by A.B. Abrams for The Saker Blog
Over a year ago I published the book Power and Primacy: The History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific, which was an attempt to fill what I saw as a gap in scholarship on the subject. I found that while several scholars had covered individual cases of Western powers intervening in the region, from David Easter and Geoffrey B. Robinson’s works on the Western-engineered coup and massacres in Indonesia of an estimated 500,000 to 3 million people[1] – to Bruce Cumings and Hugh Deane’s works on the Korean War, there were no major works assessing broader trends and consistencies in Western intervention. Power and Primacy was thus written to show the consistencies in Western designs towards the region and the means used to achieve them over a period of more than 70 years, from the Pacific War which began in 1941 to Western policies towards China and North Korea today.
This month marks the 75th anniversary of the dismantling of the Japanese Empire, and the famous declaration by General Douglas MacArthur that, with the region’s only non-Western military power and the world’s only non-Western naval power now defeated, ‘The Pacific is now an Anglo-Saxon lake.’ While the U.S. and its allies portrayed themselves as a benevolent and democratising force in the region, the darker aspects of East Asia’s time under the new hegemon, which starkly contradict this, have seen very little discussion or coverage. It is notable, for example, that after the Japanese Empire’s fall not only did living standards in southern Korea fall dramatically after it was placed under the rule of an American military government, but mass rapes, the use of comfort women, and serious human trafficking – the very things used by many to justify the American embargo on Japan which had started hostilities in 1941 – not only continued but were expanded under U.S. control. The government of Syngman Rhee, the Princeton-educated Christian radical the U.S. placed in power, killed 2% of its population at the most conservative estimate within five years, placing hundreds of thousands more in concentration camps and exercising a level of brutality not seen even under the Japanese Empire.
With Japan today having seen 75 uninterrupted years with tens of thousands of Western soldiers based on its territory, where they appear set to remain indefinitely, this is a suitable time to reflect on the nature of the relationship between the country and the West – which is very far from that of equal sovereign powers with shared goals and ideals. Evidence for this has ranged from massive involvement of American intelligence in the political process, including funding pro-Western political parties and supporting their election campaigns,[2] to the testimonies of multiple officials. Former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, for example, noted regarding his country’s inability to reach a deal with Russia over the Kuril Islands due to an effective American veto over all major foreign policy decisions: “I think it represents a big problem that when making foreign policy decisions, Tokyo is always guided by the United States’ approach. Japan depends on America.” He further stated: “The Japanese media and government… always take America’s side. Tokyo is dependent on the US’ views … Japan will continue to side with America and the G7 countries.”[3] Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, who in the 1950s had also sought to resolve the dispute with Moscow and sign a peace treaty on the basis that Japan would receive two of the four islands, was harshly threatened by the U.S. and was ultimately forced to concede to Washington’s demands not to go through with an agreement. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori came to a similar conclusion regarding the country’s lack of effective sovereignty in an interview with Russian state media in 2018. [4]
Beyond these political indicators, however, are more human indicators of the nature of America’s place in post-war Japan which cannot be overlooked, and which contrast very strongly with portrayals in the vast majority of Western media including both documentaries and popular media. An extract from the book Power and Primacy, pages 66-69, given below, recently reached over 3 million viewers on social media and highlighted the true consequences for Japan’s population of subjugation by the United States. The full references are provided in the book itself. Perhaps most importantly, this is not presented as an isolated set of cases of U.S. and Western conduct towards an East Asian population placed under their power – rather it is part of a much wider trend which if anything was considerably more extreme in Vietnam and in both South and North Korea – the latter of which was briefly occupied by U.S. forces in 1950. An understanding of the past is key to comprehending the nature of Western involvement in the Asia-Pacific region today, which is why I found that this project was particularly essential now in light of the ‘Pivot to Asia,’ the North Korean nuclear crisis, the Trump administration’s recent ‘Tech War’ on China and other key events which have increasingly placed the region at the centre of determining the future of world order.
