Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps • Hacker News Board

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#341

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

andars wrote: post #155

astrodust wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. I'm not saying what Japan did was in any way noble, but it was certainly far from unexpected. The US administration knew the war in Europe was a serious problem if left unchecked, that Britain and its allies would never prevail, but there was c…

Japan was "repeatedly slapped in the face" because of their increasing militarization, invasion of China (also Rape of Nanking), alliance with Italy and Germany, desire for control of all of East Asian (the Co-Prosperity Sphere), etc. The US response seems totally reasonable to me.

I mean with deliberate intent to provoke a military response from Japan.

It wasn't that Japan wasn't up to no good, because they were, absolutely destroying large swaths of Asia and committing atrocities so horrifying even German observers were concerned, but that the US leadership needed Japan to attack to get on board versus Germany.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#342

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

GunboatDiplomat wrote: post #176

astrodust wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. I'm not saying what Japan did was in any way noble, but it was certainly far from unexpected. The US administration knew the war in Europe was a serious problem if left unchecked, that Britain and its allies would never prevail, but there was c…

> Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. Is that what it's called when we objected to Japan's war of conquest against China? Antagonism? Fine, let it be so. Japan brought doom on themselves.

Japan didn't care about words. Japan cared about things like the US selling Japan fuel even when they were doing all these things, preferring to stay "neutral", then abuptly cutting that off and leaving them scrambling to keep their military running.

Japan did bring doom on themselves, but America kept poking the tiger with a stick until America itself got attacked, which was the goal.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#343

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #330

mikeash wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with starting wars if it stops the suffering of large numbers of civilians. As it stands, 15-20 million Chinese were killed by the Japanese in that war. How many would have died if the US had not gotten involved?

I understand the point you're making but you are quoting numbers of suffering due to war which defeats the purpose of arguing the suffering saved by going to war. Plus the American involvement wasn't out of humanitarian reasons either. They only joined the war after getting attacked by Japan themselves. Which, which since I support retaliatory action if another party has already initiated war, would mean the US follo…

It was attitudes like that, that the US couldn't engage first, which forced the hand of the US leadership. They needed Japan to attack first, so they did everything they could to bring that about.

After Pearl Harbor everything fell into place. Germany and Japan could be tackled not from a diplomatic perspective, or via proxies, but directly.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#344

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

chrishacken wrote: post #277

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the cases of Germany and Japan, we won very thoroughly, and then re-did their government and society very thoroughly. In the case of Iraq, we won very thoroughly, and then decided that we should not re-do their government and society. There may not have been the political will to do anything else, but that turned out to be less than effective at transforming Iraq.

"To date, the U.S. has spent more than $60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq get back on its feet after the country was broken by more than two decades of war, sanctions and dictatorship. That works out to about $15 million a day. And yet Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting." http://www.cbsnews.com/news/much-of-60b-from-us-to-rebuild-i...

In Germany and Japan the police and political infrastructure was left mostly intact, and people were dismissed or arrested after being investigated.

In Iraq the entire government including the police were basically disbanded without warning which lead to immediate chaos.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#345

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #283

chrishacken wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To date, the U.S. has spent more than $60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq get back on its feet after the country was broken by more than two decades of war, sanctions and dictatorship. That works out to about $15 million a day. And yet Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting." http://www.cbsnews.com/news/much-of-60b-from-us-to-rebuild-i...

I didn't say we didn't spend money. But if you look at what we did to Germany and Japan, the extent of the control of our occupation, rebuilding their government from the ground up for most of a decade, there's no comparison with Iraq. We wanted to have few people there, and not for long. And it didn't work.

It's been postulated that purging the Ba'ath Party made rebuilding Iraq more difficult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba'athification

The argument goes that a more measured policy could still have eliminated most of the bad actors while maintaining a higher level of governance and services.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#346

Post by astrodust » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

chrishacken wrote: post #146

astrodust wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think the US didn't do everything it could to antagonize the enemy. Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. I'm not saying what Japan did was in any way noble, but it was certainly far from unexpected. The US administration knew the war in Europe was a serious problem if left unchecked, that Britain and its allies would never prevail, but there was c…

> Japan was repeatedly slapped in the face until it had no choice but to respond to protect its honour. Are you kidding me? So honor was their reason to start a war that eventually caused millions to die?

