Article

2003-08-22 Iraq

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Posted by Anonymous 2003-08-22 3:19:41 AM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 the japanese have chickened out. Bombing the UN Headquarters was more devastating internationally than here in America we only care if our soldiers die and they didn't that day. But it showed to the rest of the world which still has high regard for the UN That the whole occupation has gone all wrong and they shouldn't get into the mess.

Posted by steveerossa 2003-8-22 4:53:44 AM|| 2003-8-22 4:53:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The Japs are smart people. They don't like their people getting killed, I suppose they got infected by the "enola gay" virus.

Posted by Murat 2003-8-22 5:03:31 AM|| 2003-8-22 5:03:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Pilsbury Boy,since when do you care about American troops being killed,is it not you who snickers and cheers every time a U.S.trooper gets killed.
Murat,maybe you don't know.The word Jap is a racial slur and way beneth even your twisted mentality.

Posted by raptor 2003-8-22 8:09:16 AM|| 2003-8-22 8:09:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 really?
and here I thought jap was just the normal name shortening that often occurs in the english language... maybe you are making that up just to beat on murat?

Posted by dcreeper 2003-8-22 8:46:57 AM|| 2003-8-22 8:46:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 no, jap is considered derogatory. But I doubt Murat knew that.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-22 8:57:45 AM|| 2003-8-22 8:57:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 The "Enola Gay" virus? If only the Japs hadn't been resistant to the Manchurian Measles or the Nanking Flu, they wouldn't have had to endure The Enola vaccination. War really sucks when you reap your own whirlwind.

Jap is considered or used to be offensive, in the UK at least. N*p would have been offensive, not Jap.

Steveerossa, so the rest of the world is afraid to step in to help protect the UN personnel from real danger, when that organisation has pledged to stay in Iraq? Very admirable indeed. My sympathy meter for the UN twitched this week, but for Japan and others it's fallen a few notches.

Posted by Bulldog 2003-8-22 9:02:53 AM|| 2003-8-22 9:02:53 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Oops, there was a fairly important "not" missing above:

"Jap is not considered or used to be offensive..."

Posted by Bulldog 2003-8-22 9:08:49 AM|| 2003-8-22 9:08:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 guess its a differece in US and UK usage. During watergate there was a mini-scandal about someone calling then Sen. Daniel K. Inouye a "fat Jap" Of course it was worse cause Inouye was not only a US citizen and Senator, but a disabled veteran of the US army (Italian front)the word Jap itself was still part of what was derogatory, IIRC. Perhaps relating to some really nasty WW2 era attitudes and proganda about "Japs". Presumably then Murat was following UK usage.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-22 9:16:23 AM|| 2003-8-22 9:16:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Offensiveness may be in the ear of the listener too. I wouldn't rush to call a Japanese person "Jap" in the same way you'd call a British person a "Brit" or even an American "Yank", because Japanese prefer a greater degree of formality. Jap used as a thrid person identifier needn't be offensive in the slightest but might be directly. I suppose "N*p" derives from "Nippon", which I think the Japanese prefer, as the name of their country, to "Japan" (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Maybe to our ears the n-word's insulting but to them might seem tactful...

Posted by Bulldog 2003-8-22 9:52:52 AM|| 2003-8-22 9:52:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 No real surprises here. Sounds like the Japanese are making like our other allies the Koreans - mutual defense treaties mean we get to protect them, but they never have to lift a finger to help us out. (At least the Koreans helped us in Vietnam - the Japanese have done nothing aside from ponying up cash for the first Gulf War). How do you say "feckless" in Nipponese?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-22 9:53:11 AM|| 2003-8-22 9:53:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 None of this will really matter. We need neither additional troops nor the "help" rendered by humanitarian agencies. Both Japan and Germany were pacified without either huge numbers of troops or aid agencies. The citizens of those countries rebuilt their land under American supervision. This is exactly what will happen in Iraq.

The media (including conservative commentators) are hyperventilating because Iraq isn't yet a prosperous liberal democracy, just four months of the conquest of Iraq. It's simply not going to happen that quickly. The timeline is decades, not years. Imposing a democracy does not function on internet time. (Actually, we've discovered that even the internet does not function on internet time - most of the businesses that sprang up in record time also died out in record time).

Bottom line - decades from now, when Iraq is a prosperous democracy, none of this will matter. The carping of today is just the usual wishful thinking by the anti-American media as well as handwringing by conservative commentators, who are starting to believe the Pravda-esque editorials of what are supposed to be news agencies.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-22 10:07:01 AM|| 2003-8-22 10:07:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 Murat and Stevey? Commenting on the same story? What a great moment in Rantburg history!
But, if an Armenian ice cream man shows up... it could get ugly. Stay out of the way!

Posted by tu3031 2003-8-22 10:07:05 AM|| 2003-8-22 10:07:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 ZF - I think the Japanese and S.Koreans may have their hands full real soon now. Projecting forces thousands of miles eats up a lot of resources and the American's are about maxed out just handling what they have on the plate now without supporting large formations from other countries. The direct threat to them is a lot nearer and getting a lot more out of control. When your neighbor's house is on fire, its best to pay attention rather than worry about the one across town.