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There was a far darker side to the U.S. and allied occupation of Japan, one which is little mentioned in the vast majority of histories – American or otherwise. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, mass rapes by occupying forces were expected… [despite setting up of a comfort women system which recruited or otherwise trafficked desperate women to brothels] such crimes were still common and several of them were extremely brutal and resulted in the deaths of the victims. Political science professor Eiji Takemae wrote regarding the conduct of American soldiers occupying Japan:
‘U.S. troops comported themselves like conquerors, especially in the early weeks and months of occupation. Misbehavior ranged from black-marketeering, petty theft, reckless driving and disorderly conduct to vandalism, assault, arson, murder and rape. Much of the violence was directed against women, the first attacks beginning within hours after the landing of advanced units. In Yokohama, China and elsewhere, soldiers and sailors broke the law with impunity, and incidents of robbery, rape and occasionally murder were widely reported in the press [which had not yet been censored by the U.S. military government]. When U.S. paratroopers landed in Sapporo an orgy of looting, sexual violence and drunken brawling ensued. Gang rapes and other sex atrocities were not infrequent […] Military courts arrested relatively few soldiers for their offences and convicted even fewer, and restitution for the victims was rare. Japanese attempts at self-defense were punished severely. In the sole instance of self-help that General Eichberger records in his memoirs, when local residents formed a vigilante group and retaliated against off-duty GIs, the Eighth Army ordered armored vehicles in battle array into the streets and arrested the ringleaders, who received lengthy prison terms.’
The U.S. and Australian militaries did not maintain rule of law when it came to violations of Japanese women by their own forces, neither were the Japanese population allowed to do so themselves. Occupation forces could loot and rape as they pleased and were effectively above the law.
An example of such an incident was in April 1946, when approximately U.S. personnel in three trucks attacked the Nakamura Hospital in Omori district. The soldiers raped over 40 patients and 37 female staff. One woman who had given birth just two days prior had her child thrown on the floor and killed, and she was then raped as well. Male patients trying to protect the women were also killed. The following week several dozen U.S. military personnel cut the phone lines to a housing block in Nagoya and raped all the women they could capture there – including girls as young as ten years old and women as old as fifty-five.
Such behavior was far from unique to American soldiers. Australian forces conducted themselves in much the same way during their own deployment in Japan. As one Japanese witness testified: ‘As soon as Australian troops arrived in Kure in early 1946, they ‘dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help nearly every night.’ Such behavior was commonplace, but news of criminal activity by Occupation forces was quickly suppressed.
Australian officer Allan Clifton recalled his own experience of the sexual violence committed in Japan:
‘I stood beside a bed in hospital. On it lay a girl, unconscious, her long, black hair in wild tumult on the pillow. A doctor and two nurses were working to revive her. An hour before she had been raped by twenty soldiers. We found her where they had left her, on a piece of waste land. The hospital was in Hiroshima. The girl was Japanese. The soldiers were Australians. The moaning and wailing had ceased and she was quiet now. The tortured tension on her face had slipped away, and the soft brown skin was smooth and unwrinkled, stained with tears like the face of a child that has cried herself to sleep.’
Australians committing such crimes in Japan were, when discovered, given very minor sentences. Even these were most often later mitigated or quashed by Australian courts. Clifton recounted one such event himself, when an Australian court quashed a sentence given by a military court martial citing ‘insufficient evidence,’ despite the incident having several witnesses. It was clear that courts overseeing Western occupation forces took measures to protect their own from crimes committed against the Japanese – crimes which were largely regarded as just access to ‘spoils of war’ at the time by the Western occupiers.
As had been the case during the war, underreporting of rapes in peace- time due to the associated shame in a traditional society and inaction on the part of authorities (rapes in both cases occurred when Western militaries were themselves in power) would lower the figures significantly. In order to prevent ill feeling towards their occupation from increasing, the United States military government implemented very strict censorship of the media. Mention of crimes committed by Western military personnel against Japanese civilians was strictly forbidden. The occupying forces ‘issued press and pre-censorship codes outlawing the publication of all reports and statistics “inimical to the objectives of the Occupation.”’ When a few weeks into the occupation Japanese press mentioned the rape and widespread looting by American soldiers, the occupying forces quickly responded by censoring all media and imposing a zero tolerance policy against the reporting of such crimes. It was not only the crimes committed by Western forces, but any criticism of the Western allied powers whatsoever which was strictly forbidden during the occupation period – for over six years. This left the U.S. military government, the supreme authority in the country, beyond accountability. Topics such as the establishment of comfort stations and encouragement of vulnerable women into the sex trade, critical analysis of the black market, the population’s starvation level calorie intakes and even references to the Great Depression’s impact on Western economies, anti-colonialism, pan-Asianism and emerging Cold War tensions were all off limits.
What was particularly notable about the censorship imposed under American occupation was that it was intended to conceal its own existence. This meant that not only were certain subjects strictly off limits, but the mention of censorship was also forbidden. As Columbia University Professor Donald Keene noted: ‘the Occupation censorship was even more exasperating than Japanese military censorship had been because it insisted that all traces of censorship be concealed. This meant that articles had to be rewritten in full, rather than merely submitting XXs for the offending phrases.’ For the U.S. military government it was essential not only to control information – but also to give the illusion of a free press when the press was in fact more restricted than it had been even in wartime under imperial rule.