You do realize that Japan, at the time, was run by a highly militarized government that still carried a lot of tradition from the feudal Japan era. Honour was a massive concern.

Also remember that Japan had already conquered large parts of China and trounced Russia militarily, so they were feeling confident they'd prevail in any conflict with the US. At the time the US was in the middle of a poor economic period and its Pacific navy was in sad shape, many warships were simply relics from WWI. It wasn't exactly threatening.

What Japan didn't realize was that the US would not be bullied, and instead would bite back a lot harder than anticipated.

It's a lot like how America assumed Iraq would be a cake-walk, or Afghanistan could be resolved in a weekend.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#347

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

chrishacken wrote: post #278

lostlogin wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weapons being sold are used for atrocities fairly regularly. Pretending this isn't happening is what we do best.

I guess that can be true, depending on which conflict you're talking about. For instance, we sell Israel weapons all of the time, and one can argue that their entry into Palestine was an "atrocity", however, I'm sure if we were bombarded by missiles as they were that we wouldn't hesitate to enter and clear out a small nation of terrorists either. Obviously their execution could use some work. We're not exactly expert…

I wouldn't describe Palestinian Territory as "a small nation of terrorists". If the US took an approach other than giving and selling arms (refered to as "aid" at times) to Israel meaningful peace negotiations might be possible. The areas I specifically had in mind were places like Saudi and Bahrain. Arms sales to Bahrain were briefly restricted/stopped but resumed fairly quickly once news reels stopped appearing.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#348

Post by grzm » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:08 PM UTC

FrancoDiaz wrote: post #336

grzm wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your frustration with the inflammatory discussion we can sometimes see here at HN. If this is something you care about, there are things you can do. Participate in discussions constructively and charitably. You're right about writing a comment and expecting someone's mind is going to be changed. I try to keep in mind that it's not necessarily about "changing people's minds", it's at least partly about underst…

Participate in discussions constructively and charitably The problem is that invariably the amount of destruction and uncharitable discussion outweighs the constructive and charitable discussion in these threads. It's always a net loss on these types of threads. These types of threads always put a stain on the reputation of HN as a place of intelligent conversation. There's some really immoral and despicable lines of…

Yeah, actually engaging in the discussion can be difficult and problematic. I don't think it's always a net loss, though I agree that it often can be.

If you choose not to, the other options listed above are all still valid and valuable ways of participating and contributing to the community. I hope you do!

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#349

Post by gdilla » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #308

hkt wrote: post #91

Just another example of the extreme moral ambiguity of the West. We regularly ignore our own standards around giving people a fair trial when it suits the executive of the day or when some stupid condition applies ("race" in this case, geography and citizenship for eg Guantanamo bay). Not to mention "strategic" alliances with dictators down the years that have usually proven to be murderous. It is sad to think that t…

I find your sentiment somewhat tossed-off, implying as it does that we "regularly ignore" things like Japanese-American internment camps, when in fact we teach them to elementary school children as national disgraces we hope never to repeat.

you wouldn't think so after the rhetoric of the last presidential campaign. We forgot all our lessons of national disgraces.

Re: Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

#350

Post by adrienne » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

angersock wrote: post #221

jlillyreed wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that our genocide of the indigenous people's of North America was just as bad as either of those. ..and we're still invading their lands and violating treaties with them.

This is a bit misleading, given the documented atrocities that certain Native American tribes committed against settlers. Fact is, there was no future in which they were going to keep their nice things and in which we would be able to get where we are today.

The "documented atrocities that certain Native American tribes committed" against INVADERS, you mean? Because it was their land, and the word "settlers" is a way to whitewash what people did to them - and are still doing to them today - which is invasion and genocide.