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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kill the Christians
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Their response to 'Kill the Christians' is kill.
That's a FACT. Not an accusation. What's to accuse?
But it won't be their response, indeed it isn't, to Kill the Yazidi or Kill the Sunni or Kill the (other, non-Yazidi) Kurds or Kill the Shia.
It's a funny business Christianity. We were reminded today how Philip evangelized Ethiopia through the Eunuch. And after 2000 years of Christianity there we are needed to stop the evil oppression, the enslavement, the forced marriage and rape of literally poor, low status girls and women by giving them cattle and money.
This just added to my store of utter mouth gaping, mind spinning existential horror about this particular Christian society from Ryszard Kapuściński's The Shadow of the Sun and The Emperor.
I mean God knows how bad it would have been if this WEREN'T a Christian culture, hadn't been one for two thousand years.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If Andrew, Justin and George (did you see that?) weren't Christian warmongers FIRST, they'd put their money where their mouth is and ransom and buy visas and agitate and civilly disobey for Syriac Christians and Yazidis. They'd just put them on planes and fly them in to Rome and Gatwick and DEMAND that WE put our money and our homes where our mouth is.
But no. They'd rather get Caesar to kill for them. And so would we.
No wonder we make God PUKE.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Are you seriously suggesting that Andrew White and Justin Welby individually have the funds to fly thousands of people out of their desperate conditions? Last time I looked, they were both living on a low income due to a considerable amount of time working for the church.
Really, I think this whole diatribe is wrong-headed. Personally I think Andrew White is totally wrong in much of his analysis, but the idea that he is single-handedly responsible for the bloodshed - or somehow in a position to physically remove his parishioners from the conflict - is utter nonsense.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm seriously suggesting the vast wealth at the Church's command be put to that use.
Er, how am I blaming White for the bloodshed by IS?
I'm blaming him, Welby and Bergoglio for demanding that IS blood be spilled.
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Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Neither Andrew White or Justin Welby have access to the 'vast' wealth of the church - in the Anglican church the job of the investments of the church is devolved to the Church Commissioners.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
I'm probably asking for trouble, but just WHEN have Andrew White, Justin Welby or the Pope 'demanded that IS blood be spilled'? I'm not arguing, just asking for some evidence.
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
mr cheesy. Of course they have. In their leadership. In their moral authority. Which they'd RATHER use, like the Pope, to call for war.
For warmongering.
Just like Jesus did.
Eirenist. In your search engine type in:
welby calls for military action
pope calls for military action
andrew white calls for military action
and go to the first link of each for a start.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
mr cheesy. Of course they have. In their leadership. In their moral authority. Which they'd RATHER use, like the Pope, to call for war.
OK. That's a vast oversimplification of their influence and opinions.
But anyway, it is fairly obvious that trying to discuss this with you is an impossible task.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If you say so mr cheesy.
[ 04. May 2015, 20:51: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
Thank you, Martin. The words seem slightly more nuanced than 'demanding blood' but I take the point.
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Indeed Eirenist. I'm not known for nuance. Although how we can follow Christ and demand military action, at the same time as proof to the world that we love our co-religionists, even from Him, is now a total mystery to me from which I can't go back.
Part of me viscerally wants to. With high altitude, overlapping, one megaton hydrogen bomb air-bursts. 19 would cover ten thousand square miles.
As I said, subtlety isn't my strong suit.
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
I had noticed, Martin. But do you think these people would be calling for action against IS, if IS weren't killing Christians? Really?
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
No I certainly don't. If it were just the Yazidis for example. It's just worldly sectarianism therefore. This is a genuine question, when have Christian leaders ever demanded military action solely on behalf of non-Christians?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I'm blaming him, Welby and Bergoglio for demanding that IS blood be spilled.
I think the argument against pacifism goes something like this:
If you see your friend or your brother beating up a helpless old lady, would you intervene, or would you just shrug your shoulders and walk by on the other side ? And if all the third options (reasoned argument, emotional persuasion etc) prove ineffective, would you (with or without help from others) use force to overpower your friend/brother to prevent him from harming an innocent person ? In that situation, giving up and walking away so that evil deeds against others continue unchecked seems to be the wrong thing to do. And the sayings of Jesus don't seem to support either giving up or persisting in being utterly ineffective.