By going one step further to censor even the mention of censorship itself, the United States could claim to stand for freedom of press and freedom of expression. By controlling the media the American military government could attempt to foster goodwill among the Japanese people while making crimes committed by their personnel and those of their allies appear as isolated incidents. While the brutality of American and Australian militaries against Japanese civilians was evident during the war and in its immediate aftermath, it did not end with occupation. The United States has maintained a significant military presence in Japan ever since and crimes including sexual violence and murder against Japanese civilians continue to occur.”
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For Full Manuscript of Power and Primacy
- https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/68124?format=PBK
- https://www.ebooks.com/en-ms/book/209664887/power-and-primacy/a-b-abrams/
- https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/68124
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Primacy-History-Intervention-Asia-Pacific/dp/1788746120/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=power+and+primacy+abrams&qid=1553942549&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmrnull
https://www.facebook.com/100803698404263/photos/a.101111128373520/106347284516571/
For A. B. Abrams’ upcoming work, scheduled for publication in October 2018, titled Immovable Object: North Koreans 70 Years at War with American Power:
- https://www.amazon.com/Immovable-Object-North-Koreas-American/dp/1949762300
- https://www.claritypress.com/product/immovable-object-north-koreas-70-years-at-war-with-american-power/
- ‘Indonesia’s killing fields,’ Al Jazeera, December 21, 2012. ‘Looking into the massacres of Indonesia’s past,’ BBC, June 2, 2016. ↑
- Weiner, Time, ‘C. I. A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s,’ New York Times, October 9, 1994. ↑
- ‘Stationing American troops in Japan will lead to bloody tragedy – ex-PM of Japan,’ RT, (televised interview), November 6, 2016. ↑
- ‘Ex-Japan FM: I Told Putin We Follow U.S. Policy as We’re Surrounded by Nuke States,’ Sputnik, May 22, 2018. ↑
Really excellent post. I actually read this book after the writer’s last interview with the Saeker. Quite moving.
I am not exaggerating when I say that this is just the tip of the iceberg – and that it is quite mild by comparison to U.S. and Western conduct towards civilians and prisoners of war in Vietnam and in the Koreas – which are covered very well in this book in detail.
I recommend reading this even if you don’t think you are interested in East Asia. It exposes a lot about U.S. and Western foreign policy which have truly global implications.
For those interested – copies are available here (also available on Kindle through Amazon):
https://www.ebooks.com/en-ms/book/209664887/power-and-primacy/a-b-abrams/
https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/68124?format=PBK
Yes I agree this book is quite excellent. I also read most of it and it really blew my mind and changed how I saw things regarding the Western role in East Asia.
I liked the chapters on Korea especially.
The irony being that the lawlessness and depravity described in this article are an exact mirror image of the behaviour of the Japanese during their WW2 rampages across China and Asia.
‘The Rape of Nanking’ happened in 1937. Read it, and you will question why only 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, while sparing any retribution against their Monster Emporer.
Yes. There are always two sides to the story. The Chinese are still waiting for payback.
It is true that the Japanese Empire committed many war crimes, but it is also true that as the defeated party there is much more focus on their wrongdoing than on those of the victors which is at least as brutal if not more so (the U.S. killed between 100,000 and 500,000 civilians in a single night, mostly with napalm, when firebombing Tokyo in March 1945, and gave tens of thousands of civilians terrible radiation sickness, to name but a few examples with much more detail given in the book itself.)
Regardless – it was never American civilians targeted in such a way, and there is really no excuse or way to condone such behaviour during the occupation.
Those very same people that trafficked comfort women from conquered lands during Japan’s imperial adventures, after defeat and during american de facto occupation of Japan had to traffic those of their own, but now for occupation army’s sake. Quite ironic, but in the end they were not the ones who had to suffer. They themselves only had their pride to shallow.
Those very same people that trafficked comfort women from conquered lands
Nonsense, unless you believe in collective guilt.
I don’t think that, for example, civilian Japanese ladies ought to be lumped together with Japanese generals.
No I don’t believe in collective guilt although I am not fond of denialism either.
I haven’t even said of what you are accusing me. I was quite presice, the very same persons that trafficked foreign women for the so called “comfort stations” in foreign lands for the benefit of the empire’s army, after defeat they had to traffic Japanese women for the benefit of the Allied troops.
Those people happened to be Japanese politicians that remained unscathed postwar and many of the remained in the political scene. Even though the fact that they had to do that for their own women should have really hurt their nationalistic and racist pride, it didn’t matter that much because it was the women again that suffered.
