At some level, war crimes are war crimes. It is awful that 10,000 men died on the Bataan Death March. It is awful that 50,000 people were burned alive in Dresden. The methods of their deaths differ, and there’s something a bit more clinical about planning the bombings from 10,000 feet and never seeing the faces of the victims. But is it equally disingenuous to think that the people killed are in any way less memorable or their deaths less horrendous.
Again, the crimes of the Japanese and the Germans should never be forgotten or forgiven. But neither should we gloss over the nature of our own war effort.
And the bombing of Dresden, or any of the other cities, wasn’t a war crime. You might say it was an atrocity (which it wasn’t) but it was definitely not a war crime - it wasn’t against the rules of war. The Bataan Death March, and the other atrocities against prisoners of war, were war crimes.
I’ll listen to arguments that the carpet bombing raids were tactical mistakes - that, for example, the resources would have been better used going after German fuel resources, but to claim the bombing campaign was a war crime, well, bollocks to that.
No, we just slaughtered hundreds of babies, together with their mothers. We caused birth defects and cancers that are still killing people today. We burned elementary school children to death, their skin sloughing off them like paper, as they tried to cool their agony in radiation-poisoned rivers.
But hey, at least we obeyed the rules of combat and treated our captured soldiers nice!
No. I’m suggesting the bombing of cities isn’t a war crime per se. It can be a war crime, and it also can be an atrocity. It is a war crime when part of a war of aggression, which the Allies were not involved in. It can also be a war crime in certain situations, such as when it is a purely civilian target (which I am not sure exist, though I would see a city which had been declared open as being one).
None of the exceptions applied to the bombing campaign against Germany. I also don’t see them as applying to the raids on Japan, even in the final days of the war. German cities were military targets - they were communication and production centers, and I find it a little naive to think that killing a 14 year old conscript hiding in a hole praying for a chance to surrender is a legitimate act of war, while killing a worker assembling Tiger tanks is a crime.
As for the OP, well the Americans and British have been complicit in sweeping Japanese war crimes under the rug. Full trials and purging of Japan weren’t seen as politically expedient in the cold war environment. And while the crimes against Allied prisoners were treated seriously, there wasn’t a great degree of concern about one group of Asians killing another group.
Moreover, the Japanese and Germans were viewed as different. The Germans were seen as a civilized people who had gone unbelievably astray. The Japanese were portrayed as savages from the get go. Bestial behavior was to be expected from those who weren’t seen as fully human in the first place.
Well, then I guess you fall in the “ignorant” group.
Yes it’s awful that 50,000 people were burned alive in Dresden. It’s also awful hundreds of thousands were murdered and tens of thousands were raped in Nanking. That tens of the thousands were murdered in Singapore, hundreds of thousands more in the Philippines. Japan’s scorched earth policy in China was responsible for millions of deaths.
Then there’s the thousands used as human guinea pigs. And the hundreds of thousands forced into sexual slavery.
While I can understand why someone might be hesitant to call Allied bombings in World War II war crimes (I would call Hiroshima and Nagasaki war crimes, myself), I can’t understand what logic would lead someone to believe Japan didn’t commit numerous war crimes during the war. Other than logic that’s built on ignorance or historical revisionism.
You’re right, we should have ended that war the honest way, by getting tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of our soldiers killed invading the Japanese mainland.
No one* actually gives a shit about war crimes. They are occurring right now and no one gives a shit. We gloss over them unless we can use them in propaganda to make the “enemy” look awful, and then we can justify our own war crimes.
This is not really correct. There were trials held (by a multi-national tribunal)..see Arnold Brackman “The Other Nuremburg”.
These trials considered evidence that the IJA murdered in excess of 4 million Chinese civilians.
So I don’t know what this Japanese politician is raving about.
As for the murder of POWs-Japan was a signatory of the Geneva Convention, so there is no excuse for their behavior.
Nonsense. Where did I ever even hint that Japan wasn’t guilty of some horrendous war crimes, that rival the extent and maliciousness of the Nazi Holocaust? All I am saying is that our hands aren’t as clean as some people would have us believe. It is my opinion that the fire bombing of Dresden was a calculated and callous crime against defenseless people that had little impact on the war effort. That has no impact on my opinion of the crimes of the Japanese.
We (the Allies) did some nasty things. We didn’t enjoy it, and we avoided it when we could. Allied soldiers that raped were breaking the rules set for them by their leaders. If caught, they were punished. Bombing civilian population centers was bad, but it was also part of the dogma of “Total War” that was being used during that conflict. In addition, upon defeating the foe, we would do our best to help the civilian population through food, medical care and later, helping to rebuild the nation.
They (the Axis) did some nasty things. The official policy of both Imperial Japan and the Nazi leadership was one of extermination, and of genocide. Rape was condoned, if not outright supported via sexual slavery. Bombing civilian population center was bad, but it was also part of the dogma of “Total War”, and also allowed since the Poles, the Slavs, the Chinese and Koreans were less than human by official ideology. In addition, upon defeating their foe, they would ignore the civilian needs, as well as executing innocents based on “inferiority”, and stripped those nations of all wealth and useable material.
There are clear, defineable differences in how the Allies behaved vs. how the Axis behaved. Nobody says that the Allies were perfect angels, but the Allies were probably some of the best and most well behaved conquerors in history up to that point.
Anyone who seems to feel that there was no difference between the way “our” soldiers behaved vs the way “their” soldiers behaved is willfully ignorant of history, or attempting to revise things to justify their own ideology.
I wouldn’t consider the months long bombing campaigns to be war crimes since they were part of wearing down the enemy, and even if the total effect was greater than a single bombing, Japan could have ended them by surrendering, which was the goal of the campaigns in the first place.
That said, the bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 should fall in the same category of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and my mentioning of those wasn’t intended to exclude any other acts.
But there’s a lot of room for debate on whether those three bombings, as well as those in Dresden and Hamburg (and I sure numerous others), should be consider war crimes. I was taught all through school that nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused less casualties than letting the war drag on would have. What I read since then, leads me to believe that that probably wasn’t the case.
Still, as I said, there’s room for debate. On the other hand, I see no reasonable objection to the acts of the Japanese in World War II being called anything besides war crimes, besides those based on ignorance or out rights lies.
The fact that to this day, as a matter of official policy, the Japanese deny any crimes even occurred is disgraceful. And electing a prime minister that refuses to call Class A war criminals what they are would be like Germany electing someone like David Irving chancellor.
Fair enough. I’d obviously disagree on all 5, but I just wanted to check you weren’t advancing the silly idea that’s all too prevalent that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were special.
Are you saying that under the then extant rules of war, including as well those rules under which Germans and Japanese were prosecuted, these bombings were a war crime? Or that the rules ought to have included such bombings but didn’t? If it is the first, what rules were violated?