It’s the systematic type I address in this post. By systematic, I mean that it occurs with the approval of those in charge and is encouraged and rewarded.

Upon finally finishing the book, one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read, I find that the Cold War had a lot to do with the way Japan was dealt with. It was political. When I get around to it, I’ll probably post about that.

The point is this: Murder is murder. It doesn’t matter how you kill someone, if you kill people you are a murderer and should be treated accordingly. Having said that, who are we(the US) to judge any nation on Earth? Don’t forget our multiple(and ongoing) murderous rampages worldwide. Has the federal government ever been held accountable, or even appologized, for the pillage, plunder, burning, and destruction of southern towns? Have they appologized for the rape, murder, kidnapping and torture of citizens of, as Lincoln called, a mere Nation divided, not even a foreign people? The US has committed attrocities nearly equalling the worst ever by any nation. Just remember that as you say “Why didn’t we do more?”. We have done more than enough.

Dead is dead, but we do differentiate between types of murder. My question is why were the Germans treated so differently from the Japanese after WWII? Is there any doubt that Hitler would have been tried and executed if he’d been captured? Hirohito was left in power and members of the ‘royal’ family were given immunity.

Was it guilt over Nagasaki and Hiroshima? If so, fine — we should admit that.

In no way do I mean to excuse Nazi Germany’s acts. I am merely saying that Japan’s were in some ways worse and in almost all ways more forgiven. My question is why?

My uncle was a Japanese POW for several years before he escaped the Palawan Massacre (one of only 11 to do so) and he noted several instances of kindness of the Japanese guards. Not all were overtaken by the monstrous policies of their government.

I find myself able to read “The Rape of Nanking” in short segments. An hour is about all I can emotionally tolerate.

But perhaps I am influenced by the fact that my father’s family of British planters in the Far East narrowly escaped a Japanese invasion, and friends were interned by the Japanese after joining the Brit forces and being captured by Japanese. My dad and his sister were sent to boarding school in S. Africa to be safe from the Japanese, and suffered terribly in a racist Boer environment where being British made one hated, not seeing their parents for the six years of the war.

Perhaps we did not prosecute Japanese war crimes as zealously as German ones because of horror at the great human cost of the dropping of the atomic bomb? Even tho the death toll would have been far greater had we not dropped it, and fought a bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland.

But your discussion of industrial versus primitive methods of genocide, on people using technology and bureaucracy or machetes and individuals makes one wonder about why we do so little to stop the current bloody conflicts in Africa and around the globe. At some level, I fear that many Americans simply don’[t give a damn how horribly a bunch of far away “primitive” foreigners die, if they are not friends, relatives or business associates.

Whereas America was, during World War II, still primarily a nation of European immigrants, who all had relatives suffering thru the rampages of the Nazis.

Families like mine, with ties to the Far East were more aware of the Japanese racism and butchery.

Excuse hasty remarks, unpolished, but am glad to have found your blog.