Perhaps inverarity gives offense by his description of the Japanese justification of their wartime actions, as though to describe it were to endorse it. Rather than quote the review I will give a paraphrased capsule summary of the Japanese POV:
The American imperialists, heeding the lessons of their depraved European mentors, have built a colonial empire in the Pacific and on the periphery of Asia, using the most cynical commercial and military means, and have not hesitated to mistreat their subject populations. Upbraiding us on our actions in China is a serious piece of impudence, considering. In addition they seek to strangle Japan's legitimate expansion and access to resources. By banning our purchase of scrap metal in 1941 Americans moved from insult to irreparable injury. Pearl Harbor was too good for the sanctiminious Yankee roundeyes..
Where, you may ask, did I first hear this monstrous apologia for Japan's unjustifiable agression and treacherous attack on our forces? (And I absolutely do, BTW, regard Japan's actions as monstrous, unjustifiable, treacherous)
Well - I heard it from the lips of my father when I was about 11 years of age. He had served a long tour of continous infantry combat duty in New Guinea and repeated the experience in the Phillipines. He never doubted the justice of the Pacific war. He greeted the news of the Enola Gay with a boilermaker toast, joined in spirit by every GI in the theater. Now they wouldn't have to invade Japan.
Postwar he served as an intelligence officer. In 1949 he argued the merits of the war with a Japanese merchant and air force veteran in Hokkaido. This fellow was the origin of the quote about Pearl Harbor being too good for us. 'You are occupying my country, and this will anger you,' he told my father, 'but this is what most Japanese think.' Dad said, 'The SOB didn't convince me but I was impressed by his honesty.' Later, as every American staff officer must, Dad of course studied the Japaese justifications for their actions in school, because if you are to gauge the actions of present or future enemies it helps to understand the motives if past ones.
I don't think it would have been safe to accuse my old man of moral equivalence.
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Defense of inverarity 2
Date: 2011-08-02 08:25 pm (UTC)The American imperialists, heeding the lessons of their depraved European mentors, have built a colonial empire in the Pacific and on the periphery of Asia, using the most cynical commercial and military means, and have not hesitated to mistreat their subject populations. Upbraiding us on our actions in China is a serious piece of impudence, considering. In addition they seek to strangle Japan's legitimate expansion and access to resources. By banning our purchase of scrap metal in 1941 Americans moved from insult to irreparable injury. Pearl Harbor was too good for the sanctiminious Yankee roundeyes..
Where, you may ask, did I first hear this monstrous apologia for Japan's unjustifiable agression and treacherous attack on our forces? (And I absolutely do, BTW, regard Japan's actions as monstrous, unjustifiable, treacherous)
Well - I heard it from the lips of my father when I was about 11 years of age. He had served a long tour of continous infantry combat duty in New Guinea and repeated the experience in the Phillipines. He never doubted the justice of the Pacific war. He greeted the news of the Enola Gay with a boilermaker toast, joined in spirit by every GI in the theater. Now they wouldn't have to invade Japan.
Postwar he served as an intelligence officer. In 1949 he argued the merits of the war with a Japanese merchant and air force veteran in Hokkaido. This fellow was the origin of the quote about Pearl Harbor being too good for us. 'You are occupying my country, and this will anger you,' he told my father, 'but this is what most Japanese think.' Dad said, 'The SOB didn't convince me but I was impressed by his honesty.' Later, as every American staff officer must, Dad of course studied the Japaese justifications for their actions in school, because if you are to gauge the actions of present or future enemies it helps to understand the motives if past ones.
I don't think it would have been safe to accuse my old man of moral
equivalence.