Text 7563, 92 rader
Skriven 2005-01-17 22:15:45 av Ed Hulett (1:123/789.0)
   Kommentar till text 7546 av Gary Braswell (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Ww 2
============
Gary Braswell -> Ed Hulett wrote:

 EH>>>> They were more brutal and murderous in some cases. Re: The rape of
 EH>>>> Nanking. How Bjorn could be so blind to how truely evil the
 EH>> Germans and
 EH>>>> Japanese were only shows how the Europeans have been lied to for 60
 EH>>>> years by their leaders.

 GB>>> The atrocities of the Japanese boggle the mind. In retribution for the
 GB>>> Chinese helping Dolittle's men out of Japanese-held territory, they went
 GB>>> on an orgy of murder and killed over 100,000 Chinese.

 EH>> The ironic thing about it all is that the Japanese and Chinese have
 EH>> common ancesters. It wasn't a racist thing, it was just wanton brutality.

 GB> The Japanese Imperial Army were trained with blows. Low ranking men were
 GB> slapped repeatedly or savagely beaten by their superiors for not
 GB> measuring up to expectation. Whereas the US military would demand
 GB> pushups, miles run or some other repetitive and uncomfortable task,
 GB> Japanese would beat their men often into unconsciousness and broken bones.

They also lied to them about what the enemy would do to them if they
surrendered. They were told that the enemy was a lower form of life than they
were, too.

 GB> When you are beaten all the time, its easy to transfer that hate and
 GB> pain to those of less power than you.

Exactly.

 GB>>> During and after the Bataan Death March, the Japanese went on a rampage
 GB>>> killing over 200,000 innocent people because some people tried to throw
 GB>>> food and water to the allied troops being marched to death.

 EH>> The allied troops, after seeing this happen over and over, tried to tell
 EH>> the Philipeanos along the way not to risk their own lives yet they just
 EH>> kept trying to get food and water to the troops.

 GB> Brings a tear to the eye.

I watched a show on the History Channel about the Bataan Death March and
listening to what the survivers had to say about it was depressing. Seeing them
tell their stories was heart wrenching.

Right now on The Military Channel is a program on Bataan.

 GB>>> I highly recommend Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. It came a out a few
 GB>>> years ago with new information that the deaths went to far larger levels
 GB>>> than first thought.

 EH>> I have read exerpts from it.

 GB>>> There is a picture there that haunts me and I cannot get out of my mind.
 GB>>> A beautiful Chinese woman, naked and tied to a chair out in the open
 GB>>> with he legs tied wide open so she could be casually raped by any
 GB>>> Japanese so inclined. I was eating at the time I first saw the pic and
 GB>>> became ill.

 EH>> The Japanese were animals. They did things no human should do to even
 EH>> animals let alone doing it to other humans.

 GB> I agree. Its astounding to me that a culture so ingrained with
 GB> appreciation for beauty, gentle and quietly philosophical could be so
 GB> callously brutal.

It was their idea that they were a superior people that allowed them to treat
the Chinese and allied POWs with such distain.

 GB>>> At least the German people came to grips with their past. The Japanese
 GB>>> are still in denial. They do not burden their history books with such
 GB>>> things.

 EH>> They dwell on the nuclear bombs the US dropped on them and conveniently
 EH>> ignore the atrocities they perpetrated on others.

 GB> You are exactly right.

 GB> Many Japanese soldiers who were guards on the various allied POW camps
 GB> still see nothing wrong with what was done to the allied POWs.

Some have come forward and admitted they were wrong, but not enough of them.
Their generation is slowly fading away.

 GB> My father told me he held no hatred towards the Japanese of today, but
 GB> he wished he had killed more of the bastards back then.

I have heard the same from other vets from the Pacific theater.

Ed

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