Thursday, July 29, 2010

Roos to Hiroshima: Too little too late for some

Just saw on NHK news that Ambassador Roos will visit Hiroshima on August 6 to commemorate "all the victims of WW2." The Japan Times reports it here, without reporting Roos' "all victims" statement.

One older lady, questioned during the obligatory "man-on-the-street-interview" said "It's a little late isn't it, for the American Ambassador to come?"

In anticipation of the soon to be in full swing annual remembrance (and selective, but often generous forgetfulness of preceding/concurrent/following events) of the atomic bombings of those two cities, I thought a little review of the circumstances might be helpful:

(It seems I cannot embed the 2-hour video at American Experience, but Victory in the Pacific is here and the transcript here. It gives a little taste of the atmosphere of those times.)

Sitting in my nice chair in an air conditioned room 55 years after the fact with information that Truman and the rest of the government did not have at the time, it is easy for me to judge the bombings as unnecessary, inexcusable in the targeting of a civilian populations, and worse. However for those in power in 1945 who wanted to end the war and for those who were expecting to be part of the invasion force to defeat Japan (and die, be maimed, or perhaps to endure the hell of being a POW if not executed outright) such judgments may have been a bit harder to reach.

But I would say to the lady with the complaint: I regret that the visit to Hiroshima by the US Ambassador has not turned out to be as early as it could have been and that you are not pleased. And I would ask her that if she thinks there is anything that Japan might be a little late in doing that it should do now so that we can all begin to put WW2 in the past.

Oh, I enjoyed Clint Eastwood's movie Letters from Iwo Jima. Am awaiting a similar movie from Japan's movie industry. Pride does not count. (A stolen thought, but I enjoyed it so much that I feel no guilt about the theft.)

Note the comment left on the NYT review (linked above) of Pride:
This is not an entertaining film or anything but I would like to give 5 stars because the filmmakers took a risk of getting criticized badly by foreign journalists and Japanese left wings. Please don't get mad at the film just because it portrays the truth that was told in the court. Films like this should be seen more instead of what Japan did wrong in the war. It didn't hit the box office abroad because they don't want to give a chance for Japan to explain about the war. Japan has to be the bad one because they lost the war.

2 comments:

  1. "Sitting in my nice chair in an air conditioned room 55 years after the fact with information that Truman and the rest of the government did not have at the time, it is easy for me to judge the bombings as unnecessary, inexcusable in the targeting of a civilian populations, and worse."

    This is the thing that seems to constantly be conveniently "forgotten" by most people when they dissect everything and anything related to World War II. I think it is absolutely *impossible* to inhabit the zeitgeist of that era unless you actually lived in it.

    I think that it is okay to say that the atomic bombs were a horrible thing and that the Japanese suffered terribly and leave it at that. That is a fact. Going back and playing the second guessing and blame game is another issue entirely. It's not only pointless but is always self-serving. People want to re-write history so that they can feel better about it. That goes for both sides, but moreso for Japan which enjoys its victimhood a far too much and recognizes its aggressiveness and destructive behavior far too little.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One of the problems with the bombings that no one thought of at the time (and had they, it probably would not have changed the decision to bomb, but might have influenced some decisions afterward) is that it has provided Japan with a very powerful victim view of the war that would not have been so easily available otherwise.

    At least one "intellectual" is actively proposing this bomb victim status to gain the "moral high ground" internationally as far as the war goes and use that status now.

    I don't think it will go far as the rest of the world is not as naive as the fellow believes, but it would gain some sympathy for those already inclined against the west and the US.

    ReplyDelete