Commenter James Schipper makes the following comments, first about the US war against Japan in World War 2, and then about all US wars since the War of 1812, which he regards as a necessary war of self-defense. Schipper is a Canadian.
My perspective is different. I did support the war against the Axis in World War 2. My feelings are much more mixed on World War 1. The Spanish-American War and the Mexican War were obviously wars of imperialism. The Civil War may have been justified, if only to free the slaves. My relatives fought on both sides of the War Between the States. Of course, I supported the Union in that war.
I'm agnostic on the Revolutionary War, though cynically I would argue that we have been an imperial power ever since, and seem to have opposed every single anti-colonial war since our own Revolution! Disgusting!
The interventions in Central America and the Caribbean were sheer imperialism. The Wars on Panama and Grenada were preposterous. Iraq War 1 may have been justified to get rid of Saddam. I supported the war against the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosova. The intervention in Somalia was well-intentioned.
The latest Iraq War was one of the most criminal undertakings since the Spanish-American War. The war in Afghanistan may have been justified. Even though I'm a Marxist, the Korean War may have been justified since North Korea did invade South Korea. The Vietnam War and resulting wars in Laos and Cambodia were unnecessary.
Anyway, I thought I would give some space to an anti-war and anti-imperialist point of view. I do support the anti-imperialist argument. Pace Frantz Fanon, imperial powers never relinquish empire until they spill a lot of blood. Sad but true.
James Schipper:
First, Pearl Harbor didn't come as a bolt from the blue. It followed American economic sanctions against Japan and failed attempts at negotiations. The Roosevelt government had put the knife at Japan's throat. The Japanese had two options left: go to war or renounce their emperor. Predictably, they chose the first.
What is amazing in all this is how important American leaders considered access to the pitifully small Chinese market to be. From 1949 to 1975, the Chinese market was hermetically closed to the US, without noticeable ill effects on the American economy.
Second, Japan behaved in exactly the same way with Russia in 1905. After negotiations had broken down, Japan carried out a surprise attack on the Russian fleet in Vladivostok and sank it. Somehow it is not remembered as the Day of Infamy.
Third, American wars since the War of Secession have not been very bloody because they were fought far away from American territory. In the War of Secession, about 2% of the American population perished. Proportionally, that would be 6 million today.
Fourth, every war which the US fought since 1812 was a war of choice. There was no immediate threat to the US and certainly no attack on American territory. It wasn't as if the US had its back to the wall and had to choose between fighting or being overrun.
Fifth, when the aim of war becomes unconditional surrender, the Clausewitzian dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means is inverted and politics becomes the continuation of war by other means.
Sixth, the aim of war should not be victory but a better peace. Victory in war is rather ambiguous. It is much more useful to think in terms of costs and benefits. The expected benefits of war should exceed the probable costs. If the costs of war exceed the benefits, victory is pointless. It is like recovering a debt of $2000 through a lawsuit that costs $5000.
Seventh, one of my pet distinctions is between a national defeat and an imperial defeat. A national defeat involves having to accept undesirable terms from the enemy. An imperial defeat means a failure to impose one's will on the enemy without having to accept his terms. For instance, in 1940 the French suffered a national defeat. In 1954 they suffered an imperial defeat in Vietnam. Which was worse?
Imperial defeat is a blessing in disguise. It means that the imperial power, whose security is not threatened by the enemy, can go home. What harm did the Americans suffer from their imperial defeat in Vietnam, the French from their imperial in Vietnam or Algeria, the Dutch from theirs in Indonesia, the Portuguese from theirs in Angola in Mozambique?
In all those cases, the imperial power only benefited from the end of the war. It meant the end of loss of life and waste of money.
Down with imperialism.
Showing posts with label Operation Downfall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operation Downfall. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Deadly Cure For US War Hubris and Jingoism
James Schipper, in the comments threads, notes that before the planned invasion of Japan, the island nation was surrounded by US mines and submarines and could not import anything. I note that civilians were down to rations of 800 calories or so a day, and the military on little more. The nation as a fighting force was through.
Schipper also feels that the US war with the Japan was ridiculous. Problem is that here in the US, those are practically fighting words. Almost all Americans think we had to fight Japan, if only because of Pearl Harbor. This even includes most White nationalists, almost zero of whom supported fighting Hitler.
Foreigners underestimate the ferocious patriotism or even jingoism of the American people. Europeans seem to be far less patriotic or jingoistic than Americans. This is one of the defining features of the American, or I should say, of the White American. Black Americans are much less into this wild blind patriotism stuff. I'm not sure about Hispanics. I would suspect that they are less jingoistic than US Whites.
