soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Die Whigphilosophie der Geschichte im Hefeweizen wrote:

> >In that situation, and given the lack of contemporary records of the decision,
> >Hasegawa does make a defensible case.

> Like many commentators of the atomic bombings, Hasegawa appears to be
> utilising historical enquiry to reinterpret events for contemporary
> political reasons.

I'm not sure it's "political reasons", per se; that implies a sense of
purpose that is lacking in many of these interpretations. Simply, Japan
has never really come to grips with their role in the war in general,
and therefore really haven't evaluated the reason the US attacked (or,
if you prefer, prosecuted the war) so vigorously against Japan. There is
a fundamental disconnect in evaluating the events between Pearl Harbor
and the final surrender; it's almost as if they think of them as having
been part of different wars. They have a tendency to think of the
fire-bombings and atomic attacks as having somehow "cleansed"
them of any blame/guilt for the actions in China, SE Asia, or being
stupid enough to drag America into the war.

It's important to note that this attitude is by no means universal, even
among the more political circles in Japan. Last year, the Japanese
Defense Minister, Kyuma Fumio, stated flatly that the atomic bombings
could not have been helped (for this, he ended up resigning.) One mayor
of Nagasaki was shot for claiming that the a-bombing was the fault of
Tokyo, not the US. Another complained that Hiroshima whined too much
about the atomic attacks, as if they were the only city to suffer
during the war. Far-right wingers have been occassionally on record as
saying that without the bombs, Japan would have lost a lot more people
fighting the US (as further evidence of the discontinuity of Japanese
politics, it was a far-right winger who shot the mayor of Nagasaki.)

I would submit that rather than interpretting things for contemporary
political reasons, they have simply decided what they want to believe,
and interpret events in that light.

Mike