So if you see such a crime in progress, a moral imperative in favour of universal brotherhood does not prevent you from using force to protect the innocent.
If we escalate the example, so that instead of beating up little old ladies your friend/brother is gunning them down with an assault rifle, then overpowering him may involve applying lethal force. But that doesn't change the argument - the lesser evil that you're choosing (all third options having failed) has increased in proportion to the greater evil you're preventing.
Whilst the judgment that military action against IS is the lesser evil may be a mistaken judgment, it's not a barking mad or necessarily-unChristian judgment.
Seems to me that the question you should be asking is why these so-called Christian countries have multi-billion dollar industries producing lethal weapons, and such a pathetically small R&D effort into non-lethal weapons. If the policy option is humanitarian war, why aren't we equipped to fight it ?
If any friend of mine goes off his trolley and starts killing people, I want him taken alive and carted off to the psychiatric hospital...
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What's evil about immediately coming to the aid of the victim of an on-going attack? Using whatever force is appropriate? It's evil not to.
In a world where my brother, my son, my mother starts waving an AK around, all but impossible in the UK, more likely a bread knife, my duty to all concerned is to notify the police in the full knowledge that they may well have to use lethal force. Or bear-grade pepper spray or Taser up against a bread knife. Where is the moral failure - evil - in that? Or in my picking up a chair until they come?
And superglue, net, baton or superlube rounds up against full metal jackets ... don't win. Superior firepower is the ONLY way.
I can't think of a civil situation requiring an armed police response where a Christian pacifist couldn't be part of that response. Including a necessarily lethal part. Trained for that. Or in posse comitatus, deputized.
So how much further do I have to go to persuade myself that war is appropriate for a Christian? Total war? For Jesus? As in WWJD? When I can't think of a single historical example where it was?
Should I be saying what I said about civil situations including civil war? Northern Ireland during The Troubles?
And these are genuinely open questions.
Please challenge everything.
Is my pacifism unravelling? Meaningless? Am I a double minded man? Unstable in all my ways?
This is keeping me up nights!
As is the obscene, insanely disproportionate suffering of the innocent.
Believe it or not I'm vulnerable in this.
So do your worst.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I can't think of a civil situation requiring an armed police response where a Christian pacifist couldn't be part of that response. Including a necessarily lethal part. Trained for that. Or in posse comitatus, deputized.
So how much further do I have to go to persuade myself that war is appropriate for a Christian? Total war? For Jesus? As in WWJD? When I can't think of a single historical example where it was?
You and I are lucky enough to live in countries where we can call in the police in the expectation of a response that is timely and proportionate and accountable.
If we did not have that option, if disarming the breadknife-wielding maniac was something that we had to do ourselves, rather than pay through our taxes for a trained and professional service provider to do, would you still be OK with that ? Is there any moral difference ? If the application of minimal-necessary-but-up-to-and-including-lethal force iis done by a group of the neighbours rather than by the State acting for them ?
And when that situation is scaled up to us as the trying-to-be-good-guy nations counter-invading Nazi-occupied France or Iraqi-occupied Kuwait for the sake of the French or Kuwaiti people, how does that difference of scale change the morality of the action ?
Not that I'm wanting you to lose sleep...
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thanks Russ. See the Ferguson thread.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
To continue here then: no I have no problem dealing with a nutter with a knife: in effect I've done it and would do it again.
I don't see how it scales up beyond domestic counter-terror, lawlessness. And even to that beyond narrow examples. Northern Ireland, yes. Irish home rule, no. And they are both in the grey mid-spectrum.
WWI & II. No. All modern period wars. What was the first? The American Civil War? Being me now then, I'd HAVE to be a 'conshy'.
But is a crusade against IS, even with Muslim allies, a scaled up neighbourhood duty?
If Bosnia was, one that we initially failed in multiple ways ... and it was ... I feel myself arguing now as then for MORE vigorous, MORE rapid ... military intervention. That results in LESS suffering overall. Utilitarian. By those who have the power, no matter how they came by it, no matter that they, we are complicit in history's bloody chaos.
