What do you hate most about your own country?

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General Douglas MacArthur

"The Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed]that Japan surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

All the US had to do was allow the Emperor to stay on as token figure and Japan would have surrendered. As that was the deal after the bombs anyway. The dropping of the bombs was unnecessary and indefensible.

Children were raped and their screams were played to their parents as torture.

Well, Saddam was toppled from power because letting him stay would have meant the same Iraq. So, my guess is that in Truman's eyes, the same Emperor would have meant the same Japan. And the general was not the President...

I don't think people much care what either one of us think. We are not in power.

The way it tries to represent itself as "the world conscience". The not so nice secrets you're not supposed to mention, the conformism and uniformity, the attitude towards food and alcohol . I like my adoptive country a lot better, it's the only home I've ever had

I think the most stupid and dysfunctional thing about my country is - people are so used to fighting and resisting persecutions and forming conspirations and dying heroes or surviving by a hair that we just can't function in peace and prosperity that suddenly came. Our culture is completely unadapted to it.

Sounds almost autistic - fight or flight being your default, familiar options.

Don't forget the option to die

OK, which two countries are you talking about? I've seen your posts on WP for years, and I don't recall your having ever mentioned either.

Yes, heroically so

If you're really curious send me a PM - it's not a secret, some people here know my history, but I don't like posting in the public forum for privacy reasons.

Saddam was removed on a pack of lies because neocons wanted him gone. He was zero threat to the US. It's not about guessing, you don't just drop nukes on cities on a hunch.

Why is it so difficult for people to admit their government sucked and dropping nukes was wrong. Japan's government sucked but innocent people did not deserve what happened.

The country I was born in, conformity


The country I live in, precious lil "people" talk too much

Well I might. I happen to be timid about such things. From your description of your home country, I would have to say it's either France or Sweden, though.

So what aim of the Neocons was satisfied by Saddam's removal? The (probably predictable) result was a regional power shift in favor of Iran. Is that what they wanted? Why?

GAWD!! !!

I hate it when folks cant argue their own point (even when I don't have a dog in the fight).

BAD ANALOGY.

Both were examples of "regime change" though they didn't call it that in Truman's time, but that's the only similarity.

Both for us today, and for Truman ( and for us to figure out who he himself was thinking about at the time) why make the dumb inaccurate equation of Hirohito to Saddam Hussien? Why not make the more obvious and more accurate analogy to the right person?

Truman, like most folks in the allied nations, assumed that the Emperor of Japan was equivalent to (guess who?). To Adolf Hitler. The guy we were fighting at the same time we were fighting Hirohito.

With all three axis powers nothing less was acceptable to the allies then unconditional surrender and (what we now, in the post W Bush era all call)"regime change". Get rid of Hilter, of Mussolini, and of whoever runs Japan. So Truman equated the Emperor with Hitler and Mussolini. To his credit MacArthur correctly read Japanese culture and knew the emperor was an unchanging sacred cultural institution for the Japanese people seperate from the rest of the state and its ever changing politicians. . So with MacArthur's influence we switched from Truman's assumptions to doing the whole "let them keep their emperor" thing, but "demote their emperor to being a symbolic figurehead, on the model of the King of England" thing . Which turned out to be the right move.



Don't compare Hirohito to Saddam Hussein. it doesn't help your argument. Saddam Hussien was no Thomas Jefferson, but the war we waged to topple him is way too controversial and unpopular today (even among GOP voters) to use as a positive example of anything. Saddam Hussien was not the head of a major power that threatened the world in a war of aggression the way Hitler and the ruling regime of Japan were. We didn't invade Iraq to save our own county the way we needed to fight the Axis. Though Bush tried to SELL us on the notion that it WAS something like that.