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 ShumaGorath wrote:

This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.

I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall wrote:A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.[1]

Keep in mind this was based on the assumption of a fairly short (6 month) campaign to conquoer Japan. Had things not gone well things would have spiralled upwards.

So while not expecting to exactly commit a total depopulating of the Japanese home islands, there was a long, hard bloody fight anticipated.


As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Jefffar wrote:



As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.

Fascinating, more info on this Jeff?

The wiki provides a summary of some of the controversies here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies

My fiancé explained to me that she did not know of Pearl Harbour until she took an advanced (and optional) High School level history. She didn't hear about Nanking until I told her. She didn't understand why the Chinese and Koreans get upset about the president and prime minister of japan going on visits to the war memorial that includes the names of war criminals. She didn't know that war crimes were committed in the pacific (other than area and atomic bombing of cities, I'm not getting into that debate at this moment).

All she got from her regular school history was that:

1) in the early 20th Century the west made an effort to block the Japanese from establishing a mercantile empire on moral objections despite having established mercantile empires of their own.
2) in the 1930s the west applied sanctions to the Japanese to block the creation of said mercantile empire and starve the Japanese into submission and dependence on the west.
3) American bombers bombed Japanese cities in the 1940s culminating with the atomic bombs.
4) then MacArthur came and it turned out the western way wasn't so bad and they abandoned being warlike forever.
5) the Chinese and Koreans complain a lot for no reason and dispute claims to territory that belongs to Japan.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:


Wow.... I'm not even sure how to digest that completely.

Well, I think there are some traditional cultural drivers in Japan that account for this.

1) It is very rude and disrespectful to talk publically about the shames of others. Discussing anothers shame is almost as shameful as the actual infraction being discussed.
2) Ancestors are to be honored (worshipped even) or their unhappy spirits will cause you great distress in your life.

Combine these two factors and you have a culture that really just doesn't even want to talk about it and finds the whole topic uncomfortable. In the early years after the war this wasn't so problematic as everyone more or less knew what happened, but as we move to Japanese who are three or more generations separated from the war the lack of knowledge of their own history continues to grow. As a history major and someone who thinks that there are great lessons that humanity can learn from the first half of the 20th century this concerns me greatly.

Well in Okinawa approximately 1/3rd of the civilian populace was killed during the battle.

http://darbysrangers.tripod.com/Okinawa/id20.htm

Some joined the fight against the Americans, some committed suicide, some were caught in the cross fire and some were killed by their own side rather than be allowed to be captured.

So these figures must be considered with what might have happened had the Japanese mainland been invaded. Given that Japan had 72 000 000 people in 1945, this could have meant 24 000 000 casualties had the campaign gone to the bitter end.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.

In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.

What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.

Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.

That sounds like all war.

Not at all.


In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .


The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

Jefffar wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.

That sounds like all war.

Not at all.


In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .


The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.

Vietnam..?

Nope.

While the draft did exist, only a small portion of men were actually put into the service. Ford was allowed to produce cars instead of tanks. Boeing didn't' have to stop making 707s because they were too busy making B-52s. There was no food rationing either.

Vietnam was a Limited war by definition.

 ShumaGorath wrote:
So the term total war is a one off exception characterized by a lack of morals by the nations experiencing it? Seems convenient as a justification for atrocities to simply handwave them as the excesses of the time.

Oh no, there's still the choice to be as moral as you want.

It's just that in total war the entire apparatus of the state is a part of their war effort, so some people feel more comfortable with reduced targeting restrictions as certain soft targets become viable ways to reduce the enemy's combat capabilities. Doesn't make it more or less moral to target those things, just makes targeting them a legitimate means to prosecute the war.

The city bombings of WWII wre horrible things and morally repugnant, even if they can be justified in the circumstances.

Which is one of the true tragedies of war. In war, good men learn to do bad things and be okay with it.

Yeah, the Czechs probably could have blocked a German advance had they been allowed to fight.

There were also plans in motion within Germany to take Hitler down at the time, all they wanted was British support . . .

 d-usa wrote:
Found it:



I just always thought it was a weird response. Germany invades France during WW1 by largely ignoring their shared border, so to prevent another attack France reinforces the border only for Germany to ignore it again during WW2.

Well the French and the Belgians were intending to co-operate on a line of fortifications all the way to the coast.

Unfortunately for the French the Belgians never got around to their part.