When we look back in history, which wars were just in hindsight?
WWII is trumpeted as THE just war, In hindsight. How was it just at the time? From a British, Commonwealth ..., US POV? Russia doesn't count. No moral leg to stand on. How was it justified from a Christian POV?
I'm watching VE Day coverage and I'm blown away, my voice catches in my throat. The heroism of Dunkirk is too much, by the Guards who fought to the last man and the English civilians who came over in dinghies to save the men the Guards died to give time for.
Eeeeee, I don't know. The evolution of just war theory from Augustine, predicated on Paul, to our humanist, utilitarian time is ... worthy, coherent.
But was it from the RIGHT starting point?
How did Paul get to defending state violence from Jesus? The way I have by reducing it to police action? So did Paul prophetically sanction the genocide of a million people in the Roman-Jewish Wars?
Of course not.
So total war by unenlightened power is bad but total war by enlightened power is good?
How do we get to that from the Sermons on the Mount and Plain, from the life of Christ?
And if that's naïve, why do we get so legalistic about His other so-called hard sayings?
Ah well.
In that case there is ... no hope but the even more extremely flattened trajectory of the arc of the moral universe.
We'll continue to fail to prevent suffering and then overreact in having done so and cause even more.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
To continue here then: no I have no problem dealing with a nutter with a knife: in effect I've done it and would do it again.
I don't see how it scales up beyond domestic counter-terror, lawlessness...
...But is a crusade against IS, even with Muslim allies, a scaled up neighbourhood duty?...
...So total war by unenlightened power is bad but total war by enlightened power is good?
How do we get to that from the Sermons on the Mount and Plain, from the life of Christ?
...We'll continue to fail to prevent suffering and then overreact in having done so and cause even more.
Hi Martin.
Sounds like your heart is telling you to get off the train somewhere in between the neighbourhood scale and the international scale, but your head can't quite work out where the line is that you shouldn't cross.
Don't think I can tell you.
The way I learned history, WW1 was a pointless unnecessary war where we mobilised beacause they mobilised, and they mobilised because they could see that we were going to mobilise... And WW2 was a just war, a struggle against real evil.
You're right that there's hindsight in play there. But that's one of the challenges - to be able to see through the heat of the moment to how hindsight will view what you're contemplating doing. At all scales of human endeavour.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thanks Russ. I suppose I'm wondering whether and how to backslide from a position at least one step removed from absolute pacifism. With hindsight I still cannot see how WW2 was a just war, or the American Civil War. I can't think of any other candidates. Therefore war is always wrong.
So what are Christians to do in, about, Ukraine? Let alone IS? Where warmongering is NOT an option, let alone warfare. Or any of the instruments open to pacifists within nonviolent opposition.
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Love wins
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I've come late to this debate, but why don't you think that the Second World War was a just war, at least from a british/ Commonwealth POV and in respect of the war against Germany? Because we acted too late? Because we enlisted some dodgy allies (USSR, though don't forget that after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in August 1939 a lot of people thought we might end up fighting them too and if the aid that we were preparing for Finland had got there we might well have done)? Because we then did some dodgy things militarily (e.g. lots of not all of the strategic bombing campaign) and diplomatically (e.g. declaring war on finland to please Stalin, not that we actually did anything more about it AIUI)? Or because you think that the classic 'just war' tests were not met (although AIUI you are sceptical about that).
What about the Falklands? nasty military dictatorship with horrific human rights record takes over peaceful British settlement without provocation. Admittedly Thatch's government hadn't exactly been hostile to Argentina until then and had been trying to shuffle the Falklands offf onto them quietly, and there's a good argument that the invasion could have been deterred before it started if they had really been as patriotically attached to defending British interests as they claimed to be, but once it had happened, what were we supposed to do to resolve and even redeem the situation?
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The war against Japan was also just. The Japanese mistreated the people in the countries they occupied. Those people did not like their European colonizers, but they thought the Japanese were much worse.
