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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (222703)	3/6/2007 12:58:51 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Japanese case is sufficiently different from the German so that unconditional surrender should never have been asked. Japan's rulers were engaged in a more ordinary sort of military expansion, and all that was morally required was that they be defeated, not that they be conquered and totally overthrown. This is dancing around the main point: what does "defeated" mean? In war, surrender, right? Now, I've heard all kinds of arguments that the Japanese were close to surrender, but I've also heard somewhat more convincing arguments that they weren't - the peace camp was smaller, it couldn't win the day, the never surrender camp was in charge of the Emperor and won the arguments. Barring the shock of the atom bombs, this argument goes, they would have continued to offer no surrender. Certainly if the allies had shown any inclination to go for less that unconditional surrender, if they had flinched from the invasion of Kyushu and set up a blockade, there is no reason to believe they would have lost sway. As for the "moral difference" between Japan and Germany, again I think that is an anachronistic view imposed by recent history's view of the Nazis as uniquely evil, almost, I would say, the only regime a Leftist today is willing to characterize as "evil". You surely have not asked the opinions of the Koreans or Chinese on that one. They will tell you Japan was twice as bad. Even the Germans can't match the Rape of Nanking in the cities they took.