Schipper also notes that it was preposterous of the US to demand unconditional surrender. But this is part of the US game. We always demand unconditional surrender. The only times we don't is when we are stuck in some quagmire, and the war is unwinnable.
In addition, after a war, we often don't pay to fix up the country. For instance, we have not given one red cent to Vietnam for all the horrible environmental damage we have caused that poor nation. It's due to sour grapes because we were not able to defeat them in that war. Nor to Laos, Cambodia or North Korea.
True, we rebuilt Germany and Japan, but that's because they were soundly defeated. In addition, that was a much more reasonable era to be an American. Americans in 1948 were a much more decent lot than these nasty, creepy beasts we have morphed into in 2008.
I don't think Americans in their current nastiness would rebuild any country they wrecked with a war.
We spent tens of millions of dollars "rebuilding" Iraq, and it was a complete failure. It was a cynical Third World style corruption gravy train that sucked money from US taxpayers to pour into the pockets of US corporate criminals on no-bid joke contracts.
The crooks either stole the money outright and did no work at all, or did shitty work, walked away from their collapsing buildings and laughed all the way to the bank. That Americans are so lame that they are going to elect someone who was in on this scam from the start, John McCain, is outrageous.
Do you think we will spend one nickel cleaning up all this horrible depleted uranium pollution we have spewed all over Iraq? We haven't even cleaned up our DU mess in Serbia.
American hubris is so horrible that we go completely nuts whenever we "lose" or at least do not completely win a war. That is why it is so hard to pull out of Iraq. Americans simply can't hack the idea. Americans will literally stay in that stupid country for 5-10+ more years, our young men getting hacked up every single day, just so we don't "lose", or "not win", or however they see it.
Some friends of mine just got back from a patriotic concert put on by the US Armed Forces in Fresno. Even though I'm supposed to be an America-hater, I love going to these things. The local army unit in Iraq is there and you get to talk to them. They have all the vets in the audience stand up for each service and my Dad wobbles to his feet.
At this one, I am told that they had a screen presentation of all of the local soldiers (not sure of the area covered) who got killed - not just wounded, but killed - in Iraq. My friend said it was heartbreaking. It seemed to go on and on forever, and as she said, "It seemed like there were hundreds of them, and they were all so young." So much for "the surge is working, let's stay in Iraq for 100 years, God is calling us to Iraq" triumphalist crap.
The reason we are still in Iraq is because not enough Americans have been killed and wounded there. Americans are so self-centered that they only care about wars when lots of soldiers start getting killed or coming back wounded.
When questioned about war crimes in World War 2, my older friends and relatives get very defensive. They say that during WW2, there were these star designs you hung in your window if you had someone in the services overseas or if you lost someone in the war.
Blue star for someone in the service; gold star for someone dead in the war. You would drive around Chicago and see these blue stars everywhere. And on nearly every single street, one or more gold stars.
Get that? On every street, someone had lost a male family member in the war.
Every single day in the paper, they would list the casualties. Every day there were 70-80 new ones. The whole nation was in mourning all the time. It never seemed to end. People were sick and tired of all the dying and were getting very angry. They wanted it over and right now.
So you saw firebombing in Germany and Japan and atom bombs on Japan. I'm not trying to defend this stuff - just showing you the tremendous pain that drove these crimes. I don't think we did because we were a bunch of sadists.
Korea was a similar deal. There were ~32,00 Americans dead in only three years. That's worse than Vietnam on a per year basis.
In Vietnam too, the pain was obvious. There were 30 or so guys dying every single day at the peak. There were wounded coming back all the time, limping around or in wheelchairs. You could not avoid them - they were shoved into your face on the streets you walked.
I remember at the height of the war, Time Magazine ran a whole issue with about 200-250 guys who got killed that week, and it freaked out the whole damn country. There were two or three guys on every page with a little something about them. It put faces and lives on the names and numbers.
Unless Americans sustain heavy duty casualties, their pride will keep them in the most idiotic and insane wars almost forever. This Iraq War won't end until Americans really start feeling some real pain over it, as in the pain of death and injuries.
It's sad but true.
Schipper also feels that the US war with the Japan was ridiculous. Problem is that here in the US, those are practically fighting words. Almost all Americans think we had to fight Japan, if only because of Pearl Harbor. This even includes most White nationalists, almost zero of whom supported fighting Hitler.