Very near the end of the war, people in those countries were starving to death at an estimated rate of one hundred thousand per month. The Japanese refused to surrender this territory so that the people could be fed.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I couldn't agree more Albertus. If WE're not going to love OUR enemies, then pre-empt, be worse than them first, which should hardly prove necessary with a truly vigorous enough defence. Look hard, be hard. But WE end up being worse than them last. WE are the retaliatory powers. Beware the nice guy, the good guy when he goes to war. How long before we solve IS in one night?
That's if WE identify with Caesar.
At least the Germans get their retaliation in early.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Such clear hindsight Moo. Which is why WE starved 3 million of OUR 'subjects'. And, in total war, it is in OUR interests that the enemy be forced to starve and brutalize the occupied. It shows they're losing.
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Which is why WE starved 3 million of OUR 'subjects'.
When and where?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
1943, Bengal
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
AFAIK the Japanese did not offer to feed the people of Bengal. The Allies did offer to feed the starving in the Japanese-occupied countries with the stipulation that neutral observers were allowed to make sure the food went to the people in the occupied countries, rather than to Japan. The Japanese refused.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm sure they did Moo. So we nuked them.
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The death tolls for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than 400,000, and they shortened the war by more than four months. That's four months in which 400,000 people in the occupied countries did not starve to death, not to mention the Japanese and Allied soldiers who were not killed.
Moreover, Japan was ruled by military fanatics who said that even if every Japanese died, that was better than surrender. Thank God the emperor disagreed with that.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The war against Japan was also just. The Japanese mistreated the people in the countries they occupied. Those people did not like their European colonizers, but they thought the Japanese were much worse.
Very near the end of the war, people in those countries were starving to death at an estimated rate of one hundred thousand per month. The Japanese refused to surrender this territory so that the people could be fed.
Moo
It's a little more nuanced than that. The Americans had been steadily expanding into the Pacific since their conquest of the Philippines and annexing Hawaii. This mattered to Japan. But more important for the Japanese, had been strangling the oil and steel supplies, among other things. The complete oil embargo of 01 Aug 1941 when the USA totally cutoff 80% of Japanese oil they were getting from the Americans supply seems pretty key. From the Japanese perspective, obviously America was provoking war by economically strangling it. The two countries, USA and Japan were in heavy competition, and the USA was determined to win.
I know the Americans said that Japanese aggression in China was a problem, but the Japanese didn't see it far different from America in the Philippines and Hawaii. The time frame being almost half a century earlier merely reinforced the idea of America's long term plans for domination. Something that present-day apologists would see as continuing.
It has been facile and over-simplified to simply label the Japanese as bad. I get the idea that killing two cities, mostly non-military, was a good thing in American eyes. When you do total war, it means you do want to kill everyone you can, whether soldiers or not. If America had lost, these may well been considered war crimes.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
To me the crucial point is that the Japanese generals, who had complete power at that time, thought that the preservation of kokutai, which was considered the essence of Japan, was more important than the lives of all the Japanese.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We can use utilitarianism half way through the movie of our compromised, complicit ... evil foreign policy till Kingdom come ... and we probably will.
How US genocide in the Philippines (next south of Japan) a century ago is a least bad option, a lesser of evils, I CANNOT imagine.
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Love wins
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
To me the crucial point is that the Japanese generals, who had complete power at that time, thought that the preservation of kokutai, which was considered the essence of Japan, was more important than the lives of all the Japanese.
Moo
I have trouble considering that as much other than cultural. The equivalent and still underway for America is mercantilism, i.e., augmenting a nation's power at the expense of rival national powers. I think it's so embedded culturally it's hardly even noticed.
[ 28. May 2015, 14:55: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The war against Japan was also just. The Japanese mistreated the people in the countries they occupied. Those people did not like their European colonizers, but they thought the Japanese were much worse.
Very near the end of the war, people in those countries were starving to death at an estimated rate of one hundred thousand per month. The Japanese refused to surrender this territory so that the people could be fed.