Murat - EG? Tough sh*t for the Japanese. In February 1945, the Japanese Imperial Forces in Manilia butchered tens of thousands of innocent civilian Phillipinos. No military target involved, just brutal butchery by bullet, bayonet, and barbwire rather than by an atom. Zero sympathy. And since you are the one dragging in history, we'll just add that event in with the treatment of innocent Armenians and Ionian Greek civilians in your recent history as well. Seems a lot of human beings are less than perfect. However, when compared to the rest of humanity, I'll take the American record to any major country or civilization in history.

Posted by Don 2003-8-22 10:19:25 AM|| 2003-8-22 10:19:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 Now why would murat be defaming Jewish American princess's?

Posted by wills 2003-8-22 10:22:26 AM|| 2003-8-22 10:22:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 Murat - EG? Tough sh*t for the Japanese.

Murat's just echoing the standard Muslim rant that the atomic bombing of Japan justifies any massacres Muslims conduct against us, including 9/11 and perhaps a nuclear attack on an American city in the future. It's a little disappointing, but the Turks look like they're moving in the direction of Iran, at a time when other Muslim countries are moving the other way.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-22 11:57:46 AM|| 2003-8-22 11:57:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 I'll take the American record to any major country or civilization in history

Yep if we don't count the extinguished Indians and slavery the coca cola civilization is not that bad

Posted by Murat 2003-8-22 12:18:56 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:18:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Japanese massacres of Filipinos - My entire family were eye-witnesses of the massacres in Manila. I grew up on the site of a major massacre, and went to school on the site of another. And this was not only in Manila either, it happened in dozens of provincial towns and villages, and the victims were in the hundreds, not tens, of thousands.

Posted by buwaya 2003-8-22 12:23:14 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:23:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Cocacola civilization is certainly better than civilzation of rape and impaling.

Seems you have forgotten about the dozens of nations enslaved and at times exterminayted by the Turks. And for what? For having people fill Arab coffers through the Hadj business and after centuries of shedding your blood for them the Arabs backstabbed you. Can you spell suckers.

Posted by JFM 2003-8-22 12:25:27 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:25:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 the word nip (correct, short for Nippon) to my ears sounds "period" IE i cant really recall hearing it outside of films and TV shows relating to WW2. Its just not used anymore, even by people who dont like Japanese or Japanese-Americans.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-22 12:34:01 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:34:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Murat:

C'mon, buddy, cool down a little. Yeah, we had slavery--but we also had abolitionists who put an end to it. (Ever hear of Abraham Lincoln? Ulysses S. Grant? The Army of the Potomac?) We were rough on the American Indians--but no rougher (and actually much gentler) than a lot of other colonizing civilizations were on their indigenous populations (e.g. Cortez in Mexico). As for the Coca-Cola, well, we don't force anyone to drink it, not even among ourselves. (I'm a Mountain Dew man, myself.) If you don't like Coke, there are alternatives.

Posted by Mike 2003-8-22 12:35:06 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:35:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Yep if we don't count the extinguished Indians and slavery the coca cola civilization is not that bad

We did not extinguish the Indians. They intermarried extensively with the European settlers, such that many Americans with deep roots here have Indian blood. The Turks did the same thing with the conquered Byzantines, with occasional massacre and ghastly torture of Christians who would not submit. And then there was the Armenian genocide, where Turks killed an estimated 1 million Armenians.

On slavery, it's an institution that continued throughout the Turkish-ruled Ottoman empire after it had been abolished in the US in the mid-19th century. It was abolished in Saudi Arabia only in the mid-20th century, and is still practised in some Muslim countries, most notably the Sudan, where Muslim Arabs continue their thousand-year tradition of capturing and keeping slaves from other religious groups - in this case Christian blacks.

Murat's quoting from the standard jihadi screed, and he's from Turkey, a supposedly moderate Muslim country. I shudder to think about what they might consider extreme.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-22 12:42:08 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:42:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 At the end of WWII, the name was changed from Nippon to Nihon. The sound is not greatly different, but the semantics are almost opposite. I don't remember the meaning of Nippon, but Nihon means 'book people'. That was one of several changes made to the language following the war.

For an emotional reference, my friends in the PRC also object to our having nuked Japan. However, I got the distinct impression that it was more based on jealousy than opposition. Three generations later the wounds still haven't healed.

Posted by Dishman 2003-8-22 12:48:32 PM|| 2003-8-22 12:48:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 For an emotional reference, my friends in the PRC also object to our having nuked Japan.

Actually, it's part of the same rationale that the jihadis give - that we should have invaded Japan instead of dropping the nukes. This is the standard Chinese propaganda on the issue.