My history may be rusty but isn’t that the response of every group of young men that murder each other to make other people rich and powerful?
The noble bullshit attributed to war is fantasy.
Reality is disgusting evil and brutal.
I was not born with red hair blue eyes that were deep set with strong brows because of pleasant trade between nordic countries and Ireland.
Ophthalmologist talked about such features being beneficial to survive strong blows to the head.
Strong men survive women want strong men.
> “Those very same people that trafficked comfort women from conquered lands during Japan’s imperial adventures”
that’s not true. The victims of the american GI’s natural instinct to rape and plunder weren’t the “very same people that trafficked comfort women”.
They were entirely different individuals.
@mijj
“U.S. forces occupied the bulk of Japan, but some areas such as Hiroshima were occupied by British Commonwealth occupation forces (BCOF) composed of Australian, New Zealand and Indian soldiers under the command of British officers. These forces also participated in the rape of civilians. A Japanese prostitute made the following comment about Australian soldiers who landed at Kure (the port of Hiroshima) in November 1945:
Most of the people in Kure stayed inside their houses, and pretended they knew nothing about the rape by occupation forces. The Australian soldiers were the worst. They dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help nearly everynight. A policeman from the Hiroshima police station came to me, and asked me to work as a prostitute for the Australians—he wanted me and other prostitutes to act as a sort of ʻfirebreak,ʼ so that young women wouldn’t get raped. We agreed to do this and contributed greatly. (Yamada 1982: 90f)
The Japanese government had discussed ways of dealing with the anticipated problem of mass rape by occupation forces in the week following surrender and before their arrival. On 21 August 1945, Prime Minister Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko called a meeting of several of his ministers to discuss the issue; attendees included the health, internal affairs and foreign ministers and the attorney-general. This was dubbed the ʻcomfort women meeting.ʼ They decided to set up a Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) for the occupation forces. A special government fund of 30 million yen was allocated to the project, and the head of the Japanese police force was ordered to take all measures necessary to assist such an organisation (Harada 1989: 136). In fact, the government had already taken the first steps toward establishing this organisation four days earlier. Governors and police chiefs of all prefectures had been instructed to procure women from geisha houses, brothels and nightclubs in sufficient numbers to staff a nationwide organisation of brothels. In Tokyo the chief of police summoned all owners of brothels and nightclubs and requested their cooperation in such a project (Ōshima 1986: 166; Yamada 1982: 25–7). The Japanese politicians who had procured tens of thousands of non-Japanese comfort women during the war now turned to the procurement of their own women for the benefit of soldiers who had recently been their enemies.”
https://apjjf.org//2020/01/Tanaka.html
PS Sorry for the long quote.
The Japanese at least did not pretend they were a sacrosanct benevolent power ruling over others…Did not launch nuclear bombs.
Did not take Philipines nor Guantanamo based on lies: they conquered territories by war.
Also should be noted it were not the Japs that established international driven schools of torture to teach other ditactorships abroad how to best torture prisoners. The stinky US did precisely that in Latin america, and ME.
Also the Japs never had the idea of air lifting and airtransporting political prisoners to torture them to oblivion in foreign land bases such as those in germany.
The benevolent americans also decided to equalize and surpass the japanese methods in launching bio chemical war canisters in Korea. And I ve never seen any mention of japanese behaviour even faintly comparable to the US and british in occupied Germany: the deliberate post war starvation policy on hundreds of thousands of german civilians in concentration camps (some were the same used by Nazis) with the INTENDED and cold policy of starving them to effective death. Whoever showed a move to give them a chunk of bread was
shot by a formal, written order given by US commanders – a criminal move whose first step on this was signed by gen Eisenhower himself. The most criminal state in History is not that of Stalin or Hitler’s, definitely.
This is not any figurative speech, this has been documented. Just research it.
yes … I re – commend the following which documents Eisenhower s post war peacetime atrocity
Canadian historian James Bacque wrote
“Other losses”
published 2011 Tallonbooks
Eddie on August 24, 2020 · at 2:58 pm EST/EDT
The research above just talk about the US solider crimes against Japanese citizen during the occupation. It does not even say ‘Japan does not do anything wrong’. By the way, nuclear bomb is not the reason for Japan surrender, Stalin is the reason.
Ward Wilson: The Myth of Hiroshima
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9H6o83NUf4
The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan … Stalin Did
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/#sthash.CI8uH5Vr.dpuf
Beware of “official histories ” with regard to anything, especially the conduct of “official enemies”. We never hear about the “Rape of Okinawa”, but it happened, the numbers were appalling, and it was “our boys” playing the villains.