Moo
It's a little more nuanced than that. The Americans had been steadily expanding into the Pacific since their conquest of the Philippines and annexing Hawaii. This mattered to Japan. But more important for the Japanese, had been strangling the oil and steel supplies, among other things. The complete oil embargo of 01 Aug 1941 when the USA totally cutoff 80% of Japanese oil they were getting from the Americans supply seems pretty key. From the Japanese perspective, obviously America was provoking war by economically strangling it. The two countries, USA and Japan were in heavy competition, and the USA was determined to win.
I know the Americans said that Japanese aggression in China was a problem, but the Japanese didn't see it far different from America in the Philippines and Hawaii. The time frame being almost half a century earlier merely reinforced the idea of America's long term plans for domination. Something that present-day apologists would see as continuing.
It has been facile and over-simplified to simply label the Japanese as bad. I get the idea that killing two cities, mostly non-military, was a good thing in American eyes. When you do total war, it means you do want to kill everyone you can, whether soldiers or not. If America had lost, these may well been considered war crimes.
The thing with this kind of nuance, which I've heard numerous times before, is that it almost never gets applied to the European theatre of World War II. People rarely say things like "Well, you gotta understand, the Nazis did have some legitimate concerns about what the Russians or the British were doing" or "Sure, Dachau was bad, but Dresden would likely be viewed as a war crime had the Axis won."
Basically, analysis of the Nazis rarely gets much beyond stating that they were just evil guys who wanted to force their will upon the world, and bearing no redeeming qualities at all. Which may be true, but I can assue you that there are millions of people in Korea, north and south, who think the same way about the NAZI-ALLIED Japanese militarists.
[ 28. May 2015, 16:59: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Actually that kind of discussion has occurred many times about Germany. The economic ruin of the country by the settlement imposed on them post-WW1. The main reason that the argument is not forthcoming is as you say, the basic simplified understanding that Germany=Nazis. There's a conflation also of the Kaiser and German gov't being as equally evil as the Nazis.
The history is that Britain wanted to keep control, and Germany had the economic potential pre-WW1 to overtake it. I can't find myself choosing either side in WW1. And here we are 75 years after WW2, and we have Germany rising and UK sinking. With Russia doing what exactly? I think that's another topic though.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We can wash our hands of forcing our enemies to be even worse bastards than they would have been if we hadn't declared and waged total war on them? How do we do that?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
To me the crucial point is that the Japanese generals, who had complete power at that time, thought that the preservation of kokutai, which was considered the essence of Japan, was more important than the lives of all the Japanese.
Moo
I have trouble considering that as much other than cultural. The equivalent and still underway for America is mercantilism, i.e., augmenting a nation's power at the expense of rival national powers. I think it's so embedded culturally it's hardly even noticed.
After the two atomic bombs had been dropped, the emperor decided to make a speech to the Japanese people, who had never heard his voice. He had, in fact, decided to surrender; this was supposed to be a secret, but a lot of the higher-ups knew it. A group of army men decided to prevent this speech from taking place. Here is a quote by one of the conspirators. about the subject. (The phrase 'national policy' is a translation of kokutai quote:
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It would be useless for people to survive the war if the structure of the State itself were to be destroyed.....
Although a coup d'etat would mean temporary disobedience to the present Emperor... to act in compliance with the wishes of his Imperial Ancestors would constitute a wider and truer loyalty to the throne in the final analysis....
We did not believe the entire people would be completely annihilated through fighting to the finish. Even if a crucial battle were fought in the homeland and the Imperial Forces were confined to the mountainous regions, the number of Japanese killed by the enemy forces would be small....
Even if the whole Japanese race were all but wiped out, its determination to preserve the national policy would be forever recorded in the annals of history...
We decided that the peace faction should be overruled and a coup d'etat staged in order to prevail upon the Emperor to revoke his decision. The purpose of the projected coup d'etat was to separate the Emperor from his peace-seeking advisers and persuade him to change his mind and continue the war...All we wanted was a military government with all political power concentrated in the hands of the war minister....
I shudder to think what would have happened if that coup had been successful.
This is something far more fanatical than mercantilism.
*Edwin P. Hoyt: The Kamikazes New York 1983 pp.269-270
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So what Moo?
Churchill's plans for the Nazi invasion of Britain were no less implacably inimical. He'd have used every chemical and biological agent in our arsenal. If that had failed, he had his secret army.