Foreigners underestimate the ferocious patriotism or even jingoism of the American people. Europeans seem to be far less patriotic or jingoistic than Americans. This is one of the defining features of the American, or I should say, of the White American. Black Americans are much less into this wild blind patriotism stuff. I'm not sure about Hispanics. I would suspect that they are less jingoistic than US Whites.
Schipper also notes that it was preposterous of the US to demand unconditional surrender. But this is part of the US game. We always demand unconditional surrender. The only times we don't is when we are stuck in some quagmire, and the war is unwinnable.
In addition, after a war, we often don't pay to fix up the country. For instance, we have not given one red cent to Vietnam for all the horrible environmental damage we have caused that poor nation. It's due to sour grapes because we were not able to defeat them in that war. Nor to Laos, Cambodia or North Korea.
True, we rebuilt Germany and Japan, but that's because they were soundly defeated. In addition, that was a much more reasonable era to be an American. Americans in 1948 were a much more decent lot than these nasty, creepy beasts we have morphed into in 2008.
I don't think Americans in their current nastiness would rebuild any country they wrecked with a war.
We spent tens of millions of dollars "rebuilding" Iraq, and it was a complete failure. It was a cynical Third World style corruption gravy train that sucked money from US taxpayers to pour into the pockets of US corporate criminals on no-bid joke contracts.
The crooks either stole the money outright and did no work at all, or did shitty work, walked away from their collapsing buildings and laughed all the way to the bank. That Americans are so lame that they are going to elect someone who was in on this scam from the start, John McCain, is outrageous.
Do you think we will spend one nickel cleaning up all this horrible depleted uranium pollution we have spewed all over Iraq? We haven't even cleaned up our DU mess in Serbia.
American hubris is so horrible that we go completely nuts whenever we "lose" or at least do not completely win a war. That is why it is so hard to pull out of Iraq. Americans simply can't hack the idea. Americans will literally stay in that stupid country for 5-10+ more years, our young men getting hacked up every single day, just so we don't "lose", or "not win", or however they see it.
Some friends of mine just got back from a patriotic concert put on by the US Armed Forces in Fresno. Even though I'm supposed to be an America-hater, I love going to these things. The local army unit in Iraq is there and you get to talk to them. They have all the vets in the audience stand up for each service and my Dad wobbles to his feet.
At this one, I am told that they had a screen presentation of all of the local soldiers (not sure of the area covered) who got killed - not just wounded, but killed - in Iraq. My friend said it was heartbreaking. It seemed to go on and on forever, and as she said, "It seemed like there were hundreds of them, and they were all so young." So much for "the surge is working, let's stay in Iraq for 100 years, God is calling us to Iraq" triumphalist crap.
The reason we are still in Iraq is because not enough Americans have been killed and wounded there. Americans are so self-centered that they only care about wars when lots of soldiers start getting killed or coming back wounded.
When questioned about war crimes in World War 2, my older friends and relatives get very defensive. They say that during WW2, there were these star designs you hung in your window if you had someone in the services overseas or if you lost someone in the war.
Blue star for someone in the service; gold star for someone dead in the war. You would drive around Chicago and see these blue stars everywhere. And on nearly every single street, one or more gold stars.
Get that? On every street, someone had lost a male family member in the war.
Every single day in the paper, they would list the casualties. Every day there were 70-80 new ones. The whole nation was in mourning all the time. It never seemed to end. People were sick and tired of all the dying and were getting very angry. They wanted it over and right now.
So you saw firebombing in Germany and Japan and atom bombs on Japan. I'm not trying to defend this stuff - just showing you the tremendous pain that drove these crimes. I don't think we did because we were a bunch of sadists.
Korea was a similar deal. There were ~32,00 Americans dead in only three years. That's worse than Vietnam on a per year basis.
In Vietnam too, the pain was obvious. There were 30 or so guys dying every single day at the peak. There were wounded coming back all the time, limping around or in wheelchairs. You could not avoid them - they were shoved into your face on the streets you walked.
I remember at the height of the war, Time Magazine ran a whole issue with about 200-250 guys who got killed that week, and it freaked out the whole damn country. There were two or three guys on every page with a little something about them. It put faces and lives on the names and numbers.
Unless Americans sustain heavy duty casualties, their pride will keep them in the most idiotic and insane wars almost forever. This Iraq War won't end until Americans really start feeling some real pain over it, as in the pain of death and injuries.
It's sad but true.
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