Thanks to the author, but Japan was an exceptional case. They had an opportunity to liberate their Asian brothers from the colonial yoke and yet they instituted a reign of terror which turned the oppressed nations against them in a month (similar to the Germans in the USSR). One should feel sorry for the innocent Japanese who suffered a great deal but there is some merit in saying that they got their just desserts for Nanking and countless other crimes. I would include the maltreatment of the Allied PoWs which was not a trivial matter.
Finally, the Americans might have exercised the Ius primae noctis but they did everything in their power to preserve the Japanese ultra-right. One egregious example is Unit 731 (part of the Kwantung army) responsible for the cruelest of war crimes (experiments on the Chinese, Soviet and American PoWs) whose officers including the mastermind Shiro Ishii were protected from justice and given employment in the US. There are many other examples (Japanese troops assisting the suppression of anti-colonial struggle in 1945 onwards. I kindly ask the author to enlighten us on this dark alliance which is one of the pillars of modern Japan.
The pillar of modern japan is becoming a faded caricaturesque copy of western decay. The second one is giving the cowboy crooks 19% of Okinawa island to this date.
I would never underestimate Japan even in its dormant state. It took them 10 years to overtake the USA in technology (the first China). And I’m all for the liberation of Okinawa, the birthplace of karate.
Do you reckon their push to recover the Kuril islands from Russia is a sign of a moribund society?
“One should feel sorry for the innocent Japanese who suffered a great deal but there is some merit in saying that they got their just desserts for Nanking and countless other crimes.”
By what right can Americans commit crimes against the Japanese and for 70 years keep harping about the Japanese’s crimes against their neighbors in Asia to deflect/justify their crimes. When we know full well they would have done the same if they had the opportunity, which they Did in Korea and Vietnam???
So how does that make sense. Who gave them the right, to judge and punish?
I agree, nobody. All I am saying is that there are better examples of US bestiality.
Read Nick Turse’s Kill Anything that Moves
Or Douglas Valentine’s The Phoenix Program
the Americans might have exercised the Ius primae noctis
folks who engage in Ius primae noctis should never utter a word about human right, democracy or justice.
at least in my opinion
Absolutely but a better example would have been the completely innocent North Korea and Vietnam where American crimes achieved a real paroxysm. Don’t you agree? Millions of innocent Vietnamese perished never having attacked anybody.
Interesting read and also comments regarding Japanese misbehaviour and atrocities in China and other Asian countries.
From a more historical perspective, the first Japanese females, to be permitted to work!!! on the West Coast of USA during mid 1800s were prostitutes.. how long they could remain in California and how much they could send home.. have no idea.
Perhaps a deal worked out by Commodore Perry and his horny sailors on those infamous cannon shooting Black Shits..sorry Ships invading Japan in late 1800s.
Followed by the discrimination and outright physical violence, sometimes killing, of Chinese workers during the 1800s and 1900s on the west coast.
Even Captain Cook and his smelly scurvy smitten crew sailing round the Pacific Islands in the 1700s, could not keep their hands off those beautiful, vibrant Polynesian ladies.
Clearly, we white anglo males have been giving Asian males, Indian and Chinese, a brutal time since the East India Company days and then of course the Chinese Opium wars.
However, we do relish the delights of the East Asian ladies as demonstrated by the staggering number of marriages between US grunts and Japanese women after 1945. Even today the ratio of White or dark male marrying a Japanese woman is 6 or 7 to 1 compared with Japanese males marrying white females..
Does also raise the question of how little respect traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese males and society had for their women in 1800s and mid 1900s. Women were considered often expendable by governments and families..
Pre WW2 and during the conflict, US propaganda really ramped up the ANIMALISATION or BEASTILIZATION campaign against the Nips or Japs.
I have met this with so many ANZAC *Kiwi and Aussie, veterans regarding their often benign attitude to the German military compared to their disdain and hatred of Japanese military.
Finally, lest we forget the Russian-Japanese 1900-05 conflict was directly funded by the City of London with those magnificent Brit Dreadnoughts and modern British naval training lapped up by the eager Japanese navy – result was a resounding victory against cousin Czar Nicholas!! Keep those pesky Russkies out of French Anglo Asian interests.. what !!
However, for the land conflict between the Russians and Japanese many foreign observers and journalists commented most favourably on the humane, fair and lenient behaviour of Japanese army towards captured and wounded Russians. Of course, this was before the Bushido cult permeated the Japanese dictatorships in 1920s.
Slavery has never had much time for human rights, particularly those of women slaves. When we consider the importance that slavery has played in the Anglo-Franco-Spanish-Portuguese and City of London empires since the 1500s up to the 1900s one should not be surprised that many white males, as Asian males, consider it their right to abuse and mistreat women of their own colour or different colour.