And that would have been worth it? God forgive me for 40 years of yes.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I shudder to think what would have happened if that coup had been successful.
This is something far more fanatical than mercantilism.
*Edwin P. Hoyt: The Kamikazes New York 1983 pp.269-270
Moo
More fanatical than atomic bombs?
If the coup had been successful, then more of them.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
If the coup had been successful, then more of them.
More than what?
Moo
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I should have said, "More of what?"
Moo
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Atomic bombs. America was prepared to drop 7 more, but one wonders if they might have ramped up capacity. The link says one more by Aug 19, 3 in Sept and 3 more in Oct.
"Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal." (Albert Einstein)
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.” (Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls)
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Yeah, but we're the good guys, so it would have been OK. That's what Jesus said.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I am questioning what would have happened in Japan if the emperor had been kidnapped. He was in favor of ending the war, and the militarists were determined to continue it.
Getting back to your equating American mercantilism with Japanese kokutai, I couldn't disagree more. The quotation I gave said that even if most of the Japanese population were wiped out, that would be all right as long as kokutai survived. Do you really think that there are any Americans who feel that way about mercantilism?
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
You're comparing a little too tightly, and suggesting the likely differential results of over-arching, integrative philosophy mean they are not comparable. What I am saying is that America's founding principles are on being open for business, promoting it's economy, making money/profit, and it's general behaviour internationally is focused on that as a main guiding principle, if not "the" guiding principle. When something is ingrained in a culture, it is sometimes hard to name it.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet
When something is ingrained in a culture, it is sometimes hard to name it.
But the Japanese had no trouble naming kokutai and talking about it.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I think a quick trip to Limbo-- or any welltrafficked American non-Fox affiliated news site, really-- will reveal many, many Americans who are quite aware of things like cultural imperialism, mercantileism, nationalistic capitalism, the wrongheadedness of various presidents' international relations policies, and so forth.To say we are not suceeding in combating these problems is one thing, to say the people with the most power are exacebating these problems is fair, but to say we are not aware of them seems like a simple lack of interest in researching the accuracy of that assumption.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We can wash our hands of forcing our enemies to be even worse bastards than they would have been if we hadn't declared and waged total war on them? How do we do that?
Before that-- I was watching a documentary the other day which suggested Hitler's " Final Solution" may not have been cartied out if his first solution-- mass deportation of undesirables-- had worked. Meaning if Europe and America had accepted the Jewish refugees into our ports, the very reason we call WW2 a " just war" would never had happened.
The Allies entered the war for their own self interest-- even if that interest was reasonable, as in " This maniac has occupied France and we're next!" Or " The army responsible for basically raping China is now taking pokes at out outlying territories." Reasonable, yes. righteous? I don't believe justice and righteousness manifest themselves in war (except in terms of how individuals cope with it.). as Sam Fuller put it, war is organized chaos. War is what happens when civilization isn't functioning.
i believe the dropping of the atomic bomb is one of the worst thing the human race has ever done to the planet. But, I sort of see why it was bound to happen, given what people were afraid of. But understanding something and excusing it are two different things.
[ 30. May 2015, 01:40: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I appreciate that I have posted this before re the dropping of the Atomic bombs.
Both my late father and my father in law fought as conscripts during WW2. In particular, my father saw many gruesome sights (including his involvement in the freeing and support of those in a concentration camp in Germany) which had long term traumatic effects. I've asked both of them what their reactions were to the dropping of the A-bombs, and both said the same. "Overwhelming relief", is the phrase they both used. It meant that, after all they had been through, they would not be sent to the far-east to fight Japan, whose "no surrender" and even kamiakze culture was well understood by that time.
And of course we can all call it self-interest. But we were not there. We were not the ones who experienced the horrors and survived. It does no harm to seek to understand the factors which produced that "overwhelming relief". To recognise the pressures on President Truman at the time.
With the passage of time, it is easy to review these events through the lens of "unctuous moral rectitude". Those who were around at that time did not have that luxury. At the very least, that fact needs to be respected, however well attuned our moral compasses may be.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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