The background is a lot more complicated, of course. Without the nukes, we would probably have fought on until 1948, another 3 years. We may have had to invade the Chinese mainland, where a lot of Japanese industry and most of the Japanese Army was located, after the conquest of the Japanese archipelago. It was estimated that at least a million additional American troops and over ten million Japanese would die in the invasion. Given this context, the atomic bombings were a small price to pay.

Of course, the Chinese are not exactly particularly squeamish about killing enemy civilians. Every Chinese civil war has been accompanied by civilian massacres in the cities taken. Tibet's Buddhist monasteries were subjected to aerial bombing by the PLA Air Force when the lamas refused to submit.

Bottom line - the atomic bombings of Japan were not simply necessary - they were beneficial for all sides, including the survivors of the bombings*. And the Chinese have no moral grounds for criticizing the US - their cruelty in war simply exceeds anything Americans have ever done.

* Their alternative was complete annihilation in a fight to the finish with US forces. The dead weren't dealing with anything they wouldn't have encountered as kamikazi's anyway.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-22 1:58:31 PM|| 2003-8-22 1:58:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Although they can't be counted on for troops, can we still list them in the "Coalition of the Willing" to keep the numbers respectable.

It's OK they'll pick up the slack in Korea and Taiwan for us.

Posted by Steve D 2003-8-22 3:43:46 PM|| 2003-8-22 3:43:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Only when their own ass is on the line. Seems to be popular among the UN today too.

Posted by Charles 2003-8-22 3:45:00 PM|| 2003-8-22 3:45:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 murat -you cannot blame america for slavery. slavery is something that was around before america. it is, unfortunetly, part of the human nature to destroy.hell the nations of africa praticed slavery on each other before any whiteman set foot there. yes we did our part but you cannot simply pass off this on america. and in doins so you ignored the comment on armenia and the ionian greeks. what is it, it's ok to point out america's historical problems but not confront your own?

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-22 4:33:11 PM|| 2003-8-22 4:33:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Eh, I think my comment regarding my friends in PRC was misunderstood.
I think they were jealous that it was the US and not China that nuked Japan.

Posted by Dishman 2003-8-22 5:03:03 PM|| 2003-8-22 5:03:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Dishman, sorry to be pedantic, but "Nihon" and "Nippon" are the same word (Japanese Kanji Characters) pronounced slightly differently.

There was in fact a change in pronounciation postwar, not sure of the exact reasons, but I am sure because people wanted to disassociate themselves from the prewar nationalism.

And "ni" = "sun", "hon" = "base".

Posted by Carl in NH 2003-8-22 5:09:22 PM|| 2003-8-22 5:09:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 The 2 atomic bombs used in Japan probably saved 10 million Japanese from imminent starvation. The B-29s being used to mine the Inland Sea and coastal waters sealed off most metropolitan areas from their food supply.

Posted by Shipman 2003-8-22 6:56:04 PM|| 2003-8-22 6:56:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 if we don't count the extinguished Indians and slavery the coca cola civilization is not that bad

If you consider that both were over 100 years ago, this isn't such a damning statement. 100 years of "not that bad" is better than most civilizations can claim.

The nuking of Japan is a complicated issue. By any normal standard, it really was a war crime. It actually pales compared to the firebombing of the top 60 Japanese cities which preceded the atomic bombings... the firebombings killed more civilians than both nukes did. And civilians were definitely the targets.

On the other hand, the ground invasion would not only have cost many more American lives, it would have meant the extinction of the Japanese culture. The atom bombs allowed the Japs to surrender. They would have died to the last woman and child, and even they say so.

As the LOML is a native Japanese, I would also point out that "Jap" is one of those terms where the slur is in the context. You can say Jap in a friendly tone, like "Brit" or "Mick" or even "Turk", and be fine. Say it with a sneer or in a pejorative context and you will have an angry... jap. NOT a pretty picture, I can assure you.

Those wishing just desserts on the Japanese for sins of the fathers are no different than those blaming US children of the 60's for slavery or the Crusades. It's over, the Japanese have been on our side for the last 58 years (time to set those clocks ahead!), and most cultures have a period they would rather forget. Contrast Jap behavior in WWI or the Boxer Rebellion, and even for the most part the R-J War, to Nanking, and you get a more complete picture.

Posted by Mark IV 2003-8-22 7:32:20 PM|| 2003-8-22 7:32:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Where is Aris when you need him?

Posted by Brian 2003-8-22 10:52:09 PM|| 2003-8-22 10:52:09 PM|| Front Page Top

09:05 Ptah
04:02 Anon1
03:40 Anon1
23:47 Dishman
23:23 Zhang Fei
23:11 Zhang Fei
22:58 Slim
22:52 Brian
22:49 Zhang Fei
22:39 Tom
22:13 Frank G
21:53 Slim
21:51 Frank G
21:28 Ptah
21:26 Ptah
21:24 Slim
21:18 Alaska Paul in Nome
20:56 Frank G
20:55 Matt
20:54 SOG475
20:46 Paul
20:37 Carl in NH
20:34 SOG475
20:22 Slim