Does Brit founded and US supported Saudi Arabia still have slaves…I think so, until recently.. and how do Saudi males treat their own women and 100000s imported Asian women…like dirt!!!
there was no scurvy on Cook’s ships.
Yeah but they were smelly and unwashed: the Polynesians were mortified by the stench.
Absolutely shameful. I’m from a military family, been around the military most of my life. There are decent and honorable soldiers.
But since the all-volunteer military service was instituted, many of them are frankly the dregs and rejects of civilian society, malcontents and psychologically broken people who are loosely held together by the relative discipline of military life compared to the soft decadence of Western civilian life.
If these things happened during wartime with draftees in the military, a cross-section of Western society, one can only imagine the deeds covered up now…Hope I’m wrong in my hunch, I really am.
Yes I agree with your hunch. Based on the evidence presented throughout this book, the conclusion it makes strongly points towards this. It highlights, for example, sexual slavery for teenage girls in Yugoslavia to serve US soldiers, and the extreme and almost unimaginable nature of sexual tortured US soldiers imposed on Vietnamese girls.
That is why for countries like Korea, China and Russia – a strong defence is particularly vital to avert subjugation by the west at all costs. Remember this was the 1940s-60s, western society is much more depraved now in terms of sexual culture than it was at the time.
I recommend checking out the book. I read it a few months ago
Well, I’ll just keep my anger down (not at you sir, but at the West I live in and pray for) and say that I sincerely hope at the very least that military discipline is emphasized more by Western militaries in the future, because it’s a historical fact that armies of thieves, murderers and rapists and scavengers are notoriously also little more than a cowardly mob of morons when faced with even the slightest strong opposition from an enemy.
After the Soviets had defeated the kwantung army they left in railcars. Chinese in crowds waved goodbye to their comrades as they departed. Our Russian brothers are a classy bunch. After defeating the Axis in the west, Stalin kept his word and joined the war on Japan.
Hopefully one day we will liberate our friends in the Ryu Kyu kingdom from Anglo Zionist tyranny and rape.
Excellent, Brand,
The liberation of Manchuria by Marshal Vassilevsky’s front of armies in six days counts as one of the greatest feats of military strategy (according to Colonel David Glantz of the US Army War College).
Since you know about the Ryu Kyu kingdom, you also know that they were independent of Japan for most of their history. Their culture is indigenous and greatly influenced by China. I am not denying their “Japanness” but there is more to their story than meets the eye.
I vague remember I had read somewhere on the Journal-Neo is that the reason the Japanese ruler seem pretty crook on the US soldier rape Okinawa women because in the Japanese elites eyes, Okinawa (Ryukyu Kingdom) are not Japanese but just Okinawa or Ryukyu people so the Japanese elite does not care our turn blind eye (why should Japanese should care about foreigner Okinawa). Is that true?
Unorthodox Black Sheep.. I reckon you are right for the past 80 years successive Japanese governments have had little time for the native Okinawans. Explains, the convenient stationing of thousands of US marines with their military aircraft, and polluting naval vessels on the small Okinawan islands. Thus keeping these raping drunken idiots away from the mainland Japanese. Legal follow ups for the civilian Okinawans is also severely limited. When the Emperor visited these islands, post war, he was often whistled by the locals (disrespect and insulting..) Petitions and protests are ignored…
During the 1944 invasion by US forces the Japanese military insisted that Okinawans should commit suicide rather than be captured by the ghoulish white devils..hardly endeared the local islands to either the Japanese or USD military.
By the way they are fantastic people, open and friendly, great food, alcohol and music. Some of longest living and healthiest human being are found in certain Okinawan locations…Well worth a visit.. just ignore the odd parts falling off US military aircraft overhead !!!…
My observation is that Okinawans are not regarded very highly by the ruling classes, and perhaps others, in Japan.
Comparable attitude would be that of European settlers’ attitude towards native Americans and native Australians.
“are not regarded very highly”
Coercive social relations, including but not limited to colonialism, are often predicated on beliefs of exceptionalism and contempt for the other, which encourages the other to attempt transcend coercive social relations, and the coercive social relations to become more coercive in the hope that the other will emulate coercive social relations wholly without any assay of alternative social relations – become enmazed in the coercion paradigm through “playing the game” – thereby facilitating the continuance of coercive social relations..
This is not limited to Japan but is a vector in facilitating transcendence through lateral change/non-emulation.
