabul if it meant a high casualty rate of civilians--even if it meant bringing home the troops. That isn't what we're there for; that isn't in line with Canadian values.

This is a misleading comparison, though, but your point is taken. It would be difficult to know what a populace wants in a war-torn country, but I would suggest that in today's Western society, much of the public wouldn't have the stomachs for such acts of war. I wonder how many Americans view Hiroshima and Nagasaki as mistakes (for the lack of a better word).

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Willravel

Generally this would be where this part of the discussion ends.
I'm sorry your family didn't get some of the monetary compensation, but shouldn't they be happy they escaped alive? And that the allies defended them by risking their own lives? Shouldn't they be happy that, despite not being a major power, they were defended just as vigilantly by the allies as they would defending their own families? That's what I take away from the Philippines and other South Pacific victims of Japanese expansionism. As for justice, those who were responsible for war crimes were prosecuted. It's probable that those responsible for what happened to your family were held responsible.
Blah blah blah red herring.

Cynthetiq

Sorry will, no not happy.

Manila was ravaged far greater than any European city. I can't begin to even list the losses of the family besides the eldest son.

You may find that justice has been served but I did not.

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dc_dux

Putting aside the issue of bombing war torn countries for a sec.

A recent poll reported that nearly a third of US public supports torture in limited circumstances; the good news is that over half believe all torture should be prohibited.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pi...d=&pnt=496&lb=

What is it that differentiates us from our western allies who face a similar "terrorist threat" yet countries like Spain, France, Great Britain overwhelmingly oppose the use of torture.

Could it be attributed in part to the fact that the American public has been carpet bombed with "terrorist" rhetoric by the WH for the last seven years?

__________________
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Willravel

I think they're under the false impression that torture can yield results. Even people here on TFP, despite my best efforts, believe that torture works.

Education is key in this matter. Whomever tells you that torture is okay is wrong. Please tell them that physiologists and psychiatrists overwhelmingly agree that torture cannot yield reliable results, which makes it useless as an information gathering technique.

dc_dux

will, IMO, its much more than that.

Something has become ingrained in the American psyche (or at least a signficant minority of Americans) that it is acceptable to ignore the Constitution and basic human rights for the sake of "protecting the homeland" from threats, real or imagined.

IMO, that is a far greater danger than terrorist.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Willravel

Group think, yes. But if people are singled out and have it explained to them, I believe that most would be able to make an informed and ultimately correct decision regarding torture.
Is it wrong that sometimes I just want to shake this country like I was a British nanny? Between a majority of my countrymen believing that the Earth is 6000 years old and this bizarre and irrational fear of "terrorists", I do feel like hijacking a national news feed and reading this country the riot act.

uncle phil

fella by the name of hitler tried that a few years ago...he was looking for help...where were you then?

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We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
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roachboy

no doubt.
and many other places have pluralist political contexts, where the united states really does not.
when for example torture by the french paramilitary in algeria surfaced as a political and ethical issue in 1957, it did so via the french left--initially the communist party-later through a broader network (there are reasons for this, but they're distracting)---the results of teh torture itself were in the short run that the french crushed the fln--so it "worked"---but in the process their actions *created* mass algerian support for the fln *which it did not initially have* and turned it from a small military organization into the core of a mass movement AND they galvanized political opposition to the entire debacle domestically--AND the revelations hlped bring down the 4th republic and nearly triggered a civil war in france (i kid you not)---AND turned france into an international pariah--AND managed to generate a whole series of truly ugly associations between french presence in algeria/colonialism and fascism that makes the algerian war STILL something that is not talked about a whole lot in france. all this in a nutshell, you know? so the consequences of french use of systematic torture beginning in 1956 in algeria werea very mixed bag in which as it turned out the immediate advantage they gained in and around algiers in 1956 was overwhelmed by other consequences---most of which happened because france at the time was a deeply divided place on left-right lines--and so the issue was both a Problem in itself and was also a significant Political Problem--and in the longer run, it was the latter that turned out to do the most damage.

and the damage done by this played out over the next decade--i dont see how there could have been a mai 68 without the experience of algeria beforehand.

so think of it on utilitarian grounds--even if there are in most places conservative-types who think that protecting their shit justifies torture, they typically are not a dominant position ideologically--or more exactly, they are not in a position to control the entirety of political discourse--but they nearly were able to in the states after 2001.

i think the bush people have set something into motion that will bear ugly fruit fro a very long time.

there are a couple points to this little parable, whcih i am writing between bites of pasta.

a. such consent as there was for the bush-people's use of torture, extraordinary rendition, etc. was a direct function of the extent to which the press collapsed into a simple relay system for conservative ideological statements in the afterglow of 9/11/2001. we do not really live in a pluralist context still--though it is certainly more open than it was 6 years ago,

b. even if you support the idea of torture, when you look at what's happened in parallel situations in the past, the problems have so far outweighed the advantages produced that you really have to ask yourself if there's a point to such support--presumably it's based on some support for the continuation of the existing order and all that it entails--well, if that's the case, then i think torture is simply a bad bad idea on pragmatic grounds.

c. there is a mountain of data available about the effects of torture as an infotainment gathering procedure--it really aint new--most of the time, the one thing that you will surely find out is that the person being tortured wants the torture to stop happening. that is not a good basis for infotainment gathering. and that's just the simple, short-run kind of effect, in sound-byte form. there are many many others, all gifts that keep on giving. so again, if you can put aside moral problems with the actions themselves, the problems and consequences seem to outweigh any imaginable advantage

d. the entire conversation about serious, brutal occupation is in the context of this thread a red herring.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

Objectively defining torture is an interesting exercise to me, however, I think torture has to be defined subjectivly. Given the subjective nature of defining torture I doubt there can ever be agreement on where the line gets drawn between what is and what is not torture, especially on the margins. There will always be opportunities for those sitting on the sidelines to come in after the fact and make charges against those on the front lines of doing unpleasant work.

Samurai had an answer for torture - sapaku.

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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Willravel

Whoa, now that's a hell of a Godwin. And it's not even close to correct, either.

uncle phil

then think about what you're saying before you post it...

guy by the name of goebbels was his news feed...

by the way, godwin's a major cop-out here...

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

Willravel

This coming from someone who actually compared going off on a newscast to the holocaust and WWII.
Jesus Christ. Goebbles lied on the air. I was talking about telling the truth. This thread should be renamed "Historical context I don't understand".
"Here"? You mean the place that you tried to threadjack with an asinine comparison?

uncle phil

what in the world are you "talking" about?

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
-----------------------------------------
"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
-----------------------------------------
never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

roachboy

i just ate some tiramisu and while i was away it seems that someone changed the channel and i am not longer reading a thread about the bush administration's cavalier relation to torture and am instead watching an episode of a reality show. american's greatest mixologists: metaphor division.

it's all terribly confusing.
is someone going to be sent home?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite