Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Hey, Ironweed is a wild man. You remember the time that he and his friends took that cow, and his friends tried to make it with the cow?

I want to party with you Cowboy

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Look, without getting too far into it, there were all sorts of things said about the Japanese during the war to explain why they were better or worse fighters than us, etc., and much of it was about the quality of information you would expect from wartime propaganda.

Um, Ty -- the Bushido code is not something that the OSS invented.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Fucking lazy Americans.

We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts.

[Spanky]

See - his nose is cold.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Bob
The point is it is facile to say "oh, no one took prisoners" and leave it at that. That's like suggesting that "oh, both sides killed civillians" without discussing the differences

War, even a just war, is a bad thing. People do bad stuff, mostly because there is no good alternative, but not always. The Allies admittedly did some things that have no real justification.

But there is a very significant difference between Marines at the front lines choosing to shoot individuals first and ask questions later (and Japanese soldiers doing the same thing to us) and the systematic torture, starvation, and mistreatment that faced the tens of thousands of Allied troops who surrendered when Singapore and the Phillipenes fell.

Was the war in the Pacific more brutal than the one in Western Europe? Absolutely. Can one honestly compare the way the Allies acted to the way the Japanese acted, and conclude that they were similar? No fricken way.

My point is, one of the reasons that the Japanese didn't surrender is that they correctly did not expect to be taken prisoner. I can't tell whether you're trying to tell me that American soldiers didn't routinely kill Japanese soldiers instead of taking them prisoner -- they did -- or whether you're trying to tell me that the Japanese did awful things -- e.g., the Bataan Death March -- that we didn't do. On the latter, I'm with you.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Um, Ty -- the Bushido code is not something that the OSS invented.

Sure, but it turns out that the Japanese military, like ours, conscripted a lot of people who were not Bushido samurai and who would have been just as happy to be fishing off Osaka, or something. This business of turning the average Japanese soldier into a mythic warrior is the sort of thing that propaganda does.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Look, without getting too far into it, there were all sorts of things said about the Japanese during the war to explain why they were better or worse fighters than us, etc., and much of it was about the quality of information you would expect from wartime propaganda.

I had the Bushido code explained to me when I lived in Japan. So I guess I was being fed Japanese propaganda.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Sure, but it turns out that the Japanese military, like ours, conscripted a lot of people who were not Bushido samurai and who would have been just as happy to be fishing off Osaka, or something. This business of turning the average Japanese soldier into a mythic warrior is the sort of thing that propaganda does.

The average Japanese soldier was still Japanese, living in a culture that was informed very heavily by the Bushido code, and believing that the Emperor who directed the fighting was a god.

This is the basic reason that they refused to surrender, in a way that is unprecedented. I can't see how you can ascribe that to anything else -- Americans certainly were not tremendously nicer to Germans, yet they surrendered in droves. Japanese, virtually not at all.

This is also the basic reason why even average soldiers participated in Banzai attacks and Kamikaze attacks. I've read some of the writings of Kamikaze pilots from the night before they flew. Many were average soldiers, did not see themselves as samurai, but still saw themselves as obligated to throw their lives away in service of the emperor.

I guess that's all propaganda too, huh?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
I had the Bushido code explained to me when I lived in Japan. So I guess I was being fed Japanese propaganda.

And you trusted them? They're conniving, you know.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
The average Japanese soldier was still Japanese, living in a culture that was informed very heavily by the Bushido code, and believing that the Emperor who directed the fighting was a god.

This is the basic reason that they refused to surrender, in a way that is unprecedented. I can't see how you can ascribe that to anything else -- Americans certainly were not tremendously nicer to Germans, yet they surrendered in droves. Japanese, virtually not at all.

This is also the basic reason why even average soldiers participated in Banzai attacks and Kamikaze attacks. I've read some of the writings of Kamikaze pilots from the night before they flew. Many were average soldiers, did not see themselves as samurai, but still saw themselves as obligated to throw their lives away in service of the emperor.

I guess that's all propaganda too, huh?

Yeah, whatever. A whole country of brainwashed religious zealots ready to sacrifice their life for their emperor. You start to wonder how we beat them.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Yeah, whatever. A whole country of brainwashed religious zealots ready to sacrifice their life for their emperor. You start to wonder how we beat them.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying.

You should read a history of WWII that wasn't written in Berkeley.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying.

You should read a history of WWII that wasn't written in Berkeley.

And you should read one where the words don't all appear in little ballons.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
And you should read one where the words don't all appear in little ballons.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Yeah, whatever. A whole country of brainwashed religious zealots ready to sacrifice their life for their emperor. You start to wonder how we beat them.

the rest of you dems, those who realize how nuts Ty is here, remember that when we next go back to Iranistan or Iraq or whatever. TY. Does. Not. Think. Right.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the rest of you dems, those who realize how nuts Ty is here, remember that when we next go back to Iranistan or Iraq or whatever. TY. Does. Not. Think. Right.

Please adjust your sarcasm meter. Thank you.