Austraila was a Brit penal colony, which Europeans settled it? Most NA settlers where white English speaking, and then, as today(before open borders), were of Anglo/Norman decent…………..European settlers (mostly homesteaders) came late (late 1800s) to the NA genocide game, if they even played.
No, the appaling treatment suffered by the NA natives and the Austrailian aborigionals, their blood soaked lands, raped and murdered ‘for a hair piece’ lays completly and utterly, most assuredly, on the hands of the English.
Cheers, M
Unfortunately, most people in (what we laughingly call) ‘the west’ have only vague ideas about the horrors that the Brits, the French and the Japanese have inflicted on the peoples of East-, South-East- and South-Asia, the looting of their countries, the forced labour, the racial profiling of targeted populations, the designer-famines … And then there is of course the ultimate bestiality, committed by the US in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How many people do really know what led up to this? What reason was there for the US to join this war in the first place? There are good answers to these questions, but you won’t find them in history books …
The Good War, Revisited:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/27/the-good-war-revisited/
A couple of days ago Counterpunch had an excellent article by Bruce Franklin, that reads like a continuation of A.B. Abrams’ piece we have here. In it Franklin describes the almost seamless transition from the end of WW2 in the Pacific to the US wars on Korea and Vietnam. Very recommended reading.
August 12-22 1945, Washington Starts the Korean and Vietnam Wars:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/14/august-12-22-1945-washington-starts-the-korean-and-vietnam-wars/
I have studied WW2 extensively and the behavior of US and Australian troops in Japan is the norm; not the exception. Few are aware that after D-day in France over 3000 rapes of French women were reported between D-day and the liberation of Paris. No doubt, the actual total was likely greater and continued till the wars end. In fact one historian stated categorically the greatest fear of French women was rape by allied soldiers. This is not surprising. In war, a soldier aware he may die tomorrow is unlikely to put morals and ethics high on his list of appropriate behavior.
Oh, the Allied rape of German women was also well suppressed!
Except stories originating from Goebbels and the Nazis about Russian troops and their treatment of German civilians, those have been if anything, quite amplified.
@Vladimir
I was actually referring to the US troops. The actions of the Russian troop’s were well publicized by multiple authors with varying degrees of accuracy; Soviet troops were perfect gentlemen (bull excrement), Soviet troops raped everything from the 2 year old baby to the 90 year old grandmother and the family dog as well (also bull excrement). The truth is somewhere in between those limits.
What was *never* published was the US soldier behaved in the same fashion in the territory they conquered – that was well suppressed.
Yes, I read it somewhere – if the Soviets wanted to repay the Germans in kind, there would be no Germany today.
Remember Na King. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Japanese should have listen to the missionaries.
You would have a case if Japanese soldiers did to American civilians what American and Australian soldiers did to Japanese civilians. But alas…
I also dunno who else noticed this line:
Yes I noticed it. It is true, the book explains it quite well.
Roosevelt expected that blocking Japan’s access to oil, rubber and other materials would be seen as an act of war and force Japan to take military action. Japan had to be seen as the aggressor for the U.S. public to want to join the war, but American really wanted to attack Japan. (this is all covered in the book with full references. I got a copy when it came out a few months ago).
If you ask Americans or others to justify this embargo today, which was not provoked by Japan at all, then they will say it is because of Japanese human rights, rapes of Chinese women etc – that American efforts to provoke a war are justified.
So if they had subscribed to the foreign religion of their enemies they would not have embarked on a path of militarism?…lol
Anyway, when has Christendom ever followed its own moral codes?
One of the most persistent christian moral codes is that pagans deserve .. no, really, not “should expect” but “deserve”, anything we do to them.
The second most persistent christian moral code is that we don’t need to worry very much about justice, because god will console them in heaven.
We have been extraordinarily faithful to these two.
One of the greatest achievements of the Japanese was to keep itself free from Jesuit infiltrators who had been responsible for untold miseries suffered by the peoples of Asia. The fact that they later succumbed to crude chauvinism is unrelated to this.
I find it difficult to believe Australian troops would have behaved as this author outlines given the social stds of that era.
American ones a few perhaps.
The sources are all given in the book itself. It is very well referenced with over 2000 sources given.
Regarding the treatment by Asian or European conquerors, around 1200 AD, Russia was faced with the threat of the Europeans on their west plus the Mongols from the east. Russia was not strong enough then to resist both invasions. So they decided that it would be better if they allowed the Mongols to conquer them, because they knew that if the West conquered them, Russia would eventually cease to exist. This turned out to be true, and the Russians and the Mongols eventually worked out an arrangement where the Mongols would be paid and the Russians were allowed to live somewhat independently until the Mongols eventually left.
Around 1000 AD, the pope sent the crusaders into the Ukraine to smash the Orthodox Church which would have resulted in the destruction of Russia if they could have accomplished that. Then the West attacked in 1200 AD, see above. Then Napoleon invaded, and then Hitler invaded. With NAT0 troops on Russia’s border now, Russia is forming an alliance with China based on necessity.
The West has to annihilate their enemies and other cultures so that their population does not observe how others live with more freedom and humanity. Primitive societies also have to be annihilated to shield their population from the same plus they have to hide what truer religions are about. Otherwise the Abrahamic religions, which are false, would be discarded by the people.
Can everyone please stay on topic, otherwise further comments will go to trash. Mod.
Yes, mongols are shows to be savage in western propaganda, but are much less messianic and totalitarian than modern western empires have always been. Mongols not only don’t force you to follow them, but they even adopt your culture – some because Chinese, some became Muslim etc
Japan is just like Germany–both are American-occupied military outposts masquerading as “liberal democracies.”
No wonder they both today after the Americans and largely regurgitate whatever idiotic propaganda the Yankeestan retards are pushing at the moment.
Japan is a joke.
Ironies abound, as inspired by this article and the debating comments for, once again:
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
—-And women’s as well.
For whether men and women were coexisting before the dawn of Civilization in the hunting and gathering mode of existence everywhere….or were living together in “civilized” times of peace and tranquility…… or whether invading or being invaded in war…the fairer sex stands considerably less chance of being killed……but a far, far greater chance of being sexually violated…… than males….particularly fighting males do.
And for the young teenage barely pubescent male intermediary or high school student seduced by a female teacher twice his age or older…..social attitudes vary extremely widely, from the aghast puritanical condemners of “child rape” …….by woman teacher……. to those that want to high five the lad and congratulate him for such incredible luck!
The biological consequences for violated females being so much greater…is the cause of social sexual mores and laws that seek her protection……although the fact is that buggered boys in peacetime may be even more psychologically damaged than a raped girl considered marriageable in America or Russia (conservatively 15-16-17…) not much more than a century ago.
The lesson, as far as I am concerned, is that in almost all instances.regarding concern for the protection of the chastity of the fairer sex….the barbarity of war……….as the most extreme threat to her “choice” of “partner” that can exist………absolutely tops the list. Particularly for invaded peoples.
But even in that regard for “her” protection…………peace is not always the solution, and often enough, fight we must!
Consider how Thomas Paine concludes the first and most famous article of his American Crisis articles:
“The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils – a ravaged country – a depopulated city – habitations without safety, and slavery without hope – our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians,
and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of.
Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.”
December 23, 1776
“Man’s highest joy is in victory: to conquer one’s enemies; to pursue them; to deprive them of their possessions; to make their beloved weep; to ride on their horses; and to embrace their wives and daughters.”
Genghis Khan
It’s the way it has always been. Nothing ever really changes but the date.
Brutalisation=Sexual Concent
All horrible things, of course. Yet nothing compared to what the Japanese did in the Philippines and other places (and would have done in California had they won). Four million civilians killed in Indonesia, with two and a half million killed on the island of Java alone. Very little sympathy.
And by what degree was what Japan did in Indonesia any worse than what the Dutch colonialists did? Not dismissing Japanese atrocities; just asking.
Amazing, eye-opening ! I hope the author will re-publish this article in more places to allow those culturally imprisoned, stockholm-syndrome-inflicted, brainwashed minds to wake up from their own self-imposed mental cocoon.
Let’s not forget Canadians in Belgium, raping the local population, despite the latter having suffered from the occupation by the Nazis
frankly, Japanese behavior against women in occupied countries and against POW (including vivisection of humans) was so utterly demonic, I do not feel very sorry for them.
The only problem with this article is that the photo is from Okinawa and that is an Okinawan woman being objectified. This is no small error: In fact, Imperial Japan colonized the sovereign nation of Liu Chiu (Ryūkyū) in its empire which entailed the subjugation of the indigenous people and the murder of them during the Battle of Okinawa. To use this as main photo with a title about “Mainland Japanese” is insulting to Okinawans, considering the brutalisation of Okinawan (and many other women in Korea, Philippines, etc.) at the hands of Imperial Japan.
It is possible to chew gum and walk at same time: You can criticize the brutalization of women and children at the hands of Western soldiers (as continues at high rates at the hands of US military occupation), but you cannot victimize Japan and overlook the terror Japanese imperialism inflicted – lest you victimize the real victims of militarism: all civil society suffers under the tyranny of militarism whether its Japanese, US, Australian, Burmese, Sudan, Syrian, etc., etc.